Chapter 198
Chapter 198
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 198
Chapter Title: A Flower Blooms on the Ashes
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Seoul, S Hotel Royal Suite.
Morning.
Consciousness rising to the surface of sleep was an agonizingly slow, gradual process.
The first sense to return was smell.
The lingering afterscent of a cigar someone had smoked through the night, mixed with expensive whiskey and the scent of a man's skin that wasn't hers—thick, heavy air.
Next came touch.
The sheets wrapping her body were unrealistically soft.
Just the feel against her skin told her it was the finest Egyptian cotton.
Cheon Heyeon opened her eyes without a sound.
What came into view was a strange ceiling, intricately finished with geometric patterns.
"..."
No thoughts surfaced.
Her mind was a perfect blank slate.
The last fragment of memory was...
Ah, right.
The wave of climax so intense it vaporized her mind entirely.
The white light swallowing everything.
That was the end.
She had passed out.
Devoured by pleasure, she lost consciousness while howling like a beast.
The moment she recognized that fact, sensations across her body screamed belatedly.
As she propped up her upper body, her muscles trembled pleasurably, marked by the clawing waves of ecstasy from the night before.
It wasn't mere pain.
It was the sweet aftershock from a body forced to endure pleasure beyond its limits.
Her waist throbbed stiffly, crushed all night in the position he called the "mating press."
The sensation in her rear, experienced for the first time, left a strange ache and lingering soreness.
Even more vivid was the lingering quiver at her entrance and the heavy pressure on her womb.
Clear proof that every hole in her body had been thoroughly violated by him.
And at the end of all those sensations was the cause and result.
His name.
Kim. Cheol. Su.
His final movements.
His indifferent gaze.
The scent wafting from his body.
As these fragments of sensation came together, the broken reel of memory finally connected.
Cheon Heyeon slipped out of bed, steadying her unsteady body as she headed to the bathroom.
The Seoul skyline sprawled beyond the massive floor-to-ceiling window, but she didn't spare it a glance.
The outside world wasn't what mattered to her now.
Standing before the mirror, Cheon Heyeon scanned her body impassively.
Red marks of possession stood out starkly against her pale skin.
Badges from the man who had granted her pleasure intense enough to make her lose consciousness.
Those red marks weren't just etched into her flesh.
They were proof of how the dignity named "Cheon Heyeon" had crumbled the night before.
Gazing at the bruised skin in the mirror brought fragments of last night's memories flooding back.
Her voice begging like a beast to take him in.
Her hands vulgarly spreading her pussy wide, legs splayed on her own to accept more, deeper.
Not resisting his crude thrusts into front and back, but panting with ragged "Haah, haah" breaths instead.
The feel of her tongue licking up and swallowing even his spit without leaving a drop.
And the moment she savored the white, sticky semen in her wine glass like it was the finest Chateau vintage before swallowing it down.
That was no longer the "Princess of Taesung."
Just a nameless bitch craving pleasure and submitting to the stud.
There was no confusion.
Instead, her mind sank cold and clear.
This was reality.
This physical subjugation, pleasure that shattered the mind, and the vivid traces left behind.
All of it the terms of her "deal" with him.
Cheon Heyeon tore her gaze from her reflection in the mirror and walked without hesitation into the marble-finished shower stall.
She twisted the handle all the way to the coldest setting.
Shwaaa—
Water cascaded from the ceiling like a waterfall, icy as needles.
Her hot breath escaped involuntarily, but she didn't flinch.
She tilted her head back, accepting the chilling violence fully.
As the cold water pounded her crown, her stiffened hair—matted with his beastly seed—finally regained its weight and loosened.
White, cloudy fluid melted from her black locks, scattering helplessly across the white tile floor.
The water didn't cleanse her perfect body; it seemed to covet it instead.
It traced her high forehead and sharp nose, flowed along her slender neckline, pooling briefly in the hollow of her collarbone.
It beaded precariously at her nipple's peak, sparkling like a clear gem before licking over the red marks he left.
Her skin, still feverish from pleasure, tensed transparently under the cold deluge.
Even the goosebumps prickling across her flesh formed an erotic landscape in themselves.
The water followed her narrow waist's curve, seeped between her full hips, tickled the insides of her firm thighs as it flowed down.
It retraced every spot his hands, breath, and fluids had touched the night before, without a millimeter of error.
Cheon Heyeon closed her eyes.
This was no purification.
This was tempering.
Shedding the skin of the bitch who howled in ecstasy last night to be reborn this morning as a dagger to pierce the enemy's heart—a cold, sacred ritual.
Erasing the traces of hot desire with cold reason, forging this body into a tool solely for vengeance.
A long while later, the water stopped.
In the steamless cold bathroom, her water-slicked body gleamed smooth and icy, like a freshly carved marble statue.
Cheon Heyeon wrapped her wet hair in a large white towel, dabbed away the dripping water with another indifferently, and stepped out of the bathroom.
Not until her eyes met the figure standing in the center of the suite's vast living room did her movements show the slightest hesitation.
Secretary Choi Yang.
Her expressionless face, unreadable as ever, paired with a perfectly tailored black skirt suit.
She had appeared silently, standing like furniture that had always been there.
Her impassive gaze swept up and down Cheon Heyeon's naked body, but it held no desire, no contempt—nothing.
Like an inspector's eyes checking inventory.
Cheon Heyeon didn't stop walking.
She didn't even think to cover her bare body.
There was no shame.
It wasn't simply because they were both women.
Between them existed a bizarre bond—or scar—that no ordinary word could explain.
Memories of groping each other's bodies before him in humiliation.
Nights of licking pussies, kissing, faking pleasure at his command—unerasable.
Secretary Choi was just another one of his bitches, like her.
Cheon Heyeon picked up the water bottle on the living room table, took a casual sip, then turned to the secretary.
"What is it?"
Her voice was as calm and dry as the secretary's expression.
Choi Yang opened her mouth without stirring.
Her voice was precise and monotone, like an AI speaker.
"The Chairman said to check if you're alright."
"........."
For a moment, Cheon Heyeon's thoughts froze.
...After pounding her senseless and discarding her like a used condom in the hotel room, now he pretends to care?
It was absurd.
Infuriating.
Yet contrary to those thoughts, a faint smile she didn't recognize crept onto her lips.
Not mockery or scorn.
Just unconsciously, very faintly.
As if her tamed body reacted first to even the tiniest scrap of his attention.
Cheon Heyeon spat a low, clear curse.
"That fucking bastard."
"......"
At the short profanity, Choi Yang's shoulders twitched ever so slightly—for the first time.
Agreement.
Or resignation.
Cheon Heyeon read the meaning in that tiny motion perfectly. Their exchange ended there.
Choi Yang reverted to her impassive secretary face and pointed to the luxurious clothing box beside her.
"Your outfit for today. You'll meet Mr. Park Seonwoo in the lobby at 9, then head to BNN studios. Interview schedule."
"Got it. Get out."
"Yes."
The secretary bowed mechanically and vanished through the front door as silently as she'd arrived.
Alone now, Cheon Heyeon wiped the lingering smile from her lips.
"Really, what a fucking bastard."
With that quiet mutter, she headed to the clothing box to don the "mask" he had chosen.
The lid slid open smoothly, revealing today's attire beneath crinkling thin wrapping paper.
And atop it, a neatly placed lingerie set.
Seeing it, a hollow chuckle escaped Cheon Heyeon's lips.
Strawberry print.
Pure white fabric dotted with cute red strawberries—an innocently childish design.
'He wants me to wear this?'
A blatant thong or cheap lace like a street whore might wear would have been easier to understand.
That would at least fit her accepted new position.
But this... it was pure mockery.
Of the self who had taken him like a beast last night, licking and swallowing everything he gave.
His arrogant, twisted declaration that he had fully tamed that self.
A flicker of resentment passed, but her face went blank.
There was no choice anyway.
This was just another part of the "deal" with him.
Cheon Heyeon picked up the panties, something fit for a girl's bedroom.
Her long, elegant fingers clashed grotesquely with the childish design.
She perched on the bed's edge, lifted one leg, and slid it through the small opening.
The muscles of her ballerina-straight, toned leg tensed visibly beneath the innocent strawberry print.
The underwear glided up her smooth thigh lines.
Soft cotton hugged her firm thighs, wrapped her full hips.
And finally overlapped the still-vivid red marks he left on her mound.
Purity's symbol veiling corruption's evidence—a grotesque tableau.
She bent to thread the other leg through, stood, and adjusted the waistband.
Her reflection was an absurd farce.
The world's most dangerous weapon wrapped in the world's most innocent packaging.
Cheon Heyeon no longer smiled.
Instead, she reached for the matching bra.
Her pale, slender fingers lifted the cute strawberry-patterned bra.
The sight evoked a bizarre, decadent beauty—like blood drops on a white canvas.
She leaned forward, sweeping her ample breasts into cups clearly too small for them.
Pale, smooth skin, its soft texture almost palpable.
One hand supporting the wire, the other fastening the hook behind her back—the trapped flesh swelled in protest.
The one-size-too-small cups couldn't contain her large breasts fully.
They pressed upward, forming a precarious valley, with last night's red possession marks starkly revealed above.
The bite marks on her creamy skin looked like ripe strawberries—or cruel brands.
The bra straps stretched taut, straining to support her weight.
The forcibly confined breasts suffered intense pressure, on the verge of bursting, but Cheon Heyeon's expression remained unchanged.
This childish lingerie, this humiliating compression.
All another form of his domination.
She gazed numbly at her reflection—his intended "masterpiece."
A grotesque artwork: a body scarred with humiliation and pleasure, draped in innocent girl's symbols.
Without looking away from the "masterpiece," Cheon Heyeon picked up the pantyhose from the bed.
She rolled the delicate coffee-colored nylon between her fingertips.
Sitting on the chair, she eased it up from her pointed toes.
The thin, sheer film embraced her perfect leg curves as it rose.
As the stocking's elasticity gripped her thighs, hips, and waist, the childish strawberry panties shifted to something a tone darker—subtle, perverse.
Next, time for armor.
From the box, she took a black pencil skirt that sharply outlined her figure and an ivory silk blouse with an icy sheen.
The skirt wrapped her waist smoothly; the zipper sealed her lower body in a flawless silhouette.
Her leg curves now symbolized authority, not sensuality.
She donned the blouse.
Cool silk flowed over her shoulders, concealing the bra's forced pressure.
The childish strawberry print and breast pain became her secret alone, unimaginable to others.
Buttoning up to the collar, the suffocating eroticism was perfectly disguised as cool intellect.
Finally, she slipped on the fitted jacket and stood before the mirror again.
The reflection was no longer a humiliating "masterpiece."
It was the perfectly sculpted icon worshipped by the masses and feared by enemies: the "Goddess of Taesung Reform."
Haughty, aloof, an iron wall no one could peer inside.
Cheon Heyeon grabbed her handbag and smartphone from the vanity.
Click, click.
The hard stiletto heels striking the marble floor echoed like a general marching to war.
She flung open the suite door without hesitation and stepped into the hallway.
As the door closed, the hotel suite became her private hell and sanctuary; the world beyond, the vast stage she must conquer.