Chapter 35
Chapter 35
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 35
Chapter Title: Temporarily Holding Hands
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The time had come to part ways.
“Seoran, you have to write me letters, okay?”
“Of course, Yeongyeong.”
Her voice was thick with reluctance.
The two embraced tightly.
Neither had expected to grow this close in just half a year.
Even Seoran, the cool city girl, had tears welling up in her eyes.
Seeing Seoran’s tears made Geum Yeongyeong start crying too.
Teardrops fell onto the knee-deep snow.
“We have to meet again.”
“Yeah.”
With reddened eyes, they clasped hands in promise.
To reunite in a few years.
And so, the Bangcheon Hwaguk duo—who had drastically reduced the bandit population in Yu Nation—parted ways.
But the heartfelt vow to reunite years later went unfulfilled.
A massive shift had occurred in the friendly ties between Black Bamboo Sect and Goldcraft Sect, the two capital sects.
Magic tools were typically crafted from metals or stones.
And Goldcraft Sect specialized mainly in metal and earth affinities.
Black Bamboo Sect looked at them and thought:
‘These guys have some pretty nice magic tools, huh?’
Pills were brewed by adding ingredients to water and simmering over a flame.
Black Bamboo Sect mainly specialized in fire and water affinities.
Goldcraft Sect thought the same of them:
‘These guys are pretty skilled at pill refining, aren’t they?’
In responding jointly to the recent raid incident, the two capital sects had learned much more about each other.
Black Bamboo Sect was the most renowned in the western continent for pill refining.
Goldcraft Sect held a similar prestige in tool forging.
Each possessed exactly what the other desperately needed.
When someone else has what you need, a brute simply takes it by force.
But a wise person flips the perspective.
They first wonder if they have something the other desires.
That’s how trade was born.
Black Bamboo Sect and Goldcraft Sect were already buying and selling goods freely at the logistics hub.
It was simply a matter of diversifying their trade items a bit more.
Thus began a massive exchange of talent and techniques.
Seoran and the exchange student Geum Yeongyeong met again.
It had been less than a month since their romantic movie-style farewell.
The situation couldn’t have been more awkward.
In any case, the duo reformed.
Seoran took Geum Yeongyeong on a tour of Black Bamboo Sect.
She planned to introduce her to Ho Hye-mun and Yi Agum.
On her first visit to Black Bamboo Sect, they’d left for Yu Nation too quickly to build any rapport.
Their first stop was the scriptorium.
To meet Ho Hye-mun, who had become a scriptorium teacher.
*****
It was that past summer, when the Ryu Seoran-Geum Yeongyeong duo had struck fear into the lax outlaw underworld of Yu Nation.
While meditating as usual, Ho Hye-mun suddenly broke through to Foundation Establishment.
She was twenty-five years old.
There was one fact people often forgot amid Ho Hye-mun’s constant squawking about fist-foot arts like a parrot.
She was the prodigious daughter born with the brightest intellect in a prestigious family that had monopolized the prime minister position since the founding of Yang Nation.
By age seven, Ho Hye-mun had mastered reading and memorized dozens of scriptures cover to cover.
She was a celebrity in the capital.
She was no mere chimp who only knew how to punch.
Her Dual Spirit Root aptitude, genius mind, and body honed by fist-foot arts shattered the barrier in one go.
Ho Hye-mun became a Foundation Establishment cultivator with ease.
Faster than the average Dual Spirit Root Holder by several years.
And with her Quintuple Spirit Root potential, her future was bright.
Black Bamboo Sect’s leadership happily discussed where to assign her.
The martial hall was absolutely out of the question.
They desperately hoped she’d keep fist-foot arts as a hobby.
Ideally, somewhere that could properly utilize her strengths.
Her calm and taciturn nature, brilliant mind, exemplary conduct, encyclopedic knowledge of scriptures.
The scriptorium teacher role was perfect.
The leadership unanimously agreed.
Thus was born a strict, stern, and solemn scriptorium teacher to instill knowledge and etiquette in the children.
But the leadership had overlooked one thing.
Ho Hye-mun only grew shy and quiet around peers or adults she wasn’t close to.
In front of kids ten years younger, she transformed into a silver-tongued chatterbox.
In a way, it was her true calling.
An eight-year-old girl came looking for the teacher.
“Teacher, I got ink on my hand!”
“Oh dear, oh dear, is that so? On your hand?”
Ho Hye-mun gently tickled the girl’s palm.
The child burst into giggles and hugged her teacher.
No trace of strict, stern, or solemn anywhere.
She even indulged her biases now and then.
“Gasp! What’s with this fist?!”
A boy exclaimed in surprise.
“What about my fist?! What?!”
Ho Hye-mun fiddled with her fist seriously before saying:
“It’s the heavenly bone structure born to master fist-foot arts! You could become the world’s greatest expert!”
“Really?!”
Ho Hye-mun nodded gravely.
Seoran, who had been watching from afar, walked right past the scriptorium entrance.
Geum Yeongyeong asked, puzzled.
“Isn’t Elder Sister Ho right there? Weren’t you going to introduce me?”
“She looks busy.”
Imagine a stranger witnessing her lisping and playing around with the kids.
Ho Hye-mun was more delicate than she seemed.
She might even faint from embarrassment.
To protect Ho Hye-mun’s dignity, Seoran hurriedly led Geum Yeongyeong away.
Their second destination was the Medicine Hall where Yi Agum worked.
Last summer, after joining Black Bamboo Sect, Yi Agum—who always writhed in protest at cleaning the Medicine Hall—finally achieved her wish.
She was free from Medicine Hall cleaning duties.
But her wish had only half come true.
Yi Agum still worked at the Medicine Hall.
No longer mopping floors and wiping dust.
She’d become an assistant aiding in pill refining instead.
The reason was Yi Agum’s keen sense of smell.
While wiping a jar of herbs as usual, Yi Agum caught an unfamiliar scent.
It came from the herbs inside the jar.
As far as she recalled, it hadn’t smelled like this before.
She immediately reported it to the pill refiner.
The skeptical refiner inspected the herbs in the jar.
Shockingly, a faint mold had begun to grow on them.
The pill refiner praised Yi Agum and rushed to personnel.
Someone with such an exceptional nose suited pill refining far better than a mop.
From that day, Yi Agum became the pill refiner’s assistant.
It was a job where she spent all day, right up close, inhaling the decoction smells she despised.
She wasn’t yet ready to formally study pill refining, so for now, she just pored over medical texts.
Methods for brewing decoctions, proper herb storage, human anatomy and functions, powder preparation, types and effects of pills—there was so much to learn.
She missed the carefree days of mopping.
She was so swamped she hadn’t even seen her friends.
Seoran hadn’t seen Yi Agum since returning from Yu Nation.
Today happened to be Yi Agum’s day off from Medicine Hall duties.
A perfect chance to meet the half-imprisoned Yi Agum.
Descending to the Medicine Hall basement, they saw a small door.
Opening it revealed a room packed floor to ceiling with books.
Squeezing through the narrow gap barely wide enough for one person, they spotted Yi Agum at a desk, reading a medical text.
Her eyes looked like they were starting to rot from fatigue.
Seoran and Geum Yeongyeong greeted her energetically.
“Agum! Long time no see! This is Elder Sister Geum, say hi!”
“Elder Sister Yi, nice to meet you! I’m Geum Yeongyeong!”
No response.
“Agum?”
Seoran nudged Yi Agum lightly.
Yi Agum shot up like she’d been struck by an arrow and shouted:
“I wasn’t sleeping! I swear, believe me!”
Frantically scanning her surroundings, Yi Agum relaxed.
No pill refiners here.
Just Big Sis Seoran and an unfamiliar woman.
Yi Agum bent slightly at the waist to hug Seoran.
“Oh, it’s you, Sis. Here to see me at the Medicine Hall? I’m touched.”
But this time, Seoran was silent.
Straightening up, Yi Agum looked down at Seoran and asked:
“Sis, what’s wrong?”
Seoran’s face was frozen in shock, her mouth just opening and closing.
Her brain functions had temporarily shut down from the unbelievable reality.
Regaining her wits, Seoran looked up at Yi Agum and stammered:
“Agum, your body... your body’s... weird.”
Yi Agum glanced down at herself.
Everything seemed normal as always.
Puzzled, she asked:
“What’s weird? I don’t notice anything.”
Seoran’s eyes darted up and down, frantically scanning Yi Agum, before she said:
“Your arms and legs... your arms and legs are too long...”
“Ah! That?”
Yi Agum grinned mischievously.
“I’m still only fifteen, of course I’m growing tall.”
Yi Agum, her youthful face mismatched with her elongated limbs, swung them casually.
In the half-year Seoran hadn’t seen her, Yi Agum had shot up like bamboo, now a full handspan taller than Seoran.
It was just average height for a female cultivator.
But to Seoran, who was well below average, she looked like a giant.
“This has to be a dream...”
Denying it changed nothing.