Chapter 38
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 38
Chapter Title: Male Superiority, Female Inferiority
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I ushered Lee Seo-ryeong, who was standing at the door, inside.
I wasn't surprised. I'd half-expected it.
That she would approach me again somehow.
I just hadn't anticipated it being quite so soon—or so brazen.
I gestured for her to take a seat at the black table.
"Would you mind waiting a moment? I'll bring some tea."
She settled gracefully into the chair and offered a soft smile.
"Of course. Tea prepared by the counselor himself... I'm looking forward to it."
Without a word, I headed quietly to the kitchen.
As I prepared the tea, I pondered her intentions.
Was it truly a mother's desperation to reclaim her lost daughter?
Or was she here to retrieve a doll that had once been her possession?
I had no way of knowing.
But I needed to find out.
I brought out two cups of warm green tea.
Lee Seo-ryeong's gaze shifted to the table.
With a faint smile on her red lips, she gently traced the surface of the black table with her fingertips.
"This table... it's no ordinary piece. It has real presence."
It was a gift from Jahwa-yeon.
I agree.
I handed her a cup and replied calmly.
"A gift from a friend."
"I see... Ah, the aroma is wonderful. Thank you, I'll enjoy it."
She asked no more. Lifting the cup with her jade-like hand, she closed her eyes and savored the tea.
For a moment, only the scent of tea lingered between us.
Then Lee Seo-ryeong's eyes widened.
She set down her cup and looked at me with intrigued eyes.
"The tea is exquisite. Counselor, have you studied the art of tea ceremony?"
"I pay it some attention."
I smiled and added,
"I'm glad it suits your taste."
No more small talk was needed.
Lee Seo-ryeong wasn't a client seeking counseling.
I had no obligation to ease her mind with icebreakers.
I silently placed my teacup on the table.
It was time for the main topic.
Looking straight into Lee Seo-ryeong's eyes, I asked in a businesslike tone,
"May I ask why you've come all this way?"
It was direct.
Lee Seo-ryeong parted her red lips slightly, as if surprised by the abruptness, then regarded me with languid eyes.
She nodded slowly and spoke just as slowly.
"Yu-wol... isn't actually my biological daughter."
A confession that Seol Yu-wol wasn't her real child.
I already knew that.
I showed no surprise, no reaction at all.
To my impassive response, Lee Seo-ryeong nodded faintly.
"It seems you already knew that too, Counselor."
"Yes. Yu-wol told me herself."
"Yu-wol never speaks of it to anyone else. She must trust you a great deal already."
"I see."
At my reply, Lee Seo-ryeong said no more about Yu-wol.
She set down her cup and asked in her ever-gentle voice,
"Counselor, are you familiar with the regulated world we came from? 'Central Plains'?"
To gauge her intent, I met her eyes for a moment.
"A little."
I remembered her being quite talkative about it at first.
The regulated world 'Central Plains' was astonishingly similar to the wuxia novels of this world.
That was all I knew initially.
But to counsel Seol Yu-wol, I'd spent nights poring over records of Central Plains and all the circulating gossip.
I knew a fair amount now.
"That's a relief."
A enigmatic smile played on Lee Seo-ryeong's lips.
"Then I wonder if you know this as well."
What was she getting at?
I waited silently for her next words.
"Our world, Central Plains, is extremely conservative, with deep-rooted beliefs in male superiority and female inferiority."
Male superiority, female inferiority.
Men are noble, women lowly.
But it struck me as odd.
Given that Central Plains resembled a wuxia novel world set in the past, the absence of such ideology would have been stranger.
Except among a rare few women who crushed it with the logic of martial power.
Honestly, it was all too predictable.
As that thought crossed my mind,
"You're puzzled..."
"......"
"I've read those wuxia novels you have in mind since coming to this world, Counselor."
A subtle smile curved her lips.
"They were quite... romantic."
"The Central Plains you know probably exists only in those novels."
Lee Seo-ryeong continued.
"In our world, women aren't considered people."
"......"
"Unless they are daughters of renowned orthodox clans backed by great houses."
"They are mere playthings to sate men's desires or tools for political marriages to expand family power."
Conviction laced her voice.
"Even if a woman cultivates martial arts and glimpses heaven's will, she remains just a female. A place where she can only breathe under a strong man's protection or clinging to him."
She gazed expressionlessly at her reflection in the teacup for a moment.
And concluded,
"That was the Central Plains where I lived."
I listened to her shocking tale in silence.
The world she described wasn't the one from the novels I'd read.
But frankly, it wasn't instantly comprehensible either.
Because a perfect counterexample sat right before me.
Former Murim Alliance Leader, current Azure Heaven Alliance Leader, Lee Seo-ryeong.
Her very existence contradicted her words.
I looked at the woman before me again.
A world where women aren't people, surviving only by a man's protection or attachment.
How had she become alliance leader in such a place?
[Lee Seo-ryeong]
Everything she just said is true. She understands the counselor's confusion.
Moreover, it wasn't a lie.
My ability confirmed every word as truth.
That only muddled my thoughts further.
As if reading my expression, Lee Seo-ryeong nodded slowly.
Then she voiced the question I wanted to ask.
"You're probably wondering right now."
Her red lips parted.
"Just what are you, then?"
She added slowly,
"I'm about to tell you my story."
Lee Seo-ryeong lifted the corners of her red lips in a seductive smile.
"Will you listen...?"
I nodded.
And replied calmly,
"That's my calling."
Her smile deepened at my answer.
It seemed the story would be a long one.
"Counselor."
A hint of playfulness tinged her voice.
"Where do you think I hail from, in your eyes?"
Lee Seo-ryeong's origins...
Objectively, her appearance exuded elegance and allure.
By the laws of Central Plains she'd described, she was likely a daughter of a renowned orthodox clan or great house.
"Hmm... Hard to say. I guessed daughter of a noble house."
A soft laugh escaped Lee Seo-ryeong's lips at my answer.
"No."
She shook her head, still smiling.
"I'm flattered you see me that way, but I'm not from the noble lineage you imagine."
I'd assumed she was from a prestigious orthodox sect.
"The people called the village I lived in 'scum of the demonic path.' The orthodox hypocrites took everything from me overnight under the guise of righteousness."
Her family weren't martial artists.
Just civilians scraping by farming in a barren borderland untouched by orthodox influence.
They traded with the Demonic Cult to survive.
Selling food for necessities. Their only way to live.
But to the orthodox hypocrites, it was an unforgivable sin.
They became traitors sheltered by the Demonic Cult.
In the end, Lee Seo-ryeong lost her parents and neighbors, forced to flee pursuers.
Her voice held steady as she recounted that horrific past.
"I was a nameless vagrant who survived alone in the ashes."
Her eyes deepened as she recalled the past.
"One day, while fleeing pursuers like a beast in the mountains, I luckily met my master."
Lee Seo-ryeong continued.
Her rescuer was a senior nun of the Emei Sect.
Under her protection, Lee Seo-ryeong lived a human life for the first time.
"About ten years passed that way?"
By the time she became a young woman.
"My master... passed away."
For the first time, sorrow crossed her face as she said it.
"They used my flaws as an excuse, framing my master unjustly until her death. I had no time to grieve before becoming a fugitive again."
"And at an endless cliff's edge..."
She fell.
"I gained a fateful encounter."
There was no pride or joy in her voice.
"Thus, I became an unrivaled master."
Lee Seo-ryeong, pursued by orthodox hunters, "died" at the cliff base.
The mysterious supreme expert Lee Seo-ryeong washed her identity clean and made her name known to the world.
"But... strength gained in a woman's body? Well."
She gazed at me with a bewitching smile.
Her porcelain skin and red lips contrasted alluringly under the light.
With innocently curious eyes, she asked,
"Do I look pretty enough to suffer men's torments, in your eyes?"
"Pardon?"
I couldn't grasp the question's intent.
But simply put, living as a beautiful female expert in her homeland Central Plains couldn't have been easy.
"Yes... well. I suppose so."
Objective fact. Lee Seo-ryeong was attractive.
She smiled again.
"Swarms of flies buzzed around, but dealing with them was no trouble."
Thus, Lee Seo-ryeong's time flew by.
"Then at some point, I joined the Murim Alliance that had hunted me, serving under my enemies."
By then, she said she'd lost her reason to live.
"Who knows... what was I thinking? Did I want to rise above those who scorned and oppressed me? Even if not leader, I climbed as high as I could, and one day it hit me."
She murmured quietly, reminiscing.
"Why... am I doing this?"
Just surviving to survive.
A life with no regrets even if ended then.
"One day, I received a mission. To subjugate a borderland where demonic remnants gathered."
Her gaze drifted to the empty space beyond me.
As if revisiting a distant scene.
"It was raining heavily that day."
For the first time, her voice seemed to tremble faintly.
"There, I found a child."
Though her body was here, her mind dwelled in that memory.
"A tiny, filthy child on the streets, begging me for life out of ignorance, just to survive."
Lee Seo-ryeong nodded.
"In that child's empty eyes, I saw my past self."
Lee Seo-ryeong had been unlucky, yet paradoxically fortunate.
But to her, the little girl's future seemed obvious.
Die wandering the streets, or if lucky, sold to a brothel to fawn over men.
"So I took her in."
Lee Seo-ryeong smiled.
The truest smile I'd seen from her.
"Yu-wol became my everything."
She whispered the conclusion.
"My reason to live."
Then she looked straight into my eyes for the first time.
Unwavering conviction shone in Lee Seo-ryeong's eyes.
"For Yu-wol, I became Murim Alliance Leader."
So no one could touch Seol Yu-wol under the alliance leader's protection.
That was her will.
Lee Seo-ryeong widened her eyes at me.
"So my daughter would never endure even a moment of the hell I did."
[Lee Seo-ryeong]
Yu-wol need only walk the path she paved. As long as she listens and obeys, no problems will arise. She firmly believes this is the way for Yu-wol.
"Counselor."
I could see Lee Seo-ryeong's smile.
It seemed somehow poignant.
"This was the best path I found."
She murmured low, almost affirming it to herself.
"So... Counselor, please."
That was her true intent.
"Don't let go of Yu-wol?"
A twisted form of love.
