The Art of Threatening a Regressor
"With a mere nineteen regressions, you were already driven to the brink of madness. Strangely enough, you find being trapped in the loop of regression far more horrific than being struck by lightning for ten thousand years in the afterlife. I suppose I have no choice but to hand down the punishment best suited for you."
Leaving Hwa Banya utterly speechless and dumbfounded, Seowangmo turned her gaze toward Baekri Yeongso.
"Baekri Yeongso, your belief that humans can reform themselves if given the chance is also a form of arrogance. And yet... I find that rather endearing."
Let us see who triumphs in the end.
Seowangmo's laughter echoed across the vast Peach Orchard. The goddess's figure suddenly blurred like mist, and the flower petals she had used as a throne flew toward Banya all at once.
How much time had passed? Banya and Yeongso woke up almost at the exact same moment.
The moment Banya opened his eyes, the carved canopy of the bed came into view. As he tried to sit up, his gaze was arrested by a pair of luscious, milky-white breasts. The husband and wife were tangled together, half-naked.
"You...!"
Startled, Yeongso scrambled to cover herself. However, her clothes were completely pinned beneath Banya's body, thwarting her efforts.
In her desperate struggle to yank her clothes free, she ended up inadvertently jiggling her breasts right in front of her husband. Yeongso's face flushed bright red.
"Did you... did you assault me while I was asleep?"
"I didn't do this..."
It was Seowangmo.
"While you met with me in your dreams, your physical bodies in the waking world would have naturally craved and sought each other in a daze. Do not be too shocked when you regain your senses."
Banya was about to ask if she had somehow missed the goddess's parting words, but Yeongso cut him off sharply.
"Deny it all you want. Who else is in this room besides us?"
Her sharp, stinging voice was thick with resentment. Banya watched the mesmerizing sway of her lovely breasts for a moment longer before shifting his weight slightly. Watching his wife hurriedly cover her naked flesh left him feeling inexplicably irritated. Suddenly, he didn't even want to bother explaining that the goddess had only given the explanation to one of them.
"Am I going to eat you?"
Yeongso didn't reply, focusing entirely on tying her inner robe's sash.
"It is still the middle of the night, my lady. You will have to change into your nightclothes anyway if you want to go back to sleep."
"...I will change once the Alliance Leader returns to his own quarters."
Alliance Leader, is it? My wife certainly knows how to draw a line. And yet, she was willing to be reborn as a beast for my sake? Banya curled one corner of his mouth upward.
"My lady, you are truly an enigma."
In truth, that was half a lie. Hwa Banya had never once tried to understand Baekri Yeongso before. He had never deemed it necessary. Peerless beauty, a refined intellect, and a prestigious family background—that was more than enough. But ever since he had lost his life by her hand, Banya had become intensely curious about what went on inside her mind.
"I have seen your naked body more times than I can count. Is there truly a need to bundle yourself up so tightly?"
"That and this are entirely different..."
"We have even coupled passionately in the backyard pavilion before. And that was in broad daylight, no less."
Yeongso stubbornly shut her mouth and pretended not to hear. It was a laughable yet adorable habit of hers. Did she honestly think pretending not to hear would make me stop?
"There were plenty of times I thrust right into you while you were fast asleep, too."
Yeongso looked as if she wanted nothing more than to plug her ears. Teasing her was truly a rewarding endeavor. Banya found himself smiling unconsciously before quickly pulling his lips back down. Wait, I was supposed to be angry at this woman.
"Even if I did take liberties with my sleeping wife's body, what of it? We are husband and wife. Coupling at any given hour is our duty. If I desire it, you have no choice but to comply."
"Another... regression..." Yeongso mumbled.
Banya told her to speak up if she had something to say.
"Seowangmo said so. If you commit another sin... she will force you to regress... and you must perform ten thousand good deeds..."
"So what is it you are trying to say? That putting my member inside my own wife's body is a sin?"
Banya flicked his finger against his jade stem, which showed no signs of subsiding. Standing stiff and proud through his disheveled robes, it bounced back into place. Yeongso desperately averted her eyes from her husband's shaft, which was as thick as a child's forearm.
"It is not a sin, but..."
"But?"
"...if you try to force it when I do not wish for it... you will be forced to regress."
He let out a dry, incredulous laugh. The moment she gained a powerful backer like Seowangmo, she dared to exercise a right of refusal in the bedchamber? How was a man supposed to live when he was already in the goddess's bad graces? Fine, Baekri Yeongso. If that is how you want to play it.
Sitting up, Banya pulled his robes together with angry, jerky movements. He glared at his wife, who had already retreated to the far edge of the bed. Plucking that body of hers—ripe and sweet like a mature fruit—whenever he pleased was supposed to be the ultimate joy of their newlywed life. Now, if he touched her without permission, he would apparently plunge right back into the godforsaken abyss of regression.
Then I will just find another woman. He wouldn't even need to visit a brothel. Beautiful women aching for Hwa Banya's touch were a dime a dozen within the Thousand Death Alliance. He could bring one right in front of Baekri Yeongso and say, 'Since my wife has locked me out of her bed, I shall take this one instead,' and perform all sorts of depraved acts right before her eyes. But what if even that was impossible?
"Dammit," Banya spat.
"Demanding good deeds out of nowhere... My lady, this Hwa Banya grew up without ever knowing what a 'good deed' even is. If I feed the beggars starting tomorrow morning, does that count as a good deed?"
"Of course. That is a wonderful deed."
"And what else is there?"
Even after squeezing every drop of his imagination, he couldn't think of a single other good deed. Yeongso, on the other hand, brightened up as if she were tackling the easiest question in the world.
"Being kind to others, offering words of encouragement to those in need of strength, helping sick people who cannot afford a physician get treatment..."
"I cannot bear to listen to another word."
Banya sighed deeply. No matter how he looked at it, being chained to a rock and struck by lightning ten thousand times as Seowangmo had threatened sounded far better. He was used to excruciating pain. He was used to being thrown into pitch-black solitude. But even if he died and came back twenty more times, performing good deeds was simply not in his nature. Seriously, just let me suffer a normal punishment. I literally volunteered to be struck by lightning! Why did you have to stop her?
"I will help you. It is not as difficult as it sounds. We can take it one step at a time."
Is that the pure, untainted gaze of the one chosen by Seowangmo? Banya stared at his wife's earnest face, thinking to himself: I have definitely gotten myself into a massive mess.
The people of the Thousand Death Alliance were trembling with a terror unlike anything they had ever felt before. They hadn't been this frightened even when the former Alliance Leader, who had been dead for three years, suddenly returned alive and well. In a world where supreme masters could undergo Youth Restoration, a man returning from the dead was within the realm of possibility. But this was an entirely different matter.
The sect leaders gathered for the meeting did nothing but dart their eyes nervously at one another. Cold sweat poured down their spines, completely out of place in this cool, breezy season. Their mouths were bone-dry, yet none of them dared to make a sound by picking up their teacups. There was only one reason behind their sheer terror.
Hwa Banya was acting strange!
Word had it that since early morning, vegetable porridge and steamed buns were being distributed to beggars right outside the gates of the Thousand Death Alliance. By whom? Hwa Banya, the Alliance Leader himself. When the beggars, well aware of his notorious cruelty, trembled in fear and refused to accept the food even if it meant starving to death, he had personally joined the distribution alongside his wife, who looked like a heavenly maiden. Who did? Hwa Banya, the Alliance Leader!
Of course, rumor also had it that he had asked a beggar with a bizarre smile on his face:
He had supposedly assured them that it wasn't poisoned, even chewing and swallowing a steamed bun on the spot to prove it. The foul temper was unmistakably Hwa Banya's, but his intentions were completely incomprehensible. Thus, the beggars in their rags and the sect leaders in their fine silks were all trembling in equal measure.
"Leader Gwak, I have specially prepared a blanket and a hot water pouch for you. If I recall correctly, you mentioned that your left knee aches on cloudy, damp days like today."