Even So, Seventeen Times Is a Bit Much
Yeongso paused in her letter-writing and pulled a small medicine box from her drawer. "I never thought the day would come when I'd have to take this again..."
The brown pill was smaller than her pinky nail. Yeongso swallowed one of the few remaining contraceptive pills.
Even if today had been unavoidable due to that unexpected aphrodisiac incident, she had to ensure she didn't share a bed with Banya again. If that proved impossible, she would at least try her best to avoid it. Yeongso made a silent vow to herself.
"I've been in the Thousand Death Alliance for over three years, but I've never once discussed marital relations with the other wives. But surely, no matter how unorthodox they are, not all men are like him..."
...so perverted. Yeongso swallowed the words she couldn't bring herself to utter aloud.
In any case, this matter could not be allowed to fizzle out. Steeling her resolve once more, Yeongso resumed writing her letter to her eldest brother-in-law.
"Let's start from the part where the Alliance Leader's wife drove a needle into your crown acupoint and killed you. From beginning to end, don't leave out a single detail."
Having returned to the Thousand Death Alliance, Ma Ryun demanded a proper explanation from his master. Since he had obeyed today's orders without a word of complaint, he now wanted to understand these baffling rules about forbidding killing and performing good deeds.
Banya, reclining on a fur-lined chair, let out a long sigh. Then, just as his right-hand man wanted, he slowly began to explain.
From how Yeongso, for once, had asked if he could spare a moment for an incredibly important discussion, to the agonizing pain of the needle traveling through his blood vessels, to the fact that this was his twentieth regression, and finally, to the dream he had recently of the Queen Mother of the West.
Ma Ryun did not open his mouth once until the story was finished. However, his dark eyes sank so deep it felt as though they would pierce through the study floor and plunge into the earth.
"...Is that all?"
"Yes, that's everything."
"Ha." Ma Ryun rubbed his eyelids in exhaustion. "This is exactly why I told you not to get involved with good people."
Is that really your first reaction? Banya rolled his eyes.
"I mean, really. You could have just died normally and gone to hell. Instead, you have to go through this misery... Ten thousand good deeds? Are you out of your mind? No, do you actually expect to remain sane after doing all that?"
Ma Ryun emphasized every single syllable. "We are Sapa."
"I know."
"Survival of the fittest! The Thousand Death Alliance, where only the strong, the powerful, and the vicious survive!"
Live long enough, and the day comes when you get lectured on the spirit of the Unorthodox Path by a subordinate younger than you. Seeing this, I really should have stayed dead. Banya stared grimly at a corner of the study.
After delivering his grand speech to the Alliance Leader, Ma Ryun let out a heavy sigh. "I don't know if you remember, but I never liked this marriage from the very beginning."
He claimed that the moment the Alliance Leader's wife, clad in her bridal robes, stepped out of the flower palanquin, her every step was so incredibly virtuous that it sent a shiver down his spine. Banya had nothing to say to that. After all, it was precisely that side of Baekri Yeongso that he had fallen for.
"I didn't know she was that good either..."
"And the Queen Mother of the West is practically royalty among immortals, isn't she? To think she has a celestial bone coveted by such a goddess."
"It's just absurd..." Ma Ryun's dumbfounded expression was highly irritating. This bastard is starting to ramble.
"You basically took a heavenly fairy as your wife, didn't you? Hearing it out loud makes it sound even more insane. Alliance Leader, we are Sapa. Now that the Demonic Cult is gone, our Thousand Death Alliance must guard the front lines of wickedness—"
Should I just tell the Queen Mother of the West that I can't do this, and kill this guy?
"So, what are you going to do now?"
"What do you mean, 'what'?" Banya spat through gritted teeth. "I have to do good deeds. If I don't, I'll be regressed that very night."
"Yes, I understand perfectly." Ma Ryun suddenly slid his chair away. Wondering what this sudden distancing was about, Banya watched as his subordinate raised a hand, asking for understanding.
"From now on, please do your good deeds alone and don't drag me into them. Being forbidden from killing today made me feel incredibly uneasy."
Banya let out a dry laugh. "You selfish bastard, you're going to keep all the killing to yourself?"
"If I have to do this one more time, I think I'll develop a sickness of the mind."
"Should I throw you back into the dungeon?"
"Being forbidden from doing something you can do is worlds apart from simply not being able to do it. In that sense, going to the dungeon wouldn't be so bad."
He babbled on, claiming that at least he wouldn't get sick of the mind down there. Do you even know what the Thousand Death Alliance's dungeon is like? You're not normal either if you think that place is fine. Damn bastard. I really want to throw him back in there for just one night.
But locking up Ma Ryun, his only trustworthy confidant, would disrupt all future operations. Banya swallowed his anger and waited for the chime of midnight. Out of habit, he began to count. This time, he only counted to twenty instead of a hundred.
...Eighteen, nineteen, twenty.
He was safe. He had survived another day. It seemed his trick of giving Baekri Yeongso the aphrodisiac had been overlooked. Ma Ryun breaking the limbs of the Red Flower Palace bastards also seemed to have passed without issue.
The Queen Mother of the West's standards are... closer to my way of doing things than my wife's.
Then again, he had already realized that when she summoned him into his dream and slapped him across the face without warning.
Meanwhile, Ma Ryun, who had been watching his master's behavior around midnight, suddenly spoke up.
"I should never get married."
Apparently, he hadn't realized marriage was such a hazardous affair. Banya's temporarily suppressed murderous intent flared up again. I definitely need to beat this bastard up at least once. Not today, but someday, without fail.
"Ha..." Banya narrowed his eyes. "What good deed do I have to do today?" Damn it.
Yeongso devoted herself daily to caring for the slaves rescued from the Chunyangru Annex. Contrary to her expectation that most would be in their late teens to mid-twenties, their ages varied widely. She comforted those who could only tremble in silence, feeding them rice gruel she had brewed herself. A middle-aged woman, weakened from being locked up and beaten for a long time, was among them.
"My Lady, I've brewed the medicine." As the gruel was nearly finished, Chocho held out a bowl of herbal decoction. Yeongso wiped the middle-aged woman's lips, took the bowl, and gently blew on the hot liquid.
"The bitterness seemed hard to stomach. I asked the physician to add a bit more licorice root this time, but I'm not sure if it will help."
"Here." The middle-aged woman parted her lips for the spoon Yeongso offered. After swallowing a sip, she gave a tiny nod.
"Once your body recovers a bit more, you can have some honey to clear the taste." I hear chrysanthemum honey is wonderfully fragrant. The middle-aged woman, stealing a cautious glance at Yeongso's bright smile, finally spoke.
"A long time ago, I secretly gave a cup of water to Sister Dohong when she was beaten and locked up. She was so good to me... but that was all I could do."
The woman's voice was hoarse and cracked, but her words were barely intelligible.
"Seven years ago, when her son shut down the Chunyangru Annex, he looked like a living Buddha to me. But then I was captured again, waiting only for the day I would die in that living hell..."
She had never imagined that Sister Dohong's son and his wife would rescue her once again. Yeongso, listening to her expressions of gratitude, asked,
"Is this person named Dohong... the Alliance Leader's mother? My... mother-in-law?"
"Yes, she is. Twenty-nine years ago, Sister Dohong and I were locked up together in that annex."
From the woman's subsequent words, Yeongso learned several truths. One of them was that, contrary to what she had heard at Chunyangru, Banya had actually been born in the annex. The young Banya had lived until the age of four in that horrific place, where even adults routinely perished.
Meanwhile, at the Red Flower Palace, the vacancy left by Palace Master Hwa Mujin, who had been dragged off to the government office, was being filled by his biological father, the Eighth Uncle, Hwa Jak.
Hwa Jak, who had once taken pride in his notoriety under the moniker "The Red Flower Palace's Debauched, Lecherous Eighth Young Master," had become a man incapable of getting it up since that fateful day seven years ago. To be precise, he had nothing left to get up. It had been severed by the hands of his own son, who had laid waste to the Red Flower Palace in the span of half a night—Banya.