The Caged Bird
I must have drifted off into unconsciousness.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I felt was a terribly unfamiliar warmth.
The vicious cold that had always gnawed at my insides had vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed in the first place.
In its place, a gentle heat radiated from the vicinity of my dantian.
The energy pulsed quietly, flowing smoothly through my shattered meridians and into every corner of my body.
How utterly ridiculous.
Since ascending to the pinnacle of the sect, I had not spent a single day sleeping peacefully without a furrowed brow.
Yet paradoxically, after a night of hovering on the brink of death, I was waking up to the most refreshing and peaceful morning of my life.
I slowly tried to turn over.
My muscles ached as if they were tearing apart, and my body felt too heavy to even wiggle a finger.
But this was merely a temporary exhaustion from draining my energy so severely the night before. It was by no means a relapse of the disease that had been eating away at my core.
Once my internal injuries healed and my true qi fully recovered, this unpleasant helplessness would surely vanish as if it had never been.
Which meant my thread of life had not been completely severed just yet.
A soft, fresh scent tickled the tip of my nose.
Rustle.
Every tiny movement I made elicited a pleasant rustling sound from the plush duvet covering me.
The dark red blood I had spat out while struggling to survive last night, the unpleasant cold sweat that had drenched my entire body—not a single trace of them remained in this bedchamber.
That wasn't all.
The torn clothes that had been strewn unsightly across the floor, even the sharp glass shards of the medicine bottle I had shattered with my own hands—everything had been swept away, leaving the room pristine.
Who on earth cleaned up this disaster of a room?
“Did you sleep well, Sect Leader?”
At the sudden voice right beside me, I almost flinched.
I managed to turn my stiff neck and looked down.
There was Sowol, sitting casually on the floor beside the bed, leaning her upper body against it.
Resting her chin in one hand, she looked up at me. Her gaze lingered on my defenseless face with intense curiosity, as if she had discovered some rare spectacle.
“Your complexion looks much better.”
The voice slipping past her lips was chillingly sweet and languid.
I swallowed hard. My throat felt parched.
Lying down while enduring that gaze exerted a strange, suffocating pressure, so I tried to push myself up.
I channeled what little strength I had into my arms against the bed.
But whether it was because I had scraped the very bottom of my energy yesterday or because my muscles hadn't recovered, my arms refused to support me.
“Ugh.”
My arms gave out, and my upper body collapsed back toward the mattress.
Just as I squeezed my eyes shut in a reflexive defense mechanism against the fall—
Sowol shot her hand out like lightning, catching my waist in a firm, steady hold.
“Uh-oh, you have to be careful.”
Her touch was excessively gentle and soft. Yet to me, that cheap tenderness felt chillingly foreign and repulsive.
It had only been a few hours. In this very room, she had gripped my throat, choking the life out of me while radiating a terrifying bloodlust that promised immediate death.
The contrast between that cruelty and the warm, gentle embrace currently supporting my waist was so extreme and warped that a primal, incomprehensible dread washed over me.
I bit the inside of my lip to hide the rising panic. A metallic taste of blood spread in my mouth.
“I need to... wash.”
A raspy, cracked voice squeezed past my dry vocal cords.
Though the smell of blood had cleared from the room and the bedding was fresh, my body was still a mess.
The thin undergarment clung uncomfortably to my skin, sticky with the cold sweat and fever of the night.
“Call the servants outside...”
I wanted to put distance between myself and Sowol by any means necessary.
But just as I tried to push her arm away from my waist and swing my legs out of bed—
Sowol pressed down on my shoulder with a gentle but absolute grip, forcing me back onto the center of the bed.
“Servants? Don't be silly.”
Her eyes curved into a lovely, crescent-shaped smile.
“You're in no condition to move. As your only disciple, it's only right that I attend to you myself, Sect Leader.”
“There is no need.”
“Wait here. I'll bring some warm water right away.”
My refusal dissolved uselessly into the air.
As if she had never intended to seek my permission in the first place, she hummed a tune and walked toward the washroom in the corner of the chamber.
I could only sit there, staring blankly at her retreating back.
A moment later, Sowol returned carrying a wooden basin filled with steaming hot water and a crisp, white towel.
She knelt naturally between my legs as I sat on the edge of the bed.
With careful hands, she soaked the towel in the warm water and wrung it out thoroughly.
“Now, raise your arms.”
My head spun. This situation was utterly surreal.
To think I was completely yielding my body to the flesh and blood of the previous Sect Leader—the man whose heart I had pierced with my own hands.
And in a half-naked state, unable to offer even a shred of resistance.
A burning wave of intense humiliation rushed to my face. By all rights, I should have kicked her away and overturned the basin.
Yet I did not resist. I quietly obeyed her command and slowly raised my arms.
Perhaps this, too, was a fitting punishment for my sins.
To drag me down to the absolute bottom, to humiliate me and trample my fragile pride...
If this was the method of revenge she had honed over ten long years, then as the root of all her misery, I had to endure this disgrace.
The warm towel parted my thin undergarment and slid over my bare skin.
Starting from the nape of my neck, her touch swept over the curve of my shoulders and slowly traced down my slender arms.
Sowol's touch was suffocatingly, strangely slow.
To call it a simple, selfless act of wiping away sweat and grime from an invalid would be a lie; there was something excessively sticky and persistent in her movements.
Every time her hot fingertips pressed against my thin skin through the towel, a shiver shot up my spine from my tailbone.
Whenever the towel passed over the vivid red scars and dark bruises—especially around my neck, where she had gripped me so fiercely in her madness last night—her touch grew heavier, applying a subtle, lingering pressure.
“Your skin is so pale, Sect Leader.”
Sowol murmured, gently rubbing the towel near my collarbone.
“Even a little pressure leaves such a pretty color.”
My breath caught. The warped desire was laid bare beneath her soft tone.
I clenched my fists, feigning ignorance of her meaning.
Keeping my eyes cast down, I prayed and prayed in silence for this hellish ordeal to end as quickly as possible.
Once the suffocating bath was over, I changed into the clean black martial robes she had brought.
As the cool, smooth silk touched my bare skin, a sense of reality finally began to return to my drifting mind.
But that fleeting relief did not last long.
Sowol, who had stepped out to put away the towel and basin, returned carrying a small tray adorned with delicate patterns.
The moment the door opened, a rich, savory aroma hit my nose.
It was a restorative congee, packed with finely minced meat and various expensive medicinal herbs known to restore vitality.
She carefully set the tray down on the low table in front of me.
Then, picking up a jade spoon, she scooped up a generous portion of the steaming congee.
Pursing her lips, she blew on it to cool it down before bringing it directly to my mouth.
“Say ah~”
“It's not as if I don't have hands...”
“You haven't recovered your strength yet. Do you even have the energy to hold a spoon?”
I could move my hands perfectly fine. I was weak, but certainly not to the point where I couldn't feed myself a spoonful of food.
But when I met the cold, resolute gaze that locked onto my lips, the protest rising in my throat vanished.
Ultimately, I parted my lips slightly and accepted the spoon she offered.
The warm, mildly seasoned congee gently filled my empty, aching stomach. It was delicious enough to melt on my tongue.
Yet to me, it felt like chewing on dry sand, rough and painful in my mouth.
Why is she feeding me with such care?
I asked myself. A firm resolve not to let me die as easily as I almost did yesterday.
A scheme to fatten me up and fully restore my strength, only to keep me under her thumb and torture me for longer.
There was no other way to explain this abnormal tenderness.
Watching me choke down the congee with a bitter expression, Sowol pulled the wide sleeve of her outer robe and gently dabbed the corners of my mouth.
“That's it, eat slowly.”
Her voice was sweet enough to melt. But the words that followed pierced my heart like a dagger.
“My Unni has to stay strong and healthy... so I can collect my debt for a long, long time. It'll be so much fun.”
Thump.
It felt as though my heart had plummeted to my feet.
A profound dread washed over me like a tidal wave at the realization that my worst fears had been spot on.
She was raising me. A cruel captivity in the name of revenge, disguised as care.
In the heart of this massive sect where there was nowhere to run, I had been reduced to a toy completely at her mercy.
Even so, I could not push away the spoon thrust before me.
The massive sin of my past, that pathetic and ugly sense of debt, weighed down my limbs and forced me to sit in this humiliating position.
By the time the agonizingly long meal drew to a close, I gathered my wavering focus and forced myself to stand, leaning on the bed.
Though my joints still throbbed and screamed, the pain was manageable.
“I must go now.”
I said, staring at the stack of documents piled on the low table.
No matter how broken my body and mind were, I was still the undisputed master of the Heavenly Demon Sect.
The administrative affairs of the sect that required my immediate attention and approval were piled high.
I had to attend the Elders' council to tighten the recently loosened discipline, and I needed to assess the movements of the Orthodox Faction, who were constantly looking for a gap in our defenses.
That was the bare minimum of duty and responsibility for the one who ruled this monstrous collective of tens of thousands through blood and coercion.
Just as I adjusted my clothes and took a step toward the door, Sowol closed the distance and wrapped her hands gently around my shoulders.
Without giving me the chance or room to resist, she firmly pushed me back down onto the soft bed.
“Where do you think you're going?”
Her dark eyes brimmed with worry. It was the picture-perfect expression of a filial, devoted disciple concerned for her master's health.
“I have affairs to attend to. There are agenda items for the meeting.”
“No. Rest up today.”
Sowol cut me off flatly, patting my shoulder reassuringly.
“You haven't even recovered yet. What if you overexert yourself without any energy and collapse like yesterday? You really scared me to death.”
Her voice felt like a sticky spiderweb, wrapping around my body and choking the breath out of me.
“But there are too many pending matters...”
“I'll take care of all of that.”
Sowol smiled brightly and gently stroked my cheek.
“I'll look over the urgent matters and handle them. Don't worry about a thing, Unni. I'll run the meeting myself, too.”
“But...”
“Who would dare object if they hear the Sect Leader is resting? It'll pass quietly.”
“......”
“So, my Sect Leader just needs to lie down quietly in her room and recover. Don't think about anything else. Okay?”
This was no gentle suggestion born of concern. Though masked in an infinitely soft tone, it was a clear command, a constraint tightening around my throat.
A malicious ploy to keep me from taking a single step out of this room, to strip me of the authority and power I held, and to isolate me completely from the outside world.
Yet I could not rebel.
No, perhaps in the deepest recesses of my heart, I actually found this miserable situation to be a relief.
Maybe... this isn't so bad.
A blood-soaked life where I had to live in suffocating tension every day, severing the necks of anyone who dared intrude.
If I could escape, even for a single day, the exhausting obsession and responsibility of holding the lives of countless people in my hands by using this illness as an excuse...
Wouldn't it be better to just stay cooped up in this room, eating the food I was fed? I wouldn't have to do anything, like a corpse. My mind might be much more at ease.
It was a truly disgusting rationalization.
I endlessly repeated this excuse in my head, feeling utterly pathetic and cowardly.
Then, slowly, I closed my eyes in resignation.
“Fine... I understand.”
The moment my helpless response left my lips, the corners of Sowol's red mouth curved into a deep arc.
She leaned down and pressed a kiss to my pale forehead, as light as a feather, before pulling away.
“Good girl, Unni.”