Chapter 58: The Road to Anhui-5
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 58: The Road to Anhui-5
The sun beat down relentlessly. Even as the rays stung his skin, In-ho walked on without end.
Where he was going, how much further he had to go, how much longer he had to walk today...
He had no thoughts.
No, he couldn't think.
"......"
That night. Watching the mountain of corpses burn, he had wept uncontrollably.
How agonizing it was, the death of those with whom he had shared his heart.
To a man who had lived just over thirty years, loss was still a foreign experience.
When he closed his eyes, they appeared before him.
Yeonhwa, her head severed; Maebwa, half her face melted away; the Chief Steward, staring with wide eyes through the hole in his chest.
The more he retraced his memories, the more nausea rose in his throat and curses burned in his mind.
But he could neither erase them from his thoughts nor bury them.
Though they had turned to ash in the flames, they left a charred, blackened mark upon his heart, not just his memory.
A feeling of emptiness, a sense of having lost something vital.
Did the Chief Steward feel this way with a hole in his chest? He asked himself. But no answer came.
He trudged along the uneven dirt path.
He nearly tripped over rocks several times, but Namgung So-yeon, who was stuck to his side, caught him every time.
"Whoa! Careful! You keep spacing out like that..."
Namgung So-yeon said, pulling his arm even closer.
She pointedly pressed his arm against her chest, glancing at him to see if he noticed her little ploy.
But he remained as unresponsive as a stone, simply trudging forward.
It had been like this the whole time.
He walked in the direction set for him and only rested when told to do so.
No matter how she tried to strike up a conversation, his answers were mechanical; no matter how she tried to seduce him, there was no reaction.
What was the reason?
Had his love for her grown cold?
Namgung So-yeon shook her head.
No.
It was because he hadn't fully come to his senses yet.
The poison of the Poison Demon, Jegal-hwi, was said to be incredibly potent—not only life-threatening but capable of manipulating the victim’s mind.
"You're... still suffering from the poison."
Ah... the poor man. How could he have been subjected to such a thing?
Thinking of the hardships In-ho must have endured, tears welled up in Namgung So-yeon’s eyes.
"Young Master Kang~"
She called out to him with a sweet smile.
"Yeah," In-ho replied.
Until recently, he had spoken to her with a wall of formal politeness, but after some careful "education," he had returned to his original way of speaking.
Her "education" was proving very effective in helping In-ho return to "normal."
But it wasn't enough.
The "real" Kang In-ho wasn't like this.
At least, that was what Namgung So-yeon believed.
"Young Master Kang. I love you."
"...Me too."
It was a response that sounded almost programmed.
So-yeon pouted.
"Say it with more detail~"
"I feel the same way you do."
"Young Master..."
"......"
She murmured coldly, but In-ho resisted until the very end.
"I think you need some education today."
"...I love you."
In-ho replied instantly at the mention of "education."
So-yeon found his reaction so adorable that she licked his neck.
Slurp, slurp.
'Ah... how wonderful would it be to sink my teeth into this neck and drink his blood?'
She quickly shook her head.
Was the Qi Absorption Impulse already coming back?
It felt as though the cycle of the impulse grew shorter whenever she was by In-ho’s side.
"Young Master, the sun is harsh today, so let's prepare to camp in those woods over there."
Though the sun was still high in the sky, she declared an end to the day's march.
Upon reaching the forest, So-yeon quickly finished the basic camp preparations and spent the time talking until sunset.
Though "talking" consisted entirely of So-yeon speaking and In-ho giving half-hearted responses.
Then, night fell.
Namgung So-yeon remarked that In-ho seemed weak from the long journey and said she would prepare a nutritious meal to help him recover his strength.
She then vanished somewhere. While she was gone, In-ho prayed fervently that a wild animal would attack him.
But his prayers went unanswered. He remained perfectly fine, and Namgung So-yeon returned sooner than expected.
"Kind So-yeon has brought dinner~!"
She was carrying something over her shoulder.
From a distance, it looked like a bundle of cloth.
"Nothing tastes as good as a young woman's blood. I've prepared some for you today as well, Young Master Kang~"
It was a human being.