Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: Not an Ordinary Child
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‘Did he just call my dad the Heavenly Demon?’
No sooner had the question formed in my mind than unfamiliar scenes flooded into my head.
‘What are these?’
“Dan-myeong! No!”
“Listen carefully. You have to survive no matter what. I love you, my daughter.”
A happy family scene juxtaposed against a car engulfed in flames in the middle of the highway.
Two opposing images swirled chaotically before my eyes, gradually merging into a single, sharpening scene.
In the end, my mother who had shielded me with her entire body from the fire, and my father in the driver’s seat, bleeding out and losing consciousness—yet still turning his head to look at me one last time.
‘…I remember now. Park Dan-myeong. That was my name in my previous life.’
The memories had surged up abruptly, but far from feeling foreign, I instinctively knew they were my past life.
In that previous life, I survived the massive accident thanks to my parents’ protection.
‘But only me.’
My mother and father, who had sacrificed themselves in my place, both perished on the spot.
“They say the car was completely wrecked. How did the kid survive alone?”
“Tch, the kid must’ve eaten her parents.”
My relatives all shunned me as ominous for being the sole survivor of such a bolt-from-the-blue tragedy.
With no one left to care for me, I ended up in an orphanage.
But it wasn’t just the adults who dreaded the day of the accident.
I, who remembered it most vividly, dreaded it the most.
‘It’s my fault. If Mom and Dad hadn’t protected me, they could’ve lived…’
The relatives’ words took on a life of their own, tormenting me relentlessly.
From that day on, I was plagued by nightmares every single night. They evolved into insomnia, then depression and panic disorder.
The trauma of losing my loved ones in an instant, and their final words to me, refused to fade from my mind. Instead, they replayed constantly, trapping me in those memories for the rest of my life.
‘I wish I could just stop breathing like this.’
In endless fear and anxiety, I sometimes wanted to let everything go. But I fought to live.
“Dan-myeong, listen carefully. You have to survive no matter what.”
Because my mother’s dying words had become my duty.
“I love you, my daughter.”
I believed it was the only way to repay her love and sacrifice.
It was the same on the day I turned twenty.
The day car horns blared chaotically.
Beeeep!
One car had driven a bit recklessly. Amid the chain of surrounding horns, the memory resurfaced, and panic struck me in the middle of the crosswalk. I didn’t notice the oncoming motorcycle and…
The memories cut off there.
‘I died… I couldn’t even keep Mom’s dying wish to survive.’
The bitterness was fleeting. More shocking than my previous life’s death was something else.
‘But… I’m Seol Cheon-seong? Not a namesake, but the actual Seol Cheon-seong I know?’
The name Seol Cheon-seong felt incredibly familiar.
On sleepless nights, I always read novels. Among countless ones, even the day before the accident, I’d been reading it.
Seol Cheon-seong was a character from my all-time favorite novel, Nangong Family Young Master, which I’d binged countless times.
‘Not the protagonist, but I loved the heartwarming father-daughter episodes between her and her Heavenly Demon dad so much that I reread those parts obsessively every day.’
That story soothed the emptiness in my heart from losing my parents young. So I focused more on their tale than the main Nangong family storyline.
‘That’s why I know it all too well.’
The Heavenly Demon before me would later become the ultimate villain bent on destroying the world. And the reason he turned dark was the death of his beloved daughter, Seol Cheon-seong.
‘No way! There must be some misunderstanding. The Heavenly Demon can’t possibly be a weakling who gets nosebleeds all the time.’
Then I recalled what the mysterious Asura Mask had said.
“The medicine is harsher than before, so the nosebleeds will come more frequently.”
‘Come to think of it, the Heavenly Demon suffered from insomnia too.’
There was a story about him taking strong sleeping pills regularly.
‘Fine, let’s say the nosebleeds are from the strong meds. But even so, does it make sense for the Heavenly Demon to struggle wringing laundry or carrying this tiny body of mine? Dad’s been consistently frail for seven years straight.’
In contrast, the Heavenly Demon Dang Hwi from Nangong Family Young Master was overflowing with power despite his insomnia and panic attacks—he could barely contain it.
Once called the world’s greatest poison sword emperor, after some incident, he turned from the righteous sects, toppled the previous Heavenly Demon, and claimed the leadership of the Heavenly Demon Cult. That was Heavenly Demon Dang Hwi, the supreme powerhouse.
‘He was so terrified his immense power might hurt his daughter that his hands shook every time he touched or held Cheon-seong. He handled her clothes with such care, like they were precious treasures. That episode is adorable even now… Wait, his hands shook?’
Suddenly, I remembered Dad’s hands trembling whenever he held me, or how meticulously careful he seemed washing my clothes.
‘No way… Nah, it can’t be. It’s not.’
“Red Cloud.”
Dad called back the Asura Mask man, who had turned to leave.
“Star still can’t handle my full power yet, right?”
“Are you seriously asking because you don’t know?”
Facing Dad’s utterly clueless expression, Asura Mask let out a small sigh and continued resignedly.
“Even seasoned martial artists who’ve trained for years couldn’t withstand Your Excellency’s power unscathed. You’ve been extraordinary since childhood, but ordinary children aren’t. I hear Lady Cheon-seong is only just seven. If you’re not gentle, she could be seriously hurt.”
“Star’s no ordinary child. At just seven, she doesn’t even flinch at nosebleeds—instead, she calmly unfolds a handkerchief with those tiny hands to wipe them. So wise and clever. She’ll surely grasp the truths of the universe soon enough.”
“What…”
“No, wait—her cuteness might let her rule the world. The Heavenly Demon Cult might become the Seol Cheon-seong Cult. No, even that’s too small. Those gem-like eyes… I won’t rest until I build her an empire. And that’s not all. Star’s brilliance…”
‘Heavenly Demon, look at him gushing. Beyond imagination. To hear the actual Heavenly Demon bragging about his daughter!’
His eyes mad with daughterly love, yet his voice deadly serious—it confirmed he was the Heavenly Demon from the novel I knew.
‘…Am I really possessed in the novel?’
No matter how I tried to deny it, I could no longer ignore the reality before me.
Yes.
I had possessed Seol Cheon-seong, the Heavenly Demon’s daughter.
Who gets murdered by an assassin harboring grudge against the Heavenly Demon, identity unknown.
Having grasped the truth, I returned to my bedroom in a daze and flopped onto the bed.
‘Too out of it to put the stick back… Whatever, I’m doomed anyway.’
I lay under the covers next to the stick, staring gloomily at the ceiling.
My head was a jumble of past and present lives.
‘No, the real issue now is that I’m Seol Cheon-seong. Park Dan-myeong’s already dead.’
Surviving as Seol Cheon-seong came first.
‘One pathetic death was enough in my past life.’
I didn’t want a miserable end in this new life either. I wanted to honor Mom’s words I couldn’t in the last one.
‘But how do I avoid death? The novel only says I get killed by an assassin grudge-holding against the Heavenly Demon.’
As someone who’d turned from the righteous sects, plenty despised him. I had no clue where to even start changing the story.
“Daddy, if you’re watching, give me a hint…”
‘Can’t exactly tell Dad I reincarnated, though…’
This body felt so natural now—I instinctively sought Dad.
As I mumbled dejectedly to myself, a flapping sound came from outside the bedroom window.
‘What’s that noise?’
It sounded like a flag in the wind or a bird’s wings.
I instinctively grabbed the stick from under the covers.
‘We’re still in this remote village far from the central plains, so it’s not time for the murder yet. Probably not an assassin.’
Lost in thought, something knocked on the window.
‘Asking to be let in?’
An assassin wouldn’t be polite enough to knock.
‘Then who?’
I cautiously opened the window.
“Peep! Pip!”
A transparent bird flew in, dropped something before me, circled my head, then vanished outside.
‘That was a bird, right?’
“First time seeing a transparent bird.”
No such bird was mentioned in the novel.
‘Well, I’m a possessor myself—what’s impossible?’
Accepting that, a new creature from the novel didn’t seem so strange.
I quickly turned to the object the bird had left.
It was a silk scroll.
But extraordinary—it glowed on its own.
‘Not hot, I hope?’
As I tentatively reached for it,
It unfurled before my eyes in a burst of light.
[Chapter 1: Find a way to cure the Heavenly Demon's physical and mental weakness in the Demonic Cult]