Chapter 69
Chapter 69
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 69
Chapter Title: A Daring Proposal
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“Ah, ah.”
I felt a cool breeze linger beside me. My voice, which I’d spoken as a test, boomed with a massive echo.
Oh, it works well.
“My wespected Aunts.”
My clear, crisp voice rang out.
“I am Heuk Biyuu, daughter of Heuk Bihu. I’d wike to make a pwoposal.”
“Who gave you permission to speak?”
Heuk Haran’s face was etched with displeasure.
But I had just learned from the wonderful teaching aid that was my eldest uncle.
‘If there’s something you want to do, just ignore everyone else!’
Though, it wasn’t like the witness died from being beaten by my eldest uncle. Still, I was deeply impressed!
Just a moment ago, I had to change all my plans when I saw the Matriarch was here.
As a regressor, I was deeply moved by my eldest uncle. So that’s how you can be completely reckless!
“I, who wive with them in the east wing, can vouch dat my Eldest Uncwe and Uncwe have not been outside.”
But I didn’t possess the same overwhelming power as my eldest uncle. So, I would do this my way.
Heuk Haran scoffed at my statement, delivered with a bright smile.
“Hah… How ridiculous. What do you know? Do you truly believe the word of a child who cannot even smell tracking incense will be accepted?”
“Why not? What if dat witness just now was someone you thweatened into being a witness?”
“What?”
“The owder to ban them from weaving was because of their sickness, wight?”
My aunts were not foolish.
This time, they must have planned to borrow the Matriarch’s power to bring down my father and his brothers.
To them, my father and his two brothers were figures to be used, not ones who should act of their own accord.
I responded with an action that was beyond their common sense.
“Then, if their sickness has impwoved, that owder can be withdwawn, can’t it?”
It all started with the sickness.
The sickness, the accidents it caused—everything combined had led to their confinement and the tracking incense they were forced to wear.
“Impossible! What nonsense are you spouting? Tsk… The father and daughter are a matched pair. Heuk Bihu! You, too, cease your ability to amplify sound at once!”
“I refuse.”
“Ah! I asked the wwong person!”
I quickly raised my hand and offered a sly smile.
“The master of this pwace is the Matwiawch, after all.”
Right. If you won’t do it, I can just ask the Matriarch.
And the Matriarch I knew…
The Matriarch, the grandmother, sat in her chair and smiled serenely.
“How amusing.”
The cloth covering her eyes made the sight strangely eerie.
‘The Matriarch I know… pretends to have stepped back, but she's still as sharp as ever.’
She might seem to be a mere observer of her children’s infighting, but in reality, she was a person whose venom and ambition to restore the family’s glory had not faded.
Therefore.
If the discussion turned to improving her son’s illness, which no one had been able to treat, her mind would start racing.
“My granddaughter, whom I see for the first time. It is cute of you to look after this old woman who has stepped down.”
See? She took the bait.
“But the illness that my third and youngest sons suffer from is something no physician in the world has been able to cure. Could such a thing be possible?”
“But Your Gwace has awweady seen Eldest Uncwe use his powew.”
I responded politely, not backing down.
My grandmother raised a hand and removed the cloth covering her eyes.
Her peacefully closed eyelids were revealed.
“That is true. …If a cure for my son is indeed possible, then there is room for consideration.”
No one would dare ignore that profound, smiling face.
“After all, it is something even I could not accomplish.”
Not when a sharp wind was blowing all around.
“My poor grandchild, you must have been confined to the east wing as well due to your father’s wrongdoing. But your pitiable state will not serve as your defense now.”
The Matriarch’s voice calmly pierced through me.
“If those words were merely a deception to escape a moment of crisis, you will have to take responsibility for it.”
I felt a strange sense of dissonance.
A whistling wind.
‘This isn’t Dad’s wind.’
The wind approaching me was intensely hot. Moreover, I felt that heat drawing closer and closer…
Soon, the wind became visible, likely because it had coiled together like a whirlwind.
Just as the hot wind was about to envelop me, I felt a cool, refreshing sensation.
A wind imbued with a deep blue light wrapped around me.
*Fwoosh!*
The air scattered.
“If you wish to speak, please do so without threats, Matriarch. My child is still young.”
My father adjusted his hold on me.
‘The Matriarch’s wind tried to envelop me without my permission, didn’t it?’
This act could only mean one thing. A diagnosis.
A diagnosis…
Nothing good would come from my condition being discovered.
“I was merely trying to diagnose the child’s nutritional state, my son.”
“I check on her every day, so you need not concern yourself.”
“You do? Then again, how long has it been since I’ve had a proper conversation with you?”
The Matriarch smiled and then fell silent. She then opened only one eye.
“Bihu, your daughter’s mention of this… does it mean you have also improved?”
Her eye was stark white and unfocused. Yet, its very appearance exuded a chillingly powerful pressure.
“What an interesting turn of events. You there, grandchild.”
I felt my father pull me tighter, his wind churning restlessly.
“Prove it. Either treat Heuk Biwon and Heuk Birang’s illness, or prove that it has improved.”
That’s it.
I quickly looked at my eldest and younger uncles.
‘What are you doing, you two? Hurry up and show them you’re fine!’
But my eldest uncle had an uncharacteristically dazed expression, while my younger uncle looked completely aghast.
My younger uncle, in particular, seemed to be asking, ‘Are you crazy?’
I beamed and pointed at my eldest uncle.
“Then we’ll stawt by pwooving it with Eldest Uncwe!”
The people gathered here must have felt a sense of strangeness.
They had first gathered for what they thought was a meeting, only for a trial to be held for the first time in ages. Then the suspect had suddenly beaten the witness unconscious.
‘And no one could even stop him.’
As if that wasn’t enough, a quiet three-year-old girl had raised her hand and asked the Matriarch for permission to showcase her own abilities.
Despite having come here as a sinner.
‘Considering the Matriarch is like a mountain to the physicians and apothecaries here.’
From their perspective, something incomprehensible had just occurred.
And yet, the Matriarch, who they expected to ignore and scold the child, had accepted the proposal?
‘It’s even more incomprehensible.’
But I alone knew.
I knew how truly dedicated that Matriarch was to reviving the family.
She was a woman who valued the family above its physicians and apothecaries, and even above her own children.
‘If I had been able to meet the Matriarch in my past life without my aunts’ interference, would things have been different?’
It was a pointless what-if now.
“Matriarch… I deeply apologize for interjecting without permission. However, are you truly going to accept that impudent proposal?”
“That’s right. How dare she make demands of the Matriarch! It is an utterly deplorable act!”
People were glaring at Heuk Biwon with an unconcealed hostility, as if this were all absurd.
While they clamored from the sides of the path…
At the top of the stairs, my first aunt was trying to dissuade the Matriarch.
“Mother, are you really going to accept this ridiculous proposal?”
“My sister is right…! Matriarch, my older brother is simply mad. There’s no way that insanity of his can be cured, is there? This is just an excuse to get away because he’s at a disadvantage. He must be properly investigated and punished!”
“…”
My third aunt sided with my first aunt.
Still, the Matriarch remained silent.
Unable to bear the quiet, my third aunt added another word.
“You saw how he beat down the witness earlier. Is it normal to behave like that here?”
“Enough. That’s enough, Gyera.”
With a single gesture, the Matriarch silenced my third aunt.
“You talk too much.”
She then walked to the edge of the stairs and looked down.
“I will judge for myself whether my son, Heuk Biwon’s, condition has truly improved. If it has, I will make a promise here and now. I will revoke the order confining the two of them.”
“…!!”
Both aunts’ eyes widened as if they could not accept it.
My uncle-in-law, who had returned to my third aunt’s side, was also clenching his fists, barely suppressing his rage.
Seeing this, I smirked inwardly.
‘And what are you going to do if you can’t stand it?’
In the end, all I had to do was win over the head of this family.