Chapter 127
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 127
San-yu’s face was etched with agony as the truth finally laid itself bare before him.
[“Are you referring to that girl, So-ya?”]
The young family servant, who had followed from the Vermilion Bird Mansion to serve the Clan Head, spoke with a casual indifference.
[“After the Clan Head sent her to the Cold Palace, she lived like a ghost for a long time. Then, once Lady Ri-ri arrived, the Clan Head gave the girl to her as a body servant…”]
At first, San-yu thought he had misheard.
But it was no mistake.
[“Even so, the Clan Head issued a gag order to everyone so that Lady Ri-ri wouldn't find out. If someone hadn't slipped up, Lady Ri-ri would never have known… Our poor Lady…”]
Even now, the young servant felt pity only for Ri-ri, not So-ya.
That alone was enough to tell him everything.
He could see exactly how So-ya—that small, fragile child—had been treated by her own kin.
His heart shattered.
The sky collapsed; his entire world crumbled.
No, perhaps it was not the world, but San-yu himself who had broken. He felt as if his very soul were being torn into jagged, irreparable pieces.
During the three years he was away at war, So-ya had fought a lonely battle against isolation in the Cold Palace. And after Ri-ri appeared, she had been forced to serve as a mere maid, watching from the shadows as the other girl received all the love that should have been hers.
How much.
Just how much pain and hardship had she endured?
In that vast mansion where not a single soul stood by her side… that tiny child…
Perhaps he should have sensed something was wrong from the very beginning.
Back during the long years of war, when he first heard the news that the Young Lady of the Vermilion Bird Clan had left the mansion and ultimately passed away.
How could the most precious lady of the Southern Land suffer such a fate in the very heart of the Vermilion Bird Clan’s influence?
Lamenting his own ignorance, San-yu headed straight for the pavilion where the White Tiger Clan was staying.
The young lords of the White Tiger Clan met him in their father’s stead.
“Father was summoned by His Majesty a moment ago. If you have something to say, say it to me.”
“So-ya…”
San-yu couldn't bring himself to look the young lord in the eye. He bowed his head and pleaded, “Please, let me see So-ya just once.”
“Absolutely not! What kind of mean things are you planning to say to Cotton Ball now?!”
Ga-yul shouted, his voice bristling with hostility as he practically growled at San-yu.
“You people told our Cotton Ball she was unsightly and shabby! You said her beast form was hideous and threatened to cut off her wings if she ever showed her face!”
“I… they said such things…?”
San-yu’s expression, already pale, turned a ghostly, sickly white.
“Don’t act like you didn’t know now! Because of you people, Cotton Ball was so scared of transforming that she had nightmares and hid her form away! Even when we told her she was the cutest thing in the world, she couldn't believe us and just choked back her tears!”
Ga-yul remembered when So-ya first came to the White Tiger Palace, how she had adamantly refused to transform, insisting her beast form wasn't cool at all.
He remembered what she had said during that year’s Mountain Lord Festival, holding back tears even as he and Ah-rang told her how cute she was.
At the time, he had been too young to understand exactly what had happened to her; he only knew that there were mean people who had bullied her.
But now he knew.
The ones who called her a shabby little bird with nothing but unsightly white fluff, the ones who called her beast form hideous and threatened to mutilate her wings…
It was the people of the Vermilion Bird Clan.
The people she had once believed were her family.
‘And after all that, you have the nerve to ask to see Cotton Ball!’
The Clan Head of the Jeok family, who had gotten into a fistfight with his father a few hours ago, was the same way. It seemed all the feathered wretches of the South were equally shameless.
Ga-yul glared at San-yu, huffing in indignation. The way San-yu’s eyes trembled as if he truly hadn't known was nothing short of loathsome.
Ga-yul glanced at Ga-hyeon, hoping his second brother would deliver a sharp rebuke.
But his brother was acting strange.
Usually, this was the point where Ga-hyeon would wear his trademark gentle smile while pouring out scathing insults, but he was merely staring at the man from the Vermilion Bird Clan with a blank, expressionless face.
‘Just how harsh is he going to be? He’s not even smiling.’
Then, betraying Ga-yul’s expectations, Ga-hyeon spoke in a calm, measured voice.
“You are the First Young Lord of the Vermilion Bird Clan. Lord Jeok San-yu, correct? The one His Majesty commended at the banquet today.”
“That is… correct…”
“Follow me.”
Ga-yul blinked in disbelief at the unexpected response.
“Brother…?”
Ignoring his younger brother’s gaze, Ga-hyeon led San-yu toward the backyard.
And there, San-yu found So-ya.
* * *
At the same time.
Sa-eon and Yi-rim sat facing each other across a small table.
It was the first time the two had sat across from one another like this since Yi-rim’s visit to the White Tiger Palace five years ago.
“It has been a long time, Sa-eon.”
Yi-rim offered a languid smile as he greeted his former teacher.
“I heard you had a bit of a scuffle with the Jeok Clan Head in front of the banquet hall.”
“Has word already reached Your Majesty’s ears?”
“More than that. Several central officials have already come to me, insisting I punish the two Clan Heads for causing a disturbance within the Imperial Palace.”
“Then there is nothing to be done. However, if you must punish us, please penalize that feathered bastard from the Jeok Clan more severely. He is a far worse man than I.”
Yi-rim burst into laughter at those words.
“How could I possibly punish a teacher who is like a father to me?”
Yi-rim lifted the teapot from the table and poured.
Trickle—
The sound of the tea hitting the cup rang out with a clear, refined note.
“Drink, Sa-eon. The aroma is quite exquisite.”
“Your Majesty.”
Sa-eon did not reach for the cup. Instead, he looked Yi-rim straight in the eye and asked in a low voice, “Five years ago, you sent me to the Southern Land.”
It was a question that had remained an unsolved mystery to Sa-eon for a long time.
“Why did you give me that specific command?”
That cryptic order to go and steal the most precious thing in the South.
It was there that he had happened upon his small, snow-white treasure, So-ya.
Had it not been for Yi-rim’s command, Sa-eon would never have met her.
And if he hadn't been there that day, So-ya would have…
It was a horrifying thought.
Clink.
Yi-rim set his teacup down gracefully and gazed intently at Sa-eon’s face.
A single memory overlapped with the present.
[“Master! Please, I beg of you, help me…!”]
[“Your Highness…? At this late hour, why…”]
[“This child must live! Please…! I beg you to help!”]
The face of the man in white, the only one who had reached out to a powerless young prince in a moment of desperate need…
[“I could not… protect her.”]
[…]
[“It was I… who failed to protect that child.”]
That hollow, grieving voice whispering in front of the corpse of the child he couldn't save…
[“Even if this life is severed, and severed again, a hundred times over… next time, I will surely…”]
A vow of lamentation that sounded as if his very heart were being torn out…
Trickle—
The sound of pouring tea pulled Yi-rim back to reality.
He looked at the man before him, his eyes curving into an elegant, inscrutable smile as he raised his cup.
“I wonder.”
Sa-eon gave a short, dry laugh at the evasive attitude, as if he hadn't expected an answer in the first place.
“Do you know something, Your Majesty?”
“What might that be?”
“When you were young, you were truly adorable. Now, that charm has vanished entirely.”
“You speak with quite a bold tongue.”
Yi-rim chuckled softly, his eyes turning slightly wistful as he looked at his teacher’s reflection in the tea.
* * *
So-ya was spending time alone in the small backyard attached to the pavilion assigned to the White Tiger Clan.
Without her brothers, without Yeon-jeong or San-ho, and without Seol-yo or Jjaek-jjaek, she sat leaning against a tree trunk, resting.
Birds flew down and chirped around her.
She smiled at them as she always did, but today, her smile seemed unusually frail.
‘How strange. I did something really big today, so why do I feel so drained?’
So-ya couldn't quite understand her sinking mood.
She had said everything she wanted to say to them without trembling once, exactly as she had imagined dozens of times before coming to the Imperial Palace.
But then.
Rustle—
The sound of footsteps treading on grass reached her ears.