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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: cyno
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Creak—
Yoo So-eun staggered weakly back to the Namgoong family quarters.
Her mind was so overwhelmed that she simply went blank, unable to think at all.
The reality waiting for her was too cruel to accept.
“Mmm…”
Namgoong Soo-ah, who had returned earlier and was already asleep, greeted her.
Judging by her uneasy expression, she must have been having a bad dream.
It broke Yoo So-eun’s heart.
“…”
Without a word, Yoo So-eun peeled off her soaked clothes and hung them inside.
Two undergarments, a thin outer robe, and the outer robe Byeok-rak had draped over her.
The sight nearly brought tears to her eyes, but she tilted her head back and held them in.
Now, she had to stand on her own.
For Namgoong Soo-ah, who was tossing and turning in her sleep.
‘I have to be strong.’
As she dried her naked body with a towel, Yoo So-eun quietly steeled herself.
‘I’ve always relied on others.’
As a child, she relied on her sect.
As an adult, she relied on her husband.
Now, it was her turn to be the pillar.
‘But…’
Just thinking about it made negative, lonely words flood her mind, and her brow furrowed.
‘Can I… really do this alone?’
Her self-esteem had already hit rock bottom.
If she could have strengthened her resolve so easily, she wouldn’t have ended up like this in the first place.
‘No, I have to. Don’t think about yourself. Think about Soo-ah.’
The thought of her daughter made strength surge in her body—strength that wasn’t there before.
But it was only a desperate, forced strength, fleeting and bound to scatter quickly.
Perhaps because she had just been through a storm of emotions—
Yoo So-eun felt like collapsing at any moment.
Her body and mind were unbearably heavy.
A suffocating weight sat in her chest, refusing to fade.
‘I have to be the pillar…’
And yet—
Like a child throwing a tantrum, Yoo So-eun slowly buried her face in Namgoong Soo-ah’s chest.
She knew she shouldn’t, but Soo-ah was asleep and wouldn’t see.
A small indulgence.
Squish—
“Mmm…”
She wrapped her arms around Soo-ah’s slender back and held her tight.
Just like how Soo-ah always clung to her.
Now, the roles were reversed, and Yoo So-eun understood why her daughter loved hugging her so much.
“Sigh…”
It was comforting.
And—
‘She’s… so small.’
Her chest was still underdeveloped, her back delicate and narrow.
“Hic…”
Her body was so thin that even when Yoo So-eun wrapped her arms around her, there was still space left.
It almost made her feel embarrassed to be leaning on someone so tiny.
The direct descendant of the Great Namgoong Family?
The Sword Saint’s flesh and blood?
The divine prodigy of the martial world, Thunderblaze Namgoong Soo-ah?
Those were just labels made by outsiders who only saw one side of her.
The daughter in her arms right now was just—
A teenage girl, desperately craving her parents’ love.
“Nn…”
Namgoong Soo-ah murmured in her sleep.
Yoo So-eun’s ears perked up.
“I can’t remember…”
“…”
“The days when Dad and Mom… everyone was smiling…”
Her voice was hazy, caught between dream and reality.
That calm, sleep-muffled tone—
“Now… I can’t remember anymore…”
—stabbed Yoo So-eun’s heart like a needle.
Unable to bear it, she slithered up like a snake.
Squeeze—
Holding Soo-ah against her chest as usual, she pressed her lips to her forehead and whispered secretly.
“Mom… must have made the wrong choice…”
Pouring all the sincerity she could muster into her words.
“I’m sorry… It’s all my fault…”
While deep inside, she cursed her ex-husband.
‘Cheolbin… I was wrong…’
Tears she thought had run dry were wrung out again.
‘Please… please… come back…’
Of course, she had to sob silently, afraid of waking Soo-ah in her arms.
### —
Crunch, crunch—
Byeok-rak’s footsteps disturbed the snowy path.
With rough, irregular steps, he walked for a long time.
He had passed the Taiyuan Jin Family’s quarters long ago, but he kept walking.
Crunch, crunch—
Then, at some point, he stopped before a tree blocking his path.
A fairly large tree, thick enough to match a man’s torso.
“Ugh…!”
Standing silently in front of it, Byeok-rak let out a strange sound—somewhere between a cry and a laugh.
Slip—
He removed the “mask” he had been wearing all this time.
The irritation, anger, and fury that had been rising to his forehead vanished.
Instead, his face twisted into the same tearful expression Yoo So-eun had worn earlier.
The way his expression shifted in an instant meant the previous one had been artificially crafted.
“Why… why is everyone like this…?”
Tears of anguish soon dripped from Byeok-rak’s face.
“Just live happily… I finally made a world where we can live, so why is everyone saying they can’t go on…?”
It was frustrating.
Okhwa, Yoo So-eun—
The people he had given everything to save were now saying life was too hard to bear.
It was so frustrating it made his heart ache.
“Hic… Ugh… Agh…!”
Clutching the tree with both hands, Byeok-rak sobbed.
“I left quietly without shedding blood when they told me to go… So why can’t they live happily…? They should be fine without me…”
He recalled Yoo So-eun kneeling before him, desperately begging.
Pitiful and heartbreaking—just thinking about it made sympathy well up in him.
“…Damn it, was I too gentle just now?”
Anger at her contradictory behavior—abandoning him, then crawling back?
Schadenfreude and twisted pleasure at seeing the woman who had cast him out now reduced to begging?
He couldn’t deny those emotions existed.
Humans weren’t one-dimensional, so being caught in a whirlwind of complex feelings was natural.
But all those negative, immoral emotions—
“Sigh… Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
—melted away the moment he saw Yoo So-eun’s broken state.
His petty emotions were nothing compared to the mental collapse of someone precious to him.
“Damn it… goddamn it…”
No matter how much resentment had built up, no matter how much he hated—
The bond forged over countless years wasn’t something so easily severed.
If he could forgive Okhwa, why not Yoo So-eun?
The verbal abuse she hurled when he was exiled from the Namgoong family? He wasn’t so petty as to hold a grudge after she apologized.
If anything, he was excessively forgiving.
But that was precisely why he had to speak coldly.
“So-eun… Please… just…”
Because what Okhwa and Yoo So-eun wanted was different.
Okhwa was a friend.
Having forgiven her, they would remain friends.
But Yoo So-eun was his wife.
Actually, the title didn’t matter.
The problem was her desire for reconciliation.
Grind—
Byeok-rak’s molars clenched violently, scraping against each other.
“Just… forget about me and live happily, damn it…”
Crack—!
His grip tightened, tearing off a piece of the tree.
Staring at his clenched fist, Byeok-rak eventually released the tree and groped at his own chest.
Fumble, fumble—
As if desperately searching for something.
But his hands found nothing but fabric.
Then—
Rip—!
“Damn it, damn it, damn it! Goddamn it!!”
With a near-scream, he tore his clothes open.
Revealing his firm chest.
Fumble, fumble—
Just like how Yoo So-eun had rubbed her hands together while pleading, he frantically clawed at his own chest.
Gouging, scratching until blood welled up.
As if trying to dig out something buried deep inside.
But when his search ended, his hands held nothing.
Only a little blood and torn flesh remained.
“Fuck.”
What he had been searching for—the emotion called love—wasn’t there.
That was the problem.
Yoo So-eun craved love.
But he couldn’t give it to her.
The love he had clung to until the day he was exiled from the Namgoong family had shattered into dust.
And it wasn’t just toward Yoo So-eun.
“Fuck, why won’t it beat…? Shouldn’t it race…? She wants to reunite…!”
Women didn’t stir his heart.
An old, chronic issue.
No matter the woman, he couldn’t feel the fluttering, the excitement of romantic attraction.
It was the same with Okhwa and Jin Gayoung.
But being around them was fine.
Jin Gayoung saw him as a servant and supporter, Okhwa as a friend—
Neither saw him as a man.
“Damn it, damn it. Why now…?”
Yoo So-eun was, in a way, the last woman in the world for him.
Even if that love had been artificially maintained, she was the only one toward whom he could still muster something resembling love.
But the day he was exiled from the Namgoong family—
The moment Yoo So-eun said, “I regret marrying you so much it’s driving me insane”—
Even that last remaining emotion turned to ash and scattered.
“Ugh… nn…”
There was no lingering resentment.
After enduring hardships for over ten thousand years, three years of suffering was nothing.
Not that there was none, but forgiveness wasn’t difficult for Byeok-rak.
His inability to love Yoo So-eun was simply a reality.
Affection, pity, sympathy—none of those could be called romantic love.
“…No, So-eun can do it.”
That was why he couldn’t grant her request.
No matter what he did, he couldn’t love her.
He wanted to love her, but he couldn’t.
He knew his own mental state best.
Jin Gayoung’s coma was just an excuse.
If reconciliation were truly possible, he could have called them to his side.
Namgoong Soo-ah and Jin Gayoung were close in age—they might even become good friends.
The problem was his ex-wife, Yoo So-eun.
“I just… need time.”
If he accepted her, it would be good.
No, it would be good for him. Despite the ups and downs, he could finally live with the family he had longed for.
Namgoong Soo-ah went without saying.
“Who am I to act so high and mighty? She’s just overwhelmed right now.”
But Yoo So-eun wouldn’t be happy forever.
At first, she would be overjoyed.
Namgoong Soo-ah’s condition would improve, and with nothing else to do, he would stay by her side all day.
A newlywed-like atmosphere would form, and peace would settle over the household.
But as time passed and their life together continued—
She would gradually realize.
That he didn’t see her as a woman.
No, that he couldn’t.
He had no confidence.
No confidence that he could love Yoo So-eun.
“Hah, hah… Fuck, fuck! Goddamn it!!”
She would deny it.
“Aren’t you saying you love me?”
“Aren’t you kissing me, holding me?”
“When night falls, aren’t we sharing a bed without hesitation?”
She would convince herself, turning a blind eye to the creeping truth.
“Please… forget me… and live on…”
But eventually, she would realize.
No matter what he did, he couldn’t give her the love she wanted.
And when that happened, she would collapse far worse than now.
Break. Shatter.
That couldn’t happen.
“I’m the only one who needs to break.”
Yes, he was enough.
He had pushed himself to the brink for her sake—he couldn’t bear to watch her crumble too.
That was why.
Why he had spoken so coldly, leaving her no room for hope.
Though he didn’t know that Yoo So-eun wasn’t the type to let love fade so easily.
“…I’ll fix it.”
Byeok-rak began searching for the root cause of Yoo So-eun’s breakdown.
There were multiple reasons.
His absence… was unavoidable, so he could only hope she would forget him and move on.
‘Soo-ah’s deterioration and her precarious position in the family.’
Soo-ah’s gradual collapse was also due to his absence.
‘It’s fine to meet Soo-ah.’
Fortunately, Soo-ah only wanted a father from him.
Similar to how Jin Gayoung craved an uncle.
So if he became her father, she would naturally recover.
Second… her standing in the family.
This was a slightly more complicated issue.
The cause was singular.
‘Namgoong Bin.’
Yoo So-eun had become an outcast in the family because Namgoong Bin, now the family head, held all the power.
Yoo So-eun wasn’t incompetent.
During the war, when he was active as the Sword Saint and Namgoong Bin as the Martial Alliance’s strategist, she had single-handedly managed the Namgoong household as its matriarch—and that was no empty title.
But Namgoong Bin, the Alliance’s strategist, was beyond her ability to handle.
Ultimately, if Namgoong Bin disappeared, Yoo So-eun could reclaim her authority in the Namgoong family on her own.
“I’ll have to… deal with Namgoong Bin.”
Oddly enough, he could never bring himself to call Namgoong Bin “little brother.”
“So So-eun… can live well without me.”
Boundless pity and sympathy seeped into his words, rising from the depths of his throat.
Though only the ashes of love remained in his heart, acting for others’ sake was second nature to Byeok-rak.
“So she can stand on her own… Pfft!”
Suddenly, he found himself ridiculous.
But he quickly brushed it off.
“Pfft, pfft—Bahaha!”
Yet self-deprecating laughter kept bubbling up.
Even if love had turned to ashes, the part of him that still cared for his wife was both pathetic and, in a way, admirable.
But when he remembered his own downfall, the smile vanished.
“…Sigh.”
The world wasn’t a novel.
Righteousness prevailing, good deeds rewarded—those were just stories sold in marketplaces.
A broken family regaining happiness after weathering countless storms only happened because someone had sacrificed and endured.
Byeok-rak intended to be that someone.
For his family’s happiness, he would sacrifice again.
“Haha…”
Still, he felt somewhat happy.
After all, for whatever reason, his wife had come back for him.
He had felt loved again—something he had only felt with Jin Gayoung.
Perhaps someday, if she ever truly forgot him—
They could carefully meet again as friends. He clung to that humble hope.
Slip—
Byeok-rak’s gaze swept around.
Turning on his heel, he began walking back toward the Taiyuan Jin Family’s quarters.
Then, at some point, his steps halted.
He had reached the vicinity of the Mount Hua Sect’s quarters.
“Come in.”
“Y-Yes! I’m coming in!”
The solemn voice of Mount Hua’s sect leader, Gozon Dokgo Gupae, and the frightened voice of Baihua, the Flower of Mount Hua.
Quietly, stealthily—
Byeok-rak pressed his ear to the wall and began eavesdropping on their conversation.
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