One of the two people that appeared before me was a face I recognized well.
Purple hair, eyes that looked fierce enough to make you think she was a delinquent, clothes that could suck in attention even when wrapped up, and a black veil covering her jaw.
It was a look that anyone who played the original game wouldn’t miss.
‘Why is Lady Tang of the Sichuan Tang Family here?’
Lady Tang.
The poison user of the Sichuan Tang Family. A character that appeared as an early antagonist in the original story. The identity of the person standing before me.
‘She should be in Sichuan Province or Shaanxi Province, not Hubei Province.’
Thinking about the original story, she should be in Sichuan Province, where the Sichuan Tang Family is, or in Shaanxi Province, where the Volcano Sect is.
Why is she here?
“Who said you could enter this garden without permission?”
Seong Se-hwi, who had been guiding us, hardened his expression the moment he spotted Lady Tang and scolded her.
“It’s my choice. Why?”
Lady Tang replied defiantly, facing Seong Se-hwi.
Do they know each other?
“This isn’t a place you have permission to enter.”
“Just like you didn’t receive permission to be the head of the family?”
“You little brat!”
“Master! I’ll take the young lady away.”
As the tension between the two rose, a middle-aged man standing nearby blocked their path.
This atmosphere is really intense.
I observed Lady Tang closely. Though her jaw was covered by the veil, I could tell at a glance that she was a stunning beauty.
In the original, she wore a mask covering her jaw, but here it’s a veil?
‘Still, she’s a witch.’
Using the enhanced vision from the Small Wheel Mental Image Technique, I looked at her jaw covered by the veil and noticed her skin tone was different.
In the original, her skin got so crushed that she had to wear a mask, but it seems like it hasn’t gotten to that point yet.
“Hey, what are you looking at?”
Did she notice my gaze? Lady Tang asked me in an annoyed tone.
“Ah! I was momentarily captivated by your rare beauty. I apologize if it made you uncomfortable.”
“Stop bullshitting.”
Lady Tang cursed, clearly knowing where I was looking.
“Lady Tang! How dare you be rude to my guest?”
“Guest? Are you really bringing a black-haired barbarian as a guest? You’re reaching new lows!”
“That brat!”
“Master! I’ll take the young lady away now! It’s almost time for her medicine! Let’s go!”
“Ah! I suddenly feel fine! I’m not going! Ah! Don’t pull me!”
The middle-aged man forcibly pulled Lady Tang away, dragging her out of sight.
“I apologize for my sister’s rudeness.”
Once Lady Tang vanished, Seong Se-hwi turned to us, apologizing on her behalf.
“So, she’s your sister?”
“She’s a girl my stepmother from the Sa-gal family brought in. She doesn’t even know who her father is. I took care of her in a semi-house-arrest state for fear she would bring disgrace to the family, but now she’s wandering around without any sense of her place.”
Seong Se-hwi seemed still angry about the vanished Lady Tang.
So Lady Tang is the child born before Seong Se-hwi’s stepmother married the previous head of the Seong Family?
‘I know who her father is.’
In this world, there’s only one family that comes to mind when thinking of purple hair.
“I’ll show you to your accommodation.”
Seong Se-hwi seemed to have calmed down and tried to lead us again.
I briefly glanced at the spot where Lady Tang had disappeared before turning my head.
‘It won’t be good to get involved.’
If she were a heroine, it’d be different, but I don’t want to get entangled with an antagonist.
It’s enough trouble to face death by acknowledging an antagonist while drunk once.
I followed Seong Se-hwi with So-hee.
—————
The accommodation we were shown to was a building specially arranged in the garden.
A small garden in front and a living room inside.
The garden itself didn’t seem to have been made just for this building; it appeared to be connected to several other buildings, but it was organized in a refined and beautiful manner.
The inside of the building was luxurious and spacious enough to feel like a hotel VIP room.
“The meals will be brought to your room when the time comes. Please stay here for a while and attend the banquet that will be held a few days later. Now, I’ll take my leave.”
After bowing to me, Seong Se-hwi left.
‘If I touch this wrong, I’ll be forced to work in a place like an underground labor camp for life.’
Surrounded by various decorations, I wondered if it was okay to stay in such a room.
I looked around the room and then turned to So-hee.
“So-hee, is something wrong?”
So-hee was looking at me instead of staring at the room.
She had a look that suggested something was bothering her.
“Act like a husband.”
“Act like a husband?”
“When a wife is next to him, a husband wouldn’t act like that.”
Did I act awkwardly? What is she talking about?
“Ah! You mean when I met that girl, Lady Tang, earlier?”
“……. Yes.”
“I was concentrating because her face looked a bit strange under the veil, but I didn’t expect you to notice. I mumbled something, but you’re right; a husband with a wife wouldn’t act like that.”
“Was it because her face looked strange?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I’ll have to be careful about those things if I want to act as a couple. I’ll pay more attention in the future.”
“Okay.”
So-hee nodded and her expression returned to normal.
Truly, complimenting the appearance of a woman I met for the first time while next to my wife could be seen as a misstep. Good job correcting me, So-hee. I need to be careful in the future.
“By the way, So-hee, you made a good choice trusting your brother, right?”
“Yeah. It must have been tough, but good job.”
So-hee smiled softly as if asking when she had looked displeased and praised me.
“To be a reliable brother for So-hee, this much is basic.”
I placed my hands on my hips and stood as if I were a superhero, striking an exaggerated pose.
“……. You’re still reliable.”
“Then I have to be more reliable.”
So I can still leave it to you.
“……. Okay.”
—-
A big problem has arisen.
“So-hee, how should we sleep?”
After unpacking my things and finishing dinner, I washed up and realized the surroundings had grown dark.
I wanted to go to bed early to shake off the fatigue accumulated from traveling, but a big problem had arisen.
‘I didn’t expect there to be only one bed.’
Don’t they know that when two people sleep, a twin bed is the standard?
“Let’s sleep together.”
“No way. So-hee, I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“You’ll be tired. Just lie down.”
So-hee, as if refusing to allow any argument, grabbed the back of my neck and forced me down onto the bed, then lay down beside me.
Is she thoughtless? Or is she just deeply considerate?
“So-hee.”
I lay on the bed and looked at So-hee.
“Yeah?”
So-hee lifted her chin slightly to meet my gaze. Because of that, I could see her slight cleavage from her light sleepwear, meant for bed.
Calm down. Kang Yoon-ho.
“Do I not need to use the Binding Technique?”
It goes without saying, but I had brought the Binding Technique with me when we left Chilgok County.
“I’m fine these days.”
“Is that so?”
After the Cheon Sal-pa incident, I hadn’t used the Binding Technique to tie myself down while sleeping. So it shouldn’t matter much now.
“Yoon-ho.”
Is it because we’re lying on the same bed? Her voice calling my name felt unusually soft.
“Yes?”
“Thank you. For everything.”
So-hee offered her thanks with a slightly flushed face. Somehow, the atmosphere feels like a couple’s intimate conversation.
This situation is way too unreal.
Well, being in the same bed with this beauty is already unreal enough.
However, the bed is quite large, yet aren’t we too close together?
Just leaning a little forward feels like our eyebrows would touch. If I lean just a bit more, our lips…
Calm down. Kang Yoon-ho.
It’s the Heavenly Killing Star. Touching is an instant death sentence.
I’m still in my teens. For a moment, I glanced at her cleavage.
……. Her body doesn’t seem like a teenager’s, though.
Calm it down. Kang Yoon-ho. Especially the lower half.
She’s my sister. Who would mess with his sister? So-hee is a sophomore in high school by Korean age. Calm down.
Suddenly, her sweet fragrance wafted over, as if she had just washed. It wasn’t like she had applied perfume, yet the natural scent of her body felt oddly nostalgic.
‘It’s like the smell of tteok, twigim, and sundae, huh?’
“So-hee, you snacked while waiting at the inn.”
I said to her in a lowered voice.
“Uh, how did you know?”
So-hee’s voice trembled uncharacteristically.
“I can smell the food you like.”
The delicate scent only discernible from close proximity wafted from her as a typical high school girl only would.
“……. I had a little.”
So-hee avoided my gaze as if she was embarrassed to have been caught.
“Your brother was desperately trying to act while thinking of So-hee, and you were just snacking. Haha. You rascal.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize. Haha. It’s just funny.”
Yeah. She’s just a kid at that age.
A harsh fate has weighed down on her, making her a bit more mature than other girls.
I caressed So-hee’s cheek, whose expression was one of confusion, then covered us with the blanket.
‘Let’s sleep.’
Since she looks like a kid instead of a woman, all temptation just vanished.
I fell asleep imagining So-hee eating some delicious-looking street food at the inn.
*
In the late night,
The Heavenly Killing Star carefully rose, trying not to wake Yoon-ho who was sleeping soundly.
The date the client requested for the assassination of the head of the family is a few days after the birthday celebration.
Having successfully hidden in the back house, it wouldn’t be too difficult to carry out the assassination, but she needed to check where the head of the family was staying.
So-hee packed her clothes to go on reconnaissance and left the inn.
“Haah. Haah.”
After completing the reconnaissance, the Heavenly Killing Star returned to the garden in front of the building, breathing heavily.
‘Why? Why?’
The Heavenly Killing Star clutched her shocked heart, trying to calm herself.
She hadn’t been discovered by anyone during the reconnaissance. She had confirmed where the head of the family was staying.
The reason she was shocked was due to another problem.
‘The radius of my killing intent is shrinking rapidly.’
The head of the family was staying on the opposite side of the inn.
There was distance because the head of the family was so large, but it had originally been within the radius where her killing intent normally disappeared.
While searching around without thinking about the matter of killing intent, an unwelcome visitor popped their head up again.
The Heavenly Killing Star hurriedly fled the scene and returned to the inn.
‘Even after killing the bandits, my killing intent didn’t decrease.’
What she did when she swiftly killed the bandits before Yoon-ho stopped her was partly in hopes that her inner killing intent might be satisfied by this murder.
Unfortunately, the killing intent that had just surged up was the same she had felt while in Chilgok County.
The Heavenly Killing Star let out a small sigh, bowing her head slightly.
‘Do I have to lose my rationality and kill to be satisfied?’
Seo So-hee thought of the situations where she had lost her rationality to the Heavenly Killing Star before returning to her senses.
If she lost her rationality to the Heavenly Killing Star and felt satisfaction from indiscriminate killing, she would barely manage to hold on to her sanity, suppressing the killing intent.
Should she keep repeating this?
‘There’s no guarantee I’ll come back to my senses.’
The more she lost her rationality, the harder it became to return to her original self.
She had sought out Cheon Gi-ja knowing that the next time she lost rationality to her killing intent, she might never make it back.
‘Wasn’t my precious person enough?’
Her precious person, the one of a kind in the world. She had found her precious person, yet the radius of her killing intent was shrinking.
Was it foolish to think she could stand against the heavens with just this one precious person?
‘If it keeps going like this, I’ll end up killing Yoon-ho.’
What if this time, the assassination resulted in her killing intent disappearing? But what if it doesn’t?
There was a growing possibility that the area of her killing intent would shrink further, making it impossible to eliminate it even with a precious person.
If that day were to come, she would first kill the most precious person beside her.
‘I don’t want that.’
So-hee covered her face with her palm.
Yoon-ho is her precious person.
She wants to live as his bodyguard by his side.
When she’s next to him, her killing intent disappears.
When she’s by his side, one day, she might recover her memories of the past.
When she’s next to him, she can live as Cheon So-hee, not the Heavenly Killing Star.
She wants to be by his side.
But being by his side might lead her to doom.
Despair slowly crept over the Heavenly Killing Star.
“So-hee? You’re here.”
In front of her, Yoon-ho opened the door and appeared.
“Yoon-ho?”
“Can’t sleep? You’re not awake because of your brother’s sleep habits, right?”
With Yoon-ho’s gentle voice, her anxious heart began to stir.
“Not, really.”
So-hee squeezed her voice, trying to sound nonchalant.
“So-hee, have you been crying?”
He stepped closer and gently grasped her face with his fingers, examining her expression.
The look on Yoon-ho’s face showed genuine concern.
“Yoon-ho……”
Yes. This man always approaches her heart boldly.
“So-hee, if you have any worries, can’t you talk to your brother?”
So-hee pressed her lips tightly together, trying to calm the sadness that was trying to bubble up.
So-hee looked at her precious person who always thought about her.
Always. She can’t keep it a secret.
She could trust him.
Now Yoon-ho needs to know, too.
“Yoon-ho, do you know about the Heavenly Killing Star?”
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