Camellia 73

Tang Yujae lost consciousness without anyone noticing.

It had been so long since he last slept like this that he couldn’t remember the last time. He was completely immersed in rest. His bride’s body felt unbelievably lovely and warm. It made him want to covet the skin beneath the cumbersome clothing.

Seolyeong stared at the peacefully snoring husband, who was clinging to him like a bamboo pillow, with a look that said he had a lot to say.

“Looking all normal…”

Strangely, his usual vicious side seemed a little dulled when he was asleep. Seolyeong thoroughly scanned the man’s face, so close to his own.

It really did feel familiar.

“Don’t tell me… have we met in the martial world before?”

Seolyeong tried to recall whether he had ever run into the sect leader before being confined to the Murong household under the Alliance Leader’s order. Back when he could freely run about the green mountains and clear streams spread all across Jungwon.

But if he had ever met a man this handsome, he would have recognized him right away upon reunion.

“What on earth is going on.”

Muttering to himself, Seolyeong realized it was already the middle of the night. Silvery moonlight poured in through the wide-open window of Yeohwa Hall. His arm, pinned beneath the sect leader’s head, had long since gone numb. Seolyeong, who had spent the whole night wide awake, finally mustered the courage to wake him.

“It’s about time you got up, husband. This is my room. Go sleep in Gwanju Hall.”

Even though a husband could come and go freely in his wife’s quarters, Seolyeong pretended not to know that.

“Tormenting me all day wasn’t enough? Now you plan to keep pestering me in bed too?”

“……”

“You’re going to regret it again, you know?”

But for some reason, his tone was cheerful. The thought that he could scold the rotten sect leader freely for once made something spark back to life in him.

Seolyeong calmed his breath and finally started to say what he’d been holding in.

“…You know, husband. I’m only saying this because you seem to be asleep. I really believed you were only pretending to be a scumbag to protect the Peng girls, or maybe putting on airs to look like an intimidating husband. If it’s the former, I’d admire your character, but if it’s the latter… well, I might want to throw rocks at you. Keep acting like that, and someday I might hurl one at your precious head.”

Since there was no reply, he found it easier to keep going. Seolyeong softly brushed over the sect leader’s closed eyes with his hand.

“My master used to say you could read a man’s heart by looking closely into his eyes. From what I see, you’re just a kid desperate to act like a bad guy. You’re always asking me with your eyes, aren’t you? Something like… ‘I’m the worst man in your life, aren’t I?’”

All those years teaching children hadn’t gone to waste. With uncanny precision, Seolyeong read him like a book and gently traced the lines of his face.

“Why are you so desperate to be a monster?”

“……”

“Why do you want to hurt me?”

“……”

“Do you want me to hate you?”

Seolyeong had always had a high tolerance for trauma. Whether physical or emotional, nothing ever seemed to faze him for long. If anything, he used pain as fuel to grow.

He was a blood fiend who fought not to hate people. A slight smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

“Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. There are far too many people I’d have to hate first before I even get to you. I can’t be bothered with such trivial things.”

With a self-assured tone, he carefully tried to slide his arm out from under him. He meant to replace it with a soft pillow. But just as he reached for it, the sect leader grabbed his wrist. Or rather, the entity dormant within the sect leader moved.

Seolyeong’s heart sank.

“You…”

A voice, low and locked by sleep, slipped out. As the eyelids lifted slowly, eyes the color of a sunset appeared. Smooth and radiant like jewels. Crimson-tinted golden eyes locked onto Seolyeong.

“You are worthy of Wonsi Cheonjon’s love.”

The voice was teasing. A mischievous grin stretched across his face, something the real Cheonsin would never show.

An abnormal pressure crushed down on Seolyeong’s lungs. As he froze in panic, Cheonsin pushed Seolyeong onto his back with a light shove.

But the shock didn’t come from his changed eye color alone.

The small mark near his eye had suddenly expanded, transforming into a large tattoo.

An imugi without its yeouiju.

“When you’re a god, it’s inevitable that you end up favoring someone.”

The transcendent being that had borrowed the vessel of Tang Yujae leaned in curiously.

“How does it feel to be loved by the Primeval God? Does the world look endlessly beautiful? There was once someone who had all my love. But he couldn’t stand it and kept running away. He was the one who begged for my love first.”

“W-who… who are you…?”

Through the crushing weight, Seolyeong barely managed to ask.

The imugi reached out and cupped his cheek. His touch was cold.

“I’ve taken this man’s body, the one you claim you don’t want to hate. I’ll become a god of the heavens. I’m the one who gave him the name Cheonsin. Doesn’t that sound fitting for a vessel worthy of holding a god?”

Heavenly God. A supreme master who trampled over human accomplishment with overwhelming force. Was the man Seolyeong knew truly not human?

He finally understood why Yujae’s body had been breaking down day by day.

The Yin energy that now filled the room was so thick, even he couldn’t breathe. His lips turned violet. His limbs spasmed. His entire body felt like it was freezing.

The imugi watched him with amusement until he reached the brink of suffocation. Then he swept back his hair, revealing the half of his face covered by the imugi tattoo, and the scale-like ridges growing along his forehead. His golden eyes glinted like a beast’s.

“I’ll be ascending soon. I need regular sunlight now. From now on, you’ll be seeing me instead of your husband every dawn when the full moon sets. So please say at least a few words of greetings?”

The tone of his request clashed with his divine appearance. But the imugi, ever fond of humans, treated Seolyeong kindly as well. Technically, a blood fiend wasn’t human, but the face was close enough.

Seolyeong let out a soundless scream when Cheonsin flung off his clothes and leapt out the window stark naked.

‘What the hell!’

His legs buckled, but he forced himself upright.

He didn’t care if the sect leader, or whatever had taken his form, ran around naked outside. But the Ice Palace warriors were here now.

‘How could he show that to grown women?!’

Had he at least worn underclothes, maybe. But he had nothing on. Acting on the instinct of a protective older brother, Seolyeong chased after him like his life depended on it.

After frantically searching through Mount Yeonhu, he finally reached the cliff where Cheonsin stood.

Breath ragged, Seolyeong stared at his upright back.

A crack in the clouds let sunlight shine through onto the dry ground. Cheonsin raised his heels and stretched his arms wide, as if to embrace the light. Seolyeong’s knees gave out. He collapsed onto the ground.

“No way…”

His lips trembled.

The sunlight, driving back the full moon’s energy, wrapped around Cheonsin. The pure Yang energy was rapidly absorbed, as if he had gulped down Yangcheonju.

As the radiant light faded, only a boy remained, curled up in the snow. His limp small body lay face-down.

Face twisted in disbelief, Seolyeong crawled toward him.

He wanted to believe that cold dread running down his spine was just a delusion, but it wasn’t.

“Why are you… why are you here, my disciple…”

The scrawny boy Seolyeong had once longed to warm in his arms.

Yujae.

That boy now stood before him, his body flushed with heat from the Yang energy.