“What are you thinking about that’s making you pout your lips like a little duckling?”
Ryeon, startled, quickly covered her mouth with both hands.
Internally, however, she smiled a little. It seemed that even to him, his granddaughter looked cute.
“Hmph. Would you like to come closer?”
Danmok Cheongi spoke the words as if he were assigning a difficult task.
To Ryeon, however, this was actually welcome news. Though she tilted her head in feigned confusion, she didn’t hesitate to stride toward him.
Danmok Cheongi, seated in his grand chair, seemed slightly flustered, perhaps not expecting her to approach so readily despite his invitation.
“Since… since you have come to greet me with such sincerity, I cannot send you away empty-handed.”
Saying this, Danmok Cheongi untied a jade ornament from his waist and handed it to the Head Steward standing beside him.
The Head Steward’s eyes went wide upon recognizing the ornament, but he quickly composed himself, respectfully accepting the jade piece before offering it to Ryeon.
“Thank you, Grandfather!”
Perhaps because a man of Danmok Cheongi’s caliber had kept it by his side for a long time, the sleek, high-quality jade ornament seemed to emit a refreshing energy.
Ryeon did not decline the Head Steward’s offer and quickly tied it to her waist.
At that moment…
A strange sensation flashed through her mind, like reaching her hand into an empty basket. Simultaneously, text appeared above the jade ornament.
[Yangji Jade handled by a First-Rate Master for a long time: Spiritual Energy Capacity 14]
As soon as the thought crossed her mind, the text shimmered and changed.
[Would you like to infuse Spiritual Energy?]
[Tip: Good stones possess Spiritual Energy. The higher the quality of the stone, the more Spiritual Energy it can store.]
[Spiritual Energy: 49/100 (14▼)]
Simultaneously, she felt Spiritual Energy draining from her fingertips, and the red warning indicator in the ‘Spiritual Energy’ section vanished in an instant.
Thanks to that, her body felt significantly lighter.
This was a fact she was learning for the first time. Ryeon looked down at the jade ornament Danmok Cheongi had given her once more.
Nor had she ever been this close to her grandfather.
Suddenly, this jade seemed to sparkle more beautifully than a diamond.
And naturally, Danmok Cheongi, who had given her this ornament, seemed to radiate a halo of light.
Seeing Ryeon’s face beam so brightly as she looked at the jade, Danmok Cheongi actually became a bit flustered.
“Kuh, khem. Do… do you like it?”
“Yes! Grandfather! I love it! I really… really love it! Thank you so much. Really, so much…”
Ryeon was so filled with joy that she ended up half-sobbing.
She had been racking her brain on how to get this damn Spiritual Energy below 50, and to think it could be solved this instantly!
“I-If you like it, you like it! Why are you crying and making a fuss! To think the Eldest Grandchild of the Clan is this frivolous! Can you not stop at once?”
“N-No! I’m not crying!”
Danmok Cheongi cleared his throat as he watched his teary-eyed granddaughter.
“That is enough, then. Is there anything else you need?”
“No, Father. You have already given Ryeon medicine…”
Wi Jicheong smiled gently and tried to decline, but the spark in Ryeon’s mind was faster.
Wasn’t there something urgent right now?
“Ah! Grandfather! I have something!”
“Hmph. What is it? The Inner Hall Master should stay still. If one is the Eldest Grandchild of the Clan, one should naturally have the spirit to speak their desires boldly.”
It seemed Ryeon’s shouting appeared more confident than rude to him.
Although Wi Jicheong wore a troubled expression, she couldn’t scold Ryeon.
“Grandfather, I want to learn martial arts!”
However, the moment she shouted those words, a chilly wind seemed to blow past her.
No one answered.
She thought they would be proud if the Eldest Grandchild wanted to learn martial arts as soon as she opened her eyes.
“…You want to learn martial arts?”
“Yes, I’m already eight years old, but I still don’t know anything…”
While Danmok Cheongi’s lips merely twitched, Wi Jicheong pulled Ryeon close.
“Ryeon, how about learning martial arts after you become a little healthier?”
“Huh? But I’m now…”
Her physical condition did deteriorate slightly when Spiritual Energy accumulated, but aside from that, hadn’t she completely recovered?
But Ryeon only mumbled, her voice trailing off. Wi Jicheong’s eyes were brimming with tears.
“M-Mother. Why… please don’t cry…”
“No, I’m not crying. I’m not. It’s just that Ryeon is…”
With her mother on the verge of tears and her grandfather unable to say a word, how could she bring up martial arts any further?
Since their daughter had practically been a living corpse before waking up, it seemed they were anxious about her every step. Ryeon came to that conclusion.
“T-Then, I’ll learn martial arts a bit later!”
“Yes, let’s do that. Our Ryeon is a good girl.”
“…When the time comes, I will teach you myself. So, neither Ryeon nor the Inner Hall Master should be impatient. Focus only on recuperating.”
“Yes, Grand Patriarch.”
Wi Jicheong quickly bowed and wrapped her arms around Ryeon.
Seeing this, Danmok Cheongi waved his hand. It was a dismissal. However, there was no sharpness in the gesture.
*
“The child… walks quite well.”
“Physician Heo said that while her body hasn’t fully hardened yet and her energy is weak, requiring caution, there are no other abnormalities. In fact, he was surprised by how remarkably bright she is.”
Head Steward Kang Rip quickly followed up.
“The Inner Hall Master has struggled so much over the past seven, nearly eight years.”
Kang Rip choked up slightly as he spoke.
The reason they could endure this far with a child who wouldn’t turn when called by name and wouldn’t cry when in pain was thanks to the efforts of her mother, Wi Jicheong.
A woman who had been so frail she lived on medicine before giving birth to Danmok Ryeon had, despite everyone trying to dissuade her, given birth to the child. Afterward, she became healthy enough to surprise the physicians and poured everything into caring for the child.
“Listening to her speak, she certainly doesn’t seem like a fool.”
“Oh my, what are you saying? I told you even Physician Heo was surprised by her intelligence.”
“Hmph. It was commendable that she spoke clearly without blinking an eye even after seeing my face.”
Twenty-five years ago, while fighting against the Hyulla Valley, the poison he was drenched in caused wounds that no medicine could heal, leaving behind massive scars.
Danmok Cheongi already had a fierce impression before that, but after acquiring the scars, few dared to look him straight in the eye.
“Isn’t that so?”
“But Hyeonseong was like that too.”
“No, Family Head…”
“I said Grand Patriarch!”
Head Steward Kang Rip stared blankly at Danmok Cheongi, who was comparing his granddaughter—who had woken up just a few months ago—to his son, who was once renowned as a genius of the ages but was now dead and gone. Kang Rip quickly lowered his eyes. Danmok Cheongi’s gaze had turned ferocious.
“If speaking well and walking well makes one bright, then where in Hangzhou would you find a child who isn’t bright?”
“That is true, but…”
Head Steward Kang Rip trailed off.
Still, Danmok Cheongi’s expression these days was different enough to be called the difference between heaven and earth compared to before. He, too, was overjoyed that his granddaughter had awakened. After all, was she not his own flesh and blood?
“As for Ryeon’s martial arts… I will decide based on the child’s condition in the future. Ensure everyone keeps their mouths shut so no one brings up martial arts to her first.”
“Yes!”
Kang Rip bowed as he answered. Danmok Cheongi’s gaze turned toward the window. It was the direction his granddaughter and daughter-in-law had walked.
Mr. Jeon, a servant belonging to the Danmok Clan’s kitchen, had not been with the clan for long. Since there weren’t many workers, he was responsible for various miscellaneous tasks in the kitchen.
His job was to check and organize the ingredients that arrived every dawn, sweep and wipe the inside and outside of the kitchen, and harvest fresh eggs every day from the small chicken coop set up in the backyard.
However, there was a flame that Mr. Jeon had been nurturing in his heart for a long time. Though he was currently just a kitchen hand in a declining clan, his grand dream was to become the best chef in Zhejiang Province.
“Is mixing it like this okay?”
It was just before noon.
A small girl dressed in white appeared in front of the chicken coop he tended. Mr. Jeon recognized her immediately.
White clothes, neatly finished down to the sleeves, were permitted only for the blood relatives of the Danmok Clan. In the past, it would have been white silk with silver embroidery, and though it was much simpler now, such white clothes were rare to see regardless.
Leaving the terrified Mr. Jeon aside, this small Young Lady spoke boldly.
— When do you feed the chickens?
In other words, she had come all this way because she wanted to help feed the chickens.
For Mr. Jeon, as he mixed chicken feed alongside the Clan’s Eldest Grandchild, it was only natural for him to feel that his future was looking bleak.
It seemed the nanny serving this Eldest Grandchild felt much the same way.
