Ryeon opened her eyes in a daze. From somewhere beside her, the sound of wailing burst out before quieting down again, as if the person had startled themselves.
“My baby! My baby, have you come to your senses?”
“Mother…….”
Her body swayed, and Ryeon realized she had been pulled into her mother’s embrace.
Her mother, Wi Jicheong, had a face covered in tears.
The physician rushed over and declared that Ryeon’s condition was very good now that she was awake, but Wi Jicheong couldn’t let go of Ryeon’s hand.
It was only after Danmok Cheongi and Danmok Hyeonu had visited, and Danmok Bi, who had fallen asleep clinging to the foot of the bed, was handed over to Nanny Jang, that Ryeon understood what had happened.
She had been happy to make Cheongryeonsu with great effort since dawn, but while eating breakfast that day, she had suddenly fainted. For three days, her fever had spiked and plummeted repeatedly.
Ryeon knew why she had passed out.
[Help: Maintain Spiritual Energy at 10 or higher.]
She had been so happy thinking she could use up all her Spiritual Energy to make Cheongryeonsu, only to end up in this state!
Still, it wasn’t as painful as when she had first regained her senses last year.
While Ryeon was inwardly puzzled and sweeping her hand over her chest, the physician looked at Wi Jicheong and smiled benevolently.
“It is largely thanks to the bright child who managed to find the Blackstone Herb in this season. Indeed, if you perform good deeds with a generous heart, it comes back to you.”
Since they had taken in a homeless orphan boy and raised him like a brother and friend to their children, it certainly could be called a good deed.
“Blackstone…… Herb?”
Wi Jicheong nodded with tear-filled eyes and repeatedly stroked Ryeon’s cheek.
“When one suddenly loses a lot of blood or their energy declines, one must replenish their vitality. However, in a weakened state, it must not be excessively lacking nor overflowing.”
The physician continued while examining Ryeon’s condition with his eyes.
“The Blackstone Herb supplements vitality, but it has the property of letting the excess flow away rather than filling it to the brim, making it perfect for such cases. However, it is a medicinal herb that barely grows between late winter and early spring, so it was difficult to obtain.”
“Hwaryun found it and brought it back. I am so grateful…….”
Ryeon’s eyes widened, then she realized Hwaryun was not visible nearby.
Noticing who Ryeon was looking for, the physician smiled gently.
“He must have climbed the mountain all day in the chilly autumn weather; he is currently bedridden with body aches. Now that the Young Lady has risen, I shall go check on that child as well.”
Ryeon shot up, intending to follow the physician, but stumbled from dizziness. The Nanny and Wi Jicheong rushed to catch her in surprise.
Hwaryun lay on the bed, suffering from an unpleasant fever and aching muscles, but he did not miss the faint voices coming from outside.
─ They said they gave the Young Lady a decoction made from that herb. She only drank half of it, so I wonder if she’ll be alright.
That conversation soon changed to another topic.
─ They say she opened her eyes today. She’s safe!
Hwaryun thought to himself.
─ The physician is going to see him now. The Young Lady is coming too…….
Hwaryun tried to rub his fever-hot eyes, but another hand touched him first.
It was a small, cool hand, free of fever. The owner of the hand muttered.
“You fool…….”
Hwaryun thought, but his throat was so scratchy that the words didn’t come out.
Soon, a lukewarm liquid seeped into his mouth. The bitter taste snapped Hwaryun to his senses, and he tried to spit it out, but the owner of the hand coaxed and soothed him.
“It’s medicinal decoction. You have to drink it all to be a good boy, right?”
Hwaryun grumbled inwardly but had no choice but to swallow the medicine being fed to him.
Gulping it down, he opened his eyes slightly and saw the figure of a small girl in the dim light.
Above her pitch-black eyes, something sparkling like stars in the night sky came into view. He slowly saw the girl’s face, which had become half the size he remembered.
“Ryun-a! Are you awake?”
When he nodded slowly, the girl adjusted his blanket, carefully wiped his sweat-soaked forehead, and applied ointment to his hands, which were covered in small scratches.
“Who goes wandering around the mountains like that to find herbs that grow in late winter?”
Hwaryun quietly stared at the grumbling girl’s face before burrowing into the blanket.
“I know. I shouldn’t have just given it to the drapery shop to get ice. If I knew this would happen, I would have saved some. You don’t know how much I suffered trying to find the Blackstone Herb when there wasn’t any left.”
When he mentioned the events of a few months ago and grumbled with a cracked voice, the girl’s starry eyes shimmered with moisture. Hwaryun briefly regretted saying anything unnecessary.
Then, he closed his eyes for a moment, and when he came to his senses again, he realized night had fallen. It seemed he had fallen asleep when he only meant to blink.
Hwaryun touched his forehead while lying in bed and smiled bitterly.
A towel, slightly warmed by his body temperature, was in his hand. Ryeon had left it there. Thinking that the hand that had been there was now gone made his heart feel empty for some reason.
Hwaryun found it hard to believe he was thinking such things, so he clicked his tongue and sat up. That was when it happened.
“Oh? Ryun-a! Are you awake?”
Hwaryun, who was halfway up, widened his eyes in surprise. A small girl, with a towel draped over her arm and holding a small basin in both hands, strode toward his bed.
“……Sister?”
“Thirsty, right? Let’s drink this.”
The girl wiped Hwaryun’s forehead with a wet towel, then tilted a water kettle to offer him lukewarm water.
“Even if you feel hot from the fever, they say you shouldn’t just gulp down cold water.”
“……Why is Sister still here……?”
“What do you mean, why? Because you’re sick.”
The girl chattered as she held the cup to his lips, asked someone outside to bring gruel, examined his scratched knees, and tucked the blanket around him again.
“Why here…….”
“I told you just a moment ago. Because you’re sick, so I have to take care of you.”
“Me……?”
“Then who else would I take care of?”
Pouting her lips like a duck was a habit the girl showed when she was concentrating. So, what was she concentrating on now?
The wet towel, held in a small hand as thin as a winter branch, brushed past his eyes.
“If you do this, I have no choice but to…….”
“No choice but to?”
Hwaryun trailed off and burrowed back into the blanket.
“Ryun-a? Even if you’re sleepy, let’s eat the gruel before sleeping. That’s how you get better.”
“Ughhh.”
“Ryun-a, be a good boy, hmm?”
“Ugggh.”
“Oh, what a good boy.”
Hwaryun squirmed for a bit, but eventually, unable to withstand Ryeon’s coaxing, he sat up.
“I…… I’ll eat it, so stop that.”
“No, your arms are still trembling and your hands have too many scratches.”
“Sister isn’t fully recovered either.”
“I’m all better. I slept a lot too. Hurry up, say ‘ah’.”
“I’m really embarrassed…….”
“What’s embarrassing about being sick?”
“Really…….”
“Here, let’s eat quickly!”
Ryeon stood in front of the chicken coop belonging to the Wolyeongjae kitchen, lamenting.
One side of the coop was completely occupied by a magnificently grown Silkie chicken, while the other chickens were huddled in a corner, seemingly terrified for some reason.
Now, definitively, this Silkie looked more like something else than a chicken. It was the size of a turkey.
“Why? Were you worried?”
Perhaps worried about her looking thinner from being bedridden, the Silkie’s pitch-black eyes welled up with tears.
“But really, why are you like this?”
Ryeon slipped her hand through the coop and muttered as she stroked the Silkie. The tips of the Silkie’s feathers shimmered with a mysterious red light.
“Don’t you think it looks like a Phoenix? Or a Vermilion Bird? Are the two similar?”
Ryeon turned her head at the voice that suddenly came from beside her.
There stood Hwaryun, a boy who now looked like a proper young master, frowning as he peered at the chicken.
They had been sick and recovered side by side, yet surprisingly, Hwaryun had become even healthier and more vigorous than before.
“That’s…….”
She couldn’t bring herself to say that it couldn’t be possible. The Silkie’s black eyes, gleaming with a red sheen, blinked gently as it looked up at her.
Looking only at those eyes, one couldn’t imagine the image of it viciously bullying other chickens and stealing all their feed.
“Hmm. Does it really look like that to you?”
“Then, in your eyes, Sister, does that genuinely look like just a normal chicken?”
“No…….”
But would something as absurd as a chicken turning into a Vermilion Bird really happen?
Although, no matter how one looked at it, this Silkie seemed to harbor the mysterious aura unique to Spirit Creatures…….
Just as Ryeon was trying hard to rationalize it, Hwaryun abruptly spoke.
“If you raise a Silkie into a Phoenix, the Magistrate will come to arrest you, Sister.”
“Whaaat?”
Ryeon almost choked on her laughter. Hwaryun, the future Young Leader of the Demonic Heavenly Cult, was the kind of person who would consider a government official as lowly as a Magistrate to be nothing more than a hangnail.
Yet, hearing him speak of tigers and Magistrates with the same feeling of dread because he was a child was quite cute. But Hwaryun was serious.
“They’ll take you away, lock you in a chicken coop, and make you raise nothing but Phoenixes.”
