Chapter 124
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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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Chapter 124
A hand stretched toward empty air trembled uselessly.
Through fingertips that had lost their direction, only hollow emptiness lingered.
"Cotton ball, that's dangerous...."
"But Father is hurt!"
At the voice coming from behind, Jeok Ahyun turned his head with a creaking sound.
Jeok Soya, clutching Baek Sayeon's hand with a tearful expression.
And Baek Sayeon, cradling the child in his arms, chuckling softly.
At the sight of the two of them looking so tenderly like a father and daughter, Jeok Ahyun felt his mind suddenly bleached white.
[Father...!]
Father. That call just now was not directed at me.
The title of Father that was once mine, the concern embedded within it—all of it was directed at him, not at me.
Jeok Ahyun stared blankly at them.
Jeok Soya, grasping Sayeon's scorched palm, seemed at a loss for what to do.
That man, the head of the Baek Family who rules the Western Lands, would not be greatly affected by a burn wound of that degree.
Yet Jeok Soya's face was filled with worry, as though she might burst into tears at any moment.
The instant I saw that.
A sting—
Where Baek Sayeon's fingernail had grazed me earlier, the wound on my shoulder began to throb with pain.
In truth, no matter how one looked at it, it was Jeok Ahyun who bore the more grievous injuries.
I had been suddenly seized by the collar and attacked, and to begin with, there was no Awakened who could defeat a Baekho Awakened in hand-to-hand combat. Not even a Dragon Awakened blessed by the Heavens.
Yet Jeok Soya was glistening with tears over that large man's minor wound, as though she were the one suffering more.
Then, in an instant, Jeok Soya glanced in my direction.
The moment her gaze turned toward me, I froze.
Soon after, Jeok Soya whispered something to Sayeon.
At this, Baek Sayeon furrowed his brow, but when Jeok Soya smiled brightly, he chuckled along with the child and nodded.
Jeok Soya rose from Sayeon's embrace and approached me.
'....'
As the child drew closer, I felt my mouth grow increasingly dry.
Soon Jeok Soya came to a stop before me.
Even with the child standing in front of me, I felt no sense of reality.
In my memory, Jeok Soya was a very small child.
But the child before my eyes now was already fourteen, having grown into maturity.
At that vast gap, and at the sight of her still retaining the face of her childhood... my chest suddenly ached.
"Hello, Head of the Household. It has been a long time since we last met."
Jeok Soya greeted me in a composed and calm voice.
'Phew, thank goodness. My voice didn't tremble.'
Jeok Soya felt relieved.
In truth, I had worried the entire time.
What if my voice trembled when I faced this person again? What if I misspoke? What if I froze like an idiot?
I had worried greatly, but whether it was because I had steeled myself several times over, or because Father and my Older Brothers protected me from behind, Jeok Soya did not tremble at all.
However, unlike Jeok Soya who felt inwardly relieved, Jeok Ahyun's pupils trembled finely with shock.
Head of the household....
Not Father, but Head of the household....
That man whom Jeok Soya called Father—she was calling me Head of the household.
'Why....'
The question rose to my throat, but I could not bring myself to ask why she called me that way.
After all, it was I who had first treated the child like a stranger.
After sending Jeok Soya to the Cold Palace, when I met her again three years later due to Riri's stubbornness in asking for her as my personal maidservant.
The child only bowed her head low and watched my expression.
It was I who drew a line with cold words to such a child.
Even until the moment the child called me Head of the household and turned to leave, I never gave her even the smallest opening.
Afterward, when the child who became Riri's maidservant followed us among the other maidservants.
Even when she stole glances at me with a face that seemed to always suppress sorrow.
Though the child hid it, her gaze toward me could not be hidden, and I knew it yet deliberately treated her coldly, no different from the other maidservants.
At that time, I thought it was natural.
That child had stolen Riri's place.
I had to show the child her position.
So she would not foolishly covet Riri's place again or harbor false dreams.
But why.
That word "Head of the household" which I had let pass then—why now.
Does it ache my heart so....
As my chest tightened painfully and I could not bring myself to answer, Jeok Soya asked in a composed voice.
"You came looking for me, didn't you, Head of the household? Do you have something to tell me?"
"Jeok Soya. I...."
He seemed about to say something, then closed his eyes tightly before opening them again to look at the child.
An uneasy sensation that had been trembling in my chest since last night, shaking my heart, was growing bit by bit, but I deliberately ignored it and spoke to the child.
"You've grown up healthy. Truly... what a relief. I thought you... were dead."
With each word I spoke, my throat ached painfully.
Especially at the part about thinking she was dead, my eyes twisted in anguish without my knowing.
However, Jeok Soya herself could not understand why he was reacting that way.
Pain. Anguish. Joy. Affection....
As if all such emotions were mixed together, the man who was no longer my father looked at me.
But this person....
'Tried to kill me.'
Riri's voice asking to be rid of me. And the masked Samjokoh who tried to kill me.
On the last day of that year's Summer Festival, had I not met Sayeon, Jeok Soya would have surely died right there.
Only the direct bloodline of the Jujak Family could command Samjokoh.
Yet Jeok Ahyun looked at me with an expression he could never have if he had tried to kill me.
'Was it the Young Master's independent decision, unrelated to the Head of the household.'
At that time, Jeok Hwayou had been handling all the family's affairs, both great and small. So perhaps this man didn't know that I had nearly died.
'But even so... why does he have that expression? As if he had been longing for me.'
Jeok Soya stared at Jeok Ahyun with vacant eyes.
"Why are you with the head of the Baek Family...?"
Her question trailed off slightly.
At the sight of the child's expression—devoid of surprise, emotion, or joy—he felt a sudden urgency.
"No, that's not what matters right now. Soya. Come with Father."
The unrefined words tumbled out of his mouth.
"I... beg your pardon?"
Jeok Soya, who had been listening quietly, asked in bewilderment.
"Ever since you disappeared like that, I... I have been thinking of you all this time."
"...?"
"I don't know what happened to you during all this time, but I'm so relieved that you've grown up safely and well, Soya. So let us go together now. Home. To our house in the warm Southern Lands where you were born and raised. Let us go together."
Jeok Ahyun poured out all the words he had been holding inside without pause.
Jeok Soya's bewilderment was brief, and she continued in a composed voice once more.
"I'm not sure what you mean by that."
"Soya..."
"I'm grateful that you raised me at the Jujak Residence. You cherished me until I turned six, and even though you didn't consider me your own child, you didn't cast me out immediately."
"Soya, that's..."
"But we are not family, are we? So that form of address from just now is not appropriate, Head of the Household."
"...!"
Boom—
Jeok Ahyun felt as though he had heard something violently collapse and shatter.
"I'm not sure why you're asking me to go with you... but I have a family now. It would be strange to leave my family behind and go with you, Head of the Household."
As Jeok Soya spoke, she felt her mind becoming clearer.
All her worry about facing this man again seemed utterly foolish now.
"If you're troubled because you were harsh to me, there's no need to be. Back then..."
Of course, bringing up those days again made her throat ache slightly. Yet Jeok Soya continued with composure.
"I don't really understand why you hated me so much, but it's all right. Thanks to you, I was able to meet my real family."
"..."
At her words, Jeok Ahyun's lips fell open weakly.
"So I really hope you won't trouble yourself over the past."
But Jeok Soya drove the final nail in, continuing.
"I will apologize on behalf of my Father for the rudeness he showed you just now. He's not usually one to resort to force, but it seems his heart was troubled today."
Jeok Soya brought her hands together and bowed respectfully.
"Please forgive us with this apology in his stead, Head of the Household. I will always be grateful for the kindness you showed me in my childhood. Then, farewell."
With that, she turned from where Jeok Ahyun stood and walked toward Sayeon.
Sayeon, seeing me approach, gently opened his arms.
Upon seeing this, I smiled brightly and ran toward him with quick steps, hanging from his arms.
Unlike the composed and mature way I had spoken just moments before, I clung to him like a child. Like a daughter...
Jeok Soya took Sayeon's hand and left the gathering with the members of the Baek Family.
As Jeok Ahyun watched their retreating figures with a hollow expression, Sayeon suddenly glanced back over his shoulder.
The cold, piercing killing intent that gleamed in his eyes made Jeok Ahyun shudder involuntarily, a chill running down his spine.
He had long known that Baek Sayeon's temperament was poor, but this gaze was excessive.
It was the look of someone gazing upon the enemy who killed their parents.
After the gathered crowd dispersed.
Jeok Ahyun belatedly realized.
He had failed to say something very important to the child.
Perhaps words he should have conveyed five years ago, when the child was still at the Joojak Residence.
The meeting had been too sudden, leaving no time for such words, and besides....
The child had drawn a line with such composure and steadiness.
That they were no longer family.
That she would not go with him.
That she wished he would no longer bring up the past.
She gave him no brief opportunity for a messy apology, speaking instead in that rigid voice.
And in the sight of the child speaking thus... strangely, the memory of the Late Lady came to mind.
'Why....'
Jeok Soya was not the Late Lady's biological daughter. The child the Late Lady had borne at the cost of her own life was Riri.
"Father...!"
At that moment, Jeok Hwayou approached and seized him.
"Ah."
Only then did Jeok Ahyun come to his senses and look upon his second son.
Jeok Hwayou's face was equally bewildered.
And the moment he turned to look at Riri, standing beside him with a pallid complexion.
A chill.
Jeok Ahyun felt his spine grow cold as he swallowed hard.
In Riri's face, there was not a single trace of the Late Lady.
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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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