Free Web NovelA little while later, Yeon Ryang came back carrying a bowl of warm rice porridge.
It made nonsense of everything I had said about having no appetite. The instant my stomach caught the smell of food, it started sending frantic signals.
GROOOOWL! GRRROWL!
At the mortifying bellow from my belly, loud enough that it probably could have been heard outside the room, I bit my lip and lowered my head.
Damn it. This is humiliating.
When I awkwardly pressed a hand to my stomach, Yeon Ryang snickered and set down the tray.
“It’s fine, so eat slowly, Young Lady. Try the rice porridge first, and if your stomach handles it, I’ll bring you some meat broth.”
“...Thank you.”
I nodded stiffly and picked up the spoon. Hunger really was the best seasoning. The bland porridge went down with embarrassing ease.
While I scraped the bowl clean, Yeon Ryang played with Cane, dangling a small strip of jerky in front of him.
He seemed to like Cane. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
“This little guy doesn’t avoid me. Strange creature. Most animals do.”
He sounded genuinely intrigued.
“Do you like animals?”
“I do. Furry ones tend to hate me, though. This is my first time petting one.”
He probably wasn’t a bad person by nature, so maybe animals sensed his demonic energy on instinct and kept away.
I shot Cane a look as he rolled onto his back and shamelessly acted cute for Yeon Ryang.
“He likes anyone who feeds him. He likes poison too.”
“He likes poison?”
“More like he absorbs it. He swallows poison and turns it into his own internal energy.”
“So you’ve been carrying around a living antidote. Makes sense. You probably have a lot of use for poison, Young Lady.”
Yeon Ryang kneaded Cane’s soft belly and nodded to himself.
Neither of us had actually spoken the name of the Tang Clan out loud, but my identity seemed to have already become a settled fact between us.
I set down the empty bowl and looked him in the eye.
“Where is this?”
“An inn near the Jialing River.”
“Is it far from Langzhong?”
“Hard to say. If you take the waterway back up, it wouldn’t take long. A couple of hours, maybe. Young Lady, are you trying to go to Langzhong?”
When I didn’t answer, he corrected himself as if he understood.
“So you came from Langzhong.”
Yeon Ryang stared at me, openly inviting me to explain. But I had no idea what I was supposed to say.
That I had been framed and cast out?
That I was on the run?
No. Absolutely not. There was no need to tell him outright that I was a fugitive.
Even if he was one of the good characters in the novel, I doubted he would keep helping me after seeing the bounty on my head.
When I couldn’t bring myself to answer, he waved a hand cheerfully.
“Then let me change the question, Young Lady. Do you have any money?”
The question was so much like something a back-alley thug would say that my face twisted on its own.
What, was he smiling while trying to shake me down?
When I stiffened, Yeon Ryang hurriedly waved both hands.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not saying, ‘I saved you, so hand over everything you’ve got.’ I’m asking because I’m curious what you plan to do next.”
“That does not seem like something my benefactor needs to concern himself with.”
“You’ll be curious about it soon enough too. The men chasing you will be here before long. They’re close.”
So he had known I was being pursued.
I snapped my eyes up and snatched my things off the floor. My hand trembled in small spasms as I reached for a hidden weapon.
My body still hadn’t recovered enough to move the way I wanted it to, but I couldn’t just sit there and wait to be attacked.
When I started acting like I was about to bolt straight out the door, Yeon Ryang held out a hand.
“Three silver coins.”
“What?”
“Men from the unorthodox faction like me will do just about anything for money. Give me three coins, and I’d even be willing to help you.”
I stared at him, biting down on my lip.
Unorthodox types would do anything for money, sure. Usually that meant they took the money and ran.
What Yeon Ryang was really saying was that he wanted to help. He was giving me a convenient excuse, something plausible I could lean on if I chose to rely on him.
Could I shake off those wandering martial artists on my own?
Wouldn’t it be better to take Yeon Ryang with me? freёwebnovel.com
But if those men tried to bribe Yeon Ryang instead, the situation would only get worse.
In that case, maybe it would be smarter to tell him about the bounty from the beginning.
“...Do you know how much money is on my head?”
“That’s money for selling a person. This is money for saving one.”
Yeon Ryang said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The logic was nonsense from start to finish, but the offer was tempting enough to shake me.
I simply did not have the courage to face a pack of wandering martial artists alone.
The moment I remembered those eyes dripping with killing intent, my body started trembling again.
One of them had lost an eye and even had a finger bitten off. He had to be furious by now.
If it was Yeon Ryang, he could protect me from them.
Couldn’t I just shut my eyes and trust him?
Would it really be so terrible to lean on him a little, just this once, trusting the story I knew?
I kept biting at my lip in hesitation when someone knocked on the door.
“Master Yeon. I’ve brought the clothes you asked for.”
“Thank you. Would you leave them there in front of the door?”
“Yes.”
A shy female voice answered, and I heard a basket being set down outside.
When the footsteps faded away, Yeon Ryang opened the door, picked up the clothes, and handed them to me.
“Change first, then think it over, Young Lady. In your condition, you won’t be able to run anyway.”
The stiff martial attire was made from much cheaper cloth than what I usually wore. The rough fabric was worse even than the clothes I had worn back when I was just a maid.
I couldn’t tell whether silver had little value out here or whether someone had skimmed off the top, but this was not the time to argue.
When I shook out the outfit, Yeon Ryang immediately turned his back.
“I’ll step outside.”
“W-wait.”
I grabbed him in a hurry. I had clutched his sleeve so hard that my fingers left wrinkled marks in the cloth.
I knew it was rude, but I couldn’t help it. I was scared. I didn’t want to be left alone.
It felt like a wandering martial artist might jump out from somewhere the moment he left.
Startled, Yeon Ryang looked back at me with round eyes.
“Hm?”
“C-could you stay nearby? Right outside the door, maybe. Just a little...”
Because I’m scared.
Yeon Ryang seemed to understand the words I swallowed.
He gave a short, amused smile.
“Should I take that to mean you’re accepting my offer?”
After hesitating, I nodded. Compared to those demon-faced wandering martial artists, Yeon Ryang was by far the better option.
“Three silver coins a day. Food costs extra. I’d like all three meals covered, if possible. I’m a big man, so I eat a lot.”
“I’d like to, but I don’t exactly have much either. Maybe this, at least...”
After a moment’s thought, I reached to take off the white jade bracelet.
Yeon Ryang stopped me.
“No. You should keep that, Young Lady. Looks like a self-defense tool. You need it more than I do. We can talk about payment again later.”
Like he was humoring a child, Yeon Ryang ruffled my hair once, then went outside, shut the door, and sat down with his back to it.
He even hugged his sword upright against his chest, as if to reassure me that I could relax.
He was a thoughtful person.
For some reason, the shadow of Yeon Ryang cast through the paper door soothed me.
I stared at the long shadow stretching all the way to my feet, then hurriedly changed.
The black robe Yeon Ryang had brought fit me perfectly. The pockets were annoyingly small, but not so small that I couldn’t store anything in them.
I braided my hair roughly and tied it back, then opened the door.
Yeon Ryang tilted his head back to look up at me and gave a small shrug.
“I picked it by eye, so I was worried, but it fits. That’s a relief. But, Young Lady, haven’t you had your hair-pinning ceremony yet?”
“I have.”
“Then you’d better change your hairstyle. It bothers me a bit. I’d rather not look like I’m walking around with a little girl.”
He scratched his cheek and mumbled the words.
What was wrong with my hair? My double buns were comfortable.
When I touched them awkwardly, Yeon Ryang added,
“Maybe it’s different where you’re from, but in the Central Plains that’s a hairstyle only very young children wear. That... well. It might make people think you’re my daughter.”
So that was it. He didn’t want to look like a father.
The idea had never even occurred to me, and I tilted my head.
“You’re not really old enough for people to mistake you for that, are you? How old are you?”
“Thirty-three.”
I stared at him.
Thirty-three, with that face?
He looked younger than Tang Yeongho.
You really could never tell with martial artists.
“...Wow. I thought you were maybe a dozen years older than me, but the difference is way bigger than that.”
“Then you must be younger than I thought.”
Yeon Ryang smacked his lips lightly.
I loosened my braid and answered while redoing it.
“And you’re older than I thought. You look young.”
By the standards here, he was practically an old bachelor, so I supposed it made sense that he would worry about looking like a father.
I had nearly ruined a perfectly fine bachelor’s marriage prospects.
As he watched me redo my hair, Yeon Ryang asked,
“But why black, of all colors?”
“Because dirt won’t show on it.”
I have to wash it myself now, don’t I?
As if my answer had caught him off guard, Yeon Ryang burst out laughing.
“Ahaha, Young Lady. You’ve got a side to you that doesn’t match your face.”
He meant he had thought I was some fussy, pampered young miss.
Pretending not to hear, I scooped up Cane. Yeon Ryang, still chuckling, asked,
“So where were you trying to go, Young Lady?”
Tang Geunmyeong’s warning not to reveal my destination came back to me, but now that I had decided to move with Yeon Ryang, hiding it would only seem stranger.
I answered quietly.
“Chongqing.”
“Do you have people there?”
“No.”
“Then you must have been planning to reach Wuhan by way of the Yangtze. It is the sort of route a runaway young lady would come up with. Cities with as much to see as Wuhan aren’t exactly common.”
“I’m not a runaway—!”
I was just about to raise my voice when I snapped my lips shut.
I could not bring myself to say the words I had been cast out.
“Easy, easy. Don’t get angry, Young Lady. It’s bad for your body. Whatever the case, you don’t want to reveal who you are, right? Then overland would be better.”
“Overland?”
“Yes. Big-city landings like Wuhan always have government soldiers posted there. They’ll check identity tokens, and if word happens to leak to the Beggars’ Union, wouldn’t your family come snatch you right back?”
They’d come kill me right away.
Unlike me, who knew nothing about how the world worked, Yeon Ryang seemed to understand very well how things moved in the Central Plains.
“Do you know the roads?”
“More or less. If you want, I can guide you. Shall I accompany you as far as Wuhan?”
When I nodded, Yeon Ryang smiled faintly and rose to his feet.
I looked up at him without thinking and nearly jumped.
From a distance I hadn’t realized it, but standing next to him made it feel like a giant wall had appeared in front of me.
It wasn’t fat, either. He was simply built on an enormous frame.
The martial artists of the Tang Clan weren’t small ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ men, but Yeon Ryang felt different from them.
This, I thought, was what people meant by being born with good bones and muscle.
Seeing the startled look on my face, Yeon Ryang pressed a hand to his forehead and pretended to look around.
“That’s strange. I’m sure there was a person standing here just a moment ago. Where’d she go? Did she sink into the ground?”
“W-what...? I’m not that short!”
“Well now, I can hear someone talking. Ah, there you are, Young Lady. You’re so little I missed you.”
“It’s not that I’m small, it’s that you’re huge! Honestly, I’m not a child, so what are you even— Ah, damn it.”
My tongue was getting tied in knots.
What am I even saying? Seriously.
I slapped a hand over my mouth and glared at Yeon Ryang. He clutched his stomach and laughed, clearly entertained by my reaction. He seemed to be doing it on purpose, trying to lighten the mood.
“Ahaha. Fine, I’ll say it your way. Anyway...”
Yeon Ryang licked his lower lip and drew his sword.
SHING!
“We should go greet our guests, Young Lady.”
His eyes turned red.
