Free Web NovelThe sunlight that had reached deep into the room grew shorter. The light was slowly disappearing, leaving a handspan of space in front of the window.
Watching time pass, Sohwa awkwardly placed the hand that had been hovering in the air onto Hae-rak’s shoulder.
This absurd posture had been bothering her for a while, but for some reason, it felt like something she must not disturb.
Tang Sohwa was surprised to discover that even she had this kind of tact.
She waited for the Crimson Blood Hall Lord to steady his emotions, but he showed no sign of stepping back at all.
Sohwa quietly tightened her fingers and pushed at Hae-rak’s shoulder.
Thud.
The Crimson Blood Hall Lord covered the back of her hand with his own. Then he drew her hand up and placed it on the back of his neck.
“...What are you doing?” freёwebnoѵel.com
“Comforting you. Are you that bad at this sort of thing?”
It was hard to tell whether the Crimson Blood Hall Lord’s words were a joke or serious.
But from what she had seen, more than half of what he said was a joke, so she took this as teasing as well.
“...Do you really think I’d be good at it?”
At Sohwa’s dry reply, the Crimson Blood Hall Lord let out a small laugh.
“You’re like me, then. I don’t know how to comfort people either.”
Sohwa did not respond and instead pushed at his shoulder with her other hand. When she tried to raise her upper body, Hae-rak wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her back down.
Just as Sohwa was about to spit out sharp words at his crossing the line, Hae-rak spoke first.
“I’m crying right now.”
He pressed his cheek into Sohwa’s shoulder and made a sniffling sound.
“It’s uncomfortable for both of us, so let’s just stay like this for a bit. If you try to force yourself to give comfort that doesn’t suit your nature, it’ll be hard for you too, won’t it? Once I calm down, I’ll get up on my own, so wait.”
Expression slowly faded from Sohwa’s face as she stared straight ahead.
Right now, she was wearing clothes little different from her undergarments.
The cloth was very thin, and her left shoulder, where the short sword had torn it, was practically bare skin.
Through the gap of the parted garment, the Crimson Blood Hall Lord’s body pressed in deeper.
His dry cheek brushed the area near her collarbone.
Then his high nose slid along the line of her neck.
Sohwa closed her eyes with an unreadable expression.
The Sichuan Tang Clan was a reasonably old family of the martial world. She was of an age to marry, and her clan did not do anything that could be used against them. She had learned many things over the years, and the matter of producing heirs was one of them.
Because she had returned at such an ambiguous age, she had learned it twice over; there was no way she did not know about relations between men and women.
She felt the hand supporting the back of her head slide downward. Heat spread along the deep groove running down her spine.
Sohwa knew perfectly well what kind of mood Hae-rak was trying to create.
Her eyelids lifted slowly, revealing black pupils.
Perhaps because no light was coming in, those eyes looked very dark.
Slide.
Sohwa slowly lowered the hand that had been resting on Hae-rak’s shoulder.
Her fingers passed over his chest, curling inward little by little.
Stopping just before the bare skin exposed through his parted front, her hand shot forward.
Thud.
But her fist never reached his solar plexus, blocked by the Crimson Blood Hall Lord’s hand.
Only after catching her hand did Hae-rak finally draw his body back. He stared at her with a look of disbelief.
“...You really meant that hit?”
Sohwa answered in a cold voice.
“You said you were crying, but your face is perfectly clean.”
Hae-rak flinched, then promptly knit his brows with shameless ease.
“Yang-Heat Art always evaporates moisture quickly.”
“If you’d circulated inner power, you think I wouldn’t have noticed?”
“......”
Sohwa shook off the hand holding hers and rose to her feet.
As she smoothed down her clothes, she spoke.
“I consider myself indebted to you. I intend to repay that far more than you think. But...”
Straightening her posture slowly, Sohwa spoke with a cold face.
“...Not to the point of giving you my body.”
“What?”
The Crimson Blood Hall Lord looked up at her with a dazed expression, as if he did not understand. Tang Sohwa did not respond.
Thinking to change into intact clothing, she went to the chest and took out a fresh outfit. As she was about to leave the room, the silent Crimson Blood Hall Lord spoke.
“Change here. I’ll go out.”
Accepting that, Sohwa closed the door again.
But contrary to his words, the Crimson Blood Hall Lord did not leave and remained sitting on the floor.
Sohwa’s slender eyebrows lifted.
“Didn’t you say you were going out?”
“I’ll go in a moment.”
“......”
“I won’t see you for a while, so I want to look a bit longer.”
Hae-rak let out a light laugh as he said something hard to grasp.
“I’m worried I might forget the face of someone so full of contradictions.”
“Contradictions?”
“You always act like you know everything, yet you really don’t know anything and keep causing trouble here and there. It’s exhausting.”
What he said could have been taken as offensive, but she had owed the Crimson Blood Hall Lord help more than once, so she could not deny it.
Sohwa set her shame aside, moved her lips, then answered,
“I’m grateful for the help I’ve received from you. I also feel sorry for making things blow up larger than I expected.”
“There you go again.”
He snorted and rubbed his chin with his hand.
“You act like you don’t understand anything, but your judgments are so on point it throws people off.”
“......”
“I mean it as sarcasm, but you accept the shame and make the other person into some petty fellow...”
His gaze, dropping slowly, came to rest on the woman’s disheveled front.
“I thought you didn’t even see me as a man, but you know exactly which situations require distance.”
The Crimson Blood Hall Lord blinked slowly and lifted a golden cup.
A brief silence passed.
Tilting his lips, Hae-rak spoke.
“Not bad. At least you’re aware that I’m a man. Once I come back, something might change.”
A faint line appeared between Sohwa’s brows.
“Come back from where?”
Hae-rak nodded.
“No, where are you going?”
When Sohwa asked again, Hae-rak’s eyes curved in a smile.
“Why are you curious about that?”
“If you’re going back to the Central Plains, let’s go together. The Passages to the Northern Sea are probably all blocked, so as soon as I find Han Cheol, I’ll send you ahead.”
“I appreciate the offer, but no.”
Hae-rak got to his feet as he refused.
“The Four-Directions Hall bastards all know my face. I don’t want to get tangled up and ruin the reputation I spent three years building.”
“Then how are you planning to go back?”
“There are Passages on the borders where the Central Plains meets the Northern Sea or the Great Desert.”
“Even so, won’t that take time? The Blood Demon might be on his way—what if you run into him?” freewёbnoνel.com
Min Hae-rak spoke softly, as if to himself.
“That’s why I have to hurry.”
Sohwa sensed something off.
“It feels like the conversation keeps slipping aside. Are you hiding something from me?”
“You know nothing at all and still hit the mark perfectly. That contradiction is starting to scare me.”
At his evasive words, Sohwa fixed her gaze on the Crimson Blood Hall Lord’s face.
Studying his expression, she spoke again.
“Come with me.”
A strange feeling rose in her.
It was hard to put into words, but her sense of it was bad.
“I’ll shake off the Four-Directions Hall martial artists and open the gate ahead, so let’s go back to the island together.”
But the Crimson Blood Hall Lord only curved his eyes and did not reply.
“More than that, I have a favor to ask.”
At some point, Hae-rak had stepped closer to her and now lifted his head to glance around the room.
“The Vice Unit Leader put a lot of effort into this place for you.”
At his sudden remark, Sohwa calmly waited for him to get to the point. Fortunately, he did not drag it out and spoke his true intent at once.
“Everyone in Baekgeumgak belongs to Crimson Blood Hall, and they all live with the Blood Demon’s dokgo.”
Hae-rak spoke in a voice tinged with apology.
“They’re pitiful bastards who’ve dreamed of freedom for a long time too. If you’re willing...”
“I understand.”
Sohwa grasped his meaning and gave a small nod.
“When I go to the Central Plains, I’ll remove the dokgo from every Crimson Blood Hall member.”
It was not such a difficult thing.
From the start, she had planned to separate all Blood Cultists from the Blood Demon, so the Crimson Blood Hall Lord’s request did not feel like a request at all.
“There’s one more thing.”
At those words, Sohwa tensed.
It was because she thought this might be the Crimson Blood Hall Lord’s true wish.
“Say it.”
But what the Crimson Blood Hall Lord said was strange.
“Sohwa, isn’t your name pretty?”
Tang Sohwa scrunched her brows outright, as if to ask what he was talking about.
The Crimson Blood Hall Lord’s odd behavior did not end there.
He raised his hands and pressed his fingers into both of her cheeks.
“Live up to your name and be like a blossom of laughter. Laugh a lot, push the boring and dangerous jobs onto others, and you only do the fun and easy things.”
After forcing a smile onto Sohwa’s face, Hae-rak let go.
This time, it was Sohwa who caught the Crimson Blood Hall Lord’s hand.
A voice as cold as her expression flowed out between her red lips.
“Where are you going?”
Sohwa had noticed that Hae-rak was acting strange.
The Crimson Blood Hall Lord liked to spout nonsense, and his state of mind was crooked to begin with, but he did not speak this out of context.
Something in the middle had been cut out.
It bothered her that she could not know what part of the conversation had been skipped. But he did not give her an answer.
“It’s hard to tell you just now. I’ll explain when I get back.”
Releasing her hand, Hae-rak added,
“Stay well.”
Before she could catch him again, Hae-rak vanished. Warmth lingered where he had been.
Feeling something foreign in her hand, Sohwa lowered her gaze.
A throwing dagger with a worn handle was gripped in her palm.
She went to the window and pushed it, already open, even wider.
But the warmth had already been erased by the Northern Sea cold.
