I Became the Despised Granddaughter of the Powerful Martial Arts Family - Chapter 2

A child who looked sickly was blankly sitting back on the bed.

 

Upon entering the room, the girl saw the child and frowned at once. The girl who had been calling the child several times frantically shouted.

 

“Young Miss!”

 

The child’s body shook in sudden surprise, and she turned her head.

 

Clicking her tongue, the girl pointed to the basin and said.

 

“Please come to your senses! Here is the water to wash your face and comb your hair, but you don’t need my assistance, right?”

 

It was Danggeum, my handmaiden.

 

Seeing the brass basin, I nodded slowly, and Danggeum clicked her tongue as she headed outside.

 

As the sound of footsteps became farther away, a conversation was heard in the distance.

 

“Why are you making a fuss this early in the morning?”

 

“No, I mean, no matter how many times I called her, she didn’t hear me, you know. Besides, she’s only been sitting on the bed blankly all day. Isn’t it that she became an idiot after coming back from the dead?”

 

“It must be a great shock. They say she’s a disabled person with no life energy right?”

 

(t/n: the ‘life energy’ there is the same as ‘qi’ or ‘chi’ which refers to the vital life force or energy that runs through all living beings.)

 

“I know. An elixir that’s capability isn’t even good, who…”

 

After listening to that conversation, it had hit me that I was really alive and had returned to the past.

 

‘To think that I’d experience regression…’

 

And at that, it’s after I fall into ‘Juhwaipma’!

 

‘Juhwaipma’ talks about the phenomena in which the body’s inside energy couldn’t be controlled and is flooding.

 

If one fell into Juhwaipma, most of them died, or even if they recovered, they would become disabled.

 

I also barely escaped death, but my field of elixir, the core wherein life energy is gathered, was shattered.

 

In other words, I became a disabled person who could never use martial arts for the rest of her life.

 

It was a matter which I experienced within half a year after I entered the powerful Baekri Family, when I was just was six years old.

 

I slowly raised my body and ploddingly headed to the table.

 

On the surface of the washbasin’s water that didn’t slosh, a child’s face was dimly reflected.

 

Sunken eye sockets with very dry lips, and deep hollowed cheeks. She was a child with an obvious sickly appearance.

 

That child blinked and tilted her head as she raised and lowered the corners of her mouth.

 

‘And my neck… is also attached well.’

 

However, the feeling of her neck being cut off and the crooked smile reflected in her twirling view were crystal clear.

 

It was simply too vivid to be considered as a mere delusion.

 

‘Also every matter that I had gone through….’

 

The prestigious family faction, the powerful Baekri Family.

 

Baekri Paehyuk, the head of that powerful Baekri Family, had three wives and four children.

 

Among them, the youngest Young Lord from the Third Wife was Baekri Euikang, my father.

 

The Sword Genius that was said to appear once every 100 years. A gentle, but upright character that can’t stand injustice, with a handsome appearance. A perfect person inside and out, with even talents in martial arts!

 

Grandfather also had extremely high expectations for his son, who had nothing missing.

 

The child who was suddenly one day brought by him, saying that it was his daughter. That was me, Baekri Yeon.

 

It was a bolt from the blue. To think there was a daughter from the son who didn’t even get married!

 

Naturally, the family turned upside down in a mess.

 

Grandfather was also red with anger.

 

Moreover, I was an illegitimate child whose biological mother’s origin was unknown.

 

The family and Grandfather objected. However, it couldn’t break Father’s stubbornness. And like that, I was entered into the powerful Baekri Family’s family register.

 

I, who was young at that time, had completely no idea about all these circumstances. And even if Father was a sword genius, at parenting, it was clear that he had no talent.

 

Since if it was not for that, there was no way he’d neglect a five-year-old child whom he brought as his daughter in this kind of house for more than a half year.

 

The young child, who was surrounded by those who were not favorable to her like that, wanted to be recognized by any means. To the point where she was greedy for an elixir whose ability isn’t even that good.

 

It was simply the birth of an idiot and greedy villainess extra.

 

Splash splash.

 

After washing my face, I wiped my face with a towel.

 

‘It’s okay. It’s still not too late.’

 

In the novel, from the starting point of Father’s death, the order of the martial arts world, which was barely keeping its balance while being tangled up, began to collapse.

 

‘And in the middle, there was Namgung Ryucheong, Father’s disciple.’

 

However, now, Namgung Ryucheong, who was the male lead, was also a little kid like me. He hasn’t even formed a master-disciple relationship with Father yet.

 

Father and Namgung Ryucheong became master-disciple, but my role was very effective.

 

I looked out the window in the direction of the place where Father was.

 

There were more than 10 years left until the Great War of Faction and Magyo, the main event where Namgung Ryucheong would play an active role.

 

(t/n: 마교 魔敎 [magyo] means a religion that worships demons. And I’ll shorten ‘Great War of Faction and Magyo’ into F.M Great War as actually, the Korean word is a shortened one, too.)

 

So, it meant that there were about 10 years left before the event where my father passed away, which is the outpost of the F.M Great War’s beginning.

 

‘I have to save Father.’

 

Father’s death was surrounded in too much doubt.

 

Before, I couldn’t even think about revealing it. I mean, a thing that even Namgung Ryucheong, who was the male lead, couldn’t reveal, how could I even find out about it?

 

It wasn’t that I wasn’t curious about Father’s death, and that I didn’t feel unfair and angry about it.

 

However, I knew, that if I was present, I would only become a disturbance to Namgung Ryucheong.

 

Also the most important thing–

 

I wanted to live.

 

And my regressed life.

 

This time… I wanted to save Father.

 

 

***

 

 

Father’s and my residence were in contact with each other in a square shape.

 

As I passed through the courtyard and approached Father’s residence, my heart pounded. Like this, I wanted to turn back and hide in my residence again.

 

On the way, I repeatedly stopped my steps several times, but before I knew it, I arrived in front of Father’s door.

 

‘You can do it, Baekri Yeon.’

 

I clenched both of my fists tightly and looked sharply at the door. If someone saw my expression now, they’d say it was like a commander going out to the battlefield.

 

‘The embarrassment was only for a moment. You want to save Father, right?’

 

Father has to be alive for the probability of my chances to live to rise.

 

Excluding emotion, if it’s the world where even Father, who was realistically one of the martial arts’ most influential person, dies, there was a high probability that my dream of surviving safely couldn’t come true.

 

‘Baekri Yeon. You can do it. By being embarrassed to death, it doesn’t mean you’re really dying!’

 

After all, the first button was initiated the moment I opened my eyes.

 

You can do it. You can do it.

 

After hypnotizing myself, I closed my eyes tightly and opened them.

 

As soon as I opened the door carefully, the infusion of medicinal herbs smell poked my nose.

 

“So, you’ve woken up.”

 

Father slowly got up from behind the landscape pattern divider screen.

 

As innocent and cute as possible,

 

“Fa-the-rrack!”

 

I screamed.

 

Before bumping my face on the floor with a thud, the wind blew.

 

The expected pain didn’t come, so I opened my eyes which were tightly closed. It was a piece of paper difference between the floor and my nose. My heart was thumping.

 

“You have to be careful.”

 

Father was holding my nape collar as if a cat held its child in its mouth and moved. It wasn’t a close distance, but there was no telling when he came close.

 

I rubbed the dorsum of my nose as I looked at the floor.

 

‘Huaaa, I’m embarrassed! Just what in the world is it? I think I stepped on something and fell, though…. What’s that? A bamboo strip?’

 

Several small letters written on the bamboo poles that were woven with strings came into my sight. It was about medicinal herbs.

 

The bamboo strip wasn’t the only thing rolling on the floor. From books piled up here and there to a number of medicinal stuff that weren’t tidied, the room was a complete mess.

 

I looked up and saw Father’s face. There was a deep shade below his eyes today as well.

 

‘I guess he stayed up all night again.’

 

For a few days already, I haven’t seen the light in his residence go out.

 

Although it wasn’t as much as I who was ill, Father has lost quite a bit of weight in the meantime, too.

 

Being held by Father danglingly, I stretched my hands out, asking him to hug me.

 

Father who was hesitating said with a strict face.

 

“Haven’t I said that you can’t run in a room?!”

 

“Hehe.”

 

Father looked at me with a firm face.

 

But as if I didn’t know anything, I kept stretching out my hand as cute as possible.

 

“You aren’t going to hug me?”

 

At Father’s strict face, hesitancy brushed past.

 

A short conflict.

 

But the winner was me.

 

Of course. Because I’m ill!

 

Confidently throwing myself in Father’s arms, I hugged his nape. I felt Father’s body, which flinched in surprise, stiffly harden.

 

“Ahem.” Clearing his throat, Father looked around the room which there was no one for no reason.

 

My first goal.

 

That was becoming closer to Father.

 

And skinship was the easiest way to narrow the distance between people.

 

How uncomfortable it was when I was first hugged by Father.

 

An awkward posture and a stiffly harden body. He showed practically off that he hadn’t hugged a child before.

 

Me, too, throughout the life I remembered, I have never been hugged by people called ‘Father’. Right now is, well…

 

Even while Father walked fast, he crossed the room very carefully as if worried I might fly away.

 

“Did you sleep well last night?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And you’re feeling okay?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“You mustn’t endure the pain. And if you have a fever or anything, be sure to tell me.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I’ll have to tell them to serve the infusion of medicinal herbs.”

 

“Hoo….”

 

The sigh came out reflexively.

 

The medicine that Father gave was bitter like hell every time.

 

In the past, I wailingly threw a tantrum, saying that I couldn’t eat it, and Father forcibly had tried to feed me.

 

Just like a person who has lived by holding a sword in their entire life, it wasn’t a very kind way. Just saying, ‘Eat.’ and keeping an eye on me until I drank it.

 

If I vomited after forcibly drinking it under strict surveillance, they boiled the medicine again, and I had to come back and drink it. While repeating this, I even held a feeling of resentment against Father.

 

‘Honestly, it was too much for me.’

 

This time, there was also a time where I drank it calmly, but my weakened body couldn’t accept the medicine and vomited all of it.

 

Then this time, Father’s reaction also changed. It’s that he started spoon-feeding me spoon by spoon, in person!

 

“How come your efforts are increasingly progressing?”

 

On Father’s face, which had been stiff all this time to hide his worries, a smile broke briefly.

 

The look in Father’s eyes which were looking at me was incredibly sweet. For some reason, for a moment I was so embarrassed that I hid my face in Father’s arms.