CHAPTER 43: DO I STILL DESERVE TO BE BESIDE YOU?

Dan Yuseong’s POV

I wasn’t most people.

It wasn’t some grand, noble reason weighing on me—no tragic curse or shadowed vendetta. Just... mystique, I suppose? I’d gone to such lengths to shroud my face beneath this hood, crafting an aura of enigma that drew clients like moths to a flame. Revealing my name now? It would shatter that veil, tying a loose thread to my hidden identity and unraveling the carefully spun web of intrigue.

It might sound trivial, even petty, but for a fortune-teller whose trade thrived on the allure of the unknown—a nameless, faceless oracle peering into the veil of tomorrow—it was far from insignificant. Back in Shaanxi, whispers of the "veiled seer" had packed my humble stall, patrons lured by the thrill of the obscure. With this flawless cloak of concealment at my disposal, squandering it on casual disclosure felt like discarding a rare talisman.

’Plus, if Master tracks me down, I’m screwed...’

Her seclusion was meant to span years, a deliberate withdrawal into the mountain’s depths, but nightmares plagued me with visions of her emerging prematurely, scenting my trail like a hound on the wind. If she cornered me, resistance would be futile—I’d be hauled back to that verdant prison, condemned to a lifetime of enforced solitude.

"I’m Shin Yuwol."

"...Pretty name."

"..."

Shin Yuwol fixed me with a steady gaze, her silence stretching as if dissecting my every flicker, weighing the cadence of my breath against unspoken truths.

"What’s up...?"

"Nothing. And call me Shin Miss outside."

"Got it, Shin Miss..."

Exhaustion tugged at the edges of my vision, a velvet curtain descending. I surrendered to it, letting sleep claim me in its gentle undertow.

Sword Empress’s POV

"Cough... cough..."

His coughs persisted, ragged and unrelenting, a symphony of frailty that clawed at the quiet room. Heat radiated from his skin like a forge’s glow, climbing inexorably despite my futile ministrations. All I could offer was the humble rite of a damp cloth to his brow or a fresh jug of water when thirst rasped from his lips—small gestures against the tide of affliction.

I couldn’t glimpse his face beneath that eternal hood, but the contour of his forehead was familiar enough now, a map etched by these past days of reluctant intimacy.

’...Powerless.’

Guiding martial artists through cultivation walls was second nature, a dance of insight and discipline I’d performed countless times. But tending to a man felled by something as mundane as a stubborn cold? That was uncharted territory. Warriors of my acquaintance scorned petty ailments, their refined qi warding off such banal assaults; when illness dared strike, a single elixir sufficed to banish it like mist before dawn.

The vials at my belt—potent draughts of vitality and harmony—mocked me now. Administering them to one whose dantian lay shattered, a hollowed vessel unfit for such potent elixirs, risked catastrophe: meridians overwhelmed, essence poisoned in the imbalance.

"Hoo..."

Reluctance gnawed at me, but necessity dredged up buried recollections—memories I’d sealed away like tainted scrolls. My sole brush with bedside vigil had been with her, my disciple, those fevered nights I’d willed her through childhood’s frailties.

Squeeze.

Tentatively, I enfolded his hand in mine, the gesture a lifeline from those distant echoes. I’d learned then that sickness teetered on a knife’s edge between trifle and terminus, hinging not just on flesh but on the spirit’s resolve. The body waged war, but the mind forged its weapons.

["Still in pain?"]

[Hehe... It doesn’t hurt at all anymore, Master.]

In my mind’s eye, I sketched her anew—not the monster she’d become, but the guileless bloom she’d once been: wide-eyed, effervescent. With deliberate strokes of ink on spectral parchment, I reclaimed that innocence, if only for a breath.

The paramount folly of my existence. The cardinal sin I’d unleashed upon the world.

My sole disciple, heir not just to my sword but to my very moniker—Sword Flower, Han Soyeon.

A master’s legacy bound her transgressions to my soul; her shadows were mine, indelible.

Acknowledging that unforgivable debt, I could no longer feign detachment. I had to unearth her, kneel in contrition, bridge the chasm of years with words long overdue.

"Ugh..."

Lost in reverie before this man—whom circumstance increasingly painted as her victim—a tide of loathing surged, self-directed and merciless. Yet absolution eluded me; inaction was the true transgression.

"Is your name Dan Yuseong?"

The query perched on my tongue, unvoiced, as I regarded his slack form in unwitting repose.

If falsehood, it would dissolve into the litany of missteps that dotted my decade-long hunt—another phantom in the fog.

But if truth...

If he embodied the boy I’d pursued across the breadth of the Central Plains, the architect of my endless atonement—what then? What words could bridge such an abyss? What recompense for a life I’d shattered through neglect?

And layered atop that revelation: the dawning horror that I’d dared entertain affections for him. To yearn for the touch of the very soul I’d condemned...

’...It couldn’t be.’

Revulsion coiled in my gut at the mere whisper of it. Even as a bystander to such violation, fury would have scorched me clean; as the indirect architect? Forgiveness was a delusion, self-inflicted oblivion.

Who could kindle desire in the ashes of such ruin? After inflicting wounds that scarred not just flesh but the marrow of existence?

...

Wait—what madness gripped me now?

"Harbor... feelings?"

Absurdity. To succumb to a hooded stranger, nameless and veiled? No, I wasn’t some simpering maiden swayed by honeyed trifles or fleeting charms. Yet... unveiling his features might upend that certainty. Rejuvenation had restored my youth’s bloom, but the ledger of years yawned vast between us—decades unbridgeable. Would the heavens sanction such a union, or decree it profane?

"Ugh..."

The spiral deepened, thoughts veering into forbidden thickets, thorny and unyielding. I cleaved through them with an inner stroke of the blade, discipline reasserting its iron hold.

Thankfully, the forge of martial rigor hadn’t dulled; clarity returned, a serene pond undisturbed.

’I must always maintain a state of serene clarity.’

This man had unraveled me since our paths converged—composure fracturing like flawed jade.

"Sigh..."

As I clasped his hand, the other pressed to my brow in a bid for equanimity, a fragile sound pierced the hush.

"Hic..."

A sob, muffled and raw.

"I didn’t want to end up with a body like this..."

His murmur wormed past my defenses, insistent as a thorn.

"Why did I have to wake up one day with a body like this when I did nothing wrong...?"

"..."

"I lost everything I had... alone in a world like this..."

Eavesdropping on delirium’s confessions wasn’t my vice, yet once snared, the words clung, unignorable.

Tremble tremble.

My grip faltered, chill sweat beading despite the room’s warmth.

"One day." "This body." "Alone."

Overlaps abounded already—shattered dantian, Huashan echoes, betrayal’s scar—now crowned with this litany, evoking a singular, damning tableau.

["Master. You’ve come?"]

"Haa... Haa..."

Denial crumbled under the deluge. Circumstance screamed affirmation; I pegged the odds at near certainty—nine in ten, at least.

In the teeming expanse of the Central Plains, such confluence defied serendipity’s grace.

I’d clawed through shadows for this boy, desperation my compass—yet triumph soured to ash.

"What... What should I do...?"

My script had been etched in stone: upon reunion, prostration and plea. Unveil myself as the architect of his torment—the master’s hand behind the blade. Atonement before restitution, confession the first toll of the debt.

A transgressor owed their quarry unvarnished truth.

But now...

"Haa... Haa..."

Dread coiled, serpentine and unyielding. Dread of unmasking, of the purity in his gaze curdling to contempt. No—inevitable, that transmutation.

This wasn’t a trifling slight. I’d sundered a warrior’s core, the font of their essence—more vital than breath, rendering existence a pale facsimile of life.

At an age ripe for glory, his prime pilfered in an instant.

Had that fateful master eluded him, what fresh hells might he have evaded? And the preludes to her shadow—the vagrant years, etched in want and isolation.

"Ugh..."

I’d steeled for recriminations, yet envisioning vitriol aimed my way flayed deeper than any lash. Hatred’s specter rent my chest asunder. The prospect of eclipsing his guileless warmth? It hollowed something vital within.

Days—mere days—since our orbits aligned, yet he’d burrowed profound, roots delving unseen.

In that fracture, temptation whispered, sly as sin.

"Should I hide it?"

He remained ignorant of my mantle. No inkling of the Sword Empress, nor the tether to Soyeon. Concealment was effortless, a shadow’s sleight.

Barring my own unraveling, revelation slumbered eternal.

And as that perfidious flicker kindled...

"Urk...!"

Nausea roiled, bile surging without release—a visceral recoil.

Self-abhorrence crested, tidal and unforgiving. To entertain such cowardice?

"How could I dare think such a thing...?"

Shroud my shame? Linger in his orbit, basking in unearned regard?

Was that the creed of a Taoist, a mortal, a debtor steeped in culpability?

"Huff... Huff..."

Tumult seized me, qi churning in mutinous spirals—deviation’s brink loomed, peril incarnate. Yet equilibrium evaded, emotions a maelstrom unbound.

"How could I... dare..."