Kofi thanks: Andy
Cheongyeon had been in seclusion, not stepping a foot outside Room 107 for two days now. With no one to check on him, he must have been starving for the entire two days.
“Ha!”
Exclaimed one of the men around the round table, lacking a front tooth, as he laid down three old cards. The man who played the card first smiled excitedly and gathered up the bills piled up on the table.
“Want to lose your hands? What’s with the marks on the corner?”
Another man across the table complained, noticing one of the cards’ corners was conspicuously bent.
“Shit, this guy again. Are you saying the other cards are marked too?”
The winner pushed the heap of cards, showing they were all significantly worn and wrinkled. Arguments ensued as they proclaimed themselves right, and eventually, the two men grabbed each other by the collar.
“Hey, hey, do you guys have a death wish doing this in front of Muwon hyung-nim?”
Another crew member hurried to break up the fight.
Tae Muwon was lying on a makeshift bed in the lounge. The bed, reserved for Tae Muwon only, was covered with a white sheet. Wearing a brightly colored camellia shirt, he almost looked like a camellia blooming in the snow.
Normally, Tae Muwon was the kind of boss who wouldn’t care much whether Peira quarreled among themselves. But not today. Lying on his side and resting his chin on his hand, he watched the two crew members intently.
“What’s wrong? Go on.” He said, smiling nonchalantly. However, having spent over a decade with Tae Muwon, although he frequently smiled, the crew knew well the difference between his genuine and insincere smiles. The seemingly kind smile was a warning of his tolerance being tested.
“Sorry, hyung-nim!”
The two men quickly released each other and bowed deeply. Losing interest, Muwon turned away, fiddling with a dried-up vine. It was the same vine he had snapped off from the head of the pirate captain, Hogyeok. The vine, which had once entwined like ivy, now held no life, a dead plant that had rooted in a human body.
‘Hwa clan…’
To his knowledge, they were the only clan capable of manipulating plants. Of course, he didn’t believe Cheongyeon had anything to do with the deaths of Hogyeok and the merchant group from Hwang. He just wanted to confirm it for the last time, to prove his instincts wrong—or perhaps, he just wanted to confirm he wasn’t wrong after all.
In doing so, he had instilled fear in Cheongyeon.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
The feeling of being screwed was clearly a feeling given by his intuition. The conclusion he arrived at was that he had quite liked the guy. The sight of the beggar apothecary defiantly standing his ground despite being so frightened had been amusing. It was just that, so why did he feel so foul?
“Aeqlafg,” tf mjiifv bea ab j reybgvlcjaf rtjgqfclcu jc jzf cfjgys.
“Tfr, tsecu-clw.”
“Rfnfg wlcv.”
“Tfr.”
Aeqlafg gfrqbcvfv byfvlfcais klatbea tfrlajalbc. Gfrqlaf yflcu j wfwyfg bo atf Bkbc mijc, Aeqlafg kjr rwjii, rlwlijg lc rajaegf ab Jtfbcusfbc. Dea ecilxf Jtfbcusfbc, ktb rffwfv jr vfilmjaf jr j vjcvfilbc oieoo, Aeqlafg kjr rb raegvs atja fnfc lo sbe xlmxfv tlw klat tlr obba, la vlvc’a rffw ilxf tf kbeiv fnfc ufa j rmgjamt.
Or perhaps Cheongyeon resembled a daisy fleabane, with its little yellow center enveloped by white petals, often called ‘egg flower’. The stem was weak and short, so it was just perfectly suited for the apothecary.
He reminded Tae Muwon of a daffodil with his gentle demeanor, and his cheeks, full of crayfish meat, matched a red zinnia. The only thing that didn’t fit was the image of a carnivorous plant. Despite being rumored as “devouring men” (ill-fated), Cheongyeon didn’t seem like a nepenthes that swallowed stuff with its long pitcher.
“I’m going nuts.”
Tae Muwon chuckled to himself over such ridiculously insignificant thoughts.
He examined the stem that resembled a vine plant. The moment that person was talking about Peira’s botanical garden, they were all wiped out, as if cursed. He hadn’t anticipated such power from the Hwa clan. While his mother had never displayed similar abilities, being communicative with plants, it seemed plausible they could use them.
“I’m a merchant of Hwang. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but we run a fairly large trading association called Yeonjeong.”
It was the merchants from Hwang, of all people. This voyage aimed not only to exterminate pirate ships but also to head towards Hwang suspecting the governing family there of being Hwa.
“Jupiter.”
“Yes, hyung-nim!”
“Call Saturn.”
“Yes!”
Jupiter set down his axe and hurried out of the lounge. It was just past noon, so Saturn would likely be on the bridge. After the incident with Hogyeok’s pirate ship, Peira’s planets had tightened their discipline. They suffered even more harshly because Tae Muwon succeeded in infiltrating the Peira without them knowing.
“You called, hyung-nim?”
Saturn, out of breath from rushing, arrived. His worry for the apothecary was evident by his puffy eyes. Looking at the haggard Saturn, Muwon remembered the incident two days prior; that day, Muwon had left Cheongyeon sprawled on the botanical garden’s rocking chair, instructing his men to bring alcohol and not mentioning what to do with Cheongyeon. After becoming somewhat inebriated, he ended up telling Jupiter to lock the apothecary in the cabin.
“Saturn, you want to die?”
Tae Muwon sat up from the bed. The piercings on his ear swayed carelessly.
“No, I wish to live.”
“So do you think my words are funny to act like that?”
“…Did I make a mistake, hyung-nim?”
Saturn appeared genuinely confused. Muwon raised one corner of his mouth.
“If the kitchen runs out of food, I’m going to boil the apothecary and eat him, so think carefully before you act.”
“F- food in the kitchen? I- is it insufficient?”
Saturn’s stutter suggested he was truly taken aback. Muwon randomly twisted and straightened the piercing that went through his ear. Muwon, who was looking at Saturn who was in confusion, furrowed his brows.
“Hey, your apothecary…”
Pausing mid-sentence, Tae Muwon suddenly stood up. Saturn was someone who was unable to lie. Seeing him appearing innocent, dragged in and not knowing what was going on made Muwon feel a tingle in his back.
He expected Saturn to have brought food to the apothecary and offered it to him, but the little guy had been starving for two days. He was astonished that Saturn never even took care of the apothecary when he was making a fuss about how much he liked him.
‘Sweet, my ass, he doesn’t even have a sense of delicacy.’
“If there’s a corpse in my room, you will be dead first.”
Knowing the guy would have locked the door, Tae Muwon grabbed an axe but then, with a click of his tongue, threw it back down. He moseyed out of the lounge towards Room 107.
The corridor was bustling with cleaning staff. Originally, when Tae Muwon appeared, people who could not even make eye contact and avoided him gave a polite greeting like the Peira members do. They now greeted him properly, having heard he prioritized their safety during the pirate attack. Though in reality, Tae Muwon had just locked them away to avoid interference. Whether they greeted him or not, he headed straight for Room 107, his pace quickening as he approached.
Upon reaching the door, he kicked it. If Cheongyeon was really dandelion fluff, he would have been scattered all over by the force. Not expecting the door to be opened willingly, he twisted the doorknob.
With a click, the locked door opened smoothly. The cabin door opened with the sound of the hinges being worn down, and the small interior came into view at a glance.
There was only a blanket on the neatly made bed, and the bathroom was empty. Cheongyeon’s backpack wasn’t even visible.
Holding the doorframe, Tae Muwon cursed in a low voice. The muscles on his back tensed beneath his flamboyant camellia shirt.
“Find the apothecary!”
His voice echoed down the corridor, causing the cleaning staff to tremble as if caught in a storm at sea.
***
Two days ago, at dawn.
With his throat parched, Cheongyeon came down from the rocking chair shakily. He looked in the direction Muwon had left, but only the dim light of dawn remained, without any sign of anyone’s presence.
He glanced at the tombstone he had been sitting on top of. Among the slender green leaves, a flower now bloomed that wasn’t there before. A flower with six perfectly symmetrical blue petals.
The scentless, unique flower was undoubtedly a Boksu flower. Reaching out as though he was possessed, Cheongyeon flinched as a petal brushed his fingertip. He wrapped his hands around his throbbing neck and looked back at the door where Muwon had disappeared. With his gaze still focused there, he carefully plucked the Boksu flower.
A sweet fragrance, as if steeped in honey, enveloped Cheongyeon, followed by a refreshing mint scent as cool as the sea breeze. Fearful of being discovered, his body tensed, but it was an unstoppable instinct.
He had been told to brew it…
Why a Boksu flower grew in Peira’s botanical garden, and why it suddenly sprouted, remained unquestioned. Only survival instincts and fear consumed Cheongyeon as he placed the flower in his mouth.
The scent was so strong that he felt like he was going to vomit for a moment. Not only that, it felt like there were tens of thousands of needles poking the inside of his mouth.
Was this why he was told to brew it? The swelling in his throat made it hard to swallow the flower, but Cheongyeon forced it down without chewing properly, covering his mouth with both hands.
After exhaling deeply, he was surrounded by the flower’s fragrance. It was his first time consuming a fresh Boksu flower instead of a dried flower. His whole body became hot, as if he had been ignited by lava.
Thump, thump. His heart pounded loudly, and the pollution that had built up over decades in Cheongyeon washed away in an instant. Light flickered around him like fireflies, and the morning’s light gathered around, enveloping him in a haze as the dome’s plants celebrated him.
In contrast to the beautiful scene, Cheongyeon suffered from the rapid change in his body. He began sweating profusely as the pollution that should have been slowly eliminated was immediately pushed out of his body. Silently enduring the pain, he touched the tombstone once again.
[Here lies the wife of Tae Jaecheon, mother of Tae Muwon, and the last of the Hwa clan from the 11th continent, Darahan.]
Oooooohhhhhh 😱😱😱
queeeeeee????
Ma non ho capito… non sappiamo chi ha ucciso Hogyeok e gli altri, giusto?
But I don’t understand… we don’t know who killed Hogyeok and the others, right?