Chapter 13
Chapter 13.
Treasure-Eyed Golden Rat (寶目金鼠).
Golden-furred yao clans were said to have been regarded as auspicious for generations.
But when I heard Seo Geum's story, I hadn't gotten that impression at all.
So I asked.
“Treasure-Eyed Golden Rat...?”
She responded as though she'd never heard of it before.
[Baby Jiaolong: Are you sure that's what she is? She doesn't know a thing about it...]
-Could you be mistaken?
└Yao Immortal (12.12): In the first place, many places aren't well known, depending on the plane.
└Yao Immortal (66.66): First time I've heard of it, too.
└SunshineIsThisWorld: Maybe it's an unknown yao clan in that plane. Or maybe she was just born. You must have some suspicions yourself, right?
That was true.
Seo Geum had come all the way here after catching the scent of a fortuitous opportunity, after all.
Otherwise, she never would have crossed paths with me.
“Come to think of it, Seo Geum. How old are you?”
“My age? I'm eighteen.”
“...? You're young.”
This surprised me a little.
Even as a yao with human blood, reaching the Second Realm's Yao Immortal stage at eighteen was incredible.
In human terms, that meant reaching Foundation Establishment at eighteen—a talent worthy of being called a clan prodigy.
She'd recovered quite a bit, and now she was awake more often.
She'd started moving around and trying to clean the cave abode, but when I told her to do it later, she seemed quite uncomfortable.
‘She'll need a space of her own.’
This room was my quarters, and servants were normally placed near the entrance to a cave abode or given a separate space outside it.
I considered it for a moment, but it would be faster to ask her directly.
“You need a room of your own, right? Where would you like it?”
“...My own room?”
“Wouldn't it be uncomfortable here?”
“I'm not uncomfortable at all. In fact, I want to eat and sleep by your side and serve you, Immortal Lady.”
“...About that title, Immortal Lady.”
It made me a little uncomfortable.
In the cultivation world, Immortal Lady was an honorific for women, but it was kind of... embarrassing, I guess.
Seo Geum seemed to realize her mistake. She knelt on the bed I'd temporarily prepared for her and bowed her head.
“As your servant, it would be proper for me to call you Master. From now on, I'll call you Master.”
“...That wasn't what I meant. But call me whatever you like.”
Master was better than Immortal Lady, at least.
It wasn't wrong if she was going to be my servant.
Feeling awkward, I peeked into the Yao Immortal Gallery.
It was in an uproar.
└Yao Immortal (178.1): Aaaagh!! Give her to me! Give her to me! Why do all these fortuitous opportunities fall into that baby brat's lap?!
└LotsaTails: Isn't a Treasure-Eyed Golden Rat the one who can sniff out the treasures and glory buried in secret realms or ancient ruins like a ghost? Why are you making such a precious girl work as a servant? Give her to me!
└HumansSuck: Having a Treasure-Eyed Golden Rat as your servant... You really are lucky. Just one of those could revive an entire declining sect.
‘God, this is exhilarating.’
Was there anything in life more worthwhile and enjoyable than watching other people envy you?
The little rat I'd picked up after going outside for the first time in a hundred years had turned out to be such a treasure.
At this point, my luck was surely reaching the heavens.
[Baby Jiaolong: lol, if you're jealous, go pick one up yourselves.]
-Yummy! Yummy!
└Yao Immortal (178.1): You're seriously so damn smug...
Satisfied with the reactions, I turned away in high spirits, only to hear rustling from the bedchamber.
When I turned to look, Seo Geum was carefully pulling back the blanket.
Human cultivators had all sorts of things in their storage pouches.
Quite a few of them had blankets, so I'd given one to Seo Geum.
“Are you going to do laundry?”
“Yes, I sweated a little while sleeping. I'll wash yours, too, Master.”
“Hm? You don't have to wash mine.”
My nest didn't have anything like a blanket.
The place I used as my quarters was the eggshell I was born in.
Most of it had broken apart, but it was just right for my transformed body.
‘It's pretty cozy, too.’
Maybe because it was where I was born, it felt warm and cozy and all that.
“But are you sure you should be moving around?”
She still hadn't fully regained her color, probably because of the aftereffects of losing so much blood essence, but she looked much better than the corpse-like state she'd been in when I first picked her up.
“I don't think it's good to lie down all the time. And I'm feeling much better. It's probably because of the special nature of this cave abode. And the spirit fruits you gave me, Master, have helped, too...”
“Ah, is that so?”
I couldn't just leave her with nothing to eat, and since she was a patient, I'd given her some of the spirit fruits I ate.
I still didn't know their names, but I gave her one that seemed like it might restore her vitality, and she came around in no time.
‘Eyes that can find treasures, huh.’
Looking again, I thought I could see a faint golden glow deep within her pupils. Was it my imagination? No, the Yao Immortal Gallery wouldn't be wrong.
“Seo Geum.”
“Please give me your orders.”
“You know...”
As I let my words trail off, Seo Geum's shoulders trembled ever so slightly.
Had she realized I'd figured out what she was?
“Your eyes, I mean.”
“...?”
“They seem pretty special.”
“My eyes? They're a slightly different color from other people's... I've never heard anyone say that before.”
“Were you discriminated against for it?”
Seo Geum smiled bitterly.
It didn't seem like it was a good memory.
‘Even if gold was considered auspicious, that could depend on the attitudes within her clan. And she'd said she was a twin, hadn't she? They must have considered her ill-omened from childhood.’
Twins were people born with a single fate divided between two.
They seemed to be regarded as a bad omen in the cultivation world, so she probably didn't have many good memories.
‘I was looked down on, but it turns out I'm a Treasure-Eyed Golden Rat, specialized in finding fortuitous opportunities?!’
At this rate, it was enough to make me the protagonist of a novel with a title like that.
Either way, it was good news for me.
I'd gotten myself a fortuitous-opportunity radar.
I was going to treasure her!
*
Unhyeon.
A small clan had settled there.
In front of the gate bearing the sign of the Unhyeon Seo Clan, a black-haired Yao Immortal of the Second Realm slumped to the ground.
The gatekeeper recognized her and jumped in alarm, then helped her to her feet.
“Isn't that Miss Seo Hyeon?!”
A short while later.
A heavy silence had settled over the main hall of the clan residence.
The clan elders stared at Seo Hyeon, who had returned covered in blood, and swallowed hard. The sight of the daughter who'd escaped alone from the hellish chaos of Golden Ring Immortal Paradise was utterly wretched.
Her father, the clan head, spoke in a trembling voice.
“Seo Hyeon... Why are you the only one here? Where is your older sister, Seo Geum?”
At those words, the last dam Seo Hyeon had been holding back finally broke.
“Hng... Waaah.....!”
Seo Hyeon finally sank to the ground, bursting into the tears she'd been holding back.
Her delicate shoulders shook, and she covered her face with her hands as she sobbed bitterly.
The image of her sister, left behind as Seo Hyeon fled the attackers in Golden Ring Immortal Paradise, lingered faintly in her mind.
“My sister... My sister is dead...! She's dead!! It was all because of me... She died there, trying to save me!”
Seo Hyeon's anguished sobs plunged the clan into shock.
Though the twins had been said to bring misfortune, she was still a gifted child, quick-witted and discerning.
But had even such a child been unable to withstand the cruelty of cultivation?
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry... Hic. I'm the only one who survived... I'm sorry...”
“No. No... It's our fault for sending you there...!”
“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry...”
Her mother hugged her daughter, who had crumpled to the floor, and wept with her, while the elders nearby lowered their heads in grief.
Just as everyone had accepted Seo Geum's death as fact and the hall was filled with sorrow...
“Stop!”
At that moment, the clan's Ancestor shouted urgently, and a steward came running from the ancestral shrine.
In his hands were a small incense burner and a Life Lamp (命然燈), kept lit to check whether the clan's children were alive or dead.
“Ancestor! Please check the Life Lamp in the shrine!”
“Have you lost your mind? You're telling me my daughter is dead, and now you're asking me to do what?!”
Her father roared in anger, but the steward dropped to his knees and raised a lit lamp.
The clan members all turned their eyes to the Life Lamp inscribed with Seo Geum's name. Its wick still crackled with a faint, bluish flame of life.
The flame that should have gone out burned upright, without so much as a flicker.
“Look! The lamp hasn't gone out! The fact that the Life Lamp is still burning so clearly means...! Miss Seo Geum is still alive!”
“......!”
Seo Hyeon, who'd been sobbing until she could hardly breathe, gasped and jerked her head up.
Seo Hyeon's mouth fell slightly open as she looked through tear-filled eyes at the Life Lamp in the steward's hands.
The lamp of the older sister she'd believed dead.
The flame, glowing and trembling as if breathing all alone in a dark corner of the shrine, was clear proof that Seo Geum was still alive.
“My sister... is alive......?”
Seo Hyeon stared blankly at the flame, then burst into tears of relief and confusion.
Her sister was still alive.
The next time Golden Ring Immortal Paradise opened would be a hundred years from now.
If Seo Geum was still alive then...
“I'll, I'll save her!!”
Seo Hyeon vowed to enter seclusion and reach the Yao Core realm by then.
“I'll definitely save you, Sis...!”
A hundred years.
It wasn't an impossible amount of time.
