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Chapter 05
One’s own tail is something you cannot see with your own eyes.
The condition of my tail fur was serious.
“Hwuh-haah…….”
I let out a deep, heavy sigh.
Just then, Uncle Jang, who had been sweeping the courtyard, strode over and gently tapped my wrinkled brow.
“If you sigh like that, the ground is gonna cave in, you know? Huh? A little kid shouldn’t be making such a frowning face.”
“I’m really serious right now…!”
“Oh my. Then this uncle will take a look for ye. How’s that?”
“Really? Please look, please look!”
Quickly turning around, I stuck my tail out.
“Hwaaam…….”
“U-Um, how much has it grown…?”
Gulp.
Even the act of swallowing saliva felt cautious amidst the quiet…….
Uncle Jang used his fingers to show a tiny gap—so small not even a single grain of rice could pass through.
“Oh ho, it grew this much!”
Hee-ing……. \\
Disappointed, I slumped down onto the wooden porch and curled my body up.
“It looks like barely any downy fluff has grown back….”
“Don’t worry too much. It’s growing in all soft, fluffy, and pretty.”
“Really…?”
At those words, I beamed with a chuckle.
However, the strength soon leaked away from my smile piece by piece.
‘Sigh…, but where on earth is Lady Hang-ah?’
Immediately after, concerns bubbled up like a fountain over a problem much bigger—no, actually far bigger than my tail.
“Tori, give me that hairpin.”
“What?! T-This hairpin…?”
“Yeah. I’ll hand it over to the lord, so give it up now. The lord bought that while thinking of the late Madame.”
“Ah, without even knowing that! I’m sorry….”
The treasure jewel I had discovered was something that sealed away Lady Hang-ah’s divine power intact so that the surrounding aura wouldn’t warp when she left the celestial realm.
Because the lord possessed a hairpin attached with such a treasure jewel, Lady Hang-ah’s aura naturally lingered around the lord. And that was why I had been agonizing, mistakenly thinking the two of them had tied the knot!
It was a relief to know that wasn’t the case, but…….
To find traces of Lady Hang-ah, I needed that treasure jewel, but since the hairpin had returned to the lord’s possession, it seemed unlikely I would be able to get my hands on it.
The only piece of good news was that since my story might have leaked to those Geumin-whatever fellows, I had received a proposal to stay in this household for a few more days for my own safety.
‘Is there really no way I can get my hands on Lady Hang-ah’s treasure jewel in the meantime?’
If I used the treasure jewel, I might be able to find out where Lady Hang-ah currently was.
However…….
“Sigh…….”
“Hey, why are ye sighing again? I told ye your tail fur is growing out fine.”
“Phew-uuu….”
“Oh dear.”
Following the comforting touch of Uncle Jang patting my shoulder, my body went all limp and floppy.
…To be honest, though it was a bad thought, a part of me even felt tempted to steal the hairpin.
I had thought about it so much that I even ended up dreaming about stealing it. In that dream,
“Tori, you rascal, to think you stole a hairpin! Expect to be hit a hundred times on the bottom.”
“Euaaakh! I was wrong! A moon rabbit is dying!”
I had been hit so much by the lord and Uncle Jang that even after waking up, my backside still felt stinging and raw.
……Just recalling it sent a chill down my spine!
If I really were to steal the hairpin, that dream would instantly become reality.
“U-Um, mister, that hairpin from back then….”
“The hairpin? Ah, that hairpin?”
“Yes. Might the lord perchance gift that hairpin to someone else someday?”
“…Well, who knows. People’s affairs are unpredictable, so maybe?”
“T-Then! Who on earth might receive that gift?! Just what if, if that were to happen!”
“……Well, since it’s an item like that, it’s probably the lord’s precious person? That’s about as far as I can guess.”
A precious person?
Then, if I become the lord’s precious person, could I receive the hairpin?!
Of course, that was a task as difficult as plucking a star from the sky for me at the moment.
‘Ever since he locked Uncle Baek in the underground storehouse, he hasn’t called for me even once…’
I must have completely fallen out of his good graces.
Haaah, thinking about that made me think of Uncle Baek and let out another deep sigh.
Uuuugh……, in times like this, fellow out-of-favor buddies are supposed to cheer each other up…!
Uncle Baek was acting mean to the lord and acting scary toward me, too! I thought he was a good person whose only flaw was a somewhat scary face, so the shock was even greater. However…….
“Tori, don’t ye move, or ye’ll die.”
The uncle’s voice that I heard ringing in my ears back then was unmistakably a voice soaked heavy with apology.
Then why on earth did the uncle act that way?
If I soothe the lord’s anger, would I be able to see Uncle Baek again?
It felt as though my head was stuffed full of rolling stones.
“Eat up. I ain’t gonna kill ya easily.”
Thud, Jang Baek-gi placed a meal right in front of Baek Su-jong.
The signs of having starved for over half a month were evident in Baek Su-jong now. The skin beneath his eyes was hollowed out, and dry, flaky patches of skin bloomed across his rough face, robbed of its elasticity.
Today was already the fifteenth day since he began refusing meals.
“Damn it… Then what d’ya want me to do, huh? Should I chew it and feed it right into yer mouth?”
Seeing his comrade and family member—who had steadfastly stayed by his side while everyone else left—act like this made Jang Baek-gi feel like his insides were bursting.
“Ah, what d’ya want me to do! Eat. If it looks like ye’re gonna starve to death, I’ll force-feed ya!”
Only after issuing a stern warning did Jang Baek-gi lock the heavy padlock and step out of the underground storehouse.
Trudge, trudge.
His footsteps as he left his old friend and comrade behind all alone were heavy beyond measure.
“Uncle Jang!”
The moment he opened the kitchen door, a smile bloomed across his face like sunlight breaking through.
It was Tori, the mouse-drooping-sized little pipsqueak, welcoming him with a bright smile.
She was the sole sunshine-like child in this gloomy Jangsan Tiger household, in every sense.
However.
“There, this is the last of it, Tori. It’s your share.”
“Um… mister, there’s way too much. Please give me just half.”
Rumble-rumble. Paralyzed by a bolt from the blue, Jang Baek-gi froze with his eyes rounded in shock.
“What? Tori, are ya sick anywhere? Do ya have no appetite?”
“Huh? Ah, no, it’s not like thatuuu…!”
Rolling her eyes back and forth nervously, Tori shrank back and barely managed to open her mouth.
“Well, um, from now on I’m going to eat just a little bit of food, and work a lot more so I can contribute to the household,”
“What kind of nonsense is that! Eat a whole bowl, alright?”
“Y-Yes!”
While Tori received the rice bowl with both hands, Jang Baek-gi’s gaze drifted toward those tiny fingers.
Everywhere on those small hands—barely half a span long—red welts had broken out.
‘Even without that, she goes around saying she came from the moon, the kid is a bit lacking in the head….’
How could one not pity a young beastfolk who worked so hard she didn’t even know her own body was getting battered?
Forcing down a sigh, Jang Baek-gi spoke affectionately.
“Tori, you need to get some ointment put on.”
“O-Ointment…is that painful?”
“Painful? You only stop hurting once you put it on. This uncle will apply it so it doesn’t hurt a single bit.”
“Hee-ing…, really?”
“Of course!”
Soothing and picking up Tori—who was hesitating with her unusually large eyes opened even wider—Jang Baek-gi searched for medicine, applied it, and wrapped bandages around her hands.
“Um… mister!”
“Why? Does it hurt? Where?”
“No, it doesn’t hurt at all, but um… if I’m like this, how am I supposed to use chopsticks?”
Huh?
Only then did Jang Baek-gi realize that Tori’s ten fingers had been made excessively thick and bulky with cloth wrappings.
“……There’s no help for it, I’ll feed ya.”
“Whaaat?!”
That evening, in the end.
Tori ended up being fed rice spoon by spoon by Uncle Jang.
It was truly unavoidable!
The ironclad rule of the Jangsan Tiger Family: ‘Traitors are not kept alive.’
Yet, the reason Baek Su-jong was still breathing and surviving in the servant quarters’ underground storehouse for over half a month was precisely because of lingering affection.
For the Jangsan Tiger Family—where the three of them had lived relying on one another—Baek Su-jong was no different from family.
To Beom Hyeon, Baek Su-jong was a brother who had spent time closest to him, transcending battlefields and daily life. To Jang Baek-gi, he was a dependable comrade whose back he could trust, and a close friend to whom he could confide his most intimate innermost thoughts.
Thus, until now as early winter was approaching, the two men had been searching for “proof.”
The Baek Su-jong they knew was not a man who would voluntarily try to harm Beom Hyeon, and if the mastermind were exposed, they might even be able to spare his life.
However, proof did not surface easily, and early yesterday morning, Jang Baek-gi headed to Baek Su-jong’s ancestral home.
Since it wasn’t to be found anywhere throughout the house, could it be outside the house? Perhaps the family members knew of something they hadn’t managed to destroy yet.
With that thought, he had gone to seek out Baek Su-jong’s family, but…….
“Cough, cough, hack!”
There, Jang Baek-gi learned that Baek Su-jong’s elderly mother had very little time left to live. Moreover,
“Until recently, older brother used to send herbal medicine every week. When she brewed and drank that, she was fine, but once it was cut off, like this……”
“When I asked the apothecary, they said that medicine was too exorbitantly expensive for Su-jong to afford. Furthermore, even that was merely a temporary stopgap to hold off his mother’s symptoms, and consuming it for long would only invite disaster, so it had to be used very briefly and carefully.”
“……”
“My lord, from what I saw…… I suspect the money source providing the herbal medicine blackmailed him using another person’s mother’s life. That guy is such a devoted son, after all.”
However, in the end, all of this was merely circumstantial evidence. Without clear, undeniable proof, there was no way Baek Su-jong could escape death.
“Hooo…….”
Inside the main quarters, a deep sigh spilled from Jang Baek-gi, who was kneeling before Beom Hyeon.
Following that, a brief heavy silence drifted inside the room. And then……
“Make sure he can at least protect his mother on her final journey. After that……”
“Um, my lord, are you inside?”
It was Beom Hyeon—whose sentence trailed off—and the bright, cheerful voice of the baby moon rabbit that suddenly rang out.
“…Tori? Come on in.”
“Yeees!”
Without a single inkling of the adults’ circumstances. Tori, wearing a bright face, hurriedly ran inside.
“Um, there’s something I want to show you!”
