## Chapter 197 – (9)
Originally, men were one of two things to her:
Oppa, and the rest.
That’s how she felt.
‘Everyone just burdens me, only Oppa plays with me.’
That’s what she thought when she was young.
The adults of the Moryong Clan saw her talent and only increased the intensity of her training.
The other disciples only kept her in check or looked at her with fearful eyes.
Only Oppa played with her, took her to the market when she was having a hard time, or went to the mountains to see the flowers, investing a lot of time in her.
So when Oppa was kicked out of the Moryong Clan, she was able to leave without any regrets.
To her, the Moryong Clan was nothing more or less than a place where she could be with Oppa.
The day after Oppa was kicked out, she realized he was gone and ran out of the Moryong Clan.
Oppa left without a word of goodbye.
Looking back now, she wondered if Oppa knew.
That if he told her he was leaving, his younger sister, Moryong Yeon, would follow him.
So he disappeared alone without a word.
To the still young her, the Murim world was full of adversity.
The Murim world was a world of the survival of the fittest, but martial arts strength wasn’t everything.
Money, knowledge, and sometimes connections surpassed martial arts strength.
As she wandered through the market, starving, she met her master.
An old man with impressive snow-white hair that seemed to be quite old.
At first, she didn’t want to become anyone’s disciple.
She just wanted to find her exiled Oppa as soon as possible.
But then her master’s words stopped her.
“Going in that state will only be a burden.”
“Oppa doesn’t think of me as a burden.”
“Yes, your Oppa wouldn’t think so. But in reality, you will be a burden.”
“…”
Her master said it a bit harshly back then.
She knew why.
Because the Murim world wasn’t easy for someone who knew nothing but martial arts to survive.
He must have deliberately provoked her for her own good.
She resented him a little back then, but she understands now.
Even though Oppa married a woman from the Sichuan Tang Clan while she was learning martial arts.
Looking back, that’s when it started.
When men began to drift away from her world.
Then her master passed away.
Her master’s last words were:
‘Carry on the lineage of martial arts, the Yeongsal Sword Technique.’
Because of that one sentence, she traveled around the Murim world looking for a disciple.
But it wasn’t easy to find a disciple who met the requirements.
Someone whose internal and external skills were at least at the level of a master, but who could give up all other martial arts except the Yeongsal Sword Technique.
It seemed like a simple condition, but it wasn’t.
To have internal and external skills above the level of a master meant that they had at least learned martial arts properly and had some talent.
There was no way such a person would give up the martial arts they had learned for years to learn the unknown Yeongsal Sword Technique.
She had traveled to several cities, but it was all in vain.
And in the end, she arrived in a city near the cave where she used to train with her master.
She had already been there several times, so she didn’t expect much.
But she ran into him.
Her disciple.
He was a perfect fit for the requirements, so she dragged him along almost threateningly, but he did his training without complaint.
‘Back then, I was forced to raise him as a disciple because of my master’s will, but now—’
To be honest, she had been enjoying raising her disciple lately.
He grew as she taught him, and occasionally showed her admirable qualities.
She could understand why the elders were so eager to teach martial arts when she was young.
Besides, her disciple was quick-witted.
Just today, he noticed her condition and took on the three people from the Moryong Clan instead.
If he hadn’t stepped in first, she would have caused an accident without thinking, making things more difficult for Oppa.
“Master?”
“Huh? Ah…”
She had been spacing out for a moment.
She wasn’t drunk.
She had already become immune to alcohol through her martial arts training.
But even if she wasn’t drunk, she could still get caught up in the atmosphere.
As she talked to her disciple and reminisced about the past, she was soon sucked into it.
“What were we talking about?”
“That I look like your Oppa…”
“Ah… um, a little bit.”
She actually felt that way.
Their talent for martial arts was completely different.
But he was big, kind, and quick-witted like Oppa.
“Is that so?”
The disciple smiled and drank his wine, as if he was happy about something.
She felt a little proud.
Most people would be displeased to hear that they looked like her Oppa.
But her disciple admirably accepted it with a smile.
On the other hand, she was curious about the reason.
“Are you happy to hear that you look like Oppa?”
“Of course, don’t you like your Oppa, Master?”
“Yeah… huh?”
She answered without thinking, but it was a strange answer.
The fact that he was happy to hear that he looked like her Oppa because she liked her Oppa sounded like he wanted to receive her affection or feelings.
Maybe she was reading too much into it.
But people say that you tell the truth when you’re drunk, so she couldn’t ignore it.
“…Don’t tease your master.”
“Huh? I wasn’t teasing you.”
“…”
She had never been in this situation before, so she didn’t know how to respond.
‘Does he have feelings for me?’
It wasn’t that she hadn’t had men approach her with feelings before.
But this time it was different.
All the people who had expressed their feelings for her before were of no interest to her.
But her disciple, Seong Han, was different.
She definitely had feelings for him too.
Not romantic feelings, but a feeling of pride as a disciple.
She decided to draw a line this time in order to maintain this relationship.
She was afraid that her disciple would be hurt.
But it was something she had to do.
“Disciple, I—”
“Yeon-ah.”
When her disciple called her that, her mind went blank for a moment.
Her heart was racing so fast that she could hear it, even though she was sober from the alcohol.
Her eyes widened, and her widened eyes were filled with only the image of her disciple.
Her disciple was watching her reaction with a smiling expression.
“How is it, do I look like him?”
He did.
His voice was different, but his unique tone and the affectionate feeling in his words were the same.
And he even had that playful expression.
He really seemed to overlap with her Oppa.
“Stop joking…”
She told him to stop, but her disciple seemed to find her reaction funny and called her name again.
“Yeon-ah.”
He brazenly called her name again and slowly approached her this time.
And he reached out his thick hand to her head.
“Ah…”
She just stood there with her mouth open, watching his hand approach her like a fool.
If she wanted to stop him, she could just grab him or push him away.
His hand touched her head.
His big hand ruffled her hair as if she were a child.
It was the same touch that Oppa had given her when she was very young.
Was she a little drunk?
Her cheeks felt hot.
“You’re being rude.”
“Why, can’t an Oppa touch his younger sister’s head?”
His touch didn’t stop despite her cry.
Her disciple, who had always obeyed her words, was different today.
‘Is he drunk…?’
Maybe so.
Just as alcohol enhances the effects of poison, poison can also help alcohol spread through the body.
Besides, he only brought alcohol with high alcohol content, such as Jukyeopcheong and Gaoliang liquor, so maybe her disciple had gotten drunk.
If so—
‘A little bit…’
She was the one who gave him the alcohol.
It wouldn’t be right as a master to coldly push away the touch of a drunken disciple.
“…Only for today. Everything that happened today will be erased after today.”
“Okay. Yeon-ah.”
“…Really…”
So she just put her head down.
She felt a little relieved by the gentle touch.
She never thought she would feel Oppa’s touch, which she thought she would never feel again, from her disciple.
It seemed even more so because she thought they looked alike.
Swish, swish.
Her disciple, Seong Han, stroked her head for a long time.
Somehow, if someone saw them now, it would look very strange.
A man and a woman who had drunk a lot of alcohol were just stroking each other’s heads in the same room.
And the touch stopped.
“Ah…”
She was disappointed.
She felt like she hadn’t had enough, even though she had been stroked for so long.
His hand slowly came back and this time slowly stroked her face.
“Even so, this is…”
When she looked up at Seong Han, his eyes were a little different.
“Ah…”
She, who had encountered many spiritual beasts, could tell.
Those were the eyes of a predator.
“This… lewd… disciple—”
She felt something from the hand stroking her face and tried to stop him, but her hand wouldn’t move.
Why did Seong Han look like Oppa at times like this?
“Only for today. I’ll erase everything that happened today.”
“…”
Those were the words she had said earlier.
Since her disciple said that, she couldn’t easily refuse.
Maybe she had raised a tiger cub.
“…Know that I’ll be increasing your training from tomorrow.”
