Realizing where Cho Yoon’s troubled reaction came from, fear spread through Zhuge Seol-rin’s chest. But quick-witted Seol-rin urgently blurted out the fact that had flashed through her mind.
“Perhaps the traits of the martial arts one practices, or a specific artifact one carries, allowed them to evade the Great Hero Immortal Healer’s perception,” Seol-rin suggested earnestly. “After all, there are Purification Stones capable of neutralizing any poison; it is entirely plausible that an artifact capable of perfectly concealing one’s presence also exists.”
“…Yes, that is a reasonable hypothesis.”
“There is an unfathomable variety of artifacts in this world, and we have barely scratched the surface of what remains hidden. It must undoubtedly be one of them. Please, do not let this trouble you, Great Hero Immortal Healer. There is absolutely no one in this world who can genuinely evade your perception.”
“Understood. I shall investigate the matter personally, so put it out of your mind.”
Cut off by his firm, dismissive command to ‘put it out of her mind,’ Seol-rin snapped her mouth shut, abruptly halting her frantic attempts to comfort the Immortal Healer.
Upon brief reflection, she realized she possessed neither the status nor the qualifications to console an entity like Cho Yoon; if anything, he likely found her excessive fawning deeply uncomfortable.
As she hesitated, entirely unsure of how to smooth over the awkward silence, Cho Yoon reached for his bamboo hat.
“It seems the misunderstanding is resolved. I shall take my leave.”
“W-Wait! Just a moment!”
The instant he signaled his departure, Seol-rin reached out and grabbed him—an action driven almost entirely by raw impulse. As his light-brown eyes turned to her, silently questioning the interruption, her brilliant mind went into absolute overdrive.
Desperate for an excuse, Seol-rin began to stammer whatever half-baked justifications sprang to mind.
“I… I cannot possibly express the depths of my gratitude! Please, allow me to serve you a cup of tea, so that I might—”
“Unnecessary.”
“T-Then… the arrays! I wish to know more about the arrays! Were there critical flaws you exploited?!”
“None to speak of.”
“What… what are your plans moving forward?”
“I intend to return and sweep the area for any lingering traces.”
“Th-Then…”
If she were completely honest with herself, she had no logical idea why she had called out to him, nor why she felt this sudden, overwhelming desperation to keep him from leaving. She couldn’t understand her sudden thirst for his stories, or why she was suddenly burning with curiosity about matters utterly irrelevant to the crisis at hand.
But she didn’t want him to go.
Yes, that was it—she simply didn’t want the encounter to end.
She had spent her entire life suffocating among clan members utterly obsessed with flaunting their exceptional intellect and establishing their own superiority.
Sitting across from a man who possessed infinitely greater power and knowledge, yet carried himself with such plain, unassuming humility, felt like finally taking a full breath of air.
The fact that he had personally bypassed the continent’s deadliest defenses merely to clear up a misunderstanding that didn’t even affect him spoke volumes of his inherent righteousness.
She was utterly fascinated by his unfathomable reservoir of knowledge, and deeply intrigued by the two centuries of experiences he had amassed—experiences she could never hope to replicate in her own frail, sheltered life.
Her initial, terrified hyper-vigilance toward the ‘uninvited guest’ had vanished long ago.
Not only had Cho Yoon perfectly dismantled her anxieties, he had unknowingly planted an entirely different emotion in their place.
Fidgeting nervously as she frantically brainstormed how to anchor this fleeting, mythical figure to her room, Zhuge Seol-rin finally spoke in a tiny, timid voice.
“…I am curious.”
“About what?”
“…I am curious about… what a Zhenniao actually looks like,” she confessed. “The bestiaries I read as a child merely depicted it as a large bird. What does a creature whose mere feather can kill a man truly look like?”
Seol-rin had decided to be completely honest once more.
Swallowing her intense embarrassment and unable to meet his gaze, she mumbled the question.
Instantly, the man sitting a jang and a half away froze. For five long, agonizing breaths, absolute silence reigned. Believing she had finally crossed a line with her absurd, childish curiosity, Seol-rin miserably picked at her intertwined fingers.
I knew it. That was far too abrupt and presumptuous, she berated herself.
Then, the hem of a white cotton robe drifted slowly into her downcast vision. Without a sound, Cho Yoon had closed the distance and settled gracefully on the floor directly in front of her.
“Do you have a brush and paper?” he asked.
“Excuse me? Yes! Yes, right here.”
His pristine white hair cascaded softly over his shoulders, completely unadorned. His face, though impossible to read, possessed a serene clarity that completely defied the label of ‘cold.’ Backlit by the sunlight streaming through her window, his entire being seemed to emit a soft, ethereal glow.
Unconsciously parting her lips, Seol-rin stared blankly up at him, mesmerized by his sudden proximity before finally snapping back to reality. She scrambled around, hastily retrieving her premium writing implements from her desk and presenting them to him.
Placing a sheet of paper between them, Cho Yoon took the brush. With elegant, practiced strokes, he began to draw. His fluid, concise lines quickly merged, forming the intricate skeletal framework of an avian creature.
“At first glance, a Zhenniao (鴆鳥) resembles an eagle with vivid, emerald-green plumage,” he explained as he drew. “Its beak gleams like polished copper, and its eyes are a piercing crimson. If you were to pluck it entirely, you would find a pitch-black torso beneath. However, you must exercise extreme caution, as its venom is not confined solely to its feathers.”
“Y-Yes… I see…”
“The miasma it radiates is so potent that merely flapping its wings will wither and kill the vegetation directly beneath its flight path. Its primary diet consists of vipers and arrowroot, and it is predominantly found in Guangdong Province. The Zhenniao’s venom is colorless, odorless, and highly water-soluble; upon ingestion, it necrotizes the five viscera and six entrails almost instantaneously. Victims die with their eyes rolled back in a matter of seconds. Are you curious about the Human-Faced Water Snake or other demonic beasts as well?”
“Excuse me? Yes! Yes, I am incredibly curious.”
Completing the detailed sketch while effortlessly delivering the accompanying lecture, Cho Yoon meticulously penned the hanja for ‘Zhenniao’ in the corner of the page.
He then pulled out a fresh sheet, seamlessly transitioning into a drawing of a serpent bearing a human face, offering an equally comprehensive explanation without missing a beat.
Is he actually… used to teaching? Seol-rin wondered blankly, scrambling to keep up with the impromptu monster biology lecture.
She had genuinely been curious, but she never expected him to provide such an exhaustive, meticulous breakdown.
Compared to even the most elite tutors the Zhuge Clan employed, his lecture was arguably superior—and infinitely kinder.
Because the subject matter involved mythical beasts she had previously dismissed as fairy tales, the entire experience felt profoundly magical.
The lecture on demonic beasts eventually morphed into a masterclass on the miraculous flora exclusive to the Point of No Return Mountain Range.
True to his title as the Immortal Healer, Cho Yoon possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of countless elixirs native only to that treacherous range. He utilized his flawless artistic skills to provide vivid visual aids, pairing them with perfectly paced, digestible explanations.
Matching his teaching prowess with her own peerless intellect, Zhuge Seol-rin absorbed every single word like a sponge.
In merely half a shichen, Seol-rin memorized the properties and appearances of dozens of obscure elixirs from a mythical mountain range she had never visited and would never survive visiting. It was entirely useless knowledge, yet for the very first time in her life, she didn’t view it as a waste of time.
Her heart fluttering wildly, Seol-rin reached out as Cho Yoon finally announced his departure and began to rise. Her fingers lightly caught the hem of his robe.
The face looking up at him was entirely stripped of its previous terrified hyper-vigilance, replaced by a flushed, comfortable intimacy and eager anticipation.
Clutching the stack of detailed illustrations he had gifted her, Seol-rin smiled brightly—completely unaware of her own expression.
“I know it is shamelessly greedy of me, but I wish to learn more from you, Great Hero,” she said softly. “Given my frail constitution, I harbor no delusions of learning martial arts. I am simply overwhelmed with gratitude for the opportunity to expand my horizons through your guidance. Will… will I ever have the honor of meeting you again, Great Hero?”
“…”
The modest cotton fabric slipped smoothly from her grasp.
Without a single word of confirmation or even the faintest rustle of clothing, the Immortal Healer vanished from the room, just as silently as he had arrived.
Yet, left entirely alone, Zhuge Seol-rin felt only a fleeting pang of emptiness, completely devoid of melancholy.
The lingering warmth of his brief, comforting pat on her head seemed to wrap around her, settling deep into her bones.
Reaching up to gently touch her own hair, Seol-rin carefully gathered the stack of illustrations and tucked them into the deepest, most secure drawer of her cabinet.
She then collected the scattered Purification Stones from her desk and the floor, returning them to their pouch before locking them inside a subterranean safe beneath the floorboards.
Throughout the entire cleanup process, a giddy, ecstatic smile never once left her face.
In the heart of Zhuge Seol-rin—a girl who fundamentally admired wisdom and humility above all else—an unrecognizable emotion, hovering somewhere between profound reverence and something deeper, began to sprout.
A seedling that fate had originally destined to face the scorching sun was now quietly, devotedly turning its leaves toward the serene, glowing moon.
***
Kids these days are terrifyingly smart…
Descending from the Zhuge Clan estate, Cho Yoon found himself lost in a dazed reverie. He had practically barged in with zero preparation, solely intending to drop a quick PSA: ‘Hey! I meddled with the plot, so please don’t hate the Moyong kid!’ Yet, he felt as if he had just been intellectually strip-mined.
He had easily accepted Cheon-oh’s brilliance because he knew beforehand that the boy was the destined final boss and an officially certified, once-in-a-century prodigy. Granted, actually parenting that terrifying genius was a separate, deeply stressful matter, but logically, he understood the boy’s intellect.
Sa-yeong had been incredibly sharp as well, but because the girl had never bothered hiding her flaws or acting overly precocious in front of her master, Cho Yoon hadn’t felt the sting of inadequacy.
However, after encountering Zhuge Seol-rin today, a profoundly bizarre, humbling sensation washed over him.
What was I doing when I was thirteen? he wondered.
Thirteen is… what, sixth grade in elementary school? I’m pretty sure I spent my lunch breaks mindlessly kicking a ball in the dirt, and my afternoons getting dragged to Taekwondo and piano lessons…
Meanwhile, thirteen-year-olds in Murim are mobilizing intelligence networks, treating their subordinates like extensions of their own limbs, and running surveillance on entire metropolitan cities. Even acknowledging that Seol-rin was exceptionally precocious and intelligent, it was still staggering. She’s already orchestrating political plots at that age.
Conveniently developing total amnesia regarding his own disciples—who, at thirteen, were casually sprinting through monster-infested mountains, accumulating internal energy that vastly eclipsed fully grown adults, and memorizing encyclopedic volumes of pharmacology—Cho Yoon simply marveled in bewildered awe.
It hadn’t truly registered when he was just reading the martial arts novel, but witnessing it firsthand finally hammered the reality home: if any of these kids were dropped into the modern world, they would be globally televised prodigies.