Precious Daughter of the Greatest Martial Arts Villain

Chapter 7

Time passed by quickly.

Bing Eunseol flipped the table over with a loud smash. Glasses and plates flew through the air before crashing onto the floor, shattering into pieces.

Seoryeong, who had been hiding in the corner to avoid drawing attention, stiffened at the sudden noise.

Her arms tightened around me. Because of that, I could feel exactly how much she was trembling.

Haa...

I was used to the abuse, but I really disliked her drinking and smashing things like that.

It reminded me of the orphanage director who used to stomp on and break the children’s toys whenever he drank alcohol.

I was now three years old. I had been treated this way by Bing Eunseol for nearly my entire life.

During that time, I’d grown a little taller and was now even able to run. Though I didn’t have good pronunciation, I was able to talk, and I’d gotten pretty decent at making flower crowns.

Just as I had changed, so had Bing Eunseol. In fact, it felt like she had become a completely different person lately.

At first, she seemed to just enjoy tormenting me, but then at some point, she had begun to strike me, instead. After that, she began to drink, and these days, when she got drunk, she would break things.

“Why does my internal qi keep on shrinking?!”

She’d yell things like that.

Her initial graceful and charming appearance had vanished entirely. She used to be beautiful, but that had faded too, and now the energy that once emanated from her whole body was barely detectable.

I thought it might be because of her drinking, but maybe that wasn’t the case. Had something really happened to her qi?

“This is all your fault! My internal qi has been shrinking ever since you were born!”

Bing Eunseol pointed at me with her finger, her elongated fingernails sharp as blades. Worried that she might do something to me, Seoryeong covered my head and held onto me tightly.

As I rested my face against Seoryeong’s trembling body, I let out a sigh.

The way I saw it, this happened because she’d drunk whatever elixir she could get her hands on without checking to see if they’d even be good for her or not. It was inevitable that problems would arise.

Another possibility was that she didn’t absorb the energy of the elixirs correctly. It was all just conjecture at this point, but why else would her internal qi diminish like that?

“You! Give me that little brat!”

While holding me in her arms, Seoryeong begged, “My lady! Please don’t do this! She’s your daughter!”

“Who said I was going to kill her?! If you don’t want to be punished alongside her, hand her over now! Give her to me this instant!”

“Please, just punish me instead! I beg of you, please leave Miss Lihwa alone and take your anger out on me instead!”

“What? Take my anger out on you? As her mother, I just want to teach my daughter a lesson. What’s so wrong about that?! You have a death wish, don’t you?!”

She staggered to her feet. Despite not having had much alcohol, she seemed incredibly drunk.

It seemed that her internal qi really had diminished. Most levels of intoxication could easily be dispelled by internal power.

She must have gone from tormenting me with ice to using her fists because she didn’t have sufficient internal qi. She knew people didn’t care about me, so she had no reason to be careful.

With flaming eyes, Bing Eunseol looked for a non-broken bottle and then tried to take a big swig.

When only a few drops came out, she became furious and threw the bottle at us.

The bottle flew past Seoryeong’s head and shattered into pieces on the wall.

“Ack!”

I wasn’t hurt at all because Seoryeong used her body to protect me.

“A-anny! Arr you hwurt? (Nanny! Are you hurt?)”

“I-I’m all right. It doesn’t hurt at all, miss.”

I watched as blood began to trail down her forehead. It looked like she had been nicked by a bottle fragment.

I pressed my sleeve firmly against Seoryeong’s forehead.

“You stupid brat! You still can’t talk properly?! If I had known how stupid you’d turn out to be, I wouldn’t have had you!”

Since I couldn’t keep my mouth shut forever, I’d recently started to talk in front of other people as well.

I did make sure to adjust my word choice to appear less advanced than other kids my age, but I didn’t intentionally have poor pronunciation. My tongue muscles had developed slowly because I tried not to talk much.

Still, the servants openly treated me like a fool, and Bing Eunseol got mad every time I spoke.

“This is all because of that little idiot! She stole my internal power and the heart of the Sect Leader! If only you weren’t around! If only I hadn’t given birth to you!”

After this hysterical screaming, Bing Eunseol quickly approached, her eyes flashing.

No! Your internal power shrunk because you drank and ate anything you could get your grubby hands on! And besides, Cheon Ma never had any interest in you from the beginning!

I swallowed the words that had reached the tip of my tongue.

I was tired.

Even in my past life, I was berated and treated poorly by the orphanage director.

He would routinely find reasons to punish or starve me.

Having been through all of that once already, I was confident I could take Bing Eunseol’s hits, but that wasn’t true.

In my previous life, I just had to endure by myself, so I didn’t realize what had changed in this life.

Seeing Seoryeong get hurt because of me and not being able to do anything about it was agonizing.

Maybe I should have asked Ak Wuryeon for help, or at least asked him to help Seoryeong get out.

Why hadn’t I thought of that at the time?

I resented my past self for putting her in danger, but it was too late. The only person who knew about this situation was Ak Wuryeon, and he had long since gone into isolation training. After him, no one else had come here.

Even the servants were Bing Eunseol’s people. Seoryeong and I were almost entirely isolated.

I knew I had to endure because if I didn’t, my nanny would be in danger. If I died, Bing Eunseol was sure to pin the blame on Seoryeong.

I gritted my teeth and held back tears as Bing Eunseol grabbed my wrist and tugged me hard toward her.

“Come here!”

“Please, no! My lady! Hit me instead! I will take the hits!”

“Very well. You asked for it.”

Bing Eunseol began to stomp on Seoryeong’s back. Despite a trickle of blood flowing from her mouth, Seoryeong still held onto me tightly.

Unable to take it any longer, I wriggled out of her embrace.

“N-no! Miss!”

I grabbed a hold of Bing Eunseol’s thigh and began to smack at her.

To her, my hits must have felt like ant bites, but the feeling of injustice was going to make me burst, so I had to do something.

What has Seoryeong ever done to you?! If you’re going to hit someone, hit me! Just me!

“Dun hit hur! Dun hit hur! I hae you! I hae you! I hae you! (Don’t hit her! Don’t hit her! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!)”

“Why you crazy little brat!”

Bing Eunseol swung her fist and hit me hard on the head. I flew like a straw doll and slammed into the wall.

“Miss!” Seoryeong screamed as she ran to me. “Miss? Miss? Are you all right? Miss, can you see me?”

“Anny... (Nanny...)”

“Oh, goodness! Thank the gods!”

Fortunately, I didn’t faint.

If her punch had landed properly, I would have been dead.

Thankfully, her drunkenness had likely thrown off her aim. I was dizzy, but not enough to lose consciousness.

I shook my head to try and clear my whirling vision.

Since she got to hit me, at least she’ll settle down for a while.

Bing Eunseol would typically calm down once she got her licks in, so I’d just let her hit me sometimes.

Of course, I had never gotten hit on the head like today, but at least she’d stop causing trouble.

Then I heard Seoryeong gasp. “M-miss! You have a bloody nose!”

“Hm?”

I could feel a lukewarm liquid dripping from my nose. Having experienced a bloody nose several times before, I just casually wiped the blood away with my sleeve.

“Huh?”

The bleeding wouldn’t stop. It was like a faucet had been turned on.

At the same time, I could taste the metallic blood in my throat. It felt like something slippery was coming up from my stomach.

I coughed up dark red blood as I plopped down on the floor.

My vision darkened, and my arms trembled uncontrollably as I tried to get up.

My ears were ringing. It felt like the world was spinning.

“M-miss, what’s wrong?! My lady, there’s something wrong with Miss Lihwa! P-please! Please send for a physician!”

Bing Eunseol seemed flustered. She hesitated for a moment, then snorted.

“Hrmph! Th-there’s no need! She just needs to sleep it off!”

“My lady!”

Seoryeong begged, but Bing Eunsol pretended not to listen as she barked out an order to her servant outside the room.

“Danah, are you out there? I want you to clean this room immediately, and don’t let anyone outside.”

There was no response. Her voice tinged with irritation, Bing Eunseol screamed, “What are you doing?! I told you to come into this room immediately and clean—aah!”

With a tremendous explosion, something burst through the door and slammed against the wall.

It was a bloody body.

Either the body had already been like that, or it became so after hitting the wall. Covered entirely in blood, the face was unrecognizable, but Bing Eunseol shrieked when she realized who the person was.

“Danah!”

The bloody body belonged to Bing Eunseol’s servant.