"Hmm, that’s a bit..."
Those few words left a deep wound in Baek Seolhyang’s fragile heart.
She had told him not to leave. She had even said she’d give him anything he wanted. And yet, the response she got was Hmm, that’s a bit...?
It wasn’t just Baek Seolhyang—any normal person with a human heart would have drawn their sword immediately upon hearing such a reply.
But Baek Seolhyang didn’t even think of drawing her sword. Her entire thought process simply froze.
She just stood there, her mouth gaping open, tears spilling uncontrollably. It was only then that Seo-jun, startled by her reaction, realized that what he had said could be misinterpreted in far too many ways. Hastily, he tried to fix his words.
“No, that’s not what I meant!”
“Not what you meant...?”
“I meant that saying ‘I’ll give you anything ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ you want’ is a bit too much, don’t you think...?”
Baek Seolhyang’s eyes widened at those words.
At this point, she no longer cared about dignity or appearances. She had come too far to concern herself with such things now.
So, she grabbed Seo-jun’s sleeve tightly and asked,
“...Then, are you staying in the Ice Palace?”
Even someone like Seo-jun, the epitome of shameless audacity, couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt at the sight of Baek Seolhyang’s desperate expression.
How can a transcendent martial artist, hundreds of years old, look this pitiful...?
Seo-jun remained silent for a moment, organizing his thoughts.
At this point, he owed the Ice Palace quite a bit (a lot, actually). Now that he had caught Baek Yoon, there weren’t many situations left where he would need to use the identity of Baek Seo-jun...
And, most importantly, if he caused any more trouble in the Ice Palace under Baek Seo-jun’s name, he would truly feel too guilty towards Baek Seolhyang, even by his own standards.
Moreover, after his recent enlightenment, he had gained enough power. There was no longer a need to cling so tightly to the identity of Baek Seo-jun.
“Don’t be too shocked, just listen.”
“...Alright.”
“Have you heard of the Heavenly Lord, Myeolsa Cheon-gun, Lee Seo-jun?”
Baek Seolhyang rolled her eyes and gave a small nod.
“I know of him. A lunatic drenched in blood... But why are you suddenly bringing him up?”
“That’s me.”
“......?”
Baek Seolhyang froze.
Her brows twitched as if she had just heard something utterly incomprehensible. Then, she narrowed her eyes sharply at Seo-jun.
“What’s the point of telling such an absurd lie? Do you really want to leave the Ice Palace that badly? Do you not even consider me a friend?”
As a transcendent martial artist, Baek Seolhyang had certain fundamental beliefs.
One of those was that it was impossible for a person to wield two different types of inner energy unless they had some rare, special cultivation technique.
And as far as she knew, no such technique existed that allowed one to use both the Ice-White Divine Art and the orthodox sects' inner energy at the same time.
The Ice-White Divine Art was far too unique—it simply could not mix with other types of internal energy.
It wasn’t just a common belief; it was an absolute, unshakable truth.
And yet, the man before her just smiled and—
“Ta-da.”
—unleashed the Great Azure Sky Divine Art of Namgung and the Ice-White Divine Art of the Ice Palace alternately in front of her very eyes.
Baek Seolhyang’s mind shattered along with her common sense.
“...Eh?”
****
Baek Seolhyang’s thoughts raced through several phases in an instant.
The first thing she felt was betrayal.
Her first friend in centuries... turned out to be an undercover spy from the orthodox sects?
Her expression darkened as she faced this impossible reality.
How could he do this to her?
She cursed the heavens. She resented the first friend she had ever made.
Baek Seolhyang, who had barely managed to pull herself out of cultivation deviation, felt her mind sinking into that dark abyss once again.
But then—she suddenly had a realization.
Wait a second.
Now that she thought about it, Baek Seo-jun had been suspicious from the very beginning.
He had appeared out of nowhere, mastered both the Ice-White Divine Art and Northern Myung Divine Art, and suddenly claimed the position of Young Lord of the Ice Palace.
Baek Seolhyang had initially acknowledged him out of sheer pettiness and frustration with the world.
And yet, at some point, she had genuinely begun hoping that he would take up the position for real.
Yes, his abilities played a part. But more than that, it was because she thought he was a genuinely decent person.
And she wasn’t worried that it had all been an act.
Seo-jun might have called her a fool, a loser, and laughed at her expense, but Baek Seolhyang was still a transcendent martial artist—the Palace Lord of the Ice Palace.
She had the ability to see through people.
So, to her, the important thing was not that Baek Seo-jun turned out to be from the orthodox sects.
What mattered was that her first and only friend was, at his core, a good person.
And now, he had even revealed his true identity to her.
He could have hidden it forever, but he chose to tell her.
Why?
Baek Seolhyang’s lips curled up in amusement.
Oh... This guy actually thinks of me as his friend too!
With that realization, the world seemed to change before her eyes.
Baek Seo-jun was from the orthodox sects?
That wasn’t such a big deal after all.
Who would dare criticize the Palace Lord of the Ice Palace for having an orthodox friend?
The Ice Palace was already isolated from the world.
Baek Seolhyang had no other friends—or rather, now she only had one.
And besides, if anyone did have a problem with it, she had the power to flatten their heads into the ground.
At the end of the day, Baek Seo-jun had always been a strange and suspicious guy.
Adding "orthodox sect background" to his profile didn’t change much—it just made him a strange and suspicious orthodox sect guy.
Oh...!
Baek Seolhyang’s thoughts surged forward, not in doubt, but in excitement.
Lee Seo-jun of the orthodox sects.
Baek Seolhyang of the unorthodox sects.
Two people from different factions.
Which meant—
This was a friendship that transcended sectarian divides!
The sheer poetic beauty of it made her cold heart thump with excitement.
And so, when Baek Seo-jun—no, Lee Seo-jun—delayed his departure under the excuse of "not being in a hurry," Baek Seolhyang, feeling elated deep inside, decided to cautiously share her hobby with her newfound best friend.
“There are too many ignorant fools in this world. Fools who fail to understand this true aesthetic. But you—my friend, the great Baek Seolhyang’s friend—you must be able to appreciate it.”
She suddenly stood up, swaying slightly from drinking, still clutching a liquor bottle.
Then, from a deep corner of her room, she pulled out a collection of cleaning tools she had gathered over time.
And, brimming with excitement, she proudly showed them off to her only friend, Lee Seo-jun.
“Look here. This feather duster, for example—”
She didn’t just talk.
She demonstrated.
Taktaktak—
Seo-jun could only stare in disbelief as Baek Seolhyang enthusiastically dusted the room with practiced ease.
What the hell...?
And then, he realized something.
Baek Seolhyang’s drunken habits apparently involved...
Cleaning.
To summarize Baek Seolhyang’s argument—
Cleaning was no different from the bonsai cultivation that those refined old men of the orthodox sects enjoyed as a hobby.
The satisfaction and sense of accomplishment that came from personally scrubbing the Ice Palace clean were no less rewarding than achieving a breakthrough in martial arts.
Seo-jun, who had only been drinking with her out of pity because she had cried too much, decided to introduce his newly acquired friend to the convenience of martial techniques.
“You don’t actually need to do it like that. You can just use elemental telekinesis and qi to finish it instantly.”
And then, Baek Seolhyang roared.
“Blasphemy...!!”
“Wait, what?”
“I cannot acknowledge such a vulgar and corrupt path!”
The Palace Lord of the Northern Sea Ice Palace, a member of the Seven Wicked Black Gates, declared—
“Cleaning is only truly meaningful when you personally wipe away the filth, one stroke at a time!”
“Uh... Sure. Good luck with that.”
“Hmph...! You’ll understand once you try it yourself!”
And that was how Seo-jun ended up cleaning the Ice Palace with Baek Seolhyang.
As he wiped away the few remaining specks of dust with a pristine white cloth, Seo-jun suddenly pointed toward a rather large piece of trash sitting in the corner of the room.
“What about that?”
Baek Yoon’s corpse had disappeared in the process of sealing his soul, but Neungwol’s body had been brought back to the Ice Palace as evidence for Baek Seolhyang.
“Ah.”
Seeing it snapped Baek Seolhyang back to her senses.
“Tsk... So the Annihilation God Society wasn’t just after Geumga, they were targeting the Ice Palace as well...”
She had almost forgotten about it due to how shocking the whole situation had been. But if things had gone slightly differently, Baek Seolhyang could have been killed.
“I thought he was living quietly after being exiled, but to think he’d pull something like this...”
Baek Seolhyang recalled the face of Baek Yoon, now a hazy memory.
Murdering his own sect members. Human sacrifices.
Those were the reasons Baek Yoon had been exiled from the Northern Sea Ice Palace.
It seemed that after realizing the limitations of practicing the Ice-White Divine Art as a man, he had become desperate.
Even setting aside the human sacrifices, he had killed his own sect members under the guise of the Dual Cultivation method.
Baek Yoon had tried to cover it up, but the previous Palace Lord had eventually uncovered the truth after discovering the shriveled corpses of his victims.
Originally, Baek Yoon should have been crippled and exiled.
However, he had somehow caught wind of it in advance and fled before they could act.
“Well... I can see why he did it, to some extent. It’s practically impossible for a man to master the Ice-White Divine Art. He must have been desperate.”
Baek Seolhyang clicked her tongue.
“But that doesn’t justify what he did. He crossed the line. He laid hands on his own people.”
With that, she patted Seo-jun on the shoulder.
“Actually, you might be able to sympathize with him more than anyone. You, of all people, should know how impossible it is for a man to master the Ice-White Divine Art.”
“Sympathize?”
Seo-jun’s lips twisted into a smirk.
“I’d rather not be compared to a piece of shit like him.”
Putting aside the fact that he had never struggled to master the Ice-White Divine Art, he had no intention of sympathizing with a worthless worm who had helped annihilate the Geumga Clan.
Baek Seolhyang flinched at the look on Seo-jun’s face.
“M-my apologies... That’s right, you did say you had ties to Geumga...”
“No need to apologize.”
Seo-jun simply shrugged it off. He understood that Baek Seolhyang was just caught up in the excitement of having made a friend.
Glance...
Seeing that Seo-jun really didn’t seem all that offended, Baek Seolhyang straightened her posture again.
“Ahem! Cough.”
After clearing her throat a few times, she decided to bring up the real issue while she still had the courage.
“You... said you were leaving tomorrow, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
Seo-jun had mentioned that he was hunting down another piece of trash involved in Geumga’s destruction.
Baek Seolhyang didn’t want to let him go, but she also knew that a healthy friendship couldn’t involve keeping someone tied down. (She read that in a book.)
So, she carefully asked,
“I won’t try to stop you, but... can you tell me when you’ll be back?”
The difference between waiting without knowing and waiting with a promise was significant.
If she had a clear date, Baek Seolhyang could spend her days anticipating his return instead of simply enduring endless, meaningless time.
Seo-jun could tell that was exactly what she was thinking, so he gave her an answer.
“I’ll probably stop by after I’m done. It shouldn’t take more than a week.”
“I-I see.”
Baek Seolhyang, now suddenly pretending to be composed, nodded.
Seo-jun continued.
“Oh, by the way, I’m getting married in the spring.”
“...What?”
“Do you want to come?”
“Me? Am I even allowed to?”
“Oh, right.”
Now that he thought about it, bringing the Ice Palace Lord to Anhui would definitely cause some problems.
“Then I’ll come get you myself.”
“The orthodox sects won’t just stand by and let that happen...”
“Eh, it’ll be fine.”
If they didn’t stand by and let it happen, well—
That just meant things would get more fun.
Seo-jun grinned.