“Eut...!”
Dang Soran couldn’t regain her senses amid the maddening excitement and depravity.
With Han Seojin’s movements, her body was gradually being restrained.
Both arms were pulled behind her back, and her legs were bound so she couldn’t stand.
She was slowly losing her freedom.
No, not losing it... she was slowly surrendering it.
The more she was bound, the stiffer her body grew, but her heartbeat only intensified.
Even though it felt rough, as long as she didn’t resist, it didn’t hurt much—she could sense Han Seojin’s consideration.
Dang Soran looked at Han Seojin.
Her heart pounded at his merciless actions.
‘Young Master?’
Above all, Jegal Yong downstairs.
His voice made her trembling grow even stronger.
This was about getting caught by someone in this state.
So pathetic, so wretched, so perverse.
Not her usual Tang Clan attire, but the cheapest, most vulgar courtesan outfit.
A sight she’d never show if she were in her right mind.
But it would only be this once.
What sane man could accept his betrothed like this?
Dang Soran knew full well that the moment he saw her like this, the engagement would shatter.
The process was utterly humiliating.
Degrading.
...And yet, exhilarating.
All the more because she knew she shouldn’t.
Wasn’t this like branding her?
At the very least, in Jegal Yong’s eyes, it would be a brand.
This Dang Soran belonged to no one else but Han Seojin.
You dare not covet her.
“Hueuk...!”
Another knot tightened. That restraint felt just like Han Seojin’s embrace.
Why was this act so thrilling?
Why did she hate it so much, yet love it just as intensely?
How did Han Seojin even know about this?
Above all, Han Seojin looked so incredibly handsome.
Neatly and impeccably composed, dominating her in that form—her heart wouldn’t obey.
She wanted him to take pleasure through her.
She didn’t care if she suffered in the process.
As long as he was pleased, she could gladly accept even that pain.
‘Young Master, are you upstairs?’
Jegal Yong’s question.
Dang Soran and Han Seojin both froze.
Their deep eye contact continued.
In this precarious space, what bound them was trust—Dang Soran and Han Seojin.
Betraying each other would make the other a fool.
They could only navigate this moment without betraying one another.
Dang Soran would trust Han Seojin.
He would surely protect her in this moment.
He wouldn’t suddenly step out pathetically before Jegal Yong, claiming it was her doing and he had nothing to do with it.
So Dang Soran waited for Han Seojin’s choice.
He spoke.
“Tell him to wait a bit longer. I haven’t finished tying you up yet.”
At those words, an indecent emotion she couldn’t hide burst forth in Dang Soran.
And with it, a playful mischief she couldn’t conceal.
“Think I’ll do what you say just because you told me to?”
“...”
Han Seojin’s eyes flickered dangerously.
Dang Soran loved that fiery, playful glint.
Provoking him more here would bring even greater punishment.
And Han Seojin’s punishment... could be seen as his affection.
The delicate violence continuing for the sake of resolving her heart demon.
Knowing the consideration beneath it, Dang Soran felt it as love.
His large hand seized Dang Soran’s chin.
“...Say to wait. That’s what I told you to say, Soran.”
Only after his tone returned did Dang Soran obediently nod.
“Yes.”
She called toward the stairs.
“Young Master Jegal. Please wait just a moment... Eut! I-it’ll be, be ready soon?”
“Young Master?”
“I-I’m preparing something...”
Jegal Yong fell silent for a moment.
She could feel his tension.
Unintentionally, they had raised his expectations sky-high.
Dang Soran and Han Seojin both knew it.
“...You really are a naughty girl.”
Han Seojin whispered into Dang Soran’s ear.
Every time he scolded her like this, her lower abdomen grew hot.
Dang Soran nodded.
“For you, Young Master... I can be as naughty as it takes.”
“How is this for me?”
She forced a smile through her flushed face.
“Then... shall I go to Jegal Yong?”
Without a hint of pain, like a gentle scolding, Han Seojin lightly tapped and caressed Dang Soran’s cheek.
“Eut...!”
But that small contact sent pleasure through her.
‘Young Master?’
Hearing the sound, Jegal Yong called from below, but.
“N-no, it’s nothing.”
Dang Soran suppressed it.
She knew she was doing something wicked.
But wasn’t it Jegal Yong who had driven her to this?
She’d told him no so many times, yet he kept following her.
If he’d backed off when she told him to, this wouldn’t have happened.
That cowardly gigolo dared to overreach.
She would show him.
The kind of man she wanted to submit to.
From the start, she’d never asked him to like her.
The one who fell first was in the wrong.
Han Seojin seemed to have finished tying the ropes, pulling them taut.
“Hoo.”
He let out a long sigh.
He took another rope from the bag and made a small knot.
Then slowly tried to loop it around Dang Soran’s neck.
Dang Soran slightly turned her head away and said.
“Huh...? A-aren’t you putting that dog collar on me?”
“...Stay still.”
She’d thought it was for her neck, but apparently not?
She didn’t dwell on it much.
Dang Soran stayed still as ordered.
Soon, the rope was around her neck, and Han Seojin held the end.
Only then did Dang Soran realize that offering her neck was truly baring her vulnerability.
It felt so good to surrender everything to Han Seojin.
“...Call him.”
Han Seojin said, back turned to the stairs.
While gripping her leash taut.
Dang Soran knelt, arms bound behind her, offering her leash to Han Seojin.
What a sight this was, but she was thrilled.
She wanted to chase Jegal Yong off quickly and submit to this wonderful man.
“Young Master Jegal...?”
Dang Soran said in a trembling voice.
“Yes?”
“Please... come up.”
****
Jegal Yong ascended the stairs, suppressing his ragged breath.
This had to be it, right?
An implicit signal to share their fates tonight.
Liquor bottles were scattered messily downstairs.
Hadn’t even Dang Soran borrowed the power of alcohol to steel her resolve?
It didn’t matter if it was the alcohol’s doing.
She must have finally realized it—an engagement was an inevitable bond.
Wi Cheonsang was dead, Namgung Yeon had given up.
As long as he didn’t give up, Dang Soran would be his.
His long-suppressed desire writhed suddenly.
How long had he yearned for her?
How many nights had he replayed the fantasy of laying that radiant woman on his cold bed?
A woman from an illustrious clan, peerlessly beautiful, with unmatched martial prowess—flawless.
This must be the greatest privilege for a scion of a noble house.
For an ordinary person... yes, especially that beggar who’d humiliated him before, it was an opportunity forever out of reach.
“Soran...”
But Jegal Yong’s face hardened as he climbed.
Dang Soran wasn’t alone.
Beside her stood a massive man, half-swallowed by the shadows.
Even his turned back exuded overwhelming pressure—an eerie presence.
And in his hand was a rope.
“...Huh?”
The end of that rope was looped around Dang Soran’s slender neck.
Composing himself, he saw her entire body bound tightly.
And why was her outfit so flimsy...? Looking closer, it was courtesan garb.
Jegal Yong couldn’t even swallow at the sight.
The reality before him was incomprehensible.
“Ah...ahaha, you caught us.”
His ever-beautiful first love whispered that.
Even in this desperate, neck-bound situation, Dang Soran smiled innocently like a girl.
“...Young Master?”
After a long silence, Jegal Yong gripped his fan, barely regaining his wits and gathering his qi—but
“-Stop.”
Dang Soran spoke first.
Jegal Yong’s eyes trembled as they turned to her.
“W-what demon is this, Young Master? Who is he, to make you appear like...!”
“Young Master Jegal.”
Dang Soran was calm.
That composure was utterly baffling to Jegal Yong.
No, not composure—it was that lascivious expression.
She’d never worn a face like that before.
Did that mean she’d been showing it to that man all this time?
“You said you knew me best.”
“...”
“If I say I chose this appearance myself... would you believe me?”
...Chose it?
Jegal Yong felt as if his whole body had frozen in shock.
Dang Soran?
The Poison Phoenix?
That refined, soothing, noble woman?
...Sought this humiliation herself?
“No...!”
Jegal Yong denied it loudly.
It couldn’t be.
His Dang Soran wouldn’t.
Dang Soran was his. There was no room for the plan to go awry.
“Get a grip, Young Master...! Y-you must have been drugged or something—”
“-Me, the eldest daughter of the Tang Clan of Sichuan, drugged?”
“...Ah...”
Of course poisons and drugs barely affected Dang Soran. She couldn’t have been drugged.
“I refuse to believe it... H-how could someone like you submit to a man like that—!”
“-Submit...”
Dang Soran’s head slowly lowered.
A gesture as if overcome by shame.
But the low whisper that followed like an echo sliced through Jegal Yong’s heart.
‘...I love submitting.’
In that instant, Jegal Yong’s vision shook.
Dang Soran looked up at the man holding her leash and said.
“...Young Master. Show him us.”
The man’s head turned slightly toward Dang Soran.
...Young Master?
The man who held Jegal Yong’s dream seemed utterly disinterested in Dang Soran, amusingly enough.
How could he treat her so roughly if he cared?
But what tore Jegal Yong’s heart apart was something else.
Dang Soran’s gaze.
The utterly different emotion hidden behind her refined facade.
Jegal Yong had never seen it before.
Only now did he learn she could make such an expression.
An expression of a woman’s longing and attachment she’d never once directed at him.
The man might lack interest in her, but Dang Soran did not.
It was all too clear, even in this darkness.
“...I’ll humor your whim just this once.”
The man chided Dang Soran.
But the corners of her mouth twitched.
Then the man slowly turned.
“...Ah.”
Jegal Yong’s heart seized in that moment.
He knew that man.
Much neater now, but that crude, ugly face was unmistakable.
“Aat!”
The man roughly seized Dang Soran’s hair.
At the sight of his first love crushed in another man’s filthy grip, Jegal Yong trembled, but couldn’t take a single step.
His legs had already lost strength from the shock.
Dang Soran, her hair yanked back over her head.
Her face twisted in pain, but bound all over, she couldn’t resist.
The man asked Jegal Yong.
“Did you want this so badly?”
He even shook her head lightly like an object.
Her slender neck wobbled with it.
No, not ‘like an object’—he was treating her as one.
Given how he referred to her not with honorifics, but as ‘this’.
“At! Heut...!”
“You wanted a pervert like this?”
He degraded her as if his first love meant nothing to him.
Seeing Dang Soran in pain, Jegal Yong shouted.
“S-stop that...! Can’t you see she’s hurting!”
“Then come stop me.”
The man said.
“Still just fighting with words? Don’t just talk—come block me.”
Faced with Dang Soran slumped by her hair, Jegal Yong was speechless.
What if that man had something up his sleeve?
Otherwise, how could the Poison Phoenix, titled Phoenix at the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly, end up like this...?
Why was he so confident?
Above all...
“Haa... Euhk...”
Jegal Yong could see the lust in Dang Soran’s pained eyes.
The demon here wasn’t that man.
He was the one interrupting them.
The man asked.
“Soran.”
That intimate address. He’d only ever been ‘Young Master Soran’.
“...Y-yes...”
Even called so casually by name, treated so by a man not her husband, Dang Soran responded obediently.
“Tell him yourself. He says stop—should I?”
Dang Soran’s gaze briefly brushed Jegal Yong, then she shook her head.
“...Please.”
Jegal Yong let out a sigh.
“...Ah.”
“Please don’t stop, Young Master.”
“You’re so pretty, my Soran.”
And at the praise, Dang Soran beamed.
Even after the violence, she smiled like that.
The man straightened up and looked straight at Jegal Yong.
He said.
“This is mine.”
“Hueuk...!”
Dang Soran shuddered, then lowered her head again.
But no matter how she hid her face, she couldn’t conceal her ears and neck flushed with joy.
“So go find someone else.”
Jegal Yong wanted to argue back... but he couldn’t speak.
His head spun from the barrage shattering his rigid convictions.
Why did Dang Soran like violence?
What was that man’s identity?
Why the overflowing confidence?
He considered resorting to force to overcome it all, but...
“Euk...!”
Jegal Yong’s instinct told him that man might be a far superior master.
Perhaps that was why he’d stayed calm even after the Poison Scorpion’s shot.
No, if Dang Soran had submitted, the answer was clear.
In the end, Jegal Yong turned away.
He fled cowardly, abandoning the woman he loved.
****
Damn, that was kinda pitiful...!
I thought as I watched Jegal Yong flee in haste.
I’d chased him off since the chance arose, but yeah, pitiful.
Still, impressive in a way.
Running away from this?
If the girl I liked was in another man’s hands like that, I’d have fought no matter what.
I looked down at Dang Soran.
“...Haa... Haa...”
She was trembling all over.
A chaotic mix of depravity and pleasure.
...You’re a real pervert too.
And willful to boot.
Doesn’t the personality of a pampered lady ever fade?
Or does this SM outlet just reveal her true self unfiltered?
It was a pretty cruel way to drive off a stalker.
I’m in no position to judge, but she really needed a scolding.
...Not that it’s far off.
The reason I could boldly provoke Jegal Yong.
“...”
...I sensed it.
Not a martial artist, but with qi planted in my dantian, maybe.
I clearly sensed Cheongwol’s qi.
I don’t know how to explain this alien sensation.
Like seeing without eyes.
Smelling a fragrance without sniffing.
Hearing without ears.
Cheongwol was around us.
“...Hoo...”
I had to make the right choice.
Cheongwol was waiting for my decision too.
Fuck. So scary...
The silence makes it scarier.
How long had she been watching?
For now, I had a promise with Cheongwol.
But Dang Soran, still unaware, lingered in the afterglow.
“Young Master.”
Then she called me.
****
It’s over.
No more engagement.
Wi Cheonsang, Jegal Yong, Namgung Yeon. All gone now.
She was free.
However, Dang Soran agreed with her father’s words.
‘You can’t live alone forever.’
She couldn’t refute that, which was why she’d started down this wrong path initially.
Dang Soran called to Han Seojin.
“Young Master.”
Han Seojin looked down at her sharply.
Was it the mood carrying her away? Or relief that the engagement was void?
She could no longer hold back her racing heart.
“Now... take responsibility.”
“What?”
“What are you going to do? You ruined all my engagements. Now I’ll... have to live alone forever?”
Han Seojin looked incredulous.
Of course he did. That’s what she’d pushed for.
But from Dang Soran’s view, she was offering him an easy path.
“You ruined my life, Young Master. Got caught by Jegal Yong like this. Made me like this.”
“...”
“If you’re a real man... shouldn’t you take responsibility and take me away?”
She tried to say it confidently, but her heart felt like it would leap out as she spoke.
“Live with you?”
“Who else would there be?”
Who else could there be?
Fixing my fate, and he’s dodging? That’s foolish.
A chance to confess her hidden feelings, and he can’t even take it?
Status difference or not, Dang Soran was confident she could overcome that hurdle.
Or maybe the decision had been made long ago.
The first man’s member she’d seen wasn’t his?
She was already defiled by him. No other choice.
“At!”
Pulling the leash, Han Seojin squatted before her.
He, who’d seemed slightly confused, asked firmly.
“Soran. Do you like me?”
Dang Soran’s lips quivered as she spat out the truth.
“Am, am I crazy?”
“...”
“Forget already? I’m the eldest daughter of the great Tang Clan of Sichuan, Dang Soran. What about you would make me like you? That ugly face, rough personality, poor circumstances—there’s not e-even a single likable thing.”
“...”
Dang Soran didn’t want to seem like a vulgar woman.
A cheap one struggling to seduce a man.
“If I liked you, you should like me first. How arrogant to say that.”
“You said take responsibility.”
“...You have to. Like I said, all my engagements are ruined. I’m not living alone forever. I-It’s not because I like you, Young Master. It’s worry for my future.”
“Yeah?”
“An-and. Heart demon or whatever, you did me a favor. I’ll fix your fate. Last time it was servant, but this is bigger. Honestly, you’re s-slightly better than some random man.”
Dang Soran’s heart pounded like it would burst.
He had to get it now.
She bit her lip hard, then revealed one final truth.
“...No need for a marriage gift. I have the hairpin. Truth is, I stole it. Count that as it...”
“It was you after all.”
Han Seojin whispered.
Dang Soran nodded.
“Yes, it was me.”
After a long silence, Han Seojin said.
“Haa... Take it. That.”
A rush of hot emotion surged.
This.
...This is acceptance, right?
Keeping the hairpin meant that, surely.
Then from now on, she and Han Seojin would be husband and—
“Marry someone you like. I’m not going around announcing all this. No need to fix my fate.”
“...Yes?”
“And you won’t do. That personality needs fixing. Know how much I suffered because of you?”
The latter words barely registered.
Dang Soran replayed only the first part.
Huh?
What just happened?
Rejected?
No way?
Her mind blank, no feeling in her chest.
Han Seojin then headed to the window.
Soon, he opened it and said.
“Come in.”
Dang Soran squinted.
Who the hell...?
Like a gentle breeze, a woman lightly descended onto the windowsill.
“...Ah.”
It was Cheongwol.
And only then did she understand why Han Seojin hadn’t put that dog collar on her neck.
The dog collar already had its own master.