“We have loaded all your belongings into the carriage so that we may depart as soon as the sun rises, Your Highness. Is there anything else you wish to bring?”

At the maid’s question, Mokyeong stopped brushing her hair and looked into the mirror.

The two maids newly assigned to her several days earlier stood with their heads respectfully bowed, awaiting her answer.

In addition to those two, five other attendants had recently been assigned to her.

Each had been given a plausible duty involving her dresses, laundry, meals, or some other necessity, but to Mokyeong, they were merely seven pairs of watchful eyes and listening ears.

‘How bothersome.’

In truth, seven attendants were hardly excessive for someone of the Princess Consort’s rank.

The problem was that all seven of them intended to accompany her to the Oult territory.

She was expected to take seven sets of eyes and ears with her without even knowing whom they served.

She had no intention of accepting that.

‘I will have to weed some of them out.’

After considering the matter quietly, Mokyeong nodded.

“I do not believe there is anything else. You may leave now.”

Ordinarily, attendants would withdraw quietly when dismissed in this manner.

But today was different.

The two maids briefly exchanged glances. Then one silently approached the door and locked it, causing the comb in Mokyeong’s hand to slowly come to a stop.

The mirror reflected every movement the two women made.

“Please forgive our insolence.”

A moment later, the maid standing behind Mokyeong murmured indifferently and seized her upper arm, wrenching it upward.

‘That is the strength of someone who has undergone training.’

It was no ordinary grip strength.

Roanne’s body had not yet recovered, and even this much force made her bones feel as though they were creaking.

While Mokyeong considered how she could repair this frustrating body as quickly as possible, one maid twisted both her arms behind her back as though restraining her.

The other confidently raised the head she had kept bowed until then.

“This is a message from Her Majesty the Empress.”

The moment she mentioned the Empress, the maid raised her hand.

Realizing what was about to happen, Mokyeong quickly clenched her teeth.

Slap!

“One strike is punishment for speaking out of turn.”

Slap!

“Another is a warning that such a thing must never happen again.”

Slap!

“And she said the final strike was to engrave upon you the identity of the master you must obey, even while confined to the Oult territory.”

Three slaps in total.

Despite being a princess consort of the empire, her head was repeatedly knocked aside by the hand of a mere maid.

The maid’s strength was extraordinary. Mokyeong’s jaw rang from the blows, and by the time the third hand swept across her face, she could taste faint traces of blood inside her mouth.

“With a single command from me, you can be treated as someone even lower than a mere maid.”

The Empress’s threat could not have been clearer.

Had she been the real Roanne, she would either have trembled with humiliation or been so terrified that she would never have dared to disobey the Empress again.

However, the person now inhabiting this body was not such a timid woman.

‘If this were the Tang Clan, she would have thrown me into a poison vat filled with venomous spiders. Only three slaps……. She is far more merciful than I thought.’

Mokyeong ran her tongue indifferently over the torn flesh inside her cheek.

The reason the Empress had waited until just before her departure to strike her was clear.

If her face had swollen while she remained within the Emperor’s sight, it would have been troublesome. Now that Mokyeong was about to leave the palace and disappear from public view, the Empress wanted to remind her of her place one last time.

Tsk.

She should have given her poison instead.

At least that would have nourished her body.

While Mokyeong swallowed a disappointed sigh, the maids seemingly mistook her silence for shock and dragged Roanne over to the bed.

“Then please rest comfortably, Your Highness.”

They were strong, with gazes as cold as ice, yet they remained respectful until the very end.

Mokyeong watched the two maids leave. Only once the door had closed completely did she rise from her seat.

When she stood before the dressing table and looked into the mirror, she saw a deathly pale woman with one bright red cheek staring back at her.

“Tsk. What a sorry sight…….”

She gently stroked the cheek that had been marked by the maid’s hand.

Despite her gaunt appearance, her cheek felt hot and swollen beneath her fingertips.

Her body looked as though it was nothing but skin stretched over bone. Her cheekbones and collarbone protruded like a skeleton’s, making her look so pitiful that anyone who saw her would feel sorry for her instinctively.

She had consumed so many strange poisons that her skin was covered in blemishes and bruises. She was plagued by a chronic headache and persistent indigestion beneath her breastbone.

‘It is still this bad even after I used my cultivation technique to restore the tangled flow through her meridians.’

The face so clearly marked by suffering did not look foolish—only pitiful.

How had she lived like this?

As Mokyeong frowned in silence, she suddenly recalled the dream she had experienced the previous night.

The dream in which the real Roanne Oult had appeared.

***

In the dream, Roanne stood gazing at the Imperial Palace, tears streaming down her face.

These tears did not appear to be ones of sorrow or anguish, however.

She merely stared blankly up at the enormous palace.

“What are you thinking?”

As though she had heard Mokyeong’s voice, Roanne turned around.

Approaching Mokyeong with hesitant steps, she stopped before her, a faint smile on her deathly pale face.

“Thank you. And…… I am sorry.”

……Mokyeong understood why she was grateful.

But why was she apologizing?

For what?

“For making you inhabit the body of someone like me. For forcing you to…… inherit the fate of someone like me.”

At Roanne’s words, Mokyeong’s brows drew together sharply.

Clicking her tongue in disapproval, Mokyeong strode toward Roanne. Before the other woman could react, she swiftly raised her hand and pressed hard on the Baihui acupoint at the crown of her head.

“W-What are you……? Ouch!”

When Mokyeong firmly pressed the Shanzhong acupoint in the center of her chest next, Roanne recoiled in surprise.

Dreams were truly peculiar.

As long as the dreamer desired it, the mind could reproduce not only pain but even scents and flavors.

It did not matter whether those sensations were real.

After all, Mokyeong could not even be certain whether the being before her was real or merely an illusion.

“You tormented yourself with useless thoughts while you were alive, and you are still doing it after death. If someone stole your body, you should be furious and demand it back. Why are you thanking the thief?”

“…….”

“Do you not want to live? Shall I give it back to you?”

Roanne rubbed the center of her forehead where Mokyeong had jabbed her and stared at her in bewilderment.

Then her eyes swiftly filled with tears.

“D-Do even you despise my body?”

“What are you talking about……?”

“Does even a soul as strong as yours believe that my life is beyond saving……?!”

“No, seriously, what are you talking about? I am offering to return your body, so why are you acting like this?”

Mokyeong raised her finger once more.

“Compose yourself! Get a grip! Pull yourself together!”

“Ouch! Ouch—ow!”

Mokyeong mercilessly jabbed her Baihui acupoint several times in succession. Although the pain was not real, Roanne whimpered and teared up.

“Forget it if you do not want it back! I will keep this body, eat well, and live comfortably, so you can watch me do it!”

When Mokyeong shouted angrily and turned away, Roanne hurried after her and embraced her tightly from behind.

“Thank you.”

“What are you thanking me for now?”

“For scolding me.”

Mokyeong’s expression twisted strangely.

What an odd soul she was.

Now she was thanking Mokyeong for scolding her.

When Mokyeong turned around in disbelief, Roanne smiled through her tears.

“And please, live well. Live boldly in my place……. with that horrible temper of yours.”

Mokyeong’s eyebrow twitched.

“……Did you just insult me for having a horrible temper after being struck a few times?”

“N-No! That is not what I meant…… I meant that I like it. I like this side of you.”

Roanne waved her hands in alarm before slowly smiling.

“I mean that I like the life you will lead as this version of me. Knowing that, I think I can finally leave without any regrets.”

For a moment, Roanne’s tears stopped.

There was no trace of lingering attachment to life in her voice.

Hearing those words, Mokyeong was suddenly rendered speechless.

How could anyone feel that way?

Didn’t everyone struggle desperately to stay alive?

Even when she had been trapped inside a vat of poison, she had clawed at its walls until her fingernails broke because she wanted to live.

She never surrendered, not even when every breath burned her lungs and sensation gradually vanished from her hands and feet.

To Mokyeong, Roanne’s complete lack of attachment to life seemed strange and bewildering.

Yet part of her also felt relieved.

“……Then may I truly keep this body?”

“If it is you, then gladly. Please live to be a hundred years old.”

A hundred years?

That was far too short.

A true master of the martial world should regain their youth through cultivation and live to at least one hundred and fifty…….

Just as Mokyeong’s thoughts began drifting in that absurd direction, Roanne cautiously added,

“But there is one final favor I would like to ask.”

Mokyeong’s eyes narrowed.

Of course. There was no such thing as a free gift in this world.