Hwa Ui, who said he would come early in the morning, showed up only when it was almost lunchtime.

As I was waiting, wondering why he was late when he always kept his promises like a knife, he entered the room with other people.

“It’s been a while.”

I widened my eyes as I saw Man Do greeting me first with a smile.

“Man Do! It’s been a while! Where did you go?”

“I briefly left the cult at Hwa Ui’s request.”

“Request?”

“He asked me to find someone, so I was busy searching here and there. Has Miss Moyong been well in the meantime? Your complexion has improved a lot. I’m glad to see you looking lively and healthy.”

I nodded my head with a bright smile at him.

Hwa Ui, who was standing in front, approached closer and took a seat on the opposite side of me, extending his hand.

Without saying anything, it was now natural for me to extend my arm to him.

While entrusting my arm to Hwa Ui, I turned my head and examined the old man I was seeing for the first time.

Wondering who he was, I tilted my head, and Hwa Ui lightly opened his mouth.

“Do you remember what I mentioned before?”

“What is it?”

“The fact that there was someone who suffered from an illness similar to Miss Moyong’s.”

Hwa Ui clicked his tongue and pointed to the old man entering the room.

“That old man over there is the one who tried to treat that illness.”

“Him?”

Wasn’t he dead?

I thought he must have died a long time ago since they said he only left a book behind.

As I looked at the old man with surprised eyes, he entered with a displeased expression.

“You must have thought I was dead just now, right? Huh?”

“Ah… that’s…”

I couldn’t lie as the old man’s words hit the nail on the head, so I hesitated. The old man looked at me intently and smiled with a face full of wrinkles.

His mouth opened while his white beard twitched.

“Well, it can’t be helped even if you think that way. I’ve lived for a hundred years now, so it’s not strange to think I’m dead. Isn’t that right, Hwa Ui?”

“What are you… There’s a difference of more than ten years between you and me, so don’t treat us the same and go wait over there.”

“In the end, it’s a fight about who goes first, so what does it matter if it’s ten years or not? The old man who grabs the neck and collapses first is the older one. Heh heh, isn’t that right, Elder Man Do?”

It felt awkward for the old man, who looked like he could have a coffin made for him at any moment, to address Man Do, who looked like a young man, as ‘Elder.’

Of course, I had vaguely heard that Man Do’s actual age was well over a hundred years old, but understanding it and seeing it with my own eyes were different stories.

Man Do shrugged his shoulders lightly, approached closer, and greeted Hyuk Dojin.

Hyuk Dojin, who received the greeting beside me, shifted his gaze from Man Do to Hwa Ui.

“How is it, Hwa Ui?”

“Hmm…”

Hwa Ui, who was checking my pulse, let out a deep groan and couldn’t give a satisfactory answer.

The old man, who had been watching, frowned even more deeply on his already wrinkled brow and poked Hwa Ui’s side.

“Move over. You’ve grown old, and the wrinkles on your hands have made your sense of pulse-taking dull, so it’s better if I take a look myself.”

“Be quiet for a moment! I’m thinking!”

“Thinking, my foot. Move!”

The old man, not satisfied with poking Hwa Ui’s arm, forcibly took his place by pushing him with his shoulder. It was simply amazing that he was still robust at that age.

The old man, who had taken the spot, grabbed my wrist.

His wrinkled and dark fingers grasped my wrist, and his fingertips checked my pulse very delicately.

The old man’s gaze, which had been intently looking at my wrist, rolled and met my eyes. He glanced at my hair, then looked at my face and neck again, and spoke bluntly.

“Your skin is cold. Are your body or legs cold too? Your whole body?”

“Yes. A little bit since before…”

“What about your hair? Is it a congenital influence, or did it happen after taking the wrong medicine or recovering from an illness?”

“My parents told me it was congenital.”

“Really…?”

He tilted his head and carefully checked my pulse. After checking my pulse for a while, seeming to be deep in thought, the old man slowly released my wrist. Then, as if he had been waiting, Hwa Ui asked.

“What do you think? Do you understand anything?”

“You’re impatient. I just let go of her wrist!”

“Ahem…”

Hwa Ui stroked his beard as if embarrassed and coughed dryly.

The old man glared at Hwa Ui and then looked at me again. He paused for a moment and opened his heavy mouth.

“Since this talkative old man has said a lot, listen with that in mind first. First of all, it’s true that I treated someone with symptoms similar to yours. No, I tried to treat them, but in the end, I couldn’t. You already know that, so let’s move on… Now, getting to the main point, it’s this.”

The old man looked around in a serious atmosphere and spoke emphatically.

“Treatment is impossible.”

There was a sound of something dropping with a thud. Is this how it feels when your heart sinks? I felt the hope and expectations I had harbored shatter into pieces.

Hyuk Dojin’s body, who was sitting next to me, flinched, and even Hwa Ui hurriedly opened his mouth in surprise. However, the old man was resolute.

“I can’t give you false hope, so I’m telling you the truth. I also couldn’t treat this illness. So, I can’t guarantee that I can definitely cure it…”

“Hey, old man. Then, are you saying that Miss Moyong has to die like this? Huh? Is that what you mean!?”

The old man shook off Hwa Ui’s hand, which was shaking his sleeve and urging him, with an annoyed reaction.

“Stop rushing me! You’re trembling like a fool in front of the person you adore! I’m not finished speaking yet!”

The old man angrily shouted and then corrected his posture, speaking in a dignified voice.

“I’ll mention only the essentials since my words keep getting interrupted. As I said before, treatment is impossible. But that doesn’t mean you’ll die right away.”

“Then…”

“We can buy time. It’s just that I don’t know how much time we can buy. It could be as short as a year or as long as ten or twenty years. But we can overcome the immediate danger to some extent. I can guarantee that.”

The old man scratched his chin, then his brow, as if pondering something, and then opened his mouth again.

“If I may boldly speculate, perhaps what you know might be a little different.”

“What do you mean?”

“What do I mean? I’m saying that your white hair being congenital might be a lie.”

Everyone’s attention was drawn to me. Startled by his sudden words, I blinked my eyes and shook my head.

“No. I didn’t lie…”

“No. I’m not saying you lied, but that your parents lied. I’m not certain, but based on my diagnosis, that’s what it is.”

The old man checked the pulse on my other wrist and spoke quietly.

“The imbalance of yin and yang, this can be healed. It will take time, though. But there’s a crack in the vessel. The vessel that holds vitality.”

“Vitality…”

“Those who don’t practice martial arts may not know, but martial artists would know. How important true energy and true vitality are. The energy that is the source of life that everyone has from birth. In the young lady’s case, there’s a crack in that vessel. So, even if you eat, you quickly become full, your skin is pale without a trace of vitality, and even your hair, which is most sensitive to vitality, has turned white.”

The old man removed his hand from my wrist and placed his clasped hands lightly on the table.

“This is not an illness you can have from birth. Because if there was a problem with the vessel at birth, you would have died young that year. No matter how much medicine you pour in, it’s useless. However, seeing that you’ve been living well so far… It can only be explained that the vessel must have been broken by some impact in the middle. Do you know anything about that?”

“No, that’s… My parents also told me that, so I naturally thought it was like that…”

Even in the novel, there was never a single mention of such content.

In the first place, since I was a character who appeared in the beginning and disappeared, they probably didn’t deal with it importantly.

“Is that so? Perhaps your parents hid the truth. Of course, this is just my speculation.”

The old man pulled the chair back and got up from his seat.

Everyone’s attention was drawn to his movement.

The old man quickly looked around and then fixed his gaze on me again.

“I’ll say this in advance since you might ask, but I don’t know how to treat the vessel. No, I know, but I can’t treat it. That’s outside my area of expertise.”

“What is that method?”

Hyuk Dojin asked urgently. The old man lightly scanned Hyuk Dojin from top to bottom and clicked his tongue.

“You already know, don’t you?”

“What…”

“Breaking what you were born with and being reborn with something new is not just about the exoskeleton.”

With those words, the old man turned his body. Hwa Ui chased after him as he left the room.

After following the disappearing back of the old man with my eyes, I pushed my body, which had been leaning forward, back.

I quietly looked down at the floor with my back leaning against the chair.

My parents lied…

“Man Do. What that old man just said…”

“If my guess is not wrong, what he said is definitely that.”

Hyuk Dojin slumped into a chair and brushed back his hair.

Hyuk Dojin, who had been sitting motionless, placed his hand on my shoulder.

I looked at his face visible through my blurred vision.

“Are you alright?”

“I’m just a bit confused…”

I spoke quietly while covering my forehead with my palm.

Hyuk Dojin held my hand as if it was okay and smiled slowly.

Man Do, who was standing next to us, alternately observed me and Hyuk Dojin, then slowly opened his mouth.

“Perhaps it could be the simplest and at the same time the most difficult path.”

“What do you mean, Man Do?”

“The content that Monk Jeongun just mentioned. It means only one thing.”

“When the Three Realms (Heaven, Earth, and Man) and the Five Elements of Water, Metal, Wood, Earth, and Fire are united into one, it is the first step to transcending the human body and approaching the divine… The first step to realizing harmony with nature.”

Hyuk Dojin exhaled slowly.

“In the end, it means that Sowol must enter the state of Flowering Realm through transformation, whether she likes it or not.”