[CYM] 4 – Butterfly Shaman

Being of common birth, she lacked the standing to raise her voice against the nobility, let alone to someone who was ill. Rationalising that her emotions were just fluctuating, she managed to gather some understanding for the situation.

She took a deep breath to calm her heart.

“So, the shaman isn’t much after all,” he mused, a venomous mockery licking her ears. Despite the prickling and challenges, she had no right to speak out. She had no choice but to endure.

“Isn’t that so?” she found herself almost fainting when she locked eyes with the deep blue gaze staring intently at her. The young master, who usually only lent his voice, barely revealing his forearms marked with veins.

The eyes that clung to the torn gap were eerily captivating at first glance, with a smirk, the corners of his eyes laughed. His cold, iris-like gaze entrapped her, containing eyes as unsettling as a midsummer chill within its beautiful form.

She should have countered that her mother was actually a noble of great importance, sought after even in the capital, and it was he who had lost his way, suggesting he should seek a physician. But she found herself frozen, shrivelled like a billiard ball thrown in front of a tiger, recalling such moments at the worst possible time.

The corner of the young master Ki’s mouth split into a grin, his loud banter was audible though no shadow fell across the paper doors that numbered in the dozens. The outside world in chaos while riches poured endlessly within the Ki household’s walls.

It was because of such moments flitting over that cold gaze that she found herself amidst a strange and eerie duality.

At her loss for words, the young master averted his eyes.

“Let’s end the jest,” she finally managed to gather her wits, her reaction seemingly amusing enough to elicit a burst of laughter.

“Young master.”

She had been teased by him again. After all, it wasn’t the first time he had behaved so oddly.

She clenched her fists over her knees. The grinding laughter that tormented her eardrums still wandered through her mind like an auditory hallucination, the gnawing noise eventually drifting away from her ears after a long while.

“Alright. Today is enough, you may leave now,” he said, adopting that enchanting tone, as the young master sang a song of dismissal.

── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✦ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

Her day began earlier than the dawn rooster. She hung the dim dawn on her eyelids, diligently practicing her martial arts in the mist.

Though she was indeed the daughter of a shaman, her mother did not wish for her to live as one. “The burden of our profession is enough with only me,” her mother insisted, warning her not to boast about being a descendant of Punglim Hong Unyeong wherever she went, stressing that discovery meant death for both of them.

‘I cut my hair short and learned to wield a sword to protect myself.’

Initially, she felt it was unfair to go to such lengths. Given her mother’s cold and strict attitude towards her, she had no choice but to obey.

Her personality, since childhood, was far from being demure, causing the busybodies in her hometown to mock her, wondering if she would ever get married.

Her mother despised her adventurous spirit to the point of shuddering, scolding her harshly for not staying quietly at home over trivial matters. On nights when she was beaten with a cane, she would cry under her blanket until her eyes swelled up, greeting the morning with swollen eyes.

Upon learning of her ancestors’ deeds, she fully understood her mother’s anxiety. If their true status was revealed, they would be greeting each other at the gates of hell.

Her ancestor was Hong Unyeong, a shaman who dedicated her life to exorcising demons during the Demon Suppression War a hundred years ago, known among the people of old times as the Butterfly Shaman.

Since she was five, she had not visited Punglim, surrounded by nine maple trees, which was hundreds of miles away from where she and her mother resided. The life of a shaman, fraught with early deaths and disasters, was as tormented as one could imagine, remembering only the roots of their ancestors.

Punglim was an imaginary valley for her, where the ridge was lined with red trees that looked like a folding screen, either a maple forest or a spectacular scene of hundreds of red butterflies settling on the trees.

Hong Unyeong danced among the red leaves, slicing through the air with her sword, conjuring winds to seal the demons’ flesh. The swirling red waves were said to be overwhelmingly majestic.

Her lineage had always followed the matrilineal tradition, bearing the fate of a shaman. They once gained the king’s trust and flourished, becoming an enviable noble family. However, it did not end there.