Chapter 38: Male Supremacy

I ushered Lee Seo-ryeong, who was standing at the door, inside.

I wasn’t surprised. I had anticipated this, to some extent.

That she would approach me again, one way or another.

I just hadn’t expected it to be so soon, or so blatant.

I gestured for her to sit at the black table.

“Would you mind waiting a moment? I’ll bring some tea.”

She sat down gracefully, a gentle smile on her lips.

“Of course. Tea served by the Physician himself… I’m looking forward to it.”

Instead of answering, I quietly headed to the kitchen.

As I prepared the tea, I tried to gauge her intentions.

Was this truly the desperation of a mother wanting to get her estranged daughter back?

Or… had she come to reclaim a doll that was once her possession?

I couldn’t know for sure.

I had to find out.

I brought out two cups of warm green tea.

Lee Seo-ryeong’s gaze fell upon the table.

A faint smile touched her red lips as she gently swept her fingertips over the surface of the black table.

“This table… it’s quite extraordinary. I can feel a certain spirit from it.”

It was the table Ja Hwa-yeon had gifted me.

I thought so, too.

I offered her the teacup and replied calmly, “It was a gift from an acquaintance.”

“I see… Ah, the aroma is wonderful. I’ll enjoy it, thank you.”

She didn’t press further. Lifting the teacup with her jade-white hands, she closed her eyes and savored the tea.

For a moment, only the fragrance of tea lingered between us.

Just then, Lee Seo-ryeong’s eyes widened.

She set down her cup and looked at me with interest.

“The tea tastes… exceptional. Physician, have you perhaps studied the art of tea?”

“I take some care with it.”

I added with a smile, “I’m glad it suits your palate.”

No more small talk was necessary.

Lee Seo-ryeong had not come for a standard counseling session.

I had no obligation to engage in icebreakers to make her feel comfortable.

I placed my own teacup on the table without a sound.

It was time to get to the point.

Looking directly into Lee Seo-ryeong’s eyes, I asked in a business-like tone, “May I ask why you’ve come all this way to see me?”

It was a direct question.

Lee Seo-ryeong’s red lips parted slightly, as if to say, Straight to business, are we? She then looked at me with a languid gaze.

She nodded very slowly and, just as slowly, began to speak.

“Yu-wol… is not my biological daughter.”

I already knew this.

I didn’t feign surprise, nor did I show any expression at all.

At my impassive reaction, Lee Seo-ryeong gave a small nod.

“It seems you were already aware of this, Physician.”

“Yes. I heard it directly from Ms. Yu-wol.”

“Yu-wol never speaks of such things to others. It seems she has already opened her heart to you a great deal.”

“I see.”

At my reply, Lee Seo-ryeong didn’t bring up Yu-wol again.

She set down her teacup and, in that same gentle voice, asked, “Physician, are you by any chance familiar with the world we came from, Jungwon?”

I met her eyes for a moment, trying to discern her intent.

“I know a little, yes.”

I remembered the initial buzz about it—how the world of Jungwon was astonishingly similar to the martial arts novels of this world.

That was the extent of my knowledge as well.

But in order to counsel Seol Yu-wol, I had spent all night researching everything from official records on Jungwon to the rumors circulating on the streets.

I suppose it was fair to say I knew a fair amount.

“That’s a relief.”

An unreadable smile graced Lee Seo-ryeong’s lips.

“In that case, I wonder if you are also aware of this.”

What was she talking about?

I waited silently for her next words.

“Our world, Jungwon, is an extremely conservative place where the ideology of male supremacy is deeply rooted.”

Namjon-yeobi. Male supremacy.

Men are noble, and women are base.

But I found it strange.

Given that Jungwon was a world similar to martial arts novels and set in a historical period, it would have been more surprising if such an ideology didn’t exist.

It was just that, even among women, there were extraordinary individuals who could shatter that ideology with the logic of power—with their martial skill.

Frankly, it sounded all too obvious.

Just as I was lost in that thought.

“You seem… puzzled.”

“…”

“After coming to this world, I too have read those martial arts novels you’re thinking of.”

A subtle smile played on her lips.

“They were truly… romantic.”

“The Jungwon you know, Physician, probably only exists in those novels.”

Lee Seo-ryeong continued.

“But in our world, a woman is not a person.”

“…”

“Unless she is the daughter of a great, prestigious family with immense backing.”

“She is merely a plaything to satisfy men’s desires, or a tool for political marriages to expand a family’s influence.”

Conviction filled Lee Seo-ryeong’s voice.

“Even if she trains in martial arts and glimpses the will of the heavens, a woman is still just a woman. It is a place where one can only breathe by being protected by a strong man, or by clinging to one.”

She stared blankly at her own reflection in the teacup for a moment.

Then, she concluded her final words.

“That is the Jungwon where I lived.”

I listened to her shocking story in silence.

The world she described was nothing like the one I had read about in novels.

But to be honest, I couldn’t immediately comprehend it.

Because a perfect contradiction to her words was sitting right before my eyes: Lee Seo-ryeong, the former leader of the Martial Alliance and current leader of the Azure Sky Alliance.

Her very existence was a contradiction to her own story.

I looked again at the woman before me.

A world where women were not people, where they could only survive by being protected by or clinging to men.

In such a world, how did Lee Seo-ryeong become the Alliance Leader?

[Lee Seo-ryeong]

[Main Stance]

[Everything she just said is true. She understands the physician’s confusion.]

Moreover, she wasn’t lying.

My ability proved that every word she spoke was the truth.

That fact made my thoughts even more tangled.

As if reading my expression, Lee Seo-ryeong nodded very slowly.

Then, she voiced the question I wanted to ask.

“Physician, you must want to ask me this right now.”

Her red lips parted.

“Then what, exactly, are you?”

And she slowly added, “Now, I will begin my story.”

Lee Seo-ryeong’s red lips curled into a captivating smile.

“Will you… please listen?”

I nodded.

And I answered calmly.

“That is my profession.”

At my answer, Lee Seo-ryeong’s smile deepened.

It seemed this was going to be a long story.

*

“Physician.”

A faint hint of playfulness was mixed into her voice.

“In your eyes… what do you imagine my background to be?”

Lee Seo-ryeong’s background…

Objectively speaking, her appearance was full of grace and charm.

Therefore, according to the rules of Jungwon she had described, it was likely that Lee Seo-ryeong was the descendant of a prestigious righteous faction or a noble family.

“Hmm… let’s see. I would have guessed you were the daughter of a noble house.”

A small laugh escaped Lee Seo-ryeong’s lips at my answer.

“No.”

She shook her head, a smile still lingering.

“I’m pleased you see me that way… but I am not of such a noble birth as you think, Physician.”

I had assumed Lee Seo-ryeong was the child of a prestigious family from the Righteous Faction.

“People called the village I lived in the dregs of the Demonic Cult’s territory. The hypocrites of the Righteous Faction, under the pretext of some greater cause, took everything from me overnight.”

Her family were not martial artists.

They were just civilians who made a living by farming in a barren border region, far from the Righteous Faction’s influence.

To survive, they traded with the Demonic Cult.

Selling food and obtaining daily necessities. That was their only means of survival.

But to the hypocrites of the Righteous Faction, that was an unforgivable sin.

They became traitors living under the protection of the Demonic Cult.

In the end, Lee Seo-ryeong lost her parents and neighbors and was pursued.

Her voice, even as she recounted that horrific past, did not waver in the slightest.

“I was a nameless vagrant who survived alone in those ashes.”

Lee Seo-ryeong’s gaze deepened as she recalled her past.

“One day, while being chased by my pursuers and wandering the mountains like a beast, I was fortunate enough to meet my master.”

Lee Seo-ryeong continued her story.

The master who took her in was a female master of the Emei Sect.

Under her protection, Lee Seo-ryeong lived a life worthy of a human for the first time.

“About ten years passed like that, I suppose?”

By the time she had become a young woman.

“My master… passed away.”

As she said this, for the first time, a sorrowful expression crossed her face.

“Because of the blemish that was my existence, my master was framed and died under false accusations. I had no time to mourn my master’s death before I was on the run again.”

“And, at the edge of a cliff with no end in sight…”

She fell.

“I had a fortuitous encounter.”

There was no pride or joy in her voice.

“And so, I became a master whom no one could look down upon.”

The pursued girl died at the bottom of a cliff, and a mysterious new master named Lee Seo-ryeong appeared, her past washed clean, making her name known to the world for the first time.

“But… the strength I gained, as a woman…”

She gave a bewitching smile and looked at me.

Under the light, her jade-white skin and red lips formed a strange contrast.

She asked me with innocent eyes, as if she were genuinely curious.

“Physician, in your opinion, is my face pretty enough to attract unwanted attention from men?”

“Pardon?”

I couldn’t understand the intent of the question.

However, it was easy to imagine that living as a beautiful female master in her homeland of Jungwon would not have been easy.

“Yes… well. I imagine it would have been.”

It was an objective fact. Lee Seo-ryeong was attractive.

At that, she smiled once more.

“Countless flies swarmed around me… but dealing with them was not difficult.”

And so, Lee Seo-ryeong’s time passed quickly.

“And at some point, I became a member of the Martial Alliance that had once pursued me, and I began to live among my enemies.”

Around that time, Lee Seo-ryeong had already lost her reason to live.

“I wonder… what was I thinking? Was it the desire to stand above those who had ignored and persecuted me? But once I had climbed as high as I could, even if not to the position of Alliance Leader… this thought began to cross my mind.”

She murmured quietly, as if recalling that time.

“What… am I doing?”

I was living simply for the sake of being alive.

It was a life where I would have had no regrets, even if it were taken from me at that very moment.

“Then one day, I received a mission. To subjugate a border region where the remnants of the Demonic Cult had gathered.”

Her gaze drifted for a moment to the empty space beyond me.

As if she were seeing a scene from a long, long time ago.

“It was raining very heavily that day.”

For the first time, her voice seemed to tremble ever so faintly.

“There, I found a child.”

Lee Seo-ryeong’s body was here, but her mind seemed to be remembering that moment.

“A small, dirty child on the street, knowing nothing, begging me for her life just to survive.”

Lee Seo-ryeong nodded.

“In that child’s empty eyes, I saw my past self.”

Lee Seo-ryeong had been unlucky, but paradoxically, she had also been very lucky.

But in Lee Seo-ryeong’s eyes, the future of that little girl seemed obvious.

She would either die wandering the streets or, if she was lucky, be sold into courtesanship, living her life by fawning over men.

“So I took her in.”

Lee Seo-ryeong smiled.

It was the most genuine smile I had ever seen from her.

“And so, Yu-wol became my everything…” she trailed off, her voice dropping to a whisper, “my reason for living.”

And then, for the first time, she looked me straight in the eye.

Within Lee Seo-ryeong’s pupils resided a single, unwavering conviction.

“For Yu-wol, I became the Martial Alliance Leader.”

So that no one could ever touch Seol Yu-wol, safe under the protection of the Martial Alliance Leader.

That was her conviction.

Lee Seo-ryeong’s eyes widened as she looked at me.

“To ensure that my daughter would not experience even a single moment of the hell that I went through.”

[Lee Seo-ryeong]

[Main Stance]

[Yu-wol need only walk the path she has paved for her. If she listens and does as she is told, there will never be a problem. She firmly believes this is the only correct path for Yu-wol.]

“Physician.”

I could see Lee Seo-ryeong’s smile.

Somehow, it looked sorrowful.

“This was the only path I could find.”

She spoke softly, almost as if making a vow to herself.

“So… Physician, please.”

That was Lee Seo-ryeong’s true intention.

“Would you please let Yu-wol go?”

It was a twisted form of love.

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Translated By: Meher (RaidenTL)

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