Before I End Up as Rabbit Stew - Chapter 10

The lotus flowers of the Black Dragon Palace never withered, regardless of the season.

The massive lotus leaves intertwined densely, creating waves as if forming a sea. The beautiful blossoms that bloomed atop them resembled the smile of a fair maiden. The lotus flowers floating on the wide expanse, easily two hundred ja in each direction, were the greatest spectacle in the Black Dragon Palace.

However, the problem was that this was the only spectacle. After the death of the previous Black Dragon, Hee-tae, the garden was completely neglected, and just one step away from the lotus swamp was a sticky mud field.

“Tsk, tsk.”

Lee-mae, who had climbed to the top of the pavilion to survey the entire Black Dragon Palace, clicked her tongue. Indeed, the lotus swamp was a sight worth seeing ten times over, even if you had to pay for it. As the sky gradually faded into purple, the sunlight gently spreading from the ground embraced the lotus leaves. The lotus flowers became the same color as the clearest sky, erasing the horizon of the Black Dragon Palace.

The Black Dragon’s main palace was called Yong Jujeon, meaning the place where the dragon resides. Lee-mae was assigned the most remote building, the closest to the lotus swamp. In fact, by human standards, it was more like a pigeon coop, barely big enough to be called a building. Still, it was luxurious enough for Lee-mae to lie down in, so she decided to call it a building as she pleased.

Waking up at dawn and watching the sun chariot appear in the distance was one of Rabbit’s small joys. For ten years of life in the Moon Palace, she had always longed for sunlight.

There was a weeping willow tree, the tallest in the palace, next to the pavilion. Whenever the sun chariot passed, the first place the sunlight touched was the top of the weeping willow. Lee-mae gazed at the first sunlight of the day with dazzled eyes. The pure gold ornaments embedded in the rabbit’s ears also sparkled in the morning sun. After stretching briefly, the rabbit climbed down the tree trunk.

Today, she had to make ridges. She had evenly tilled the soil over the past week, so now it was time to turn it into a field. The effort of tilling the courtyard every day would finally pay off today.

The rabbit, who was approaching with a large hoe, suddenly changed direction. There was a panel the same color as the tree bark, so well-hidden in the roots of the weeping willow that it was easy to miss. Lee-mae, craning her neck and looking around, removed the panel.

“I have to do this first.”

A fairly wide and deep pit was visible inside the roots. Lee-mae sat down with her buttocks pressed against the edge of the pit. Then, she began to dig out the soil with both hands. This pit was something Lee-mae had started digging from the first day she entered Yong Jujeon, and it was solely for the Black Dragon.

“I will, definitely, make that crazy bastard, fall in here!”

Her voice gained strength with each push of her arms. The rabbit widened the pit, putting her earnest wishes into each word. This work could only be done in the early morning. There was only one reason, and it was simple. Just as a routine had been established for the rabbit, it had also been established for the Black Dragon.

“Greetings.”

The rabbit was startled by the sound of someone at the entrance. Lee-mae hurriedly pulled the panel over to cover the pit and jumped up. The low voice belonged to a royal guard.

“You’re here a little early today?”

“It is the same time as usual.”

Is that so? Was I so engrossed in digging the pit that I lost track of time? The royal guard brought Lee-mae’s meals in the morning and evening. It would be common to have a kitchen in the building and have two or three palace servants to take care of the meals, but this was a pigeon coop, so there was no kitchen. Therefore, the royal guard who took care of Yong Jujeon took care of Lee-mae’s meals. The meals arrived once at dawn and once at dusk.

In the Heavenly Palace or the Moon Palace, most of the palace servants were women. But for some reason, the Black Dragon Palace was full of only men. Moreover, the royal guards were composed of those who were particularly well-built and handsome.

“But today…”

Lee-mae narrowed her eyes and looked behind the royal guard. He appeared, shattering her hopeful expectations. It was the Black Dragon, wearing a black dragon robe and his hair tied high in a single knot.

“Are you looking for me?”

“I wasn’t looking for you.”

Lee-mae grumbled and turned away. The Black Dragon, holding the meal tray himself, sent the royal guard away. He commuted to the pigeon coop twice a day with the meal tray. He must have been trying to keep an eye on her.

“Sit down.”

The ceiling of the lower floor of the pigeon coop was too low for the Black Dragon to sit. He placed the meal tray in front of the weeping willow tree trunk. The Black Dragon sat down easily on the ground, which was full of dirt and weeds. The already cramped courtyard had little space left when the Black Dragon sat down. The royal guards in charge of laundry must be crying every day because he dirtied his clothes so much.

“Don’t you ever sleep in?”

“Nope.”

The Black Dragon answered calmly. The rabbit snorted as if to say, “Listen to that,” and sat down in front of the meal tray. The breakfast was a refreshing porridge made with apricot kernels, pine nuts, and walnuts. The Black Dragon scooped the porridge into an earthenware bowl with a wooden ladle. Lee-mae looked at the porridge, which was less than a snot’s worth in front of her, and started shouting from the early morning.

“Hey, give me more!”

“You’ll burst.”

“It’s not even enough to whet my appetite?!”

For a week, the Black Dragon had been acting as if he had started raising a pet rabbit. It was the same with Lee-mae’s bed in the weeping willow pavilion. On the first day, he brought half a walnut shell.

‘Is this enough?’

‘My feet don’t even fit!’

After going through an egg-carrying straw bundle and the Black Dragon’s socks, she was now using a fairly wide bamboo leaf basket as a bed. The Black Dragon often picked flowers or grass blooming in the building and shook them in front of Lee-mae’s mouth, and he would even look disappointed if she didn’t eat them like a small animal. The scariest thing was that all of this was the Black Dragon’s true feelings. He wasn’t playing a prank.

“You eat this!”

The rabbit swapped the earthenware bowl and the porridge pot whole. And before he could stop her, she began to slurp the porridge with a wooden ladle. The Black Dragon quietly watched her, then put a spoonful, less than a single spoonful, into his mouth without complaint.

“Since you ate so much for breakfast, should I tell them not to bring dinner?”

“Am I really going to flip out here?!”

Lee-mae, who was dragging the hoe, shouted as if having a seizure. There were so many things to shout about when she was with the Black Dragon that she felt like her voice would soon be hoarse.

He didn’t know anything about the physiology of herbivores. Rabbits were hungry as soon as they turned around after eating. Moreover, she had been tilling the land and making paths all day. She could collapse if she didn’t eat enough. Besides, unlike the Moon Palace, tender grass didn’t grow here. She could only get food from the two meals brought out from Yong Jujeon.

“If you don’t give me dinner, I’ll find the food storage and ruin it.”

Lee-mae pointed to Yong Jujeon beyond the wall with the handle of the hoe. In fact, even though she said that, she didn’t know if there was such a thing as a food storage. The only places she had been to in the past week were the pigeon coop and the Suyeonjeon.

“Then I’ll prepare buckwheat crepes.”

“Buckwheat crepes? Will you put in radish and carrots too?”

Lee-mae perked up her ears.

“I’ll let the kitchen know.”

The Black Dragon promised. The rabbit was in a good mood and soon began to hoe enthusiastically. She was truly a simple animal.

“By the way.”

The sunlight was getting hotter and hotter. After eating breakfast together, the Black Dragon would lie on the weeping willow branches and watch Lee-mae for a long time before leaving. The rabbit, who had finished hoeing, was patting the soil.

“You know you need seedlings to grow maengnari and snake strawberries here, right?”

That was obvious. If you just make a field and don’t plant anything, you can’t harvest anything. But what they wanted to grow wasn’t something that could be found anywhere, like dandelions that popped out on their own in the spring or cherry blossoms that fluttered in the wind. Lee-mae had never even heard of a place that sold maengnari or scarlet snake strawberries.

“Can you get them?”

The Black Dragon didn’t answer. Lee-mae raised her head. The Black Dragon, lying on the thick branches, was asleep. The Black Dragon’s hair, tied high, flowed down under the tree.

“So much for not sleeping in.”

Lee-mae felt the urge to weave that black hair into every willow branch and tie it up tightly. He was always leaning on those branches, so she was making the pit right underneath.

When the pit is finished, I’ll push his boulder-like body from behind and make him fall. Just thinking about it made her brain feel like it was coated in sesame oil. The rabbit chuckled and continued to pile up the soil.

The Black Dragon disappeared without a word in the late afternoon. When she finished making the ridges and looked up, he was already gone. It was amazing how he dragged his big body away without a sound.

“I’m so hungry.”

It was a different kind of hunger than usual. Hunger rushed in like a storm and rummaged through her stomach. She did work a lot today. There were twenty ridges bulging in front of the tree roots. Now, all she needed was to get the seedlings, and cultivating them would be a piece of cake for the genius rabbit.

“Hot, hot.”

Suddenly, her stomach felt stuffy and nauseous. Even though the sun was starting to set, the heat didn’t go away. Lee-mae hurried to the spring. For some reason, even the spring seemed smaller than usual. Did she have heatstroke?

The rabbit tried to come to her senses by patting her cheeks. She reached out to wash her face, but she froze. She saw ten smooth, white, and beautiful fingers.

“Wh, what!”

Lee-mae, who was frantically groping her body, bent over. She reflected her appearance in the small spring.

“Oh, no.”

All she was wearing was her curly, abundant brown hair. Before she knew it, Lee-mae had once again turned into a naked woman.

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