Before I End Up as Rabbit Stew - Chapter 18

Baekho seemed to have acknowledged Yimae’s appearance in his own way, but Jujak was the problem. Where did he throw away the personality that was praised as gentle and warm like the spring breeze? It looked like his eyeballs would pop out and roll on the floor any second.

“The Moon Palace is about to collapse, not just turn upside down!”

Baekho lowered his voice as much as possible and whispered. Yimae first snatched the cup from Jujak. If he kept holding it, the cup would roll on the floor before his eyeballs did. He must have brought it from downstairs, and looking at the contents, it was that damn honey wine.

“Yours?”

“I drank it a while ago.”

He would. Yimae agreed with Baekho’s words and took the cup to the table.

“I was going to watch Heukryong being ambushed.”

Baekho, who followed behind, clicked his tongue. Heukryong was fast asleep, unaware that two of his friends had barged in.

“Is it fun watching other people’s love affairs?”

Yimae turned to Baekho with a disgusted expression. Baekho shuddered even more than she did.

“What is this mess, really?”

The three sat around a small table. Jujak sat on the floor, still unable to recover from the shock.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Baekho gestured with his chin towards Heukryong, who was visible beyond his feet. Yimae opened her mouth with a face full of things to say, but ended up sighing.

“He’s just asleep.”

This time, Yimae asked.

“What brings you guys here?”

“We need Yeonbi mugwort sprouts.”

Baekho nudged Jujak. Yimae recalled that Jujak’s wife had ordered Yeonbi mugwort rice cakes before. They had even made a mugwort field under the Gyesu tree, but the fact that they were trying to get sprouts without going to the Moon Palace meant that no one was taking care of the field.

Seeing Yimae’s expression gradually distorting, Baekho sighed deeply.

“The entire Moon Palace was in an uproar because we couldn’t find you and Chaesang.”

Hearing those words, one side of Yimae’s heart suddenly calmed down. She had buried Chaesang deep in her heart, fearing that she would cry if she thought about it for too long. She had become a beautiful woman and fled to the human world, so she wouldn’t be caught as a moon rabbit, but she was always weighed down by the fact that she didn’t know where or how she was living.

She’s alive and well somewhere, without being caught. Yimae thought so and slightly relieved the burden on her heart.

“Now I know why you couldn’t find me.”

Who would have expected her to be walking around so nonchalantly in human form? Baekho had been very uncomfortable because she had disappeared immediately after they met in the Moon Palace. Where did the reckless rabbit disappear to so completely? He had secretly released soldiers to search the Heavenly Realm.

He wanted to find Yimae before the Moon Palace or the Heavenly Emperor’s Palace and devise a plan to reduce her sins. But.

“Do you remember that this place is only separated from the Heavenly Emperor’s Palace by a wall?”

Bipamung. It was a place where she was practically face to face with the Heavenly Emperor. How great was the sin of abandoning her duties in the tea garden and running away? The Heavenly Emperor had directly ordered the Geumbu officers to pursue the moon rabbit. He was still stirring up every strand of wind and every grain of sand in the Heavenly Realm.

“It’s not like I want to be here.”

As she said that, Yimae suddenly realized that the people sitting in front of her were the Four Guardian Gods. They must each have a chief general.

“That’s right, door! Open the door.”

“What door?”

“The door to Heukryong Palace!”

Yimae pointed to Heukryong, who was fast asleep. Baekho’s eyebrows slanted sharply.

“You’re going to Heukryong Palace?”

At that moment, Jujak carefully raised his hand. It was a gesture of wanting to get the floor. He had recovered slightly from the shock, but he was still looking at Yimae with trembling eyes. He didn’t want to admit that he felt his friend’s scent from a woman he had never seen before.

“What is it?”

Yimae asked curtly, and Jujak’s shoulders shrank slightly.

“I have a few questions…”

“Narrow it down to two or three, I’m in a hurry.”

She tapped the table with her fingers and sat with one knee raised, without any manners. Baekho and Jujak averted their eyes.

Jujak seemed to have finally found a balance between his unwillingness to admit it and his need to accept the facts as they were. He said quietly.

“How did you become human…?”

“Didn’t you guys say that the Golden Taboo Herb grows in Heukryong Palace?”

The Golden Taboo Herb that transforms into a human is only one. Baekho and Jujak made expressions that they understood without hearing more. She had graduated and was supposed to be quietly holed up in the Moon Palace, but she had finally caused such a major accident.

A human. A finite and trivial life that could only live for a hundred years at most. Baekho felt suffocated and nauseous. Jujak hesitated for a moment and asked another question.

“You became human, so why are you going back to Heukryong Palace…? Maybe…that love affair earlier…um…”

Jujak’s words trailed off. Was she in that kind of relationship with Heukryong? Yimae was flustered and slammed the table. Heukryong stirred a little and took one hand out from under the pillow and rubbed his eyes. But he didn’t fully wake up.

“Don’t talk nonsense, Jujak.”

“Then why?”

Baekho took over Jujak’s question.

“You became human, so you should run away quickly, why are you going back to Heukryong Palace?”

“It’s very annoying to explain.”

It would take three days to stay in this inn to tell all of that. Besides, even though they were Baekho and Jujak, she didn’t know how much she could tell them.

The medicinal cauldron boiling in the training hall and the vegetable patch she made in the pigeon house courtyard came to Yimae’s mind in order. She reflexively grabbed her ears with the ornaments and pretended to be annoyed.

“Anyway, just think that I have to go to Heukryong Palace right now.”

Knowing that she was avoiding the answer, Baekho didn’t ask any further. But he couldn’t help but worry, so he sighed deeply. Jujak raised his hand again after a while.

“Don’t do that, just tell me.”

“I just feel like I have to.”

He lowered his hand, feeling embarrassed. He had lived his whole life as a noble and dignified handsome man, and it was a natural manner that had become ingrained in him. Even though he knew she was a friend, he was treating Yimae as a woman he was meeting for the first time.

“Do you have a plan for what you’re going to do in the future?”

Jujak’s kind eyes were also full of worry. Yimae bit her lip and thought for a moment. After taking some time while tapping the table, she opened her mouth.

“I have a promise with Heukryong. I’ll stay with Heukryong until I keep that promise.”

It would be okay to tell them this much. Yimae recited the words she had filtered out.

“And if the Moon Palace is looking for me, there’s no safer place than Jeokto Realm right now.”

Especially Heukryong Palace in Jeokto Realm. The tyrant’s residence, which no one could approach after his mother Heukryong died. The tyrant in the rumors, who drank alcohol with countless bones as cups, only had a cup of alcohol tolerance, though.

“Heukryong. Are you awake?”

Just in time, the drunken Heukryong got up. Baekho greeted him happily. Sitting on the bed and blinking, Heukryong looked at the three people without saying a word. His face, whiter and paler than ivory, was no different from Heukryong’s usual appearance. Only Yimae felt a sense of unease.

“How long has it been? It seems like a lot has happened.”

Baekho pointed to Yimae playfully. But Heukryong didn’t answer and just stared at the table in front of the bed. Jujak’s honey wine cup was on the table.

“…Water.”

Heukryong reached out and grabbed the cup.

“No! That’s not water!”

The situation was over before Yimae could get up. Heukryong drank the honey wine sweetly. Yimae’s arm, which she had desperately reached out to him, fell limply. She turned to Baekho and Jujak, who were dumbfounded.

“Do you have a wooden sword?”

“What…?”

“Even better if you have a real sword.”

Behind the fierce Yimae, Heukryong pounced. Heukryong, who hugged her tightly from behind and sat down, rubbed his nose on Yimae’s cheek instead of the dumpling this time. His firm and sharp nose came in as if it would pierce Yimae’s face. It was to the point where a dimple would form in that spot.

“Don’t you like dumplings, dumplings.”

“I don’t like them!”

“Then I’ll eat this?”

“No!”

Heukryong fiddled with Yimae’s cheeks. Thinking of them as dumplings, he rubbed his nose and chin, eager to swallow them. Yimae, trapped in Heukryong’s arms, reached out to the table.

“Open the door or something!”

Heukryong didn’t give Yimae a chance to escape. He completely confined her body with his thick legs and smiled brightly.

“Wiiiiife.”

The more he did that, the more bloodshot Yimae’s face became. But it was nothing compared to Baekho and Jujak’s faces. They were making expressions as if the whole world was a hell of Asura. The four eyes, shocked upon shocked, didn’t move at all like ice statues.

“What are you staring at like idiots? Open the door, I said, the door!”

Yimae almost screamed at Baekho and Jujak.

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