Before I End Up as Rabbit Stew - Chapter 8

“Aren’t you even going to pick out the fur? Or remove the bones? If you eat it like this, you’ll get a stomachache!”

The rabbit shrieked at the top of her lungs as Jeon-gak tried to leave. She strained with all her might, resisting any attempt to be put into the medicinal pot. I can’t die like this! I can’t become rabbit stew! Struggling desperately, Yimae shouted again.

“Yuck, this isn’t the smell of mugwort! I don’t want to be mixed with these herbs!”

The Black Dragon stopped his descending finger. Unaware of his change, Yimae continued to yell.

“There’s foal’s smile grass in here too! I hate this even more!”

“What else is in it?”

“Soybean stalks, nine ailment grass, and hawthorn berries?”

When faced with an academic question, she momentarily forgot her primary duty to preserve her life. Yimae sniffed intently. And she didn’t forget to add a final remark.

“But aren’t these all poisonous herbs? If you eat them, you’ll either go mad or die, won’t you?”

The Black Dragon, who had been silently observing her, fumbled around the floor and pulled out a small cage. He untied the knot binding the rabbit’s feet and locked her inside.

Yimae quickly tried to escape through the door gap, but it was utterly futile. She stared intently at the firmly locked hinge, then clung to the iron bars.

“You’re surprised because I correctly identified all the ingredients in that medicinal soup, aren’t you!”

The windowless wall was lined with bookshelves crammed with books. Leaving the chattering Yimae behind, the Black Dragon went to the bookshelf. He began pulling out books one by one, examining them as if searching for something.

“What, what! What are you doing now!”

The rabbit scratched at the bars as if she intended to bore holes through them. The Black Dragon offered no reply, merely continuing to pull out thick books. Yimae carefully scanned the room, starting from the wall with the bookshelf.

One wall resembled a herbal encyclopedia. Many different kinds of grasses were hung up to dry. Yimae meticulously examined every single herb. Since she was familiar with all the numerous herbs, the rabbit grew quite proud. The top student rabbit isn’t dead yet.

“What are you looking for? Wouldn’t it be faster if I helped you look?”

She subtly suggested, but the Black Dragon remained silent as a stone.

Yimae sighed as she watched his broad back, which moved like a massive boulder. It was a sigh directed at herself. Soon, she sprawled out flat inside the cage. A soft, downy breeze wafted through the iron bars.

Why had she turned back into a rabbit? The reason was simple. The Cha-ancho Yimae had eaten was far too small. It was in a freshly sprouted state, so its efficacy likely hadn’t fully matured, leading to that desperate, final transformation.

“Nothing in this world is easy.”

Now, even if the Black Dragon willingly released her, she couldn’t leave the palace. Yimae absolutely had to become human. To exaggerate just a tiny bit, if she couldn’t become human, she’d rather be eaten by the Black Dragon as rabbit stew.

If she were captured and taken to the Moon Palace like this, she’d surely face trouble—charges of dereliction of duty on behalf of Chaesang, plus the added crime of escape, and probably something nasty on top.

The rabbit shook her head side to side. Just imagining it made her feel nauseous. She had to stay in this palace and find a mature Cha-ancho. To do that, Yimae decided she must firmly establish her usefulness to the Black Dragon.

“Look, look! Snow-melt grass! Yi-hochae! Lantern bellflower!”

Yimae stretched her hand out through the bars. She pointed at the herbs hanging on the wall and hopped up and down excitedly. For reasons unknown, the Black Dragon seemed to need someone who could distinguish poisonous herbs. In that case, this esteemed Yimae, top graduate of the Oreum Academy, was perfectly qualified. The moon rabbit continued to chirp out the names of the herbs in her small voice.

“That’s mugwort! Huh, there are thorny beads too? Where did you get that from?”

While she was momentarily tilting her head in confusion, the Black Dragon approached without a sound. He suddenly thrust an open book towards her, startling Yimae. The page he held open depicted a plant she had never seen or touched in her life. Yet, she knew exactly what kind of plant it was. Just like the Cha-ancho she discovered today.

“What is the name of this.”

The rabbit, who had just been making enough noise for three people, suddenly became hesitant. Despite having studied cultivation and herbology for a long time, there was a reason she had never seen it before.

The drawing in the book was of a Forbidden Herb. One must not even utter the name of this blasphemous plant. It was a rule drilled into her with the threat of the cane. The rabbit averted her eyes as if gazing at a distant mountain.

“Come to think of it, rabbit stew tastes best when properly seasoned.”

The Black Dragon, who showed no regard for spiritual creatures, pulled out the Yiyeongdo again.

“It’s Maengnari! Maengnari.”

Yimae shouted urgently. Maengnari was a flower that, when ground or brewed as tea for someone on the verge of death, could revive a fading pulse. It was classified as a Forbidden Herb because it might interfere with a predetermined lifespan.

Without delay, the Black Dragon turned the page to the next one.

“This is Jacheong snake strawberry.”

It was a plant that required extremely demanding growth conditions to bear fruit. Only the fruit of this plant could be used for medicine, and to make it bear fruit, one absolutely had to fertilize it with juice pressed from the immortal peaches of the Ban-do Garden. The Ban-do Garden peaches were such precious fruits that even the Heavenly Emperor might only eat one once a year, if that. So, this was less a Forbidden Herb and more one of those plants fading into obscurity because no one could harvest it.

“This one?”

“Ah, I know this one well. It’s Sunset ground cherry, isn’t it?”

Yimae’s tone became listless. Sunset ground cherries only grew natively in the Vermilion Bird Palace, the domain of the Summer God who governs fire. The cherries contained sweet honey inside, attracting many insects and causing them to spoil quickly.

She recalled the White Tiger, who used to boast that only he, the close friend of the Vermilion Bird, could eat them when they were in season. At such times, the moon rabbit felt the urge to kick that annoying White Tiger god with her hind legs.

“Show me the next page, quickly.”

“There is no next page. Your usefulness ends here.”

“Huh????”

Are you going to suck out my essence and then boil me alive now? Yimae scurried to the far end of the cage, avoiding the Black Dragon’s hand as it reached inside.

“Wait! Wait!”

Yimae once again activated her cornered-insect-level brain.

“Looking at this list, these are all curse herbs, aren’t they? Do you know how to compound them?”

The Black Dragon withdrew his hand, seeming intrigued. Yimae didn’t miss her chance.

“If you tell me what kind of curse it is, I can help with the compounding.”

“But you don’t know the compounding ratios right now either?”

“I’ll find out! I’ll find out! Just put that knife away and let’s talk.”

Yimae nearly screamed upon seeing the blade of the Yiyeongdo. At this rate, she’d die of a heart attack before even finding the Cha-ancho. If only she had even a wooden sword, she could do something. The rabbit’s anger surged.

The Black Dragon firmly relocked the hinge and moved the cage. It was now in front of a window with a better view of the lotus flowers.

“My mother did not pass away because all her reverse scales had grown.”

A dragon has forty-nine reverse scales. On the day the final reverse scale emerges on its neck, the dragon fulfills its heavenly mandate. The soul, having left the physical body, enters the cycle of reincarnation and is reborn as someone in the celestial realm.

The Black Dragon gritted his teeth silently.

“Her physical body failed before the final reverse scale emerged. I suspect it was due to poison or some toxin.”

“Are you saying someone harmed your mother? The Heavenly Emperor…… did?”

“Yes. That’s why I plucked out all her reverse scales and planted them here, to uncover the truth.”

The rabbit forced a smile, but it felt completely misplaced.

She thought she might understand why the Black Dragon hadn’t studied with the White Tiger and Vermilion Bird since childhood in the Celestial Academy program. Perhaps it wasn’t just because he descended to live in the Scarlet Rabbit Realm. Maybe it was the wise judgment of the higher-ups that it was unreasonable for a social animal to grow up like that.

The rabbit felt as if sweat was dripping down like human sweat, even though she had no pores.

“I tethered her spirit here before it could fly away, so if I can just restore her physical body…”

“I, I see….”

Yimae instinctively became more respectful. This was someone who tore apart his own mother’s remains to pluck out her reverse scales; swallowing a palm-sized rabbit would be nothing to him.

A light wind passing emptily over a swamp startled her. Perhaps because she had been holding her body too rigidly, her shoulders felt stiff. Suddenly, the Black Dragon swung the cage sharply. Thinking her neck or wing bones might break, the rabbit grumbled under her breath.

“Can you complete this curse medicine?”

The Black Dragon stared intently into the cage. In his pitch-black, moist dragon eyes, there suddenly seemed to be a breath of life. Yimae felt her heart plummet as if pushed to the edge of a cliff. A heartbeat distinctly different from when she was anxious pounded in her chest.

He had been wishing for this for a long time. Medicine to restore his mother’s physical body.

“I can do it.”

Suddenly, she didn’t know why the image of the Chief Examiner of the Forbidden Treasury flashed through her mind. There must be a way.

Did I ever really have a choice anyway? At this crossroads, having abandoned the Moon Palace, it was do or die. This was the only way. She absolutely had to become human.

Yimae stretched one front paw out through the bars. The white paw touched the Black Dragon’s cold cheek. The Black Dragon blinked slightly but did not move away.

“If I complete the curse medicine, make me human.”

“You want to become human?”

“Yes. I just need one well-grown Cha-ancho root from your palace.”

They shared a few breaths of the lotus scent carried by the dawn breeze. Finally, the Black Dragon unlocked the cage’s hinge.

“I promise.”

He gently held the rabbit’s front paw with one finger. To show she had no intention of betraying him and running away now, the rabbit also grabbed his hand with both her front paws.

“Then we are now…… comrades?”

The rabbit said with a pleased smile.

“Comrades?”

“No? Then…… companions?”

The Black Dragon silently mirrored Yimae’s smile. Then, in an instant, his expression changed completely as he picked up the hair tie he had set aside.

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