Chapter 8.2

Do-joon left the hospital after confirming that So-eun was asleep.

On the way back home, the moon was unusually clear and bright, and stars twinkled that day.

He returned to the store in the cold night’s breeze.

‘It’s a martial arts novel…….’

The first thing he did when he returned to the store was search for martial arts novels with the setting of the Ninth Yin Pulse.

If he looked for it, there seemed to be a lot of variations like Moon Vein and Solar Vein. But, many people called them Yin Body since they lumped them together as the same.

(T/N: Yin Pulse and Yin Body are interchangeable words.)

‘Maybe I should look for it under Yin Body.’

He searched on Google and found various novels. Some were free to read and some had to be paid for.

He doesn’t have to read all the books from the first to the end. He just needed to read the part where the Yin Body appears.

Do-joon read the novels that came up on Google search one by one. For novels introduced through blog reviews and other sources, he even went to the novel websites and paid for it.

1 hour… 2 hours…… 3 hours…….

Time passed and eventually it became dawn. Even if he looked only at the parts where the Yin Body occurred, time flew by as he was reading several novels.

Do-joon came out to the terrace to cool off for a bit. Before he noticed it, he already had a can of beer in his hand.

Sip! Slurp!

He took a sip of beer leaning on the railing and lowered his eyes to his cell phone again.

The content shown in most of the novels were about the same.

The main character, who gained strength, defeats the antagonists and shows off his ability. Then, a character who was caught in the Yin Body appeared mainly as one of the female protagonists.

The first martial arts novel he read was quite macho.

The content itself was bloody, so cruel and sensational content appeared frequently.

But Do-joon’s feelings after seeing all of that.

‘It’s like a fairy tale book.’

Surprisingly, the opposite.

It wasn’t that he was used to cruelty or that the bloody scenes like these in the story were just fairy tales.

It was just because Do-joon focused on characters with symptoms of yin body, and not on the main character of the novel.

In most novels, a desperate female character is saved by the main character.

As Jeong Da-Jeong said, they were beautiful, pitiful and intelligent, and were waiting for the day when they would die.

The main character, like a prince on a white horse, appears to cure their illness.

After that, naturally, she fell in love with the main character, but the back story was good.

What was important to Do-joon was that the main character uses magical powers to “cure” the incurable disease of the yin body. That was all.

Smash!

Suddenly, his emotions soared and he clenched his fist without realizing it. The can of beer he was holding was crushed, and the beer that was half left flowed down his hand.

Without even thinking about wiping it, Do-joon kept his mouth shut.

In the novel, the women suffering from the yin body disease were like princesses. Similar to being kidnapped by a demon king or an evil dragon, a princess hoping for the prince’s help.

And since it’s a novel, of course, the prince appears and saves her. A few cliffhangers, or a few drops of perspiration, to the point of futility.

Such was the story. Characters were set on the premise that they will be saved from the beginning. And a disease set on the premise that it will be cured.

Snow White ate the poisonous apple because the prince would kiss her, and Cinderella would be persecuted by her stepmother because she would marry the prince and be saved.

However, there is no such convenient character in reality.

‘…… I’m the only one.’

There was no such thing as an expedient prince. Even if it existed, he could not guarantee that it would appear in front of him.

After all, it was just him. A person who can devote everything to So-eun.

It may be the prince who will save the princess, but parents are the only ones who will save the child.

‘…… It’s not that I didn’t get any hints.’

He learned something while reading a novel. The yin body was a disease that was commonly caused by a strong yin energy, in other words, it was a congenital yin qi, it was also mentioned that they would be cured by giving them cores of spirit animals or elixirs that were imbued [filled] with yang qi at the same level of yin qi in the person’s body.

(T/N: Qi [pronounced “chee”] means [vital] energy.)

In other words, a potion containing the yang energy can be a cure.

‘I can’t believe it completely since it’s just a novel…….’

However, this was the first clue that he discovered in six years. Although, the bizarre things of the labyrinth, the ability to copy, and the insight were gained by him.

Do-joon wrote down this method in his mind, “Treatment for So-eun: No. 2.” Of course, he didn’t forget to put in the parentheses and write “I need to check first.”

Why was it number two?

Number one was actually something he has known for a long time.

‘The Golden Covenant.’

A mythic-grade potion that appeared only once in the world in the decades after Yggdrasil appeared. An unearthly elixir that can cure all diseases in the world and wake up even the dying.

He has to find it.

“I never had a chance.’

For Do-joon, who was only a potion maker and collector, the Golden Covenant was something he could not even dream of.

Mythic-grade items are valued by the entire world as soon as they appear. In fact, whenever a mythical grade item appeared, there would be wars and battles all over the world to acquire the treasure.

What if the potion promises that even the dying person could be revived?

It’s a treasure that you can’t save even if he pays a billion won. To ask Do-joon for the Golden Covenant, it was like picking up a star in the sky.

‘But it’s different now.’

He has the ability to reach for the stars, maybe.

It’s still weak. Maybe it’s not as powerful an ability as he thinks. Or, even a great ability may not be able to reach the Golden Covenant.

However,

It was enough to stand on the starting line.

A faint ray of light reflected in a dark cave. If that’s the only way, shouldn’t he follow it even if he falls and gets hurt?

‘I’ll save my daughter.’

Do-joon jumped up from his seat. He tossed the can in the trash and went back to his store.

Even in the cold night air, the reason your body burns hot is not just because of alcohol.