“SoYeon.”

Jewol entered the room and found Yujo brushing her hair up into a ponytail. He approached her.

“Are you feeling better?”

Three days had already passed since she had returned from the ChiHwaRu. After getting soaked in the rain and dealing with all that ruckus, Yujo caught a serious cold. She spent the past three days recuperating.

“Yes, I think it’s gotten better.”

It was half true. Her fever had cooled, and she was no longer having cold sweats, but her whole body ached. But otherwise, she was fine. For some reason, she felt odd. For the past three days, she’d been having strange dreams.

In her dreams, the man was chasing after her. She escaped him as she teased him. Then she felt him bury his face against the nape her neck, and she would wake up in shock. She felt as if she could still hear his raspy voice through the rain.

Sometimes she’d wake up laughing. Sometimes she’d wake up startled.

It seemed that she had been traumatized. This feeling was so strange, and she hated it. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that strange man. She needed to focus all of her thoughts on the Heukra! Yujo quickly shook her head.

“Why don’t you rest for a little longer?”

For some reason, Jewol’s face looked pale and thin.

“Brother, are you sick as well? Just how much work was there to do at the Academy? You didn’t come home for two days.”

Yujo looked at him with worry. Jewol shook his head and smiled awkwardly. Did something bad happen? Yujo frowned.

“They just gave me a lot of work to do.”

“Aigoo, please go easy on yourself.”

“I think it’s best if you focus on your own recovery. How could you go out in the rain like that?”

“I’m sorry.”

Yujo smiled sheepishly. She thought Jewol would only worry if she told him that her face had been seen by a strange man at the ChiHwaRu, so she didn’t tell him.

“Ah, that’s right! What were the materials you wanted to look at from the Academy?”

“The materials regarding Ancient Baran.”

“Can’t I just get them for you? Access to the Academy is limited. It’s not open to just anyone.”

“Uh… I think I have to look around to know what I’m looking for. Is it impossible for me to get in?”

“Of course not. You have me…”

Jewol’s eyes narrowed as he smiled playfully at her.

“Take this ID with you.”

It was an ID made of jade. Did this mean that she would have to disguise herself as a man?

“You can just wear my clothes. You’ll go out with me and just change in the carriage.”

“Ah, then can we go today?”

“How can you leave in your condition?”

“I can go. If I continue to lie down like this, my body will ache even more.”

There was something she wanted to find out as soon as possible.

“But you should still rest a little while longer. You look terrible.”

Her face did look a bit gaunt after she had gotten sick, but three days had already passed. Her heart was getting impatient. She needed to move. Now wasn’t the time to be sick and lying down.

“I’m fine, Brother. Aren’t I quite sturdy?”

Yujo let out a light laugh. Still worried, Jewol gave her a faint smile as he brushed her hair away from her face.

“Fine, let’s go. And why don’t we stop by somewhere on the way back and eat something delicious?”

“Brother, you gave me your word. No take-backs!”

Yujo did her best to give him a bright smile and soothe his worries.

After Jewol went inside first, Yujo put a dress and her outer clothes over the men’s clothing she was wearing. This way, she could quickly change inside the carriage before entering the Academy and quickly change back when she was on her way back home. She was even wearing a veiled hat, so she felt pretty secure about her plan.

She entered the carriage with Jewol. They stopped the carriage when they had almost arrived at the Academy, and Jewol sent their attendant on an errand. While the attendant was away, Yujo quickly changed and exited the carriage.

Thankfully, the guard in charge of checking ID’s didn’t seem to look carefully. Or did Jewol already take care of that too?

The Academy was a U-shaped building. Every room had windows that faced the inner garden. As soon as she entered through the main gate, she looked up at the large building.

This building held all the historical records of the Silver Nation’s foundation. There were also writings on tortoise shells and dried bones from the era of the Xia Dynasty.

Yujo looked around before crossing through the yard and entering the Academy. What she saw inside made her mouth open in surprise.

The interior was incredibly tall and wide. She walked up the stairs and found that the second floor was connected to yet another building.

Enormous wooden shelves soared up to the ceiling, and they were filled with countless texts and bamboo books. The second floor was full of ancient texts and records. These ancient texts were priceless and couldn’t be bought with money.

Flustered by the sheer amount of material, Yujo barely managed to gather her thoughts and proceeded to look through the records related to the northern province. The numbers she had seen in the ancient language of Baran kept bothering her.

Yujo sifted through the legends and family trees of the northern province. Just glancing through all the ancient records and northern province texts would take a long time.

Yujo let out a sigh and quickly flipped through the pages. She was looking for the specific symbol she had seen at the room in the brothel. Was it some kind of military battle formation? A map?

She looked through countless material in the clouds of dust, but she couldn’t find the symbol she was looking for. Her head was throbbing and her eyes were dazed. She decided that she’d look at one last book before giving up and leaving. She looked over at the pile of bamboo texts. That symbol had to be here somewhere…

No matter how much she looked, it was nowhere to be found.

Was she mistaken? Did she expect too much from the Silver Nation’s Academy? Of course it wouldn’t just pop up like that so easily.

Suddenly, a bamboo slip* popped into her eyes. Judging from the color of the bamboo, it was quite old, but it was sandwiched between two different slips of bamboo.

Actually, this shelf wasn’t supposed to have records of the northern province. However, the bamboo slip she held in her hands and the bamboo slip on the shelf had the same color, and the silk border encasing them were very similar.

Realizing that she would have regretted it if she had returned early, Yujo stretched out her hand towards the shelf. Her fingers couldn’t quite reach the bamboo slip. She let out a deep breath and went on her tip-toes as she stretched her hand out even more. Just a little more. A little more…

Suddenly, a large hand appeared out of nowhere and went over her head as it quickly grabbed the bamboo slip.

Brother Jewol?

Yujo turned her head around with a grin on her lips, but…

The face she saw wasn’t Jewol’s. Yujo’s pale face hardened like ice.

It was him. The indecent man from the ChiHwaRu!

The man grinned down at her. His gaze lingered over Yujo’s hardened expression.

“I knew you’d come here looking for this.”

He knew she’d come here? How?

Today, this man looked completely different from how she had seen him at the ChiHwaRu. He was wearing dark blue clothes and looked like a government official.

Was he a government official? Was he in charge of finding the Heukra?

She had heard that there were organizations that worked directly under the emperor’s orders. Unlike the judicial office, this organization moved in secret.

Whatever the case, nothing good would come out of her interactions with him.

Goosebumps rose on her back. She didn’t understand why this man had been waiting for her to come here. Yujo glared daggers at the man and spoke.

“Move.”

However, the man didn’t move a muscle despite her warning. Even though she wanted to run away, she was currently stuck between the bookshelves and this man’s large body. Yujo knew from experience that this man had a broad physique and that his martial arts skills were almost like that of an immortal. There was no room to escape.

“Why were you trying to take this bamboo slip?”

Trapping her in his arms, the man opened the bamboo slip and began to glance through it. Yujo’s eyes widened. She saw the symbol she had been looking for. It was definitely the symbol she had seen at the ChiHwaRu. She realized that the symbol she had seen was merely a part of a whole symbol.

Yujo quickly erased all expression from her face. She couldn’t let this man know what she had found. She didn’t even want to let him know what she was looking for. However, even though the surprise had only flickered on her face for a moment, the man had already read it.

“I see. So I guess you don’t need this.”

The man held up the bamboo slip and quickly walked away through the bookshelves.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Shocked, Yujo followed after him, but he didn’t seem to care and continued to walk away. Yujo calmed her breaths and quietly followed him.

He wasn’t going to actually take the bamboo slip outside the building, was he?

“Give it to me!”

“Hm, what did you say when you stole my horse? You asked me if I had proof that the horse was mine. Hmph, does this bamboo slip belong to you?”

“I wanted to take it first!”

“But I took it first.”

Damn it! Yujo poised herself to attack and leaped at him like a cat. However, his steps began to pick up speed as he walked away.

No way. She mustn’t lose that bamboo slip. A distance away, they saw an academy administrator pop his head out and look at them.

Yujo calmed down and pretended nothing was wrong. When the administrator looked away, the two of them began to struggle for the bamboo slip between the bookshelves.

Yujo’s punch missed the man, and about five or six books tumbled out of the shelves. If she hadn’t managed to stop their fall with her feet, it would have been incredibly loud.

She began to attack the man again. This time, they almost toppled a whole bookshelf. Pale with worry, Yujo managed to grab it before it crashed down loudly onto the floor. Yujo stiffened as she held onto the bookshelf, but the man used that chance to escape.

“Stop!”

Yujo did her best to shout quietly.

The man brazenly ignored her and continued to walk away.

“That bast…!”

Yujo was just about to shout out when…

“Hey, you. Be quiet!”

Yujo quickly lowered her head apologetically as an administrator admonished her.

This was driving her insane.

She ran out. The administrator glared at her again. Yujo helplessly returned to the shelves and pretended she was looking for another book. Suddenly, she saw the man jump out of a window and leap over the wall with the bamboo slip.

Damn it!

When the administrator looked away for a moment, Yujo quickly jumped out the window. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she leaped up and jumped on top the wall.

The blinding, hot sunlight shone down on YeonSung. A passing middle-aged woman piggybacking a child looked up at Yujo and wagged her finger.

Yujo quickly avoided the child’s curious eyes and jumped down between a group of weeping willows. From there, she saw the man’s back as he ran like the wind.

Struck dumb in disbelief, Yujo quickly ran after him. It was a clue that she had worked so hard to find. A clue that would explain why the Heukra was going around killing people! She couldn’t let it slip from her hands.

She jumped on top of a store roof and kept her eyes on the man as she followed him. She jumped from building to building like a flying squirrel before she jumped down and attacked the man.

However, the man cheekily avoided all her attacks by a hair’s breadth with small movements. Yujo turned her body around and managed to hit the man’s hand, causing the bamboo slip to escape his grasp. As soon as she felt the sturdy bamboo book in her hands, the man’s feet hit her wrist, causing the book to fly out once again.

The bamboo slip popped up and down in the air underneath the blinding sunlight. The man managed to catch it before it landed inside a crate of fish.

He looked down at the fish, and his brows furrowed in disgust. Yujo didn’t miss this chance and struck his back.

“Ugh!”

Yujo grabbed the bamboo slip that had fallen into the pile of fish.

I got it! Their eyes met for a moment. Yujo grinned at him before running away in the blink of an eye.

Did you really think you could take my bamboo slip?!

At that moment, she heard the man shout out from behind her back.

“Thief!”

What? What did he say? Yujo looked back in disbelief. She saw the man standing in the middle of a crowd as he pointed at her.

“Catch that man! That bastard stole my book! Aigoo, my precious book! Please catch that man! I will reward you handsomely!”

Ha! How ridiculous!

Yujo began to grind her teeth, but she was left with no other choice. She felt the eyes of the men around her light up when they heard the man say ‘reward’.

You thief! She heard a large man cry out as he went after her. Yujo managed to evade him only to be attacked by two more men. She hit the men’s faces with the bamboo slip.

In the meantime, she felt the man coming after her. Yujo clenched her teeth and began to run away. It seemed that she had suddenly turned into a bamboo slip thief.

The fruits piled inside a cart tumbled onto the ground. She avoided the oncoming carriages and jumped on top of a wall before jumping down into the residence within.

The dogs began barking at the intruder. The chickens ran away. The man was quickly but gracefully following behind Yujo.

What a scary guy! Yujo’s teeth chattered as she slipped between the bamboo trees and jumped over a wall. She landed in a bustling street filled with people. From here, she could see Jewol’s carriage standing far away.

All she needed to do was hide inside that carriage!

However, she couldn’t let her pursuer find out her identity. Yujo quickly turned and ran inside an alleyway. She went behind a store building and slipped through the open window and found herself inside a storeroom

The storeroom had high ceilings and was dark. Unlike the sunny, bustling street outside, the storeroom was oddly quiet and was filled with the smell of mold.

The old wooden shelves were all filled with baskets and boxes full of merchandise. Rolls of cotton and silk were hanging down from the high ceilings.

Yujo didn’t pay much attention to any of this. Right now, she was busy trying to find a way to get to that carriage.

She guessed that if she went out the window on the other side of the room, she’d be able to exit through the back and get to the carriage. This way, she’d be able to evade that disgraceful man.

Suddenly, she felt something enclose her body. Shocked, she turned her body, but it was too late. Yujo let out a shout, but the sound was too weak and became lost in the bustling noises outside.

When she came to her senses, she realized that her body was hanging in the air, wrapped up in the silk that had been hanging down from the ceiling. The man suddenly appeared and was grinning as he watched Yujo hanging like a dried sardine.

“Aha! It seems that I’ve finally caught the thief.”

“Who’s the thief? Let me go!”

“What kind of idiot would let you go in a situation like this?”

Yujo glared at him as if she wanted to kill him. However, because her whole body was wrapped up in the cloth and hanging in the air, there was nothing she could do.

The only relief was that the bamboo slip was wrapped up with her. However, her state right now made her lose so much face.

She’d make him pay!

Yujo fiercely glared at the man, but the man merely chuckled. Yujo felt as if her blood was boiling in her veins.