Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang Novel - Chapter 368

Chapter 368
-Tsrr! 『Understood, Father!』
Just as Cho was about to hurry down the mountain to retrieve Bini, Sister Seol moved to block her path.
“Hold on, Cho. So-ryong, is the plan to shatter this barrier? Is there something trapped within?”
“I’m not entirely certain myself. It’s quite dark, and the ice distorts the view, making it difficult to see what’s inside.”
“Is that so?”
After I replied, both Hwa-eun and Sister Seol leaned in close to the frozen wall.
Hwa-eun squinted and pointed toward a pale form within.
“You’re referring to that white shape in there?”
“That’s correct, Hwa-eun.”
“As So-ryong mentioned, its form is indistinct. It’s nearly impossible to identify.”
“Precisely. The combination of the shadows and the icy surface makes it completely unclear.”
If even my Myaoamnight Vision, enhanced by concentrated focus, couldn’t penetrate the gloom, then Hwa-eun and Sister Seol stood no chance.
The rear of the cavern was shrouded in darkness, and the thick, frost-ridden ice served as a veil, allowing me to perceive only an outline and its approximate hue.
Myaoamnight Vision grants clearer sight to those with greater internal energy—and mine was a notch above Sister Seol’s.
I had heard her cultivation was approaching the threshold of Three-Bloom Purity.
“What could that being be? And why is it simply lying there? Is it in danger or not?”
Despite the pressing nature of the situation, Sister Seol continued to seek confirmation about the ice’s contents.
I needed to get Cho on her way to bring Bini back quickly, so I clarified the circumstances for her.
The creature inside appeared to be in a dire state.
I assumed her hesitation stemmed from not grasping the severity of its condition.
“Sister, this is time-sensitive. I believe that creature has fallen unconscious inside. Its tongue is lolling from its mouth…”
“What!? You should have said that immediately!”
“Well, you were the one who—”
I didn’t get to finish my sentence before Sister Seol cut me off with a reprimand, then quickly pushed up her sleeves and channeled her inner strength.
“I will attempt to break it myself.”
“You, Sister?”
I suspected her reason for stopping Cho was because she wished to try her own hand at breaking the ice.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but be skeptical. In the world of Murim, the potency of a strike or palm technique derives from internal energy, not physical might—and if I had failed to break it, it was unlikely Sister Seol could.
Seol detected the doubt in my voice and retorted sharply.
“What? You doubt your elder sister’s capabilities?”
“N-no, of course not.”
Implying weakness is a grave offense in Murim.
I swiftly shook my head and hands with a solemn expression, prompting a smile from Seol as she raised her arm.
“Observe, So-ryong. This is a hidden technique of the Beast Palace that allows one to release tremendous power even with modest internal energy. It is known as Bear Palm.”
“Bear Palm” evokes the image of a bear’s forepaw—renowned for its devastating force. The technique likely emulated the crushing swing of a bear’s paw.
While most palm strikes are thrust forward like a punch, the name and her stance suggested this technique was executed with a sweeping, downward motion, much like a bear swiping.
Indeed, Sister Seol had raised her arm at an angle, perfectly mimicking such an attack.
“Bear Palm!”
She announced it with a tone of reverence—though a sudden recollection gave me pause.
‘Hold on… isn’t Bear Palm also the name of a delicacy?’
I recalled a recipe from the Central Plains that prepared actual bear paws.
I maintained a neutral expression and focused on my sister. Energy coalesced in her upraised right hand, and a visible layer of force began to sheath her palm.
-Woooom.
A deep, resonant hum emanated from her right hand, reminiscent of a bear’s growl.
The energy enveloping her hand had taken on the form of a formidable, claw-like gauntlet.
-Vwoom.
With a sudden rush of air, her arm arced down and struck the ice wall at a sharp angle.
-KWAGWANG!
-CRSSHHHHH.
A deafening, explosive sound followed, and a shower of dust and small rocks fell from the cavern’s ceiling.
The thick cloud of debris that erupted completely blinded our view.
“Cough, cough. Did it work?”
I choked out the question through the dust. A brief silence ensued.
Then, Sister Seol’s voice emerged from the settling cloud.
“So-ryong…”
“Yes, Sister! Was it successful!?”
I asked with hopeful enthusiasm, but her subsequent words were… not what I anticipated.
“…Send for Cho. Immediately.”
“Pardon?”
“Send Cho! Now!”
Before I could respond further, Cho, ever perceptive, was already darting out of the cave. Once the dust cleared, the ice was revealed—displaying nothing more than a faint imprint where Sister Seol’s hand had struck.
For an attack of that magnitude to leave behind only a palm print… this was no ordinary ice.
‘Could this be… thousand-year ice?’
***
By the time Cho was on her way, I reached out through our mental connection.
『“Bini, Elder Sister Cho is coming for you. Please return with her when she arrives, alright?”
-Tsrrt? (Me?)
“Yes. We require your assistance, Bini.”
-Tsrrrr. (You need my help?)
“Indeed. We need to break through some ice, but neither your father nor your aunt were able to. We believe you might be the only one who can manage it. Please.”
-Tsrr. (Ice?)
“Think of it as a very cold, hard stone.”
-Tsrrrr. (How bothersome… Still… well… since you ask so nicely, I suppose I can come.)
“Thank you, Bini. We truly need you.”』
The little one seemed quite pleased with himself for being so indispensable.
I made sure my mental voice sounded earnest and pleading, and he eventually, though reluctantly, agreed to come.
『-Tsrr. (Very well. Wait a moment. Ah! Elder Sister is here.)』
Hwa-eun, who was listening to our exchange, let out a soft laugh.
“Fufu. Bini sounds like he’s in high spirits.”
“It would seem so.”
As we conversed about Bini, he arrived surprisingly quickly.
-Tsrrrr. 『Father, what is this? This object?』
Marching into the cave with an air of triumph, Bini sniffed dismissively at the ice wall.
-Tsrrt. 『It is certainly chilly. But honestly, it appears insignificant.』
His tone overflowed with self-assurance, as if he could pulverize it with a single attempt.
It was then that Sister Seol’s voice came from beside us.
“A wall of ice that resisted the Bear Palm…”
We all turned toward the sound. Sister Seol was still standing by the ice wall.
A considerable time had passed since her strike, and she seemed to have been there the entire duration, running her hand over the surface with a look of disappointment.
She appeared completely crestfallen that the wall remained intact.
Now that Bini was present, I gently guided Sister Seol away from the ice and addressed her.
“Sister, it’s possible the ice is simply exceptionally resilient. With Bini here, let us allow him to handle it.”
“Regardless of its strength, it is still ice… and I employed the Bear Palm…”
Really, what exactly is the Bear Palm meant to be?
After I had moved both Hwa-eun and Sister Seol a safe distance away, Bini proclaimed with renewed bravado:
-Tsrrrrt. 『Step aside, Auntie. Bini will break this. You merely linger here because you failed.』
Had Sister Seol understood that, a confrontation would have been inevitable.
In any case, I kept Sister Seol back, and Bini approached and attempted to bite into the ice.
Or rather, he made the attempt.
-Kkaduk. Kkduk.
He succeeded in scraping off a tiny amount—but his teeth simply skidded across the surface.
He paused, then clamped onto the wall again and gnawed vigorously.
-Kkaduk. Ppaduk.
-Tsrrt! 『Agh! What is this?! Why is it so stubborn!?』
But the ice wall remained unyielding.
Now two individuals—one human, one venomous creature—were left in a state of stunned bewilderment, affixed to the ice with vacant expressions.
“A wall of ice that the Bear Palm could not break…”
-Tsrrrr. 『A wall of ice that my teeth cannot break…』
***
‘How in the world are we going to break this?’
While those two remained frozen in their stupor, I was deeply engrossed in devising a method to breach the wall.
Brute force was evidently not the solution.
If the martial arts of my sister and the preternatural teeth of Bini were both ineffective, then sheer power was clearly insufficient.
And then, as I pondered intensely…
‘Wait a moment—why does a wall like this even exist here? It can’t be…’
In the midst of strategizing how to break it, my thoughts abruptly shifted to the wall’s potential purpose. Just then, Bini—the first of the two to recover from his daze—snapped out of it.
He had been mindlessly chewing on the ice with a blank stare, but finally turned and complained of a toothache.
-Tsrrt 『Father, my tooth hurts.』
“What!? It hurts!?”
Alarmed, I rushed to inspect Bini’s teeth. Externally, they seemed fine.
But upon touching them, they were freezing cold.
It seemed the persistent biting of the ice had chilled his teeth to the core, and he was interpreting this sensation as pain.
Then again, it was his first encounter with ice.
“Wait here.”
I cupped both my hands around his teeth, and he immediately relaxed.
He seemed content as I warmed them with my palms, gently tapping my head with his antenna in appreciation.
-Tsrrt. 『Warm… Father.』
We were finally sharing a rare, tranquil moment—until it was interrupted by Sister Seol’s voice.
“Hey… it’s getting rather cold over here, don’t you think?”
I turned to see Sister Seol hugging herself for warmth.
It wasn’t unbearably cold, just noticeably chilly. She was likely feeling it more acutely due to her prolonged contact with the ice.
“It must be the cold radiating from the ice.”
“Shall we light a fire?”
As I suggested making a fire, Sister Seol clapped her hands together.
“A fire? Ah! Correct! If we light a fire, won’t the ice melt? Let’s find some wood and use Hyang’s poison to ignite it!”
Admittedly, it wasn’t a poor idea.
We couldn’t break the ice, but it was gradually melting. Raising the ambient temperature would likely accelerate the process.
However, I shook my head.
“No, I believe starting a fire is unwise.”
“Why is that?”
The notion had crossed my mind earlier, while Bini and Sister Seol were fixated on the ice.
And upon following that line of thought to its conclusion, I became convinced—
“We must not break that wall.”
“What are you talking about? We cannot break it?”
-Tsrr?
Both Bini and Sister Seol turned to me, their faces etched with incredulity.
After all the trouble we had gone to, I was now declaring that we shouldn’t even attempt to break it?
Naturally, they were looking at me as if I had lost my senses.
But I was utterly serious. We should not break it.
That was the definitive conclusion I had reached after my deliberation.
I didn’t know the exact nature of the creature inside, but I deduced it must be a species adapted to frigid environments.
Which implied that wall… was most likely…
A form of natural refrigeration.
It was probably maintaining a stable, low temperature inside—functioning as a cooling apparatus.
Perhaps the creature’s distressed appearance was due to the ice beginning to melt?
Or maybe… it ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) had collapsed, initiating the thawing process.
“It is likely a creature that thrives in the cold. I suspect it was attempting to remain dormant within until winter arrived—but now that it has collapsed, the ice is melting.”
“I see… that does sound logical.”
“Yes, I believe you are correct, So-ryong.”
-Tsrrrr.
Sister Seol, Hwa-eun, and Bini all nodded in agreement with my explanation.
Sister Seol then asked, her voice laced with concern,
“But So-ryong, if we do not break it, how do we extract the little one? Or rather… we are not meant to remove it, are we? We are meant to enter. So how do we gain access?”
She was inquiring how to aid the clearly ailing creature without damaging its preservation chamber.
I smiled.
“Well, we simply avoid the wall altogether.”
-Tap tap.
-Tsrrrrr! 『Ohhh, I understand!』
I tapped the ground, and Bini chirped with sudden comprehension.
He immediately prepared to start digging downward.
“Wait, Bini! Not there—dig through the ceiling up there instead.”
-Tsrrt! 『Understood!』
If he dug through the floor, all the precious cold air would drain away.
And if this truly was a cold-dwelling creature, that would be a disastrous course of action.
Cold air is heavy and sinks—it would simply pour out through any opening in the floor.
We needed to enter from the ceiling.
That way, only the warmer air would rise and escape, while the colder air would remain trapped below.
‘Much like a traditional kimchi jar buried in winter… or a modern kimchi refrigerator.’
-Kkadeudeuk. Kkadeuk.
Bini scaled the wall and began burrowing through the ceiling, and we promptly followed him inside.
The interior had the feel of a true ice chamber. Frigid and motionless.
And there, directly before us… lay an extraordinary creature, unconscious.
Sister Seol observed it with eyes shining anticipation and inquired,
“So-ryong, if we nurse this one back to health… I assume I may keep it, correct?”
She must have presumed that since it wasn’t a reptile, insect, or arthropod, I would relinquish it to her.
But I responded with a regretful expression.
“Sister Seol. This one lacks fur.”
That placed it squarely within my domain.