Chapter 277

“It has been said that the eyes are mirrors that reflect the heart. Depending on the culture, this concept is sometimes expressed as a window, a mirror, or even the surface of water. Nevertheless, the common point is that the mind inevitably reveals itself through the eyes.”

Jinseong looked into the red irises.

“The heart of a person is like water. When the moon rises, its form reflects upon the surface of the water. When the sun rises, the strong light makes the water clear right to the bottom. Sometimes, it flows in the direction it wishes to go, changing its shape. Throughout this process, it moves in and out of shadows, alternately sparkling and dimming. Therefore, people have long believed that the eyes are the channels through which the heart is reflected.”

Jinseong told Ella in a gentle voice.

“But water is never always clear and clean. Just as water can become murky, the heart, too, is very similar in nature to water. It may be pure, but its clarity doesn’t last forever. It can quickly become dirty with just a bit of contamination, and this is the nature of the heart. Indeed, the heart easily turns turbid.”

“Huh? Uh…”

“When the water level rises abruptly, as the character ‘hun’ (混) suggests, the water becomes murky. Formerly clear water becomes clouded with mud, making it impossible to see within. The rising water level can even flood and overrun areas that were once dry, distorting the landscape. In the end, this leads to a world consumed by confusion, where the familiar appearance of things has vanished.”

“Water becomes murky when it rises…”

“The heart behaves similarly. If thoughts increase suddenly and cannot be managed, they become cloudy, leading to wandering aimlessly without realizing it. This flooding of the mind invades previously untouched areas, impairing clear thinking, fostering blind obsession, and narrowing one’s perspective.”

Thinking without any thought is not beneficial.

But neither is excess.

Ella was currently overwhelmed by excessive thoughts.

And most of these thoughts were meaningless.

Discarding them mercilessly could bring peace back to her heart.

Thoughts are good, and using one’s mind is good too. But blindly indulging in them and allowing them to take control without setting a direction is excessive. At the moment, Frau Winter is controlled by her thoughts, needlessly worrying about irrelevant things and suffering because of it.

She was suffering unnecessarily.

Most of what people worry about in life is just overcomplication.

Fear feeds on this, growing into an intangible phantom that overwhelms the person. And just as a snowball grows bigger, so does worry, eventually oppressing the individual.

But when you strip away all the unnecessary complications, what’s left is usually something quite insignificant.

A person’s fear, which had once seemed so overwhelming, is usually just the phantom born from past events, like a seed flowering into an illusion. The giant snowball of worry is often realized to have started with nothing more than a small pebble rolling down a hill.

Jinseong smiled at Ella, a comforting smile.

To solve worries, you have to face their essence. And when you look at that essence, you are often surprised to discover how trivial the reality was compared to the burden it had seemed to be.

“But it’s true that a worry cloaked in complications isn’t easy to see through. The root buried in the snowball is impossible to identify, and the spark that ignited the burning mountain has been obscured by time. Therefore, let me give you some advice.”

Jinseong took a step closer to Ella.

And he spoke firmly.

“Frau Winter, what troubles your mind now is not about William.”

“What? Hair Park, right now—”

Ella was startled when she heard the name ‘William’ escape Jinseong’s lips.

It felt like he had seen right through her.

But Jinseong denied her thought.

No, he outright refuted her worries at the root.

He clearly said that what was troubling her mind now wasn’t about William but something else entirely.

“Frau Winter’s current confusion stems not from the recent headaches you’ve faced but from another reason.”

“What? That can’t be… I’m—”

“Frau Winter.”

Jinseong cut Ella off mid-sentence.

He looked straight into her eyes as if peering into her soul and spoke.

“You are not worried because you dislike William. You are concerned about the people he might affect indirectly — Frau Lentz, your master, and the people of this mansion. These are different things altogether.”

“….”

“Frau Winter, you are a kind person. Despite your prickly exterior, which you wear like armor, I can see that your warmth lies beneath the surface. And I’m not the only one who knows that.”

Someone who calls Ella a rabbit and follows her around.

He’s a rather rambunctious type with a somewhat wild personality who acts on instincts.

Yet because he acts on instincts, he is also one who sees through people clearly.

“You might have found it hard to confide in your family out of concern for them, and this led to you suffering silently. But Frau Winter, you’re not alone. You have friends who recognize your kindness and care about you, don’t you?”

“Friends….”

“Go see them after your walk. Unburdening your troubles can take away more than half the weight. And if you curse together with joy, what felt like a heavy burden may become as light as a feather.”

Jinseong said kindly, gently placing a hand on Ella’s shoulder and guiding her.

Ella reflected on his words, recalling someone, even as she appeared slightly dazed. She walked alongside Jinseong towards the mansion under his gentle escort, escaping the garden’s corner.

When Ella had gone far enough, something in her arms peeked out and called out to Jinseong.

Cheep.

Was it a sign of gratitude?

Or did it have no special meaning?

It was only the cry of a bird, so it was impossible to know.

‘At her age, it’s normal for the falling of leaves to disturb the heart. It’s a natural thing.’

Jinseong again donned the mask on his face after Ella disappeared.

‘To have guided a lost lamb to the right direction is a good thing, and since there are now no more people troubled by her worries, it is a good thing. And since the ritual can now proceed without issue, this is another good thing.’

Jinseong headed towards the tree he had been carving with a golden axe.

He summoned cold energy into his hands, released it outward, and condensed it.

Ice began spreading from his hands, encasing them like pillars rising around his fingers.

The cold became frost, the frost turned into ice crystals, and these grew into ice pillars extending like limbs from his legs.

These ice formations then began taking sharp, pointed forms, growing into spikes under his fingers.

Snap!

Jinseong embedded the spike firmly into the tree, piercing it deeply.

The spike, sharp and frozen, effortlessly split the surface of the tree, carved earlier with the axe, creating a large crack. The cold and dark aura from the spike lingered within the tree.

Jinseong started widening the crack with his hands until it became large enough to insert his left arm. He reached in and pulled out some dolls carefully placed on the ground.

The dolls had rough patches where they’d been hastily sewn with thick thread, making them look somewhat grotesque. Their mouths were tightly stitched shut with many layers of thread, and their bellies bore long vertical slits. The thread that stitched up these cuts looked awkward and uneven, enhancing their unsettling appearance.

Furthermore, their bloated bellies seemed ready to burst, with the thread stretched taut.

Jinseong carefully set down the dolls and ignited the Samādhi True Fire in his right hand.

The flame that burned both matter and non-matter, infused with the power of purification, was ready in his hand.

And then, Jinseong dropped the flame onto the dolls.

Whoosh!

The fire ignited the dolls without delay, bursting into a powerful inferno that consumed them thoroughly.

The flames engulfed the dolls’ fur, clothes, stuffing, and even the thread that patched up their bellies.

The thread, as it burned, made a “snap” noise and unraveled, causing the contents of the dolls’ bellies to spew out.

Inside were the corpses of small animals.

Very small animals.

Rats, birds, snakes, spiders, centipedes — the kind that are common and numerous enough to be stuffed inside the dolls.

The expelled animal corpses willingly embraced the flames as they turned to ash, offering themselves as fuel for the Samādhi True Fire. Where their bodies were consumed, the fire filled the empty space and continued burning, making its way toward the dolls’ heads.

Whoosh!

The flames reached upward, burning like they scorched lungs and esophagi. It consumed the insides of the dolls completely, replacing the cotton stuffing and causing the dolls to collapse. The outer shell of the dolls was also gradually consumed, leaving no trace behind.

And just like that, the dolls were turned into ash.

“It’s burned cleanly.”

Jinseong carefully gathered the ashes that remained from the dolls and delicately placed them on his open palms before sprinkling them on the roots of the tree.

He then took out a container from his robes, poured water generously, and dug a little into the ground to mix the ashes with the soil.

Jinseong repeated the process of covering and mixing several times. When he felt it was sufficient, he picked up his axe once more.

Thud!

Thud!

With each strike, he pounded the ground like he was tamping the soil.

Thud!

Thud!

After he pounded the ground a few times, a sinister energy began emanating from the soil.

It was a chilling sensation that triggered the sixth sense of humans.

A cold that clung to the roots of winter had settled into the ground, finding its abode there. It was searching for a place to reside, extending its influence much like mold, sometimes rising up into the air like steam.

But there was nowhere for that cold to take root.

The cold, originating from evil spirits, sought to reside in people but couldn’t influence any of them. The entity before it possessed a mix of fearsome yin and yang energy, making it impossible to rest there. Even the superior receptacle that had been present earlier had now vanished. Moreover, with the ashes mixed deeply into the soil, it was now barred from traveling to places thronged with people.

Thus, the cold energy, unable to find an abode, returned to the ground and began seeping back into the soil.

The cold finally reached the deep, extensive roots of the tree beneath.

Sssssss…

When it touched the tree roots, it emitted an eerie sound as it began to diminish. That sound was akin to the dying wail of an evil spirit or the rustling leaves in a winter breeze.

“Done.”

When the cold dissipated, Jinseong nodded in satisfaction.

“The roots have absorbed the yin and evil energies originating from the spirits. Like snakes, they will spread, making the mansion grounds their domain. Since I’ve done this to an upright tree, it now carries the nature of a guardian. It will protect what is within its domain and repel anything from the outside effectively.”

And so, the guardian tree protecting the mansion was completed.