Chapter 38
Yang-hwi joined the Baek siblings for their morning training for the first time in a while.
“All right, my little brother and sister. Shall we see how much you’ve improved?”
Tracking down Eumhu on Gokyeol Mountain and completing the Five Trials of True Sound had taken roughly a month in all.
If they had been applying themselves, their martial skills ought to have leaped forward during his absence.
“At your age, a quarter of an hour is worth three autumns. You haven’t been slacking, have you?”
“Brother Hwi! What does ‘a quarter of an hour is worth three autumns’ mean?”
“It means a fleeting moment can feel as long as three whole years. Time slips away if you don’t grasp it, but waiting can make minutes drag on forever.”
“Aha!”
Yang-hwi observed their progress from the past month and gave a satisfied nod.
It was obvious that both So and Yeon-ah had been putting in earnest effort.
“You’ve both worked hard. Here, I brought gifts.”
Nothing encouraged a child toward good behavior quite like praise.
And for children raised in bitter poverty, tangible rewards made that praise all the sweeter.
“Whoa! Brother, what is this?”
“What does it look like? A pretty Jade Hairpin, of course.”
What Yang-hwi handed to Baek Yeon-yeon was indeed an ornamental hair accessory, a lustrous Jade Hairpin.
“I’ve never owned anything so beautiful!”
Watching Baek Yeon-yeon hop about with delight made taking the detour to the market shops on an exhausted body well worth the trouble.
