Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

On the wide, flat golden rock—

The kind of place snakes would love to sprawl across and bask in the sunlight—

Human Cheongyu and the Golden-Crowned Serpent King Cheongyu, whose upper half was human but whose lower body remained serpent, both looked down at me.

I was a little startled by the appearance of human Cheongyu, but I offered a greeting and approached the rock.

“Uh... Lady Cheongyu, it’s been a while.”

She had greeted me first, and while we weren’t exactly on greeting terms before, at least things hadn’t ended badly between us.

Then Cheongyu, wearing a bright smile unlike any I’d seen from her before, quietly laughed.

“Huhu...”

The Cheongyu I knew only smiled like that right before stabbing someone—or like a deranged lunatic completely out of her mind.

But now, released from brainwashing, her smile was clear. Warm.

It felt like I was seeing her true self for the first time.

If the old Cheongyu was “Cheongyu of Darkness,” this was “Cheongyu of Light.”