Free Web NovelHaving searched every floor, Tang Hae-han finally came up to the ninth floor.
This was where they stored poisons that could break the Poison-Impervious Body. And as yet, no such poison existed in the world.
At least, the Tang clan did not have one.
Thus this wide space had always been empty, and no one ever came or went.
Creak.
When Tang Hae-han opened the storeroom door, he witnessed a strange scene.
“...What are you doing?”
Tang Sohwa was sitting at a desk, burning something like poison smoke and keeping her eyes closed.
At a glance, she looked like some great internal-skill master, circulating qi and examining every nook and cranny of their own body.
Because it was a half-wit with not a shred of inner energy doing that, Tang Hae-han let out a hollow laugh.
“Did you sneak off to steal some elixir and now you’re hiding here?”
He found it absurd enough to mock her, but he was curious as well. Just what was she doing?
“What did you dose yourself with? I don’t know what poison that is, but where’s the antidote?”
As he approached, Tang Sohwa spoke with her eyes still closed.
“It’s a poison useless to you, so you don’t have to worry about it.”
“No, and who are you to decide that? It could be dangerous to me too.”
Only then did Tang Sohwa open her eyes.
Perhaps thinking he had a point, she answered Tang Hae-han meekly.
“At most it lasts for one quarter of an hour, so just endure it for a quarter of an hour.”
“...Since when is enduring poisoning something I can just decide to do?”
He glanced around the room.
By all rights, there should have been nothing here but three secret manuals. But there was a box on the floor. The fact that it had a lock on it made him all the more uneasy.
“What’s that? No, who brought something in here in the first place?”
“I was going to tell you later.”
“Tell me what later?”
Tang Sohwa rose from the chair and walked over to the box.
Click.
When the small box opened, a single pill and a horn-shaped lump of paste inside revealed themselves.
Watching Tang Sohwa’s actions, Tang Hae-han guessed what those things were.
'No, surely not. That can’t be, right?'
It was hard to believe, so even while thinking it must not be so, his mouth opened.
“...Did you make a poison that can break the Poison-Impervious Body?”
He had asked because he wanted to hear her say no, but Tang Sohwa nodded.
“One is a pill, and one is poison smoke. If I have more time, I can probably manufacture it as a poison liquid or in other forms too.”
“What are you talking about? No, never mind that. Whether what you’re saying is true or not, does the Clan Head know about this?”
“No, he doesn’t, not yet.”
At those words, Tang Hae-han’s face twisted all at once.
“Then clear all of it out. You can’t store poisons on the ninth floor as you please. How can you leave something here when it’s not even certain yet? With so many outsiders around, what are you going to do if it gets out that we’re storing a deadly poison that can break the Poison-Impervious Body?”
Because he was worrying about the same things she had, Tang Sohwa once more felt that her decision had been the right one.
If she were to leave a formula in the world, the key had to be given to Tang Hae-han.
She stared at the long case and held up another key.
“The book with the organized manufacturing method is in there. I’d been debating whether I should give the key to the Clan Head or to you, but I think this is something that should be entrusted to you, Brother.”
Tang Hae-han, startled, took a step back.
“If someone else said something like this, I’d take it as a joke, but because it’s you, it’s seriously terrifying. Please tell me you’re joking. You’re using me to rebel against the Clan Head, aren’t you? Is this grudge over being locked in the underground prison?”
Ignoring him, Tang Sohwa closed the small box and said,
“These are a spare pill and poison smoke I made. Even if you blend the ingredients more densely, the duration of poisoning doesn’t get longer. Right now it lasts for about a quarter of an hour, but if I study it a bit more, I might be able to extend the time.”
Click.
Tang Sohwa pried up the floor under the shelves. The wooden boards split apart and revealed a small space.
“When did you make this? No, are you actually out of your mind? How can you tamper with the Oral Transmission Pavilion like this on your own!”
“No one ever comes up here, so I thought it would be the safest place. Like you said, there are too many outsiders around for me to feel at ease even with my own room.”
Tang Hae-han stomped his foot in fright, but instead of soothing him, Tang Sohwa put the box she had brought into the space and hid it.
Soon it would be time for the Crimson Blood Hall Lord to arrive.
Because there had already been an intruder in her room, he worried her most.
'No, it’d be less worrying if it were just Min Hae-rak coming and going...'
Crimson Blood Hall bastards, lacking any sense of caution, had started coming and going in and out of her room as they pleased.
The day she came back from Sichuan, Sohwa had run into the Vice Unit Leader in her room.
He had proudly handed over the medicinal ingredients he’d brought from the Blood Demon’s pavilion, wearing a satisfied face. As if paying back a debt.
Sohwa had not expected the Vice Unit Leader to steal the herbs. But he had brought every last one, without leaving a single thing behind.
Because she suddenly had more than she had expected, Sohwa had made something she had long wanted to try while she waited for the Crimson Blood Hall Lord.
She had been curious whether the pill could be altered into another form, and now that she had time and ingredients, she had tested the manufacturing method she had drawn out in her head.
And luckily, she had succeeded in making poison smoke.
Sohwa rubbed her upper stomach. Her churning stomach had calmed. The room was still thick with poison smoke, but once a quarter of an hour passed, her resilience returned.
'It’s a good thing I wrote down the manufacturing method too.'
Wishing to preserve what she had found, she had written out the secret manual in the Oral Transmission Pavilion.
If she vanished or ended up dying, it was an asset that had to be left behind.
And someone needed to know that such a weapon existed.
Someone with a reasonably tight mouth, who could use the Oral Transmission Pavilion’s weapons at the proper time. A comrade who could freely come and go in the Oral Transmission Pavilion.
It could only be Tang Hae-han.
“If this really is a deadly poison that can break the Poison-Impervious Body, we have to report it to the Clan Head first.”
But she refused.
“Honestly, how often are you or I going to run into those monsters of the martial world? Whether it’s the Demonic Cult or the Blood Cult, the people fighting those things outside aren’t us. The one who oversees the Tang clan as a whole is the Clan Head, so he has to be the one who knows about our weapons.”
Tang Hae-han’s face darkened.
“I realized something this time. All this time I thought we were sparing the lives of the Combat Division fellows, but that wasn’t it... If they’re not there, we’re completely useless.”
“......”
“Just think about it. In an empty Tang manor, what could we possibly do, sitting here looking after the Oral Transmission Pavilion? They’d just take everything and use it in some strange way, acting like it was their own. So there’s nothing to do but burn it so no one else gets their hands on it.”
It seemed he had rearranged the priorities carved into his heart through this incident.
“The one person who knows all the circumstances of the Combat Division and the other departments is the Clan Head. So we can’t be making our own judgments about what’s good for the Tang clan and hiding things. Once upon a time I’d have been the first one to get excited and say we should keep this between us, but this isn’t like that.”
Putting on an uncharacteristically solemn air, he said,
“If the Clan Head decides that just having this thing is dangerous, then it has to be destroyed at once. So give the key to the Clan Head and tell him first.”
Sohwa stared at Tang Hae-han for a moment, then slipped the key into her sleeve.
“Are you going to the Clan Head right now?”
“No.”
Tang Hae-han scrunched up one eye.
“Then where are you going?”
“To work.”
“No, work is important, but... after doing something this bizarre, you’re just going to go off and work?”
“I don’t have the courage yet to tell the Clan Head. I’m going to think it over a bit more.”
She put out the fire and gathered what remained of the poison smoke. More than half of it still had not burned.
“Hey, this isn’t something to think over! Go to the Clan Head right now!”
Since Tang Hae-han now knew about the poison and the key’s existence, Sohwa felt there was no need to persuade him.
He had seen that she had the key.
He had heard what was in the box.
Now there was no way that poison would ever disappear from the world.
Ignoring his nagging, Tang Sohwa went downstairs, and as she did, Tang Hae-han suddenly remembered something.
“Ah! Right. What’s with all those jars in that storeroom? Did you slaughter a cow or something while I wasn’t looking? What’s with all that blood? What are you going to use it for?”
“Have you ever heard of an antidote that removes Blood Cult dokgo?”
“Oh, right. Yesterday someone came by the Medical Division and asked about it. I was wondering what they were talking about, and then they said you’d gotten a medicine in the Northern Sea that removes dokgo.”
Sohwa nodded and replied.
“That’s the base material for it. All I have to do is add the ink, so it’s practically as good as already being finished.”
“Oh, so that’s the base. Then it deserves to be stored on the fourth floor. No, actually, no. It should probably go on a higher floor. No, hang on... did you get permission from the Clan Head for this? You didn’t, did you?”
When he asked in a voice full of suspicion, Tang Sohwa silently picked up the boxes in the corridor and moved them to a different secret room.
“Wow, just how bad was the main branch’s underground prison that you’re still this hung up on it? You’re going to get in big trouble at this rate, you know that? The only reason the Clan Head is so indulgent with you is because he’s your father; he’s actually a terrifying man! You should have seen the time Sagye Hall’s Administrator nearly got slaughtered!”
When Tang Hae-han started nagging again, Tang Sohwa simply shut the storeroom door.
He stopped talking and closed his mouth. That iron stubbornness of hers was not something he could break on his own.
“Ugh!”
Boiling over, Tang Hae-han tore off his face cloth, only to gag at the smell of blood.
“Ugh, that stuff is strong. You’ve got some stomach.”
Watching the closed door, Tang Hae-han pulled his cloth back on with a look of weary disgust.
He had watched Tang Sohwa do incomprehensible things more times than he could count. No, the number of times he had seen her do anything comprehensible could be counted on one hand.
There was one thing he had gained from those years of frustration.
It was a method that worked better than trying to persuade Tang Sohwa.
Panting in anger, Tang Hae-han bit down hard on his lip.
'I’m telling the Clan Head!'
He stomped his feet and hurried out of the Oral Transmission Pavilion.
***
Warm air seeped into the vast black pavilion.
Because one side of the wall had flown off cleanly, a refreshing breeze blew into the old pavilion.
If they had to pick the pavilion furthest from any concept of ventilation, the Black Pavilion of the Blood Demon’s three pavilions would be the first choice.
In the Black Pavilion, the part that plunged into the earth was longer than the part that rose high into the air.
More than half of the pavilion was a section that would never see sunlight for a whole lifetime, nor ever hold wind heavy with the scent of grass.
The Blood Demon silently stared at the pavilion whose underground entrance had been laid bare.
The torn-to-shreds corpse of a Crimson Blood Hall cultist might as well not have existed for all he seemed to notice it.
Only after a long while did he lower his gaze.
Crunch.
The Blood Demon turned his steps away from the pavilion and toward the garden.
He stopped by the pond.
Before the little mound of earth that had been dug out in a round shape among the green leaves.
The Blood Demon quietly looked at it, then lifted his head.
Strolling unhurriedly through the garden under the settling glow of sunset, he took a leisurely walk.
From time to time, he would stand before a bare branch and look up at it, or in a flowerbed with a peculiar scent, he would silently count the stalks that had lost their heads.
After a little more time passed, a small figure appeared in the garden.
It was a Honin, returned from the Central Plains.
“You’re back at last?” frёewebηovel.cѳm
At the Blood Demon’s question, the Honin answered without lifting their head.
“I searched throughout the Central Plains, but I could not find Tang Sohwa. I scoured Hubei and Sichuan, where she was said to have stayed, but all I found were rumors that she had disappeared on the Clan Head’s business. However, since she left no trace of traveling, I suspect she used a Han Cheol Passage to move to the Northern Sea or the Great Desert.”
“Ah!”
At those words, the Blood Demon clicked his tongue as if something had just occurred to him.
“I forgot I was supposed to take that away from her.”
Letting out a low murmur of regret, the Blood Demon turned his body toward the Honin.
Only then did the Honin lift their head and study his face.
Despite his words, no trace of regret could be felt on the Blood Demon’s features.
He spoke in a light voice.
“Just don’t forget this time and make sure to secure that first.”
“Do you know where Tang Sohwa is?”
“Of course.”
He spread his arms wide and gestured toward the garden.
“She went to the trouble of writing such a kind invitation, so of course I know where she is.”
As the Honin kept silent, three or four more Honin appeared around him.
They knew that even though the Blood Demon was smiling, his mood was badly twisted.
And they also guessed that the Black Pavilion had not been half-destroyed by one of the Blood Demon’s own fits of temper, but by someone else.
A voice with hidden anger bored into the Honin’s eardrums.
“I’ll go to the Tang manor myself.”
Not daring to dissuade him, the Honin only listened in silence.
Perhaps knowing this, the Blood Demon gave a low warning.
“I don’t intend to make a big mess in the Central Plains, so empty out the Tang manor.”
“......”
“This time, I must not be slower than that child.”
His chilling red eyes fixed on the red pavilion beyond the Black Pavilion.
“A bad-mannered dog can be brought home and trained; it’s not too late, so I’ll just quietly bring her back.”
Without a sound, the Honin received the order.
They withdrew without delay and set off once more for the Central Plains.
