The "Dang" in Dang Clan Stands for Sugar # 5
“Nobody came.”
I stared at the birthday party table, utterly deserted, and felt a crushing wave of disappointment. I had poured my heart into making those invitations, and yet not a single soul had shown up for Sohee's birthday.
Even to my own eyes it hurt to watch: the glass noodles Aunt Dang Yeong-yeong had made by hand, the chicken and pizza we'd ordered for delivery, all going cold and neglected on the table. The game console hooked up to the TV beeped hollowly to no one, and the only sound in the room was the loud, ticking passage of time on the clock.
Sohee had written a letter for each and every kid, one by one, and now they sat in a useless, tidy stack. Trying to shake off the awkwardness, I said, “Was my invitation that bad?”
Somehow it felt like the empty chairs were all my fault. If only I'd made a cooler invitation, maybe things would have been different.
“I'm happy just that you came. Really. Don't need other friends.”
Sohee said it in her clumsy Korean. She was trying to tell me it wasn't my fault, I knew.
“Let's go outside and play.”
After stuffing ourselves on chicken and pizza, Sohee and I went out and played in the neighborhood. That day I bought her a lollipop with my saved-up allowance as a birthday present, and I still remembered how her face lit up as she stammered, “First time. Ever getting birthday present.”
Swish—
Maybe she was in a good mood, because Sohee held out her hand to me. I took it, and we wandered the streets together — until we ran straight into a crowd of boys and girls spilling out of the café down the block, led by Gong Ju-young, the most popular girl in our half of the grade.
“Ew! They're holding hands!”
“Ooh-la-laaa!”
“Why do you two hang out together? Are you gonna get maaarried?”
The kids teased us mercilessly. I was in the third grade, and it was the first time in my life I learned that holding a girl's hand was not an ordinary thing to do. My face burned hot with embarrassment, and as the chants of “They're getting married!” and “They're daaating!” rang in my ears, an unbearable itch crawled all over my body.
Pop—!
So I ran.
Yes. That was the first time in my life I ever ran away.
The next day at school, I found Gong Ju-young's face covered in scratches, and the teacher told me, “Sohee transferred schools. I'll pass along the letters she wrote all of you for her birthday.”
It was a shock in every possible way — because it felt like Sohee had transferred because of me.
Maybe that was my first memory of failure, and as the long years wore on, it faded little by little until it vanished from my mind entirely. Or maybe I simply chose not to remember.
After all, ever since that first escape so long ago, I had run away every single time I found myself cornered.
“Someone is radiating the unmistakable aroma of a flashback moment, it is declared…! I shall beat it out of you with vigorous strikes and put a stop to it, it is declared…! This Illinoi simply cannot suppress-suppress a flashback when she detects one, it is declared…!”
Doom-doom-doom-doom—
I felt someone pounding on me, striking me over and over. It didn't hurt at all, but for some reason it snapped my mind wide awake.
“Hey! Illinoi! You can't just go around beating on a patient! Keep that up and I'm cutting your allowance in half! You spend more money than I do every single year…! Sitting there buying whatever Nymph Coin nonsense…!”
“Hyeheck…! But Nymph Coin keeps falling, it is declared…! It is a coin with a nymph-friendly name, so why does the price keep dropping, it is declared…? Truly this is the Big Short, it is declared…!”
I opened my eyes to find Seo Yerim gripping Illinoi by the collar and chewing her out. I was lying in an Eastern-style bedroom, and for a moment I genuinely felt like the hero of a martial arts novel.
“Where am I?”
“Ha Ildo! You're awake! You're finally awake!”
Seo Yerim's eyes went wide. Beside my bed, Oinoi — who had been slumped over fast asleep, snoring — woke with a pop as the snot bubble at her nose burst.
“Aaah—! The master of the house has regained consciousness at last, it is declared…! The master of the house was lost in slumber for fifty whole years, but he has finally awakened, it is declared…!”
“I was unconscious for fifty years?”
Panic seized me. Then what year was it now? I scrambled up in a fluster, and Oinoi hurried to explain.
“That was a lie, it is declared…! But it truly felt like fifty years rather than five days, it is declared…!”
According to Oinoi, I had been out of it for five days. Apparently the commotion carried, because Dang So-hae, who had been bringing in a tray of medicine, froze in astonishment.
“Ha Ildo! You're awake! I thought it would take at least another week!”
My body, she explained, had been in a horrific state — ravaged by accumulated venom — and yet, against all expectation, I was in better condition than I had any right to be. My hands and legs, the parts that had touched the poison directly, actually felt light as feathers.
Then why was I covered head to toe in acupuncture needles and moxa cones?
Swish-swish—
As I plucked the needles off my body one by one, Dang So-hae explained what had happened.
“The hydra venom blocked your qi and blood channels, but instead of killing you, it burned them wide open, and your body regenerated on its own. My father says he's never seen a constitution like yours. The antidote you took beforehand probably had something to do with it too.”
“Muhuhu, do not forget that this Illinoi and the Nymph Sisters purged your body every single day with our vigorous pounding therapy, it is declared…!”
Apparently the nymphs had spent days beating the living daylights out of me while I slept, waiting for me to wake. And in fact, Illinoi's vigorous pounding technique was exactly what had roused me.
Incredible, honestly.
Soon Tyrenol, who had been shuffling about in the corner, muttered a comment of her own.
“And yet he has truly detoxified the Hydra's poison…! I have never once heard of such a thing being possible…! If it can be done, then only one person in the entire history of the Tang Clan has ever managed it, that is what I say…!”
While the nymphs chattered among themselves, I got up from my spot. My body felt better than well enough to move — better than usual, honestly.
“Hey! You're supposed to rest!”
Seo Yerim bristled, but my body had never felt lighter. The air seemed unusually fresh, and my back tingled as though Kwang-kwangi had crawled onto it. I'd been stuck in bed for days; of course my body was craving movement!
━Hio-ong…!
━Mio-ong…!
I set Kwang-kwangi and Myeong-i, still clinging to my back, into my palms and stepped outside. And there sat Sohee, perched on the stone steps leading down to the garden.
“Ha Ildo. You're awake.”
“Yeah. And I remembered something I need to say to you. Sohee — Aunt Dang Yeong-yeong wants you to come back to Korea. Come home with me.”
Swish—
Instead of answering, Sohee held something out to me. A lollipop.
“Remember this?”
“Yeah. That's from the day I ran away.”
My cheeks warmed a little. Sohee, though, seemed perfectly at ease.
“That day, I decided I would become stronger than anyone. That's why I came to China — because I wanted to become strong. Nobody is forcing me to stay here. I'm here by my own will.”
Which meant… Sohee wasn't coming back to Korea?
Then she added, quietly.
“But there was someone who pushed me toward that decision. The reason I came to China is because I heard about the Rimbu who live here — from someone. Ha Ildo, do you know about the Witch?”
“The Witch?”
“The underground lab was in terrible shape. Even the machines — built to withstand anything, any situation — had corroded and broken down. But the only two things in that whole place still intact were you, Ha Ildo… and this.”
Swish—
Sohee showed me something sealed inside a small, transparent pouch. It was a strand of hair.
Honey-colored hair.
“Strange, isn't it? A single unblemished strand of hair, in venom that melted everything else. But I remember this honey color. A long, long time ago, I met a nymph with honey-colored hair.”
Sohee fought with the other kids. They pulled her hair and tore her clothes — and yet she managed to drive them all off, because a flock of crows had come swooping down out of nowhere to attack the children.
“R-run! Run away!”
“What's with all the crows?!”
The kids scattered in a panicked rush, and only Sohee remained. That day was still vivid in her memory.
Hohoho—
Then, from somewhere, she heard laughter. A beautiful laugh — and when she turned her head, she saw a woman standing in that dark alley, so lovely she hardly seemed real. The strange thing was what burned above the woman's hands: flame, ice, and lightning, all smoldering and crackling at once.
“At the time I thought it was some kind of magic. But it wasn't. It was what they call psychic power — superhuman ability. I knew instantly that she was the one who'd sent the crows.”
The honey-haired woman promised Sohee that she could grant her those same mysterious powers. All she had to do was go to a place in Sichuan called Rimbu Forest and meet the Rimbu.
“That's why I came to Sichuan. Luckily, the Dang Clan here had my cousins on my mother's side. Come to think of it, maybe that woman knew that, and sent me here on purpose.”
When Sohee arrived in Sichuan, she was treated like an ugly duckling — after all, she was the daughter of Dang Yeong-yeong, the woman who had betrayed the clan, stolen its secret manuals, and fled to Korea. The more she was scorned, the harder Sohee threw herself into searching Rimbu Forest for the Rimbu, until at last she discovered Tyrenol, sealed away by Communist Party officials, and set her free.
Having met Tyrenol, Sohee mastered the Nymph-fu of the Sichuan Dang Clan and rose unstoppable through the ranks, defeating even Dang So-hae — the clan's once-beloved prodigy — and becoming, at last, the Sohee of today.
“Come to think of it, it doesn't feel like a coincidence that I ended up studying the rifts either. I could ask Tyrenol and find out all sorts of things, but she refuses to talk. She seems scared of something.”
Sohee talked about this and that. And to her, Ha Ildo asked:
“So — you're really not coming back to Korea?”
“Someday I will. But not now. I'm someone they call an S-Rank awakener in China, you know. Plenty of people believe in me, and plenty of people feel safe just because I exist.”
Sohee. The truth was, she didn't particularly care about being China's S-Rank. She had simply craved enough strength that no one could ever look down on her again, and after everything she'd been through, people had taken to calling her an S-Rank awakener. That was all.
But—
Watching Ha Ildo hurl himself at deadly venom without a fraction of her power, Sohee found herself looking inward. Strength only meant something when it was placed in the right hands, used in the right way.
Come to think of it, this guy always did love fighting opponents bigger than himself. Even when hanging out with me meant drifting apart from everyone else in our grade, he never seemed bothered at all.
In Sohee's heart, Ha Ildo was a memory — hard as candy, yet with something sweet at its core.
And so she spoke to him.
“Ha Ildo. Won't you stay in China with me? China is full of mysteries no one has uncovered yet. If you learned them with your own body, you'd become so much stronger.”
Swish—
Just like all those years ago, Sohee held out her hand to him.
“…And I think I could be better than I am now, too, with you around.”
In Sohee's judgment, Ha Ildo was a man helplessly weak to kindness. If she just showed him a little vulnerability… wouldn't he stay by her side?