Runaway 4
—Sssrt! Ssrrrt!
"Our Bing must be terribly hurt by her daddy, hmm? All right, that's enough now—come with Mommy. You're sleeping with me tonight. It's gotten dark out, you know."
So-ryong, let me try soothing her. I don't think she'll calm down no matter what you say right now.
Bing, bouncing all over the place, was finally led away by Hwa-eun, who had heard the news from Changryong. The little one was so furious with me that she had completely forgotten she was also mad at Hwa-eun.
—Tsk!
With a sharp little tsk! that might as well have been a huff of "Hmph!", Bing scrambled up onto her mother's shoulder, whipped her head the other way, and vanished without a backward glance.
In the wake of Hurricane Bing, only one man whose mind had thoroughly checked out remained behind.
Well—him and six venomous beasts. Cho, still drying off after her molt; Seol and Bing, who had followed Hwa-eun over; plus Yo-hwa and the Flying Divine Snake. All of them had stayed put.
I stared blankly up at the rising moon for a while, then carefully addressed the Flying Divine Snake beside me.
"Uh… Flying Divine Snake. I'm not accusing you or anything, but… you didn't hide anything else, did you?"
—Shaa?
"Your inner dan."
—Shaaa!
She flinched hard and shook her head with furious vigor. Even without registering her yet, I could feel her thoughts: There is no inner dan. There can't be.
"No, no, I believe you, I do… It's just that my situation's pretty desperate right now. You saw how mad Bing got. I'm grasping at straws here."
—Shaa. Shaa.
After having her inner dan ripped out twice, she had every right to be angrier than Bing, yet she had watched the whole mess from start to finish. She looked at me with those pitying eyes, then nodded as if she understood. Maybe this one's temperament isn't so bad after all? The thought had barely crossed my mind when I realized I still hadn't given her a name—or confirmed whether she actually wanted to live with us.
"Oh, right. Have you decided yet?"
—Shaa?
She tilted her head at the question.
"About living with us. Like I said last time, the mountains are full of things that eat your kind—hedgehogs and worse. We've been a little rough so far, but I won't treat you badly. Ask the other kids; they won't say it's a bad deal."
She glanced through the open lid at the venomous beasts peering in at her. The others immediately started chatting her up like salespeople on commission.
—Kishit! Kishishishi. Kishii.
—Kkukkukku! Kkukkuk!
Her eyes went round with surprise, as if she actually understood them. A moment later she carefully nodded.
—Shaa…
If the deal was done, there was no reason to keep her locked up. Yo-hwa and the lizards were right there—where could she even run?
Making a show of grand generosity, I opened the pouch and reached toward her. Nothing builds trust quite like freedom.
—Shaa!?
She flinched and recoiled.
"You just agreed to live with us. I'm letting you out."
—Shaaa!?
The look on her face clearly asked whether I was really that gullible about a venomous beast's word. I nodded.
"We're family now. I can't keep you cooped up. This is how we all live around here."
I lifted the still-trembling snake out and set her on the ground. Only then did she get a proper look at her new companions. When I smiled, she coiled herself neatly and dipped her head in a little bow. Nice to meet you, I guess? I returned the greeting.
"Yeah, same here. Let's get along, Flying Divine Snake. Ah—right. You need a name first. I can't keep calling you Flying Divine Snake forever. Let's give you a proper one. What should it be…"
Bing still filled my head, but I decided to soothe her later. For now, naming the Flying Divine Snake came first. Hwa-eun was right—going after Bing right now wouldn't help. And I couldn't leave a brand-new family member nameless.
"Since you're the Heaven rank among the Twenty-Four Poison Branches, 'Heaven' has to be in there… If you're male, maybe Ilcheon—First Heaven? Wait. Are you male or female? Do I need to check your, uh…?"
I was mid-thought about her name when I realized I didn't even know her sex. The moment I considered examining her reproductive organs, she shrieked in alarm.
—Shayaaaa!
"You're a girl?"
She looked thoroughly embarrassed. At my question she nodded. So much for Ilcheon. A cute name would suit a female better. I racked my brains. That emerald mane of hers is gorgeous… Emerald, rendered in the old style, becomes Yeondu—soft bean green… Yeondu? Oh, that actually works!
"How about Yeondu? Your mane is that pretty soft-green color, so Yeondu. What do you think? I think it's beautiful. It goes so well with your blue scales."
In the Central Plains pronunciation it would be Randou. She twisted her body shyly at the sound of it, thought for a second, then quickly nodded.
—Shaaa!
She liked it.
"All right. From now on, your name is Yeondu."
The Flying Divine Snake was officially Yeondu. A second later I realized I had completely forgotten to include the character for Heaven. She was number one of the Twenty-Four Poison Branches, the Heaven of Heaven-Earth-Dark-Yellow. Leaving it out felt wrong.
"Ah, crap. I forgot to put Heaven in the name. Should I just stick it on like a surname? Let's see… Heaven Yeon-du… wait."
I had labored over a nice name only to end up with Cheonyeondu—smallpox. Yeondu, blissfully unaware, kept nodding happily.
—Shaaa!
In the Central Plains the dreaded disease was called Tianhua, Heavenly Flowers, so… W-well, this is the Central Plains. I'm the only one who finds it weird. Everyone else will think it's a fine name.
"R-right, Yeondu. We'll just call you Yeondu for everyday use."
And so the Flying Divine Snake became Yeondu. Or, technically, Cheonyeondu.
The next day I meant to cheer Bing up. I never even got the chance.
Something big was waiting for us. The moment Hwa-eun and Sister Seol could move again, the decision to travel was made. Their internal injuries weren't fully healed, but the two of them absolutely had to go, so there was no choice.
"This was our mission. I'm sorry to leave it to you, Lord of Ten Thousand Poisons."
Geom-bong held out a blood-crusted sheet of paper from her sickbed and bowed her head to Grandfather in apology. Geom-bong and Changryong would be bedridden in the Beast Palace for at least three months; Big Brother for a minimum of two. On top of that, Geom-bong had reopened her wounds by moving around yesterday and had run a fever through the night. Delivering the intelligence that Bang Sun, deputy master of the Murim Alliance's Flying Dragon Pavilion, had passed on was now the Tang Clan's responsibility.
At first we had hoped that even one of the three, however battered, could travel with us. No matter how trustworthy we were, showing up without a single person who had actually received the mission would make the conversation awkward. But that proved impossible, so we were setting out alone—which was why Geom-bong looked so guilty.
"We belong to the Alliance as well. Taking on an important mission in your stead is only natural. Don't speak like that—just focus on recovering. I'll handle the rest. I happened to have business with the Murim Alliance anyway. The Blood Cult formed an alliance with the Five Poisons Sect, so that has to be reported. And they created a cure for the poison, which means we need countermeasures."
"Thank you, Lord of Ten Thousand Poisons."
"Thank you, Elder."
Big Brother and Geom-bong bowed deeply. There was no need for all that gratitude; as Grandfather said, we had to visit the Murim Alliance regardless. The information we had overheard during the fight with O Cheong-yu was that the Blood Cult had allied with the Five Poisons Sect. The Blood Cult had infiltrated our Tang Clan and murdered our warriors—unforgivable. The Five Poisons Sect had been our sworn enemy for a hundred years already. After this latest incident the grudge was now one of absolute, irreconcilable hatred. We needed the Murim Alliance's full support. From what we had seen in the pursuit, their forces were far from small; the Tang Clan and Beast Palace alone would struggle to respond. And that wasn't all. The Five Poisons Sect had apparently manufactured and handed over an antidote to the lakeside-scorpion poison, so the Alliance had to be informed and countermeasures prepared. We had already confirmed that wasp venom worked well against the bleeding toxins, but wasp venom couldn't be mass-produced; other options were essential. Among ourselves the matter was settled, but we had also decided to use this opportunity to bring the somewhat outsider Beast Palace into the Murim Alliance. We were going either way.
"The three of you should rest and recover thoroughly at the Beast Palace. We will see you again later."
"Take care, So-ryong."
"Understood, Big Brother. Once you're fully healed, please stop by the Tang Clan."
"Of course. I have to see my little sister Yeong-yeong, so I'll definitely visit."
After farewells with Big Brother, Geom-bong, still lying beside him, offered her thanks once more.
"Y-Young Hero, thank you again. You've helped us so much. Without you, I don't know what would have become of us…"
Genuine gratitude. My mischievous side kicked in; I put on a regretful face.
"Your body will heal soon enough, but I worry I may have only added to your heartache…"
Geom-bong glanced at Changryong and flushed scarlet.
"W-well, I chose this path myself, so I have to live with it."
I clapped the bewildered Changryong on the shoulder and whispered a reminder of his debt into his ear.
Changryong, don't forget I saved you three times.
We finished our goodbyes and stepped outside, where Hwa-eun and Sister Seol were waiting. Sister Seol would be traveling with us as the Beast Palace's special envoy to the Murim Alliance.
"Shall we, Young Master?"
"Yes, Sister Seol. Let's go, Grandfather."
"Right. First stop is Sichuan. We should check whether anything has happened at the clan in the meantime, and we'll need to prepare the other poisons. We'd best hurry."
There was a direct route from Yunnan to Wuhan, where the Murim Alliance was headquartered. You could stop at Panzhihua on the Yunnan-Sichuan border where the Yangtze flowed and take a boat all the way to Wuhan. The Yangtze was an enormously long river, rising in Tibet, cutting through Yunnan, and eventually reaching what had been the Yellow Sea in my previous life. We chose not to use that route and instead returned to the Tang Clan first, because we had decided once again to prepare poison samples for the Murim Alliance visit. Even if we simply reported that the blood-weeping tree poison no longer worked and named which toxins would, production would still fall to our Tang Clan. A slight delay in schedule was worth bringing the poisons ready-made, Grandfather had said.
We hurried our pace and reached Sichuan in nearly a month. The moment we arrived, Sister Seol spoke with wide eyes.
"So this is the Sichuan Tang Clan!? An entire mountain is the Tang Clan…"
Sister Seol was a country girl from Yunnan, after all. This was probably her first look at a truly flourishing house.
—Bwooong. Bwoong.
Her astonished voice hadn't even finished when the Golden-Haired Bee Kings' drones sounded overhead. They must have spotted me among the people arriving at Guqin Gate, the entrance to Tang Clan Mountain, and come out to greet me.
"Th-the Golden-Haired Bee Kings!?"
"They're my kids."
"You raise even more of them!?"
"This is all of them. You guys been well?"
—Bwoong! Bwoong!
They grumbled as if asking where on earth I had been all this time. I was promptly hauled off to the hive, given an audience with the queen, and only released after I had been fed a mouthful of honey.
And that night.
Our long-awaited peaceful evening at the Tang Clan was shattered by a sudden crisis.
Bing, who had refused to come near me the entire journey home, ran away. A full-scale runaway incident.
"A-already puberty!?"
"Puberty?"
"There's this thing… Never mind. Where in the world did that little brat go?"
"Hurry and reach out with your mind!"
I searched desperately for Bing through our bond, but all that came back was a firm resolve not to come home until she was bigger than her big sister.
"She says she won't come home until she's bigger than her big sister…"
"Ah…"
At the news of her youngest daughter's runaway, Hwa-eun pressed her temple and staggered.