Coagulating Poison 1
Buzz. Buuuzz.
The air inside the hive was thick with the scent of a withered dead tree and a cloying sweetness rolling in from every direction. The Golden-Mane Bee Kings filled the hollow with the steady beat of their wings, drawing warmth inward.
Sunlight was beginning to spill through the cracks; they were spreading the heat that had started to seep into the dry trunk. Honeybees cannot see well at night and grow sluggish without warmth, so they never fly after dark. When morning light finally warms the hive, they fan that heat through the interior with their wings.
The Golden-Mane Bee Kings felt like a blend of bumblebees and honeybees, and I had wondered which habits they would favor. From this behavior, they clearly leaned toward the honeybee side. Bumblebees will forage even on bright moonlit nights, so you rarely see them doing this first thing in the morning.
“Is Her Majesty awake yet?”
I looked up and called into the comb. The wingbeats paused for a moment. Then they resumed, and the queen herself crawled down the hexagonal cells until she hung inverted at eye level.
Buzz!
She gave her wings a single sharp flick, as if to say she had been awake for some time. Instant silence fell over the hollow of the old tree. Seizing the moment, I got straight to the point.
“The reason I came so early is this. I have a little centipede named Bing who looks exactly like the one wrapped around my wrist—Hyang here. You know her, right? She’s gone missing. If any of your worker bees spot her while they’re out gathering nectar, could you let me know?”
I held up my wrist so she could see Hyang. The queen gave a tiny start of surprise, then nodded.
Wuuung!
“Thank you. I’d really appreciate it. Sorry for bothering you so early. I’ll be on my way, then.”
She flicked her wings in acknowledgment. I offered my thanks and turned to leave—only for something to tap my shoulder.
Tap-tap.
I looked back. The queen had landed on my shoulder and was now tapping my forehead with her antennae.
Tototok.
Then her mouthparts began drifting toward my face.
W-wait. Again!? Even I have limits…
Tapping antennae against antennae and bringing the mouth close was the prelude to trophallaxis—nutrient exchange. For reasons I could not fathom, the queen was suddenly demanding it. Just yesterday the workers had asked for the same thing, and we had settled on me tasting a bit of the hive’s honey instead.
Do I look like I’m starving?
I understood the meaning, yet my body still flinched at the request. One round of that had already wrecked my nerves; a second would be pure torment.
Wh-what do I do?
In the brief instant her mouthparts approached, I wrestled hard with the decision. I could not simply refuse—this was an act of profound significance. Among social insects like bees and ants, trophallaxis is the highest expression of trust. It means “I accept you as a member of the colony, an equal, and full family.” To the Golden-Mane Bee Kings it was the equivalent of a hug and a handshake rolled into one. Rejecting a demand for that kind of trust was not something I could do lightly.
And this was no ordinary worker—this was the queen herself. Refusing her might sour relations with the entire hive. All of that raced through my head in the few seconds it took for her mouth to draw near.
In the end I could only wave my hands and stammer,
“I-I’m full right now. I ate h-honey yesterday, remember? Humans can’t eat that much all at once.”
I really did think about it a lot, but this is a hard pass.
Buzz? Wing! Wing!
The queen thrashed her wings twice in rapid fury.
She’s mad, isn’t she?
I braced for the worst—then a single worker dropped from the upper comb carrying a watermelon-sized round pod and thrust it into both my hands.
Buzz.
It was heavy; the interior was clearly packed with honey. Ordinary bumblebees build clusters of round pots instead of hexagonal cells, hanging them like bunches of grapes. The Golden-Mane Bee Kings used hexagons, so this hybrid shape was unusual. Looking closer, I saw a hexagonal frame sealed inside a spherical shell of wax—like a tiny comb wrapped in a ball of beeswax.
“You want me to take this and eat it later?”
Buzz. Buzz.
Her wingbeats somehow conveyed “Make sure you eat properly while you’re out.” Whether she was fussing over me because I was still growing or simply treating me as family, the bees were now packing me lunch. Gratitude mixed with sheer relief that I had dodged the crisis.
Did I just scrape through?
“Really, thank you.”
I accepted the honey from the queen and made my way out. Their behavior still baffled me; I found myself wishing I could register the Golden-Mane Bee Kings with the Beast Heart Technique so conversation would be smoother. At this rate she would demand trophallaxis every visit, and I needed to understand why if I wanted to avoid it. That was impossible for now, though.
According to Elder Sister and my foster father, highly social beasts possess a strong collective consciousness—registering one can register many at once, so extreme caution is required. I was already linked to three spirit-grade centipedes; any further registrations would have to wait until my cultivation advanced. That was why I could not simply bond Yo-hwa, Seol, or Bing on the spot.
No rush. There are advantages, but it’s not pure upside.
The sudden demand for nutrient exchange had been frustrating, yet thinking about Bing’s disappearance made me wonder whether perfect mind-sharing was always a blessing. Because Bing and Hyang could feel what I felt, they had read the affection I directed at Cho and caused this whole mess. Jealousy could be triggered all too easily.
Honey in hand, I stepped out of the training grounds—and walked straight into chaos.
“This way!”
“Poison Blood Unit, split into five squads and head up!”
Clan warriors were racing off in groups toward the summit of Tang Clan Mountain.
“What on earth is going on…?”
I grabbed a warrior speeding past, intending to ask, when a pointed cough sounded behind me.
“Ahem!”
I turned. Grandfather, the Lord of Ten Thousand Poisons, was approaching with a distinctly sour expression. Hwa-eun trailed after him looking tense. The atmosphere was baffling, but I offered the morning greeting first.
“I pay my respects to Grandfather.”
He ignored the greeting entirely and barked,
“If something that serious happened during the night, you should have woken me at once! What is the meaning of waiting until this hour?!”
“Pardon? Ah… well…”
From the way he spoke of last night, Hwa-eun must have told him Bing had run away. That meant this uproar was Grandfather ordering the clan warriors to search for her. I never imagined he would mobilize like this over one of my venomous companions; he must have grown far more attached than I realized. Adults are like that. In my previous life I once bought my parents a puppy; at first they complained about the smell and refused to touch it. A few months later I visited and discovered I had suddenly become the dog’s older brother.
He got attached after all, didn’t he?
“Just how coldly did you treat the child that she ran away from home?! A tiny little thing who’s never even been outside—where could she be shivering right now?”
I had thought it was simple fondness, but listening more carefully I realized the emphasis was different. Grandfather was scolding us exactly as if his own granddaughter had left the house.
“And when a child goes missing in the middle of the night, you send people out to look! What kind of parents sit around so calmly?!”
“Uh…”
He was raging as though Bing were literally Hwa-eun’s and my daughter. More and more people seemed to be joining our little house-playing game. Hwa-eun and I simply shut our mouths and took the scolding. They say parents are sinners when a child is hurt; apparently parents are also sinners when a child runs away.
Bing, Daddy’s getting yelled at by Grandpa! Come home!
It was probably good for spreading the culture of keeping venomous pets, but it was still unfair and a little heartbreaking.
Three days of searching turned up nothing. Bing had vanished without a trace; not even a whisker showed. Under Grandfather’s relentless pressure I kept sending emotions through the link, but there was zero response. The Tang Clan warriors overturned every rock on the mountain and even combed through every owl nest for good measure. Still nothing.
“Hrrrmph!”
Grandfather’s foul mood was on full display again today. Frustrated, I sent out another pulse of feeling. Sister Seol asked,
“Still no answer?”
“No, Sister Seol.”
“That’s strange.”
“Why?”
“Spirit beasts can be a little different, but ordinary animals don’t know how to hide their hearts the way people do. When a beast linked by the Beast Heart Technique refuses to answer, it’s odd. That only happens when they’re in a very deep sleep.”
“Sleep?”
“Mm. Deep sleep. That’s the only time you get this feeling; otherwise they always respond.”
That little brat wrecked the entire household by running away and now she’s off somewhere sleeping like a log?!
The idea made my head spin. For three straight days I had been chewed out to within an inch of my life by the Lord of Ten Thousand Poisons. Hwa-eun, who had never been yelled at once in her entire life, had even shed a few tears.
Grandfather’s worried voice drifted over from the side.
“There are many wild beasts on the mountain. Sh-she hasn’t met with some terrible fate, has she?”
“No, Elder. If she died, the person linked by the Beast Heart Technique would know at once. The mental shock is enormous.”
“Well, that’s a relief, but… aigoo!”
He still sounded thoroughly dissatisfied. I flinched like a puppy expecting a swat and, in Bing’s place, silently asked Cho.
Cho, any sign of her?
I hoped the bird searching from the sky might have spotted something. The answering emotion was the same: nothing found. While I was still reading the room, Grandfather spoke again.
“So-ryong, you understand we cannot keep wasting time here even though Bing has not been found, yes?”
“Yes, G-Grandfather. Of course.”
“I’ll have the warriors keep looking steadily. You prepare for the trip to the Murim Alliance without delay.”
“Understood.”
We still needed to report the Blood Cult’s location to the Alliance, and also that they had allied with the Five Poisons Sect and obtained an antidote. Most important of all, we had to deliver a new poison for the Alliance to use. The whole reason we had stopped by the Tang Clan was to secure a sample of hemorrhagic venom before heading to the Alliance.
“Do you have anything in mind? I already know the yellow-jacket venom works as well as the Banded Serpent’s, but it’s difficult to obtain in bulk.”
Wasp venom was excellent as a hemorrhagic toxin, but the yield was tiny. The warriors were already collecting samples, yet you could not keep a wasp alive and milk it indefinitely the way you could a snake. Mass production of wasp venom was simply impractical. I knew that, so I nodded.
“Yes. I’ve prepared something in the Hall of Venomous Beasts. Shall we go?”
“Oh? Already prepared?”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“Good, let’s see it. If only you’d done this sort of thing before Bing ran off…”
“Ahem…”
When we arrived at the Hall of Venomous Beasts, the warriors were in an uproar. They stood around a large jar, faces tense, peering inside. I had told them to get it ready, but apparently they still had not managed to catch the occupant.
Sssss! Sss!
“What kind of snake is this vicious…?”
“Careful—Young Master So-ryong said never try to grab it by hand the way you would other snakes.”
I called to the warriors fixated on the jar.
“Still not done?”
“Huk! Young Master So-ryong! We greet the Supreme Clan Head!”
“We greet the Supreme Clan Head!”
They scrambled at our appearance. Grandfather strode to the jar, looked in, and asked,
“This is the one?”
“Yes, Grandfather. It’s a specimen we brought back from Yunnan—called the Mountain Viper.”
The snake inside was short and thick-bodied, covered in repeating oval patterns. Grandfather’s hand shot into the jar and seized it by the scruff of the neck. In my previous life, even the most skilled snake hunters and experts never touched one of these bare-handed.
As expected of the Tang Clan’s great elder.
The creature was ferociously aggressive and bit whenever the mood struck—exactly the kind of snake that made professionals shudder. It was a Russell’s viper.
“Quickly, the chicken blood.”
At my request the warriors slaughtered a chicken and caught the blood in a bowl. I asked Grandfather to drip a little of the Russell’s viper’s venom into it.
“Just one drop into the bowl of chicken blood will do.”
Plip.
A single drop fell. Moments later I lifted some of the blood with chopsticks; it had set like jelly.
“This is…?”
Russell’s viper venom is a powerful coagulant. Facing Grandfather’s startled expression, I explained.
“Any venom that thins or thickens the blood is classified as a blood toxin. The Banded Serpent’s venom is a hemorrhagic poison that thins the blood. This one is a coagulating poison that hardens it. Since the Blood Cult’s martial arts are tied to blood, if a hemorrhagic toxin makes them feel as though they have been hit by a skill-destroying poison, then this one should clog the pathways of their internal energy completely, leaving them unable to circulate qi at all.”
Work hard on those antidotes. I’m going to serve you the sweet-and-salty combo.
A poison that would jam their internal energy as solidly as a mouthful of dry sweet potato—exactly the frustration Bing had left me with. Alternating hemorrhage and coagulation: my second gift prepared for the Blood Cult.