First Meeting with the Monthly Rose
The instant I set foot through Gujin Gate, which rose tall at the entrance to the Third House of the Sichuan Tang Family, people came pouring out in a flood.
They rushed forward to offer their greetings to the Family Head and celebrate his return.
As for me, I had not yet been introduced as family, so I hung back behind the Vice Family Head, reading the room and trailing after them. That was when the warriors’ voices rose in a chorus.
“The young lady is coming down!”
“The young lady approaches!”
At the news that the young lady was on her way, I peered over the Vice Family Head’s shoulder toward the distant mountain ridge. A beauty in red silk robes was gliding toward us like a celestial maiden.
I’m losing my mind…
It felt as if radiance itself were bursting from the sky. Did she generate her own halo?
I had done fairly well as a YouTuber in my previous life, and venomous creatures turned out to be surprisingly good material for collabs with women. Snakes didn’t scare me. Bugs didn’t frighten me. Plenty of actresses and pretty female YouTubers had asked to appear with me because they wanted to project either a tough image or a cute, screaming one. So I had believed my tolerance for beautiful women was high.
I had even filmed with three actresses known as the Three Great Beauties of South Korea.
And yet…
This older sister was different.
Not just her birth—her bloodline, her aura, her very existence was simply on another level. She could take every woman I had ever seen in my previous life and reduce them all to dried squid. No—if she stood among the women I had met before, she would turn every last one of them into the shredded radish garnish under a plate of raw fish. A human radish-shredder.
That’s the Family Head’s daughter!? Madam must be an absolute stunner… Madam basically saved the Tang Family. Of course she did.
I was thinking that this household owed everything to the madam and that the Tang Family’s future looked bright when her voice rang out.
“Father!”
“Hwa-eun, is your body well?”
“Yes, Father. I’m sorry.”
“Nonsense. You’re healthy—that is enough. Ah! There is someone I wish to introduce to you.”
The moment she alighted lightly before the Family Head, my introduction began without warning. At his words the Vice Family Head stepped aside, revealing my thoroughly bedraggled self—the self that had not properly washed in nearly a month.
I wanted to crawl into a mouse hole from sheer embarrassment, but a newcomer could not skip greetings. Faced with such a beauty I shrank, and my own disheveled state made me even more self-conscious. I shuffled one awkward step forward, and the Family Head’s introduction reached my ears.
“Ah, So-ryong. This is my daughter, Dang Hwa-eun. What was it you called her? The grass smell? The grass scent? Ah, right! The grass! Yes—this child is none other than the grass!”
“Pardon!?”
“What!?”
Shocked stares from the surrounding warriors stabbed into me. I had heard plenty of stories in my previous life about how a CEO’s or chairman’s terrible jokes could crush ordinary employees like ants, but I never expected to become the ant myself. Before joining I had researched everything carefully—except the man’s ridiculous appetite for dad jokes.
So this is that famous ‘only the boss finds it funny and the staff die inside’ boss humor… Who knew the Family Head had a useless craving for gags!
Thanks to the Family Head’s CEO-level comedy, my first impression with the CEO’s daughter plummeted straight into the abyss. She was staring at me with an expression of pure disbelief. And why wouldn’t she? What woman would enjoy being called a clump of grass? Even in my previous life, “grass” had been slang for an unattractive woman.
Damn it! Is my life in the Tang Family already ruined? Of all people, the boss’s daughter… But when did I ever call her grass?
While reeling, I dug through my memories for the moment I might have said it. I needed the context so I could apologize—or, failing that, deny everything as a misunderstanding.
“……Of course I do not mean to boast, but one of the Three Flowers of the Central Plains, my daughter and…”
“W-wait a second!”
“What did you just say!?”
“Hm? Ah, you’re still young, but a man after all, eh? Right! My daughter, one of the Three Flowers of the Central Plains…”
“No, forget about some clump of grass like that. I meant before that.”
“Huh!?”
No… No way. It can’t be. There’s no way…
The situation exceeded my brain’s ability to process. If my memory was correct, I had thought this celestial beauty—no, the CEO’s daughter—was one of the benefits the Family Head was offering me.
Wi So-ryong, snap out of it! Honestly, because she’s a gorgeous woman, the second I saw her I could think things like “When should we get married?” or “What should we name the third kid?” You’re a man, after all. But she’s the boss’s daughter. This has to be a misunderstanding. Memory error! There’s no way a great clan like this would give a goddess like her to an orphan like me…
Right. It was absurd. All I had done to save the Family Head’s dying daughter was point out a likely location for an Azure-Spotted Centipede. Giving me his daughter for that? Ridiculous.
I forced myself to gather my wits and broke the awkwardness with a proper greeting.
“F-Family Head, y-your joke is rather extreme. It is an honor to meet you, young lady. I am Wi So-ryong. I heard you were gravely ill, so seeing you healthy fills me with relief.”
“Pardon? Ah… It is a pleasure to meet you as well. I am the Poison Flower, Dang Hwa-eun. I thank you for saving my life. This Poison Flower will never forget this grace for as long as I live.”
Once the stiff greetings ended, the Family Head smiled and spoke.
“Hwa-eun, you must repay this debt for the rest of your life.”
“Yes, of course, Father. This Dang Hwa-eun will not merely carve enmity into blood and gratitude into stone—I will carve this grace into my very marrow and treat Young Hero as my benefactor.”
“Good. That is my daughter.”
With introductions finished, the Family Head placed his daughter on his right and me on his left and began climbing the stairs. We were following him deeper into the Sichuan Tang Family when his voice suddenly rang inside my head as clearly as if he were speaking aloud.
Having learned about sound transmission on the road to Sichuan and even witnessed the Vice Family Head demonstrate it, I recognized it at once. I looked up at the Family Head’s face and found him watching me with a mischievous grin.
I-it’s real!? Th-then the rose really is that older sister…
My hand moved on its own, covering my mouth, and my head began to nod rapidly as if in agreement. I had only been trembling from shock…
Really.
The awkward greetings that began with Father’s joke finally ended.
She had imagined many things when she heard of a mysterious young hero, yet Dang Hwa-eun’s first impression of him was simply that he looked pitiful. Travel must have been hard, but more than that he was terribly thin, as though he had not eaten properly, and his clothes were shabby.
Grandfather had said the boy survived in the mountains by catching snakes and lizards, so it made sense. Still, for someone who had lived alone in the mountains, his manners were impeccable, and that pleased Hwa-eun greatly. She had already decided to treat him like a younger brother and had worried he might turn out to be a scoundrel; with a character like this, she felt she need not worry at all.
Therefore Hwa-eun resolved to instruct the maids to prepare rich food every day and to personally oversee, through the maids, new clothes and baths for him. Having received a great favor, it was only natural to repay it.
Together with Father and the young hero she arrived before the inverted left wing of the siheyuan where only the direct line of the Tang Family resided. Mother and Grandfather were waiting there and rejoiced at Father’s return.
“You have returned?”
“This son has returned safely, Father.”
“Good. You worked hard. Young Hero, it has been a while. Think of this place as your own home and rest comfortably.”
“It has been a long time, Elder. Thank you for the warm welcome.”
“You have returned, Family Head?”
“Wife, have you been well? You worked hard.”
“What hardship did I face? You are the one who suffered. And so this is the young hero who helped save Hwa-eun. Young Hero, thank you. The Tang Family will never forget an benefactor’s grace.”
“Not at all. I barely did anything, yet you welcome me so kindly. I am grateful.”
After another round of brief greetings, Mother was about to lead the guest to the guest hall—since the inner siheyuan was for the direct bloodline only—when Father spoke.
“Maids, prepare a bath for the guest and assign him the finest room in the guest hall…”
“Wife, give the guest one of the eastern rooms inside the siheyuan.”
“What!? An eastern room?”
Mother was startled by Father’s words. Grandfather’s eyes also went round.
“You would place a guest in an eastern room?”
The innermost part of the siheyuan, past the Water-Flower Gate, was used only by true family. An eastern room meant sharing the rear garden—something reserved solely for blood relatives. And that rear garden also held Hwa-eun’s own chambers. Young ladies of great houses did not cross the Water-Flower Gate without special reason before marriage, yet Father was offering a room that shared the innermost rear garden rather than even the inner courtyard. In effect he was telling the boy to share space with their daughter.
“Yes, Father. There is something urgent I must discuss with both of you. Please come inside.”
Even for a benefactor, the treatment was excessive. Looking thoroughly bewildered, the guest was led away by maids toward an eastern room while Hwa-eun and the elders entered the main chambers used by Father and Mother.
As expected, Grandfather spoke first, still sounding unconvinced.
“Why did you put the young hero in an eastern room? That place shares the rear garden. It seems a bit much for a guest. And Hwa-eun has not yet married.”
Mother and Hwa-eun both nodded at Grandfather’s question. Father smiled and began to explain.
“I should start with this story. After I parted from you, Father, I nearly lost my life at the abandoned Taoist temple where I found the young hero.”
“What!?”
“Yes!?”
The elders were shocked to hear Father had nearly died. He drew a book from his robes and set it on the table.
“Th-this is…!”
“Th-the Blood Hand Poison Claw! How did this cursed demonic art fall into your hands!?”
Even Hwa-eun had heard of the Blood Hand Poison Claw—the martial art of the great demonic fiend Blood Hand Rakshasa, Tak Un-yang, whom Grandfather himself had slain.
“That Tak Un-yang did not die by Father’s hand. He survived and was grinding his teeth on Hainan Island.”
“Ta-Tak Un-yang that bastard! Well? What happened? If he still lived, defeating him would not have been easy for you!”
Grandfather had once said he only managed to land a single palm strike after five hundred exchanges, so Father could not have won easily. While everyone waited for the explanation, Father’s next words left all three of them stunned.
“Blood Hand Rakshasa Tak Un-yang died by the young hero’s hand.”
“What!? The young hero!?”
“Th-that young hero?”
The tale that followed for the astonished family was as strange as Grandfather’s description of a “mysterious young hero.” From the boy hatching the eggs of an Azure-Spotted Centipede, to defeating Tak Un-yang with those hatchlings, everyone wore expressions of disbelief. Father’s account of the young hero’s extraordinary talent for raising venomous creatures and his uncanny ability to identify them left them all amazed. They marveled even more when they heard how, while scouring Hainan for Tak Un-yang’s hideout, the boy had discovered people suffering from a mysterious plague and correctly identified the cause as Kissing Bugs.
“He possessed such skill?”
“Yes. We thought we had stumbled upon a stroke of fortune, but the fortune was not the young hero’s help—it was the young hero himself.”
“Haha. To think we failed to recognize such a treasure.”
And the climax of Father’s story surpassed everything that had come before. From Tak Un-yang’s lair, Father said, they had encountered a creature thought to exist only in legend—the Poison Feather Bird.
—Click.
Inside a wooden box that sealed away poisonous energy lay a single beautiful feather.
“This is a feather of the Poison Feather Bird.”
“Th-this… From the underside of the plume I can feel truly formidable toxic energy.”
“So this is a feather of the Poison Feather Bird. It’s beautiful.”
While they were captivated by the feather’s beauty and toxicity, Father’s gentle voice called out.
“Hwa-eun?”
When she lifted her gaze from the feather to him, Father delivered words she could scarcely believe.
“I wish to take that young hero as my son-in-law. What do you think?”
“Take the young hero as son-in-law? Son-in-law means… Yes!?”
Father had only one daughter. Wanting the boy as son-in-law meant he intended to make that little brat her husband. She had just reached the Hundred Poisons realm and was about to ascend to the Thousand Poisons realm; she had planned to prove she could help the family far more than any man ever could. Yet Father wanted to hand her over to a child she had only just met.
A son-in-law of the Tang Clan would be a live-in son-in-law. Father clearly coveted the boy’s ability to raise venomous creatures. As if the family could not prosper with Dang Hwa-eun alone even without such a skill.
Hwa-eun shot to her feet.
“I am also a member of the Tang Family. I understand what Father intends by saying such a thing. But whether the young hero is truly worthy of me is something I will verify myself!”
She stormed out of the room and headed for the eastern chamber.
I’ll thoroughly examine everything—his talent, his character, the whole package!
She was stomping through the rear garden when she spotted the young hero. He had finished bathing; water still dripped from his hair as he sat in the pavilion. Without preamble she strode up to him.
“Excuse me, Young Hero. I’m rather in a hurry, so could you please give me your hand for a moment?”
She wanted his hand so she could check his pulse and gauge whether he possessed the talent to become a martial artist worthy of respect. She might not be as accurate as Grandfather, but she could tell roughly enough.
A brief silence followed. Then the young hero cleared his throat.
“Ahem… I-I’m not sure why you’re in such a rush, but wouldn’t it be better if we got to know each other a little more first before… that sort of thing?”
Only then did Hwa-eun realize how he had interpreted her words. Her face instantly flushed crimson.
“W-well, I-I wouldn’t mind, but…”
“Wh-what did you say!? Th-that’s not what I meant!”
Hwa-eun’s sharp cry echoed across the rear garden and out toward Tang Mountain. She had thought him a child, yet the young hero seemed far more adult than expected.