Fire and Ice 1
Sword Marquis looked utterly dumbfounded at my rather extreme method of parting ways, but at least every last complaint and grievance vanished on the spot.
After all, the rule was absolute: except under special circumstances, no man—nor any male creature—could enter or remain at Putuo Temple, and climbing Spirit Peak was flatly forbidden.
So even the young nuns saw us off with resigned faces, and we managed to leave Putuo Temple with Wolyeong without incident.
“Take care, Wolyeong. Stay healthy.”
“Please live well.”
The nuns’ faces were full of regret at the parting.
Yet from Wolyeong I felt no lingering attachment—only a sense of clean, refreshing relief.
Because the moment he was moved onto the ship, he spat a jet of water straight at the nuns.
“Looks like Wolyeong is sad too. He’s sprinkling water instead of tears.”
“Wolyeong, I’ll miss you.”
The nuns took that as proof he felt the same way. Cho, however, tilted her head at their reaction.
Tseut?
I had a vague idea why, and sure enough my guess was right.
The water-spitting hadn’t been sorrow. It had been pure rage.
Cho informed me telepathically that Wolyeong was absolutely furious.
He’s angry?
Tseut!
Apparently ten years of not being fed properly had left him feeling deeply wronged. So, just as I’d promised, the instant the ship cast off I decided to feed him—to start building a good relationship.
Tadpoles, the larval stage of amphibians, are ravenous enough to eat until their bellies burst. Ten years of fasting would make anyone furious.
“All right then—shall we keep our promise and get some food into him?”
I clasped my fists in farewell to Sword Marquis one last time and stepped into the cabin. The moment I said it was time to feed him and looked toward the high-rimmed water tub holding Wolyeong, I found people already hanging over the rim—Father-in-law, Hwa-eun, even Sister Seol—watching him swim with lazy flicks of his tail.
There’s something about a tadpole’s swimming that makes a person feel pleasantly drowsy, and with a new venomous-beast candidate aboard, everyone clearly wanted a better look.
“Heeeeh…”
“Just watching him makes me feel loose and sleepy.”
“Son-in-law, is this little one a toad—seomseo—or a frog—wa?”
I answered while fetching a lantern and an oil bottle from the cabin.
“Hard to say. Even I can’t claim certainty at the tadpole stage.”
Despite the grand title of Fabre, the reason I couldn’t tell frog from toad was simple: the distinction itself is fuzzy. Even in my previous life, when phylogenetics was highly developed, frogs and toads were barely separated.
Kingdom Animalia, phylum Chordata, class Amphibia, order Anura—that’s the blanket category for frogs. Stick family Bufonidae on the end and you have toads. Strictly speaking, one Asian species gets called the “true toad,” but splitting them further is mostly pointless.
The everyday difference people use—bumpy skin or how long they can stay on land—isn’t phylogenetic at all, and it fails for plenty of species. At the tadpole stage, when they look almost identical, telling them apart is even harder.
“So even you have things you can’t figure out?”
“Yes. At this stage they all look too similar.”
“And you said this one eats fire? Let’s see it.”
I approached with the lantern and oil. Father-in-law stepped aside, clearly eager to watch a fire-eating meal. I topped up the lamp oil, struck a flame with the fire-starter, and brought the lantern over the rim of the tub. Wolyeong shot straight toward it. The moment he opened his mouth, a stream of flame flowed into him.
“Oh—he really is eating fire.”
Father-in-law marveled at the sight. While he was still staring, I asked whether any venomous beast came to mind.
“Does anything ring a bell for you, Father-in-law?”
He pondered, then answered without much confidence.
“If it’s a toad or a frog, there are a couple in the Twenty-Four Venoms and a couple more among the Ten Great Venomous Beasts… but I can’t say for sure. Everything listed there is a full-grown adult. Besides, the texts never mention what they eat. Some pages are old and damaged, so even I don’t know every detail.”
He was right. The Compendium of All Venomous Beasts Under Heaven described only adults. Nothing about their juvenile forms. Certainty was impossible.
Even Father-in-law doesn’t know this time. Nothing for it, I suppose.
I couldn’t confirm the creature’s identity right away, but raising him would reveal it soon enough. A little disappointing, yet a perfect chance to score points.
“Hearing that makes me realize how heavy my duty is.”
“Duty? What duty?”
Father-in-law looked baffled by the sudden talk of missions. I answered with a resolute face.
“So-ryong’s Record of Venomous Beasts. So that future generations can consult it when something like this happens, I must record everything about this little one without fail.”
He nodded with deep satisfaction.
“That’s my son-in-law. Even at a time like this you’re thinking of the family’s descendants.”
Watching him beam, I thought that even though I’d been a venomous-beast otaku in my previous life as Fabre, I probably wouldn’t have done too badly at social survival either.
What could be more frustrating than discovering a new species with no reference books at hand?
In my previous life, books and the internet were so advanced that a little digging told me the habits and ecology of whatever I’d caught. Here the only reference I had was the Compendium of All Venomous Beasts Under Heaven.
I couldn’t pass that frustration on to later generations. After stuffing Wolyeong full of fire, I decided to write the very first pages of my own record—So-ryong’s Record of Venomous Beasts. Until now I’d written nothing but the title when I received the blank book.
Let’s see… start with a preface…
In the preface I explained why venomous beasts are magnificent and, as a kindness to posterity, urged them never to feel the same helplessness I had.
I, So-ryong, leave this Record of Venomous Beasts so that later generations may know how magnificent and beautiful these creatures are, and so that they need never suffer the same frustration I have known.
Heh… that hits hard.
Then came Chapter One. No need to wonder what to put first—it was already decided.
Obviously Chapter One has to be about my daughters.
The first spirit beasts—and venomous beasts—I ever met were the three Azure-Spotted Centipede sisters. So the first page I wrote was about them.
Chapter One: Azure-Spotted Centipede
I was about to write the first line when a thought struck me.
If it reads too much like an academic paper, later students won’t bother reading it…
If it felt like an encyclopedia or a dry journal, they might find it boring and ignore it. So instead of pure information dumps, I decided to write the things I’d experienced in a lively, novel-like style full of tension—while still weaving the facts in. It reminded me of the educational comics I’d published back when I was doing well in my previous life.
It was a drizzly evening. The people who came to the abandoned Taoist temple wore martial uniforms marked with the character “Tang.” One of the men asked me…
I was scribbling furiously, completely absorbed, when a voice pulled me back.
“So-ryong?”
I looked up. Hwa-eun had come up behind me and was peeking over my shoulder at what I’d written. I’d been so lost in the Record that I hadn’t even noticed her approach. Setting the brush down, I answered.
“Ah, Hwa-eun. Why did you call?”
“It’s already time for dinner.”
“Already?”
I’d started at lunch, yet evening was already here. I glanced at the cabin window and saw the sun sinking into the distant horizon.
“Ah, it’s that late already?”
“Yes. And you’ve been writing So-ryong’s Record of Venomous Beasts, haven’t you?”
“I have, Hwa-eun.”
She asked with bright curiosity.
“May I take a quick look? I’m curious. A book written by So-ryong.”
“You want to see it?”
“Yes.”
I felt a little shy, but once it was finished I’d have to show her anyway. Having her correct any classical Chinese mistakes wouldn’t hurt either. I nodded and shifted aside.
“All right. Here.”
Hwa-eun scanned the pages with sparkling eyes. After reading the opening she praised me.
“It’s written like a story-tale. Amazing. I feel as if I’m experiencing it myself.”
“I-it’s not that great…”
“No, really. You have so many talents. I’ve never read a story-tale that pulls me in like this.”
By “story-tale” she meant a novel, and the praise was for its gripping quality. My shoulders rose a little.
Maybe I’ve discovered a hidden talent?
More praise followed.
“The parts describing the children are fun too. ‘Cho is always treated as the eldest sister, so she soothes her younger siblings as if she truly is the big sister. Strictly speaking, though, they are sisters. The way she acts the eldest sometimes feels like a child imitating an adult, and it’s adorable. Bin loves Papa more than anyone yet pretends otherwise and plays coy. Hyang has such an easygoing nature that when she sleeps she could be carried off without noticing—like a little bear.’ Ahaha…”
That was when the sharp cries rang out.
Tseut!?
Tseurrr!?
Tseut!?
I turned. All three of them stood at the cabin entrance staring at us. What reached me from their minds was clear: What exactly did we just hear?
I’d written it in novel form, but it was still scholarly and objective. Apparently the content had made the three daughters uncomfortable. They scurried over; Cho and Bin chirped at Hwa-eun.
Tseut!
Tseurrr!
The meaning was unmistakable: Read it again.
Hwa-eun stammered.
“R-read it again?”
Tseur!
Tseurrut!
She glanced at me, then, under the pressure of their razor-edged mood, began reading the passage again, stumbling over the words.
“Ch-Cho is always treated as the eldest sister, so she soothes her younger siblings as if she truly is the big sister. Strictly speaking, though, they are sisters. Th-the way she acts the eldest sometimes feels like a child imitating an adult, and it’s adorable. B-Bin loves Papa more than anyone yet… um… pretends otherwise and plays coy. Hyang has such an easygoing nature that when she sleeps she could be carried off without noticing—like a l-little bear?”
The moment she finished, the three daughters pressed against my side. Hyang climbed my body, scrambled onto the desk, seized the brush in her mouth, and thrust it into my hand while chirping.
Tseut!
They wanted revisions.
“G-girls, scholarly writing has to be objective. A scholar’s honor and pride…”
I tried explaining a scholar’s honor and pride, but what did they care? In the end their relentless pressure forced me to pack the text with flattering rhetoric and beautify all three of them.
So I’ve been forced into powder-writing…
Reincarnated into the Central Plains only to experience powder-writing—I could almost understand how the scholars of the burning-of-the-books-and-burying-of-the-scholars must have felt. Whether the books are burned or the writing is falsified with cosmetics, both are tragedies for a scholar.
After the powder-writing incident, the voyage continued without further trouble. We crossed the sea and headed upriver toward Sichuan—though Wolyeong ate so much that we had to put in twice just to buy more oil.
Then, just before we reached Sichuan, I finally felt a tiny protrusion rising at the boundary between Wolyeong’s head and tail.
I examined him carefully. Between the head and the tail region I could feel the buds that would become hind legs.
“The hind legs are about to come in.”
“Really?”
“I can’t wait to see what he turns into.”
Protrusions between a tadpole’s head and tail meant the hind legs were sprouting. I’d worried that ten years as a tadpole might have frozen his growth entirely; this was a relief.
That evening, after dinner, an odd heat began to build.
“Does it feel a bit hot to anyone else?”
“Hot?”
“It’s much cooler here than at Putuo Temple, isn’t it?”
Sister Seol was right—Putuo Temple lay far farther south than Sichuan. Yet I still felt uncomfortably warm. Then, without warning, a blue flame burst from my exhalation.
Fwoosh!
“Khhuh…”
“S-So-ryong!”
“Husband!”
Something was definitely wrong. Father-in-law rushed over, checked my body, and spoke in shock.
“You’ve been poisoned!”
At those words every gaze swung toward the tub where Wolyeong was still swimming.
If I was poisoned, it had to be because of him.