Hall of Myriad Poisons (2)
I was just stepping out of my quarters with Grandfather, the Lord of Myriad Poisons, intending to head for the Hall of Myriad Poisons.
To go anywhere from the quarters you had to pass through the rear garden, and there I spotted three people sitting in a pavilion, chatting amiably.
In other words… the Family Head’s own family.
Or rather, for the moment, my father-in-law, mother-in-law, and elder sister-in-law.
“Have you thoroughly grasped everything you learned from me on the first day?”
Father-in-law asked with a smile, inquiring after today’s lessons.
It had felt more like an orientation than anything else, so I answered politely.
“Yes, Elder… I mean, Father-in-law.”
At that the three of them rose together and smiled at me.
“Good. Then let’s all go together.”
“To the Hall of Myriad Poisons, you mean?”
“Indeed. Becoming a member of the Tang Family and entering the Hall of Myriad Poisons for the first time is something we have all been waiting for. When a member of the family first sets foot in the Hall of Myriad Poisons, the whole family goes together.”
I hadn’t known it carried that much weight. At Father-in-law’s words Grandfather took the lead, followed by Father- and Mother-in-law, while Sister-in-law and I walked quietly behind them.
She really is beautiful. Sister-in-law.
They say a beauty is best seen in profile. Catching her side face by chance as I followed, admiration rose unbidden.
Just as I was marvelling once more at her looks, laughter floated back from ahead.
“Hahaha, my boy. At this rate you’ll wear my daughter’s face out. She’s yours now—you can look as much as you like. Why go around staring like a man who’s lost his wits? Keep that up and you’ll trip.”
“Our new son-in-law hasn’t even been here a few days and he’s already head-over-heels for Hwa-eun. Young people really do fall for each other so quickly.”
“Why embarrass the children like that, Family Head?”
Father-in-law must have had eyes in the back of his head to know I was staring blankly at Sister-in-law; he needled me without mercy. Startled, I apologized and looked at her.
“I-I’m sorry, Father-in-law.”
A flush colored Sister-in-law’s cheeks as she spoke in a quiet voice.
“You should look where you’re going.”
“Yes. Ah—understood.”
With my face burning I arrived at the place behind the courtyard residences used by the direct line of the Tang Clan—the mountain ridge that formed the heart of the estate.
Countless courtyards and halls ringed the area. At what felt like the very center of the vast mountain that made up the Tang Clan grounds, a single cave appeared, its entrance sealed by a massive iron door.
“You have arrived, Family Head?”
“Yes. I wish to show my son-in-law the Hall of Myriad Poisons for a moment. Open the gate.”
“Understood, Family Head! Move!”
“““Yes, sir!”””
With a resounding reply the warriors sprinted toward the door. About ten of them stood guard before the Hall of Myriad Poisons; every last one of them flung himself at the gate and hung on.
When they heaved in unison the door began to open with an eerie groan.
Kuuuung.
Judging by the thickness of the opening doors, the iron plates had to be a full handspan thick. I had wondered how thorough security could really be in this era, yet this was impressive even by modern standards.
Remarkable. The security is unexpectedly solid.
I was still admiring the iron gate’s imposing presence when it swung fully open and the warriors ushered us inside.
“Please enter, Lord of Myriad Poisons.”
“Then let us go in.”
With Grandfather in the lead we stepped into the cave, and the cool, damp air of the mountain depths greeted us.
Tak-tak-tak.
The smooth stone paving underfoot and the chill air. After walking some twenty or thirty meters into the cave a vast cavern opened before us.
Countless medicine cabinets, jars, and sealed porcelain bottles lined the walls. This was clearly where finished poisons were stored; a faint medicinal scent drifted through the air.
“This is the Hall of Myriad Poisons’ Myriad Poison Pavilion. Finished poisons are kept here. Take care not to touch anything carelessly.”
“Understood. So this is the Myriad Poison Pavilion?”
“It is. From that side onward you will find paralysis poisons, sleeping poisons, and all manner of others carefully classified. There are liquid medicines, powders, and pills as well.”
They called it the Myriad Poison Pavilion, though it was not quite ten thousand varieties—still, thousands of poisons were stored here. I was examining the enormous scale in mild awe when I felt eyes on me. Turning my head, I found every adult staring straight at me.
What now?
They were all looking at me, so I checked myself and even glanced behind me, wondering if they were staring at something else.
Then came Father-in-law’s question.
“Is there nothing you wish to know?”
“Pardon? Well…”
How was I supposed to ask anything when I knew nothing? My awkward answer made disappointment flash across the elders’ faces.
I had the distinct feeling I had just committed some blunder. Seeing me flustered, Sister-in-law’s sound transmission slipped into my ear.
Ask which poison here is the strongest.
I immediately did as she instructed, putting on the expression of a man who had just remembered something important.
“Ah! There is one thing I’m curious about.”
“Is there? Of course there is. What is it?”
His voice and face both said he had known all along that I would ask. After shooting Sister-in-law a quick glance, I asked exactly as ordered.
“Among all of these, which is the strongest poison?”
At my question they exchanged looks, then nodded in satisfaction. Only then did the elders smile, their expressions pleased at last.
“See? He truly has the makings of a member of our Tang Clan, does he not?”
“Of course, of course. Any direct descendant of the Tang Clan who comes to the Hall of Myriad Poisons must ask what the strongest poison is. Naturally.”
“It seems we have found ourselves an excellent son-in-law.”
So that was it?
Apparently they had been disappointed that I had come to such a magnificent place and not asked the obvious question.
“Then I shall now show you the strongest poison…”
Father-in-law started toward the cabinets, ready to explain, but after a few steps he paused, glanced at Sister-in-law, and smiled.
“Hwa-eun, would you explain in my place?”
“Me?”
“I suspect So-ryong would rather hear it from you than from me. Haha.”
Father-in-law was so sly I wanted to pinch him. At his words Sister-in-law nodded with a faintly embarrassed expression.
“All right, Father.”
Following the Family Head’s instruction she walked to the cabinets in his stead. Taking up a slender rod like a riding crop, she tapped one of the bottles as she began to speak.
Ting!
“I will now explain the strongest poison of the Tang Clan. This is extremely important, so you must never forget it.”
How could I possibly forget anything she said? Watching my head nod of its own accord, she continued.
“What is inside this bottle is the poison every martial artist must fear most—the Energy-Dispersing Poison. If inhaled, one immediately becomes unable to use internal energy, so be careful.”
I had already heard that soaring through the air with lightness skill required internal energy as fuel, and that this fuel was accumulated through seated meditation and breath-control. So the poison was, in short, something that drained a martial artist’s fuel tank dry.
I nodded and asked again. In games there was a skill called Mana Burn that erased a mage’s mana, and that was what mages feared most.
“So that is the strongest poison?”
Sister-in-law shook her head, then tapped the neighboring bottles one after another.
Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting!
“Gut-Melting Poison. It dissolves the intestines so one dies in agony. Soul-Annihilating Poison. The pain is so terrible the soul itself flees the body. Seven-Pace Soul-Severing Poison. One’s breath stops within seven steps. Blood-Boiling Poison. It makes the blood feel as if it is on fire.
Yet none of these is the strongest poison.”
“Even those horrific poisons are not the strongest?”
Her explanations grew steadily more gruesome, yet she insisted none of them held the top rank. I was already dreading what would come next when Sister-in-law gave me a radiant smile, took something from a small box, and walked slowly over to place it directly in my hand.
S-soft…
Today her intelligent hands felt especially soft as I unfolded what she had given me.
What met my eyes was a fruit—no, a seed? A bean?
“Setting aside the poisons of the Ten Great Poisonous Creatures, this is the strongest poison currently in existence—the fruit of the castor-oil plant that symbolizes the Tang Clan. It looks rather like a bean, doesn’t it?”
The fruit she had laid in my palm closely resembled the tiger beans I had loved in my previous life. It looked so tasty I almost wanted to eat it—until the words “castor bean” sent a chill racing down my spine.
Crazy! They specialize in poison and they really are a madhouse! I thought the embroidery on their chests was maple leaves, but it was castor leaves all along!
The first time I met Sister-in-law, and now again on the chests of every Tang family member, I had taken the embroidered leaf for maple. It was almost certainly the leaf of the castor plant.
And the reason I was so startled was precisely the castor bean she had just placed in my hand.
Because I had been a YouTuber specializing in poisonous insects and creatures, people might assume I knew nothing of plants. But even I knew a few of the world’s most lethal poisonous plants. I had covered the global rankings of toxic substances more than once, after all.
When you deal with venomous creatures, how strong their toxins rank is always a matter of curiosity. Naturally one wonders where the venoms of one’s insect and snake friends sit on the world list. The topic comes up whenever toxicity is discussed, and ranking things is a man’s hobby anyway.
So I knew…
The reason I was so shocked was that the castor bean she had set in my palm ranked third among all toxic substances on Earth.
Excluding the two microbial toxins botulinum toxin and tetanus toxin, the strongest poison obtainable in nature was castor bean.
Botulinum toxin—the source of the substance commonly known as Botox, produced by bacteria in spoiled canned goods—and tetanus toxin from the tetanus bacterium occupy the top two spots. Castor bean sits at third place worldwide.
In my previous life viewers often asked during streams, “People put castor oil on their hair—how can that be poison?” Castor oil, also called castor-oil plant oil, is indeed used on hair and in industry for brake fluid, antioxidants, and more.
But the true culprit is the toxic protein ricin contained inside the seed. When I used to warn about toxicity, the benchmark was potassium cyanide—cyanide. Ricin is one hundred thousand times more potent than cyanide, and one hundred fifty times more potent than VX nerve gas, the worst substance humanity has ever created.
“The poison of this castor bean can kill a person with an extremely small amount, and it leaves almost no trace. That is why, if one incurs the enmity of our Tang Clan—be it the Blood of Carved Grudges or the Stone of Carved Favors—one will inevitably experience this castor-bean poison.”
She continued her explanation with that same radiant smile.
Yes—eating seven or so of the beans she had given me would kill a person, but if the ricin was refined and processed into powder or aerosol and dispersed, only 0.5 milligrams would suffice to kill a seventy-kilogram adult. After a minimum of eight hours symptoms began like a common cold—coughing and high fever—progressing to respiratory failure, with a fatality rate of nearly ninety-nine percent.
And there was no antidote for ricin.
In other words, in this era it was a poison that left almost no evidence and could kill with certainty.
“At present it is the poison that comes closest to the colorless, odorless, tasteless, and formless ideal our Tang Clan pursues. Therefore we call it the most precious of all poisons—the Golden Poison—and killing with it we call Golden Kill.”
G-Golden Kill…
Oddly enough the word from my previous life surfaced unbidden.
“Remember this. The strongest poison is not the one that kills with the most agony or the most gruesome death. It is the one that kills secretly and with absolute certainty.
And the poison arts of our Sichuan Tang Family aim for exactly that: secret and certain. Colorless, odorless, tasteless, formless.”
When Sister-in-law finished, the elders looked thoroughly satisfied and continued the lecture.
“So-ryong, did you hear? Engrave the spirit of our Tang Family deep into your bones. You are one of us now.”
“Of course he must.”
“How perfectly he fits in.”
The angelic Sister-in-law’s chilling explanation combined with the smiles of the direct line of the Tang Clan felt extremely dangerous.
And I realized with certainty that the Sichuan Tang Family truly was the legendary clan of assassins I had heard of.
Damn it. If I try to run because I can’t handle being a son-in-law, I’ll get Golden-Killed too, won’t I? Can I even manage as a son-in-law of this house?
I endlessly berated myself for having been so captivated by Sister-in-law’s beauty yesterday that I failed to think things through more carefully.
Father-in-law had said there were thorns—yet it was not only Sister-in-law; the entire household was not merely thorny but a minefield.
Gulp.