How to Set the Family Straight 3
Yesterday I had entered the Five Poisons Returning to Origin Art, so I assumed those lessons would continue for some time.
But Grandfather Mandok Shingun told me to practice the inner energy mind method on my own whenever I had a free moment, then declared that from today we would properly begin the martial arts of the Tang Clan.
“From this day forth, you shall enter the martial arts of the Tang Family.”
Since physical strength is the foundation of everything that moves, I had expected something like “From now on, run a hundred laps around the training ground!” to be waiting for me. That was my mistake.
“So we will be doing body training after all?”
“The body changes naturally to suit the martial art as you learn it. The Tang Clan values practicality above all else, so you will learn things that can be used in real combat right away.”
That was why, when I was summoned to the training ground, what lay spread out before me was a vast array of hidden weapons.
As befitting the Central Plains’ greatest assassin clan, the Sichuan Tang Family, the first weapon I would use for martial arts was, of course, a hidden weapon.
And among them, the throwable kind.
Assassination is originally one clean strike from a distance.
That golden rule seemed to hold true here as well.
“Throwable hidden weapons can be largely divided into about five types. Needles, coins, darts, sand, and swords or blades that can be thrown by hand—short swords, flying swords, flying knives, and the like. There are other irregular shapes as well, but in broad terms they fall into these five.”
“Needles, coins, darts, sand, and swords or blades.”
“Correct. Now then, do you know which among these is the easiest to handle?”
I pondered Grandfather Mandok Shingun’s question for a moment before answering.
“Hmm… Wouldn’t it be something like short swords or flying knives?”
“Correct. Then the most difficult?”
“Hmm… Wouldn’t it be the sand? You have to scatter powder, after all.”
I figured the short-sword types would be easiest, while sand meant powder, and scattering powder seemed tricky no matter how I looked at it.
Grandfather shook his head.
“No. The most difficult is the needle.”
“The needle? Ah—because it’s small and thin, so hard to throw?”
Throwing something like a needle certainly wouldn’t be easy. Thinking it over, powder could always be put into a container and scattered, so I nodded—only for Grandfather to shake his head again.
“No. Needles are the hardest not because they are difficult to throw, but because you must absolutely remember the position of every needle you throw.”
Remember the positions of the needles? Does he mean check whether they hit?
I tilted my head at the mention of remembering needle positions and asked.
After all, you had to check whether a throw hit or missed no matter what weapon you used.
“Checking whether you hit after throwing is the same for every other hidden weapon, isn’t it?”
Then came the absurd reply.
“No. Not whether they hit. You must remember where every single needle you threw went when it missed, where it bounced off the opponent’s weapon and fell, which tree it stuck into—all of it.”
“Even the ones that bounced off? And the ones that fell on the ground?”
“Hmm. It would be better to show you while I explain.”
—Tuk.
Seeing that I still didn’t understand, Grandfather pulled a new writing brush from his robes and snapped it in half with a single motion. He yanked out the bristles, then suddenly rose into the air and scattered them across the training ground.
—Chwaaak!
The bristles flew apart and blanketed the entire floor of the training ground.
“This is—!?”
What startled me about the scattered hairs was that they were standing upright. They weren’t simply lying there; the bristles were planted at even intervals as if they had sprouted from the earth itself.
Grandfather next selected something from the pile of hidden weapons and held it out to me.
“Here. Look at this. This is the Flying Needle used by the Tang Clan.”
What he offered was a needle about the length of a toothpick, only thinner still, and pointed at both ends.
“This is the Tang Clan’s Flying Needle…”
“Yes. Any martial artist of the Tang Clan can use these. Look at it and think. The Tang Clan possesses a hidden weapon technique called Full Sky Flower Rain. It is our secret art that blankets an entire area with hundreds or thousands of needles—exactly like the hairs I just scattered.
Now imagine covering the surroundings with these Flying Needles. What do you suppose would happen?”
Throw these needles everywhere? And have them end up like that? Oof…
“If every direction was filled with needles like these, there wouldn’t even be room to set a foot down. Fall once and you’d be stabbed full of holes.”
“Exactly. That is why you must remember. You can drive or lure an enemy onto ground covered with Flying Needles. And even if the thrower carries an antidote or is immune to the poison, fighting while being pricked by needles makes proper combat nearly impossible. So you must remember—so that you yourself are not caught by your own technique.”
As expected, they really think differently…
Truly a thought befitting the Sichuan Tang Family. Scatter needles in every direction and then hold a life-or-death duel right on top of them.
I was nodding in amazement when a single doubt surfaced. No matter how I turned it over, one thing simply would not make sense.
“But you throw thousands at a time, and the opponent is deflecting them too. Can a person really remember the position of every Flying Needle that falls or bounces away? I don’t think that’s possible.”
On second thought, having to track thousands of nearly invisible Flying Needles while fighting someone at the same time sounded completely absurd.
Yet Grandfather Mandok Shingun simply nodded as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Of course it is. When Hwa-eun was still at the Ten Poisons stage she could handle around a thousand with ease, so you will manage that much without trouble. Don’t worry.”
That actually works?
“Th-then at the Five Poisons stage, how many?”
“More is always better, but for now you should at least be able to handle a hundred.”
I had boasted to my sister that I would fill the Ten Poisons with the venoms of the Ten Great Poisonous Creatures, which meant I first had to reach the Ten Poisons stage. Yet even reaching that stage no longer felt easy. Saying “a hundred” was simple enough, but in the middle of clashing blades and flying fists I would have to memorize the surrounding terrain I had just seeded, keep track of where every thrown weapon landed, and still fight the opponent. Dolphins sleep with one half of the brain awake to keep breathing while the other half rests; I was starting to wonder if I would need something similar.
Ha… Becoming a member of an assassin clan was clearly no simple matter.
This is pure rote-memorization education, isn’t it…
I was going to have to drill myself hard on pure memorization after all.
The morning’s Flying Knife training—said to be the easiest to learn—finally ended. After lunch my sister came looking for me.
We had planned to go gather medicinal materials in the afternoon, so the rest of the day was free, and a bumblebee date with my sister awaited.
“So-ryong, let’s go.”
“Huh? What’s all that?”
“I prepared them just in case. Will they help?”
Even if the Tang Clan’s poisonous-creature breeding facilities were rather crude, they at least had the basics. My sister had brought a full set of equipment: thick cloth gloves, a bamboo hat ringed with mesh, collection jars, tongs, and something resembling a collecting net.
I had heard that the Tang Clan regularly captured poisonous creatures to harvest their toxins, so it seemed they already had experience collecting bee venom. Otherwise there would have been no reason to keep gear like this on hand.
“Of course. I was planning to wait for them, but with these I think I can catch them myself.”
“Wait?”
My sister tilted her head at the word “wait,” but I simply smiled and answered.
“You’ll understand once we get there. Ah—do you happen to know where any bumblebee nests are?”
“I found one over that way.”
I followed her to a stone wall not far from the estate. Bumblebees were busily coming and going from an underground entrance. The colony looked fairly large; quite a number of bees were streaming in and out.
I immediately turned back to my sister.
“Hmm, this doesn’t seem to be the one.”
“It isn’t? Weren’t we going to catch those?”
“We do need a bumblebee nest, but we’re not actually trying to catch the bumblebees. Is there a flower field a little farther away?”
“Not catching the bumblebees? Hmm… farther away would be… that ridge over there.”
We headed for a flower field far enough that the bees of this colony would not use it. The best way to find a nest is to follow a bee that has come out to gather honey, after all.
“Here we are.”
“Wow. It’s beautiful.”
The place my sister led me to was covered with trees about the height of a person, and those trees were smothered in deep pink and pure white blossoms.
As I stood admiring the beauty, my sister raised a finger in warning.
“No matter how pretty they are, do not pluck the flowers or cut a branch to put in your mouth. They may look lovely, but these are oleanders. If any part of them gets into your mouth, your life could be in danger.”
“O-oleanders!”
“Yes. They’re flowers the family cultivates.”
No wonder they were blooming in such neat ranks; they were cultivated by the Sichuan Tang Family. Nothing about the Tang Family was ever normal. Even the flowers blooming so beautifully along the mountain ridge were anything but ordinary.
I didn’t know the details about oleanders, but I did know they were an ingredient in death potions, so I couldn’t help recoiling.
They stop the heart, don’t they?
I calmed myself and began searching the area with my sister for bumblebees. We followed the bees’ flight paths and located two nests, carefully watching the holes they used to enter and exit.
But the particular nest I wanted never appeared. After the third empty try, my sister finally asked in clear frustration.
“Could you tell me exactly what you’re looking for? At this rate it will take many hours. It would be faster to call the family’s warriors.”
Mobilizing people would certainly be quicker. I had wanted to do that from the beginning, but I kept my mouth shut about the fact that I had been hoping to enjoy the mood of a date.
“Then… shall we?”
—Piiik!
Along with my answer, a flying knife carved from a tree branch left my sister’s hand and shot down the mountain. A long, piercing whistle spread through the air.
Moments later dust clouds rose from between the folds of Tang Family Mountain and from the cluster of halls where the clan lived.
“““You called for us, Young Lady!”””
In no time at all, warriors who had flown in on light-footwork techniques prostrated themselves before my sister—Tang Family warriors with castor-leaf emblems embroidered on their chests.
What the…
“Yes. There is something we need to find for clan business. Listen to this… ga… no, to So-ryong-nim’s instructions, and find what So-ryong-nim wants.”
“““Understood, Young Lady!”””
Whew… this is something else.
The moment my sister finished speaking, the warriors stood ready for my orders. I had been a little uneasy about joining an assassin clan, but seeing such absolute loyalty put an involuntary spring in my shoulders.
“Find the bumblebees that are collecting honey and pollen from the flowering trees. Follow those bumblebees until you discover their nests. Ah—and once you find a nest, wait for about the time it takes to brew a pot of tea, count how many bees enter and leave during that period, and report the number to me.”
“Understood, So-ryong-nim! Let’s move!”
The warriors scattered at once. Roughly the time of one meal later, the searchers began returning one by one to report on the nests they had found.
“Sichuan Tang Family Five Poisons Warrior Wi Pung. In the nest I discovered, twenty bees entered or left during one tea-brewing period!”
“Sichuan Tang Family Ten Poisons Warrior Kwon Ho-chung. In the nest I discovered, thirty-two bees entered or left during one tea-brewing period!”
“Sichuan Tang Family…”
“Sichuan Tang Family…”
The reports continued until one warrior said:
“…one.”
A report of only a single bee.
There!
“Would you guide me to that place?”
I followed the warrior to a rocky overhang in a ravine. Digging into the earth revealed a bumblebee nest that looked like a cluster of round beads. The few remaining bees charged out, but the warriors instantly subdued them. Hidden weapons turned the last survivors into specimens on the spot.
With even those few bees gone, I reached into the almost completely ruined nest with a pair of tongs and lifted out a black insect.
“Got you. You little pests!”