Poisonous Creature Garden 2
When I answered with “Poisonous Creature Garden,” Big Sister tilted her head in confusion, so I carefully explained the meaning of the name—and just how grand and wonderful a name it truly was.
“Poison for the first character, myriad creatures for the second, and garden for the last. It means a rear garden where every poisonous creature in the Central Plains gathers. I named it with the intention of collecting every poisonous creature scattered across the land. What do you think? A dreamlike garden where every animal—no, every poisonous creature—can run free.”
“A rear garden where every poisonous creature gathers… Collecting every poisonous creature…”
Big Sister’s reply came out dreamy and distant. She clearly understood the mood. To answer so wistfully at a moment like this… I smiled, as if to say that I might have lazily named things Oil, Cucumber, and Ginseng before out of sheer laziness, but when I put my mind to it, I could come up with something of this caliber. She seemed to like it as well, repeating the name under her breath.
“Poisonous Creature Garden… Poisonous Creature Garden…”
Together we headed not toward the breeding facilities inside the Hall of Myriad Poisons, but toward the pavilion that would become the Poisonous Creature Garden. The reason I had specifically requested a separate pavilion was simple: the cave housing the Hall of Myriad Poisons was hardly ideal for raising living creatures. It might serve for overwintering, but beyond that the conditions were awkward at best.
Caves maintained a constant temperature, true, yet the cavern that held the Hall of Myriad Poisons also contained ice grottoes where ice formed even in midsummer. In the warmer months the place stayed too cool and damp. Ventilation systems could manage the humidity, but the greatest problem remained: no direct sunlight. Raising poisonous creatures necessarily meant including reptiles and amphibians, and vertebrate animals needed ultraviolet light from the sun to synthesize vitamin D. Inside a cave that was impossible. Basking might sound trivial, but for reptiles it was essential—vitamin D was critical for calcium absorption. Without basking they could not take in calcium, leaving them vulnerable to metabolic bone disease. In my previous life I had always used UV lamps for reptiles; here that was not an option, so cave-rearing simply would not work.
“There are people waiting up ahead, So-ryong.”
We had been talking as we walked, and before I knew it we had arrived in front of the pavilion. At Big Sister’s words I turned my head and saw warriors standing in neat ranks before the Poisonous Creature Garden, waiting for me. These must be the people she had mentioned earlier—those assigned to this place. Warriors who had previously managed the poisonous creatures of the Hall of Myriad Poisons, plus additional hands reassigned to me.
The moment we reached the pavilion, however, the most familiar face of all jumped out at me. I blinked and called his name, because as far as I knew he had not been assigned here.
“Deputy Commander Gu?”
Gu Pae stood at the very front, beaming from ear to ear.
“Yes, Young Master So-ryong! Commander Gu Pae of the Poisonous Creature Squad, reporting!”
His booming, delighted reply made me tilt my head at the new title. He thumped his chest and explained.
“Poisonous Creature Squad?”
“Yes! The squad that will gather and raise poisonous creatures together with Young Master So-ryong. Your very own Poisonous Creature Squad!”
I had heard they would send people to help raise venomous insects and snakes, but I had assumed they would simply be laborers. Instead they had formed an entire unit of warriors, just like the Poison Blood Squad or the Poison Extermination Squad. I looked at Big Sister; she wore a motherly smile.
“Father decided this before we left, saying you needed to learn how to lead and command people as well. Strangely enough, every elder of the family agreed unanimously. I have no idea what wind blew through them. Since this is So-ryong’s direct Poisonous Creature Squad, you may use them as your own hands and feet.”
In short, these were my personal subordinates. Whoa, they’re really backing me all the way. They had promised to support my hobby, and this was genuine push. Honestly, my dream in my previous life had been exactly this: opening a shop dedicated to poisonous creatures. The hobby was fun, but raising them alone had limits, and when the animals bred you had to rehome the offspring—something impossible to manage single-handedly. Paying staff to do the work while I simply enjoyed myself… paradise. And it looked as though that dream might come true here. I vowed to realize the unfinished dream of my past life in this Central Plains, and I gazed at the twenty lined-up warriors with a face full of emotion.
Big Sister gave my back a light push.
“This is So-ryong’s Poisonous Creature Squad, so you should say a few words.”
Gasp! A pep talk! She was telling me to give the kind of inspirational speech I had always wanted to try at least once. Feeling proud, I paced back and forth in front of the warriors and began.
It was the first day, after all; the atmosphere demanded a proper address.
“Ahem. I am Wi So-ryong. I will share life and death with all of you. You will be responsible for managing this Poisonous Creature Garden together with me. Some of you may already be thinking, ‘Why must I clean up after mere beasts and feed them?’”
At the mention of sharing life and death their eyes lit up, as expected of martial artists—then several flinched when I brought up cleaning dung and serving meals. Living in the Tang Family had taught me that their warriors were tightly bound by pride in the martial arts they had cultivated. Dragging them into menial chores was never going to please them, which was precisely why I raised the point. Quite a few clearly held that exact thought.
“Yet I tell you that the work you will do is of tremendous value. Did you not witness it yourselves this time? How I defeated an elder of the Blood Cult? All of that came from poisonous creatures! You will be performing work of exactly that worth! Think about it! For now we may only raise small snakes, lizards, and spiders, but the experience we gain here will let us raise the Ten Great Poisonous Creatures. Then even if enemies far worse than the Blood Cult come swarming, we will be able to wipe them all out! Our Tang Clan will advance even further through poisonous creatures. Everyone!”
Word that I had slain a Blood Cult elder had already spread. The moment I invoked it, the warriors erupted.
“Waaaaaah!”
“Long live Young Master So-ryong! Long live the Sichuan Tang Family!”
Big Sister and Uncle Gu Pae clapped along, beaming.
—Clap clap clap!
“Splendid words, Young Master So-ryong!”
“That’s right, So-ryong. Advancing the Tang Family… how magnificent. My heart was pounding.”
Their applause only fanned the flames higher.
“Yeah!”
“Whoa!”
This is getting awkward. With enthusiasm like this, I could not simply finish talking and step down. Rousing cheers demanded a reward. I decided to drop a line that would set everyone ablaze. I’m basically a platoon leader now—I can afford a little prize money, right? I could not end my very first pep talk empty-handed after such a reception.
“Ah, and I will speak to the Family Head so that those who work hard may be the first to receive the royal jelly of the Golden-Haired Bee King as soon as it is collected—”
“Waaaaah!”
“Whoooaaa!”
The roar exploded before I even finished the sentence. As expected, talk of rewards drew the strongest reaction of all.
Once the pep talk ended we moved inside the Poisonous Creature Garden, gathered the warriors, and I prepared to explain what needed to be done. The warriors who had previously worked in the Hall of Myriad Poisons had only handled butchering, transport, and basic care, so I figured we needed to start from the very beginning.
“Young Master So-ryong, then what work do we begin with first?”
No one was more eager than Uncle Gu Pae. He had volunteered for the Poisonous Creature Squad himself, which probably explained the overflowing enthusiasm. Ever since the Golden-Haired Bee King incident, the commander of the Poison Blood Squad had taken to quietly slipping away whenever he saw me—probably terrified of getting dragged into another ordeal. Gu Pae, however, who had been stuck in the roadside ditch with me, now looked at me with outright reverence, as though he actually enjoyed the abuse. When my father-in-law announced he was seeking a commander for the Poisonous Creature Squad, Gu Pae had gone and volunteered of his own accord. Either he had fallen for the charm of poisonous creatures, or he was a masochist. Either way, I planned to work him hard.
“First we have to go catch something.”
The commander’s face lit up at once.
“Ohh! Of course! Then what do we catch first? The Tiger-Striped Oil Snake? Lizards? Or spiders?”
“Surely the Tiger-Striped Oil Snake? Grandfather mentioned it as well, and if we’re talking poisonous creatures, snakes must come first—they have the strongest venom.”
Both the commander and Big Sister asked with shining expectation, so I smiled and answered. We would be hunting something entirely different from what they hoped.
“First of all, we must go catch mice.”
“What!? Mice?”
“Mice, you say!?”
Yes—what we needed was not snakes, but mice. In the language of the Central Plains the character meant rat or mouse. To launch the Poisonous Creature Garden we had to start by catching mice. More than anything else, reptiles needed mice—specifically newborn pinkies.
No matter what you raise, food comes first.
If someone asked why poisonous creatures possessed venom, I could answer that the reasons fell into two broad categories: hunting and defense. Hunting venom existed to subdue prey swiftly; defensive venom compensated for a fragile body. Consequently the two groups differed in diet as well. Those that evolved venom for hunting tended to be carnivores; those that developed it for protection tended to be herbivores. There were exceptions like poison frogs, of course, but on average that held true. Herbivorous poisonous creatures raised few husbandry difficulties—you simply grew plants in bulk for feed. The real problem was the overwhelming majority that had evolved venom for hunting. Those required animal prey, so breeding feeder animals was an absolute prerequisite before any serious rearing could begin.
On Hainan Island I had not kept snakes, so large feeders were unnecessary; I had raised crickets to feed lizards and spiders. Here, however, we were the Sichuan Tang Family. Strongly venomous creatures meant snakes, and I already needed to raise the Tiger-Striped Oil Snake. Even if I later kept other species, venomous snakes would remain the primary focus, so a smooth supply of pinkies was non-negotiable. Pinkies were newborn mouse pups—hairless and pink, hence the nickname. Slightly older ones with sparse fur were fuzzies; fully furred juveniles were hoppers. All of them made excellent feeder animals that supplied reptiles with protein and calcium.
—Squeak. Squeeeak!
“Young Master So-ryong, how is this? Is this the right one?”
One warrior held up a large sewer rat by the tail and shook it. I had already told them no several times.
“No. Not a rat that big. I said short tail and small body, didn’t I?”
“But this one is small…”
“Even smaller than that.”
“Hmm… Then I suppose we just throw this one away.”
He tossed the sewer rat back into the paddy embankment and ran off to join the others digging with hoes.
“He says no again! Has to be smaller than that one!”
“Even smaller?”
In an era that might still harbor plague, I could not raise wild sewer rats as feeders for reptiles. Any wild rodent carried disease risk, but those oversized sewer rats also gave me the creeps—they were unnervingly clever and somehow disgusting. What we sought was something smaller and cuter: the animal I had known in my previous life as the Chinese striped hamster, or Chinese hamster. Before laboratory mice were developed, these had sometimes been used as experimental animals, and they inspired far less revulsion than giant sewer rats, making them ideal for producing pinkies. We were out catching “mice,” but what we truly wanted was Chinese hamsters.
“So-ryong…”
After I sent the scratching warrior away, Big Sister’s voice reached me. I turned to find her wearing a distinctly reluctant expression.
“Do we really have to raise mice? C-can’t we use something else?”
“Yes. If the snakes don’t eat them, they all fall ill or die.”
“I see…”
This was a woman who could erase human lives as casually as wiping a slate, yet mice still unsettled her. After the warriors had scoured embankments and the edges of human dwellings for some time, they finally brought back several Chinese hamsters. Big Sister stared in disbelief.
“You’re going to feed these little ones to snakes? They don’t even look like mice…”
They were cuter than expected, which explained her reaction. Honestly, Chinese hamsters looked so much like ordinary mice that calling them hamsters felt almost embarrassing. Even in my previous life some people claimed the Chinese had simply insisted these were hamsters until the name stuck. This was a land where if you beat a cat and declared, “From now on you are a rat,” it became a rat. Some places were already reclassifying the Chinese hamster as not a true hamster at all. I simply nodded.
“Yes. They’re still mice.”
We now had the rodents that would produce pinkies. It was time to begin full-scale pinky production.