Lizard 1
Yesterday the ones who ate the hamsters received the pet-poisonous-creature sentence.
What was that, you ask?
It was a punishment where you raised a pet poisonous creature and cultivated a heart that loved it.
So when I told them to go out and catch anything venomous, the three warriors—oblivious to what their futures held—each brought back one poisonous creature.
“All right, let’s see what you’ve caught.”
I asked the warriors standing there, each holding a jar. The one in front opened the lid, tilted it toward me, and answered.
“I caught a heol, Young Master So-ryong.”
Heol meant scorpion.
Scorpions were excellent poisonous creatures—easy to breed, easy to keep—so I nodded.
“Oh, a scorpion. Very good. An excellent choice. Next?”
“I caught a ogong, Young Master. Seeing the ones you keep, I figured nothing says ‘poisonous creature’ quite like a centipede.”
“A centipede is excellent as well.”
A solid answer from the warrior who had brought the centipede, plus a flattering line that hit just right.
With the first two finished, I looked at the last warrior. He hesitated, squirming.
“W-well…”
“What is it? Don’t tell me you failed to catch anything.”
A Tang Family warrior returning empty-handed was unforgivable. Catching something was trivial if you put your mind to it; failing meant either no will or pure laziness.
Commander Gu Pae seemed to share my thoughts. He glared and barked,
“I gave you more than enough time! Coming back empty-handed means you lack resolve. One month of horse stance!”
Horse stance—Grandfather had made me do it too. It was the kind of posture that brought back memories of those invisible chairs from my past life.
The warrior answered in a voice that nearly crawled into the ground.
“I-I did catch something! It’s just… not a poisonous creature. It’s a… seokcheok.”
“A lizard?”
“Approved!”
Just as Commander Gu Pae’s eyes turned sharp, I shouted the word. He tilted his head.
“Young Master So-ryong, lizards aren’t poisonous creatures, are they?”
He was right—lizards rarely carried venom. Only a couple of species on the American continents, a few in Australia, some in Indonesia, and the Komodo dragon. That was about it.
But I liked lizards, so: approved.
“It’s fine. Lizards have poison in their eyes.”
“Pardon?”
“Anyway—approved!”
Commander Gu Pae looked flustered, but this was a matter of personal taste. I wasn’t yielding.
Having declared approval, I issued the next order to the warriors.
“What you caught today will become your pet poisonous creatures. Come back tomorrow with names for them.”
“What?”
“Didn’t you hear me? Give them names.”
The warriors wore dumbfounded expressions at the order to name them.
I swore to myself: if any of those creatures died while they were raising them, I would make those men bawl their eyes out. That was the whole point of this cruel pet-poisonous-creature sentence.
Anyone who has never cried over a pet dying has no idea how much it hurts. Trust me.
I was in the middle of handing down the pet-poisonous-creature sentences to the hamster-eaters when it happened.
“So-ryong, the children are awake. They’ve been up and crawling around since dawn.”
My elder sister had come to the Poisonous Creature Garden.
I looked toward her voice. Cho, Hyang, and Bin—riding on her shoulders—waved their antennae in greeting.
—Chirrrr.
“These little ones finally have their energy back. Come here, you three.”
I hurried over and rested my hand on her shoulder so they could cross.
The centipedes climbed onto my arm at once. The moment my arm touched her shoulder, Cho, then Hyang, and finally Bin transferred one after another from her body onto mine.
I had checked on them occasionally at her quarters, but when you take them back you still examine their health carefully. That was the proper attitude of a pet-poisonous-creature keeper.
I watched each one as it crossed.
“Cho looks healthy, Hyang is… yeah, nothing wrong…”
Then Bin started climbing over last.
“Huh? Bin? What’s wrong with you, Bin? Are you hurt somewhere?”
“What is it, So-ryong?”
Something was clearly different from before. I moved straight to a sunny spot and examined Bin coiled around my arm.
Sure enough, Bin looked different.
“Young Lady, doesn’t Bin’s color look a little different from the others?”
“Where? Oh! You’re right. It was dark in the room so I didn’t notice. Why is it like this? Did I keep them somewhere too dark? Or was it because I had to set them aside for a bit yesterday while receiving guests?”
The reason we both looked alarmed was simple: the tips of Bin’s antennae had turned faintly black—just a little, as if dipped in soy sauce.
Damn it. Because of those warriors, every time I see something black I think of soy sauce now.
I shook off the sudden soy-sauce thought and looked again carefully. Unlike the other two, Bin’s antenna tips were lightly darkened.
At first I thought the color was simply coming in, but centipedes usually stay yellow until after their second molt. The other two were still pure yellow, so this wasn’t normal coloration.
If it were color coming in, Cho and Hyang should have been changing too.
“I don’t think this is just adult coloration developing…”
If it wasn’t coloration, the only other possibility was illness.
When the Blood Sect elder attacked, they had been caught in the rain and had crawled through trees and pits; I suddenly feared they might have gotten sick.
Pets that can’t speak require their owners to watch carefully for signs of illness, or they can die in an instant. Mammals usually show it clearly; insects rarely do, so you have to be even more careful.
Anyone who has kept centipedes knows—even experienced keepers struggle to tell when these things are sick. The only real symptom they ever show is refusing food.
“When you were looking after them, did Bin show any other odd signs?”
“I’m not sure. They just stayed still with the others the whole time, so I didn’t notice.”
“Bin, you’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”
Bin—the one who had looked most like a puppy when it bit the snake after falling into that pit.
Was this what parents felt when their child was sick?
Both my sister’s face and mine clouded with worry.
Why is this punishment falling on me!
Grandfather returned to the family with the warriors from the direction of Tang Family Mountain. Warriors with sacks slung over their shoulders followed behind him.
“Ah, the Strategist has arrived?”
“It has been a long time, Lord of Myriad Poisons.”
At the news of Grandfather’s return, the Murim Alliance Strategist Jegal Hu had come running out.
Grandfather, Lord of Myriad Poisons, greeted the Alliance Strategist with a warm voice.
“Yes, it’s been a while. It feels like only yesterday that you left home to travel with Cheol-san, and now one of you is the Alliance Strategist and the other is the Tang Family Head. Haha.”
“Elder, the old stories… the family’s children and the Alliance warriors are listening…”
“Hahaha, yes, yes, I understand. By the way, I’m sorry I couldn’t come out to meet you. I was preparing a little gift for you.”
Mention of what was clearly black history with his father-in-law made the Alliance Strategist look flustered. But the word “gift” made his eyes sparkle.
Gifts, it seemed, delighted everyone—children, adults, past life or present.
“A gift, you say?”
The reason Grandfather had gone out briefly with the warriors was that he had gone to capture tiger keelbacks in our place.
The Poisonous Creature Squad’s first poisonous-creature capture plan.
Before the Alliance Strategist Jegal Hu arrived, I had explained the plan to capture tiger keelbacks. Grandfather had not permitted our plan—or more precisely, he had not permitted me to go out.
With people from various sects camped around the Tang estate it was unlikely, but he still worried that Blood Sect remnants might appear nearby to check on their dead or to scout. Too dangerous, he said.
But the venom of the tiger keelbacks was essential, so Grandfather had led my Poisonous Creature Squad out himself. Catching snakes was something anyone in the Tang Family could do, after all.
I had felt a little left out missing the first expedition, but since it wasn’t a new species—just tiger keelbacks—I managed to swallow most of the disappointment. After everything that had happened and ten days in a coma, of course he was worried.
“Come inside first. So-ryong, we caught every last one that was in the snake den. Check them over, then take a little of that and come to the Family Head’s Hall.”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
The sacks on the shoulders of the warriors who had gone with him were wriggling. We took the warriors to the front of the Poisonous Creature Garden and released the snakes into a large wooden frame.
“First we’ll select the large, sturdy ones. Grandfather said he needs a little tiger keelback venom, so we’ll collect only a small amount.”
“Understood, Young Master So-ryong.”
“Tiger keelbacks have fangs shaped differently from other snakes. To collect the venom you have to push the bottle as deep into the mouth as possible like this.”
I caught one tiger keelback, opened its mouth, and pushed a small gourd bottle as far as I could under its upper jaw. Their tiny fangs sat far back; to hook them on the bottle rim you had to shove the bottle deep inside.
Normally you just rest the upper jaw lightly on the bottle mouth when extracting snake venom, but these rear-fanged snakes required the extra push.
“Understood. Hurry!”
“Yes, Commander!”
Any with wounds we milked of venom and set aside; the healthy ones we selected for a few days of quarantine.
After watching the warriors work for a while, the commander brought over a small porcelain medicine bottle that fit in the palm of his hand and held it out to me.
“Young Master So-ryong, it’s half full.”
“Good. I’ll leave the rest to you. Grandfather is calling.”
“Yes!”
Leaving the Poisonous Creature Garden behind, I arrived at the Family Head’s Hall. Voices drifted from inside.
“Ohhh, so just as I thought—the mysterious young hero the Tang Family Head met on Hainan Island was that same young hero?”
“Indeed. He became the Tang Family’s adopted grandson. What do you think? Quite the treasure of our Tang Family, isn’t he?”
“‘Mysterious’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. And raising a Golden-Haired Bee King—I was truly astonished.”
“Yes, everyone who enters the Tang estate is always startled by that.”
Ha… well, I am something of a treasure, I suppose.
Feeling rather pleased at the conversation inside, I announced my arrival.
“Grandfather, it’s So-ryong.”
“Ah, good. Come in.”
I stepped into the Family Head’s Hall where the two men were drinking tea and talking. Before I could even sit, Grandfather asked,
“So, did you bring it?”
“Yes, here.”
I took that to mean the tiger keelback venom, so I set the porcelain bottle on the table at once.
—Clack.
One small porcelain bottle on the table. Grandfather slid it toward the Alliance Strategist with a smile.
“Our adopted grandson has brought the gift for you. Take it.”
“A gift?”
The Alliance Strategist looked back and forth between Grandfather and me. He picked up the bottle that had been pushed his way and tilted his head.
“Just what is this? Hmm? Even a qi membrane?”
Seeing Grandfather do something, the Alliance Strategist flinched and leaned closer. Wondering what was going on, I looked at Grandfather; he explained the qi membrane.
“A qi membrane means no sound can escape the surroundings. We call it a qi membrane because it is a barrier of qi. Nothing said inside the Family Head’s Hall right now will leak outside.”
Qi really can do anything…
Palm winds, killing intent, qi membranes, lightfoot techniques—endless applications. Master one martial art and you’d never starve.
Once the qi membrane went up, the Alliance Strategist’s previously relaxed expression sharpened. He asked again,
“What on earth is this thing that requires a qi membrane?”
Grandfather looked at me and smiled.
“It’s Qi-Dispersing Poison.”
“Qi-Dispersing Poison? That’s common enough, isn’t it? Hardly something that needs a qi membrane and secret conversation.”
I remembered hearing that although its use was forbidden in the murim, it wasn’t impossible to obtain. The Hall of Myriad Poisons had plenty of it, after all. His question was reasonable.
But Grandfather’s next words made the man’s eyes fly wide open.
“Except this one works only on the Blood Sect.”
“!”
His expression looked as if a bat had just appeared over his head. He stared back and forth between the bottle in his hand and Grandfather’s face, then asked in a voice that couldn’t quite believe it.
“I-is that truly so!? No—Lord of Myriad Poisons would never joke about such a thing…”
“Hard to believe?”
“Of course! Those monsters are immune to Qi-Dispersing Poison. The reason the murim suffered so badly thirty years ago during the Blood Sect’s Blood Chaos was precisely because of their resistance to it. It never affects them, only us.”
“Yes, I thought the same. Yet it exists—Qi-Dispersing Poison that works on them.”
“If this is true—no, since it is true—then this is an extraordinary discovery! How effective is it?”
“The Blood Sect elder who was poisoned by it was finished by Hwa-eun in a single strike.”
“A single strike!”
Just as Grandfather said, the Blood Sect elder’s head had fallen to one finishing blow from my sister. The grotesque image of the severed neck flashed through my mind and my body shuddered.
“According to Hwa-eun, his physical abilities dropped to about the level of an ordinary person.”
“Ohhh! So it truly is Qi-Dispersing Poison!”
“The drawback is that it only works if you poison them by coating a hidden weapon or a blade. Still.”
“That’s a bit disappointing, but even so—how wonderful is this? When the Alliance Leader sent me here he said he expected good news, and I was quite worried, but this is far more than mere good news! You’ve taken a great weight off my mind! Thank you, Lord of Myriad Poisons!”
The Alliance Strategist Jegal Hu kept bowing his thanks with a bright expression. Grandfather took my hand and said,
“Don’t thank me—thank this child. He’s the one who discovered it.”
The Strategist looked at me again with startled eyes.
“Young Hero Wi, you mean!?”
“Indeed. He also rendered great service in capturing that Blood Sect elder. He deliberately poisoned himself with it so the elder would suck his blood and become poisoned in turn.”
“Ohhh! What courage and brilliant strategy! So that’s why you decided to make him Hwa-eun’s partner?”
“Exactly. How could I give such a prize to anyone else? Haha.”
Having my praises sung right to my face made my cheeks heat up on their own. Face-to-face flattery was hard to endure even with the thickest skin.
I tried to look unimpressed and force my expression blank, but the Alliance Strategist turned to me and asked,
“This is truly a great fortune for the entire murim. When I report this to the Alliance Leader he will certainly bestow a great reward upon you. Is there anything you desire?
If there is something you particularly want, I will mention it when he speaks of the reward.”
He was saying they would give me a commendation, and I was to name what I wanted.
How could the one receiving the award start demanding this and that?
So I politely declined. Both elders burst into delighted laughter.
“I didn’t do it for a reward, so it’s all right, Elder.”
“Hahaha! And humble on top of everything! Lord of Myriad Poisons, you have acquired an excellent adopted grandson. Keh-keh.”
“Is that so? Hahaha.”
A moment later the laughter stopped and Grandfather spoke.
“If there is something you want, don’t worry and just say it. The Strategist will tell the Alliance Leader, so don’t be overly modest. A reward like this is something you accept, not refuse. Of course.
So-ryong, you have more than earned it.”
In Korean etiquette you were supposed to refuse three times, but refusing more than twice felt wrong here.
I answered carefully.
If they’re offering, I might as well take it.
“If you put it that way… there is actually one thing I really want…”
The leader of the united murim offering a reward had given me a rather good idea.