Hebei Peng Family 1

Father-in-law came barreling into the courtyard compound and was about to head straight for my quarters when something else seemed to occur to him. He pivoted instead toward the Medicine Hall.

Judging by that earlier shout and the way he was moving now, he clearly had no idea where I was—or what condition I was in.

“Father-in-law?”

“Huh!? S-Son-in-law!?”

I called out to him as he was striding away, just to let him know I was fine. The moment he spotted me sitting in the pavilion, his eyes flew wide with shock.

Then, still staring, he shot straight toward me.

“So-ryong, are you all right? I heard you still hadn’t come to your senses, so I rushed back as fast as I could! I did hear you’d recovered at Gujin Gate, but are you already well enough to be wandering around like this?”

He seized both my arms at once and started checking me over from head to toe, still wearing that stunned expression.

I’d already heard the story from Noonim. When disaster struck the family, they’d sent the fastest lightfoot warriors after Father-in-law to bring him word. But that had been while I was still unconscious. All he’d been told was that I’d collapsed and hadn’t woken up.

“Yes, Father-in-law, I’m fine. I woke up after ten days, thankfully.”

“Ten days!”

“And I’ve got this big scar on my arm now, but it’s all right. I’m alive, after all.”

“A scar!”

I showed him the wound left by the Blood Sect elder’s finger punching clean through my arm, making sure he understood just how rough things had been. Every time I spoke, Father-in-law barked another word, his face darkening with fury.

“Those Blood Sect bastards!”

At the sound of his voice, the rest of the family began appearing one by one in the rear garden.

“Father!”

“Hwa-eun, you’re not hurt, are you?”

“I’m fine. So—So-ryong saved me… He saved all of us.”

“Is that so!? So-ryong did? I’ll need to hear the whole story in detail.”

At Father-in-law’s question, Noonim rested one hand against her chest and turned her head slightly aside, answering in a shy little voice.

The way she used to crack a whip without the slightest hesitation, face cold as ice, had been beautiful too—but this bashful look was every bit as good. Wasn’t that the real charm of Noonim? The gap between her usual frosty expression and moments like this?

The warm, fuzzy feeling lasted only a second. No, wait. I shouldn’t be finding the whip beautiful… I was just starting to worry that my tastes might be drifting outside the normal range when Grandfather’s voice rose behind us.

“You’re back? Enough of the fuss. The children are safe, so let’s go to the Family Head’s Hall. I’ve got some catching-up to do with you.”

“Yes, Father. I’ve returned. Understood. Myeoldok Unit—return to quarters and rest!”

“““Yes, Family Head!”””

After dismissing the Poison Annihilation Squad, Father-in-law set off toward the Family Head’s Hall just as purposefully as he’d stormed into the courtyard earlier. A few steps along, he glanced back over his shoulder.

“You two come along as well.”

“Yes, Father-in-law.”

“Yes, Father.”

And so we entered the Family Head’s Hall with him and spent a good long while recounting everything that had happened.

“You deliberately poisoned yourself and then let him drink your blood?”

“Yes. And then, while he was panicking, you said this to him: ‘I am your natural enemy!’ Just like that.”

“Hahaha! Bold! Absolutely bold!”

Ugh, I’ve got to be more careful next time. This is ridiculously embarrassing. I couldn’t even tell whether they were teasing me or praising me when a maid’s voice called from outside.

“Family Head, the Strategist has arrived.”

“The Strategist? Ah, so Hu’s already here?”

“Yes. We sent word to the Murim Alliance, and the Alliance Leader dispatched him.”

“Show him in.”

“Yes, Family Head.”

A moment later the doors opened and in walked Jegal Hu, Strategist of the Murim Alliance. Father-in-law had said they were friends, and sure enough the two of them pulled each other into a rough embrace.

Balls? No—this was the Central Plains, so they were childhood friends. Jukmagou.

“Cheol-san, it’s been a while, you old dog.”

“How have you been? Climb high enough and even letters dry up, eh? Takes something like this just to see your face.”

“Ah, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was it that bad? My apologies.”

Once the Strategist had settled into a seat, the first thing Father-in-law asked wasn’t about old times. It was pure business.

Or maybe pure bloodshed.

“So. Did you catch the spy?”

“Of course. Word’s already gone to the Alliance Leader. They’ll have him by now, I’d wager.”

“Spy?”

Spy—meaning an agent, an infiltrator. I was the only one tilting my head in confusion, so Father-in-law smiled and explained.

“The Blood Sect bastards invaded because they were after the secret manual of the Bloodwater Poison Condor, didn’t they?”

“Yes. They seemed to consider it extremely important.”

“Exactly. So how did they know the Bloodwater Poison Condor was here with the Sichuan Tang Family?”

I thought it over carefully. We’d brought that manual ourselves from Hainan Island to the Sichuan Tang Family. Until we arrived, only Father-in-law, Commander Gu Pae, two warriors, and I had known the secret. After we reached the clan, only the direct bloodline—Grandfather, Mother-in-law, Noonim—and a handful of branch elders who served as clan elders had been let in on it.

“Gasp! Then one of the warriors or the clan elders—!?”

The warriors I couldn’t speak for, and my first impression of the clan elders hadn’t been great thanks to Noonim, but after watching them fight the Blood Sect I’d seen how deeply they cared for the family. The idea that any of them could be a spy…

I must have looked completely unconvinced, because the Strategist suddenly burst out laughing.

“Heh heh. You’re going to have to educate that son-in-law of yours a little better. Fresh into the family and already coming out with the funniest things.”

I glanced around, baffled, and Noonim spoke up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with a smile still playing on her lips.

“So-ryong, there cannot be a spy in the Tang Family.”

“Pardon?”

What, did people get born as spies? I’d always figured most of them got compromised by a single mistake and slid into the work from there. Why was she so confident?

Then Grandfather told me something I’d never known.

“So-ryong, every warrior of the Tang Family—even the lowliest maid or scullery hand—is one of ours. There is no one in this house who would sell out their own. And the reason we can say that with such certainty is…”

According to Grandfather, the Tang Family treated its poisons and poison arts as the highest secrets. Even taking on a single maid was never a casual affair.

If the Tang Family needed a maid, they investigated the direct and even cousin-line relatives of countless applicants. Only when no problems turned up did they select the one with the best character. And once chosen, not just the maid but her entire immediate family was brought into the Tang Family compound.

That alone was astonishing—but it didn’t stop there. The maid and her whole family were forbidden from leaving for ten full years. If something unavoidable came up, like a cousin’s funeral, they could attend only under escort by Tang Family warriors.

“They enter the Tang Family swearing that the only way out is death.”

Holy—!

I was still reeling from the maid-selection process when I learned the warrior-selection process made it look tame by comparison.

They bought gifted children young, paying the parents a large sum, and raised them? In this era people starved to death all the time, so selling a child to keep the rest of the family alive—or just to survive themselves—wasn’t rare. Those children were purchased and forged into warriors.

Then those warriors were married off to the branch families, the maids, the servants. The entire Sichuan Tang Family was one vast web of blood ties—a network of kinship, no, a network of bloodlines.

With wife and children and parents all belonging to the Sichuan Tang Family, there was simply no way anyone would turn spy.

I’d thought poison arts were handed out like free samples. Turns out being chosen as a warrior and taught those arts was proof you’d already demonstrated loyalty, character, and talent to the Tang Family.

My eyes went round as saucers at the revelation, and Noonim’s amused voice floated over.

“So-ryong, did you by any chance leak information to the Blood Sect?”

“N-No! Of course not.”

“Then there’s no one in our Tang Family who would spy. We haven’t taken in a new person in nearly ten years.”

“But still, people make mistakes, and—”

I pointed out that people could still slip up, that nothing was perfect. But everyone in the Tang Family who knew about the matter had already taken something called Confession Powder and proven their innocence.

A truth-telling poison, apparently. Of course—this was the house of poison. The Sichuan Tang Family.

Who knew the Sichuan Tang Family was hiding secrets like this? No wonder they were the Central Plains’ foremost clan of assassins. Goosebumps rose all over my skin.

“Then where was the spy?”

“Inside the Murim Alliance, of course.”

“That’s right. Inside our Murim Alliance.”

I’d expected catching the spy to take ages, but once the Tang Family was ruled out completely, only the Murim Alliance remained. Even so, the Alliance was huge—shouldn’t it still take forever? There turned out to be a reason it had gone so quickly.

The Strategist explained that normally a letter would arrive, get sorted by the correspondence office, then be passed to the relevant department or reported upward. But Father-in-law had wanted as few people as possible to know, so he’d sent a branch elder to inform the Strategist directly.

At the time, only three people in the entire Murim Alliance had known the truth.

“Who exactly is the spy?”

“A maid.”

“A maid?”

I still had some sense of tact, so I carefully avoided bringing up anything about the blue lizard. Reading the room, today was clearly not the day.

There were dead in the household, talk of spies and the Blood Sect and wiping them out—I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠couldn’t exactly blurt something as tone-deaf as, “I’m off to catch that lizard real quick.”

In my past life they used to say a person with good instincts could get meat side dishes even at a temple. Timing was everything.

Read the room carefully. No blundering around without a clue. Right…

So ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠once the conversation with the elders in the Family Head’s Hall wound down, Noonim and I settled into the pavilion again. I needed to recheck Bin’s condition—the examination Father-in-law’s arrival had interrupted earlier.

“Cho, Hyang, Bin—come here.”

Noonim stretched out her arm and called the little centipedes. I rested my hand lightly on her wrist, and the creatures wriggled across onto her.

Watching them, Noonim asked with a visibly relieved look.

“You said if they do this, it means nothing’s seriously wrong, right?”

“Most likely.”

The reason she looked so reassured was the explanation I’d given her before. When insects, fish, lizards—any creature that doesn’t bond the way a mammal does—fall ill, the biggest tell is that they stop eating.

Normally the little ones scrambled over to Noonim the moment they got hungry; when they weren’t hungry they stayed put. Whether they thought of me as their mother and her as a wet nurse, or thought of her as their mother but simply found living on my body more comfortable, I couldn’t say.

So if Bin were truly sick, he wouldn’t try to climb over and draw energy from her. If he wasn’t, he’d hurry right across. And Bin had been the first to scuttle onto Noonim.

That meant whatever was going on wasn’t a disease severe enough to interfere with feeding. I’d checked the antennae carefully too—no sign of any mold infection. The black coloring hadn’t spread any further. The shell wasn’t soft or warped or strange in any way.

Which left only one conclusion: his color change had simply come early. When you raise living things, some of them always mature a little ahead of schedule, right? Like getting a girlfriend in the lower grades of elementary school when nobody saw it coming.

So I nodded and answered.

“For now I think it’s just that his color came in a little early on its own. That’s the most reasonable way to look at it.”

Noonim’s face brightened at once.

“What a relief. These children are going to be the three guardian dragons protecting the Tang Family—they can’t get sick. Ah! That means Bin is going to become the Black Dragon!”

“Black Dragon?”

“The ink-black dragon. He’s the only one turning black, isn’t he? Then I hope Cho becomes the White Dragon and Hyang the Red Dragon.”

I gave an awkward laugh and played along.

“Th-That would be pretty cool…”

Last time Noonim had claimed the little centipedes would become dragons, so I’d casually asked Commander Gu Pae and the warriors of the Poisonous Creature Unit in passing. I’d wanted to know whether Noonim and Grandfather were the only ones under that impression, or if everyone thought the same.

“Of course. Naturally, Young Master So-ryong. Everyone knows that if the centipedes live a thousand years, they become dragons.”

“Yes, I’ve heard they form a wish-pearl as their inner core and rise into the heavens holding it in their mouths.”

“Exactly. That’s why grandfathers and grandmothers always said if a centipede comes into the house, don’t kill it—release it outside.”

When everyone except me believed it, what was I supposed to do? If the whole world said so, even something that wasn’t true became true. And if raising them long enough meant they evolved into dragons, that was only a good thing, never a bad one.

Yeah, well. Dragons are cooler than centipedes, I’ll give them that.

While I waited for Noonim to finish feeding the little ones, I gazed out at the distant sunset. That was when it came.

—Beeeeep! Beeeeep! Beeeeep!

From far down the mountain, the whistle-signal of the flying daggers that summoned the direct bloodline.

Noonim and I locked eyes for a heartbeat, then launched ourselves outside. The elders were still talking; it seemed only right that we go and see.

We flew all the way to the entrance of Gujin Gate.

About ten men in martial robes stood waiting there, each with the character Peng embroidered over the left breast. Every last one of them was built like a mountain and looked more like cattle thieves or mountain bandits than proper warriors.

The instant Noonim confirmed who they were, her urgent sound transmission reached me.

What in the world is that supposed to mean?

She wasn’t telling me to be polite and proper—she was telling me the exact opposite. I couldn’t make sense of it at all.