Lizard Abuse
"I am Dang Hwa-eun of the Sichuan Tang Family. I have come to meet the head of the Namgung Family, so would you please send word inside?"
The Namgung Family sat perched on one of Huangshan's peaks—a mountain that looked magnificent from afar but drew curses the moment you actually climbed it. When we stated our purpose at the gate, the guards' faces immediately twisted in flustered surprise. That was only natural. My big sister's face alone was enough to throw any man off balance.
"Th-the Poison Flower!? It is an honor to meet you, Poison Flower. But you wish to see the family head?"
"Yes. He is home, of course?"
"O-of course. Please wait a moment. I-I'll send word inside right away."
Originally we had planned to say we had come to see Namgang Seol, the eldest daughter of the house. But we didn't actually need her for the deal we intended to strike, so we simply asked to meet the Namgung head. This was a transaction involving a precious family treasure; there was no need to go out of our way to visit a friend who might well be confined somewhere. And given the poor reputation the household currently enjoyed, insisting on that route would only have invited a cold reception at the gate.
At my sister's words one of the guards bolted inside. Moments later a young woman appeared in his wake.
Is that her? The one they call the Flower King Peony? She seems a little off, though.
I had expected her to be locked away, yet here she was, stepping forward to greet us. Still, the first impression of the woman said to be the greatest beauty of the Central Plains only made me tilt my head. She was pretty enough, but set beside the sister standing next to me she somehow fell short. My sister radiated an aura that simply overwhelmed her surroundings; the woman who had come out to meet us possessed nothing of the sort. It was hard to understand how someone like her could carry so grand a title as Flower King Peony. I was still wondering whether, in this era, her face was simply considered more marketable than my sister's when the young woman approached and bowed.
"It has been a long time, Sister Hwa-eun."
"Yes, Eun. Have you been well? Has it already been two years since we last met at the Seven Families' Bond?"
From the greeting it was clear this was not Namgang Seol at all, but Namgung Eun—the other daughter of the house.
"Yes, Sister. You said you came to see Father? Might I hear what business brings you, first?"
At Namgung Eun's question my sister glanced at me, then turned back to the young woman.
"Actually, our family recently obtained a spiritual medicine formed of cold energy. We had long heard that the Namgung Family was seeking just such a medicine, so we thought you might have need of it..."
Before my sister could finish, the young woman cried out in shock.
"R-really!? Is it truly a spiritual medicine that holds cold energy!?"
"Yes, of course it—"
The woman rushed forward, seized my sister's hands, and spoke with a face full of emotion.
"Th-thank you, Sister! Because of you I can finally breathe easy! Uncle even went all the way to the Northern Sea Ice Palace looking for a cold-energy medicine, only to return empty-handed. We were so worried. These days the household has had nothing but troubles, yet now such happy news..."
Just as my sister had confidently predicted, they really had been searching for it—and the situation was clearly desperate. The young woman began tugging my sister inside.
"Come in, Sister. Father will be overjoyed."
"Eun, wait a moment..."
My sister, who had already shown herself unusually sensitive to physical contact back at the Murim Alliance, looked flustered again. Discovering her second weakness put me in high spirits as we entered the Namgung estate.
Following Namgung Eun toward the family head's hall, my sister spoke carefully, worry coloring her voice. Though we had decided our official purpose was to meet the head, she was clearly anxious about Namgang Seol's welfare.
"Eun... I've been debating whether I should ask, but I can't help worrying. I heard the rumors down at the foot of Huangshan... What has become of Young Lady Namgang Seol?"
Namgung Eun, who had been walking along with a bright smile, suddenly froze. She turned slowly, her expression rigid.
"So you heard... Haah... Well, the rumors have spread everywhere by now..."
She let out a long sigh, stepped closer, and whispered low.
"I'll tell you about that later, quietly."
My sister nodded in silent understanding. Shortly afterward we arrived at the family head's hall and stepped inside. A stern-looking man greeted us with open warmth.
"Well now, who is this? The young lady of the Tang Family, is it not? And how is the Tang family head faring?"
"I trust you have been well, Family Head of Namgung. Yes, Father is also doing fine, thanks to your concern."
"Yes, well... well..."
"?"
At my sister's mention of "well," the Namgung family head's face took on a bitter cast as he chewed over the word. Under our gazes he quickly recovered and continued.
"Ah, never mind. So what brings you all the way from distant Sichuan to Huangshan? You asked to meet me, I hear. Family business, or personal?"
"Father, the Sichuan Tang Family says they possess a spiritual medicine imbued with cold energy."
"What!? Is that true!?"
Namgung Eun's words burst out before my sister could answer, startling the family head. He pressed urgently.
"A spiritual medicine that holds cold energy! Truly? Well then, what sort of medicine is it? There are many kinds—can you tell me which?"
"We brought it with us. Would you care to examine it?"
"Y-you brought it!?"
At the family head's question my sister looked toward me. Time to produce it. With trembling hands I drew a pouch from my robes, opened it, and rolled its contents onto the table.
—Clack.
"Ohh! That is—!"
"That is—!? A-a spiritual medicine!?"
What I had rolled onto the table was a crystal steeped in blue cold energy. The moment it left the pouch it began to radiate a faint chill, and both the Namgung family head and Namgung Eun's eyes went round.
"May I examine it more closely?"
"Yes, by all means."
I placed the crystal back on the pouch and slid it toward him. The family head seized it at once. After resting his hand on it for a moment and verifying something, he spoke with open delight.
"The purity of the cold energy is extremely high. This alone could easily sustain one for ten years!"
"That potent, Father?"
"Indeed. The energy is far more refined than the Snow Ginseng we once obtained from the Zhuge Family!"
It was that good?
The Namgung family head accepted the medicine and hardly knew what to do with himself. He turned the crystal this way and that as though appraising a jewel. Then he seemed to notice something inside it, tilted his head, and asked,
"But inside this blue crystal there appears to be something withered and shriveled. What on earth is that?"
He had spotted what lay within. At my sister's glance that told me to explain, I first clasped my fists and greeted the family head.
"I am Wi So-ryong, Young Lady Hwa-eun's fiancé."
"Ahh, I was so absorbed by the talk of spiritual medicine that I failed to ask. So you are the Tang young lady's betrothed. Well then, what is this thing?"
To his continuing question I answered in a carefully leveled voice.
"I am sorry, but that is something I cannot reveal."
"Ah, is that so? A medicine whose place of discovery would become known if its nature were spoken of, I take it. Very well. I shall not press further."
He looked as though he understood, yet that was not the reason at all. How could I possibly tell him it was a half-rotted, now completely desiccated lizard tail? Everything inside was Seol's severed tail—a rotting lizard tail—and that was why I could not speak.
Who would have guessed that thing would turn into a spiritual medicine?
Honestly, the discovery had been pure chance. After cutting off Seol's tail I had tucked it into my robes as a keepsake, the way I kept the legs of the centipedes' mother or the shells of the centipedes themselves. As time passed the tail dried out and ice-crystal-like formations began to appear. I kept waking up with a freezing chest, checked it, and found it in that state. When we returned to the family and showed it to Grandfather Mandok Singun, he told us it could serve as a spiritual medicine for anyone who practiced ice arts or techniques requiring cold energy. I had wondered how a rotting, shriveled lizard tail could possibly become a spiritual medicine, but on reflection it made perfect sense. Our little blue lizards were fat-tailed species—lizards that lived in harsh environments and stored nutrients in their plump tails. In other words, the yin energy Seol had absorbed from the Snow Ginseng had been stored exactly as it was inside that tail. Even in its rotten, unappealing condition it was enough to make the Namgung people light up with joy. She wasn't just cute; she was a walking treasure.
"At any rate, the fact that you brought this means you must need something in return. What is it you require?"
A sharp one, this family head—he went straight to the exchange conditions. I traded a glance with my sister and asked carefully,
"I have heard that the Namgung Family possesses an Ice Jade. Would it be possible to trade for that?"
His face brightened at once.
"Of course it would! Is anyone there—? No, wait. Eun, go and fetch the Ice Jade from your sister's quarters."
"Yes, Father."
At the family head's words Namgung Eun dashed out. A short while later she returned with slightly flushed cheeks, carrying a bead the size of a billiard ball into the hall.
"This is..."
A sphere of eye-searing blue, much like the crystal formed from the lizard's tail. When I took the bead Namgung Eun offered with a smile, a cool energy flowed into my fingertips—almost the same sensation as touching Seol's tail itself. I passed it to my sister; she verified the energy and nodded. Having personally confirmed the energy of the Snow Ginseng seed, she was no doubt saying the two auras were similar. I quickly bowed my head to the Namgung family head.
"Thank you, Family Head of Namgung."
"We are the ones who should be thanking you. Now we shall have to consult the elders of the family on how best to administer it."
A quick, clean second-hand trade. In my previous life every used-goods transaction had been swarming with villains; the sheer smoothness of this one almost made me nervous.
A deal that satisfied both sides.
Once the exchange was complete, the Namgung family head's voice sounded far more relaxed than before.
"Well then, since you are already here, rest a few days. I shall receive you as honored guests of the family and treat you with every courtesy. Ah, and Young Lady Hwa-eun was acquainted with our Seol, was she not?"
"Yes, Family Head."
"My daughter has recently suffered an unfortunate ordeal. Would you be willing to stay with her a while and offer some comfort? I feel we have kept her cooped up inside the household for far too long."
My sister looked at me with eyes that asked whether that would be all right. A day or two would make little difference to our journey, and she had been fretting over this Namgang Seol since yesterday, so I simply nodded. Her expression brightened a little as she answered the family head.
"I understand, Family Head of Namgung."
A short while later we left the family head's hall and followed Namgung Eun toward the courtyard residences used by the direct line. That was where Young Lady Namgang Seol was said to be confined.
On the path toward the Namgung family's courtyard residences, Namgung Eun pressed a hand to her chest and spoke with the look of someone who had just been saved.
"Thanks to you, Sister, Father's mood has improved. These past few days it has felt as though we were walking on thin ice."
"Ah, is that so? Tell me about it, then. What exactly happened?"
When my sister asked for the story she had promised earlier, Namgung Eun nodded and answered.
"I don't know how much you've heard, but strange rumors began circulating about Sister. That every night she wandered Huangshan draining the... the yang energy of men..."
"Yes, I-I heard that. But it's completely absurd, isn't it?"
In my previous life talk of this sort would have been ordinary even among women, yet the moment "yang energy" was mentioned both young ladies flushed red. At my sister's question Namgung Eun continued.
"Yes. Father and the elders of the family believed that at first as well. But the rascals who claimed Sister had drained their yang energy even knew about the secret mole on her body. Father questioned her to confirm the truth, and... Sister thought he was scolding her for going off alone to train, so she simply agreed to his questions and ended up locked in the closed-door training chamber for several days."
"Good heavens. And then?"
"I went to see her in secret and we confirmed it was all a misunderstanding. But those scoundrels knowing exactly where the mole on Sister's body is... that still can't be explained, can it?"
"That's true."
"In the end Sister had to receive the Shougongsha mark to prove her innocence."
"Merciful heavens..."
Shougongsha? Is that some ritual where you press your thumb to your tongue and your little finger to your forehead?
When I tilted my head at the mention of the Shougongsha, my sister quietly sent me a sound transmission.
The Shougongsha is a mark applied to a woman's body to prove she remains pure and untouched. You raise a lizard inside a jar and feed it cinnabar until its body turns red. Then you grind it in a mortar and stamp the paste onto the woman's skin. If she is pure, the mark can never be washed away by water.
Wh-what do they grind!?
I had no idea what cinnabar was, but it was certainly not lizard food. Given that it turned the creature red, it had to be some kind of dye. Feeding it to a living lizard for its entire life and then grinding the poor thing in a mortar was a tale of pure cruelty. Unicorns were for verifying virginity, not lizards. The sheer insanity of this lizard abuse left me staring wide-eyed.
Then, in the large pavilion at the center of the courtyard, a woman who had been sitting rose to her feet. From the back of her left hand all the way to her wrist, a single crimson peony bloomed like a tattoo.