Spider Web 5
The old man asked me to take good care of Yo-hwa, then began his farewell with her.
With a trembling hand he stroked the spider’s head once more and said,
“Yo-hwa, go with this young master. Your father is old now and can no longer care for you. Do you understand? Cough! Cough! If hunger ever drives you to drain the yang energy of strangers, people may try to harm you. Follow him, and live a long, long life.”
Tears welled in the old man’s eyes and rolled free. Strangely enough, the pedipalp that wore Namgang Seol’s face also shed tears that pattered onto the ground.
The fact that the mimicked eyes could actually cry was startling enough; that the creature could express sorrow was even more astonishing. Watching them, I realized just how carefully the old man must have raised this spider named Yo-hwa.
When a pet understands human speech and answers its master’s emotions, it means the bond forged during rearing has been deep and true. Cleverness, comprehension, and emotional response are all measures of how much time master and companion have spent together.
If she’s like this, he must have kept her almost like a daughter.
A quiet greed stirred in me. Talent this rare was hard to find anywhere. The old man was an experienced hand; he might still be of use in raising Yo-hwa. I asked carefully,
“Elder, would you consider coming with us to Sichuan? Rather than parting here, why not travel together?”
He was advanced in years, yet twenty years of raising Yo-hwa meant he possessed knowledge worth learning. At my cautious invitation the old man smiled through his tears.
“Young master, I am deeply grateful for the offer. But I am no longer of an age that can endure so long a journey. And the graves of my family lie here—how could I leave this place? Cough!”
His illness was plain to see, and he truly was too old for a long voyage by ship. Besides, if his family’s tombs were here, the desire to be buried beside them was only natural. I nodded with genuine regret, then decided to ask what I most wanted to know.
“Then… might you share the experience you gained raising Yo-hwa? I’ve never handled a spider of this kind before.”
He wiped his eyes and nodded, brightening.
“Ask anything you wish. I will answer with all I know.”
A veteran’s words were as good as scripture when it came to husbandry know-how. I began with the question that had been burning in me the longest.
“Ahem. What I most want to know is how one is supposed to give her yang energy…”
Nothing mattered more than food, so of course I was curious how her meals were handled. He had said she needed yang energy, yet I still had no idea how to supply it. That had been my constant puzzle, so I asked first.
His answer was absurd.
“Just let her suck it.”
“S-suck it!?”
I recoiled at the blunt reply. The old man simply lifted one of his own fingers.
“Yes. Let her suck your finger like this. Having her lick the palm or any part of the body works best. Sleeping beside her seems to transfer some yang energy as well. Why so startled? Are you not yet ready to touch her?”
Ah… of course he meant a finger. Why did I tense up for nothing?
I answered,
“N-no. I can touch her.”
I crouched beside him and stroked the spider’s true head. The old man looked thoroughly pleased.
“Just as I thought. My eyes did not deceive me.”
“Then which mouth? The real one, I assume?”
When I asked whether I had to put a finger into the spider’s actual mouth, the old man slipped his own finger between the lips of the pedipalp—the one that still wore Namgang Seol’s face.
“No. The real mouth is used only occasionally, to paralyze prey. She takes yang energy through this one.”
Pedipalps were used both for hunting and for mating; using them to draw in something like yang energy made sense enough.
“Watch. When you place a finger in her mouth, she instantly takes on the form of whoever the donor considers most beautiful.”
Exactly as he said, the pedipalp that had looked like Namgang Seol began to change from the crown of the head downward, the transformation rippling outward like water.
Sssrrrkk…
What emerged was the face of a country woman in her thirties. She was not what most would call a great beauty, yet I suspected she was the face the old man had loved most. I looked at him; he nodded.
“Yes… my late wife. Cough! Cough! Cough!”
He was old and already ailing, and he had just given yang energy to Yo-hwa. A fit of coughing seized him as though he might choke.
“Are you all right!?”
Cold sweat beaded on his brow. When I asked in alarm he gave a bitter smile and nodded.
“Yes. I wanted to see this face once more before I died. I’m glad I could. Don’t worry—I only gave a little. Would you like to try? Hack!”
At his invitation I slid my finger into the pedipalp’s mouth, still shaped like the country wife. A sensation like having sprinted at full power drained through me, and the creature’s form began to change again from the crown of the head.
Sssrrrkk…
Yet something was wrong. What appeared was not a human face at all, but a smooth, red, featureless mannequin-like surface. The old man’s eyes flew wide.
“This!?”
He stared at me, utterly stunned. My own startled face was reflected in the spider’s true eyes as well.
“How…?”
He had said it would become the form I found most beautiful. This felt less like a transformation and more like the mimicry simply falling away. The old man’s voice shook with confusion.
“I’ve never seen this either. This is the very shape Yo-hwa showed only once, before she ever took human form…”
Seeing the spider’s true appearance was fascinating, but the burning gazes of the Poisonous Creature Squad warriors behind me made my neck prickle. This was trouble.
The warriors of the Namgung Family and the villagers around Mount Huang all praised Namgang Seol’s beauty. The only reason Yo-hwa had been able to maintain that face was that nearly everyone here agreed she was the loveliest woman around. Therefore she could keep looking like Namgang Seol without effort.
In exactly the same way, the warriors of our Tang Family almost certainly regarded my lady as the pinnacle of beauty. Remembering what Commander Gu Pae had said back on Hainan Island, I was sure of it: the men of the Tang Family worshipped Dang Hwa-eun’s looks—the pride of the Tang Family, one of the greatest beauties of the Central Plains.
And yet after sucking my yang energy—her supposed fiancé’s—Yo-hwa had not turned into my lady?
They would regard that as nothing short of treason. When she fed from me she had to become Hwa-eun. Absolutely!
And what if my lady herself learned of this? After I had begged for a chance, if some other form appeared—or none of her at all—the problem would be catastrophic.
“Ah—perhaps her body is still paralyzed and she can’t transform properly!”
“Ah, that could be. Cough!”
I papered over the crisis with a hasty excuse, asked the old man a few more practical questions, then requested that Commander Gu Pae escort him safely home.
The moment that was done I sprinted for my lady.
No matter how I turned it over, the reason Yo-hwa had not become Hwa-eun had to be that I had never truly felt her myself.
Surely even I, who loves venomous creatures, don’t love them more than my lady—enough for her true form to appear? There has to be another reason.
Looking and admiring were not enough. I needed skinship that would burn her image into my mind.
So I asked the Namgung servants the way and found the private courtyard of the Namgung main bloodline. In the same pavilion where I had once met Namgang Seol, my lady was deep in conversation with her. I seized her wrist.
“Miss, I have something urgent to discuss. Please come with me a moment.”
“S-So-ryong? Wh-why—?”
“Oh my!”
Both women flushed at my sudden wildness. My lady looked startled yet did not refuse. Pretending to yield, she let herself be pulled by the wrist into a quiet thicket deeper inside the Namgung grounds.
I checked our surroundings, stopped, and she asked in a tense voice,
“So-ryong… wh-what is the meaning of this?”
I lowered my voice deliberately.
“Please listen without misunderstanding. No—actually, misunderstanding might not be so bad either.”
“Pardon?”
Well, since things had come this far, a little misunderstanding might even help.
“Miss, this is sudden, but… may I hold you?”
“Whaaat!?”
She recoiled at the request to be embraced. But this was an emergency. If Yo-hwa became my lady, both of us would be happier for it.
I simply gazed at her. Her face turned scarlet; her fingers fidgeted. Then, in a voice no louder than an ant’s, she said,
“Ah… so you figured it out…”
I had only asked for a single hug, yet she seemed to think I had uncovered something. I blinked in confusion. She hastily began to explain, as though correcting a misunderstanding.
“I-it wasn’t certain, so I didn’t say anything. I only read about it in books, so I couldn’t be sure. I was going to confirm it properly with Grandfather or Father once we returned to the family…”
What is she talking about?
Her answer made no sense to me. Yet she interpreted my stare as something else entirely. She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded.
“Y-yes, that’s right. The spider’s name is the Human-faced Spider—Inmyeonjiju. One of the… T-Ten Great Poisons.”
What!? I was given one of the Ten Great Poisons!?
I had known the spider was extraordinary, but one of the legendary ten? My lady—normally so cool and composed—scraped the ground with the tip of her shoe, clearly flustered.
“I-I never meant to deceive you, So-ryong. I-I’ve never even heard of one that changes its whole body like this. I thought it best to be certain first…”
I had wondered why she was so embarrassed; then I remembered our contract. If I captured one of the Ten Great Poisons, she would become mine. Apparently the condition had been fulfilled far sooner than she expected, and she was thrown off balance.
Still, a contract was a contract. I simply looked at her without answering. She squeezed her eyes shut again, spread her arms, and gave a tiny nod.
It felt rather like she was offering a reward.
After that brief time spent burning my lady into my mind, I returned to the training ground repeating a million times inside my head that she was the most beautiful woman alive. While her warmth still lingered, I slipped my finger into the mouth of the somewhat recovered spider. Slowly, she began to change into my lady’s form.
Yes!
Only then did the warriors of the Tang Family’s Poisonous Creature Squad look at me again with proper respect.
Nothing in this world is ever easy.
The Human-faced Spider Yo-hwa recovered her strength in roughly two days.
“I’ll let you out tomorrow, so stay quiet just one more day.”
Kish!
Once she woke, I learned another fact: Yo-hwa was far more docile than expected. I had imagined she would be unable to endure hunger without yang energy, yet as long as her belly was full she was perfectly obedient and well-mannered. Spiders are not especially active creatures to begin with; most of the time she simply rested as though asleep.
Of course, the way she had smashed her own cage open when we tried to release her after leaving the Namgung estate proved she was neither weak nor timid.
On the day we finally departed the Namgung Family, unhappy news awaited Yo-hwa.
When we visited the old man’s house to say a last farewell, we found he had already returned to his family’s embrace.
Kishii…
Yo-hwa clung to the dead man and wept for a long while. Instead of ordinary burial clothes we wrapped him in her silk, then laid him to rest beside the family graves she herself guided us to.
“Elder, may you be reborn in the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss. I will care for Yo-hwa for the rest of my life. Yo-hwa… will you come with me, as your father wished?”
Kishit!
After a simple funeral we hurried on. We reached Anqing, the nearest port to the Namgung estate. The shipmaster was reluctant to carry a spider of that size, but a generous extra payment finally secured our berth.
The moment we boarded, the ship began to work its way upriver—toward Sichuan, where the Tang Family and my little stone-scale friends were waiting.