Chapter 81
Chapter 81
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 81
Chapter Title: Prime Culprit
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"Namgung Shin, you can come in now."
"Yes!"
The moment Wi Sowol's command rang out, Namgung Shin came rushing in like a green recruit snapping to attention.
First glancing at Wi Sowol's expression, Namgung Shin quickly turned to tend to his younger sister, Namgung Hee.
"Hee-ya, how are you feeling? A bit better? Did you at least get some acupuncture?"
"No, nothing like that..."
"Ph-Physician?"
Namgung Shin turned to Wi Sowol in bewilderment.
Wi Sowol sat perfectly at ease in the chair, as if she were in her own home.
It was a chair so worn it made one wonder if this was truly the Namgung Clan seat.
Yet with Wi Sowol—mask removed—sitting there, it took on the air of some storied antique rosewood armchair brimming with history.
And that was why.
"Shin, be quiet for a moment."
"Ah, uh, yes..."
Namgung Shin simply couldn't fathom defying that little girl's words.
Not even him, the sort who made most martial instructors despair.
Wi Sowol's mind was a tangled mess, even as she casually silenced Namgung Shin.
Her resolve to spend the day atop Dengwang Pavilion lost in thoughtless reverie had apparently been swept away with those rapids.
But it was worth it.
"Namgung Shin."
As if he'd been waiting for his name, Namgung Shin answered at once.
"Yes!"
"You know what illness your sister has, right?"
"Well..."
"Syphilis."
Namgung Shin bowed his head deeply.
Namgung Hee, listening from the side, wore a sorrowful expression as she gently stroked her brother's clothes.
Her careful touch, avoiding any skin contact, brimmed with tender sibling affection.
"Syphilis is mainly divided into three stages—or four, if you look at it more broadly."
Wi Sowol gave a brief rundown of syphilis's three stages.
First stage: Chancres.
Ulcers form, but without pain.
Painless and hard.
Second stage: Secondary syphilis.
Ulcers spread in earnest.
Rash, fever, fatigue, and intense pain.
Third stage: Tertiary syphilis.
Gummas and osteitis appear.
Necrosis advances, leaving the mind fractured.
"Your sister is in the second stage: secondary syphilis. If it progresses to tertiary, she's all but dead—even if she survives, it won't be living. Her qi and blood are already deficient, so the risk of advancing is high."
It was effectively a death sentence.
Namgung Shin's body trembled violently.
Terror and grief over his sister's impending death.
And a churning storm of killing intent and rage.
"Who infected her?"
"...Physician. Really, our Hee didn't... She's truly innocent..."
"I know. That's why I'm saying someone deliberately infected her."
Malicious.
Medicine of the era had already largely mapped syphilis transmission.
The most common was, of course, sexual intercourse.
Yet even diluted through the Western Regions, its contagion was vicious—mere contact with the ulcers could infect.
Sexual transmission was near-certain due to mucosal contact.
Even without ulcers, wound transmission had been confirmed during massive outbreaks in Guangdong.
In short, it spread without sex.
And that was knowledge anyone investigating syphilis would uncover quickly.
"Who did it?"
Unlike Namgung Hee's hesitation, Namgung Shin unleashed his pent-up fury without restraint.
"That bitch... has to be her. Namgung Yowan. Symptoms showed up after that bitch laid hands on my sister."
"Namgung Yowan?"
Water under the bridge now, it seemed—Namgung Hee picked up the thread.
"The elder Namgung Su's daughter. She always bullied us siblings... Finally, my brother couldn't take it and gave her a proper scolding. Thought she'd quieted down after that, but..."
"She suddenly challenged Hee to a spar."
It had been an intense bout, enough to draw blood from both.
A duel in all but name.
And Namgung Yowan had extended her hand first, claiming reconciliation...
"There."
"Yes? But after that, she didn't insult me or Brother like before..."
"That Yowan girl. Her palm must've split open, right? Blood flowing?"
"Ah... yes."
"Syphilis spreads through blood too."
"Th-then doesn't that mean Yowan has syphilis? She kept going after..."
"I said three stages earlier, but broadly four."
Syphilis had a latent period.
No symptoms, mistaken for a cure—or unaware from the start.
It varied wildly, recurring as secondary or tertiary, so not separately classified.
"Even without latency, she could've secretly smeared someone else's infected blood."
No wound on herself, but faking one by rubbing a syphilis patient's blood on intact skin, then touching Namgung Hee's open wound.
No guarantee of infection.
But no guarantee against it either.
The result: Namgung Hee was infected.
And progressing unusually fast for the timeline.
As if she'd unluckily caught an exceptionally virulent strain.
"Understood for now. Namgung Su. Namgung Yowan. I'll verify separately."
Wi Sowol rose from her seat.
There was nothing more she could do for Namgung Hee right now.
She could guess why Namgung Hee shunned treatment.
'To prove her chastity. Honor... what nonsense.'
The Namgung Clan.
That name held immense weight.
Its ancient history forged fame; its substance, honor.
Clan members prized the family name above their own lives.
At least on the surface.
Thus, the clan's retainers had to embody honor outwardly.
Something like contracting syphilis was unforgivable.
'Foolish.'
Refusing treatment, clinging to miracles.
Idiotic.
Not the Namgung Shin she remembered.
He who'd scorn fame by embedding "slave" in his own title.
Who scorned honor as grotesque, thrusting blades into the surrendered and disarmed.
That was the Namgung Shin she knew.
The Sword Ghost.
"W-wait a moment."
Namgung Shin grabbed her upper arm.
Another thing he would never have done.
"The treatment—Hee's treatment, what happens?"
"Impossible right now."
"No...!"
Despair sapped the strength from Namgung Shin's grip.
His arm fell limply away.
This wasn't the man he was.
His powerlessness grated on Wi Sowol for some reason.
"Namgung Shin."
A call in a different tone from before.
Not the prior dryness—this carried emotion.
Collar seized, head forced up, Namgung Shin met eyes without a shred of doubt.
"Listen well. I am Wi Sowol. I studied medicine under the Weird Physician Ma Yu Seung. And no patient of mine has gone uncured yet."
The words she'd spat in her past life echoed in Wi Sowol's ears like tinnitus.
"I said impossible now—did I say can't? Don't worry. I'll cure your sister."
"So wait."
Wi Sowol inwardly sneered at herself.
No comrades taken, no friends deemed, no disciples claimed—yet.
'Well remembered, indeed.'
If they meant nothing, she'd have forgotten them all.
See.
"...What must I do? What must I offer? How do I pay?"
Even those words lingered.
And to them, she had replied:
"Already paid."
Three women strolled the Namgung Clan grounds.
Wi Sowol, emerging after soothing Namgung Shin that way, joined by the waiting Hwangbo Yun and Namgung Ji.
"Who'd have thought those two were connected to Lady Wi. Their father an acquaintance of the Weird Physician... If the main house had known earlier, they wouldn't be stuck as low-rank warriors."
"Isn't that precisely why your master keeps such people as acquaintances?"
Wi Sowol silently dispatched an apology letter to the Weird Physician in her mind.
She'd send a real one later.
No choice.
Showing up out of nowhere for Namgung Shin would raise eyebrows—no ties whatsoever.
Plain suspicious.
In the end, she had to borrow her master's name.
Claiming the brothers' father was an old acquaintance, and as his disciple, she was looking after the master's friend's children.
A fairly convincing excuse—Namgung Ji seemed to buy it.
A lie more true than truth.
The real story later: Namgung Shin defected to the Sword Ghost Society, and she'd happened to pass through briefly and learn of it.
Who'd believe that?
Crazy talk.
'Unavoidable...'
She'd given the siblings a rough explanation, so she'd properly confess when she next met the Weird Physician.
As Wi Sowol pondered, her thoughts delved deeper into the corners of that event.
Once her brain started recalling, even the hazy bits sharpened vividly.
'Namgung Shin killed someone when he left the clan. Probably Namgung Su or Namgung Yowan.'
In the Sword Ghost Society, it was too commonplace to count as gossip.
Only if you slaughtered your master and brothers, torched the sect, did you earn, "Now that's a proper one."
Shared surname? Big deal.
Killing someone who wasn't master or parent? Routine.
So the oddity wasn't why Namgung Shin killed his Namgung kin—but the how that followed.
'How did Namgung Shin escape the Namgung Clan alone back then?'
Namgung Shin's talent was top-tier even in the clan.
Indeed, Sword Ghost Namgung Shin had reached super first-class.
Wi Sowol knew his talent better than anyone.
But at the time of fleeing the Namgung Clan, that talent hadn't fully bloomed.
Yet somehow, he'd made it to the Sword Ghost Society in Wuling County.
Simply because Nanchang and Wuling were nearby?
Or riding the Yangtze currents?
No such thing.
The Namgung Clan's Cheongan Pavilion blanketed all of Jiangxi Province.
Within Jiangxi, its intel outstripped even the Beggars' Sect or Hao Sect.
Plus the Namgung's pride: the Ten Sword Squads.
Namgung Shin dodging Cheongan's eyes and the Ten Squads' blades alone to reach the Society?
Even highly rating him, hard to swallow.
'One of two. The clan was unaware of his killings. Or the clan wasn't normal.'
Judging by the vibrant bustle and energy in the manor now, not the latter...
"Ah, hooked you, huh? Can't be helped. This Mid-Autumn is extra special. Not a single lantern wasted."
"Impressive."
"The real marvel's elsewhere. The Lantern Festival's highlight: the Spirit Moon Rite. If the whole festival's a dragon painting by night, the Rite's the eyeball. The finishing touch, like the legend."
Namgung Ji rattled on: what the Spirit Moon Rite was, its prestige, the supreme honor for a woman to serve as the vase there.
"Curious? Come see. This Moonfire Dress uses twelve silk panels—symbolizing the months. Folds mimic each month's moon phase. Boldly skipped goose yellow or scallion green; pure harmony from bluish moon-white to snow white. We even splurged on that pricey Western silk. Whew... Honestly, I want to wear it myself."
Naturally, clan-hosted—no wearing your own creation, lest the gossip.
"If it comes to it, I'll step up"—a polite way of vowing total responsibility.
Anyway, her masterpiece Moonfire Dress.
She'd anticipated while designing, but the finished product left her breathless in awe.
Thus, Namgung Ji was certain.
Even Wi Sowol would beg to wear it!
"Eldest Young Lady!"
Before the Spirit Moon Rite prep room storing the Moonfire Dress, a man dashed up to Namgung Ji.
A vassal who'd discussed the vase role with her before Dengwang Pavilion.
"Found one! No worries. Perfect fit—spot on!"
Namgung Ji's face fell in realization at the vassal's excited words.
Forgot to relay amid the rush.
Was about to when Wi Sowol arrived.
"Ahem, good. But I've brought a vase candidate too. Awkward now. Fetch yours first. I think mine's ideal, but explaining the situation and giving both a fair shot—that's the righteous path, no?"
"Ah, that tall, elegant..."
"No, the one beside."
The vassal, eyeing Hwangbo Yun with an "ooh, not bad" look, belatedly spotted Wi Sowol and gasped.
"R-right away!"
"Indeed."
Namgung Ji puffed her chest proudly for no reason.
Wi Sowol had never agreed to the vase role.
And nothing came of dangling it anyway.
Wi Sowol paid little heed to the chatter around her up to then.
Vase role?
Just say no.
She'd achieved her purpose here.
Came at Namgung Ji's nudge; seized chance to meet Namgung Shin; removed mask at family request despite the stares, and wandered unveiled.
Now just say goodbye...
'Ah, yes. So that's it.'
Wi Sowol muttered inwardly at the sight of the other vase candidate approaching.
Perfectly suited to the vase role in appearance.
A beautiful face with a dreamy air.
Her slender movements turned mere walking into a dance.
And astonishingly, her hair was pure white.
Wi Sowol might have had that color too, without Great White Light True Qi to tame her Nine Yin Absolute Meridian.
But Wi Sowol's interest lay not in that mystical allure.
She knew who the woman was.
And eyed the shadows behind her.
'You lot.'
Like scattered pearls strung on a single thread.
The jumbled fragments in Wi Sowol's mind clicked together, forming a clear picture.
The Sword King lost to debauchery, abandoning clan duties.
Liu Yeonseo, in a Hao-less brothel alley, wielding costly herbs.
Yowan unscathed, yet Namgung Hee ravaged by syphilis.
Namgung Shin's theoretically impossible escape.
All tying into why the Namgung Clan couldn't be normal.
The answer: the group that white-haired woman belonged to.
Those wandering in pursuit of utopia at salvation's end—their own paradise, the True Void Hometown.
The Ten Freaks of the Outer Paths.
Mijin Hometown.
'White Lotus Cult rabble.'
And where they were, usually lurked one more deviant path.
'Reverse Heaven Alliance must be here too.'
If they'd come to Nanchang County.
Their goal was clear.
The Namgung Clan's ruin.