The Poisoned Chalice
"And if I have no intention of going after the Geumho Merchant Company's head, you'll simply give this to me? Assuming, of course, that you didn't forge it yourself?"
"You're welcome to take it and verify for yourself. Hand-feeding you every little detail would be a bit too... intimate for our relationship, don't you think?"
Don't be coy with me!
Perhaps because his face was already pale, the flush creeping over it made the act all the more transparent. The shudder that swept through Sanlong's whole body lasted only a moment before he replied with a perfectly indifferent expression.
"Honestly speaking, you didn't even have to give me this, did you? After all, the only reason your side protects the Geumho Merchant Company is to pave your way into Chengdu. The real reason you're handing this over is to stir up trouble inside my clan. Am I wrong?"
"Trouble within the Tang Clan, you say..."
"The more chaotic and preoccupied we are, the more smoothly your move into Chengdu will proceed."
Dan Haseong listened quietly, then chuckled. "It is simply my goodwill toward the Poison Tyrant."
"Goodwill?"
"Yes. I understand you may find that hard to believe, but... is there anything here where the Poison Tyrant stands to lose?"
There were a few things that bothered him, admittedly — but the benefit certainly looked larger.
"The Poison Tyrant and Eon Jungmi? Hmm... their story is quite famous within the Tang Clan."
He's openly admitting he has spies planted in our house?
"We're well aware that the Tang Clan has its own spies inside Paedolim, you know?"
Both sides had indeed planted moles in each other's camps, though it was more a matter of roughly tracking conditions within the rival faction than gathering anything truly critical.
"And even without spies, anyone with even a passing interest in the Tang Clan would know it. It's hardly a secret."
The relationship between Eon Jungmi and Tang Sanlong really was that well known. If anything, the notoriety seemed to work in Sanlong's favor — enduring the venomous Eon Jungmi year after year and steadily racking up accomplishments against her made people marvel at him all the more.
"The name Eon Jungmi is written all over that ledger. Along with a rather outlandish flow of funds. She even laundered the Inryong Squad's money this way and that through the Geumho Merchant Company's head."
"What?"
He hadn't known that part. Apparently the ledger contained far more than he'd imagined.
"When they purchased the Centennial Elixir recently, the money skimmed from the Inryong Squad's operating budget wasn't enough, so she borrowed even from the Jinju Eon family. And of course, that same Jinju Eon family borrowed the money from the Cheonha Merchant Company in the Tang Clan's name."
The Cheonha Merchant Company was the largest in the Central Plains, and it lent money too — its collection squads, staffed entirely by First-Rate martial artists at minimum, were notorious. There was even a saying: if you have no means to repay, never borrow from Cheonha at all.
"Damn it..."
A curse spilled from Sanlong's lips before he could stop it. He had joked with Tang Chiyeol that the woman would sell the Tang Clan to the Demonic Cult if it served her son — but now, feeling it anew, he realized the joke hadn't gone nearly far enough.
"Poison Tyrant, this ledger will prove an even more powerful weapon than you think."
So this is what it's like — knowing the goodwill hides a poisoned heart, and having to accept it anyway? Sanlong ran through the possibilities again and again, but his quick, pragmatic mind simply could not fully unravel Dan Haseong's intent.
Damn it all...
"If you're a Tang clansman, then think like one — with your head, not your heart."
So this is what a poisoned chalice is. Now that I'm actually drinking it, it's driving me insane.
Perhaps because they had been rivals for so long, they understood each other far too well. In the end, Sanlong's hand reached for the ledger. Since it had come to this, he resolved to squeeze out whatever more he could.
"Fine. I'll accept your 'goodwill.' Since we're here anyway, why not be even more generous?"
"Only so long as I don't overextend myself. I'd like to keep things on good terms with the Poison Tyrant, you see."
Dan Haseong gazed at him steadily once more, then gave a slight wink.
Suddenly that hidden poisoned heart of his is less frightening than this damn goodwill of his.
"Put those creepy eyes away. How about releasing my clan members now?"
"I shall. I have no desire to make things any more tedious than they already are."
"Stop chasing the ones who ran, too, and let go of anyone you've caught. Since you're so eager to avoid tedium."
"Hmm..."
Watching Dan Haseong hesitate, Sanlong frowned. "What is it? Is there a problem?"
Don't tell me someone's already dead, or badly injured?
At Sanlong's bristling reaction, Dan Haseong laughed awkwardly. "It's nothing of the sort... it's just that we never chased them in the first place."
"What?"
It seemed Dan Haseong had intended to take Sanlong alone from the very beginning.
"We formed the encirclement to capture the Poison Tyrant and no one else. There was no need to antagonize Cheongsong, the foremost swordsman of the Qingcheng Sect, and add enemies — and catching some single Cheonryong Squad member wouldn't have meant anything anyway. To put the conclusion simply: had we not done it this way, we would never have caught you."
Dan Haseong had been genuinely startled by the Poison Tyrant's skill — far beyond what the rumors of a First-Rate martial artist had led him to expect.
So it was me, and only me, from the start?
Sanlong had the distinct, unpleasant sensation of being a performing monkey dancing and clapping cymbals on the man's open palm.
"Catching a Cheonryong Squad member would've been a better deal than catching me, you know. They know far more than I do."
At that, Dan Haseong spoke with what sounded like genuine regret. "Poison Tyrant, you need a better grasp of your own position. The direct line of the Tang Clan may be losing ground to the collateral branches within the clan, but the authority the direct line commands in name — in the world's eyes — no collateral branch would dare lay hands on. Are you seriously comparing some rank-and-file squad member to the Third Young Master of the direct line? To the hero of Seoksu Village, now called the Poison Tyrant — long past being anyone's errand boy?"
To be acknowledged by Dan Haseong of Paedolim — the very faction that opposes us. This feels... weirdly strange.
"I'll grant your instinct to keep squeezing for more, but I believe I've already given you quite enough."
"It's not as if you're giving it for free. Quit patting yourself on the back."
Sanlong tucked the ledger carefully into his robes. "I know full well it's a poisoned chalice — and I'll gladly drink it anyway."
"A poisoned chalice?"
"There's one. From the Western Regions — a holy relic sometimes called the Holy Grail. Think of it as a sacred wine cup, more or less."
"Hmm... poison held within a holy grail. An amusing metaphor. I'll make a note of it."
Sanlong rose slowly from his seat. "Let's make sure we never see each other again."
"Do meet again, by all means."
"I said never meet again."
"Do Paedolim and the Tang Clan stop meeting simply because they wish not to? In that spirit — how about we become friends next time?"
Leaving behind Dan Haseong, who exhaled a plume of pipe smoke along with a smile designed to set any woman's heart fluttering, Sanlong gathered the Cheonryong Squad members and departed the Geumho Merchant Company's grounds.
"Unnaturally heavy, this thing."
As Sanlong's figure dwindled into the distance, Woo Jong-seon, commander of the Mad Blood Unit, approached Dan Haseong, who was watching him go over the mouth of his long pipe.
"May I ask why you surrendered the ledger?"
"Did you think it would serve us better to use it ourselves — to strike some damage into the Tang Clan however we could?"
"Just as you said, Unit Commander — because it's such a powerful weapon."
At Woo Jong-seon's words, Dan Haseong's tea had gone cold. He sipped it anyway — the fragrance still lingering intact — and spoke quietly as he gazed at the moon.
"In our hands, that ledger is merely dangerous. In Tang Sanlong's hands, it becomes something far more powerful. A divine weapon must have its rightful master, must it not? And the master of that divine weapon called a ledger is Tang Sanlong."
"...I beg your pardon?"
"Now that we are pushing into Chengdu — would you prefer the Tang Clan's internal affairs to be calm and orderly, or in disarray?"
The question struck Woo Jong-seon like a blow to the back of the head. Watching him, Dan Haseong continued.
"If we wielded that ledger? It would only backfire — uniting the Tang Clan against a common enemy named Paedolim. At least for a while."
"...I see it now."
Dan Haseong drew deep on his pipe.
"The ledger Tang Sanlong carries will become an oasis in the desert for the Clan Lord, who has spent long years lying in wait for his chance. Our own expansion into his territory will be an inconvenience to him, yes... but—"
The tea had gone cold, and a faint bitterness rose on his tongue.
"Striking down the collateral branches is the Clan Lord's older, deeper longing. To purge the collateral faction from one of the five armed bodies of the clan? He will never, ever let this chance slip away. He'll find it nearly impossible to resist the temptation of that poisoned chalice."
Dan Haseong was putting Sanlong's own lessons to immediate use.
"Hah..."
Then he slowly tipped the last of the cold tea from his cup into his mouth and quietly gazed at the moon.
"Just now... talking with the Poison Tyrant, I was rather startled."
"You mean when he grasped your intention, Young Master of the Forest?"
"Koff! Yes... Dealing with the Tang Clan is exhausting work. He couldn't have been certain, but he seemed to intuit my intent on pure instinct alone."
"So he'll move to purge Eon Jungmi as quickly as he possibly can."
"Yes. He'll feel it in his bones and act on it. We may need to hurry as w— koff! Koff!"
"Young Master! Your medicine!"
"It's fin— koff!"
The pain of lungs threatening to tear apart, and the headache surging in its wake, drained Dan Haseong's face to chalk. "Koff! Koff!"
He coughed in agonized fits for a long while, and only once the worst had passed did he fix his eyes on the moonlight and slowly gather his breath.
"Whew..."
The moonlight and his ashen face made for an oddly fitting pair.
Did you know that even the collateral branches of the Tang Clan had their own factions?
Those who had been granted the clan surname in the clan's early days, or who had once belonged to the direct line before being demoted to collateral status, formed the old collateral. Those granted the surname later formed the new collateral.
The five great families that anchored the collateral branch were all former members of the direct line. They regarded those granted the surname after them as lesser Tangs, not true clansmen, and subtly looked down on them.
In short: within the collateral branch itself, a hierarchy had taken root.
The oppressed new collateral had two possible stances they could take: attach themselves beneath the old collateral and somehow blend in with them — or stand against them and place themselves under the direct line's protection.
By and large, the former ate well and lived well, while the latter led rather harder lives, you might say. And so the new collateral who sided with the direct line were few, and the old collateral faction naturally came to dominate the branch's power.
But could those few be dismissed? Absolutely not. They were men who had survived under constant threat for generations — gamblers who never let an opportunity pass them by.
And at last, their opportunity had arrived.
The ledger Sanlong carried home was precisely that opportunity.
"We must seize Eon Jungmi at once!"
"Embezzlement! Borrowing from the Cheonha Merchant Company in the Tang Clan's name! Where on earth is there such a madwoman!"
"How dare you speak so of the Inryong Squad Commander's wife!"
"You still call a traitor to the Tang Clan 'wife'? Are you one of them?! You must be — otherwise you wouldn't be protecting someone implicated in this affair!"
"Traitor? You would do well to watch your tongue!"
"Or what? Shall you hire villains like that wretch Gui Sam-sal to kill us too — just as you did the poor members of the Tang Youth Unit's Seventh Squad?"
"You insolent wretch!"
The conflict between the two factions was reaching its boiling point.
Another day, another circus. Caught in the middle of it all, Sanlong found it suddenly hard to breathe.
Ugh!
An overwhelming pressure flooded the Clan Lord's hall.
"Enough, all of you. From this moment, no one opens their mouth without my leave."
"Clan Lord! Would you silence honest counsel— urk... hrrgh! Khk!"
One of the old collateral, puffing himself up with bravado, suddenly vomited blood and collapsed where he stood. A slender hidden weapon, thrown from no one knew when, was embedded in his throat.
"Khk! Hrrgh!"
"Clan Lord!"
Just as the old collateral moved to protest, killing intent bloomed from the Clan Lord's body like a rising tide.
"Please, continue. I will take at least half of you down with me."
"Ahem..."
"Hoo..."
If the Clan Lord came at them prepared to die, the collateral branch could win — but they would have to accept that half of them would truly perish. This precarious balance held for one reason only: neither side had ever made the extreme choice. Push him any further here, and there was no telling what the Clan Lord might do.
This time there's no help for it.
The justification is too airtight!
Damn it all!
We mustn't be caught in it!
Once everyone had turned into honey-mouthed mutes, the Clan Lord, Tang Mun-seong, opened his mouth at last.
"Confine that man to the prison cells. He may be connected to Eon Jungmi."
It was a grim warning: anyone who sheltered Eon Jungmi from this point on would be dragged into the same net.
Once the hall was cleared, Tang Mun-seong spoke.
"Tang Sanlong."
"Yes, Clan Lord."
"Lead the Dark Dragon Squad and apprehend Tang Woo and Eon Jungmi. Execute the duty of the direct line in my stead."
The duty of the direct line was simple: to personally carry out punishment upon any clansman who had committed a crime against the clan. Put plainly, Sanlong was to act as the Clan Lord's proxy and go to take Tang Woo and Eon Jungmi.
"Any who bar your way are traitors to the Tang Clan — punish them on the spot, without delay. Whoever they may be."
"I receive your command."
"We receive your command!"
And so Sanlong and the Dark Dragon Squad departed the Clan Lord's hall.