First Blood: Sohee's Buried Secrets
The ghost possessing my body stuck her fingers into the slack-jawed mouth of the man she was interrogating and said something. Even though I couldn't feel the texture of his skin, the fact that my fingers were touching his saliva was utterly disgusting.
What the hell are you doing?!
She didn't stop there. She brought her fingers right under her nose and sniffed. Then she licked them.
Ew, gross, gross, gross!!!
'This era's truth serum has an interesting formula.'
Hey, you mirror bitch!!! Let's settle this after I get my body back!!! What's your name anyway?
If I hadn't been in an out-of-body state, I would've fallen into qi deviation from sheer rage. Instead, the damn thing calmly checked his pulse like some middle-aged doctor examining a patient.
'Perfect timing. The truth serum will kick in fully in less than half a jwajeon.'
Good. Start by asking how he connected with the Blood Cult!
The Poison Insect Mirror droned on.
'Connect with the Blood Cult? How could a mere merchant approach them first?'
Did that mean the Blood Cult had approached this old man first? I tried piecing it together based on the info I had.
Did he fall victim to the Jucheup Simbeop injection heart technique?
It was a natural guess from the hint she'd dropped—like the Blood Cult's infamous soul-enslavement art. I hadn't formally learned any martial arts yet, but they taught us the basics.
'No, that's not it. Truth serum loses potency on those under soul enslavement.'
At that, I looked down at the Gold Flower Merchant Group's leader. The Form Punishment Hall guys had dosed him with truth serum, which meant he'd colluded with the Blood Cult stone-cold sober! If he wasn't mentally controlled, didn't that make him a straight-up scumbag?
Judging the serum about to peak, the mirror ghost prepared for the interrogation. I fired off a telepathic message laced with fury.
Hey, ask him how the hell he ended up working with the Blood Cult, mirror!
This old man's Gold Flower Merchant Group dealt in literal gold and fancy flowers, as the name suggested. My guess? Their big seller was probably silk from Shu Province, Sichuan's famous specialty. But the Tang Clan's own specialties weren't the point. Somehow, this guy had earned a lifetime gig with the clan as a merchant... which meant becoming a live-in son-in-law. For an insider like that to work for the Blood Cult—what the hell?
As always, the mirror ignored my input.
"Who was the first Blood Cultist you met? Huh? Who put you up to messing around in Tang Family Village?"
The slow drip of confessions frustrated me as I watched. Finally, the merchant leader mumbled a name in his dazed stupor.
"Dang Mihee."
What?
That somewhat old-fashioned name rang a bell. It was Sohee's mother's name.
The Mirror Ghost didn't bat an eye and let out a creepy chuckle.
"Yeah, I figured as much."
Sohee's mom definitely died shortly after Sohee was born...
'Did you see it with your own eyes? You sure?'
The mirror never missed a chance to mock me, even for a second. To keep from exploding like a brat, I mentally recited the Myeong Gyeong Ji Su sutra over and over to calm down. If she wasn't from some other sect or clan but a Tang Clan member skilled in medicine and poison, faking her death would've been child's play. Rumor had it she was a promising late-stage disciple who died young—such a shame. Shame my ass; that crazy bitch was set on destroying the family.
"Was the child's real father a Blood Cult affiliate too?"
The merchant leader nodded.
I heard he was her old lover.
'Not surprised?'
It was unexpected, but compared to Sohee's mom being alive and in the Blood Cult, it was nothing.
That's no shocker.
No matter how beautiful the dead mom was, for the guy who had Tang Family Village's top cutie as a daughter, he looked awfully average. Modern common sense: looks are 100% genetic! I'd studied how Grandpa Mendel dominated those peas. And it made more sense that he abused her because she wasn't his real daughter. Even in a political marriage, putting up with your wife openly cheating and raising the kid as your own? That'd piss anyone off. Solid motive.
Once my thoughts reached that point, my head cooled right down.
Give me back my body. I have questions.
For some reason, the mirror handed control back without a fight. The second I regained my body, I asked,
"Why'd you do that to Sohee?"
No answer. I yanked the chair he was tied to, tipping it over.
Thud!
His head hit the stone floor hard; he couldn't even tense his muscles, collapsing defenselessly. His eyes were completely unfocused.
"If you knew, why didn't you tell the clan sooner? You knew, married her anyway, enjoyed the family's power, lusted after the wealth, and chose to endure it! Why take it out on an innocent kid?!"
"Anger? At whom?"
"You took it out on Sohee because your wife fooled around with another man!"
"No... I was never once angry at my wife..."
Was this truth serum even working? I scowled in doubt, and the mirror explained.
...Even without soul enslavement, if he truly believes that, it's hard to confess.
"Liar! You beat Sohee! And those blood clot marks on her body—what were those?!"
"...I only did what that woman told me to."
I had to double-take at the absurdity.
"What? Why listen to the bitch who cheated and ran off?"
"She said the Blood Cult had my weakness... that I had to cooperate..."
"And you fell for that crap?"
Against my expectations, the merchant leader didn't resent his cheating wife. If anything, he'd fallen head over heels for Dang Mihee and done a ton of stupid shit. Emotional manipulation by cultists? Not my problem. What mattered was a mother meddling even more than just abandoning her daughter. And I couldn't even guess her schemes since I wasn't the cultist here.
A Blood Cult bitch would totally do that...
Did the mirror know a lot about the Blood Cult too? I hadn't left Sichuan soil yet, but I was convinced now. The Blood Cult was evil. All their minions were evil's foot soldiers. True to their rep of never missing a chance to stir shit with the Heavenly Demon Cult in the blood-soaked history of the jianghu, they were insane. Even if the merchant wasn't blood-related, how could someone like Dang Mihee even think of using her own daughter as a sacrifice? My normal brain couldn't fathom it.
'Mirror senior, the Form Punishment Hall hasn't interrogated this guy yet, right?'
Looks that way. They must've dragged their feet trying to coax him.
I'd always pitied Sohee for losing her mom like me. But that woman would've been better off biting her tongue and dying for real—this existence was just a burden on Sohee. It wasn't like her survival was unknown due to circumstances; she'd faked her death. That alone was insane, but her real lover—Sohee's bio dad—was Blood Cult? This was bad. Really bad. Even Bi Yeon Pavilion Master couldn't protect her from something this dire. Both parents from the Blood Cult? She was marked for extraction eventually.
Conveniently, I still held the needle the mirror favored.
'Mirror, how do you kill a guy?'
Planning to obstruct the clan's investigation? Sohee's origins aren't confirmed.
'Doesn't matter. I don't care.'
Thankfully, Sohee herself had only faced light questioning so far. No suspicions on her. If I could seal this merchant leader's mouth forever, no one would ever know about her birth.
Obstructing Form Punishment Hall to cover for the kid's origins?
'Yeah.'
It might all be needless worry. The Tang Clan could be more forgiving than I thought. They might not punish by association even if both parents were Blood Cult. Bi Yeon Pavilion Master might value her talent over blood. Dang Mihee might be a righteous spy for the Murim Alliance. Or the merchant could just be spouting paranoid delusions. But—if there was even a one-in-a-billion chance of harm, could I sit idle? No way in hell. In wuxia tales, kids get screwed over for their parents' sins—it's canon.
'Form Punishment Hall should've interrogated him ages ago instead of wasting time.'
The more I thought, the angrier I got at the clan.
'Then just stab him with the needle as-is.'
'Might as well make it painful.'
'No, you don't know acupoints well yet. Hit the Dangmunhyeol—it's between the chest and heart...'
Disappointing, but I jabbed the needle where the Mirror Ghost indicated, right in the chest.
"Cough..."
Unable to resist thanks to the truth serum, the Gold Flower Merchant Group leader vomited blood and died. Without someone to massage his stopped heart, no chance of survival.
How's your first kill feel?
Refreshing? Whatever.
'Shut up and possess me again.'
Hah?
She'd gotten us into the underground prison, so I had zero confidence escaping. Finding her was clearly heaven's will to help Sohee.
The subordinate in charge of interrogating the Gold Flower Merchant Group leader had been paralyzed by a numbing needle. The fool woke up fine but confessed he remembered nothing of the intruder. Form Punishment Hall Master Dang Jeongseok didn't buy it. When the scene was discovered, the guy's face had held an indescribable shock.
Dang Jeongseok had stripped the incompetent fool—who'd allowed intrusion and let the prisoner die—of his position and sent him east for verification.
"Isn't it some Blood Cult Seuphongong soul manipulation technique?"
You couldn't learn family martial arts via consciousness tampering.
"How many in the clan can truly perform Full Sky Flower Rain?"
The subordinate tilted his head.
"Over a hundred, easily?"
For reference, the Tang Clan's pure combat force was just shy of that hundred. Gold Demon Tide inflation didn't spare the upper ranks. What was once a divine art for the patriarch and pillars had become commonplace. They'd even issued an advisory not to flaunt Full Sky Flower Rain outside to preserve reputation. Not that it was easy—hidden weapons had high freedom, easy to tweak, blurring the line on what counted as authentic.
Form Punishment Hall wasn't run by idiots; they didn't rely on arts everyone knew for security.
"No, someone who knows the origin."
"That'd be the patriarch and elders..."
"Then the culprit might be inside Form Punishment Hall."
The underground prison's entry security—the only art that opened the passages—was the "Full Sky Flower Rain origin." Known as a Tang art, its true root came from some beggar's technique. The Tang had more hidden weapons and serious throwing skills, that's all. Naturally, the perp was an insider who knew the origin. They hadn't recovered the weapon used to open the passage: a stone and tree branch. Left blatantly as provocation, mimicking the origin form perfectly. Admitting the beggar gang leader invented it and the Tang stole it? Embarrassing as hell to spread around.
But Hall Master Dang Jeongseok was displeased for another reason. He grabbed his easy subordinate's shoulder and threw a tantrum worthy of "direct lineage."
"Taejun, how much to overhaul this security?"
"......"
Maybe the real shame wasn't stealing Full Sky Flower Rain—it was that the Blood Cult collaborator got murdered because they'd left the 400-year-old security unchanged.