The Tang Clan's Matriarch (1)
That afternoon, not far from there, stood the temporary mountain stronghold of the Green Forest powerhouse, Cheon Geum-jeok-wang. After finishing her morning training and bathing, Cheon Geum-jeok-wang was approached by her only blood relative—her daughter, eyes brimming with tears.
“Hwaaaah, Moooom!”
“Oh dear, Su-jin, you’re here? Huh? Y-you! What’s wrong with your face?”
Contrary to her fearsome reputation in the jianghu, she was endlessly gentle with her daughter alone. Hearing the girl’s words, she could not contain her fury.
“Hnnngh, that idiot pulled out his dick and started babbling about holy water and every little detail……”
The moment she glimpsed her daughter’s dainty nipples through the disheveled outer robe,
her mind went blank for an instant.
“That perverted bastard! How dare he lay a hand on our precious Su-jin!”
She stomped her foot. The stone floor of the bathhouse the bandits had hastily built for her cracked like a turtle shell.
“Huuueeh, Mom, what’s wrong? Pervert? If he’s a pervert… isn’t he Su-jin’s daddy? Hiiing, does that mean Su-jin found her daaaddy!?”
“N-no, Su-jin. It’s not like that……”
Cheon Geum-jeok-wang spent nearly half an hour soothing Su-jin before she could summon her subordinates.
“You lot! Drag that bastard before me right now! No, I’ll go myself!”
Before nearly a thousand female bandits trembling in fear, her unrestrained killing intent surged in all directions.
Before returning to the bed where Tang Seo-rin slept, she left traces suggesting the female bandit had escaped on her own. After dozing in Tang Seo-rin’s embrace for about an hour, the expected report arrived.
“It seems that bold wench has fled.”
One of the Tang Clan’s escort warriors who had stayed near the stable window reported with a guilty expression. She waved him away with a gentle smile.
“It can’t be helped. Everyone worked hard yesterday. As long as we keep the fact that we captured the bandit to ourselves and don’t report it to the main house, there won’t be any problems.”
After troubling her broad, honest chest, they ate a late breakfast and departed the inn at a leisurely pace. Only in the late afternoon did they finally enter a vast village. Stretching along the riverbank, the settlement lacked walls yet featured training grounds large enough for massive drills, a plaza that could seat at least three thousand, and towering, imposing buildings in the distance—resembling a frontier fortress.
“We still have a ways to go. This is only Tang Ga-ta now.”
As they approached the village center, the crowds grew so dense that they only reached the enormous walls—worthy of a royal palace—by sunset.
“This is the main house of the Sichuan Tang Clan, my lord.”
The title “my lord” now slipped naturally from Tang Seo-rin’s lips even in front of the escorts and coachmen. Feeling her soft body clinging to his arm, he recalled what she had said after leaving the inn that morning. As a distant branch member of the Tang Clan, she enjoyed relative freedom and claimed no one would gossip if she stayed close and flirted with him. The place before them was the main Tang residence, currently occupied by the young clan heir Tang Hyo-bong, barely past twenty, and his mother Geum-ran.
“Then the clan lord is not present?”
“He went to Yunnan over ten years ago in search of poisonous herbs and vanished……”
“How unfortunate. What of the succession?”
“Well… this is a secret, but……”
Indeed, the Tang Clan, long without its lord, harbored stories too shameful to share openly. Publicly, Geum-ran had once been a courtesan in nearby Chengdu. After spending a passionate night with the then-young clan lord Tang Mu-jin, she arrived at the Tang estate carrying his son. Since Tang Mu-jin had recently lost his wife and had no legitimate or illegitimate heirs, he gladly accepted both mother and child, making Geum-ran his official wife rather than a concubine. Yet darkness soon followed. Once inside the clan, Geum-ran seized the position of main wife and her son became the young heir. However, as Tang Hyo-bong grew, it became painfully obvious he bore no resemblance to Tang Mu-jin beyond a single toe. The whispers began. Unlike the direct Tang bloodline, famed for innate resistance to poisons and extraordinary talent in poison arts, Tang Hyo-bong possessed neither talent nor tolerance for any martial art or toxin. The elders naturally began questioning Geum-ran’s fidelity and the boy’s true parentage. One by one, elders disappeared—vanishing without trace, assassinated, or even poisoned. For an elder of the Tang Clan to fall to poison meant someone had used a toxin beyond even their legendary “Thousand Poisons Immunity.” Suspicion inevitably pointed to the main residence. Public sentiment within the clan grew hostile, and the lord’s authority crumbled. Tang Mu-jin spent months investigating the poisons used on the elders before departing for Yunnan in search of the legendary Cloud Fragrance Leaf, said to neutralize all toxins. He never returned.
“…That is all that is publicly known up to Tang Ga-ta. In truth……”
Upon discovering that the poison sac of the Human-Faced Spider—guarded for generations in the clan lord’s hall—had vanished, Tang Mu-jin confronted Geum-ran but gained no certainty. Instead, he traveled to Yunnan seeking elixirs to bolster his son’s meager inner energy. What returned was a handwritten letter from Tang Mu-jin instructing them not to search for him, along with a suspicious beast core. After a maid died from touching it, the core was sealed deep within the clan lord’s hall, yet the elders’ doubts only grew. Emergency meetings were held, but with no other viable heir and the young lord’s lineage in question, the unstable rule of mother and son continued for nearly ten years. Some elders sided with Geum-ran and her son, deepening the rift. When internal conflict threatened to tear the clan apart, the Sichuan Tang Clan—traditionally neutral—unprecedentedly sought mediation from the Martial Alliance. Under a fragile agreement, Geum-ran and Tang Hyo-bong maintained their incomplete authority under the elders’ oversight.
“Is it all right to tell me all this?”
“You are my beloved, my lord. You are no different from a member of the Tang Clan. Knowing these secrets will spare you unnecessary trouble later.”
Smiling brightly, Tang Seo-rin let him stroke her cheek as they stepped through the main gate of the Tang estate. Beside the towering clan lord’s hall stood the Hall of Heavenly Poisons—shorter in height but far wider. Leaving Tang Seo-rin outside, he entered the dim, spacious hall. At the end of the long rows of elders sat the frail-looking young heir Tang Hyo-bong, with Geum-ran seated behind a long curtain. Though the elders tried to project authority, only five had reached the peak realm and none the transcendent level. The young heir’s martial arts were merely second-rate. Even from his skull alone, it was obvious he was another man’s seed. Suppressing a laugh, he offered a cupped-fist salute and exchanged formalities with the young heir before speaking with Geum-ran under the elders’ watchful eyes. Beyond the curtain, her full breasts, wide hips, and smooth calves visible beneath her skirt gave the impression of a heavy, mature frame. The wrinkles on her hands suggested she was well past forty, hinting at a turbulent youth. Yet closer inspection revealed a well-maintained waist and sides, and a face that looked far younger than a woman with a grown son in his twenties should. Her sharp, slightly wrinkled eyes held golden pupils that gave off an unsettling gaze. Still, the careful application of several shades of powder across her face revealed she had not abandoned her desire to be seen as a woman who could still stir a man’s heart.
“…So you are the successor of the Thunderbolt Gate, Young Hero Wang? Then how old are you?”
“Yes. I am twenty-three this year.”
“Two years older than our young heir, then.”
The false identity Han Go-sam had prepared for him was that of the sole successor of the long-lost Thunderbolt Gate, a secret sect whose last heir had supposedly joined the Sex Demon Cult centuries ago. Since that fact was unknown outside the cult, the Thunderbolt Gate remained a legendary yet real hidden sect in the murim. He had been circulating refined mana since entering Tang Ga-ta, emitting the aura of a righteous peak expert. To those with murky inner energy, his power felt pure and Daoist in nature. Combined with his rejuvenated appearance from the bone-restructuring, he appeared several years younger than his actual physical age. His alias was Wang Geo-geun. The Central Plains people never caught the joke in his name.
“First, allow me to express our gratitude for aiding our clan, Young Hero Wang. Should you stay in the guest hall, we will prepare suitable recompense within a few days. We would be grateful if you could wait patiently.”
After the formal conversation with Geum-ran, he left the inner hall and followed Tang Seo-rin’s guidance toward the guest quarters.
“You worked hard, my lord. Goodness, I get so nervous every time I enter that hall. My legs tremble……”
He interlaced his fingers with her trembling right hand and squeezed firmly. For a second-rate martial artist like her, the pressure was just enough to make her endure.
“Kyaaah!”
“Aah♡ My lord! Your hand… it hurts…♡”
“It is merely an expression of how unwilling I am to let go of Lady Tang.”
Suppressing his own rising nausea, he eased his grip and looked at her face. The words seemed to work; her cheeks flushed like the sunset, stirring a man’s desire.
“Chuu.”
He pressed a light kiss to her soft forehead. Still holding hands, they stepped across the wall dividing the main Tang Clan grounds from the branch family quarters.