The Core Is Granted
My shocking declaration sent the Elder Council into an uproar.
“You’re saying there’s a way for the Young Clan Lord to live?”
“Neither our Sichuan Dang Clan nor the Zhuge Clan has found a cure. What on earth are you talking about?”
“Even if the Great Luo Immortal himself descended, he could not make the Young Clan Lord rise whole!”
Well, of course the Great Luo Immortal couldn’t save him. Did anyone that the Great Luo Immortal could actually save even exist?
In the murim, the Great Luo Immortal was always invoked as an extraordinarily skilled divine physician, but in truth he was a death-dealing doctor who could slap the Reaper across the face and back again.
Whenever a physician casually laid a patient down and declared, “Even the Great Luo Immortal could not save this fellow,” the Reaper dutifully entered that patient’s name on today’s list in the Death Note—whether the man had a mere scrape or a bout of indigestion.
Merely uttering the name was a death flag in the martial world.
“Do you claim to be a medical immortal whose skill surpasses both the Sichuan Dang Clan and the Zhuge Clan?”
Of course not. I wasn’t some Wudang master shouting “Medical Immortal Possession! Over-Soul!” nor was I the great Heo Jun, who couldn’t even cast Anti-Poison and instead flung the Ten-Thousand Flower Rain technique about.
But a method still existed.
“I have heard that the Young Clan Lord fell into cultivation deviation while training in poison arts because of Dang Geoho and his faction’s schemes. He barely managed to force the poison into one corner of his body, yet he still hovers at the brink of death.”
“So what of it?”
The elders scowled at me as though wondering what nonsense this bastard was spouting now.
“Hwarin can cure that poison.”
I spoke to them in a voice full of confidence.
“What do you mean by that?”
“On the day we fought Dang Geoho’s men, several of the Medical Pavilion’s disciples were poisoned by the enemy and teetered on death’s door. Among those toxins was one very similar to the poison used on the Young Clan Lord.”
It was a bluff, of course.
It might have been the same poison or something completely different. But from what the Medical Pavilion disciples had said, the odds that it was a similar type were high.
“What became of the disciples who were poisoned?”
“Before Hwarin lost consciousness—while she was still an incomplete Poison Human—she drew every trace of poison out of their bodies and even healed the wounds the toxins had caused.”
“Is that true, Uigakju?”
The First Elder turned to Uigakju, who stood to one side.
I had thought persuading only the First Elder’s faction would settle everything, yet because he both supported the Young Clan Lord and chaired the Elder Council, he refused to be swayed so easily.
How would Uigakju answer? It was true that Hwarin had cured the poisons, but from the viewpoint of a master physician he might phrase it differently.
“It is true. That child, Dang Hwarin, cured every single disciple no matter what poison they had taken. If a girl with such absolute dominion over toxins becomes a complete Poison Human, the likelihood that she can heal the Young Clan Lord is high.”
After finishing, Uigakju glanced at me as if asking whether that was the answer I wanted. I gave a small, silent smile and nodded.
“A Poison Human possesses such power?”
“The Young Clan Lord can live?”
“Even if we give her the Human-Faced Spider’s Poison Core, the chance that the girl becomes a complete Poison Human is almost nonexistent!”
“If the bastard son renounces the succession and creates a complete Poison Human, even the Young Clan Lord can be saved… That much is worth handing over, is it not?”
“As the boy said, countless lives have already been sacrificed.”
“Hah! Do these people think the Human-Faced Spider’s Poison Core is a clan treasure for no reason?”
With Uigakju’s endorsement, the Elder Council fell into a flurry of discussion.
If Hwarin lived, the Young Clan Lord might live as well. This was the final card I had kept hidden until the very end. I could have revealed it from the start, but the risk had been far too great.
Play that card first and the value of a black-haired bastard meddling in the succession would vanish completely.
All that would remain was Hwarin’s slender chance of becoming a true Poison Human even after swallowing the core.
In the end, this card could only be laid on the scales after I had stacked every other chip I possessed as a bastard son, Hwarin herself, and the moral high ground of the orthodox path.
“One last question.”
The Council, having apparently finished its debate, turned to me.
“Ask freely.”
“Will you truly never again covet the position of heir to the Sichuan Dang Clan?”
“There is already a firm legitimate successor. How could a bastard like me ever be a threat? Once my woman recovers, I will leave the Sichuan Dang Clan at once, so rest easy.”
Even at the end, when I tried to keep the respectful tone, their suspicion never fully died.
I don’t need the Young Clan Lord’s seat. A position where you tremble every day wondering when you’ll be exposed or when you’ll die? No thank you. I’ll just write novels and become famous.
I faced the Elder Council with an expression utterly free of selfish ambition.
Whether my words and face finally convinced them, the brief moment before they reached a decision stretched out like an eternity.
“Very well. The Elder Council, in agreement with the Clan Leader’s will, grants permission for the Sichuan Dang Clan’s treasure—the Human-Faced Spider’s Poison Core—to be used upon Dang Hwarin.”
In the end, I had succeeded.
Without so much as a backward glance, I raced straight to where Hwarin lay sleeping, Uigakju at my side.
“How is Hwarin’s condition?”
Until I had stood before the Elder Council there had been no major crisis. But a patient’s state could change in a heartbeat. I asked Uigakju, who was examining her, my heart tight with anxiety.
“I will need to observe further, but we are not too late. The disciples have taken truly diligent care of her.”
Thank heaven.
“Hah. Your subordinates never left her side for a moment.”
I let out a short breath and only then sank into a chair, allowing the tension to drain away.
It felt as though I had weathered a typhoon bare-skinned. Joy at having survived warred with sheer exhaustion of body and mind.
If the triumph of success and the need to watch over Hwarin had not remained, I might have collapsed onto any bed and stayed there.
“……You planned this from the very beginning, didn’t you?”
After studying Hwarin for a while, Uigakju shot me a sidelong glance and asked.
“Did I not say so the day we first met? All I need is to protect Hwarin.”
I gave a wry chuckle. I had written Dangga Pungun to save her. I had told him as much on the day he visited Daseogak.
“So you did…….”
Uigakju’s words trailed off with a faintly bitter edge.
“Haha. Are you disappointed I never said I would become Young Clan Lord?”
I tossed the joke at him with a tired, limp smile.
“…….”
Uigakju looked at me with an oddly mixed expression of irritation and the look of a man whose bluff had been called.
Wait. Seriously?
“Is that true?”
“Had you wished it, I was prepared to support you.”
He had steeled himself to that degree? I felt as though I had taken a clean hit. A man who once despised “barbarians” had set his prejudice aside and reached such a decision; it left me somewhat flustered. What was I supposed to say?
While I groped for a reply, a muttering voice drifted in from outside, pacing restlessly.
“I grabbed a rotten vine. I climbed the wrong rope…….”
The voice belonged to a panicking Dang Pae. Sorry. I cut the rope myself. It was a two-person line; three simply wouldn’t fit.
I shrugged and spoke to Uigakju.
“I never once entertained the thought, so let it be. Do not cast Dang Pae aside. You may see it as betrayal, yet without him today’s seat would never have existed.”
The chance that Dang Pae would become External Pavilion Head in the future had vanished, but out of moral obligation I at least had to keep him from becoming a complete idle beggar.
“I intend to work him hard, but yes—I will not abandon him.”
Uigakju nodded and cast a look of mild contempt toward the wall beyond which Dang Pae waited.
“Will you feed her the Human-Faced Spider’s Poison Core at once?”
I eyed the elegant box Uigakju had set to one side—the box that held the Human-Faced Spider’s Poison Core.
With that alone, Hwarin could recover.
“She has been unconscious so long that her vital energy is badly depleted. She must not take it yet.”
“Then what must we do?”
“With my medical arts I can force the extreme Yin of the Human-Faced Spider and the extreme Yang of the Thousand-Year Centipede to annihilate each other. But first the battlefield itself must be healthy.”
“You mean we must restore Hwarin’s vital energy. Is there a method?”
The Medical Pavilion disciples had already cared for her with utmost devotion, yet her energy had still been consumed. Did a way truly exist?
“Wait. It will arrive soon.”
“Uigakju! We have brought it!”
The moment the words left his mouth, a call came from outside.
“It is here. I shall remain; go out and receive them.”
What had arrived? I nodded and stepped out into the small garden beyond the reception hall.
In the garden stood a carriage laden with luxurious boxes.
“What is this?”
The boxes looked strangely familiar.
Seeing my mild surprise, a Medical Pavilion disciple smiled broadly and opened one to explain.
“This is the precious spiritual medicine known as Joseon Ginseng. For over a year it was nearly impossible to obtain in Sichuan, yet we managed to secure some only recently.”
Of course it looked familiar. These were the same Joseon Ginseng boxes the wastrel Kang Yunho had seen so often.
“Will ginseng help Hwarin?”
“There is no more versatile spiritual medicine than ginseng. Joseon Ginseng cannot control the poison energy, but it will play a great role in raising Young Miss Hwarin’s vital energy.”
So even in a murim dating-sim world, ginseng was the all-purpose miracle herb. It had been a while; I was almost glad to see it.
Unexpectedly encountering an item from Joseon, I felt a flicker of fondness and walked around the boxes, examining them closely.
Huh? Something I hadn’t seen before.
“The boxes bear the seal of the Moyong Clan.”
The lock that secured the box carried a seal I had last seen in the Moyong Clan.
“You recognize it? Though it bears the Moyong Clan’s seal, it is genuine Joseon Ginseng. For more than a year the distribution of Joseon Ginseng suffered a series of mishaps and supply to the Central Plains dried up completely. Only recently has the Moyong Clan seized one of the main channels and begun supplying ginseng to the orthodox factions.”
“So the seal is a mark guaranteeing quality?”
Made in Korea. Importer and quality guarantor: Moyong Clan, something like that.
“Exactly. Counterfeits flood the market, so these days only ginseng stamped with this seal is considered true high-grade Joseon Ginseng. No fraudster is bold enough to forge the Moyong Clan’s seal. How they even thought of such a scheme… Well, I suppose that is how she got the idea of devouring her own husband.”
“Mm…….”
The unexpected mention of a certain woman in the Sichuan Dang Clan left me momentarily speechless.
Did he think I didn’t know? The disciple continued with cheerful enthusiasm.
“Have you not heard the rumors? About the Female Mantis of the Moyong Clan?”
“I have.”
I had seen her, touched her, and even tasted her.
“How can such a wicked woman exist? The moment she heard her husband was entangled in treason, she unhesitatingly split his skull lengthwise on their wedding night.”
No, she couldn’t do it. She sobbed and said she simply could not go through with it.
“That differs somewhat from what I heard in Joseon. The rumor seems exaggerated.”
“Is that so? From Sichuan to Liaodong is nearly ten thousand li on foot, so distorted or inflated tales are common. It did strike me as odd. There is even a claim that the man was so enchanted by the Female Mantis’s beauty he never noticed his own neck being cleaved lengthwise. Does that make sense? Calling her the greatest beauty in the murim, a fairy descended from heaven… Because the distance is so great, absurd exaggerations stick.”
“That part is not an exaggeration.”
“Pardon?”
“Ahaha. Never mind.”
I forced an awkward smile and changed the subject. If a golden-haired young lady ever appeared in the world, debates would erupt, but under the current setting she was unquestionably the greatest beauty of the murim.
“At any rate, that Female Mantis has seized a portion of the Joseon ginseng trade, and the once-unstable supply is flowing again. Until recently you could not even catch a glimpse of Joseon Ginseng in Sichuan; now we obtained it through the Moyong Clan.”
“Does the Moyong Clan have a branch in Sichuan?”
I asked while carefully masking a flicker of tension. Please say no. The Moyong Clan would be inconvenient.
“No. As far as I know they communicate through several escort agencies and merchant caravans. In any case, with this Young Miss Hwarin should be able to regain consciousness. I will take the ginseng in to Uigakju first.”
“Yes. Please do.”
I watched the disciple carry the ginseng inside, then remained a moment longer, gazing at the boxes.
So you’re living well.
I pictured a certain woman far away in Liaodong. Had she forgotten me by now and thrown herself wholeheartedly into hunting the Demonic Cult?
She certainly seemed to be living with vigor. In the original story she had only taken a slice of Kang Yunho’s fortune; she had never seized even part of the ginseng distribution rights.
Nearly two years had passed. Through the documents I handed over that night, she must have taken control of a portion of the Kang family’s ginseng trade.
What a strange fate.
My choice that night and all her subsequent efforts had reached Hwarin. With Joseon Ginseng, Hwarin’s chances of recovery rose sharply.
My decision that night had been right after all. I smiled in good spirits and returned to Hwarin’s side.
After several days of Joseon Ginseng, color gradually returned to Hwarin’s once deathly pale face.
Truly the mass-market spiritual medicine that paid for Joseon’s foreign currency! Top-grade Joseon Ginseng was the best.
“She will awaken within a few days.”
Uigakju spoke with a face finally free of one burden.
“You have worked hard.”
“…….”
Uigakju stared fixedly at me as I watched Hwarin’s complexion. What now?
“Is something the matter? Is there something you wish to say?”
When I looked at him, an uncharacteristic shadow of worry crossed his features.
Why so uneasy all of a sudden?
“There is something you too must now know.”
Uigakju delivered news I had no desire to hear.