Forbidden Garden — 1
The Sichuan Tang Clan.
Even with the Nine Great Sects and the One Great Faction holding ground in Sichuan, this was the martial family hailed by all—including itself—as the undisputed hegemon of the province.
In a secluded pavilion of the family estate, which stood proudly in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, sat a woman.
Anyone who laid eyes on her would say at a glance that she possessed a beauty unlike any they had ever seen, and a figure that flaunted its femininity in full—but what she took pride in was more than her womanly charms.
"I'll begin now."
Poison qi stirred in her hands. From the carcass of an animal killed as poison bait, toxic energy came seething out, and in the span of a breath it had been drawn into an empty vial.
It was a breathtaking feat that even someone ignorant of poisons could recognize at a glance—yet not a single person present was surprised.
Her name was Tang Hwarin.
For she was a complete Poison Human—the hidden treasure of the Sichuan Tang Clan.
"Pavilion Head, how was that?"
"Splendid. The poison qi in your body never stirred at all. I knew it was only the foundational art meant for Poison Humans, but who knew you'd master it this quickly."
Pavilion Head Dang Mugi even applauded as he showered her with praise.
"Heh. I practice it all day long—this much is only natural. Oh! Has anything been decided about finding me a master?"
"It may take a little longer, I'm afraid."
The Pavilion Head told her this with an apologetic look.
"It's been half a month since Yunho left for Yichang. I want to begin my training as soon as I can."
Even when her emotions ran high, not a wisp of poison qi could be allowed to leak. For the sake of reuniting with her fiancé, Tang Hwarin could not afford to waste a single hour.
"I understand. The moment it's settled, I'll let you know."
The Pavilion Head handed over the medicine that suppressed her poison qi and left the pavilion.
The Tang Clan's council hall.
To debate a single matter, the clan's handpicked warriors had come flooding into the hall.
"We have gathered today to discuss the matter of a master for the Poison Human, Tang Hwarin. First, Pavilion Head Dang Mugi, who has been monitoring her condition, will report."
Dang Mugi stepped before the assembled warriors and calmly began laying out Hwarin's current condition.
"She has already mastered the foundational art for controlling her poison qi. What she needs now is a master to teach her the poison qi arts, and soon."
Tang Hwarin had become a Poison Human, but she was still incomplete. For her to grow into all that a Poison Human could be, what she needed next was a master to teach her the poison qi arts.
...
When the Pavilion Head finished, silence was all that hung over the hall. In his frustration, Dang Mugi looked to several of the clan's most formidable warriors, but they too merely averted their eyes.
Not one of them wished to become Tang Hwarin's master.
It was not because Hwarin was born of a cadet branch, nor because she was betrothed to the Clan Lord's illegitimate son, nor because she was connected to the traitor Tang Geohu.
The reason was simply this.
"Easily said. Who in his right mind would teach the poison qi arts to a Poison Human?"
"Quite. It's no different from asking a man to teach a fish to swim."
Among the clan's poison arts, the poison qi arts—those that accumulated and wielded venom within the body—counted among the most demanding of all Tang Clan techniques.
Worse still, in terms of poison qi cultivation alone, Hwarin had already reached a realm that none of the men gathered in that hall had ever attained.
There was not a soul alive who would lightly step forward to play master to a complete Poison Human.
"We cannot settle this by tossing her a single manual and washing our hands of it. Someone must stand before that child, Tang Hwarin, and teach her."
Pavilion Head Dang Mugi pleaded with them again, his voice earnest.
"It isn't that we refuse to teach, Mugi. It's that a suitable candidate is damnably hard to find. You know that as well as anyone."
A Poison Human was the clan's hidden treasure—and some things are simply too precious to be handled carelessly.
"Teaching a Poison Human the poison qi arts is problem enough. But so is what happens the day an accident befalls her."
As everyone showed their reluctance, yet another worry surfaced.
"That child forged her poison core from the venom of the Thousand-Year Centipede and the Human-Faced Spider. If her poison qi escapes mid-lesson, even a Tang Clan warrior could be reduced to a handful of poisoned remains."
This was the Poison Human who had annihilated the clan's traitors and the Demonic Cultists in a single stroke with the centipede's venom alone—and she had since absorbed the Human-Faced Spider's core on top of it. Whoever took her on would need to be prepared to stake his life.
"Are you telling me to just keep her locked away in the Tang Clan?!"
The Pavilion Head shouted, his frustration boiling over.
"That is not what I meant..."
This was no mere instructor's post. It was the seat of master to a Poison Human.
A master is as a parent. One must treat a disciple as one's own beloved child, never pretend not to see the disciple's faults, and see the disciple's path through to the very end.
A Poison Human—the clan's hidden treasure—had been born into the world, and the burden of her mastership had grown just as heavy.
Every man gathered in the hall wore the same troubled look.
"Haah..."
"Enough."
Just as the Pavilion Head was about to give voice to his exasperation, an unexpected figure appeared in the hall.
"Clan Lord!"
"We greet the Clan Lord!"
Tang Baek-ho, Lord of the Tang Clan, gave the assembled members a nod, then turned his gaze upon the Pavilion Head.
"Let today's council end here."
"I beg your pardon? What do you mean, my lord?"
He had barely managed to gather the warriors for the sake of Hwarin's mastership, and now the man wanted to dissolve the assembly? The Pavilion Head asked back, eyes wide with shock.
"She has agreed to meet the child Tang Hwarin herself."
"What? Surely you don't mean—her?!"
When that unexpected name left the Clan Lord's lips, the Pavilion Head could not contain his astonishment.
Late that night.
Tang Hwarin stepped into the Tang Clan's flower garden, where blossoms white as mist lay strewn like embroidery across the grounds.
I wonder if everything's going well for him. She thought of Kang Yunho, who would by now be making his way to Yichang. He had escorts, so there was no need to worry. And yet he would be left to manage everything alone. Could he really do it? He would have to write Dangga Pungun, too.
He was hopeless at waking in the morning—what if he failed to drag himself up on time? Waking him was supposed to be her job. Advising him on Dangga Pungun was supposed to be her job too.
I miss him.
Only half a month had passed since they parted, yet her heart ached as though years had gone by.
Under the moon, the white blossoms fluttered in dazzling profusion. Dried and ground, their roots became a poison lethal to the human body—yet the fragrance of the flowers in full night bloom was all that kept Hwarin's anxious heart barely soothed.
"...Who's there?"
In a garden granted to one person alone, a figure appeared, silhouetted against the moonlight.
...
A woman advanced in years, her head crowned in white. Older than she looked, perhaps. The qi radiating from her upright frame froze the garden air, which until then had been sweet with the scent of flowers.
"I won't say it twice. Who are you?"
The garden existed one step outside the clan's attention, a place permitted to Tang Hwarin alone. A handful of people could visit, but as far as Hwarin knew, no one granted access matched the woman before her.
Hwarin made ready to strike at the slightest provocation, then put her question to the elderly woman.
"So you are the Poison Human."
She knew who Hwarin was. Feeling that gaze travel over her from head to toe like an appraiser grading wares, Hwarin's suspicion hardened into certainty.
"A spy of the Demonic Cult? One of Tang Geohu's men? Hah!"
Concealed projectiles flew before any answer could come. Had she been caught off guard, the force alone would have claimed her life. Hwarin hurriedly unfolded the Thunder-Chasing Divine Step and tore herself from the spot.
So Tang Geohu's men had been lying in wait after all. The woman held the line of her retreat. One look was enough to tell she was a master. There was nothing for it but to break through by force.
"A child of the cadet branch, are you? No wonder you never properly learned the Tang Clan's arts. Come, then—show me your strength."
The woman spoke in a teasing lilt, as though she could read every thought in Hwarin's head.
"Take this!"
Hwarin's poison palm erupted toward the woman. Venom that could rob a man of consciousness at a mere graze came surging at her.
"Leaking poison everywhere you go, I see."
Clicking her tongue as though at something pitiful, the woman slipped effortlessly free of the poison palm's domain.
A master, without a doubt. But Hwarin curled her lips upward at the woman and shouted.
"Then let me show you what leaking really looks like!"
Poison qi began to burst forth from Hwarin's back.
"...A butterfly?"
The poison art of Tang Hwarin, the Poison Human. The venom of her Poison Killing Domain erupted, tracing the shape of butterfly wings.
"Get lost."
Around Hwarin, the garden of white flowers was turning into a garden of death. Come closer, and you die. So she warned the intruder who had come in the dead of night.
"Such a foul mouth on such a young thing."
"If you don't like the view, get lost."
The venom of the Poison Killing Domain rippled. Poison qi ought to be will-less by nature, yet at Hwarin's bidding it turned on the woman with open hostility.
"An interesting art, I'll grant you..."
The woman's steps grew hazy.
Hwarin was confident. The woman was nothing more than a moth to a flame. Whoever dared come close would be left gaping in shock, cursing her own choice—for within a Poison Human's domain, no master under heaven could keep her life.
"How...?"
But it was Hwarin who was in for the shock.
Poison qi came blooming up from the woman's body. The domain of the Poison Killing Domain was being eaten away. The venom that had belonged to the Poison Human was slipping from her control.
With almost insulting ease, the woman had trespassed upon the space that belonged to Hwarin alone.
"Overconfidence is a deadly sin in the murim, child."
"Hngh!"
If this went on, she would die. Hwarin dragged the poison qi into her hand. The poison palm that had melted even a Demonic Cult master in an instant.
A master. At this distance, even that woman would not escape it.
"That's enough. Let us end this here, shall we?"
Her voice drained of interest, the woman brushed aside Hwarin's poison palm, turned her back, and leisurely put distance between them.
"You... who are you?"
She could have killed her—and had not. In a single instant, everything Hwarin possessed as a Poison Human had been dismantled. She could hardly calm the shock roaring through her.
Seeing Hwarin's stunned face, the woman smiled in satisfaction and introduced herself.
"My name is Tang Ok-ran."
Tang Ok-ran.
At the woman's answer, Hwarin's eyes went wide. It was a name she knew. Anyone who knew anything at all of the Sichuan Tang Clan could not fail to know it.
Stunned, Hwarin cried out the intruder's famed title.
"The Poison Martial Empress—Tang Ok-ran?!"
"The Poison Martial Empress is truly going to meet that child Tang Hwarin herself?"
In the Clan Lord's office, the Pavilion Head asked, unable to master his astonishment.
"She said she would at least lay eyes on the girl."
"And she so rarely leaves the Forbidden Garden in the first place..."
The Poison Martial Empress, Tang Ok-ran.
Direct blood of the Tang Clan, and the grandmaster of poison arts the clan had once proudly boasted to the world. Already past seventy, she was the warrior who had fought on the clan's frontmost line when the Great War of Righteous and Demonic broke out.
What on earth could prompt a woman who had lived in seclusion in the clan's Forbidden Garden to emerge now, of all times?
"That took some doing."
"I thought you had simply been out of sight these past few days. So you were in the Forbidden Garden."
One glimpse of the upward curl at the corner of the Clan Lord's mouth, and the Pavilion Head's question answered itself.
"My son left everything in my hands when he went. The least I could do was this much."
This was the son who had cast aside everything for the fiancée he loved and returned home. Setting aside his duties as Clan Lord, Tang Baek-ho had moved—as a father, as a father-in-law—for his daughter-in-law's sake.
"The Poison Martial Empress, taking in a disciple... Do you truly believe it possible, my lord?"
A supreme master of the previous generation. The Empress without question possessed profound poison qi arts, yet not once in her long life had she ever taken a disciple.
"In all these decades, not a single talent has ever pleased her. At my begging, she agreed only to see the girl's face."
"If that child Tang Hwarin could inherit the Empress's true teachings, it would be a blessing of tremendous fortune for the Tang Clan."
"Who can hope to move that woman's heart? There is only a small thread of fate between them. All we can do is entrust ourselves to it."
Tang Baek-ho could only pray that the clan's venerable elder would take a liking to his daughter-in-law.
"Drink. It will calm the fire of battle still smoldering in you."
The Poison Martial Empress had brought Hwarin into the Forbidden Garden and offered her tea.
"This isn't tea."
Even knowing who the intruder was, Hwarin did not lower her guard. The betrayal of Tang Geohu was lesson enough about trusting someone merely because they were direct blood or a great master of the clan.
The woman had hurled killing needles at her, and now the tea she offered—was that not poison as well? Small wonder Hwarin's voice was sharp.
"A Poison Human, afraid of poison?"
Hwarin held the Empress's gaze in a long contest of eyes, then lifted the cup. Poison of this caliber would never touch her. To prove it, she took a single sip.
"Huh?"
Her heart settled. The poison qi that had been seething quieted. Hwarin stared at the Poison Martial Empress, unable to close her mouth.
"It is poison tea. One that soothes a Poison Human's body and mind."
"How...?"
"Do you know who devised the formula for the medicine you take?"
The medicine that kept a Poison Human's poison qi in check. The formula behind what the Pavilion Head dispensed had been created by the Poison Martial Empress in her prime.
"...Th-then I shall drink it gratefully."
Only then did Hwarin lower her guard and bow her head.
"I hear you are looking for a master."
"Yes. I am."
Could it be? In that instant, Hwarin understood why the Poison Martial Empress had come to find her today.
"Do your monthly courses come?"
From the Empress's lips came a question Hwarin had never expected.
"Pardon?"
"I asked whether you menstruate."
"Yes. A few days ago."
"Has it grown irregular since you became a Poison Human? Any other troubles?"
"My only trouble is that it arrives too faithfully every month."
The Empress nodded, looking satisfied with the answer.
When one learns the poison arts, the first faculty to weaken is the ability to bear children. It was the same reason every pair of hands was so precious to the Tang Clan, and the same reason the family took in so many live-in sons-in-law.
No trouble with her courses meant she was a complete Poison Human, her fertility untouched by the venom.
"If... you were to learn from me... what would you wish to become?"
The Clan Lord had begged her to take the girl on, but she had no intention of agreeing on the spot. Nor did she intend to squander great stretches of time vetting a candidate.
The Poison Martial Empress cut straight to the heart of the matter.
"What I wish to become?"
"To attain greatness as a martial artist, to become a chivalrous hero, to make a name for yourself—you must want something."
"There's nothing in particular I want to become."
Unexpected. She had become a Poison Human—as a martial artist, there was nothing she could not do. The Empress pressed on with her questions.
"Dreams, then? No dreams at all, at your age?"
"I do have one, but..."
Hwarin lowered her head, dragging the words out.
"Then speak it plainly. Honestly, and without holding anything back."
Tang Ok-ran, the Poison Martial Empress, thought back on the countless children who had come before her, begging to be taken as her disciple.
Each time, she had made them drink the poison tea that loosened the tongue, and asked about their dreams.
A person's most private desires said a great deal about whether they were disciple material.
I want to be the greatest under heaven. I want to be hailed as the Poison Dragon, the Poison Phoenix. I would burn this body to ash to raise my clan into the foremost family in the world. I want to serve my house. I want wealth and fame.
Whatever answer they gave, none of it had ever satisfied the Poison Martial Empress.
The Poison Human Tang Hwarin flushed red, as though the answer were too embarrassing to speak, and gulped down her tea in great swallows.
What desire on earth could it be, that she would hesitate so?
Before long, Hwarin seemed to steel herself. She set down the cup and blurted her honest desire straight at the Poison Martial Empress.
"A hot night with my fiancé?"
"...?"
"A night so hot I'd lose my mind in the middle of it?"
Faced with an answer so shamelessly explicit—one she had never once heard in all her long life—even the Poison Martial Empress, peerless under heaven, found herself struck speechless.