The Truth of the Red Steel Poison Corpse
"You're right about that, Yu-ryeon. But that doesn't mean we can simply leave the Dang Clan to fend for themselves."
"Well, of course if there's a real Red Steel Poison Corpse involved, nobody's going to touch the Dang Clan lightly… but you'd be making permanent enemies of the Orthodox Path, wouldn't you? And the Jahyul Sect were people even the Demonic Path shuddered at — who knows how the Thousand-Year Dark Demon would react?"
Just as Ju Yu-ryeon had so sharply put it, Yoo Eunhyeon could see that the Orthodox Path's position was already firmly set. The Demonic Path's movements, though, were utterly impossible to predict. They seemed to be responding to the Orthodox side's maneuvers, yet he couldn't begin to guess at their ultimate goal.
At least the Lord doesn't seem like the type to lean on something like a Red Steel Poison Corpse… but he's not the type to let a situation like this go to waste, either.
Even Yoo Eunhyeon, who knew Sa Unsik better than most, could only get that far — so it was hardly surprising that everyone else's unease kept swelling.
"So do you have another way, then?"
Since Yu-ryeon's point wasn't wrong, Eunhyeon set that part aside for now and asked her for another solution.
"No. I don't. But that doesn't make this right. This is the same as saying you're broke so you're going to rob someone. Sure, we're Middle Path, but being Middle Path means that even when something's dangerous, you're supposed to find the part that benefits you somehow, aren't you? Helping them build a Red Steel Poison Corpse is nothing but pure loss no matter how I look at it!"
"That's exactly why we're trying to reduce that loss."
"Huh?"
Yu-ryeon still looked baffled by Yeo U-hui's words, but her agitation had cooled a little at least.
"Tell me, Yu-ryeon. How much do you actually know about the Red Steel Poison Corpse?"
At Yeo U-hui's sudden question, Eunhyeon pricked up his ears as well — he'd been wondering the same thing — but contrary to his expectations, Yu-ryeon trailed off.
"It's some kind of dangerous jiangshi, right?"
"That's not wrong, but is that all? Why is it dangerous, how did it become a forbidden taboo of the Murim, and why is the Orthodox Path so determined to wipe every trace of it out?"
"…I don't know."
When Yu-ryeon shook her head, Yeo U-hui looked over at Eunhyeon, and he shook his head just as honestly to say he didn't know either.
A faintly warmer, gentler smile touched Yeo U-hui's face, as if to say they were still only children after all.
"As you both said, the Red Steel Poison Corpse is an extremely dangerous thing. The very reason jiangshi themselves are forbidden in the Murim lies in how they're made."
She cast them both the look of a teacher waiting for an answer. Eunhyeon was a complete outsider to anything outside of farming, so Yu-ryeon stepped in and explained for him.
"A jiangshi, put simply, is a corpse that moves as if it's alive."
"How does a corpse move like it's alive? And who even started something like this in the first place?"
"Hard to say. Jiangshi techniques are so old that their origins aren't clear. It's not as if anyone could openly research something like this, and who'd brag about it even if they could? What we do know is that it started after martial arts came into being."
Eunhyeon caught on at once and asked back.
"Don't tell me — they move using internal energy?"
"That's right. You dissect the corpse, rework the meridians so internal energy can pass through them, plant a special core in the heart, and make the energy flow so the body can move."
"…I mean, that could work, but then it's just a corpse that moves, isn't it?"
"Which is why you usually use something like a yin art to control the internal energy flowing out of the core and steer it."
Having heard that much, Eunhyeon let out a hollow laugh of pure disbelief.
"Internal energy may have its origins in nature, but it's a force completely different from nature. To think it can even do something this far outside the natural order…"
"Tell me about it. And making a jiangshi doesn't take just one corpse, either. Besides the base body, you need more corpses to graft on for the meridians, and several more to forge the core."
Eunhyeon's mouth fell open.
"So you're saying it takes multiple corpses just to make one jiangshi? That's completely insane!"
"There's even a legend that if you burn through even more corpses to make the meridians denser and stronger, and forge the core from several masters who originally had powerful internal energy, you end up with an absolute monster."
"A legend? So nothing like that has ever actually been made?"
"A jiangshi made that way is called a Thousand Hell Jiangshi. Blades can't cut it, poison can't touch it since it's already dead and yet somehow alive, and its internal energy is endless — it never tires."
"Ha…"
Eunhyeon groaned in sheer incredulity, but Yeo U-hui gave him a light pat on the back.
"That's only in theory. The Thousand Hell Jiangshi only ever appears in oral legends. There's no one with the skill to make one, and given the materials required it's impossible to gather them all — and long before you could, you'd almost certainly get killed for trying. In practice, there aren't many people who use jiangshi at all, and for a different reason."
"What reason is that?"
"Yu-ryeon made it sound terrifying, but when you actually try to make a jiangshi, it isn't as strong as the effort costs. To make one even halfway useful you do have to grind up several corpses like she said, and even then it's still weaker than a real master. Make it sloppily and it bursts apart in a single exchange."
Eunhyeon thought it through calmly and nodded. If jiangshi arts had truly been that overwhelming, they would never have died out, and the people who commanded them would have ruled the world long ago.
At the same time, he could understand why the Orthodox Path was so hypersensitive about it. Leave something like this unchecked and it wouldn't stop at the moral outrage of trampling the dead — people would start murdering the living just to produce corpses on demand. The Murim would turn into a slaughterhouse overnight.
"So then what is the Red Steel Poison Corpse? Don't tell me they actually recreated the legendary Thousand Hell Jiangshi."
Yu-ryeon spoke with clear impatience, and Yeo U-hui shook her head.
"If they had, it would simply have been called a Thousand Hell Jiangshi. The Red Steel Poison Corpse is something a little more… a method in which human malice itself is concentrated and given form."
Eunhyeon fell into thought at her words, but Yu-ryeon couldn't stand the wait.
"Ugh, stop being so dramatic. At least give us a hint!"
"The greatest defining trait of a jiangshi is that it moves despite being a corpse."
The moment Yeo U-hui said that, something clicked for both Eunhyeon and Yu-ryeon. Why call it a poison corpse instead of a jiangshi? Taken simply, it meant a corpse made with poison.
And what a corpse made with poison could do once it started moving was all too obvious — and the results would be far more horrific than either of them wanted to imagine.
"Don't tell me they make a jiangshi that carries poison and then just…?"
Eunhyeon couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence, but Yu-ryeon spread both hands in an exploding gesture and murmured under her breath. She looked at Yeo U-hui, who nodded.
"That's right. The true nature of the Red Steel Poison Corpse is a corpse bomb made of poison."
"Huh…"
Learning the truth, Eunhyeon and Yu-ryeon both let out hollow sounds and fell silent for a moment. The same thought occupied both of them: what on earth would you even use something like that for?
But the more they thought about it, the more nightmarish the possibilities became. A jiangshi might be a corpse, but because it moved, no one would realize what it was unless they were already looking for it.
People covered their bodies with clothes as a matter of course, and makeup or disguise could hide the skin as well. That made slipping in among a crowd easy — and if one of those things detonated in the middle of a packed gathering, the result would be a sea of blood.
"It's even more dangerous than I thought."
"There are plenty of poisons that work on martial artists, too…"
Energy-dispersing poisons, after all, were designed to be effective specifically against martial artists who possessed internal energy. If something like that went off inside a sect, the entire school could be paralyzed in an instant.
"The Jahyul Sect were vicious enough not to care about any of that, of course, and after them… well, I don't need to spell out what happened, do I?"
When Yeo U-hui finished her explanation of the Red Steel Poison Corpse, silence settled over them. It was only natural for Yu-ryeon, who hadn't known any of this — and even Eunhyeon, who had guessed at some of it, had never imagined it would be this bad.
"Wouldn't it really be better to just wash our hands of this?"
Eunhyeon recovered his thoughts first and offered an opinion much like Yu-ryeon's earlier one, but Yu-ryeon, who had been quietly thinking, unexpectedly shook her head.
"No. If we play it right, it might be fine."
"What? Are you serious? You were completely against it a minute ago."
"I was against it because I thought it was just some kind of super-strong jiangshi. Sure, in a way this is even more dangerous — but medicine and poison are only a single sheet of paper apart to begin with."
"That's true enough. When you're farming, a gentle rain and a flood are only different in how much water falls, and even fertilizer that builds up the soil will rot the roots if you overdo it."
Eunhyeon nodded in agreement, and Yeo U-hui nodded as well.
"In a case like this, the Demonic Path would risk everything to make use of it, and the Orthodox Path wouldn't dare touch something this dangerous at all. But what about Middle Path folk like us?"
She looked at Yu-ryeon as she spoke, and Yu-ryeon answered with a light smile now, in words very close to what she herself had said earlier.
"If you're Middle Path, then even if something's dangerous, you find the part of it that benefits you. Walking the tightrope between risk and gain is what being Middle Path means."
The two of them smiled at each other, and Eunhyeon, watching them, nodded as if to say mother and daughter really were cut from the same cloth — then asked the next question.
"But is there actually anything to gain here?"
"We'll have to hear what the Dang Clan has to say first. They're not fools. If the Red Steel Poison Corpse is what it is, no one is better positioned to put it to use than the Dang Clan… but using it outright is far too risky."
"Being the great house of poison, they'd try to extract only the useful parts and apply those, wouldn't they?"
"Most likely. What happens if things truly go wrong is another question…"
At Eunhyeon's question Yu-ryeon murmured half to herself and looked to Yeo U-hui for confirmation; Yeo U-hui nodded.
"That's what we were told as well, and it's why we agreed to help. If something like that truly is possible, it would be a tremendous benefit to us on the medical side too — whether in the techniques themselves or simply in the credit of having provided them."
"That makes sense. Then pulling out too easily would be a waste. We should take whatever we can get."
Yu-ryeon said it with a sly little smile, and Eunhyeon felt he finally had a clear picture of the situation. From the Uiseon Suga's position, walking away from a fellow Middle Path house in crisis would have been difficult. But if the help could take this form and bring knowledge back with it, there was no reason to withdraw. The other great families could only offer indirect support, which put the Uiseon Suga in an even more advantageous position.
Of course it could also be more dangerous — but that would have to be left to judgment on the ground. Eunhyeon moved on to the next step.
"So in the end, we need to hear more of the Dang Clan's side of the story."
"Right? But… Mom, did you come alone?"
Yu-ryeon nodded along with Eunhyeon's words, then suddenly turned the question on Yeo U-hui. Caught a little off guard, Yeo U-hui nodded as if it were obvious.
"It isn't a situation where I can bring a whole crowd with me. Why do you ask?"
"You said you were going to help with medical arts. Your medicine and mine… well, they're a bit lacking for that, aren't they?"
"Excuse me? What's wrong with our medicine?"
"It's not that we're bad, but we're nowhere near the level where the Dang Clan would need our help."
From Eunhyeon's perspective as well, the two of them — belonging to the Uiseon Suga — were hardly ignorant of medicine, but they weren't at the level where anyone would call them physicians either.
"Which is why I called someone who can help. He should be on his way."
Yeo U-hui seemed to know their limits perfectly well herself; she raised a hand as if to tell them not to worry. Yu-ryeon still tilted her head.
"Who? For help like this, it would have to be someone extraordinary…"
"I called the person in our family with the finest medical skill of all. Anything less wouldn't do, would it?"
"The finest… wait. Don't tell me—?!"
Yu-ryeon suddenly went wide-eyed as the realization hit her. Yeo U-hui nodded in confirmation.
"That's right. Your father."