The Wastrel, the Young Clan Head, and What Came After
When I opened my eyes, a ceiling I had never seen before greeted me.
Or had I? The longer I looked, the more it seemed familiar...
Feeling my vision return by degrees, I slowly pushed myself upright. Sure enough, the place where I had come to was the bedroom I shared with Soye.
I was definitely... fighting Tang Pung...
I sifted back through my memory, trying to understand why I was lying here. I had been dominating the duel almost entirely on my own when Tang Pung suddenly erupted with some unidentifiable power, and his poison had taken me.
I was still sorting the pieces into order when something shattered near the door with a sharp, ringing crash.
"Soye?"
I turned my head. Soye was watching me with trembling eyes, her face a little more drawn than I remembered.
"Gaga!!"
The instant she was sure I was awake, she threw herself into my arms. My strength had not fully returned, and her charge sent me toppling backward—but we landed on the bed, so it hardly mattered.
"I... I didn't know what I would do if you never opened your eyes..."
"I'm sorry. I made you worry."
"Why are you the one apologizing? The one who ought to apologize is..."
Tears rose and choked off the rest. I stroked her hair in slow, steady passes and waited for the crying to subside. After she had wept for a long while, she seemed to settle enough to wipe her cheeks and meet my eyes.
"Can I ask what happened after I passed out?"
Soye nodded without a word. Once she had calmed a little more and cleared her throat, she went on.
"After you knocked out the Young... Tang Pung, and then collapsed, the Clan Head ordered him detained on suspicion of using demonic arts."
"The wager with you was one thing, but because he used demonic arts, Tang Pung was stripped of the Young Clan Head's seat on the spot. With things as they stand now, I doubt he will ever return to that position."
"If anything, it looks as though even going on as a martial artist will be difficult for him."
"I suppose so..."
The energy I had felt from Tang Pung that day had been profoundly alien. Filthy and dangerous beyond any comparison with ordinary internal energy—the instant I faced it, I knew it for what it was, even though it was the first such foreign power I had felt since my reincarnation. The qi pouring from his body made my skin crawl the moment I met it, so perfectly matched to the words demonic martial arts that the name itself felt inevitable.
"So what about Tang Pung?"
"He's locked in the Tang Clan's underground prison now, waiting for judgment. But..."
"In practice, we should take it as settled that his dantian is destroyed and his meridians ruined?"
"Yes."
One might think the punishment far too severe for a single mistake. But this was the Tang Clan, one of the Five Great Clans that upheld the orthodox martial world, and the offender had held the seat of Young Clan Head. The weight of the sentence felt all the heavier for it. He had enjoyed authority equal to his responsibility. A punishment of matching scale seemed only fitting.
Well... why should I care?
He was the sort I had already meant to put in his place someday, given the way he carried himself. The ending was a little bitter, but when I thought of what he had done to Soye and me—and what he had meant to do—I had not the slightest reason to worry over him.
That aside... this, though...
"Soye, did you do something to me while I was asleep?"
A foreign energy was circulating through my entire body. Wondering whether something had gone wrong with me as a martial artist, I carefully worked my internal energy and found nothing amiss at all. If anything, this alien qi seemed to be increasing my own. As if I had taken a spirit elixir...
Fortunately, the question gripping my mind did not take long to resolve.
"Ah—you remember being poisoned by Tang Pung's toxin that day, don't you?"
"Yeah. I pushed myself a bit, subduing him. Why?"
"If his poison had been the usual sort, the Clan Head or the elders could have neutralized it. But once demonic martial arts mixed in, Tang Pung's toxin changed."
"So it couldn't be cured."
"Yes. The poison art had grown far stronger than usual, and suppressing it was impossible, so we used a spirit elixir passed down through the Tang Clan."
"A spirit elixir?"
"Yes. One that builds a strong resistance to poison."
No wonder the energy in my body felt like what followed a spirit elixir. I hadn't actually expected them to feed me one...
"Once resistance formed in your body and the poison weakened, the Clan Head and the elders were able to suppress what remained by force."
"I see..."
Without thinking, I opened and closed my hand. Spirit elixir or not, it was one meant to build resistance, so my internal energy had not grown by all that much. Half a year's worth, perhaps? Even if I recovered every last trace of energy I had yet to absorb, it would amount to a year at most—if that.
"Still, was it all right to use something that important on me?"
"Of course it was. Why wouldn't it be? You were hurt because of our clan in the first place, and... and you're one of us now, too..."
She had started out heated, but embarrassment caught up with her. Her face flushed, and her last words trailed off. For all her usual confidence, the way she grew shy over something so small was one of Soye's charms.
"Is that so? Then I'll accept the elixir with thanks."
"There's no need for thanks."
Once I had the general shape of things, I slowly worked my way off the bed. Soye moved to support me, worry plain on her face. Her concern was not mere overprotectiveness. The moment I first rose, I nearly lost my balance and toppled without even realizing it.
"You've been lying down far too long. You should rest now..."
"I've been lying down far too long, which is exactly why I ought to start rehabilitating as soon as I can, don't you think?"
"That's..."
"If it gets to be too much, I'll stop, so don't worry. Anyway—how long was I out?"
I spoke to her with confidence, but my senses were returning more slowly than I had expected. This did not feel like a day or two of unconsciousness...
"A week."
"Right, a wee—what?"
"A week."
"I was unconscious for a whole week?"
Soye nodded in silence, and my head spun. If I had been out for a week, I could understand why she was hovering over me like this. Had our places been reversed, my worries would have piled up like a mountain too.
"I really did give you cause to worry... I'm sorry."
"There you go, apologizing again."
"Oh, right. I love you."
"I love you too."
Stepping outside our quarters for the first time in a week, I found the view beyond them little changed from before. Only... there seemed to be a few more unfamiliar faces around.
"Young Lady! He... he's awake?"
"Yes, he just woke up. Would you go and tell the Clan Head?"
"Yes, I'll go right away."
As Soye and I stepped out, a girl approached her with easy familiarity. Her name was Siwol, wasn't it? The maid shot me a brief glare, turned her eyes away as if the sight displeased her, exchanged a few words with Soye, and vanished again. Besides the maid named Siwol, several more seemed to have been assigned to quarters that had once held only the two of us.
"There are more people around, aren't there...?"
"Yes. While you were unconscious, the Clan Head assigned quite a few maids to our quarters."
"That maid just now... she's the one who had a bit of a contest of wills with me the day I first arrived, right?"
"Ah, you mean Siwol. Yes. She's been close to me since we were young, so I made a special request of the Clan Head. The thing is, Gaga... actually, Siwol..."
"It's all right. You don't have to say it."
"What?"
"This is about what happened that first day, isn't it? I'm not holding onto it, so do whatever's comfortable for you."
"But..."
"I was angrier at Tang Pung than at her that day, and she only said what she did because she was worried about you."
"Gaga..."
With my senses somewhat restored, I took the hand that had been supporting me.
"Shall we walk a little? I've recovered enough that a short walk should be fine."
"All right. But you mustn't overdo it."
"I'll be careful."
Partly as rehabilitation, I headed with Soye toward the garden near our quarters. Flowers of every color, and poisonous herbs among them, were being cultivated all throughout it. They were plants I had only ever looked at, never touched, for fear of poisoning—yet today Soye did not stop me as I drew near.
"You're not going to stop me today?"
"No. With the resistance you have now, you should be fine."
"Really?"
Emboldened by her words, I reached out and touched a blossom I took for a poisonous herb. Just as she had said, the resistance held. Even when I handled the plants I suspected of being toxic, no symptoms of poisoning rose in me. What on earth had the Tang Clan fed me? I was still poking at the countless poisonous herbs in fascination when the maid named Siwol, whom Soye had sent to the Tang Clan Head, returned.
"Young Lady! So this is where you were!"
"Sorry, Siwol. Thank you for going."
"It was nothing."
"Did the Tang Clan Head say anything?"
"Ah, right. He said... once your fiancé's condition improves, the two of you should come to the Clan Head's office together..."
"Gaga and I, both of us?"
"Yes."
"Then let's go right now."
"Gaga!!"
Soye raised her voice out of worry for me, but I soothed her and went on.
"Where do you think you're going when you aren't even fully healed?! You only just came to!"
"You don't need to worry so much. My senses are dull, that's all. My body is almost completely recovered."
"Even so..."
"I also want to get tiresome business like this over with quickly. I'm not pushing myself. Let's go."
"Haa... honestly... if you show even the slightest sign of strain, I'm dragging you straight back to our quarters."
"Understood. Let's go."
Soye still looked unconvinced, but she said nothing more about my condition and set off with me toward the Tang Clan Head's office.