Sichuan Tang Clan (1)
Sichuan Tang Clan (1)
The Sichuan Tang Clan had a 'younger sister'.
The younger sister was so frail that she had never once set foot outside.
The Tang Clan kept themselves so tightly concealed and their security so stringent that planting an informant inside was impossible. As a result, no one could learn what the younger sister looked like or what illness she suffered from. What kind of existence was this younger sister, that they treated her like a priceless jewel? And was she really sick in the first place?
After investigating together with Sect Leader Hao, who had come upon receiving my message, it became clear that my suspicion was more than a mere gut feeling.
"After inquiring among the physicians of Chengdu, it turned out that none had visited the Tang Clan for treatment. They said no one went in person, and no physicians in the vicinity had been called to the Tang Clan for such matters either."
The Demonic Cult's liaison likewise brought back a similar answer.
"I conducted an investigation, and there were certainly suspicious points. There was no trace whatsoever of any physician entering or leaving in connection with the younger sister. If her illness were mild enough to be treated within the clan, her inability to come out all this time made no sense; and if it were serious enough to require calling a physician from outside, her survival into adulthood was a contradiction."
"Then we can conclude that the younger sister's illness was indeed a lie. They simply needed an excuse for her not to go outside. In the first place, if she were truly a gravely ill patient, leaving her to languish in a house full of poison would be strange."
This was a household where even the family members themselves went around with white powder on their faces, worried that their poisonous aura might leak outside. If there were a genuinely frail, chronically ailing patient, the normal course of action would be to send her outside immediately to breathe good air and recuperate.
The merchant who was a liaison flicked his beard and asked.
"The information we can glean from the outside seems to end at about this point. To investigate further, another method appears necessary—do you have something in mind?"
"I haven't asked them directly yet."
******
The merchant who served as a liaison was nothing more than a mere merchant, but I was a major figure with the backing of the Zhuge Family and married to the direct disciple of the Taiji Sect. It was not so strange for me to sit face-to-face with someone from the Tang Clan. Moreover, since the younger sister's coming-of-age ceremony had taken place not long before, I could use that as a pretext to deliver a gift and feel things out at the same time.
This was a perfectly natural meeting.
So I assumed the other party wouldn't find it strange either.
"...Why have you come to see me?"
Tang Man-ho, the second son of the Tang Clan, wore an extremely uncomfortable expression the moment he saw me. It was the kind of discomfort one might feel upon meeting, after ten years, the childhood bully who used to torment you. Even with his face painted white, the shadow of his ill mood was blatantly visible, and hostility seeped from his slanted posture. His expression was so off-putting that it made my position—holding a gift box, no less—feel awkward, and I was at a loss.
What the hell was wrong with this bastard? What had I done to make him show such a hostile face the moment I arrived? When the other party displays hostility for no reason, feeling unsettled was only natural. Especially when I considered that a member of the Tang Clan harbored hostility toward me without cause—I was bound to want to get to the bottom of it.
I smiled and spoke.
"...I heard that your younger sister came of age not long ago. So I prepared a gift, partly to congratulate her and partly so we might become better acquainted."
"A gift?"
Tang Man-ho looked at me with a puzzled face. I nodded and answered.
"My wife belongs to the Taiji Sect, and I too plan to reside here for some time. This is a gift offered in the spirit of asking for your kind regard. Living in the same Chengdu, shouldn't I pay my respects at least once to the family that represents Sichuan?"
Tang Man-ho still wore a peculiar expression at my words. He narrowed his brow and scowled, then twitched his lips like a man with something stuck between his teeth and said:
"Are you mocking me?"
"...What do you mean? I don't know what's been making you so uncomfortable since earlier. Have I done something wrong?"
When I asked that in return, Tang Man-ho instead put on an awkward expression, cleared his throat with a fake cough, and straightened his posture again. Then he accepted the box I had given him and said:
"...No, it's nothing. I accept the gift with thanks."
Saying that, Tang Man-ho's face flushed slightly, and with his lips still twitching, he took only the box and left. No proper conversation had followed, so naturally, there was no exchange of information either.
******
Several days passed. After that, even when I asked to meet, Tang Man-ho made excuses and refused. Since he wouldn't meet with me, feeling things out was impossible, so I had no choice but to spend my rest hours sitting in the inner chamber of the Taiji Sect, poring over their family tree and personal records, thinking through whether there was anything strange.
"Husband. What are you concentrating on so intently today?"
Since I was always looking at the same book after training ended, Hong Ye seemed to have grown curious about what I was reading. I shrugged my shoulders at Hong Ye and tucked the volume into my pocket as I spoke.
"Now that I've established a foothold of sorts in Sichuan, I went to pay my respects to the Tang Clan a few days ago. I presented a gift to Tang Man-ho, the second son, in honor of his younger sister's coming of age, but his expression was rather unpleasant. My wife, do you happen to know anything about it?"
Hong Ye tilted her head briefly at the name Tang Man-ho, then let out an exclamation a beat later.
"Ah, I remember. When I was young, the Grandmaster once planned a marriage negotiation with the Tang Clan."
"Did the Tang Clan accept?"
Hong Ye nodded.
"Yes. They say the talks went well, but if I had married, I would have had to leave the Taiji Sect and spend my life in the Tang Clan with that white powder painted on my face. It felt like I would be making a fool of myself, so I refused."
Hong Ye, it seemed, had been a surprisingly popular woman. Indeed, even with Southern Barbarian blood, anyone could see that Hong Ye was a beauty.
Furthermore, skin color posed no problem at all for the Tang Clan members who already painted their faces white for chemical treatment, and it was no exaggeration to say that a woman like Hong Ye, who disliked going outside, was a bride tailor-made for the Tang Clan.
"...So Tang Man-ho was prickly toward me because of that? Because the marriage talks fell through long ago?"
Hong Ye reddened at my words and bashfully scratched her head. Speaking in a way that implied she was popular was still a difficult thing for Hong Ye.
"Saying this might make me sound presumptuous, but... ah, perhaps that was the reason..."
Hong Ye was so embarrassed she didn't know what to do with herself, fidgeting and squirming. I laughed heartily and laid my body against her thigh. A pleasant scent wafted from Hong Ye's body, fresh from washing. Hong Ye parted her legs slightly to make it easier for me to lean and said:
"H-husband...!"
"To be able to monopolize such a popular woman all to myself—I must be a truly lucky man."
"...I too think I was fortunate to meet someone as good as you, husband."
When I looked up, Hong Ye's breasts covered half the ceiling. Her flushed cheeks and the eyes gazing down at me cast shadows that filled the empty spaces. Hong Ye looked at me and said:
"By the way, I did hear that the Tang Clan had a daughter, but has she already come of age? The second son, Tang Man-ho, came of age at the end of last year, and from what I know, the third son, Tang Man-woo, is to come of age this year."
"...Where did you hear that?"
"Within the Taiji Sect, there is an office that handles coordination for various external events. When the Grandmaster was busy, I would often send letters for such family occasions on his behalf, so the news reaches me as well."
I rose from my seat again and scrutinized the volume. The second son, Tang Man-ho, had passed his birthday last winter and become an adult. And the third son, Tang Man-woo, would come of age in a month. I counted the gap between the two on my fingers.
"Was there a premature birth, twice?"
Even at the very most, the gap between the second and third sons was barely ten months. And yet a 'younger sister' had suddenly slipped in between them and come of age?
That was impossible. I scanned the family tree again. The father of Tang Man-ho and Tang Man-woo, Tang Yeong-ju, had only one wife. He hadn't taken a separate concubine, nor was there any story of remarrying after bereavement.
Examining the family tree more closely, it wasn't that there were no relatives who had daughters. But their ages didn't match, or they were distant relatives who didn't live together in the same household.
Where on earth had the younger sister come from?
I turned my thoughts over again.
If no girl had ever been born into the Tang Clan's main house, then naturally she must have been born to a branch line, or they must have picked up an orphan somewhere and adopted her. Then why had they adopted her, and why couldn't they let her out of the house? What on earth was the reason?
Bringing someone into the main house for no good reason could complicate the succession structure, and talk could arise later. And yet they had adopted her, running that risk, and kept her hidden tight inside the house?
"Husband. Why are you suddenly like this?"
Hong Ye was staring at me. In Hong Ye's case, it had been talent, after all. So what kind of talent could this be? If the Taiji Sect had adopted her because she had talent for Taijiquan, then what sort of talent would be worth the Tang Clan adopting a child, yet keeping her strictly hidden and raising her without using her in the succession structure?
[Usually, there are many cases where they inject it into their own bodies due to overheated research rivalries and die of poisoning.]
The merchant's words came back to me. Why would a member of the Tang Clan inject poison into their own body? Weren't there condemned criminals available? Could experiments truly all be handled with only the condemned criminals procured in Sichuan?
Experimenting on a human with no poison resistance and experimenting on one with extreme poison resistance were clearly different. The former was an experiment where you could just jab anyone, but the latter took a long time just to find or create such a subject.
What if the younger sister was such a subject? What if she was born with innate poison resistance, or possessed some special talent I hadn't anticipated that made her easy to experiment on?
I felt as if I could see something.
The crack through which I would smash the Tang Clan to pieces—just a little, it seemed to be revealing its outline.