Chapter 58: Can I Hear Your Reason?

When Gang Taesu brought the urgent message, I was six hours deep in sweating it out against Han U-gyeong.

No one knew when he might return to the Sword Citadel, so I’d been stubborn about monopolizing him. Fortunately, Han U-gyeong did not refuse my request and kept sparring with me. Knowing my greedy nature well, Gwaeseon and the Mad Guest had readily yielded him to me.

The more I crossed hands with Han U-gyeong, the more I felt the gap between us.

Even when we used the same level of internal energy, I was pushed one-sidedly. The depth of our martial understanding was simply different.

I had secretly believed that Nine-Loop Saber Arts and Thunderbolt Twelve Swords were peerless ultimate arts that would lose to no technique under heaven, but I was forced to admit that had been an illusion.

It wasn’t because my own attainment was lacking.

Before I had left the valley, my grasp and execution of the forms had already reached a state of completion.

The reason I was losing to Han U-gyeong’s sword work lay entirely in the limits of Nine-Loop Saber Arts and Thunderbolt Twelve Swords themselves.

To go beyond this point, there was no choice but to pioneer a new realm, as I had with Thunderstorm Within Thunder.

In that sense, sparring with a master several levels above me like Han U-gyeong was of immense help.

I tried every move my head could conceive of.

Throwing new variations and fresh techniques into empty air, and unleashing them upon someone capable of receiving them, were worlds apart.

Opportunities like this didn’t come often, so I gave my very best of bests.

Perhaps moved by my zeal, Han U-gyeong became increasingly serious in our training duels.

At some point, the Mad Guest, Gwaeseon, and the Sword Emperor’s Heir had all stopped their own practice and were watching our bout instead.

So immersed was I in the spar that I’d forgotten they were doing so, and when Gang Taesu ran into the marsh and called for me, I snapped at her without thinking.

“What is it?”

Startled by the anger in my voice, Gang Taesu hunched her shoulders, then stammered out her message in a tiny voice.

“They’re here, Lord Jeon.”

Bathed in the morning sunlight, I stepped into the manor’s courtyard to find Yi Gwang under the zelkova tree, dragging his feet, swinging his arms, practicing footwork and fist techniques.

These days he was learning basic martial arts from Gang Taesu.

“Welcome back, big brother.”

Yi Gwang called me big brother and the Sword Emperor’s Heir little brother. I had told him to.

The boy, who reminded me of my father, was unbearably endearing, but I deliberately put on a stern face.

“Don’t slack off, kid.”

His tiny lips jutted out, displeased with both my scolding and my chosen title for him.

Gang Taesu hurried to defend him from the side.

“You have no idea how hard he works. He refuses to rest even for a moment, so Xiaoju and I have to force him to stop.

He’s very talented too. He’s already grasped the essence of Nine-Palace Footwork and Phoenix Fist.

He’s a hundred times better than I was. Gwang is a genius.”

I was about to tell her that excessive praise is poisonous, but held back.

Partly because I felt guilty for snapping at her earlier when she’d done nothing wrong, and partly because I knew her assessment was no exaggeration.

Even to my eyes, Yi Gwang’s martial talent was considerable. You could even call it exceptional.

“Don’t grow conceited and always keep striving.”

“Yes, big brother.”

After giving his spirited reply, I ruffled Yi Gwang’s hair and headed for the main building.

The people Poison King had sent would be waiting for me.

When I stepped into the tearoom on the first floor, I understood why Gang Taesu had called the visitors “strange people.”

There was a man and a woman inside. Neither had a normal expression.

The woman looked insane.

Her pupils had no focus, and drool leaked down from her crooked lips.

She looked to be around forty, with a squat body and dark, sun-browned skin.

When she saw me, she grinned foolishly from ear to ear, as if something delighted her.

I did not return the smile. I turned my eyes away.

The man was an old fellow who looked to have just entered his seventies.

His attire was shabby, his appearance pitiful. A large skull, a broad face, and features all cramped together gave him a bizarre look.

Unlike the grinning woman, the old man’s face was pure misery.

Tears looked ready to spill any moment from his button-sized eyes.

The hierarchy between them was clear.

The woman was standing, the old man sitting in a chair.

But as I entered, the old man sprang to his feet as if propelled by a spring.

Then he immediately tried to drop into a full prostration on the floor.

I could not let him bow to me.

Because above his left eyelid, there was a mole the size of my thumb.

“Jeon Chung greets Benefactor.”

The dotted old man, whom I’d stopped from kowtowing, was visibly moved.

“You’ve heard of me, Young Lord?”

I was taken aback by the way the dotted old man addressed me.

Surely Poison King hadn’t truly acknowledged me as his successor?

Though I found it highly dubious, I first answered the old man’s question.

“Of course, Benefactor. My mother told me I must someday seek you out and offer my thanks.”

“Ah… how unspeakably grateful I am.”

The dotted old man burst into tears.

I waited for him to calm down.

Seeing him weep, the squat woman beside him first looked confused, then began to fidget nervously.

Then she plopped down on the floor and started crying along with him.

An intense sense of wrongness washed over me.

What on earth was this woman supposed to be?

The dotted old man did not look in the least like some peerless expert.

Which meant the squat woman was presumably meant to be my protector.

I simply could not accept that.

She didn’t look especially strong, and even if she did have some hidden power, how could someone this dim-witted possibly protect me?

I could only let out a hollow laugh at Poison King’s arrangements.

To brag that he was sending me a monster no one short of the Ten Kings could handle, and then send a woman who could barely manage herself…

Did he not understand that the current martial world was enjoying an unprecedented golden age?

Was his perception of Central Plains stuck thirty years in the past?

To clear my doubts, I needed the dotted old man to be able to converse properly again, so I set aside my patience and spoke bluntly.

“I have a great many questions to ask you, Benefactor.”

The old man wiped away his tears with his sleeve like a child.

“I’ve shown an old man’s disgrace, Young Lord. Forgive me.”

“Not at all, Benefactor. And please, you needn’t use honorific speech with me.”

“I cannot do that. If my lord found out, he would execute me on the spot.”

I glanced at the squat woman, who had stopped crying and gone back to grinning foolishly.

“But he—Poison King—is thousands of li away, isn’t he?

When it’s just us, please speak comfortably.”

“I am honored, but I cannot follow such an order. Young Lord, please lower your speech to me instead. I would be more at ease.”

I decided not to fight his stubbornness.

“Then we’ll each speak in the way that’s comfortable.”

When the old man seemed about to object even to this, I cut in first.

“That’s an order.”

Reluctantly, the old man accepted my suggestion.

“As you wish, Young Lord.”

While I was wondering which of my many questions to ask him first, he cautiously spoke up.

“How is the child… I mean, is your honored mother still alive?”

My heart clenched.

If only she were.

At the same time, I found it odd that Poison King hadn’t told him about my mother’s death.

“My mother passed away thirteen years ago.”

“Ah…”

As the old man’s eyes threatened to overflow again, I quickly blocked him with another question.

“I’d like to hear about my mother. How did you first come to be connected with her?

Ah, and for the sake of clarity, please refer to my mother as ‘that girl,’ as you did just now. That’s an order.”

I had just changed the order of the questions I’d planned, but as expected, I managed to hook the old man.

Old men were powerless in the face of telling stories from their past, especially those that concerned themselves.

---

Unexpectedly, the look in his eyes was not wistfulness but pain.

“It all began with the great undertaking Lord Poison King initiated to obtain Absolute Poison Crystal.

Children under seven who showed the potential to form a poison crystal in their bodies were selected and brought to Poison Fields.

In the process, over thirty thousand died.

The number left permanently crippled or suffering lasting aftereffects was more than ten times that.”

Revulsion rose in my throat at Poison King’s brutal “experiment,” but I kept silent and listened to the old man’s recollection without interrupting.

“There were a total of one thousand two hundred and thirty children brought into Poison Fields.

A year later, that number had dropped to ninety-two.

Almost all of them failed to pass even the second gate and became guests who never returned.

That girl was among the survivors, but up to that point she hadn’t drawn any particular attention.

Sixty-seven children were assessed as more promising than her.

But another year passed, and when only fourteen remained, that girl was clearly regarded as the foremost of them.

Not only had she perfectly stored seventy-eight types of poison without any side effects, but her mind was untouched.

That meant she was capable of receiving prior mental training for the transmission of Heartless Poison Art.

From the fifth gate onward, that girl was placed under special care.”

I wished he would skip some of this.

Not because I already knew the content, but because it was painful to relive what my mother had endured passing those poison gates.

Regardless of how I felt, the old man continued.

“From that point on, I came to be connected with the girl. I already knew of her before that, but it was my first time personally in charge of her.

She was truly… astonishing.

Even the word ‘astounding’ isn’t enough.

Though having her bones melted and flesh burned—suffering pain beyond imagination—was her daily reality, she never lost her reason nor her mind.

For eight whole years.

We… we were in awe of that child.”

I had no choice but to interrupt him.

“So that means my mother stayed in Poison Valley for a total of ten years?”

He did a simple calculation—oddly slowly—and then nodded.

“So it seems.”

I felt a wave of unreality wash over me.

If his memory was right, then my mother had been, at most, fourteen when she met my father.

She had said she’d been taken to Poison Fields at around three or four years old, before she’d even fully learned to speak.

I looked again at the squat woman grinning emptily.

If my mother had lived, she’d be about this woman’s age.

Then this woman was likely one of the fourteen who had passed the fourth gate alongside my mother.

Understanding what my gaze meant, the old man confirmed my guess.

“Number Three—this child’s designation—is, aside from that girl, the only other one to survive after passing the final gate.

She may be little different from a stiff corpse, but in exchange she’s gained a remarkable body.”

I wanted to know exactly what he meant by “remarkable.”

It had to do with martial ability.

I was intensely curious, but first I chose to finish the conversation about my mother.

When the old man began to explain about the squat woman, I steered him back to the main thread.

“Can I hear your reason for advising my mother to escape?”

Tears rolled down the old man’s cheeks again.

Damn.

Fortunately, instead of bursting into loud sobs, he eventually answered.

“I don’t know if you’ll permit me to put it this way, but during the time I ‘cared’ for that girl, I came to feel reverence for her.

Calling her merely ‘amazing’ fell utterly short—she was a wondrous existence.”

I remembered my mother saying that when no other caretakers were present, “the dotted middle-aged man” would sometimes call her “a gift from the gods.”

“If my lord were to take the Absolute Poison Crystal lodged in her bones, that extraordinary girl would have to die.

I couldn’t just stand by and let that happen.

She was far too precious…”

Overwhelmed with emotion, the old man choked up and couldn’t continue.

My own eyes burned.

For the first time, I truly felt gratitude toward him.

Because I now knew he had helped my mother out of pure intent.

It had not been an easy thing.

He must have staked his life on it.

With no reward to be had.

I took the old man’s hand.

It was as rough as a tree stump.

“Thank you so much for saving my mother, Benefactor.”

The old man’s shoulders shook as he wept.

The squat woman began crying along with him.

I forcibly swallowed down my own tears.

I’d indulged more than enough in sentiment over the past.

Now it was time to face grim reality.

[End of Chapter]