Seo Dae-ryong was startled by the words “Ten Thousand Poisons Impervious Body.”
If one became impervious to all poisons, no poison in the world would work on them. It meant they could not be killed by poison. In the martial world, poison was the thing one had to be most wary of, so his greatest weakness would disappear.
“You can achieve something like that this easily?”
“Your master will achieve it easily. As for the life of mine that makes it possible, it has been a long and arduous road to get here.”
Seo Dae-ryong found himself admiring Geom Mugeuk all over again. How could one explain the fate of being brought here for treatment and ending up with a Ten Thousand Poisons Impervious Body?
“You’re envious, aren’t you?”
“Not at all.”
“Why not? You look like a greedy fellow.”
“That greedy fellow is one who knows his place. I believe everyone has a vessel of fate given to them. The vessel of my fate is only big enough for me to struggle with everything I have just to win the Little Dragon Tournament. And even that has grown enormously because I met the Pavilion Master. In the past, it was truly no bigger than a tiny soy sauce dish.”
When he thought back to the days when his dark and gloomy nature had been filled with a desire for revenge against his senior in the Yellow Springs Pavilion and resentment toward the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, even a soy sauce dish felt like an overstatement.
“I’ve seen many times how large the Pavilion Master’s vessel of fate is. I’m seeing it now as well. Rather than jealousy, I’m grateful. After all, I have one more story to tell someday with my grandchildren sitting on my knees.”
“Then why do you look so anxious?”
“I’m wondering just what sort of deeds he is destined to accomplish in the future for him to walk such a path. Since, whether I like it or not, I’m his right arm, I can’t avoid that fate either.”
“If you think your vessel is about to shatter, you can just run away.”
“Even if everyone else runs, I can’t. He carried me on his back and ran all the way here without resting for even a moment, then showed me with my own eyes that he would put down five hundred thousand nyang. Thanks to that, I’m completely ruined. If I can’t run away anyway, is there any other grand method to make him stronger? Please make him even stronger.”
“All the ingredients I’ve saved and treasured are going into that over there. Even if I wanted to, I can’t do any more for him now.”
As another wave of pain seemed to come over her, Chungui rubbed her own shoulder.
Seo Dae-ryong massaged her shoulder for her.
“No, wait. You can make someone else’s body impervious to all poisons, but you can’t fix your own aching shoulder?”
Chungui answered with a bitter smile.
“That’s how everyone lives. You brat, do you think you’ll be any different? Ah, to the side. A little more to the right. Yes, there. Ah, that feels good.”
Geom Mugeuk remained submerged in the vat for two more days from that day onward.
Chungui continued adding various ingredients to the vat, and the smell grew more and more foul.
Then, when the final ingredient was added, something astonishing happened.
A fragrant scent began to rise from the vat that had been filled with that terrible stench.
It was truly unbelievable. It was not as though the final ingredient she mixed in had a fragrance capable of devouring all the foul odors either.
It felt as though the harsh smells had combined and combined again until, with the addition of the last thing, they had transformed into something completely new.
Seo Dae-ryong placed his hand on the vat and prayed fervently in his heart.
‘Pavilion Master, please hold on!’
* * *
At first, I truly felt as though I would die.
I would rather have fallen into the filthiest, foulest-smelling place in the world than enter that vat. Ah, no, that would not do. Because the foulest-smelling place in the world was probably this vat.
“Take this medicine before you go in.”
“What kind of medicine is it?”
“A medicine that will kill you for two days. If you’re afraid, you can give up even now.”
“Give up? This is a welcome medicine. There is no way I could go in there alive.”
Without hesitation, I swallowed the medicine Chungui gave me.
When I swallowed it, closed my eyes once, and opened them again, I was lying on a bed.
Only then could I feel it. Two days had passed in the meantime. I had not dreamed, nor did I remember anything. For those two days, it seemed I had truly died and awakened again.
When I opened my eyes like that, this time Seo Dae-ryong was looking down at me. After staring at me silently, he spoke with a serious expression.
“After careful consideration, I’ve decided not to repay the five hundred thousand nyang.”
Seo Dae-ryong was probably the only person who could make me laugh the moment I woke up.
“I don’t recall ever lending you five hundred thousand nyang.”
At that moment, Chungui entered the room and said,
“Leave that overly dramatic, overthinking fellow here. I ought to take him as my disciple.”
Seo Dae-ryong recoiled and stepped back in horror.
“I would like that too, but I have something important ahead of me.”
“You can come after you finish it. What do you say?”
“I’m sorry, but I already have a master. And the most frightening one in the world at that.”
“Not the bugs?”
“Of course, the bugs are frightening too.”
I could sense that there was sincerity mixed into Chungui’s jest.
Seo Dae-ryong shot me a look. What are you doing? Hurry up and stop her.
Of course, I did not stop her.
“It wouldn’t be bad to live a new life, would it?”
“You’re trying to cut off your right arm the moment you open your eyes. You can’t cut off that right arm. When you paid five hundred thousand nyang, my arm turned into ten-thousand-year cold iron.”
I laughed and said to Chungui,
“I will contact you around the time that ten-thousand-year cold iron rusts, wears out, and falls off.”
Seo Dae-ryong would not do, but if I found someone else suitable, I thought I must certainly recommend them as Chungui’s disciple.
“You, wait outside for a moment.”
“Yes.”
Chungui sent Seo Dae-ryong outside.
“You may get up now.”
I rose from the bed. Even though I had been unconscious for two days, my body felt light. Truly, such was the power of profound medicine.
“There’s a pleasant scent coming from my body.”
“It will continue for several days.”
“I wish this fragrance would last forever.”
“If it did, you’d never be able to infiltrate anywhere for the rest of your life.”
“Wouldn’t it be enough to live a life where I never need to do things like infiltration?”
“I suppose so. If you become the Heavenly Demon, you might be able to live such a life.”
Chungui brought wine and poured it for me.
“Now, receive a cup of wine from me.”
I drank the wine she poured in one refreshing gulp. She did not drink herself, only filled my cup. Only after I drank three cups in succession did she stop filling it. I was the one who drank, yet she was the one who revealed what was in her heart.
“To tell the truth, I was very exhausted. Both my body and mind were worn down. Perhaps helping orphans was a kind of desperate struggle to keep myself together. It was like a support that kept me from collapsing from exhaustion, that kept me from running wild.”
I understood what she meant. I, too, had experienced something similar. During my wandering swordsman days, Seojin had protected me, and during the days I sought ingredients for the grand method, my longing for revenge had played that role.
Chungui continued speaking.
“When I saw you, I felt something like destiny. It was an emotion I had never felt in my life. Ah, to be honest, it was when I learned that you had mastered the Heavenly Meridian Strengthening Art. At last, the time had come. The indifferent heavens were finally giving me a chance as well.”
She turned her head toward the window and looked up at the sky. My gaze naturally followed hers outside.
“That damned sky, at least when it came to my research, had been a truly cursed one.”
Her gaze returned to me.
“Do you know what was in the wine you just drank?”
“I did not sense anything at all.”
“It contained Formless Poison.”
I was startled.
Formless Poison was a poison that was colorless, odorless, and tasteless, and its power was so great that it was called the King of Poisons. It was the Heavenly Demon of the world of poison, the number one under heaven among poisons. Naturally, it was difficult to make and even more difficult to detoxify.
“I’m perfectly fine.”
“Congratulations. From now on, no poison in the world will be able to kill you.”
Her words meant that the test had succeeded, and that I had become a Ten Thousand Poisons Impervious Body.
“Formless Poison? Wasn’t that too strong a thing to confirm it with?”
“This way, there’s no need to confirm it twice.”
Creating a Ten Thousand Poisons Impervious Body with her own hands and then conducting the final test with Formless Poison was the crowning touch to the life she had dreamed of.
I was now sharing in the moment when a master artisan fulfilled the lifelong wish of a lifetime. I could feel all the emotions she felt: joy, relief, satisfaction mingled with regret, and lingering wistfulness. Perhaps they were the emotions I would feel someday at the moment I killed Hwa Mugi.
I performed a deep bow to her.
“Thank you.”
“I am grateful as well. This was my lifelong wish. Now I no longer have to scour the world searching for poisonous insects.”
The reason her body ached so much was also an illness she had gained in the process of obtaining poisonous insects.
I went to her and massaged her shoulders.
“Oh my, that feels good.”
“Come to think of it, I still haven’t even massaged my father’s shoulders.”
“What an unfilial son.”
“You may not know this, but he is someone I would have to risk my life just to massage his shoulders once.”
Chungui laughed as though she found it amusing.
As I massaged her shoulders from behind, I felt that her energy had ebbed compared to when we first met. It felt as though she had burst forth in her final climax and was now beginning to descend.
“What goal will you live for from now on?”
“What goal? I should just live comfortably.”
“You must not.”
“I must not?”
Because the moment someone who had devoted themselves so passionately to something stopped working, they would begin aging at a terrifying pace from then on. They would begin hurting even more.
“You must research and develop something new for the martial world again. And then give it to me again.”
“So the real greedy fellow was here.”
I moved from massaging her shoulders to stand in front of her and took Chungui’s wrist. When I held her wrist as if taking her pulse, she stared at me.
After pretending to take her pulse for a moment, I said to her,
“This is a body that can comfortably live another fifty years. Work!”
Her expression showed that she understood and knew exactly why I was saying this.
“Bah, you. You want me to live fifty more years saying it hurts, it hurts? Don’t curse me.”
“I will come back to see you and make sure to cure you.”
“Even if those are empty words, I’m grateful.”
“I am the one who should be saying thank you for the rest of my life. Thanks to you, Elder, I will live my entire life without worrying about being poisoned.”
“It was something that could have succeeded or failed. But you bravely risked your life. Think of it as compensation for that courage.”
“I will repay this grace again and again in the future. If you ever need my help, send word to the West Lake Inn in the Central Plains, and I will certainly come to see you.”
“I shall.”
I went outside with her.
Seo Dae-ryong greeted us with a joyful face.
“Congratulations to you both.”
Just as we finished saying our farewells and were about to leave, Chungui held out a poisonous insect.
“Eat one of these before you go! It’s delicious.”
“I’m sorry, but I dislike bugs too.”
I ran first, and Seo Dae-ryong sprinted after me.
Chungui watched the backs of the two men receding into the distance, then looked up at the sky.
“I have fulfilled my duty as a physician.”
After gazing up at the sky for a while like that, she habitually rubbed her shoulder and went inside.
“Oh my, my arm.”
* * *
I carried Seo Dae-ryong on my back and dashed with swift footwork.
Seo Dae-ryong struggled less than he had on the way here. He had already experienced it once, and his internal energy had also increased.
Carried on my back, he worried about everything under the sun.
“Can I win? Who will my opponent be? What if we arrive and I’m disqualified because we’re late? Or what if, like in the dream, I die in the semifinals?”
“Stop worrying about useless things!”
“This is my own little trick. I keep imagining even the worst-case scenarios until they lose their steam, and then in reality those things don’t happen.”
“Has it worked?”
“I don’t know. Those worst-case scenarios haven’t happened yet.”
“That’s why I’m saying they’re useless worries!”
When we barely made it back in time, a situation neither of us had expected was waiting for us.
“Huh?”
Seo Dae-ryong stared in surprise at the notice posted on the wall of the Martial Alliance. It was a notice conveying news related to this Little Dragon Tournament.
“I advanced to the finals?”
An incident had occurred in the quarterfinal bout of the group after Seo Dae-ryong’s.
During that bout, one side had suffered a critical injury, and it had been revealed that the opponent had acted intentionally. As a result, the opponent Seo Dae-ryong was supposed to face in the semifinals was disqualified, and Seo Dae-ryong had automatically advanced to the finals.
“I told you dreams mean the opposite, didn’t I? I said all those worries were useless, didn’t I?”
At my words, Seo Dae-ryong still could not take his eyes off the notice posted on the wall.
“Can I… really go to the finals like this?”
“You didn’t use a trick, and you didn’t cheat. Why wouldn’t you be able to? Since ancient times, they say neither the talented nor the hardworking can beat a lucky bastard.”
“I was never this lucky a person.”
“As you live, even luck can change.”
Seo Dae-ryong turned to look at me. His emotions were contained in his eyes. That luck is all thanks to you, Pavilion Master.
“When I decided to participate in the Little Dragon Tournament, I wanted to win no matter what and be of help to you, Pavilion Master. Now there’s only one step left.”
“That last step is the problem.”
An opponent against whom luck would not work had advanced to the finals. Allowing no upset whatsoever, Martial Alliance Leader’s granddaughter Jin Ha-ryeong had made it to the final match.
And so, this final match became a contest between Seo Dae-ryong, the embodiment of upsets, and Jin Ha-ryeong, the unchanging favorite to win.
“What do I do? I’m so nervous I don’t think I’ll even be able to draw my saber.”
“Even if you can’t draw your saber, you can read, can’t you?”
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
I took a lucky pouch from my robe. It was the strategy pouch that the Blood Heaven Saber Demon had given for Seo Dae-ryong.
“I mean the time has finally come to use this.”