Chapter 126: The Girl Serious About Poisonous Herbs. (1)
by Afuhfuihgs
A Girl Serious About Poisonous Herbs. (1)
Hearing the fact that I was eating with Sword Empress, Tang Soyeol’s reaction became quite strange.
Her pupils darted back and forth, not to mention the repeated dry coughs.
Her body couldn’t seem to stay still either, fidgeting restlessly.
While I wondered why she was acting like that, considering what the current Sword Empress represented to female martial artists, it wasn’t entirely strange.
Among female sword cultivators who use swords, excluding the Demonic Sect’s Sword Heaven Ghost Consort (刀天鬼妃), she was a martial artist who seemed to have reached the highest level.
The achievements she accomplished during her life, which wasn’t as long as other masters, were something any martial artist with a sense of justice couldn’t help but respect.
Even if she didn’t use a sword, the Sword Empress was a figure worthy of respect.
In fact, even Namgung Bi-ah, who seemed as uninterested in the world as I am, looked particularly excited whenever she talked with the Sword Empress on the journey back to Gu Family.
“Th-the Sword Empress has been missing for several years, as far as I know….”
“I heard she was just… traveling a bit.”
Although I heard her health had recovered significantly now, it was difficult to easily explain the reason why the Sword Empress had hidden her existence for the past few years.
So, I had to make up a plausible excuse.
“Then, what brings you to the Gu Family?”
Tang Soyeol, who had been watching my reactions, also started asking various questions, her eyes sparkling now that the Sword Empress was being discussed.
She seemed quite interested in, and fond of, the Sword Empress.
There was the reason of coming with Gu Ryeong-hwa, and she had some business with the family, I think.
Of course, this part couldn’t be easily told to Tang Soyeol.
“I think it would be best if you ask her directly when you meet her later. It’s not my story, so I’m being cautious.”
“Ah….”
At my words, Tang Soyeol whispered as if troubled. It felt like she was thinking, ‘Will she be okay? She’s shy around strangers.’
Shy around strangers…? Tang Soyeol?
It didn’t seem like that was the case, but if she says so, then so be it.
Leaving the fidgeting Tang Soyeol behind, I looked at Namgung Bi-ah, who was curled up as if hiding in the corner of the room.
Like earlier, she doesn’t look well. I felt I should check on her and tried to get closer, but she flinched like when she pushed my hand away earlier.
“Are you really okay?”
“…I’m fine….”
She grabbed her long hair and hid her face as if covering it.
It seemed she knew how red her face was right now.
Just as I felt like I needed to call a divine being, I sensed someone approaching the door. As I shifted my gaze, the door opened.
“Oppa, you’re here….”
The one who appeared after opening the door was Gu Ryeong-hwa, whom I hadn’t seen since returning to the Gu Family. Gu Ryeong-hwa glanced at the situation inside the room and frowned.
Tang Soyeol was unable to stay still, her face filled with anticipation.
Namgung Bi-ah was crumpled in the corner, hiding her face with her hair.
From Gu Ryeong-hwa’s perspective, it probably wasn’t a normal situation. Her gaze, which had been scanning the surroundings, quickly shifted to me.
“…What are you doing?”
“I know, right… What is this?”
I wanted to ask too. What this situation was right now.
It seemed hopeless to explain this incredibly complicated situation now. So, I just sighed deeply and asked Gu Ryeong-hwa with an annoyed look.
“You said we were eating together today, right?”
“That’s right. Oppa, didn’t you know? We agreed to eat together last time.”
“I didn’t know it was today.”
“Ah, did I forget to mention that? Does it matter?”
As Gu Ryeong-hwa said, it didn’t really matter. We just had to eat.
“It seems like a few more guests will be joining the meal. Is that okay?”
“Guests? Bi-ah unni?”
In response to Gu Ryeong-hwa’s question, I pointed towards Tang Soyeol. Tang Soyeol seemed to be cautiously observing, unsure who had arrived.
“This is my sister. This is Miss Tang Soyeol.”
“Dang… As in, could it be the Sichuan Tang Clan?”
“Ah, hello. I am Tang Soyeol.”
As soon as she heard ‘my sister,’ Tang Soyeol shot up and bowed her head.
Then, Gu Ryeong-hwa quickly followed suit, offering a greeting.
“I am Gu Ryeong-hwa….”
Gu Ryeong-hwa looked at me, asking with her expression why someone from the Tang Clan was here, but I had no way to explain.
-She said she came because she likes me.
But I knew myself too well to say that.
The two looked at each other, their thoughts clearly visible on their faces.
Gu Ryeong-hwa’s was, ‘For someone from a bloodline that uses poison arts, she looks incredibly gentle.’
And Tang Soyeol’s was, ‘For someone from the Gu bloodline, she looks incredibly kind.’
Indeed, the Sichuan Tang Clan was famous for its gentle appearance, despite wielding the ultimate lethal martial arts that melt and rot flesh, and Gu Ryeong-hwa, for a member of the Gu Family bloodline, had quite gentle eyes.
They somehow felt similar. I almost burst out laughing, remembering how Wi Seol-ah once said Gu Ryeong-hwa looked like a squirrel.
I had laughed then too, only to get kicked in the shin by Gu Ryeong-hwa. Recalling that memory for a moment, I suppressed my laughter and asked Gu Ryeong-hwa.
“Where is your master?”
“Oppa, why are you smiling?”
“I’m not smiling, you brat….”
“You look like you’re smiling.”
“I told you I’m not smiling! Keep your feet still.”
“Tsk.”
Seriously, she’s so perceptive. Who did she take after to be this quick?
[Well, it certainly wasn’t you.]
‘….’
“My master said she had some business and would be late, telling me to go on ahead.”
It seemed the Sword Empress would be a bit late. Gu Ryeong-hwa said that, then looked at Namgung Bi-ah behind me and said.
“Why is that unni acting like that?”
“I don’t know either, you go ask her.”
Since she seemed to dislike it when I approached, I told Gu Ryeong-hwa to go check on her.
As Gu Ryeong-hwa moved to do as I said, Tang Soyeol blocked her path.
“Unni said she was a bit tired today. She’ll feel better soon!”
“Ah, okay….”
“Oh, and, um…. Miss Gu, are you the Sword Empress’s….”
Tang Soyeol cautiously asked Gu Ryeong-hwa if she was the Sword Empress’s disciple. Gu Ryeong-hwa’s expression turned guarded for a moment, but she nodded slightly in affirmation.
In the past, she might have tried to hide it if possible for the Sword Empress’s safety, but recently, she seemed full of confidence.
It was likely due to Gu Ryeong-hwa’s talent blossoming, and the Sword Empress gradually regaining her health.
Tang Soyeol took Gu Ryeong-hwa’s hand. Gu Ryeong-hwa seemed surprised by Tang Soyeol’s action for a moment, but didn’t pull away.
“Why, why are you doing this?”
“Miss Gu….”
“Yes…?”
Leaving Gu Ryeong-hwa, who looked flustered and sent me a pleading look for help, Tang Soyeol bravely asked.
“Does the Sword Empress happen to have a favorite poison?”
“Huh?”
At Tang Soyeol’s words, Gu Ryeong-hwa frowned as if she didn’t understand, and Namgung Bi-ah, who had been crumpled in the back, also peeked out as if she misheard.
I ran a hand down my face and thought.
This situation is such a mess, it couldn’t get any messier.
Around the time Gu Ryeong-hwa had already arrived at the Gu Family, the Sword Empress was climbing a mountain behind the Gu Family residence.
The night had deepened, and although the mountain path was rough, it wasn’t particularly difficult for the Sword Empress, who had regained about half of her skills.
Woong-.
As she passed a certain point, a sound similar to tinnitus reached her ears. The Sword Empress wasn’t flustered.
This was the sensation of passing through a Qi barrier.
To think that a Qi barrier was already set up halfway up the mountain. The Sword Empress herself couldn’t properly grasp how much Qi was used, or how much was needed for such a thing to be possible.
Following the path, she arrived at a rough, flat area where someone stood with their hands clasped behind their back.
Looking at him, the Sword Empress spoke.
“I didn’t expect you to be here already.”
“Well, I don’t like making people wait.”
“That’s right, you always arrived faster than us.”
Standing bathed in moonlight was none other than the Sword Master.
The Sword Empress slowly walked towards the Sword Master.
“It feels like it’s been a very long time since we last met.”
“Yes… Have you been well?”
It had been months of camping. The Sword Master was riding a horse, and the Sword Empress was nearby.
There was no way the Sword Empress wouldn’t recognize the Sword Master.
Although she couldn’t understand why he was driving the Gu Family’s carriage, the Sword Empress simply watched the Sword Master.
“Sect Leader-nim.”
At the Sword Empress’s call, the Sword Master smiled bitterly.
“The Divine One calls me that too, everyone calls me that now. I’m just an insignificant old man.”
“If you wish, I shall call you Elder.”
“…No, it doesn’t matter what I’m called now.”
“How have you been during this time?”
How many years had it been? At least before the Sword Empress went to the Demonic Realm and experienced many things, so several years must have passed.
Ten years.
Or perhaps longer.
The Sword Master stepped down from his position as Sect Leader and disappeared, while Gu Cheol-un, the leader of the Azure Dragon Unit, became the head of the family, speaking of disbanding the Sword Brigade.
Meanwhile, the Sword Empress headed to the Demonic Realm. She wanted to find many things, wanted to know many things, but…
She learned things she shouldn’t have, and ended up losing more than she gained.
“What do you think?”
The Sword Master asked, and the Sword Empress said nothing.
She just quietly looked at the Sword Master.
He had aged. The Sword Master, who seemed unbeatable, had been swept away by time and become an old man.
The deep shadows on his wrinkled face hinted at the kind of times the old man must have endured.
Still, the Sword Empress couldn’t empathize.
“A lot of time has passed, and I’ve aged too.”
The woman who left for the Central Plains dreaming only of swords and justice had now entered middle age.
“I have seen and learned much, but I still cannot understand what you did, Sect Leader-nim.”
“The Divine One said the same.”
“Why did you do it?”
This was the question the Sword Empress had wanted to ask most in the past. Why.
“Dozens of righteous warriors who trusted and followed you, Sect Leader-nim, lost their lives.”
This was the reason the Divine One hated the Sect Leader, and the reason the Sword Empress resented the Sword Master.
The annihilation of the Azure Dragon Unit. The Sword Empress still remembered how the Azure Dragon Unit, which had departed for the Demonic Realm under the Sect Leader’s command, was wiped out.
How much she had resented herself for not being able to follow them there, how grief-stricken she had been watching the youngest member of the Sword Brigade take his own life with his hands.
“I am not here merely to discuss sacrifice.”
Sacrifice is necessary. When striving for something, nothing can be achieved without sacrifice.
That is why one must possess justice and value conviction.
Everyone in the Azure Dragon Unit was like that. They were people ready to die for their comrades rather than live for themselves.
The sacrifice of those who hesitated not to die for others, dreaming of justice.
The Sword Empress herself would have had no regrets if she had died in the Demonic Realm back then.
Even when the survivors who returned from the Demonic Realm took their own lives later, the Sword Empress did not resent the Sword Master.
It was the same when she heard the news that the Sword Brigade was annihilated due to reckless operational orders.
She did not resent the Sect Leader.
She tried to live on, thinking this too must have been a necessary death. Thinking they had died contributing to world peace, that it was a glorious sacrifice.
She tried to think that way.
Until she learned the truth.
“So please, answer me.”
As she spoke, the Sword Empress drew her sword.
The Sword Master watched the Sword Empress, making no move.
“For what did we have to die? Truly….”
Crimson sword energy gradually gathered at the tip of her blade.
“Was it to save the Sect Leader’s child?”
At the Sword Empress’s words, the Sword Master’s eyes twitched slightly.
As the sword energy intensified, light began to linger around the Sword Empress.
“…I am sorry….”
Simultaneously with the Sword Master’s weak apology, the sword energy from the tip of the Sword Empress’s blade flew towards the Sword Master, striking him.
Kwaga-gagang-!
Along with a deafening sound that overwhelmed the surroundings, the air pressure spread in all directions, creating thick dust.
The flat ground turned into a mess, and as the sword energy exploded, sharp marks spread across the area.
Trees and rocks were swept away, cut in half.
Where the Sword Empress’s fearsome power had passed, the dust settled, and the Sword Master remained in his place.
Exactly as he had stood from the beginning, unharmed and immaculate.
Seeing that, the Sword Empress said.
“…You haven’t changed.”
The Sword Empress couldn’t help but smile bitterly at the sight. Although his body had been deteriorating due to the demonic energy, even if he hadn’t fully regained his original strength.
Compared to the last time she saw the Sword Master, the Sword Empress had become stronger.
She had wielded her sword relentlessly ever since that day.
It wasn’t for revenge.
She had promised herself not to wield such a sword.
Even so. Still, the distance between her and the Sword Master remained vast.
“Do you wish for my death?”
“If I did, what would you do?”
“If you wish it, I shall comply. I don’t think my life holds much value anymore….”
“…!”
“But, not yet… I cannot die yet.”
The Sword Master held nothing in his hands.
He merely stood with his hands behind his back, looking at the Sword Empress, yet the Sword Empress felt not a shred of hope that she could defeat him.
It wasn’t a presence gained by emitting Qi or showing off something.
It was an overwhelming aura felt solely from the level he had reached as a martial artist.
Should I be glad that a gap, unfelt before, was now apparent, or despair at facing an endless wall?
The Sword Empress couldn’t easily accept either outcome.
“You speak paradoxically.”
“I am sorry….”
“Is it because of that child this time?”
“…”
“I saw that child too. She was a very beautiful child.”
Wi Seol-ah, wasn’t that her name? The girl said to be the Sword Master’s granddaughter.
She was a beautiful child. Seeing her kind heart and how well she followed those around her made me smile without realizing it.
However, as the Sword Empress gradually recovered her strength, she could perceive the immense presence the girl possessed.
In a way, it could be seen as having no presence at all, but…
To the Sword Empress, it felt the opposite. It was likely that such immense power made it seem like nothing was felt.
That’s how it seemed to her.
The Sword Master offered no answer to the Sword Empress’s question.
“What do you dream of?”
“…Just.”
“That the child… be happy. Is that what you dream of?”
Her voice sharpened.
“If you knew you would dream of such things, you shouldn’t have done it.”
The youngest of the Sword Brigade, the disciple of Wudang who took his own life, cried in the Sword Empress’s arms.
The little hero, who had set out to protect people after passing his youth, died alone, filled with fear.
“I don’t know what you and the Unit Leader saw to be living like this, but it’s a narrow-minded excuse, and you’re just running away using it as a cover.”
Even I, who saw the great tree rooted in the Demonic Realm, felt despair and faced death, but I did not give up.
Even if they saw something far worse than I did.
The Sword Empress couldn’t understand.
“I wished to die by your hand, Sect Leader-nim.”
“Why…!”
“It was only a few years ago. But no matter how much I searched, you left no trace.”
The Sword Empress didn’t know why the Sword Master had reappeared like this after such a period of absence. More accurately, she didn’t want to know anymore.
“Now that I have a reason to live, it’s too late to die.”
Her lovely disciple was growing day by day. Though she had wished for death, the Sword Empress, having regained her time, now wanted to live.
“I don’t know what you see that makes you live the way you do. And I haven’t decided to forgive you.”
Even after a lifetime, she would likely never forgive the Sword Master.
The people he needed to apologize to were not the Sword Empress.
“I hoped you wouldn’t be like this, at least… but that was wrong too.”
If only he had remained the strong figure of the past, standing above all, looking down upon the world.
Perhaps then, she could have calmly gotten angry, resented him, and swung her sword even sensing defeat.
“Do you know what Tae-ryong said in the end?”
It was the name of the youngest member who died in the Sword Empress’s arms.
“He said he was scared. Scared of living, of enduring.”
-Noona… I’m so scared….
The Sword Empress couldn’t resist her closing eyes and her hands clenching tightly! She almost swung her sword again, but she suppressed her emotions and held back.
“When… when all this is over, I will take my own life and meet them to atone.”
“…From today onwards, I will not come to see you, Sect Leader-nim.”
Gu Cheol-un was the same, and the Sword Master also seemed to have many unspeakable stories and reasons, but for the Sword Empress, this was the end of the line.
No matter what story might be hidden, what had happened could not be undone.
Nothing could justify it.
For the Sword Empress, living for revenge was no longer possible, as she now had something too precious in her heart to protect.
So, she would endure.
Neither the Sword Master’s death nor her own.
She had only wanted to ask, and the Sword Empress had achieved her goal.
“Did you seek the Divine One for that child as well?”
The Sword Master didn’t answer this either, but his silence was answer enough.
How did the Sword Master become like this?
She didn’t think he was always like this.
He was someone who had wielded his sword for the peace of the Central Plains more than anyone, someone who possessed great justice and conviction behind a steely exterior.
“I cannot know what has made you so weak, Sect Leader-nim, but I hope you do not lose your integrity at least.”
Saying that, the Sword Empress sheathed her sword.
She thought for a moment. If she had possessed greater strength than the Sword Master, could she have refrained from killing him now?
‘…I don’t know.’
Her inability to give a definitive answer meant she herself was not a perfect human.
She needed a place to vent her resentment, found someone to blame, and simply poured out the emotions she had held inside.
“I shall head down first. Thank you for coming out here.”
Turning her back, the Sword Empress descended the mountain path again.
Her disciple would be waiting, so her steps quickened.
Beside the Sword Master, left alone, only the rising moonlight remained.
Hiding his trembling hands, the Sword Master knelt on one knee. Simultaneously, the Qi barrier spread across the mountain vanished in an instant.
“…I am sorry…. I’m sorry….”
He covered his face with his wrinkled hands. There were no tears left to shed.
He just had to wait for the right time.
Recalling the moment when this incompetent life must end, the Sword Master quietly sobbed.
Arriving at the place where Gu Ryeong-hwa was waiting, the Sword Empress was guided by a servant to where the others had gathered.
She concealed the densely packed emotions and composed her expression. Her disciple was perceptive, so she would notice any change if she wasn’t focused.
Calmly gathering her thoughts and opening the door, someone suddenly burst out.
“Hello…!”
At first, I thought it was Gu Ryeong-hwa, but seeing the deep green hair, I realized it wasn’t.
Her attire and features reminded me of a certain clan, and as I looked closer to see who it was.
The girl, Tang Soyeol, shyly offered something to the Sword Empress.
“It’s a medicine made from Mubangcho…! I-it’s great for skin! Please accept it…!”
Mubangcho…?
‘…Isn’t that a poisonous herb?’
As the Sword Empress looked at her with a bewildered gaze, Tang Soyeol simply smiled shyly.
Pooop-!
Gu Yangcheon, who was watching, spat out the tea he was drinking.
It was because he hadn’t expected her to actually gift poison.
“…Oppa.”
“…Ah.”
And Gu Ryeong-hwa, sitting opposite Gu Yangcheon, had to endure being sprayed with all the liquid.
“Sorry.”
Gu Yangcheon apologized quickly, but Gu Ryeong-hwa’s face had already transformed into that of a demon.
Only then did Gu Yangcheon nod.
Looking at that face, he could be sure that Gu Ryeong-hwa was also of the Gu bloodline.
‘…She looks terrifying.’
“You crazy bastard!”
Gu Ryeong-hwa, in her demonic form, roared.
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