Translator: bjgoofy
Hwa-eun’s eyes lit up with joy at my words.
It must have been because I stood tall in this dangerous and strange situation where a bizarre woman was coveting me.
Isn’t this the original appeal of a younger man?
Usually, he triggers protective instincts, and then, in decisive moments like this, he declares, “Nunim, you're my woman.”
‘I may not know much about romance, but I sure can read the scene.’
After a few years of broadcast experience, how could I not know a scene that would hook viewers?
My only viewer seemed to like the angle I created, as she fired a barrage of “likes” at me with her eyes.
Just as Hwa-eun was showering me with those visual “likes”, the woman in black blankly repeated what I said.
“The adopted son of the Beast Palace, and... the Tang Family’s son-in-law...”
Her eyes immediately began to flush red.
Then, with bloodshot eyes, the woman shouted at Hwa-eun.
“Those bastards from the Tang Family and the Beast Palace! What are you thinking!? Are you planning to repeat what happened a hundred years ago!? You pieces of trash!”
It seemed she was asking if they intended to repeat what had happened to the Five Poisons Sect.
I had heard that the Five Poisons Sect was founded by the son of the Tang Family and the daughter of the Beast Palace.
Though it was annihilated under the pretext of immoral animal abuse and martial arts leakage from both sides.
But this woman, who was now furiously spewing curses at Hwa-eun with bloodshot eyes, looked at me with pity, as if she had become a completely different person.
“Turns out you’re a pitiful person... I’ve got another reason to make you mine. I’ll save you from the filthy hands of the Tang Family and the Beast Palace.”
"What nonsense are you talking about...."
“Yes. Right now, you’re probably deceived by the Tang Family and the Beast Palace, so I understand.”
I had thought that revealing myself as the son of the Beast Palace and the son-in-law of the Tang Family would make the Five Poisons Sect want to kill me more than anyone, but perhaps because this woman had lost her mind, she seemed to view me as a victim walking the same path as them.
When I told her what nonsense she was talking about, she thought I had been brainwashed.
‘She’s definitely not normal.’
As her words gave me chills, the woman, brushing off the ice clumps stuck to her chest and arms, suddenly dashed toward me.
“Come! Come with me!”
‘Crazy- wasn’t she injured!?’
I thought she had sustained internal injuries from being struck properly by Snow and Ice, but she was closing the distance at a maddening speed.
It seemed my words had only provoked her more.
It was nice to act cool, but if things turned out like this, it would be troublesome.
At this rate, I might really get dragged away by a crazy woman.
I had no idea how the fight between Yohwa and Cho at the back was going, but if I got caught, everything would be in vain.
The kids might give up the fight to save me, so I absolutely could not get caught.
That’s why I quickly retreated and mentally prepared Hyang and Bin.
Just in case the woman tried to grab me, I would dispatch Hyang and Bin immediately.
‘Hyang! Bin! Get ready!’
As I launched myself backward while preparing Hyang and Bin.
Hwa-eun leapt in front of me and shouted toward Snow and Ice, who had popped out of her skirt and perched on her shoulders.
“Snow! Ice!”
-Kkukku!
-Kkuu!
Then, like missiles, Ice and Snow shot out from Hwa-eun’s shoulders.
They fired with such force that the impact sent Hwa-eun herself stumbling backward into my arms.
“Ghk....”
Just as the three were about to collide with terrifying speed, as if they were going to end it for good.
-Srrrk.
The woman’s body blurred and passed right through Snow and Ice.
‘The Wall Gecko Subtle Step of the Lizard Gecko Body Steps!?’
It was a martial art I had some basic knowledge of thanks to grandfather.
He once demonstrated it slowly for me, so I knew it as a step technique. It was one of the secret techniques from the Five Poisons Technique, the Lizard Gecko Body Steps, and it was now being displayed by the woman.
Come to think of it, since it was the martial arts of the Five Poisons Sect, it made sense that she knew it.
-Boom!
Snow and Ice crashed straight into the ground, and upon confirming that their attack had failed, Hwa-eun struck the approaching woman with both palms.
“Tch! Black Dragon Palm!”
However, the woman easily dodged Hwa-eun’s Twin Palms again and swung her arm wide, sending Hwa-eun flying to the right.
“You're annoying, so get out of the way!”
-Thwack!
“Kyaaah....”
“Hwa-eun!”
Then she flew straight toward me and grabbed my wrist.
Her eyes shimmered with desire and madness.
“Come, come with me!”
At that moment.
I unleashed the Venomous Snake Life-Seizing Hand’s Venomous Snake Coveting Spring, wrapping around the woman's hand, and followed up with Venomous Snake Coveting Peach, stretching my hand toward the woman’s chest.
It was because seeing her use the Lizard Gecko Body Steps reminded me of the Five Poisons Technique I had learned, Venomous Snake Life-Seizing Hand.
With this, I could reliably instruct Hyang and Bin to bite near the heart in her chest.
If it were someone else, I would have told them to bite the arm or leg, but since the Five Poisons Sect’s Toad Unit earlier had shown no reaction to Cho’s Flying Celestial Centipede poison, I thought this woman might also have some kind of antidote or resistance. So I aimed as close to the heart as possible.
The woman’s eyes widened in shock.
“Venomous Snake Life-Seizing Hand? You're learning the Five Poisons Technique!?”
As her eyes bulged again in surprise, I shouted that familiar command toward Hyang and Bin for the first time in a while.
“Hyang! Bin! Bite!”
-Tsururur!
Then Hyang shot out from my wrist like an arrow, flying toward the woman’s chest.
What flashed through my mind at that moment was the fact that I had clearly said for both of them to bite, yet only Hyang had flown out.
‘What!? Where’s Bin?’
When I turned my eyes to check why Bin hadn’t launched, the little one had quickly crawled up to my shoulder and was wiggling its antennae rapidly.
-Tsurururur.
‘No… Bin! Not killing intent....’
I told it to bite, but it was shaking its antennae.
It seemed, in its own judgment, it thought launching killing intent would be a more efficient attack.
Normally, that would’ve been an adorably cute act, but not right now.
Because the woman still had a free hand.
In the end, though I aimed for the chest, due to Bin’s sudden behavior, the woman’s free hand intercepted Hyang, and Hyang bit into the back of her hand instead of her chest.
“Ghk. B-Blue-Spotted Centipede!?”
It needed to bite down hard and inject poison for a while, but perhaps because the woman was well-versed in poisons, she quickly shook her hand and knocked Hyang off.
Her hand quickly swelled, but that was all.
It felt like she had some resistance to centipede venom, being from the Five Poisons Sect.
Just as I feared, the woman seemed to treat the Blue-Spotted Centipede’s venom as no more dangerous than that of an ordinary centipede.
“I can’t believe you were even hiding a Blue-Spotted Centipede. Just how much do you plan to surprise me? But I like you even more now. This is like the master of five poisons that our Five Poisons Sect dreamed of!"
The woman’s crazed eyes swept over me again.
She seemed to think I was a ready-made talent for the Five Poisons Sect.
Just like I was considered ideal for the Tang Family and the Beast Palace, I must have been nearly perfect for the Five Poisons Sect too.
I was just a YouTuber who liked venomous creatures, but somehow my value in the murim world was bizarrely high.
“Oh, and don’t worry. It’s painful, but there’s no way I’ll die from a baby Blue-Spotted Centipede’s venom. Hehe.”
The woman calmly pressed the acupoint on her shoulder to block the spread of the poison, then stabbed a needle-tipped cylinder into the back of her hand.
Soon, the swelling went down.
Other people would have melted if bitten by two or three of those centipedes, but damn this Five Poisons Sect.
Hwa-eun was also down and unable to get back up, and just as I was thinking, “Am I really going to get dragged away like this?”
From far away, the roar of a wild beast suddenly rang out.
-Kuuuooong!
The woman’s eyes widened in shock.
“T-That’s... the Lion’s Roar of the Beast Palace!?”
When I turned my head, what I saw charging this way on all fours from the plains toward Nannuo Mountain was none other than my adoptive father.
Beside him, the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons, Grandfather, was also flying toward us like a madman.
“Who dares to capture my son!”
“Who dares to capture the Tang Family’s son-in-law!”
Their booming voices rang out almost simultaneously.
-Grrrrr.
The woman ground her teeth and shouted.
“Of all people, the Beast Palace Lord and that old monster! Gweong! Come here!”
Then, the buzzing of harnet’s wings that we had forgotten about until now rang out, and the hornet quickly flew to the woman’s side.
-Wuuuuung!
The hornet had spider webs stuck here and there and a few scratch marks, but it didn’t seem seriously injured.
As the woman climbed onto the hornet’s back, she spoke.
“Because of the interference, it seems I can’t take you with me right now. I can’t fully use my internal energy after expelling the Blue-Spotted Centipede’s venom, and Gweong can only carry one person, so don’t be too disappointed. I’ll definitely come back for you.”
“Let’s go! We can’t be caught here!”
-Wuuuuung.
The hornet flapped its wings and took to the sky, and as it rose with the woman on its back, something glimmered on both the woman’s and the hornet’s heads.
'Golden needles!?'
Just as I widened my eyes in shock at the sight of Golden Needles embedded in the heads of both the woman and the hornet like army ants, the woman’s sound transmission reached my ears.
[Remember. My name is Wu Qingyu.]
This was my first encounter with the Five Poisons Sect.
***
Thanks to the rescue by my adoptive father and the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons, Grandfather, we were fortunately saved without further harm.
All of us were transferred to the Beast Palace, and aside from me, everyone else was lying in bed receiving treatment.
As you know, Hyung-nim had suffered a serious injury with his side pierced, and though we thought Sword Phoenix was dead, she had fortunately survived.
However, she had sustained heavy internal injuries and was diagnosed to need at least a few months of rest.
And Spear Dragon had apparently suffered a fracture in his neck, possibly due to the strike to his cervical vertebra.
According to the Beast Palace elder skilled in medicine, he had to rest as stably as possible.
Seol noona had been severely affected by the Gweong’s voice due to learning a martial art that heightened her hearing among the Beast Palace’s techniques, and Hwa-eun had suffered bruises and internal injuries from being hit.
But more than everyone else being injured, what infuriated me the most was the fact that Cho had lost two legs.
It was the result of the battle with the hornet.
Looking at Cho, I spoke with an angry expression.
“That damned Gweong. How much it hurt our Cho. Are you okay, Cho?”
-Tsurut.
Cho sent the message that she was fine, but I knew it was just to keep me from worrying.
So I couldn’t help being angry.
Well, Cho is a centipede, so she could recover her legs through molting, but from a father’s perspective, waiting endlessly wasn’t an option either.
She still hadn’t fully adjusted and was staying inside Yohwa’s thread cocoon, but I deliberately said it out loud so she could hear.
“Oh no, Cho’s hurt... To molt, she’ll need something nutritious to eat. Where could I possibly get something nutritious... How much it must’ve hurt losing two legs....
At times like this, family should help each other....”
Then the one who had been watching for a while made sad eyes and suddenly started retching.
-Kek! Keh-ek!
Then she coughed up a tiny Inner Core the size of a grain.
‘Ha, you little rascal, you really hoarded an Inner Core. I had a feeling you didn’t spit everything out last time.’
As I expected, the little one had been hiding a piece of Inner Core.
Even after coughing it up, she didn’t show any drastic change like before, but since Hyang and Bin would throw a fit if they found out, I quickly fed the Inner Core to Cho.
Because treating Cho’s injuries was the top priority right now.
And since Hyang and Bin were currently with the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons Grandfather, now was the perfect time.
Hyang and Bin usually never went to Grandfather, but the reason they had this time was because they were sulking at Hwa-eun and me.
They had gotten upset, thinking we tricked them with the use of killing intent, and had run off to Grandfather.
It seemed they found it strange that the woman from the Five Poisons Sect hadn’t been affected by the killing intent, and after returning to the Beast Palace, Bin had tested it on various beasts alone, but there had been no effect, so the truth had been exposed.
This morning, I had felt the chill in the air from early on, and when I looked at my bedside, I saw Hyang and Bin glaring down at me. I had slept with Hwa-eun, but they came to me anyway. Reading their emotions, they were thoroughly sulking.
After that, they suddenly disappeared, and when I wondered where they’d gone, I found out they were staying with Grandfather and hadn’t come near us since.
“Cho, hurry up and eat and recover.”
-Tsururut.
As soon as she ate the Inner Core, Cho curled up.
Just as I thought, she began molting, with the area below her head starting to split open.
With this, the fallen legs would be restored soon.
No, she might even grow a bit larger.
‘Next time I meet that hornet bastard, I’m giving it hell.’
With some desperate squeezing of the Flying Celestial Serpent, I somehow managed to treat Cho, and now the only issue left was how to appease the daughters.
‘Ha, last time I barely managed to calm them down with the Inner Core, but how the hell do I fix this now?’
If only I had internet, I’d look up how to cheer up daughters when they’re sulking.