Cold Sleep (2)

For a living person of the martial world to have no chivalry is far more terrifying than for a Dead Man to have no soul.
-Charles Dickens-

-Clunk.

When we opened the hexagonal coffin’s lid, Irene Adler was there, still dead, still wearing a wide smile.

“You disguised it properly. No matter how I look, she’s nothing but a corpse.”
“Because she really did die once.”

There was no stench, but Irene Adler’s bloodless appearance looked like it had been a long time since her breath had stopped.

To anyone’s eyes, she looked like nothing but a corpse.

Originally, we planned to take her like this and show her to the Tsar, but Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, the army surgeon he trusted, had confirmed the death instead, so there was no problem.

Even if we had gone to Alexander III as planned, Pavlov would have examined the body anyway.

In any case, Watson and Pavlov were both excellent army surgeons, and we had fooled them, which meant the disguise was perfect.

Since there was no longer any need to seek out an enraged Tsar, it was a satisfying outcome in many ways.

“To think someone in such a perfectly complete deathlike state can be revived. It’s nothing new, but the martial world is vast, and divine arts and ultimate learnings are many.”

As Watson marveled, Yan gave a small smile.

The Chelmsford Yan Family, along with the Zuckerberg Family, held a unique position among the many Kung-Fu Noblesse, and their inherited Kung-Fu took a form close to what people commonly called magic tricks.

Prestigious families that inherited other fierce Kung-Fu looked down on the Yan Family, but the profundity of their Kung-Fu study was not something that could ever be taken lightly.

Honestly, I could only regret that Ulrich was not here.

Ulrich Zuckerberg could not join because he was busy cleaning up the mediums he had spread widely, but if he met Yan, the two of them might actually find plenty to talk about.

“We should first revive her before it’s too late.”

Yan chuckled softly and took out the antidote pill he had prepared in advance from his bag.

While he prepared the antidote, I put on thick gloves and then stuck my hand into Irene Adler’s parted mouth.

“It must have been a fairly expensive Detox Candy, but it seems it still couldn’t withstand the cold poison of the Thousand-Year Ice Silkworm.”

The Detox Candy had already turned white as if it had lost its efficacy just from coming into contact with that energy when Head Professor Louise administered the cold poison.

If we left this in for no reason, the antidote Yan prepared might not be able to exert its full effect, so it was right to remove the foreign matter.

“It took a full year for the previous Patriarch’s White Worm to produce this. It was prepared in case the secret cold poison was stolen or used for purposes other than intended.”

Like the poison, the antidote that paired with it also seemed to be an item beyond precious.

“…What will you do if you get caught doing that?”
“Don’t worry about me. It’s something we haven’t used even once in decades anyway. The old man’s dementia is so bad he won’t recognize it.”

Even if he had been chosen as the next Patriarch (though it would take quite some time before he inherited the position from the current Patriarch), I never imagined he would pull out the family’s treasures so recklessly, from the White Worm he had allotted me to everything else.

I could guess why Yan didn’t spare such investment in me.

The Archfiend, Frankenstein, whom he hunted whenever he had the chance, was a Public Enemy designated by the European Murim Alliance, and at the same time, the arch-enemy of every family and Clan that dealt in Necromancy, regardless of orthodox or unorthodox, including the Chelmsford Yan Family, the Modern Clan, and the Africa’s Golden Pyramid.

Yan did not hesitate to cooperate in anything connected to me because he believed it was certain that someday I would find Frankenstein and pass judgment.

Frankenstein was the one responsible for the downfall of Necromancy.

Before he appeared, Dead Men were gaining attention as cheap, environmentally friendly next-generation labor.

Necromancers were treated with the utmost respect in every country and drew huge investment funds, and among them, the Yan Family and the Modern Clan, who inherited the finest secret manuals, achieved a level of prosperity that had been unimaginable before.

However, after Frankenstein carried out terrorism using Dead Men across Europe, Dead Men became an object of fear.

That was why the value of necromancers crashed overnight to less than roadside pebbles.

If, in such a situation, the next Patriarch of the Yan Family, a family with a lineage of necromancy, earned great merit by beheading the great villain who alone brought about necromancy’s downfall.

All under heaven would honor the Yan Family’s chivalry, and perhaps they might even lay the groundwork to reclaim their former glory.

No, even if not to the level of the past, at the very least, they could stop the tragedy of taking petty money from the Liverpool Tanne Family, which was only about mid-tier even among the Three Tanne Clans, and sending their eldest son into spirit-beast equivalency tests or clinical trials.

“…I will never forget your help. I promise I will repay you.”
“Thank you, even if it’s only words. In any case, shall we witness a holy miracle together for now?”

Saying that, Yan began slowly breathing internal energy into the antidote pill in his hand.

-Hwaaak!

As it touched an eerie eerie Yin energy, the antidote pill, which had been in the form of a bead the size of a thumbnail, began to change shape.

As the layered shell of the pellet unfolded and bloomed wide like a lotus bud, the sight was almost divine.

“Cold Sleep. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Had I already explained it to you, Holmes?”

At the unfamiliar term, Watson blinked.

Meanwhile, Mycroft kept his mouth shut, as if something came to mind.

He looked like he had heard something secret that must never be spoken outside.

But Yan didn’t seem to intend to accommodate Mycroft.

“Cold Sleep. What is that, exactly?”

Watson was the same.

Perhaps because she couldn’t contain her curiosity, she boldly asked Yan without sparing a glance for Mycroft.

“Cold Sleep refers to a Kung-Fu study that preserves a living Kung-Fuist as if they’re dead. Each clan or family uses different methods, but generally they use methods like placing a Kung-Fuist whose life activity has been halted in a cold cave filled with Yin-Qi.”
“…Why would anyone do that?”
“Think about it. Wouldn’t there be those who believe it is better for a master who has reached the Unrestrained Realm to sleep in preparation for a future crisis than to live out his natural years and die?”
“Now that you say it…”

Watson looked considerably shocked.

I understood how she felt.

I was flustered the first time I heard that story too.

“Cold Sleep is a method that has existed since long ago. A secret rite carried out across the world. Our Yan Family has also continued researching this field.”

Yan was watching the bloomed antidote with eyes full of affection.

The pellet made by the White Worm had already become a single flower, showing off a beautiful form.

“We began by turning our ancestors’ corpses into living corpses or Dead Men, but gradually we also learned how to preserve the body and internal energy long-term while still alive. It wasn’t difficult, since we could use the Thousand-Year Ice Silkworm’s poison in the same way. So—”

-Tok.

Yan dropped the tiny lotus into Irene Adler’s mouth.

“There’s no need to kill a perfectly healthy person. Especially when she’s Europe’s greatest primadonna.”

-Hwaaak!

The moment the antidote melted in the Afternoon Tea Party Leader’s mouth, I administered the Pursuit Powder I had set aside separately.

Because I thought that if the awakened Irene released Qi Frequency, the poison inside Watson and Mrs. Hudson might exert its efficacy.

/<…You’re still as meticulous as always.>

Watching me, Mycroft sent a quiet Direct Message.

“You cannot let your guard down when dealing with criminals.”

-Kkumteul.

Right after I finished speaking, Irene Adler’s finger twitched.

-Thump.

A small heartbeat my sharpened hearing caught.

Irene Adler’s soul, which had crossed the River Styx, began returning to London.

-Thump!

A pulse that grew stronger and stronger.
Color returned to the pallid skin of her whole body.

The end of a brief Cold Sleep.

With a ragged inhale, the diva opened her eyes.

“Paha…!!”

And then, she spat blood.

“Kuhuk!”

With the coughing of blood, the meridians that had been blocked opened.

The moment Irene Adler took in the situation around her, she tried to draw up her internal energy and unfold a sound technique.

“Gahak! Keok!! Kuhuk!!”

But because her elixir field was sealed by the Pursuit Powder’s efficacy, only dry coughs leaked from her mouth.

“W-what did you do to my body!!”

As expected of the Afternoon Tea Party Leader.

Rather than being shocked that she returned from death, she was trying to escape the crisis immediately, and seeing that, her mind worked astonishingly fast.

“I revived you from the dead. Shouldn’t you be grateful.”

I asked, but Irene Adler was straining to move her stiff limbs and raise herself somehow.

Even though she had been cut off from oxygen for a long time, there was no sign of damage to her Niwan Palace.

The strange poison created by combining the Thousand-Year Ice Silkworm’s cold poison with the substances secreted when laughing had kept her body intact.

“What happened… my internal energy… I can’t feel my internal energy!”

As if she could not hear me, the Afternoon Tea Party Leader was slowly patting her body here and there.

It must be her first time.

Usually she only poisoned others, and now she herself was afflicted by a lethal poison.

Watching Irene Adler, who had ingested Pursuit Powder without Detox Candy, crawling helplessly on the floor made me feel strange.

“Give up. The Afternoon Tea Party is already finished.”

“…”

Irene Adler kept her mouth shut for a while, then lowered her head.

It was the moment a young unorthodox leader knelt before orthodox Murim.

“…My stage?”

Having grasped the situation quickly, Irene Adler looked up at me with hollow eyes and asked.

“Don’t worry. Once a primadonna, always a primadonna. Even if you sing barefoot on the cold stone floor of a prison, the fact that Irene Adler is Europe’s greatest diva will not change.”

Pure consolation without a trace of mockery.

As if in reply, tears without any falsehood began to flow from Irene Adler’s eyes.

-Koogoong…!

That was when.

A violent tremor began shaking London.

“…An earthquake?”

The Little Heavenly Demon Sherlock Holmes did not yet know.

That if the balance of Yin and Yang could break from the mere fact that the Vermilion Phoenix approached Great Britain, then the dragon veins flowing underground could not be free from that influence either.

The earthquake that struck London was only a portent of a greater catastrophe.

The first place affected by the dense Yang-Qi was Glencoe in Scotland, lined with countless volcanoes.

“Are you ready, Lunar Society Lord?”
“Of course, Grand Highlander.”

Charles Darwin, the Knight of the Round Table, and Scotland’s greatest Kung-Fuist, the Grand Highlander, were waiting in Glencoe’s valley to stop an eruption.