Chapter 30

Ju Ok-hwa was a master of poison.

It was said that in poison arts, she stood shoulder to shoulder with the famous Patriarch of the Sichuan Tang Family.

In the Murim, a master of poison was always someone everyone feared.

Unless they were utterly insane, no one would dare provoke Ju Ok-hwa, and she was well used to that kind of situation.

“Ready to talk, is it? You must know well that running wild without fear is a privilege of the young. But you do not seem to know what kind of person I am.”

Her violet eyes gleamed ominously, like a lethal, concentrated poison.

I smiled as if provoking her.

“If I offended you, I apologize. I only did it because I wanted to speak with your true self, Hall Master.”

“My true self? What do you even know to act this arrogant? Still, it is fresh and entertaining. I have been lacking stimulation lately.”

“So that is why you are speaking down to me on our first meeting. From what I know, you normally do not do that. I am glad. It feels like the distance between us suddenly closed.”

In contrast to the seemingly warm exchange, Ju Ok-hwa’s expression was icy.

Naturally, the atmosphere cooled, and tension hung in the air.

The guards hiding their presence in the garden released a fierce aura as if issuing a warning.

Of course, Im Yeon and the guards who had followed me responded in kind with their own aura–

“Uup!”

…Uup?

When I looked back, Im Yeon was covering her mouth, barely holding back her vomit.

If she took that hand away, it felt like a disaster would erupt.

“She’s your guard?”

“…Yes.”

“Change her. If she cannot endure even this, what kind of guard does she think she is.”

The Ink-Needle Hall Lord sneered.

Even while holding back her nausea, Im Yeon looked hurt.

“She cannot help having a weak stomach. Honestly, the smell here is not just ordinarily strong.”

“It is not smell, it is fragrance. Not strong, fragrant.”

“Smell or fragrance, either way, can you do something about it? My guard looks like she is going to throw up in your precious garden.”

Perhaps she imagined the scene.

Ju Ok-hwa frowned, then flicked her fingers toward Im Yeon.

She had sent out a qi pellet.

Im Yeon flinched a few times as if struck, and then something astonishing happened.

Her nausea vanished completely.

“Huh?”

Bewildered, Im Yeon touched her own nose.

“Young Lord, this is strange. The smell that was unbearable just now feels like fragrance now!”

“Of course. I touched the Yingxiang point, the Shangxing point, and the Chengqi point to adjust your sense of smell.”

At her explanation, I inwardly admired her.

I was once again reminded of how absurdly overwhelming her abilities were.

In poison, she could be compared to the Sichuan Tang Family Patriarch, and in medicine, to the Life-and-Death Divine Physician.

She might fall short of them if you compared each field separately, but the very fact that she alone possessed two transcendent abilities was astounding.

“Hmph.”

As if asking if I had seen that well, Ju Ok-hwa snorted while glaring at me.

“You said there was a problem with my treatment, did you not?”

“I did. How about we clear the surroundings a bit before talking. I think that would be better for both of us.”

Besides me, only three people knew I had the True Blood Severed Meridians.

The Heavenly Demon, the Demon Valley Lord, and Ju Ok-hwa.

I had no desire to increase that number.

Ju Ok-hwa spoke.

“It is always the ones with nothing great to say who act like this. The Black Ghost Hall Master once said he had some grave matter to discuss. Know what it was. He said he could not function as a man anymore and asked me to make him medicine.”

“So the Black Ghost Hall Master had such a story. But what can I say? I have no interest in other people’s stories.”

“Do not make me laugh. There is no one in this world who is not curious about others. The more they put on airs, the worse it is. They want to know others’ dirty secrets and feel superior for being better.”

“You are right, but my circumstances are a little different from others.”

Ju Ok-hwa snorted again.

“You had better not let it turn out to be something trivial. I will make you like the Black Ghost Hall Master.”

She tilted her head in a terrifying warning.

The surrounding auras disappeared completely.

Even the guard who had led me here turned and walked away.

Im Yeon, worried, did not move, so I looked at her and spoke.

“It is fine, go wait over there.”

“But the Guard Code–”

“You do not need to cling to the Guard Code so much. They will be revised soon anyway.”

“Pardon. Revised?”

“You will see later.”

Shoo shoo, I waved my hand.

Reluctantly, Im Yeon led the guards away to a distance.

Only then were Ju Ok-hwa and I left alone.

The conditions to speak of private matters were in place.

“Say what you wanted to. Start with this supposed problem with my treatment.”

“Oh, that. The problem is that the treatment worked too well.”

“What kind of insane talk is that?”

Her tone was sharp.

I answered with a joke. It was to lightly refresh the mood before getting to the main point.

“My master’s training was so harsh I passed out, remember. I was planning to use my body as an excuse to rest for a few days, but you cured me so quickly that I only got a single day off before going right back to training.”

“So you want me to turn you back into half a corpse?”

“…That is not it.”

I cleared my throat lightly and moved to the main subject.

“I came to see you for a different matter. You must have confirmed it while treating me, but I would like you to keep my secret.”

“Secret. Ah. The True Blood Severed Meridians.”

Ju Ok-hwa deliberately raised her voice.

Her violet eyes, which had seemed mysterious and ominous earlier, now felt irritating.

“Could you lower your voice a little?”

“No. Why should I lower my voice in my own house.”

Suddenly, Ju Ok-hwa grew relaxed.

She must have realized that the reason I was bothering her was my weakness.

“I thought you were crazy at first. Saying strange things out of nowhere. So it was because of this.”

“Something like that. You are an excellent person, Hall Master, but I heard your tongue is a bit light.”

“Wrong. My tongue is not a bit light, it is very light. When I get interesting information, my mouth just itches. I cannot endure it. I tried to cure it, but it did not fix. Just like the True Blood Severed Meridians you suffer from.”

As if it merely itched. I knew full well that was not it.

In my previous life, Ju Ok-hwa’s disciple had told me.

That her spilling of others’ secrets was deliberate.

“The Elder Council Lord has been looking for me lately. You should have caused your incidents in moderation.”

Ju Ok-hwa rolled her eyes upward as if in deep thought.

It looked playful, yet could not be dismissed.

My secret was an extremely useful tool for her.

If she handed it to the Elder Council Lord, she would receive a hefty reward.

My first goal was to seal her mouth before that happened.

“That is rather cruel. Everyone has secrets they wish to hide. Do you not have such secrets, Hall Master.”

“No.”

“Truly?”

I smiled meaningfully.

Ju Ok-hwa returned the smile with ease.

“Do not bluff when you know nothing. It does not work on me.”

“What if I do know?”

“Do not tell me this is about my so-called ‘true self’ you mentioned. What even is that?”

“The way you are showing yourself to me right now. But that is not what I was going to bring up.”

“Then what?”

“I know why you freely leak other people’s secrets, Hall Master.”

“Oh. And what would that be?”

“To gather more information. You expose others’ secrets, those who want to hear the details gather, you draw other information from them, and you use that information to increase your wealth. With that wealth, you run a private organization and wander in search of something.”

Her relaxed smile hardened.

“What are you? How do you know all of that?”

“That is not what you should be asking. The real question is how far I know.”

“…!”

Ju Ok-hwa’s mouth fell open.

How many people had suffered because of that mouth?

I did not know the exact number, but it was surely not small.

Having held so many people’s secrets on her tongue, had she never considered that someone might appear who knew her own?

If so, she had made a grave miscalculation.

“Do you know? The corners of your eyes and your lips are trembling right now, Hall Master.”

“I did not know you were so interested in my expressions. Should I praise you for your powers of observation.”

“I merely found it fascinating that your beautiful features are perfectly reproduced by that human-skin mask. You cannot obtain such a thing even for a thousand gold.”

Reflexively, Ju Ok-hwa raised a hand to her face.

She realized halfway that she had slipped and halted, but it was already too late.

“You did not truly think your own secret would remain hidden forever, did you?”

It was then.

Pat!

Ju Ok-hwa vanished.

In the blink of an eye, she reappeared, her left hand gripping my collar, her other hand aiming a black-colored long needle at me.

“…You are quite rough, Hall Master.”

“Hardly. If I were rough, I would have already scrambled your brain with this needle.”

Her violet eyes gleamed with madness as she thrust the long needle before my eyes.

It felt like she might pierce my skull at any moment.

In this extremely dangerous situation, I had an idle thought.

‘People of the Demon Cult.’

Whether they’re martial artists or physicians, they were all the same.

The moment something displeased them, they jumped straight to death threats.

“Is it really alright to use a tool for saving lives like this?”

I asked in a calm voice.

Unlike when I was threatened by the Demon Valley Lord, I was not nervous at all.

The Ink-Needle Hall Lord would not kill me, if only because she wanted to know who I was.

“I use it for the opposite purpose as well. Answer me. What you are, how, and how much you know about me?”

Ju Ok-hwa had immense pride in her appearance.

However, she showed her true face to no one.

No, she could not show it.

She had her reasons.

The information she so desperately sought at all costs was related to the circumstances that forced her to wear a human-skin mask like this.

I had heard that story from her disciple, Yeo Mun-gwang.

Yeo Mun-gwang was a madman. Under the pretext of finding a cure for the True Blood Severed Meridians, he used me as an experiment subject.

He carried out all sorts of experiments while endlessly rambling.

Most of it was slander about his own master, Ju Ok-hwa.

So unintentionally, I came to know her quite well.

“Do not try to dig too deep.”

I deliberately lowered my voice and continued.

“No matter who you are, there is a line you cannot endure crossing. I want a deal, not for you to get hurt. You did treat me, after all.”

A furrow formed between her brows.

She was pondering.

Soon, her pupils wavered.

A single name that could not be separated from me must have come to mind.

At this point, there were at most two people who might know her secret.

The head of the Demon Cult’s greatest intelligence organization, Demon Eye Pavilion, and the Heavenly Demon.

It would only be far in the future that Ju Ok-hwa’s secret was exposed to Yeo Mun-gwang.

In this situation, the only person connected to me was the Heavenly Demon.

However, I did not mention the Heavenly Demon directly.

For calculating people like Ju Ok-hwa, it was more effective to stimulate their imagination about unknown entities.

‘I have been using the Heavenly Demon’s name too often as it is.’

Once or twice was fine, but repeating it like this made me feel a bit sorry.

Of course, this was not essentially different from using him again.

“…”

For a long while, Ju Ok-hwa did not speak.

She was struggling to bear the weight of the name Heavenly Demon.

She studied my expression, then spoke in a small voice.

“From the moment you entered the cult, you crashed about everywhere, did you not. Now I understand why. You are bound to the lord by a relationship others do not know.”

“I am not sure what you mean.”

“Your martial skill is low and your internal energy is pitiful, yet you possess a type of demonic qi I have never seen. The lord must have planted it in you. For what? To purge the cult? To have you sow chaos within, then wipe everything out in one stroke–”

Calculating people had a chronic disease.

They believed they played above everyone else’s heads.

So they overthought things, and often missed the mark.

Like now.

“Save your imagination about what the truth is for later, by yourself. You have finished your calculations, have you not. Which weighs more? My secret, or yours, Hall Master?”

“…The deal stands.”

“A wise decision.”

Despite my calm tone, inwardly I wanted to shout with joy.

By sealing Ju Ok-hwa’s mouth, I had managed to overcome one of the greatest crises of my life after regression.

“But there is one thing you would do well to remember. I like speaking others’ secrets. I do not like hearing my own secrets from someone else’s mouth.”

“Of course. You can tie up that worry and set it aside.”

‘Now it is time to bring up the second matter.’

I was just about to open my mouth.

However.

“What is the second matter.”

I closed my mouth without thinking.

How did she know I had another request?

‘She really is no pushover.’

Either way, her seeing through it first made things easier.

I smiled and spoke.

“Your disciple, Hall Master. Won’t you lend him to me?”