Chapter 99: Her Ally

To Tang Yeo-hye, the world was a cold and harsh place.

When she was young, the poison that had seeped into her marrow had taken from her the mask of pretence and her patience.

Amid the succession struggle where politics and intrigue ran rampant, Tang Yeo-hye had faced and fought honestly against everything that provoked her.

Because of that, she had always had more enemies than allies.

As she could not avoid friction, the others had one by one turned their backs, and ultimately only a single maid remained beside her.

Believing there was no one else trustworthy, Tang Yeo-hye had shown the world nothing but cynicism and distrust.

Neung Sam had often felt sorry for that side of the young lady.

But recently, a strange change had been occurring in her heart.

A young troubleshooter was slowly seeping past the firmly built walls of her heart to the inside of her.

She had already thought him a decent fellow — his speech had been as frank as hers from the start, and he had taken her rough words and actions without batting an eye.

‘What did I do… that idiot who would throw away his life…’

She really had not expected him to throw himself in front of the venom that melted people into mere handfuls of blood in order to save her.

Dan Mujin had gladly risked his body every time for the sake of the one who had constantly nagged at him.

For the first time, Tang Yeo-hye had felt a sudden fright at the possibility of losing someone to futility.

For a week she had been flustered and had nursed him alone — something she had never once had to do since birth.

She had brewed decoctions day and night to control the poison, had drained the tincture, wiped away sweat, and had tended him with the utmost devotion.

Yet this man, after a week of having pushed through the brink of death and back, acted as if nothing had happened and said nonchalantly,

“Ugh, I slept well.”

She forced the anger that flared like a spinal reflex into an inexplicable emotion and barely swallowed it down.

There was a saying that Koreans lived on rice.

Having crossed the boundary between death and life so many times over the past week, the moment he opened his eyes an unbelievable hunger had surged in.

Chomp chomp. Chew chew.

So as soon as he woke he had asked for a meal to be set before him and then had been devouring it like a storm.

Perhaps because he had dealt with the village’s enemies for them, the table — for a remote village — had a surprisingly large number of decent meat dishes.

“Mujin, eat this too.”

While shovelling food in absentmindedly, she placed a piece of warm chicken on top of my white rice.

“Oh, yes….”

It felt strange. That had been like a wife gently putting a side dish on her husband’s bowl of rice.

What was this. The person who had woken up had changed so much that it was a little embarrassing.

Where had the usual rough tone — like “Hey, what’re you saying? Huh?” — gone, and who was this genteel newlywed sitting here?

“Good, right, that rabbit meat?”

“Yes, it’s plain and tasty.”

“I roasted it myself.”

She said it with a slightly proud face.

Could she possibly have prepared everything herself? There must have been someone who cooked here too; such effort—

“No wonder these greens tasted good.”

“That was Ilhong who seasoned them….”

It turned out the two of them had set the table together. She looked a little sullen.

“Anyway, everything is delicious. Nuna.”

It was a bit crude, perhaps. It tasted like the effort of people unskilled at cooking who had somehow tried their best.

And that made it all the more to my liking.

“By the way… why did you risk your body like that for me back then?”

She seemed curious what emotion or intention had driven me.

I had been the first client of the detective agency, and I might have acted with some pragmatic calculation thinking of meritorious deeds… hmm.

“I just didn’t want you to die. That was all.”

Looking back now, I did not fully understand in what state of mind I had done that either.

My body had simply moved first, perhaps.

Tsusutsu—

Anyway, the Starfall Heart Cultivation Method had judged my action of trying to save a person to be correct.

When I used the heart method briefly, I felt a warm energy in my chest spread smoothly throughout my body.

‘Stupid fool(愚鈍).’

Because of that, the Heaven-Slaying Star had shrunk back and, as if to resent, had flung words at me.

I felt a little incredulous.

Probably the scarlet energy of that guy had been what revived me when I was dying.

Whether I liked it or not, we were a community bound by fate to die together and live together.

“Burp, that was a good meal.”

I put down my chopsticks and thumped my belly, which had filled with satiety.

It felt like I had filled my body with fuel.

The Starfall Heart Cultivation Method’s body recovered swiftly from the aftereffects and influence of the detoxification that had remained in every corner of my body.

As a result, my body normalized so quickly that it was suspicious I had been tormented by poison for a week.

“What a premium body.”

Except for the horribly inefficient way I processed meals that made food costs astronomical, it was a really convenient physical condition.

“Mujin.”

She who was clearing the table spoke to me.

It felt oddly new to see the second daughter of the Tang Clan of Sichuan taking care of a sickbed in such a remote place.

If it had been her, she could have easily brought over a few troublemakers from the Palace of Beasts to help out and relaxed.

“They wouldn’t lend people from the Palace of Beasts?”

“They said they would, but I refused.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want other people seeing you like you had been for this past week.”

She had deliberately chosen a remote place to cure him so she would have to entrust him to someone.

Was it because the treatment had emitted some particularly noxious aura?

“Mujin, what exactly are you…?”

Suddenly she had asked me outright who I was.

“An ultra-handsome man, a bold chivalrous hero, the all-around troubleshooter Dan Mujin.”

“……”

The handsome part was somewhat diminished by Ilhong, the pretty boy, but I was still on the good-looking side.

Tang Yeo-hye made a face that said she was exasperated by my shameless answer.

“Anyway, why?”

When I asked why, she gathered herself for a moment and then began to cautiously tell me what had happened during the treatment.

“I watched you half-dead and then recover right before my eyes.”

She said it was not just a speedy recovery but like witnessing a legendary Body Reformation — the flesh and bones that had melted away filling back in.

“It was not something that could be explained by poison tolerance or just constitution. The sight of melted flesh and bone coming back… it was something beyond martial arts and cognition.”

It had been an unreal spectacle, as if heaven’s providence refused to allow death.

So she explained that, in the name of the danger of the poison, she had isolated me from people.

Come to think of it, she must have seen the whole thing all week.

The Scene of My Fated Companion, the Heaven-Slaying Star, Working Right Before My Eyes.

There was no excuse for this one.

“Umm.”

I scratched my cheek awkwardly, not knowing how to explain it.

But then, reading my discomfort, she opened her mouth softly.

“You have some circumstances, don’t you?”

“Yes, something like that….”

How could I say I wasn’t from this world at all, and that when I opened my eyes there had been a star lodged in my head?

“Then I’ll wait until you decide to tell me. I won’t ask.”

Even after witnessing such a shocking sight, she said she wouldn’t ask me anything.

No, really? This kind of consideration? The same woman who used to ask without a care for face whenever she was curious, and who would headbutt anything she disliked? Could this truly be her?

“There’s a saying, you know, when a person suddenly changes, it means death is near….”

“I’m being considerate because you’re my benefactor, that’s all.”

At a little prodding, her old self showed again. Fortunately, it really was the same person.

“But then.”

“Yes, then what?”

“All this time, you didn’t have resistance to poison. You just endured the pain?”

“That’s right. Pure stubbornness. That’s my specialty, isn’t it?”

At my words, she seemed to recall all those times she had fed me poison out of curiosity, thinking it was some kind of experiment.

She covered her face with both hands as though squeezing it shut.

“You could have… urgh, just told me….”

“I did tell you.”

“Sorry. I really didn’t know. Damn.”

A sincere apology from tomboyish Tang Yeo-hye. That was something rare indeed.

“Anyway, what you saw this time — please keep it a secret from others.”

Hwang Geolgae had warned me repeatedly not to get exposed.

She might not have realized that I was one of the Evil Stars, the Heaven-Slaying Star, but she had certainly sensed I wasn’t an ordinary human.

“Of course. Do I look like the kind of trash who would repay grace with betrayal?”

“No.”

Though honestly, when she had cheerfully mixed poison into my rice or tea before, she had looked exactly like that.

“If you say not to tell, I won’t. Never. Even if a blade is at my throat.”

Her eyes shone so determinedly that I actually felt embarrassed.

“…No, if a blade is at your throat, just tell them. Please.”

What would be the point of me risking my life to protect her if she just got killed?

It was troublesome information if revealed, sure, but there was no need to be that dramatic.

“Anyway, go change your clothes. After that meal, it looks like you’ve already expelled fluids and grown new flesh again.”

Seeing my body completely healed on rice power alone, she marveled once more at my bizarre regeneration.

“Has it been like this the whole time?”

I pointed at the bodily fluids pushed out by the regrown flesh, asking her.

The stench, the way my clothes became filthy in an instant.

“Yeah. Later I even ran out of clothes. So I had to do the laundry myself.”

If I ever told others about this later, would they believe it?

That Tang Yeo-hye of Venom Valley had nursed me and even done my laundry?

“Wait. What did you dress me in?”

Then a sound I couldn’t let pass reached my ears.

For the entire week while I was unconscious, no one else had been let in. She had said she had to do laundry daily.

That led to one obvious conclusion.

“Nuna, were you the one who stripped me naked every day and redressed me?”

I hugged my torso with my arms as I asked.

She hesitated, then answered in a small voice.

“…It was a medical act.”

Her ears flushed faintly red.

She denied it quickly, saying it wasn’t what I was thinking.

Of course, considering the ghastly state of my melted flesh, it had been medical treatment indeed.

But seeing her flustered, a mischievous feeling rose within me.

“My goodness, my goodness. A grown lady, doing that to a younger boy’s….”

“Cut it out, you brat!”

Thwack.

In the end, I got smacked once.

Having fully recovered, I stepped out for a walk around the village.

The Palace of Southern Beasts, having achieved revenge without help from the Five Poison Sect or Poison Valley, was in a full festival mood.

Even a week later, the excitement hadn’t yet died down.

“Oh, are those the legs of the Human-faced Spider?”

I muttered as I looked at the carcass of the Human-faced Spider proudly displayed in the village square.

It seemed the Palace of Southern Beasts was raising morale by exhibiting the beast that had harmed their families and community.

Near the Human-faced Spider, a stele had been erected to honor the contributions of unfamiliar outsiders.

“What the— They carved it as Dog-Beating Staff, not Dog-Beating Dragon. Damn it.”

Whoever carved the stone had confused the name.

It felt like all the glory had gone to the Dog-Beating Staff hanging at my waist instead of me.

“Pfft.”

Beside me, Tang Yeo-hye chuckled.

“But you secured the poison sac, right?”

“Yes, I dried it into powder. It’ll be enough to revive Father.”

Good. That had been the very reason we’d come all this way, after all.

“But there’s one more problem related to that, Mujin.”

I tilted my head at her words that it wasn’t over yet.

“What now?”

“A neidan came out of the Human-faced Spider.”

Of course. Even the Blood Boar I’d encountered before had carried a neidan.

The Human-faced Spider had been far more vicious, so it wasn’t surprising.

But why was that a problem?

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.