Chapter 117. Six Characters

The mood grew icy. Silence stretched on, broken only by the sound of cups being emptied in embarrassment and chopsticks clattering here and there.

Tang Hae-han muttered without realizing it.

"She doesn't look it, but that young lady is also a Zhuge."

Zhuge.

Among the Five Noble Clans, the word was commonly used to mean "speaks cryptically" or "speaks unpleasantly."

A faint smile curved Tang Hae-han's lips.

"An amusing woman."

Enjoying the quiet, Tang Hae-han picked up more fish. As he continued his meal, an urgent voice suddenly rose from the other side.

"Oh, isn't that Young Master Namgung Hyun?"

Tang Hae-han shoved a large piece of fish into his mouth and turned his gaze.

Below the railing, he saw a man in a blue robe.

Even at a glance, it was unmistakably Namgung Hyun.

Such a pure and handsome face was rare in the Central Plains. Surrounded by rough-looking martial artists on the street, he stood out all the more.

"It really is him. But shouldn't Young Master Namgung Hyun be at his quarters right now? Everyone must be gossiping about how he lost to Taoist Yeon-ah, yet his mental fortitude is impressive..."

"Indeed. But is he alone?"

"Perhaps he's meeting up with someone? His party might have gone ahead already."

"Still, the Namgung Clan is remarkable. The Young Lord took first place, and the younger brother came in second. This generation belongs to Namgung—it makes us feel like we're just supporting characters."

The topic swiftly shifted to Namgung.

As Namgung Hyun disappeared from sight, Tang Hae-han tilted his head. At that moment, a stiff voice drew his attention.

"Brother, shall we go?"

Tang Hak rose, placing coins on the table.

"I'm a bit tired. I'd like to rest."

Tang Hae-han pulled coins from his own pouch and slid them forward, nudging Tang Hak's away.

"Didn't I say I was paying? No, didn't I?"

Tang Hak, unwilling to argue, silently took his coins back.

The road from Wuhan back to the headquarters felt strange.

The surroundings were noisy, yet right beside him was silence.

Because of Tang Hak's silence, Tang Hae-han felt suffocated.

At last, he could no longer endure it and opened his mouth.

"I know I should stay quiet at times like this, but it bothers me too much to bear."

Tang Hae-han frowned and asked,

"Why are you so down? I thought maybe it was because of those guys earlier, but come to think of it, you were strange even before we went into that place."

Tang Hak smiled.

"Brother."

"Yeah. Tell me who it is. I'll make fire pour out of his—"

"I like it when you speak down to me."

"... Young Lord, are you mocking me right now, telling me to use honorifics?"

"No. Truly. I said it because I like being treated as your cousin. I wish I weren't the Young Lord."

Tang Hak let out a sigh and added,

"I wish I had never been the Young Lord for my entire life."

"Is this because of what those guys said? Don't mind it. They're just jealous."

Instead of answering, Tang Hak gave a weak smile. Tang Hae-han bit his lip hard.

"Hak-ah, you go on ahead. I'll head back to that tavern for a bit."

Tang Hae-han adjusted his sleeve, narrowing his eyes.

"I'll make them spend the whole day clutching their chamber pots."

"Don't."

"I'll make sure no one notices, so don't worry. I'll never get caught. What do you take Nine Turns Pavilion for?"

"No. I was asking you not to make me feel pathetic anymore."

Tang Hae-han, who had begun to turn his body, froze at those words.

But Tang Hak didn't even look back and just kept walking ahead.

Something was off.

Even the usually careless Tang Hae-han felt that the Young Lord should not be provoke right now.

'... What's wrong with him? What happened at the Martial Arts Tournament for him to be like this?'

Reluctantly, Tang Hae-han slid the poison back into his sleeve and followed Tang Hak back to the headquarters.

***

Returning to the headquarters, Tang Hae-han let out a sigh.

"I should never sign up for a Martial Arts Tournament again..."

He was utterly exhausted, both body and mind.

He had followed because So-hwa applied to enter the Martial Arts Tournament, suspecting she had some scheme.

This time he had planned to secretly observe what Tang So-hwa was learning, but until the final day nothing had happened.

'I shouldn't have followed...'

He had even been considering beginning to use honorifics toward Hak in private, but that, too, became tangled with too many thoughts.

No gains, only more to brood over.

It was, in every sense, an inefficient outing.

“Ugh, I should've just stayed and cleaned the Nine Turns Pavilion."

Grumbling as he passed through the corridor, Tang Hae-han suddenly stepped back.

Inside the room used as the Medical Hall was a man as large as a house. Worse, he was lying across the sacred manufacturing table.

"Is he insane?"

To dare put his body on the furnishings of the Medical Hall?

Eyes narrowing in anger, Tang Hae-han stepped inside.

He thought it was some drunk who had lost his senses, but it was Han-won of the Black Tiger Uniy—the escort who was always at Tang So-hwa's side.

Just as Tang Hae-han blinked at the oddity, Han-won stirred, as if sensing his presence, and sat up.

"Ah, you've come?"

"... What are you doing here?"

"I was waiting. I have something to deliver."

Han-won stretched and rummaged through his pouch.

"This morning I thought you might come, so I meant to sleep here, but you've come even at night. Even Young Lady So-hwa works all night... truly, Nine Turns Pavilion is not a place just anyone can enter."

No, he had only entered because some fellow was lying asleep here, and he meant to throw him out.

But swallowing those words, Tang Hae-han simply nodded.

"In the Medical Hall, what is night or day? I came because there were things to sort out. And what is it you mean to hand me?"

Han-won immediately held out a paper.

"The Divine Physician sent this. He said these are the required medicinal ingredients. Likely, the Four Seasons Hall Lord  will come find you tomorrow."

"The Four Seasons Hall Lord?"

Receiving the paper, Tang Hae-han flinched.

It was too high a figure to be running errands. He wondered if this martial artist had not fully awakened from his sleep.

"Yes, it seems the only one who goes in and out of the Alliance Leader's residence is the Hall Lord. It's not far, yet seeing that the Divine Physician himself did not come..."

So it wasn't a mistake. This fellow, too, found it strange that the Hall Lord had personally come.

Tang Hae-han placed the paper on the desk and casually nudged Han-won off with his elbow. Only then did Han-won step down from the table.

"Well then, I'll be going."

Looking relieved to have finished his errand, Han-won stretched and left the Medical Hall.

Watching his retreating back, Tang Hae-han clicked his tongue once and laid the paper down.

Only after wiping the sacred table clean with a fresh cloth did he begin reading the list of medicinal herbs the Divine Physician had sent.

"... Hm?"

As he read through the list, Tang Hae-han tilted his head to the side.

Six ingredients had been requested, but their properties were mismatched. Herbs that strengthened the body were listed alongside those used to reduce fever.

Normally, just by looking at an order, one could guess what kind of medicine was being made, but with this, there was no way to tell.

And the requested amounts were odd as well.

"Why would he ask for five pieces of a wolfberry after dividing it into two?"

If the herb were large, it would be stored in small pieces. But he couldn't understand why he would ask for a small fruit to be divided and sent in five pieces.

You might think it was meticulously written, but when you look at the names of the herbs, it doesn't seem that way.

"No, how can he just write 'Rehmannia'? Is it fresh rehmannia, dried rehmannia (fresh rehmannia dried), or prepared rehmannia (fresh rehmannia steamed and then dried)? That must be specified."

Tang Hae-han furrowed his brow deeply and let out a sigh.

The quantity was requested with such meticulous subdivision, yet the herbs were listed by name only. The Divine Physician couldn't possibly not know that the medicinal properties would change depending on the preparation.

Could it have been carelessly transcribed by another? But no, it was clearly the Divine Physician's handwriting. And the physician with him had been Tang So-hwa, who would only have been more thorough, not less.

Though he muttered complaints, Tang Hae-han immediately began gathering the ingredients.

"Fine, I'll just send all three—dried, fresh, and prepared. He can choose how to use them. Really now... someone who even wrote a nickname, ji-su, so no one would confuse what rehmannia was, suddenly gets this sloppy..."

But just as he opened the medicine chest, Tang Hae-han froze in place.

He returned to the desk and checked the list again.

地黃或地髓 (Rehmannia or Ji-su).

He had even written an alternate name to avoid confusion, yet had not specified the type of rehmannia. That was strange.

Tang Hae-han read over the list once more.

Sure enough, all the other herbs were written precisely.

Even wolfberry itself was used differently depending on the part collected: the flower was called Changshengcao, the fruit wolfberry, and the root bark Digupi—each considered separate medicines. Yet here, it had been named precisely as wolfberry.

And all of them were common ingredients.

There was no need to request them from the Tang Clan; they could easily have been taken from the Medical Hall in the headquarters.

'These are herbs so common they're written in the Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica...'

In that instant, Tang Hae-han's body stiffened.

"Rehmannia or Ji-su...?"

Ji-su (地髓).

That was another character for rehmannia in the Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica.

The Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica was kept in every Medical Hall as a standard reference.

Although it was an ancient materia medica said to be written by Shennong himself, the original text had long since been fragmented and lost, with layers of additions over time. However, annotated and organized copies had spread across the entire Central Plains. Any physician could recite it by heart.

Just as only Confucius's disciples knew the original Analects, yet the students of the Central Plains all studied organized copies and learned the same teachings.

Tang Hae-han's eyes swept the shelves of the Medical Hall.

The manuals and medical texts provided by headquarters were there. As expected, the Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica was among them.

He pulled it down and spread it open.

Then he placed it beside the strange herb request the Divine Physician had sent.

Tang Hae-han traced his finger along the description of the herb Divine Physician had mentioned.

"Divided into two, five pieces."

The fifth character in the second line.

He pointed at the character with his finger, then quickly ground ink and copied it onto paper.

One by one, he searched the Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica for the characters hidden in the Divine Physician's instructions and assembled them.

Six characters emerged on the paper, revealing the hidden meaning.

"This... what is this...?"

Staring at the words, Tang Hae-han's hand trembled.

怪人冒充笑花

(A strange person is impersonating Young Lady So-hwa.)

The brush slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor, spilling ink everywhere.

But without even glancing back, Tang Hae-han snatched up the Divine Physician's note and bolted outside.

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