Chapter 130. Justification

Drip. Drip.

Drops of water fell into the cup. Watching the amount of water, So-hwa estimated the time.

When the line drawn on the cup became submerged, she turned her eyes away from the water clock. In her upturned gaze, the wound on the back of her hand came into view. The bleeding had stopped, but the wound had not yet healed.

'The effect lasts longer than two quarters of an hour.'

Three pills lay on the worktable. There had originally been seven, but she had kept taking them to check reaction times, leaving only three.

She had divided the composition into seven stages to make the pills, and from the fourth pill onward, the numbing effect lasted more than two quarters of an hour.

She had worried that only the seventh pill would last beyond that, but fortunately, the effect was excellent. Likely due to the quality of the medicinal ingredients. The herbs gathered from the Blood Demon's garden were incomparable to those she had obtained in the Central Plains.

'I'll have to see if the Blood Demon's body reacts the same way.'

So-hwa placed the fifth pill into a wooden case. The remaining sixth and seventh she wrapped in paper and put into her pouch.

She left the case meant to be sent to the Blood Demon on the worktable and tucked the pouch into her sleeve.

Her gaze briefly fell again on her wound. The wound was disappearing, likely as the medicine's effect wore off. The effective duration ranged from two to three quarters of an hour.

After tidying the worktable, So-hwa moved toward the desk.

Though she had completed the pills, there was no time to rest. A mountain of tasks remained.

The desk was piled high with sheets of paper used for drying ink.

Since she did not know when the Blood Demon might empty the records and forbid her entry, she cut back on sleep and copied the secret texts.

She stacked the dried pages one by one, then ground fresh ink and continued transcribing the records she had examined that morning.

Each time she filled a page, she slid it aside to dry, then pulled out a new sheet and went on writing. Before long, the desk was half-covered with neatly organized records.

So-hwa's busy hands suddenly stopped. A long shadow stretched across the paper.

Looking up, she saw Haerak leaning down.

He sat on the desk's edge and picked up one of the sheets at the end.

"Still copying the records?"

Haerak narrowed one eye, as if something seemed off.

"Planning to leave Jin Yin Mountain, aren't you? Otherwise, why go to the trouble of sneaking the records outside?"

So-hwa nodded.

"I told you I'd find a place for your people."

Haerak sneered. So-hwa replied calmly to his derision.

"The descendants of the Palace Lord and the martial arts still remain, don't they? That alone is enough justification to rebuild the Solar Palace."

"Justification?"

Continuing her transcription, So-hwa answered.

"It's a good thing the Blood Demon is mad. He recorded not only your lineage, but also those of other bloodlines in great detail. Though many bloodlines are mixed, as you can see, everyone's name and affiliation are clearly written. You are the heir to the last Palace Lord's blood, so you can claim legitimacy."

A freshly filled page was placed before Haerak.

It was filled with names. The characters stretched endlessly, as though putting down roots.

Haerak let out a sigh.

"So-hwa. What use is something like legitimacy? It's not even a dynasty."

He clicked his tongue and shook his head.

"It's all long past. The Palace Lord died decades ago, and the Solar Palace has already been taken by others, hasn't it? If some lunatic suddenly appeared and said, 'I'm the heir of the Solar Palace Lord—step aside,' would you really step aside? Waving around a genealogy to claim legitimacy—people would just sneer."

"They will step aside."

"I've never once thought of you as pure, but today, for the first time, you look like a child who knows nothing of the world. How did you come to hold such naïve thoughts?"

So-hwa answered his mockery calmly.

"Those who hold the Solar Palace now call themselves members of the Murim Alliance and claim their roots lie in the Central Plains. Yet the Solar Palace is in the Great Desert, and even though they refer to it merely as a branch in the Desert, don't they? In the end, those who occupy it are people of the Central Plains. To the Outer Regions, people from the Central Plains are outsiders. They seized the palace under the pretext of establishing a branch to protect the Outer Regions from the Blood Sect. If the rightful master of the palace returns and declares that he will personally fight the Blood Sect, then those outsiders will have no justification to remain."

"Ah, justification."

Haerak snapped his fingers as if realizing something important.

"I keep forgetting you're a Central Plains person. Right, Central Plains people value justification."

He mocked her in a teasing tone, but Tang So-hwa paid it no mind.

"Yes. In the Central Plains, justification is important. Wars broke out over it, and nations rose and fell because of it. Even if the Outer Regions' culture differs from the Central Plains, you too would not wage war without justification, would you?"

"In the Great Desert, we have justification, too. Weakness is a crime. Before others destroy them, the strong must seize and embrace them."

"......"

"What?"

So-hwa finally lifted her eyes from the paper. When her gaze turned clouded, Haerak let out a small laugh. Instead of saying it was a joke, he corrected himself.

"Justification is made by the strong. For the victor, anything can become justification."

That was true as well.

So-hwa gave a small nod.

"I agree. Justification is made by the strong. Therefore, you will take back the palace."

"It's no use. Don't go to all that trouble for nothing."

Haerak dropped his joking tone and spoke seriously, but So-hwa neither set down her brush nor paused. She simply continued transcribing.

"You know the Blood Demon confined the bloodlines of the Outer Regions and experimented on them. Heinous deeds—but because of that, you gained a body stronger than that of any other martial artist, didn't you?"

Since So-hwa was also a person, she felt uncomfortable saying this. It was as if she were giving the Blood Demon legitimacy.

But apart from condemning his monstrous deeds, it was also true that the surviving bloodlines of the Outer Regions had gained a perfect foundation as martial artists.

Understanding Haerak's silence, So-hwa did not wait for his answer before continuing.

"Even among the Solar Palace bloodline, I heard not all are born with the Fiery Yang constitution. But you were, weren't you?"

"Even before the Blood Demon's madness, there were plenty born with the Fiery Yang constitution. So this can hardly be credited to him."

Haerak's tone was cold.

So-hwa did not refute it. She merely asked something else.

"The one who gave you your name—were they also born with the Fiery Yang constitution?"

"So-hwa, you sound like you're probing me. I don't know what you're thinking, but let's not talk more about that subject. I'm more tenderhearted than I look—speak of painful pasts, and tears will come."

Instead of anger at the sensitive subject, Haerak made sniffling sounds.

"Ah, don't tell me you fancy crying men? I've heard some women from great clans have peculiar tastes in bed, but I didn't expect you to be one of them..."

So-hwa's eyes lifted quietly. Her pupils were sharp, yet Haerak, pretending to wipe his eyes, teased her to the end.

"Glaring won't help. Despite temptations all around, I've kept my purity intact. I won't give it away to someone with strange tastes."

So-hwa understood why Haerak was teasing her by calling her a young lady from a great clan. She was a young lady to the core. A curse almost came out at his crazy words, but it was stuck in her throat and never came out.

She simply fell silent, at a loss for words.

When she regained composure, she spoke again after a long pause.

"In the Hubei branch, when you came to me under the identity of Min Yeohong—you told me to prove my usefulness, didn't you?"

"I did."

"And do you remember asking me then whether I could sense another's internal energy with my sense of smell?"

So-hwa paused briefly, then added softly.

"Were you thinking of retrieving someone's internal energy from the Blood Demon's body?"

The smile vanished from Haerak's face.

He didn't answer, but So-hwa already knew.

Only after reading the Blood Demon's records had she understood why Haerak had sought her out.

The Blood Sect knew the Blood Demon could absorb others' internal energy. They also believed he could freely merge and separate it. He had compiled manuals and even taught some, so they couldn't doubt it.

Haerak was no different.

He must have wanted to reclaim the internal energy of someone lodged within the Blood Demon's body.

Whether fused or separate, he wanted to know if it still existed inside that body.

Just as she, though reports said there were no survivors, had wanted to return to the Tang Clan to see her family's corpses with her own eyes.

"Your internal energy can be seen with the eyes. It shows as a white light, like sunlight."

She deliberately told him something he hadn't asked.

"But when poisoned by Energy-Scattering Poison, it lost its light and left a lingering trace. If I must compare it, it was like the scent of peony."

And then she murmured, slowly giving him the answer he must have longed for.

"When the Blood Demon strangled me last time, his hand held internal energy that shone white—just like yours. And it smelled of peony. It was near the Shangyang point, so it was likely qi residing in the index finger. In the Blood Demon's right hand, at the Shangyang point, there is concealed internal energy that shares the same quality as yours."

Haerak said nothing.

She understood his silence.

She could guess at the time he had endured in the Great Desert. She could also imagine the death suffered by the owner of the internal energy trapped in the Blood Demon's body.

So-hwa said nothing more.

She had only wanted to tell him, and now she had. There was nothing left to add.

She lowered her gaze again and continued transcribing the records. She filled a few more pages before she could move on to new material.

But just as she rose from her seat, Haerak caught her hand.

So-hwa's gaze fell downward. She asked with her eyes why, but he only met her gaze in silence. His expression was blank as he gripped her hand more firmly and stared at her. That look held her in place like shackles at her ankles.

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(T/N): Heluu~ Just wanted to share, I’ve kicked off a new translation project. Feel free to take a look!

Starting Out with an Infinite Skill Tree!

“Yan”: “No matter what, a life without challenging its own limits is just far too boring!”

And so, he found himself transmigrated into a world of swords and magic.

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Yan fell into deep thought. “In the future, I could probably even play the role of the Sword Saint of Britannia… or maybe the Axe King of Uruk would work too?”

Under the name of【Mad Lancelot】, the Black Knight, he turned the tide on the battlefield, leading humanity to victory—not for his own glory.

As the Star Holy Sword Wielder, under the title of Knight King, he proclaimed the ‘Ten Knightly Declarations’, ensuring that both the profession of knight and the spirit of chivalry spread far and wide across the world.

Writing under the pen name ‘Andersen’, he penned thousands upon thousands of fairy tales.

People marveled at the legends of the distant past—that there had been so many remarkable heroes and kings, such as Brother Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the Sage King Gilgamesh, and Emperor Iskandar.

Until one day, Yan raised high the divine flame of the God of Games—

A new era of【[Delight】began!

As it turned out, once humanity gains power, they can’t help but test it out.

And after all, he was human too!

By the time he looked back… it seemed he had already played this world to ruin!

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