The Secrets of the Tang Family.
I just can’t comprehend it at all. When you say “secret,” it usually means a hidden story or something that was concealed and is now revealed.
A middle-aged man is grabbing my neck and shaking me in front of the newly opened store like a dancing balloon, so I guess it’s reminiscent of things they wanted to hide from the story written about the Rise of the Tang Family.
Is the story of the Tang Family something they want to hide? Tang Jung is a negotiation official. Chasing after the Color Demon isn’t something to be embarrassed about; it’s something to be praised.
Of course, it’s a bit awkward to be caught in a romantic scene, but just because a hero shares a romantic liaisons with a beauty doesn’t mean my neck should be squeezed like a liquid monster!
As much as I’m writing about the Sichuan Tang Family’s story, I paid special attention to the protagonist’s actions. There shouldn’t be any problem with the protagonist’s actions. If the protagonist’s actions aren’t a problem, then maybe…
“Be careful!”
Out of nowhere, a middle-aged hand came flying from somewhere and grabbed my neck. The middle-aged man quickly loosened his grip and twisted his body to dodge the attack.
“Who are you?!”
The middle-aged man and the martial artists who were in the bookstore looked in the direction from which the attack came.
“Who do you think? I’m the owner trying to deal with the nuisances causing a ruckus in someone else’s shop. What are you guys doing?”
Lady Tang came out confidently.
“Purple hair?”
The Sichuan Tang Family people seemed surprised by Lady Tang’s appearance, their faces showing astonishment as she approached me.
“Yoon Ho, are you okay?”
“Cough! Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”
I nodded while sitting on the floor, gasping for breath. Lady Tang looked at me with concern and then shot an angry glance at the surrounding martial artists.
“You guys. I don’t know what nonsense you came here for, but is it appropriate for prestigious clans to bully ordinary folks?”
Realizing where these people came from, Lady Tang used one hand to signal me to get up. The middle-aged man looked at her and opened his mouth.
“Purple hair. Are you a descendant of the Tang Family?”
“Then whose child could I be? Yoon Ho, stay against the wall.”
Lady Tang replied irritably and pressed me against the wall, standing in front of me. The martial artists inside the bookstore instinctively surrounded us.
“Isn’t this a coincidence? I came looking for the author of the Rise of the Tang Family, and here’s a child who has the blood of the Tang family and practices the Tang family’s martial arts. Are you the author?”
The middle-aged man looked at Lady Tang up and down and donned an expression that said everything was clear.
“Lady Tang.”
I quickly grabbed her shoulder. The moment she turned her head, her face showed determination.
No! Lady Tang, don’t do it!
Just as she had stated before, she shot me a gaze that said she would take the blame.
Lady Tang, you can’t start like this. We need to understand what the opponent wants and what cards we have to play before revealing anything.
Don’t say a thing. No! I’ll take all the blame. Lady Tang and I engaged in a quick session of silent tug-of-war with our eyes.
“The situation is obvious. If you insist on turning yourself in, I won’t stop you.”
“I wrote it. I’m the Ho Pil you’ve been looking for.”
One small threat was enough to break our precarious tug-of-war.
————————
The middle-aged man introduced himself as the Deputy Medical Official in charge of medical affairs for the Sichuan Tang Family. He mentioned that the Deputy Medical Official had many ears and took us upstairs with a few trustworthy martial artists.
“What is your name?”
Is the interrogation starting with personal identification?
The Deputy Medical Official asked Lady Tang, who was sitting across from him with a sulky expression.
“Tang Hwa-rin.”
“I haven’t seen you before. I heard you’re practicing the Tang family’s martial arts; are you from the outer clan?”
The inner clan is where the direct descendants of the Sichuan Tang Family live, while the outer clan consists of their collateral descendants.
As the dominant family in Sichuan Province, the Sichuan Tang Family boasts the size of their residence, being not just a large estate but a small castle. The Deputy Medical Official’s question was basically asking if Lady Tang was from the collateral branch.
“I’ve never even been to Sichuan.”
“No way. There’s no way a kid who hasn’t lived in the outer clan could be practicing the Tang Family martial arts.”
“What? Do you think I’d lie about that?”
“This little brat!”
One martial artist watching Lady Tang’s rude behavior frowned.
“Hold on. If you’ve never lived in the outer clan, then you must be an illegitimate child who isn’t recognized as kin. Did you learn martial arts from your father?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen my father’s face.”
Lady Tang avoided the topic of her father as if it made her uncomfortable.
Of course, I know who her father is as it’s part of the setting, but it’s not something I should bring up.
“You don’t know? Then who did you learn martial arts from?”
“……”
Lady Tang shut her mouth and glanced at me with an anxious look.
I understand her fear. She might be worried about whether we’re dealing with people connected to the poison experiments, right? But that’s fine. According to the setting, there’s only a tiny number of them.
Moreover, if they came after her name, they wouldn’t have the slightest idea.
Since I’ve already revealed that I’m Ho Pil, there’s no need to attract unnecessary suspicion. I nodded and signaled that she could speak.
“Tang Geoh… Uncle.”
“Tang Geoh? Why is he involved? Is your father Tang Geoh?”
Upon hearing Tang Geoh’s name, the Deputy Medical Official became hostile. That’s a relief. He doesn’t seem to be part of the poison experiment. The fact that he showed immediate hostility means their relationship isn’t good.
“He’s my teacher, not my father.”
Lady Tang answered confidently.
“Not from the outer clan, yet the direct descendant’s illegitimate child, and you learned martial arts from the likes of Tang Geoh? Why? Wait… The Rise of the Tang Family, illegitimate child, Tang Geoh, over 20 years ago. And we’re in Yichang… Is your mother the daughter of Baek Gajang?”
The Deputy Medical Official pondered with a suspicious look, as if he had realized something, and turned to Lady Tang.
“Yeah.”
“Right. So, it was like that.”
The Deputy Medical Official wore an expression that indicated he had resolved his suspicion and reached a conclusion.
That conclusion was something entirely different from what I knew.
“You’re the daughter of the Color Demon from over 20 years ago.”
What the heck is that supposed to mean?
——————-
Lady Tang’s father is the Color Demon? This contradicts what I know.
‘Lady Tang, your father is also a Poison User.’
The information about Lady Tang’s father stopped there on her character sheet, but I distinctly remembered. The reason Lady Tang became a half-poison user, even if imperfectly, was due to her bloodline.
It’s not something I can tell her, so I’ve been keeping it under wraps, but Lady Tang’s father is a Poison User, not the Color Demon.
The Deputy Medical Official was really misguided.
“Were you trying to take revenge for your father, who died at the hands of the family head over 20 years ago? Like this?”
The middle-aged Deputy Medical Official pointed at Lady Tang as if he had become a perfect detective, having deduced the culprit.
He’s wrong. If I were to explain, I would have to swallow the setup of how he knew that.
“You said you don’t know who your father is.”
“I could never not know. Didn’t the second volume of The Rise of the Tang Family imply that the spring poison flowed out of the Sichuan Tang Family?”
“What of it?”
“Are you pretending not to know? Or do you really not know? Over 20 years ago, some worthless scum from the Tang Family made an illegitimate child into a Poison User through an illegal experiment. They were such fools! They wanted recognition for the success of the poison experiment even though the body was fine, but the mind wasn’t right.”
“Over 20 years ago and it was a Poison User?”
Hold on. If this is the case, then the setting aligns.
The Deputy Medical Official cast a glance at me when I mumbled in surprise and continued.
“A Poison User, who was the illegitimate child of the collateral branch, found it hard to control their sexual urges. And coincidentally, that Poison User wielded the poisonous narcotics made by the Tang Family that incited the lust of women. That Poison User escaped one day, violating numerous women. We needed to form a hunt team to deal with the poison and the murderer created by the Tang Family as quickly as possible.”
Upon realizing that Lady Tang was the Color Demon’s daughter, the Deputy Medical Official began explaining the detailed background of her father.
‘The contents of The Rise of the Tang Family are strikingly similar.’
I understand how things are turning out. The accident that happened over 20 years ago was as catastrophic as a nuclear leak for the Tang Family.
The fact that a Poison User, considered taboo in the Martial Arts World, was created by the Tang Family could’ve been covered up by their power. But if that Poison User escaped and began violating women using the drug they created…
It’s clear that the Sichuan Tang Family, which deals with poison and covert assassins, always drew suspicious glances, and if such a colossal accident occurred, they would definitely want to cover it up.
The secret from over 20 years ago.
The color demon who became a Poison User and the poison made by the Tang Family.
The reason those guys stormed into the Tea Bookstore wasn’t for Tang Jung, but for the Color Demon.
“I heard that Baek Gajang’s daughter became pregnant with the Color Demon’s child. You must have learned martial arts from Tang Geoh, the one who was in charge of cleaning up after the incident over 20 years ago.”
“What?”
Lady Tang wore an expression of shock upon hearing the revelation about her father.
“Why on earth did they commit such an atrocity? I didn’t hear the details, but I heard your mother showed up with proof and was sufficiently compensated. Was it that the compensation wasn’t satisfactory?”
“I told you, I didn’t know! It was a coincidence!”
Lady Tang yelled, looking aggrieved.
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“It’s just a story. Techniques like the Triple Poison and the Poison Kill Space don’t exist in the Tang Family!”
Yeah. It’s a national rule that the Color Demon uses the Spring Poison as material. We should check the other settings.
“Right. The Greatest Poison in Sichuan, the Poison Kill Space, and the Triple Poison, are indeed fiction from the novel. However, the essence of the story isn’t based on fiction, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“The Color Demon from the Sichuan Tang Family, the Spring Poison created by the Sichuan Tang Family, and when the family head chased the Color Demon to Hubei Province, even the tale of him having an affair with a Joseon courtesan similar to Du Eung-hyang was written in it.”
The Deputy Medical Official threw the second volume of the book in front of Lady Tang.
I’m losing it. The character who seems to be the inspiration for Tang Jung is actually the Tang Family Head?
“A wandering martial artist with affairs of the flesh can be found anywhere in the Martial Arts World.”
“Quit dodging the issue! Twenty years ago your father was a victim of the experiment that drove him mad! The Tang Family Head killed your father! The Sin of Silence the Sichuan Tang Family wanted to hide! Didn’t you want to reveal all of that in this book?”
Today’s martial arts problem.
Calculate the probability that the daughter of the Color Demon wrote about the Color Demon without realizing it.
My head is pounding. I almost died the last time I misspoke about So-hee’s mother, and now Lady Tang is in trouble because she doesn’t know her father’s identity.
I want to tell someone to write character settings properly. The next time I meet another character who seems like a heroine, I’m going to start by investigating the background of their parents.
This is one tangled web of misunderstanding.
“I’ll have both of you transported back to the royal capital and imprisoned. The punishment will come after that. Deputy Medical Official!”
“Understood!”
“Don’t come near!”
As the martial artists tried to approach, Lady Tang quickly pulled out a hidden weapon and stood up. I stayed sitting, gazing at Lady Tang and those around us.
‘We’ve gotten ourselves into a major misunderstanding, yet there’s no way to clear it up.’
I want to laugh at the absurdity of the situation.
Even if I want to shout that this makes no sense, everything points to us lying.
Think, Kang Yoon-ho. If we get dragged away like this, we’ll die. I can’t end up rotting in a dungeon. If I’m not careful, it could end up as a biological experiment.
This is a horribly complicated misunderstanding. But we can’t clear it up.
If we can’t clear it up, then what do we do?
In that moment, a method popped into my head.
“The reason we risked our lives to do this is not for revenge against Lady Tang’s father, but for a different reason.”
I employed the Small Wheel Mental Image Technique once, lowering my voice to cool the heated atmosphere while addressing the Deputy Medical Official.
“What kind of lie are you trying to say to survive?”
The Deputy Medical Official glared at me sharply. Right. I’m trying to survive by spinning a lie. But I’m actually trying to convey the truth.
“I anticipated that if The Rise of the Tang Family was published, someone from the Sichuan Tang Family would emerge upon seeing the contents, immediately recalling the secret from over 20 years ago.”
“You mean you wrote knowing it would attract attention?”
“Yes. I firmly believed that after reading this book, someone connected to the Sichuan Tang Family would appear. Since it’s a secret, it wouldn’t be just any low-ranking martial artist but rather someone important, a person who could gain the unconditional trust of the Tang Family Head would show up.”
“What does that mean? You’re implying that you were just waiting for me to come?”
I looked at the Deputy Medical Official.
Someone whom the Tang Family Head could trust to send for treatment for his son’s illness. Someone who doesn’t know about Lady Tang’s identity and doesn’t rely on Tang Geoh. Plus, someone with deep knowledge of medicine.
This is a way to reach him.
“Lady Tang, show your face.”
“Uh? O-okay.”
Lady Tang took off the veil that was particularly dark today.
“Stains on your lower face? Signs of poison technique? No, this is…?”
The Deputy Medical Official examined Lady Tang’s marked face closely, seemingly grasping the meaning of the symptoms.
I need to provide certainty.
“Lady Tang, I’m sorry, but could you roll up your sleeves and lift your shirt a bit too?”
“Got it.”
Did Lady Tang catch on to my intentions? She lifted her shirt, revealing the stains up her arms and around her belly button.
“Stains covering the upper body? One moment. This symptom is…?”
From Lady Tang’s father to her, the Deputy Medical Official would easily come up with one possible symptom.
The complicated knots of misunderstanding, tangled like the Gordian Knot, cannot be untied. So let’s use my own sword.
“Do you know the Sichuan Tang Family, and that Tang Geoh and his group are resuming the poison experiments that vanished over 20 years ago?”
With misunderstanding upon misunderstanding…
I decided to create a new misunderstanding.
