Is Lady Tang the heroine?
The reason I approached Lady Tang first wasn’t because of a knee-jerk reaction like “If she’s the heroine, I have to pursue her.”
Reverse Heaven’s Decree.
If Lady Tang asks about my identity, I could say it’s a natural instinct to answer, but the truth is, it’s my secret identity and ability that I can’t confess.
I didn’t approach Lady Tang because there was no girl hanging out with me like an insider. No, it was spurred by my doubts about the Reverse Heaven’s Decree ability.
Honestly, it’s the kind of thought only popular friends would have, not someone like me.
Suddenly, I think of my popular friends.
一 Yoon Ho, I’m so heartbroken from breaking up with my girlfriend.
一 Dude, I’m the one suffering more from receiving your drunken late-night calls.
一 Hah, how can I live without her?
一 I’m doing just fine without a girlfriend.
一 I envy you!
一 Are you trying to pick a fight right now?
My friend, if you’re going to start dating another girl just a week after breaking up, then don’t bother calling me. Caring about a guy’s love life is bound to be a losing game.
Anyway, if my ability called Reverse Heaven’s Decree can change the fate of all original female characters into heroines, Lady Tang could be the same.
Conversely, this ability doesn’t apply to her, so even if I twist her fate with my knowledge of the original story, she could end up as a villain later.
Does the ability of Reverse Heaven’s Decree really apply to original female characters? Or was Heavenly Killing Star just a peculiar case?
If I get close to Lady Tang, maybe I’ll find out the answer.
The problem is how to get closer.
Hehe, “Hah, Lady!” I could leisurely chat with a friendly demeanor, but will I ever find out if Lady Tang is the heroine in this lifetime?
There’s a chance that we might fall apart even before the “Hah, Lady!” step.
It’s like during a group project, learning the contact number of a girl you like and sending her a sweet message only to get no reply that day, then the next day you get just a ‘ㅇ’ back. After realizing what’s happening, you send another message, and then you only get another ‘ㅇ’ the next day, much like a freshman with the surname Kang.
I need a way to speed up the relationship.
I have a prepared backstory ready.
When I meet Lady Tang again, I’m going to pull out that plan.
My new setup. The connection between me and Lady Tang.
Using it, I could establish a relationship with her.
The problem is that I need to use a shocking truth.
This time, since my life isn’t in danger, I don’t need extreme lies. What I need is hidden truths.
A truth that will shock her and make her waver. That’s how I’ll get closer.
They say there’s no flower that doesn’t tremble, so even the poisoned butterfly should tremble a bit, right?
Lady Tang.
Let’s start with shock therapy.
—————————
“Shouldn’t the first thing that curiosity sparks in you be the identity of the person who taught you Poison Technique, not me?”
I need to shake her trust in the one person she solely relies on.
I smiled leisurely, redirecting her interest in me toward someone else.
“Uncle Tang Geoh? I think there’s some misunderstanding. Uncle Tang Geoh isn’t suspicious at all. He’s someone who has cared for me more than ten years.”
Lady Tang frowned like she was offended by the nasty accusation and responded sharply.
Even after knowing that I had been poisoning myself.
Yeah, it would be upsetting to suggest she distrust her martial arts master, who has been like a father to her. People believe what they want to believe.
That works for me.
To make the butterfly tremble, I first need to make her distrust her most trusted wings.
“There’s an absolute taboo experiment in the Sichuan Tang Family. Do you know about it?”
I didn’t bother contradicting her and smoothly shifted to questions.
“I don’t know. I carry the blood of the Sichuan Tang Family but didn’t grow up there.”
I already knew. I was just throwing out an intriguing bait.
“The creation of poisons. It’s a banned experiment in the Sichuan Tang Family due to the many biopharmaceutical experiments and sacrifices it leads to. Do you know about poisons?”
“Kind of. Since I’ve been learning the martial arts of the Sichuan Tang Family.”
Poison.
A person who has heightened their resistance to poison to the extreme can store or create poison in their body. In this world, it’s a dark evolutionary state of Poison Technique.
For someone from the Sichuan Tang Family, it’s a state worth coveting, but the creation of poisons is strictly taboo there.
People aren’t inherently poisonous. No matter how much they develop resistance, if they ingest extreme poison, they’ll die.
Especially in the Martial Arts World, if there are suspicious deaths, everyone will think, ‘Sichuan Tang Family, is it you again?’ So there’s no way they’d allow such experiments to end in human sacrifice.
But there will always be those who do what they’re told not to do.
“A group secretly conducting poison experiments within the Sichuan Tang Family’s teachings. If they were discovered, they’d be killed, yet their twisted passion never let them quit, and when it became impossible to conduct those experiments inside the family, they came up with a plan.”
“What plan?”
“They thought, ‘Why not test it on ordinary people outside the Sichuan Tang Family? Not only can we claim Martial Arts responsibility, but we could even be pursued by the authorities! What do we do? Aha! We’ll use the bastards who are born with the resilience to poison! They won’t attract suspicion, so they can die less while being ignored and neglected!’”
I pointed at Lady Tang dramatically as if delivering a profound realization.
The illegitimate child of the Sichuan Tang Family. The victim of poison manufacturing.
That would be Lady Tang.
“Uncle Tang Geoh… really tried to make me a poison user?”
Her green eyes trembled anxiously.
“With purple hair and green eyes, it’s easy to recognize a strongly-blooded illegitimate child of the Sichuan Tang Family. The plan would be to slowly turn you into a poison user by being a father-like figure and mentor.”
“Shut up! He wouldn’t do that!”
Lady Tang bared her teeth and expressed her outrage energetically.
I expected this reaction. Even in the original story, she trusted him and continued her training in Poison Techniques while her body was falling apart. Later, when she finds out the truth, she trembles with betrayal.
“Didn’t you see all the ample evidence at the Seong Family?”
I looked at her coldly, as if to say she had no doubts at all.
“Ugh, uncle wouldn’t do such a thing.”
Under my cold gaze, Lady Tang’s eyes began to tremble as doubt surfaced.
Deep down, she knows something.
The martial arts manuals for creating poison users, the drugs she had been taking for ten years while growing up.
She just doesn’t want to accept it.
How would someone digest the fact that the person who cared for them turned out to be the culprit of their misfortune?
But to move on to the next stage, she needs to accept this truth.
“You know there are methods to infuse poison into the skin or nails long-term to use potent Poison Techniques, right?”
I planted the seeds of suspicion in her, but she was fiercely fighting to keep them from sprouting.
So, I need to directly water the anxiety to make them grow.
“I know. And why’s that?”
“To become a poison user, one needs to ingest poison to build resistance and transform their body into a vessel to hold the poison. Through this process, the vessel can change color due to side effects. Just like how the infused body parts change color when learning Poison Techniques.”
I avoided looking directly at her, carefully tracing my arm or chin, hoping she catches on.
“Are the symptoms of my body proof of becoming a poison user?”
“The first symptom is discoloration of the skin. Soon enough, the body will hurt due to the ingested poison. Then when poison resistance builds up, the pain will subside for a while. But the poison user will mistake this. They’ll think, ‘Someone from the Sichuan Tang Family must have given me medicine to ease the pain. That person is my benefactor.’”
“……. I thought like that.”
She reluctantly agreed, swallowing her silence.
She had no choice. After all, that’s the original setting.
“Illegitimate children of the family believe they have an incurable disease. When someone from the Sichuan Tang Family comes and teaches them Poison Techniques or gives them drugs that reduce pain, they throw themselves into martial arts even harder. Unbeknownst to them, they immerse themselves in training to become poison users.”
“Is uncle really….”
Lady Tang shut her eyes tightly, unable to process the gravity of what had just come to light.
Good. I’ve passed the first step.
I’ve shaken her faith in the only person she relied on, stirring her heart. But it’s just a matter of losing trust in one person only.
Now, it’s time to shake her entire life.
“Once a poison user undergoes the training and ingests poison to build their resistance, there’s a stage where 90% die.”
I tell her just how dangerous her training has been and how close she came to death.
“…….”
Maybe because she was burdened with hard-to-accept facts, Lady Tang closed her eyes tightly once more.
I gazed at her silently.
I could estimate how far along she was in the poison user process based on her body.
Her skin is still intact. She’s likely still in the process of raising her resistance to create that vessel to hold poisons.
I don’t know if she’s a heroine, but I could at least prevent her from meeting a tragic end.
I opened my mouth to explain to her the next phase.
“A completed vessel can now form poisonous substances within their body. Here, the remaining 10% will die.”
“What?!”
Lady Tang widened her eyes in shock, looking at me again. It means that everyone who participates in the poison user experiments ends up dead.
“Historically, very few poison users have emerged. They are recklessly trying to create one of those few miracles by engaging in that insane act.”
Crazy idiots who are walking the blood-soaked path as if trying to touch a mirage.
It’s to the extent that a scientist proposing to build a colony on Mars sounds more realistic and future-oriented.
“So they all die in the end?”
Lady Tang muttered, taken aback, unable to comprehend.
To survive, she spent her time training in Poison Techniques, but it turns out it was a path leading to death.
A truth that denies her very life. Hearing that would shake anyone’s mental state.
In shock, Lady Tang continued to stare at her own body.
I watched over her silently for a while until her shock began to subside.
“Who on earth are you? How do you know all of this?”
Once she gathered herself, Lady Tang glared at me with suspicion, her brow furrowed.
Now I’m ready.
It’s time to harvest the seeds I’ve sown.
“Do you know what happens when a vessel forms poisonous substances inside?”
I injected a bit of anger into my gaze.
“I… I don’t know.”
“Your body starts to dissolve. The poisonous substances bring constant pain as your guts feel like they’re being severed. Poisons seep out of your body like dust, destroying everything around you. You will slowly die in agony.”
Lady Tang undergoes the entire process of becoming a poison user, only turning into an imperfect one.
In the original story, her title was Poison Butterfly.
Isn’t it funny? Her skin rotting and becoming hideous while she’s given the title of a beautiful woman wielding poison.
In the original work, “Poison Butterfly” is both an alias and a derogatory term for Lady Tang. Just like how dust scatters from the wings of a butterfly, poison dust spills from her body constantly.
“So how do you know that?!”
In her frustration, she shouted at me in exasperation.
It’s clear to see she’s mentally crumbling.
I glanced around the messy room. There lay the unpaid guest room fees for her.
Whatever the situation is, it means there’s currently no one she can rely on directly.
Plus, I’ve just revealed that the one person she trusted her entire life turned out to be the cause of her misery.
I made her realize that the martial arts she has trained her whole life actually leads to misfortune.
With no one to trust and her very existence undermined, what if someone suddenly appeared who could be a support for her?
“You’re not the first, you know.”
A man who knows the truth of poison users.
“You’re not the first?”
“I know someone who, deceived by the Sichuan Tang Family, lived a life of torment and then dissolved into a handful of poison.”
Someone who can empathize with her pain and share in her rage, someone with a reason to extend a hand to her.
“Who is that?”
“My best friend. The one who is now dead.”
If a man who lost someone like her suddenly appears before her…
Lady Tang, wouldn’t you want to grab my hand?
