I Thought the Youngest Daughter of the Sichuan Tang Family Was Hated - Chapter 58

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

I rushed after Dang Mu-seon with all haste.
I stole a glance at his expression.
‘His face looks terrifying.’
It seemed his anger was far from subsiding.
As we headed toward the thatched cottage where Seong-ya had been confined, Gong Myo stood waiting for us.
“Is he inside?”
“Y-yes…!”
Gong Myo answered while visibly tense, hastily opening the door.
Inside, Dang Dam had Seong-ya bound to a chair.
“Master.”
Upon confirming our arrival, Dang Dam bowed his head and stepped back.
While Yak-seon and Song Hak took their seats, Dang Mu-seon approached Seong-ya.
Seong-ya’s appearance was dire, his head wrapped tightly in cloth.
‘He looks like someone who barely survived death.’
That might well have been the case—he’d been beaten by Dang Mu-seon countless times.
“My mood is not good right now.”
“Ugh!”
Dang Mu-seon seized Seong-ya’s head forcefully as he spoke.
“Unless you spill everything you know, I’ll tear your mouth apart.”
“Ah, venting your anger like this—what will it accomplish?”
Song Hak’s mocking voice came from behind.
Dang Mu-seon, as if he hadn’t heard, slowly twisted the hand gripping Seong-ya’s head.
“Ah, I’ll tell you! Please, my head…!”
“What is the goal of those Three Great Families dogs? Speak.”
“Aaah! The Secret Manual of the Poison Sage!”
As he cried out in agony, Dang Mu-seon finally released his grip.
My eyes widened.
‘The Secret Manual of the Poison Sage?’
I never expected to hear those words from Seong-ya again.
“How absurd. You made such a fuss demanding it be destroyed, and now you’re after it? We already told you it was destroyed due to your insistence.”
Song Hak interjected with an incredulous laugh.
It appeared Seong-ya had learned the entire story from Gan-ja.
Rubbing his head, Seong-ya raised his voice as he looked at Song Hak.
“You didn’t believe it! Would you really abandon such a powerful weapon? Would you?”
Everyone’s expressions suggested they couldn’t deny it.
If Seong-ya described it as that powerful, it was indeed a shame to destroy it.
‘So they framed us to obtain the Secret Manual of the Poison Sage.’
After framing us, they sought to bring us down and seize the manual.
“Why would you even want it? You wouldn’t be able to use it anyway.”
Seong-ya tilted his head as he asked.
Now that I thought about it, his words were correct.
What need was there to become a poison master if one didn’t practice poison techniques?
“Precisely. They merely sought to prevent the Dang Family from growing stronger by exploiting that fact. Or so I understand.”
At Seong-ya’s words, Dang Mu-seon fell into thought, his fingers twitching slightly.
“….”
Then suddenly, his eyes widened dramatically.
“For your objectives to succeed, what had to become of the Dang Family?”
He asked gravely. Yet it seemed he already knew the answer.
“That is…. The Dang Family had to….”
Seong-ya’s gaze swept across all of us slowly. Guilt colored his eyes.
“Fall into ruin.”
With his answer, every fragment in my mind clicked into place.
My body suddenly began to tremble violently.
‘The enemy I had been searching for—the one who killed my family—’
It was….
“Did the Namgoong Clan participate in this as well?”
Before I knew it, my lips moved first.
I pushed forward beside Dang Mu-seon and grabbed Seong-ya, demanding answers.
“Namgoong Sae-ryun and Namgoong Do-hwi. Did they both know?”
While waiting for Seong-ya’s response, the pain was unbearable.
My stomach twisted, and cold sweat poured down.
Some emotion felt like it was shattering me into pieces.
“They were the driving force.”
At his answer, my legs gave way beneath me.
“Ah… ha, ha….”
Hollow laughter spilled out in fragments.
“Do you hear? What did they do this time?”
“I will make sure to punish those who abandoned you.”
The words Namgoong Do-hwi had spoken came back to me.
He was the first to bring me the worst news about the Dang Family.
“I’m truly happy you’ve become one of us. You really are different from them.”
He had recommended me to the Martial Arts Alliance.
Because I had to be confined among them….
All that laughter and kindness had been for the sake of killing my family.
“Ugh, sob! Uuuu….”
No matter how I tried to hold back, tears continued to flow.
My shoulders heaved as I dropped my head. I tasted blood as I bit down on my lips.
“Child. Let’s go with grandfather. If you’re frightened, that’s alright.”
Thinking I was scared, Dang Mu-seon patted me gently and tried to comfort me.
Yet I could not be consoled. Instead, his tenderness only fueled my rage.
‘I lost this because of you! Because of you, I lost the love I’ve yearned for my entire life!’
I couldn’t hold back any longer and grabbed at Seong-ya’s clothes desperately.
“Namgoong Do-hwi proposed to me! Was that part of the plan too? Tell me the truth!”
Seong-ya’s eyes wavered. My face, streaked with tears and snot, reflected in his pupils.
“….”
As if he’d made a decision, he turned his gaze toward Dang Mu-seon.
“I will defect. I will become the Dang Family’s servant, so please use me as you see fit.”
Seong-ya swallowed hard and continued in a strained voice.
“…But in return, please guarantee the safety of Miss Gong Myo.”
“What?”
Dang Mu-seon’s eyes narrowed with irritation.
Seong-ya paid no mind and continued.
“If you wish to torture someone, do it to me. You can sever my tendons or do whatever you like, but never threaten me again using the young lady’s life.”
His eyes, glancing toward Gong Myo standing at the door, were filled with concern.
“How terrified she must have been, knowing nothing of this….”
“I—”
It was the moment Dang Mu-seon opened his mouth with a sharp edge to his voice.
“No, that’s not true!”
Gong Myo, who had been shrinking her shoulders in uncertainty, stepped forward and cried out.
“They didn’t frighten me! Please don’t slander them!”
“Young lady….”
Seong-ya’s eyes widened in surprise.
Then his face hardened as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Young lady, you don’t need to lie. I saw Dok-jon point a hidden blade at your throat.”
“That was… that was….”
Gong Myo couldn’t respond properly.
As all eyes turned toward her, the pressure seemed to tie her tongue.
“We would never do such a thing.”
In the end, I spoke on her behalf.
“We would never put our family in danger.”
At my calm words, Seong-ya blinked.
“Then, at that time….”
“It was all staged. What else would it be?”
Dang Mu-seon explained indifferently.
“….”
Seong-ya stared at us with a vacant expression, as if he’d been struck on the head.
First at Gong Myo.
Then at me.
Finally, he looked up at Dang Mu-seon.
“Does that answer your question?”
Dang Mu-seon raised one eyebrow and asked.
Seong-ya then bowed his head deeply.
“…Yes. I understand now. Completely.”
Dang Mu-seon regarded him with suspicion at Seong-ya’s answer, which came with a hollow laugh.
“How easily you betray your convictions. Like flipping your palm over.”
“It is not a hasty decision.”
Seong-ya shook his head slowly, his gaze fixed upon me.
“…I observed the young lady’s quarters, gradually, and then came to understand it clearly.”
His eyes darkened as he spoke in hushed tones.
“What was I trying to destroy, truly….”
At Seong-ya’s words, I felt it anew.
How profoundly my regression had altered everything.
Had I not kept Gong Myo at my side, Seong-ya would never have watched over us with such doubt gnawing at him.
He would have simply destroyed the Dang Family and secretly spirited Gong Myo away.
“Here, consume this.”
Song Hak rose slowly and extended something resembling a small leech to Seong-ya.
“Blood Insect Swarm.”
Seong-ya’s pupils trembled.
‘An insect collective that spreads throughout the blood vessels of humans….’
He understood the terror it represented.
“If you betray us, I will unleash them. You understand what that means, yes?”
Seong-ya exhaled a trembling breath and nodded.
“Ugh! Cough, haa.”
Seong-ya swallowed the Blood Insect Swarm and fought back the urge to retch.
Then he steadied himself with heavy, deliberate breaths.
“…During the war, the Murim came to know each other far too intimately.”
From the very beginning, he explained the truth of all matters.
This is what Seong-ya said.
The Martial Arts Alliance, which exchanged everything to oppose the Demonic Cult.
In doing so, they came to understand the Sacheon Tang Clan far too well.
Despite standing at the frontlines, they endured with grim determination, driven by the singular will to protect their bloodline.
A ferocious weapon honed by such ruthlessness.
When they created not only various lethal poisons but even poison masters, the Murim Great Families realized something.
They are dangerous.
“But precisely because of that, we have also learned how to neutralize you.”
To make you tear at one another.
And to steal away the person you love most.
“You would die for your precious daughter, would you not? So what if that precious daughter were in our hands?”
Seong-ya looked up at us with a self-deprecating gleam in his eyes.
His words, delivered with a helpless smile, cut like a blade.
“Even if we frame you, you’ll keep your mouth shut. Even if we slit your throat, you’ll just close your eyes and accept it.”
I clenched my eyes shut.
The trembling grew worse and worse.
My suspicions had proven correct once again.
“So the Third Young Master is dead this time?”
Suddenly, a report of victory from the Dang Family’s subjugation campaign—something I’d heard from someone—surfaced in my mind.
That’s how my older brothers died.
Father too… in the same way….
“…Wait, I need to cool my head. At this rate, I’m going to kill this bastard.”
Dang Mu-seon suddenly shook out his hands and left the room.
Blood scattered from his fingertips—he must have been clenching his fists too tightly.
With Dang Mu-seon gone, the room fell into complete silence.
I steadied my trembling body and asked Seong-ya.
“You… you gave me poison, didn’t you? You were trying to send me far away like that?”
“The poison failed. Before that, Miss, you overcame the hallucinogenic herb…. Wait, how did you—.”
Seong-ya’s calm voice was caught mid-sentence, wrapped in confusion.
My head felt like it was splitting, and my vision blurred completely.
‘Ah. I didn’t hear everything.’
“Miss!”
“Good heavens, ah, Miss…!”
All strength drained from my body.
What woke me was fury.
All the circumstances until now. The suspicions that arose from them.
I couldn’t bring myself to confirm them.
Because if I did, I would hate myself too much.
I remembered myself welcoming Namgoong Do-hwi back like a dog wagging its tail—the man who killed Father.
I remembered myself brewing an antidote for the Martial Arts Alliance, the organization that killed Dang Lim.
“Sob! Sob! Waaaaah!”
Unable to hold back my sorrow, I burst into tears again.
“Cry all you want. That bastard Dang Mu-seon is still outside cooling his head, so he won’t hear you.”
Song Hak’s voice reached my ears.
I turned my head to find him sitting in a chair beside the bed.
“…Sniff, sob.”
I wiped my tears with the black cloth he offered.
“Snort!”
I blew my nose loudly.
Then Song Hak spoke.
“Keep that.”
“Sob, yes….”
Song Hak gazed quietly at me, still pouring out tears, and spoke softly.
“…And I’ve also made sure that bastard Gan-ja keeps his mouth shut.”
“M-mouth shut? You mean silence him?”
Was he referring to my role as a double spy?
As I blinked, he uttered words that left me astounded.
“The fact that you’re from Hoecheon.”
“…Hoecheon?”
“Yes, you defied a thousand li and returned, didn’t you?”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————