The Reformed Genius of the Sichuan Tang Clan - Chapter 2

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 2
Dang Yu-hyeon did not bow his head in the proper manner. Instead, he lifted it slightly.
His eyes caught the light, gleaming with an almost predatory shine.
“Believe me. I did not go to Giru without reason.”
“Hmm.”
The moment he spoke with such deliberate clarity, Dang Gang-heon’s gaze wavered.
This was precisely the opening Dang Yu-hyeon had been waiting for.
‘He never gave up on me before. He won’t turn away the prodigal child now.’
Especially not if that prodigal child had a compelling reason.
“Rise.”
As expected. Dang Yu-hyeon’s expression did not shift—he had already anticipated this response.
“Very well. I’m curious what justification you’ll offer.”
Justification?
There was none.
What reason does a rake give for raking?
But such trivial matters could be fabricated on the spot.
“I heard recently that an unidentified poison has been circulating in Giru.”
At the mention of poison distribution, Dang Gang-heon’s brow lifted.
A sign of interest.
‘He’s hooked.’
Dang Yu-hyeon suppressed the corner of his mouth and pressed on.
“Even in Sichuan, it’s apparently being sold only in certain establishments and only to select clientele. So I masqueraded as a dissolute fool to infiltrate their circles.”
A warrior of the Dang Clan—and a direct bloodline at that—brought low by mere Intoxicating Drug and not even the Dang Clan Eight Great Poisons?
It would be a loss of face beyond recovery.
Which would constrain not only the Dang Clan’s advancement, but their operations going forward.
He would protect his descendants and his family line—he refused to be shackled by the sins of his past.
Dang Gang-heon turned over his son’s actions in his mind, tapping his fingers against the desk.
There were many inconsistencies; his brow furrowed deeper.
He understood.
All he remembered was the boy reeking of wine or that distinctive acrid stench of Giru—hardly grounds for trust.
‘Honestly, only a fool would believe him.’
But making a fool believe was his specialty.
Dang Gang-heon’s fingers slowed.
Tap…… tap…… tap.
Crack!
A Bamboo Slip shot past Dang Yu-hyeon and struck the door with force.
“You wretched boy!”
Despite his father’s outburst, Dang Yu-hyeon’s expression remained unmoved.
‘Damn. Should’ve kept my mouth shut. Nothing but a ringing in the ears.’
“If only you’d said nothing! You could’ve lived in some modicum of peace!”
Wait. He believed it?
No evidence, no airtight logic—and he believed it?
Caught off-guard by this unexpected turn, Dang Yu-hyeon’s eyes widened.
From the moment he first raised the matter, he had been confident in his own deception.
He knew precisely which angle would catch the light to produce the intended expression, which tone and which words would combine to yield the desired effect.
He had also placed his faith in what his father’s ‘memory’ would tell him—that Dang Gang-heon loved even his wayward son too dearly to avoid those piercing, honest eyes.
But he had never imagined that love could override reason itself.
For the first time in a long while, Dang Yu-hyeon felt a warmth bloom in his chest. He answered calmly.
“With vermin scattered across unknown locations and their methods unclear, I thought it paramount to first identify which poison was being distributed. Forgive me for causing concern.”
‘Poison’ conjured one name above all: the Sichuan Dang Clan.
They handled more poisons than any other force in the Central Plains, so caution was only natural.
Dang Gang-heon, knowing this, asked nothing further and exhaled deeply.
“…… Yes. At least you came back unharmed. That’s a mercy.”
He pressed his brow with his fingers and asked quietly.
“Are you injured? Any lasting effects?”
“I’m fine.”
“What did the physician say?”
“I didn’t see one.”
“You stubborn boy. Whose genes did you inherit that temperament from.”

He’d expected to be asked which poison he’d identified, but concern came first instead.
It’s true that poison is born before man, not man before poison, yet he’d never encountered anyone who lived by that principle.
‘Such a virtuous one—it’s been ages.’
Dang Yu-hyeon lowered his head, hiding the smile tugging at his lips.
Good descendant. I shall transmit the Secret Technique to you with my own hands.
‘Why else would ancestors be praised? This is exactly when you cash in your ancestors’ blessings!’
According to Dang Yu-hyeon’s memory, what Dang Gang-heon desired was to restore the lost Secret Technique and elevate the Dang Clan to the Supreme Family of the World.
With a hundred years of memory at his command, Dang Yu-hyeon could certainly fulfill that ambition.
“There was commotion, but thankfully no serious harm came of it. So—did you identify the poison?”
“Yes.”
“Proof?”
“I have no physical evidence.”
“Then your claim will be difficult to accept…….”
“Identifying the poison itself should be sufficient.”
Dang Gang-heon raised an eyebrow, signaling him to continue.
“It’s the Zi Wu Fen Xin.”
“……!”
The Zi Wu Fen Xin—one of the Dang Clan Eight Great Poisons, now lost to history.
The moment the name left Dang Yu-hyeon’s lips, Dang Gang-heon visibly tensed.
It made no sense whatsoever.
How could a mere boy of fifteen, who possessed only scattered references in fragmented texts and had lost even the original formula, possibly know of such a deadly poison? And how could he have survived ingesting it?
But if one were to lie, one should do it boldly—the absurd often carries more weight than the ambiguous.
Sometimes an outlandish falsehood rings truer than an equivocal truth.
“How did you come to know this?”
“Do you remember when Father showed his children the Martial Arts Manual in their youth?”
“Of course.”
“Among the volumes I read then was one that described the Dang Clan Eight Great Poisons.”
The original mind may have forgotten it entirely, but Dang Yu-hyeon, granted the full span of his life along with his memories, retained it clearly.
“The Zi Wu Fen Xin was documented to convulse only at noon and midnight, during which the body’s movements slow considerably—that was the distinguishing feature.”
His voice as he recited the forgotten texts was utterly flat.
As one always sounds when drawing knowledge from memory alone.
“I merely remembered it.”
Faced with those steady eyes, Dang Gang-heon pressed his head in his hands and exhaled slowly.
This Dang Yu-hyeon was not the one he knew, and it unsettled him.
It couldn’t be otherwise, of course.
Dang Yu-hyeon was never particularly sharp.
He couldn’t have remembered childhood, much less retained by chance the contents he’d glimpsed playing with his brothers then.
But the figure standing before Dang Gang-heon now was not Dang Yu-hyeon.
Only one person knew that truth, and so everyone else merely floundered in the gap between what was and what they believed to be.
“……This is difficult.”
A sigh masquerading as words.
“You remember when you were five years old? Very well, let’s grant that. But then why were you as you were all this time?”
The serious derailment had begun five years ago, but skipping lessons and disobeying orders came before that.
His conduct in those earlier years was equally without excuse, though at least it could be attributed to youthful folly.
But Dang Yu-hyeon did not do so.
Instead of offering a pleasant excuse, he drew forth an old sincerity.
“Shamefully, I harbored no ambition in those days.”
“No ambition?”
“That is correct. After experiencing more kindness than I deserved, I grew afraid of a merciless world. Under the guise of Survival of the Strongest, I did not wish to fight my brothers, nor did I wish to slay those who might one day become my strength.”
Setting aside the falsehood in the first line, Dang Yu-hyeon had indeed agonized over this, hair thinning with worry.
Fear of Fratricidal Conflict.
Revulsion toward a world that saw people as things rather than people.
And so, for a time, even he had fled.
“But now I understand that I was wrong. The kindness I received carries responsibility, and I cannot be free of it.”
This was the force that had turned a coward of the Dang Clan a hundred years ago back from his flight, that formed the foundation of his being, that made him earn the name Poison Master.
“Someone shed blood to build this kindness, and so that blood must not be wasted. It has taken me this long to grasp that truth, but now I mean to live by it.”
Dang Yu-hyeon finished speaking and bowed his head slightly.
The words he had wished to leave with the dead descendant, and those he now had to speak to the one who would lead the Dang Clan—
They mingled and settled into stillness.
“……You really have changed.”
Dang Yu-hyeon answered with a faint smile instead.
When a person changed, transformation was bound to follow.
Dang Gang-heon couldn’t tear his astonished gaze away.
The shift in Dang Yu-hyeon must have been that striking.
“If that’s what you believe, I won’t press further. Don’t forget that resolve.”
“Yes.”
“Well. I’m relieved you had such conviction after all.”
A flicker of self-reproach crossed Dang Gang-heon’s eyes.
It soon gave way to relief.
Dang Yu-hyeon, watching this shift, felt his own shoulders ease.
‘See? Secret techniques slip past without a second thought.’
Sometimes genuine resolve overwhelms everything else.
Before such sincerity, impossibility itself amounts to nothing.
“Then those who used to frequent Giru with you…….”
“Those who guided me to Giru, knowing nothing themselves.”
Dang Yu-hyeon spoke with an easy smile.
They were the ones who’d abetted his fall.
Without the Council of Elders behind them, there would have been no reason to attach anyone to Dang Yu-hyeon, no cause to lead him astray.
Perhaps then he would have grown as a dutiful child, showered in his parents’ affection.
“To dare do such a thing to a child of my father’s blood.”
One couldn’t say his own fault was blameless, but surely those who acted with the Council of Elders as their backing must pay the price for that trust?
“I understand. They’ll be dealt with according to law.”
“A wise judgment, Father.”
“Once matters are settled, send someone to that place in Giru you frequented.”
“Is there still something left?”
“The Council of Elders sent word that they mean to press charges regarding your conduct. Since you collapsed after taking the Intoxicating Drug, they won’t let this go easily.”
In short, they’d seized upon an opening.
“Still, hearing your account, it seems it’ll be resolved quickly enough.”
Resolved quickly? That was one way to put it.
What would unfold was the utter collapse of all their scheming.
“They’ve set the hearing for four days hence. Prepare yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything you need?”
He sensed it instinctively.
This wasn’t a dismissal—it was a reward for a son who’d shown merit and endured hardship.
There was no way he could pass up such an opportunity!
“Well then…….”
Dang Yu-hyeon smiled brazenly and spread both hands wide.
“Could I trouble you for some Spirit Pills?”
* * *
“Hehehehe.”
Dang Yu-hyeon tossed the pouch upward and caught it again, grinning to himself.
Without a word spoken, the pouch—containing an artful mixture of poisons and Spirit Pills—felt heavy enough to require an open palm to hold.
And nestled in his robes was the Certificate he’d been given as a token of appreciation for his hardship.
‘True affection always flows from a deep purse.’
After all, there’s no joy in helping unless the favor returns in kind.
“Hahahaha!”
Dang Yu-hyeon burst into genuine laughter.
Sichuan Dang Clan Prodigal Redeemed as Genius
Author |
Yi Il-yeong
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(주) Samyang C&C
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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