The Reformed Genius of the Sichuan Tang Clan - Chapter 29

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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 29
Gwak Hwaran sat at leisure in the master’s chamber at the top floor of Gwaryeongru, counting through her ledgers.
“Hmph. Young ones really do turn a profit, don’t they?”
So different from old men who collapsed at the slightest exertion.
They endured well enough without regular meals, and once fear took root, no amount of beating would make them rebel.
She could raise them and put them to menial labor if she wished, have them learn martial arts to serve as bodyguards or soldiers, or sell them as concubines to wealthy old men starving for companionship.
Wherever they went, whatever befell them, she received her due payment in full — and that was enough.
The bolts of silk stacked against one wall, the ornaments scattered across the table, the ledgers in her hands — Gwak Hwaran believed with absolute certainty that every last thing owed its existence to her vision and cunning.
“Soon I’ll dispose of what’s no longer useful and bring out the better stock.”
She wondered what price she might extract this time.
At this rate, embezzling the Dang Clan’s eternal treasury and achieving mastery of flame techniques seemed no distant dream at all.
“Hehehehe.”
The dream she’d nursed ever since entering Sacheon swelled until it painted nothing but fantasies.
Crash!
Until a poisoned vial came sailing through the window.
Ssshhhhh!
The poison spilling from the shattered bottle dissolved everything around it, exhaling purple toxic vapors.
“Cough!”
Without warning, her lungs seized in agony, and Gwak Hwaran collapsed face-down on the floor, all dignity forgotten.
The very air burned.
To survive, she had to breathe — but each breath only deepened the torture.
“Hack! Gasp, wheeze!”
Gwak Hwaran spat blood and fumbled at her surroundings.
‘The antidote box — where is it!’
Fortune smiled: her hand found the box nearby.
It was an antidote she’d received when selling off a child — a precaution she’d thought necessary for survival in Sacheon.
Gwak Hwaran crammed a handful of antidote pills into her mouth.
She didn’t know what poison her attacker had used, but it worked — the blood that had been surging up her throat stopped.
‘My body still tingles, but this will suffice.’
She gritted her teeth.
Rising to her feet, Gwak Hwaran searched for her subordinate.
“Yugon!”
“Cough! M-Mistress…!”
Ha Yugon, Gwaryeongru’s second-in-command and its Black Serpent Strategist, came stumbling toward her, spewing blood.
If Gwak Hwaran was the muscle of Gwaryeongru, then Ha Yugon was its mind.
No matter how ferociously a Peak Master like Gwak Hwaran might rampage, without Ha Yugon setting the battlefield, it would be mere chaos.
So even in the worst case, abandoning the body of Gwaryeongru itself — she had to keep him.
Gwak Hwaran pulled antidote from the box and thrust it toward Ha Yugon.
He swallowed it at once, and before he could catch his breath, her question came.
“What happened?”
“Hack. Wheeze. The Dang Clan attacked us.”
“The Dang Clan!?”
She’d suspected as much the moment they used poison instead of drawing swords first — but to think the Dang Clan would actually assault Gwaryeongru!
‘What is this? Could they have heard about the Woryeong Sword being in my possession? Who leaked it?’
Without a leak, there was no reason for the Dang Clan to raid Gwaryeongru.
Whether they resented her growing power or had some other motive — they should have come long ago.
“Those hypocrites, drunk on their bygone glory, changing their minds on a whim!”
“This is not the moment for this! We must abandon this place, take only what matters, and plan for the future! Quickly!”
“To Bidong. Follow me.”
She needed the Woryeong Sword and ledgers that could serve as negotiating leverage, along with account books to hold over heads as she rebuilt.
But as she reached Bidong, she sensed a presence that should not have been there.
“Who dares enter my Bidong!”
And then she saw.
A green robe unmistakable in all of Sacheon.
“Has life been comfortable, then, Wol-lan Yo-hui?”
It was Dang Youxuan.
“How did you — how are you here!”
“Forgetting to use formal speech before me? Your mind must be racing.”
He understood perfectly just how much she had despised him all this time.
As Dang Youxuan stood motionless, an expression of indifference settling on his face, Gwak Hwaran’s head whipped around to glare at Seonwoo Yoon.
“Ayoon. What are you doing here? Did you guide that bastard?”
“…Well, what about it?”
Seonwoo Yoon hesitated, gripped by ingrained fear, yet did not retreat.
Gwak Hwaran’s lips tightened as she watched the younger woman push forward into her past.
To her, change was an unwelcome thing.
“Ayoon. Think straight. He’ll only make life harder for you. He’ll suck you dry and throw you away, won’t he?”
“Compared to some who suck and never let go, he’s manageable.”
At the bitter smile, Gwak Hwaran’s face flushed red.
“Whether it’s people or swords—why waste something so fine?”
Dang Youxuan slashed the blade through the air, once and again.
The thin, keen edge made it seem as though he were spinning a massive spear.
“Besides, a sword like this isn’t meant for someone like you to wield.”
“What?”
“You couldn’t even draw it from its sheath, could you?”
“How could you possibly—!”
“Because you are not of the Dang Clan.”
Dang Hyeonchul, the Master of Poison, loved the Dang Clan.
Unwilling to let his clan become obsessed with toxins and Flying Blades alone, he had crafted Divine Weapons—swords, spears, staffs—and made the sword his own treasured blade.
Refusing to see his beloved weapon, forged from his very soul, fall into another’s hands, he had sought out a craftsman and installed several mechanisms within the blade.
As a result, none who did not carry the blood of the Dang Clan could open the sheath.
A whisper of silk.
Dang Youxuan drew the blade, pressing hard on the white jade set into the sheath.
Forged from ten-thousand-year-old cold iron gathered from Bekhae Binggung, the blade gleamed cold as a winter’s frost, while a heat-line shimmered through it in an eerie, burning blue.
“Let me show you what the true Woryeong Sword really is.”
A low, resonant hum.
As he poured his Inner Qi into it, the blade sang with a clear, crystalline tone.
‘What is this? His aura has changed entirely.’
From the moment she had arrived, she knew he was not the old Dang Youxuan—yet she had not expected his presence alone to overwhelm her so.
‘This won’t be simple.’
She knew well he was no young master struck foolish by hero tales.
So even if it meant making the Dang Clan his enemy, she would have to kill him.
Otherwise, death would be hers.
“Don’t panic! He’s only—”
A slash like thunder.
In an instant, a sword aura materialized before Ha Yugon and tore through his upper body.
Had Ha Yugon not pulled back quickly, the wound would have been fatal.
“Hah! Hah!”
Ha Yugon pressed a hand to his wound and leaned against the wall.
Blood seeped through the torn fabric of his robes.
Dang Youxuan shook out his blade and nodded slightly.
“Only?”
“…Only a child, after all.”
“And how does it feel to be brought down by this child?”
“Tch. Ha Yugon! Get up, quickly!”
“M-Master…! My body won’t…move!”
Stung by his mockery, Gwak Hwaran urged Ha Yugon to his feet, but he could not rise.
His body had gone rigid, stiff as a corpse.
Even as his eyes tracked Dang Youxuan and his fingers tried to move, the lag was painfully obvious.
‘Paralysis Toxin!’
“Only now you realize?”
Dang Youxuan raised one corner of his mouth in a bitter smile.
“Didn’t I tell you I’d show you what the true Woryeong Sword is?”
There are two main reasons why the Woryeong Sword is a Divine Weapon.
One of them is the Toxin Vein Sword Aura.
Reacting to the blood of the Dang Clan, toxin seeps into the sword aura.
The poison works even when the aura merely grazes—not the blade itself—and since the toxin he can deploy varies by his level of Inner Qi, it proved invaluable even in the past.
‘For now, I can only manage the Paralysis Toxin.’
But once he ascends beyond the Fire Realm to the Life and Death Realm, he will be able to use the Corrosive Toxin to destroy even the flow of an opponent’s Inner Qi.
‘So I must grow stronger still.’
Dang Youxuan pushed off hard with his hind leg and lunged forward in a long, sweeping advance.
Shwiiing!
The sword wreathed in aura traced a clean arc.
Gwak Hwaran threw herself backward, widening the distance between them.
Screeeee!
Yet unexpectedly, the sound of a blade cutting through air came from the side.
‘I didn’t see him throw the Flying Blade.’
The Flying Blade itself, and Seonwoo Yoon, were still ahead of her.
That left only one possibility.
‘Could it be the Woryeong Sword…?’
Whoosh!
Dang Youxuan, who had closed the distance in a heartbeat, swung his blade.
Gwak Hwaran seized Ha Yugon by the collar and wrenched him toward her.
Slash!
But Dang Youxuan’s sword was faster.
The blade pierced through Ha Yugon.
“You guarded him so jealously that you brought him all the way to Bidong. I thought he must be precious. But he doesn’t seem to matter much, does he?”
Gwak Hwaran had no time to react to Dang Youxuan’s mockery.
Her jaw dropped at the impossible turn of events.
But for Dang Youxuan, it was nothing remarkable.
Swift footwork like the Shadow Flash Movement combined with a sword technique of devastating speed was his specialty.
“You—such trickery!”
Gwak Hwaran hurled a fist at Dang Youxuan’s face.
Whoosh!
Dang Youxuan dropped low, evading the fist wreathed in Inner Qi.
“It’s not trickery—it’s skill.”
Just as he drove his knee upward toward her head, Gwak Hwaran raised her arm to block.
Their colliding limbs trembled with the force between them.
Neither yielding in the test of strength, Gwak Hwaran conjured flames from her free hand.
Fierce fire laden with killing intent drew a long line of blazing fury along her palm.
“I wonder if you can endure fire.”
Gwak Hwaran twisted her body and yanked Dang Youxuan’s arm down.
Wavering flames rushed toward his throat as if to devour it.
When his serene, arrogant eyes filled with the reflection of her fire, she felt a surge of triumph and her lips curved upward.
But that joy did not last long.
Lips stained deeper crimson in the firelight whispered despair to her racing heart.
“You think such pitiful flames can burn me?”
Dang Youxuan seized her wrist.
Crackle. Crackle.
Expensive silk charred black under the intense inferno.
Yet the flames inflicted no wound upon him whatsoever.
Dang Youxuan pinned Gwak Hwaran against the wall, watching despair flood her eyes as he drove her home.
Ugh!
Gwak Hwaran stumbled, bracing herself against the stone.
Dang Youxuan turned back to Seonwoo Yoon’s side and flicked the blood from his blade.
“Are you unharmed?”
“I am.”
Thanks to Gwak Hwaran holding back her full strength, there had been no real damage yet.
But if a Peak Master unleashed everything to kill him, what would become of him then?
Alone, he could not guarantee his life.
This was why coordinated combat with Seonwoo Yoon mattered.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
Dang Youxuan sheathed his blade at his waist.
Meanwhile, Gwak Hwaran ground her teeth and scraped her fingers along the wall.
Screeeech!
The stone crumbled and gouged where her fingers passed.
“Are we done playing?”
“Done. I’ve confirmed what the Woryeong Sword is. I won’t soil my treasured blade with the filth of your blood.”
“Rotten wretch…!”
Dang Youxuan spoke as he gripped the Flying Blade concealed in his sleeve.
“Now let us fight in earnest.”
Sacheon Dang Clan Prodigy Who Seized Heaven
Author |
Lee Il-young
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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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