TSBIRBV Ch 62

Chapter 62 A Cornered Rat (7)

“Ah…”

Something like a sob slipped out between his lips. His mouth felt parched enough to crack, and thirst surged so hard he forgot he wasn’t supposed to make a sound.

Yegyeol let out a thin, mirthless laugh. The reason his body was throwing a fit was obvious.

When did the poison get me?

The voice-thinning lozenge had brought only a touch of drowsiness and wore off quickly. That meant the poisoning happened after the checkpoint.

We deliberately routed the ransom via Black Spot’s Sichuan branch…

He wasn’t taking risks mindlessly, even if it was to protect Qinghai Trading. Samrang’s hand was on every part of the transit—and Senior Brother’s, who held the Sichuan branch of Black Spot in his fist. The chance that Black Spot had played him was vanishingly small.

Which meant a third party had intervened.

He tried to trace the logic, but the heat in his skull made thinking hard.

How many poisons did they use?

He frowned.

Jianghu never lets a man relax…

He groped outward and pressed his palm to the sedan’s wall. He needed to get out and “seek treatment,” fast. Not because he feared death—

He had to keep his “constitution” hidden.

If his counterfeit “poison-impervious” body became known, it would be trouble. When someone wants a head, poison is safer than sending a killer to cut a throat.

The wise in Jianghu hide three-tenths of their skill.

Knock-knock-knock. Knock—bang!

Maybe the poison had only just taken hold; he couldn’t control his strength.

Playing the frail, harmless civilian isn’t easy.

He saw the slender lattice of the sedan’s window splinter.

When the door banged open, Yegyeol slumped sideways, leaning to hide the broken screen he himself had shattered.

Samrang stood there.

“…Told you… not to follow,” he breathed, half a groan. They had agreed to move separately, but she’d shadowed him anyway. She never listened. Not his subordinate, truly, but Senior Brother’s—so what could be done?

“Poison,” she said.

Beyond her shoulder, bodies lay strewn. No signs of a pitched fight—just men fallen where they stood, as if they hadn’t even realized they were dying.

Assassins? When?

“Don’t close your eyes. Don’t sleep,” Samrang’s voice cut through his thoughts—colder and steadier than usual. Yegyeol nodded weakly, then deliberately pitched forward.

Whatever the poison, he should act worse than he felt—the average man would be in far more agony than this. Maybe bite his tongue, get some blood…

Samrang pried his mouth open and jammed something in. Warm liquid slid down his throat.

“Swallow. You must swallow…”

Tastes strange—neutralizer?

Halfway down, his gut lurched. He retched; metal flooded his mouth, and the copper scent of blood hit his nose.

The stains on Samrang’s black night-clothes said it all—he’d vomited softened scraps of his own viscera.

Manageable, he thought. He opened his mouth to soothe her:

“I—I’m fi—”

“Shut your mouth,” she snapped, pressing a few acupoints and slinging him across her back.

— — —

Bang!

A rarely used corridor yawned open, and the shelf blocking it crashed down.

“Lord Black Ghost!”

From the room’s shadows, a figure rose and stepped toward the intruders.

“An unexpected visit,” the voice rasped, harsh and displeased. “However shadowy you are, trespass the walls here and you’ll burn.”

Samrang had come herself, and loudly named “Black Ghost.” Stinking of blood and a smoky tang, she could have only one reason to rush in with such urgency.

“Our guild master has been poisoned!”

“Let me see.”

The words were even, but Haryang’s hand was already out. With just an arm hooked over Samrang’s shoulder for support, Yegyeol slid limply into the man’s embrace.

The pale face against the blood-red wedding robes was heartrending.

“What poison?” Haryang’s tone went cold as his eyes took in his disciple’s condition.

“I’ve identified Moon-Dew, Ever-Night, and Seven-Hues-Seven-Yangs,” Samrang said.

“You came here for antidotes?”

Haryang strode to one side, drew a curtain, and laid Yegyeol on the bed. His skin burned like a heated stone.

“I dosed a general neutralizer. His body’s expelling heat—likely from detoxification. We need a cold-natured poison to suppress it. Also…” She hesitated. “My skill found only three poisons at best.”

Haryang looked down at the flushed, groaning youth, face unreadable.

“…We start with what we know. I’ll fetch the antidotes. Stay,” he said.

“Yes.”

Samrang checked Yegyeol anxiously. He was as pale as when their lord had first brought him in.

“Where…” Yegyeol rasped—then coughed raggedly. Samrang hurried a cup to his lips.

He lowered his eyes and swallowed—then pushed her hand away. A clot of red slid from his mouth.

“Good thing the robes are red,” he quipped, trying for a joke; the split, parched voice only made it worse. Samrang clenched her teeth.

“I told you—keep quiet. The antidote will be here,” she said.

She had never imagined this while fussing over bridal silk. Her face, unlike her, was twisted.

“Black Ghost?” Yegyeol’s head turned. The man stepped from shadow like a piece of the dark itself, heavier with presence than ever.

He remembered little of being carried in. But one thing was clear—even through the heat—Senior Brother was angry.

Haryang said nothing. He opened the case in his hands and took out a black pill. He brought it to Yegyeol’s lips.

The color and the stench both said “poison” more than “medicine.” Yegyeol did not hesitate—he swallowed what Senior Brother gave.

“Ghk.”

It tasted vile.

“And you swallow it so easily… after being poisoned while under our transport,” Haryang said—mask slipping for a heartbeat.

“I’m… still your client,” Yegyeol whispered between ragged breaths.

“…I’ll assist with qi-pulling and blood-guiding,” Haryang said, placing a hand to the youth’s back. As Yegyeol’s eyelids fluttered and he slipped soundlessly under, Haryang clenched his jaw.

He would not lose him.

Black Spot turned upside down.

Remedies and restoratives crossed the threshold of the inner rooms again and again. The branch master himself moved—no mere clerk—a rare sight.

Yet for all the effort, the “special guest” showed no quick sign of recovery.

“Why won’t the fever break?” Haryang demanded.

With the time bought by antidotes and guided qi, Samrang had finally identified the last poison. She’d compounded a new pill and sworn he would wake within several hours.

But Yegyeol drifted—sinking, surfacing. At first he could speak; now, he couldn’t keep his mind together at all.

After half a day, with no sign of the fever breaking, Samrang’s voice trembled as she said, “I’ll fetch another physician.”

Haryang looked down, cool-eyed. “We’ve missed something.”

“I know you distrust physicians. But—”

It was the first time her perfect discipline cracked—she had kept calling him “Black Ghost,” even with no ears to hear.

He didn’t rebuke her. He couldn’t take his eyes off Yegyeol’s flushed face.

Remember.

There was no way this sense of déjà vu came from nothing.

The poisons identified and neutralized—yet the fever held.

Did the neutralizer she gave clash with the antidotes?

Or was it a mismatch between medicine and his constitution?

If only I’d been the one poisoned.

He remembered, long ago, when he had been made “poison-impervious.” They had conducted experiments—pouring assorted toxins into a body trained on pure inner force to strike a balance. The esophagus burned; flesh melted; only a ragged thread of breath refused to snap. He had wanted to beg for death, but once his throat ruined, no voice would come.

Then—at some point—he stopped feeling any pain from ingesting poison.

A pity it’s over—had a demonic doctor clicked his tongue and said so? The words rose vivid as yesterday.

He hadn’t understood then. Later, after eating tainted food and watching others drop—or seeing comrades fall to poison arts in the field while he did not—he realized.

The body that had brought him back alive, time and again—this “poison-impervious” shell—was a cruel curse. His flesh had become an unassailable fortress that would not grant him death.

But only once—had it failed.

“That’s why we couldn’t find it,” he breathed, a laugh breaking loose.

“Lord… Black Ghost?” Samrang’s voice was careful.

Jinyoung had fretted often that their lord might be undone by his care for his disciple. Haryang had always thought it typical of the mildest, most anxious of his three lieutenants—and let it pass in one ear and out the other.

But now, standing before Samrang, the storm on his face could not be hidden by any mask.

“It’s a stimulant,” he said.

— — —

Footnotes:

• Moon-Dew, Ever-Night, Seven-Hues-Seven-Yangs — Classic wuxia-style composite venoms with differing natures (cooling, lingering, heat-driving), often layered to confound diagnosis; names emphasize cyclical, chromatic, and yang-imbalanced profiles. 
• “Qi-pulling and blood-guiding” (추궁과혈) — Hands-on inner-force technique to circulate, vent, or suppress toxic heat, akin to assisted detoxification through meridian work.