TSBIRBV Ch 190

Chapter 190. The Venomous Viper Will Not Endure (1)

“Have you been well?”

By the pond in the central courtyard, Yegyeol raised a hand in greeting. At his strangely elegant demeanor, Samrang’s expression grew complex.

“I have been well.”

Striding over, she dropped down beside him.

She scrutinized Yegyeol again and again. Dark rings under the eyes from sleeplessness, lips torn from biting, hands raked raw, nails chewed ragged—she sought any such signs. Yet none appeared.

Instead, Yegyeol looked sleek and radiant, like one who ate and slept soundly. His skin gleamed like a freshly shelled egg. Samrang clicked her tongue.

When I checked his pulse the other day, he’d seemed frail and wan. To recover so quickly… truly, his nerves are not ordinary.

“And Baembaemi?”

“Here.”

She opened the box she carried. The Thousand-Year Thunder Serpent revealed itself. Its movements were unusually subdued. When Yegyeol extended a hand, it hissed sharply and bared tiny fangs.

Though small and almost comical in size, this was no harmless creature. A spirit-beast that commanded lightning.

Samrang moved to close the lid, but before she could, Yegyeol reached in. The serpent bit his hand—yet almost instantly released him, then tilted its head curiously. Recognizing its master, it rubbed its head against his fingers, coiling up his wrist.

As Yegyeol stroked its golden body, Samrang could only look on with a helpless face.

“As expected, it knows its master.”

“Why? Did it attack you too?”

“It gave me a little jolt. Manageable, though.”

She joked that she thought she’d be charred black like burnt ebony wood.

Ever since being separated from Yegyeol for half a month, Baembaemi had grown sharp and irritable. It refused human food, raw meat, or live prey. Even when it recognized Samrang, it lashed out with lightning at her touch. The sting was sharper than static, leaving limbs numb and hard to move.

Everyone else avoided it, calling it a true spirit-beast. Thus Samrang ended up tending to it alone.

Yet facing it, she could not shake an odd sense of dissonance.

This creature once burned down an entire mountain, creating forests of charred wood. But its strikes here are so… weak?

Too weak.

She had not voiced this suspicion aloud. Then Yegyeol summoned her.

“Oh, my poor Baembaemi. You’ve grown thin, your scales have lost their luster… what have you been eating?”

“Nothing. It refused everything—human food, raw meat, wild game.”

Yegyeol held the serpent tight with pity, intending to discreetly pour a little of his energy into it when Samrang was not looking. Like a child scolding its absent parent, the snake rubbed its head against his hand. Tiny horns like cat’s teeth tickled his skin.

Noticing flakes of skin peeling white, he murmured:

“Oh… is Baembaemi about to shed?”

He peered at its eyes. A faint bluish sheen was there.

He recalled hearing once that snakes’ eyes turn blue before they shed—the blue phase.

He even remembered the source. At the Center, a senior Esper had crammed knowledge about reptiles in a bid to be the perfect partner for a guide who kept snakes.

I used to kick him away whenever he babbled nonsense. Who would’ve thought it’d come in handy now…

“Hongye also said so. That it’s partly from being away from its master, partly because it’s ready to shed.”

“Bring it something it can rub against,” Yegyeol instructed.

Samrang nodded, then remarked with surprise:

“You seem well.”

“Why? You thought I wouldn’t be?”

“I thought you’d be shaken. Maybe even… react violently.”

She shrugged.

“After all, admitting you come from the Ten Thousand Great Mountains—people would be stunned.”

“Samrang, were you born and raised in the Demon Sect?”

“Yes. A child of the Sun-Moon Divine Cult. My family for generations are Magyo to the bone.”

Her reply was bright, casual. Yegyeol frowned faintly, stroking Baembaemi’s head. Its snout was damp, as if it had just drunk water.

“Sun-Moon Divine Cult. Right, here it isn’t called the Demon Sect but the Sun-Moon. I’m not used to it yet… but I’ll adapt slowly.”

“You may call it Demon Sect. It matters not.”

Samrang tried not to show her surprise. She had expected denial, destruction, some violent refusal of reality. Yet here was Yegyeol, calmly accepting.

“Either name refers to us all the same.”

“So… Senior Brother is the Heavenly Demon.”

Yegyeol rubbed Baembaemi’s head. The snake, itching from its shed, pressed eagerly into his hand.

“Yes. He is my Lord, master of ten thousand demons.”

“Since when?”

“A little over three years.”

Not so long, then.

Haryang had said it had been twenty years since he and Yegyeol parted.

“If the Demon Sect invaded Kunlun when he was twenty-two, then he must have suffered for about seventeen years… am I right?”

Samrang did not answer. After a silence, she asked carefully:

“…If I am not mistaken, it was not Baembaemi you sought. It was me.”

“I thought you’d bring it if I asked. That’s all.”

Yegyeol rested his chin in hand, swinging his foot.

“I missed my little Baembaemi too long. And also…”

“For information?”

“Yes.”

“There is Jinyeong. There is Hongye. Why me?”

She cupped her chin with her hands, smiling.

Yegyeol crooked a finger.

“Jinyeong won’t speak. Too rigid. Hongye won’t either. Too upright.”

“And I am glib and careless.”

She smiled proudly, but her gaze was cold, measuring. Was giving Yegyeol what he wanted truly service to her Lord?

“Why do you wish to know the Lord’s past?”

“Because I cannot hear it from his own lips.”

“If you ask, he will tell you everything.”

“I know.”

After all, with a single night’s pillow-side entreaty, Haryang had promised to grant Yegyeol anything.

But—

“Then he would have to recall it aloud.”

Yegyeol did not want that.

Samrang regarded him closely. When he first learned his Senior Brother was the Heavenly Demon, she had thought him stricken with betrayal. Now she saw—it was different. His anger was never at Haryang.

If he wished to wound him, he would not have gone about it in such a roundabout way.

“…I know little of the details. I met the Lord only ten years ago.”

“That’s fine. I don’t need details, only the broad strokes.”

Yegyeol needed to know. What had carved Haryang into this shape?

Samrang sighed inwardly. Troublesome, delicate matters always fell to her. But Jinyeong and Hongye would never say such things. Only she could serve as that bridge.

“Yes. As you guessed, those seventeen years were not pleasant.”

Her lips were dry.

“Soon after he came to the Demon Sect, for two, three years, he was subjected to vile experiments by Ma-ui.”

“Ma-ui?”

“The Magician. His purpose was to forge weapons for the sect. Assassins brainwashed from childhood, ‘Soulless Men’ crafted from broken masters, corpses raised as jiangshi… his aim was to combine their strengths, discard their weaknesses.”

Yegyeol blinked. Even to hear it was absurd.

“After forcing him to learn demonic arts, suppress demonic qi, the brainwashing began. The Magician was thorough. He instilled not only loyalty, but solitude. I know, because every surviving captive was put through the same.”

Her tone was dry, flat.

“After that, his traces vanish. But I believe he was sent to assassinate key figures in the Central Plains.”

If so, the blood on Haryang’s hands must be that of righteous sect martial artists. Disciples of the Nine Great Schools, the Five Great Clans—men and women he might once have known.

Yegyeol closed his eyes.

What if among those he killed was someone from the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly, from those bright days?

“Ten years ago, a critical test subject vanished. The Magician raged. I believe that was when something within the Lord changed. Yet the brainwashing held; he returned to the sect and played the dutiful pawn. That was when I first crossed paths with him.”

“On the same side?”

Samrang gave a short laugh.

“Enemies. My clan opposed the Magician and his works.”

Yegyeol exhaled, weary. However briefly told, Haryang’s path was cruel beyond measure.

“Still, no matter the mission, he always returned alive. The Magician pressed that he be made a hall master, and placed under him the very test subjects he had brainwashed. Looking back, I suspect that was not the Magician’s will, but his own.”

“…Then, was it easier for him after that?”

“No.”

Samrang shook her head.

“He grew too famous. So famous, even the Sect Lord himself began to doubt.”

The sharpest blade cannot be hidden.

“At that time, the Heavenly Demon was the weakest in history, raised to power by family influence. From the start there was opposition, rumors of foul play in how rivals were eliminated. He trusted only one ally—the Magician. That is, until the Lord appeared.”

“And from his hands, too strong a master was born.”