Maybe she’d enjoyed our little doll-play at our first meeting more than I thought, because Tang Juhee came looking for me all the time.

“Youngest!”

“What.”

“Youngest!”

“Yes, yes. Big sister. I have to train, so stop talking to me.”

“Look at this, Soso. The youngest answers every single time, right? Chohui doesn’t even pretend to listen. Cute, isn’t she?”

Sometimes she’d show up at the crack of dawn to watch me do my early-morning training.

“Can’t you spar with me?”

“No.”

“Come on. I’ll go easy.”

“If I get hit by your fist, I’ll die.”

“Then let’s play instead. Want to learn claw techniques, claw techniques? It’s seriously fun.”

“No. If I grow my nails, it’s uncomfortable when I throw hidden weapons.”

“That’s why I’m telling you to learn it. Close-range fighting is fun.”

And she’d pester me to spar.

Of course I refused every time. I knew my place.

If I fought Tang Juhee—who’d trained fist-and-kick techniques for over ten years—every bone in my body would definitely snap.

I tossed a coin into the pond as if I hadn’t heard her, and Tang Juhee clung to my side.

“Just once. Huh? You can use poison. I’ll even let you hit me with hidden weapons. Spar with me. Huh?”

Can’t hear you. Not hearing you.

“Then should I teach you how to make extreme poison? How to make antidotes? If you don’t want that, want to go look around the iron workshop? The three of us can drink tea with Chohui. Going out is fine too. How about going to the cloth shop and buying new silk?”

Was it my imagination... or did it feel like she was wagging a tail that didn’t exist?

Watching Tang Juhee chatter away, visibly thrilled, a wave of pity hit me.

You don’t have any friends, do you.

“Big sister. I have to train. If I slack off and Grand Elder finds out, I’ll get scolded.”

“Then the iron workshop is perfect. You should go at least once. You’ve never been, right?”

“No, I said I’ll get scolded.”

“If sisters get along, Ancestor Jonghyeon will like it too.”

Are you even listening to what I’m saying?

Tang Juhee reached her own conclusion and yanked me. A scream burst out on its own from her iron grip.

“Ah! It hurts. Big sister, my arm’s going to come out. Pull gently. Gently.”

“Really? You’re way weaker than I thought? Okay. Gently.”

Tang Juhee actually did what I said—pinching the very edge of my sleeve between her thumb and index finger. It was so careful, like she was touching dandelion fluff.

“Doesn’t hurt now, right? You need to train harder. I think you’re weaker than my maid.”

“Then don’t interrupt my training.”

“No. I’m bored.”

With that prim little answer, Tang Juhee started striding forward, still holding my sleeve.

With Grand Elder away, there was nowhere to run.

Wearing a face like I’d achieved enlightenment about all worldly matters, I got dragged along by Tang Juhee.

Maybe because summer was right around the corner, the weather wasn’t just warm—it was hot.

When I rolled up my sleeves at the “this is kind of hot” temperature, Tang Juhee tilted her head.

“You’re hot? It’s not even the hot season yet. Youngest, you really can’t handle heat, huh?”

“Maybe you’re the one who doesn’t feel heat.”

“Have you ever seen a Sichuan person get hot? You’re the weird one.”

Tang Juhee clapped and laughed like she’d heard the funniest joke in the world. The sound of jade rings clicking together was loud.

Wasn’t the weird one the person wearing two layers of a flashy long robe over a martial uniform, drenched in jewelry, and not sweating a single drop?

Too annoyed to answer, I trudged forward—when someone greeted us.

“Well, well. If it isn’t our youngest sister with the Myriad-Poison-Immune Body.”

At the mocking tone, I turned my head and saw Tang Juyeop staring right at me.

Dressed in a pure-white long robe and fluttering a pure-white fan, he looked like some refined young master out enjoying an immortal’s leisure.

His face was so neat and clean it was hard to believe he’d been lying there like a half-dead corpse.

He looked serious when they carried him to the Medical Hall, so this was surprising. Was it really nothing?

“Yes, yes. Hello.”

“Did you enjoy yourself that day?”

For a second I wondered what the hell he was talking about—then the image of Tang Seho using Tang Juyeop’s face as a canvas flashed through my mind.

I flinched and avoided his gaze.

So he knew we scribbled on his face. Still, I only drew one dot.

Arms crossed, Tang Juhee swept Tang Juyeop up and down, then clicked her tongue.

“You’re going to a brothel again? I told you not to go to Moon-Fragrance Pavilion. If Father finds out, he’ll blow up.”

“He won’t find out.”

“You go out looking like that and you think he won’t notice?”

Tang Juhee shot back, tongue clicking. Tang Juyeop, not caring at all, smiled like a fool and lazily fanned himself.

“I’ll do my best to hide it.”

“Make sure it doesn’t splash back on me.”

“Of course. And besides.......”

Answering smoothly, he lowered his upper body and brought his eyes level with mine. At the invasive distance, I shuffled back.

“Yes?”

“Would the afternoon be convenient? I’d like to treat my little sister to a cup of tea.”

“I don’t want to.”

I watched you pour whatever that was with my own eyes—why would I want to drink tea with you?

Tang Juyeop drooped his brows like he’d been hurt.

“You don’t trust me?”

“If you were me, would you trust you? You fed me poison the first time we met.”

“That was my mistake. I should’ve fed it to you after earning your trust.”

......What are you even saying?

He looked fox-thin too, and every word out of his mouth was irritating.

“I’m not planning to do anything to you. I already confirmed poison doesn’t work on you.”

“Ah. Okay.”

Even with my halfhearted reply, Tang Juyeop didn’t lose his smile. As his face slowly approached, it was full of mischief.

“I’m simply curious about something.”

Bending down, he whispered at my ear.

“Is the Myriad-Poison-Immune Body also free from the control of a hex-worm? I’m curious about that.”

Tang Juyeop smiled, splitting the corners of his mouth long.

His tone was playful, but in that instant a chill crawled over me. It felt like facing a child’s pure malice.

Like watching a child who rips a butterfly’s wings out of curiosity, stomps a frog to death, and laughs brightly while doing it.

My body went stiff, and Tang Juyeop giggled.

“I’m joking. The main house doesn’t have any secret arts that manipulate people.”

“Then if it isn’t the main house?”

“Oh? Are you talking about the sorcery of the southern barbarians? Our clan belongs to the righteous faction—how could I possibly have such sorcery in mind?”

“.......”

“Don’t take it to heart, little sister. It was only a joke.”

Whispering lightly as if it were nothing, he stepped away from me.

“Hey! If you’re going out to play, sneak out through the side gate. The gatekeeper can see you.”

“Going out to play? I’m going to seek the resonance of the soul. Inside these walls, there isn’t a single melody that can save me.”

“That idiot’s spouting nonsense again.”

Tang Juhee snorted and frowned.

I stared blankly at Tang Juyeop walking off as if nothing had happened.

It felt like insects were crawling all over my body. I couldn’t even move.

Tang Juyeop’s curious voice wouldn’t leave my ears.

‘Is the Myriad-Poison-Immune Body also free from the control of a hex-worm? I’m curious about that.’

What did he know? Why was he curious?

As far as I knew, the place that used hex-worm arts to control people wasn’t the southern barbarians.

The Demonic Sect.

Only the Demonic Sect’s Bell-Soul Body-Swap Hex-Worm.

*****

Namgung Under Heaven treated the Demonic Sect as absolute evil—fitting for a novel whose protagonist was the young clan head of the Namgung Clan, the figurehead of the righteous faction.

Honestly, from the descriptions alone, it was absolute evil. They did every kind of thing imaginable to turn their martial artists into experts.

Kidnapping children with strong bones. Human trafficking. Kidnapping and torturing righteous-faction figures for the purpose of breaking their martial arts. They were a pack of evil, plain and simple.

The Demonic Sect’s brutality didn’t discriminate between outsiders and their own. When they sent their members into the Central Plains, they forced them to swallow a parasite called the Blood-Yin Hex-Worm.

It was a bug that burrowed into the host’s body and gnawed on their organs. Only by taking the antidote the Demonic Sect provided at three-month intervals would the bug go dormant and stop harming the host.

Meaning: without the medicine, you’d suffer the agony of your organs being eaten and then die.

Members who’d swallowed the Blood-Yin Hex-Worm {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} could only receive the antidote if they reported back to the sect at regular intervals.

In other words— a timed bomb that enabled location tracking, intelligence gathering, and betrayal prevention all at once.

But the Demonic Sect wasn’t satisfied with the Blood-Yin Hex-Worm.

They wanted something stronger. A hex-worm that could dominate someone completely and move them however the user pleased.

After years of research, the Demonic Sect created a new hex-worm.

The Bell-Soul Body-Swap Hex-Worm.

A parasite with a chilling name that implied souls could be switched, it burrowed into the brain and controlled the host.

Unlike the Blood-Yin Hex-Worm, it didn’t inflict pain. Instead, it stole the body’s control.

Those implanted with it would lose their reason the moment they heard the sound of a bell the caster shook, and they would obey the caster’s commands.

I remembered Namgung Hwi suffering a lot because of that Bell-Soul Body-Swap Hex-Worm. He’d had to cut down comrades with his own hand when they charged at him under an enemy’s control.

But that was a story from ten years later.

Namgung Hwi was still a thirteen-year-old child, and the Demonic Sect hadn’t risen yet.

Most people didn’t even know the Blood-Yin Hex-Worm existed, let alone the Bell-Soul Body-Swap Hex-Worm—so why would someone casually bring up a hex-worm art that controlled people?

It stank.

This was the Tang Clan, where everyone was crazy about poison, so of course there could be people researching hex-worm arts too.

But was it coincidence that he’d named, specifically, the kind of sorcery the Demonic Sect would use in the future?

My mouth went dry with the creeping sensation.

What if.......

“......Youngest! What are you thinking so hard about?”

A cool hand cupped both my cheeks.

Startled, I lifted my head and saw Tang Juhee looking at me with a puzzled face.

“Did I scare you? Your face is pale.”

“Ah.”

“Is it because you’re scared Juyeop will feed you poison? Don’t worry. The poison he makes is pathetic. He can’t kill anyone with that.”

“Big sister... you’re not saying that to comfort me, right?”

“It is to comfort you.”

Uh-huh. Sure. I think the pathetic part is your comforting.

With Tang Juhee acting like she had zero seriousness in her, my tension eased.

And really—thinking about it wouldn’t change anything right now anyway.

“It’s nothing. The sun was bright, so I just blanked for a second. Let’s go to the iron workshop.”

I rubbed at the corners of my eyes hard, then shoved Tang Juhee’s back forward.