I wriggled and pushed myself upright. Moonlight slipping in over the window frame was faint, and everything around me was dark—had to be very late.

“...Hoo...”

I forced myself up—and a savage face was right in front of my nose. I jolted hard the instant I saw it.

“Whoa, hell.”

“...?”

When I cursed and leaned my upper body back, the owner of the face—the Poison Sovereign—made a puzzled expression.

“Why are you reacting like that?”

“...It’s nothing. A bug just crawled past.”

Because your face looks murderous. I didn’t say that; I just shook my head.

“...A bug? Nothing crawled past.”

Old man’s eyesight is pointlessly sharp.

“No, it did. A gnat.”

“...Mm. Did it?”

Thankfully, when I flashed my eyes and insisted, the Poison Sovereign let it go.

I sighed inwardly and glanced around.

‘The old man didn’t come in.’

Yoo Cheongil was nowhere to be seen. He’d been swamped since we got to Sichuan; I’d stopped paying attention.

What mattered was—

“...So, how are you planning to do this? As in, going to get the Supreme Great Rejuvenation Pill.”

“Oh—what. You were awake?”

“No. I heard you in my sleep.”

“Oh. Mm... Right.”

How to put it—his face said, You heard that, huh?

“...Either way, I owe you a reward as promised. What do you think?”

“...If you’re giving it, I’ll gladly take it...”

I slid my eyes sideways.

“Do we have to go in the middle of the night...?”

Just looking at it, it had to be the dead of night.

Was there a reason we had to go while everyone was sleeping? I asked, skeptical.

“Yes. We have to go right now.”

“Mm...”

I got to my feet. When I stood without asking more, the Poison Sovereign looked puzzled.

“Why aren’t you asking further?”

“Sir?”

He asked why I was just going along, and I stared at him, incredulous.

“...You said we have to go now, didn’t you?”

“Even so, you could ask more. Why not?”

“Well, that’s because...”

I thought for a moment, then said,

“Having to fetch the Supreme Great Rejuvenation Pill at this hour sounds like other people’s eyes are a problem. And if you’re saying you’ll hand over the Pill before the job’s even done, then in your view the Pill and the sword you’re looking for are together. Aren’t they?”

“...Huh...?”

“Also, judging by the circumstances, they’re in the secret archive... but the archive entrance is guarded, so going there would be awkward. Which means there’s another entrance. We’re going there now, right?”

[...]

The more I talked, the stranger his expression got.

At first it was the look you give a weirdo; now it was the look you give a very serious weirdo.

Why? Why look at me like that? After staring at me for a long moment, the Poison Sovereign let out a hollow laugh and said,

“...That fellow was exactly right.”

“Sorry? Who said what?”

“There’s something like that. Anyway... get up. Seems I don’t need to explain any further.”

“Ah. Yes.”

I pried my sleepy eyes open and rose fully.

“Where do we go?”

“Nowhere.”

“Sir?”

“The entrance is right beneath you.”

“What does that—”

I started to speak and then thought of something.

“...”

What I’d gone through at the Blue Moon Sect. I recalled it and spoke to him.

“...Sir, did you by any chance put entrances in every living quarter inside the Tang Clan... or something like that—”

“...What? How do you know that? Don’t tell me you predicted even this?”

“...No prediction. Just experience.”

Very similar experience, actually.

I’d asked just in case—and it turned out I was right.

“...Mm...”

It was awkward to react, so I kept still. I’d realized something by this point: getting worked up didn’t change anything anyway.

‘I’m the only one who gets tired.’

Old men were all abnormal in their own way; the only sane approach was to let it pop and say, Sure, that’s a thing.

“...So, what do I do? Do I open a drawer again?”

I asked it naturally, and he reacted as if startled.

“What—boy, how do you know that?”

“...”

For god’s sake.

I’d hit it.

Seeing this, I couldn’t help thinking the “mechanisms” were awfully... simple.

You open a drawer and a door panel opens—how did he even make that...?

‘...Feels familiar, somehow?’

The rules were very similar. Hard to call it coincidence when it had the same maker.

‘Maybe call it habit rather than chance?’

Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. What mattered was, in any case—

‘...There’s a way from this room into the secret archive.’

Another passage to the archive.

That was what mattered now.

So—

“Sir.”

“Speak.”

“...If this exists, why didn’t you say anything during the day?”

What was the point of going to the archive with the Poison King?

If there was a shortcut, we could’ve gone early and gotten the thing the Poison Sovereign wanted.

I didn’t know why he waited until night to bring it up.

To my question, he answered,

“I needed to confirm something.”

“...With the Tang Clan Head?”

“Yes.”

He needed to confirm something with his own son while entering the archive together?

‘What?’

What was he trying to confirm? I wondered, then let it go for now.

He didn’t look like he’d answer anyway.

“...Then what do I do first?”

The instant I spoke, he pointed somewhere: the drawer right behind me.

“Open the second drawer.”

I obeyed at once. Rrrrk! The drawer slid open. Nothing inside.

His fingertip moved again.

He pointed at the unlit lamp on the desk.

“Move that onto the drawer.”

I lifted the lamp and set it on the drawer. Then—

“Now infuse inner energy.”

He said it, and without hesitation I roused the Blue Moon Heart Art in my hand.

Vrrrmmm—!

Blue qi seeped out and clung to the lamp.

In that moment—

Creak—!

A sound came from the floor. I flipped the blanket, and sure enough, a square opening had formed.

It even had a ladder. Exactly like what I’d seen at the Blue Moon Sect.

“How is it? Fascinating, isn’t it?”

Puffed up by the result, he asked me with pride.

He was clearly very satisfied with this work.

“...Ah, yes. It’s amazing.”

I matched him with as much reaction as I could manage. Truth was, I wasn’t that surprised after seeing the Sect’s version.

“What’s this? Your reaction’s lukewarm.”

“No, I’m so shocked I can’t react properly.”

“Ah, that so? Then fair enough.”

“...”

He didn’t know it, but he was a bit naïve.

Anyway.

“...Do I go down?”

“Yes.”

With his go-ahead, I took the ladder down.

This was familiar, too.

The difference was that at the Blue Moon Sect I had to climb for a long time; this time it wasn’t nearly as deep.

Squelch.

My feet touched ground and damp crept up at once.

It was pitch black. I immediately circulated qi and forced my eyes.

In the brightened view, an entrance showed ahead.

“Go slowly. There’s nothing much that’ll be a problem.”

“...‘Nothing much’ implies there is something small.”

“It’s fine. At worst something might blow and take off a toe or two—kidding, boy. Step off the ladder.”

“...Don’t joke with that face. It’s genuinely scary.”

I started to climb back up and got stopped.

Giving him a dubious look, I moved forward. As he’d said, there were no other traps.

After a short walk, a door appeared.

No handle. Looked like it needed a special way to open.

As I stared at it—

“That door, now...”

He began to tell me how to open it.

Ssssk.

“Hm?”

My hand moved first.

“Boy, what are you... huh?”

He started to question me.

Swish, swish.

When he saw my hand move, he closed his mouth. Without hesitation I traced a few lines.

Rrrrrrrrrk—!!!

The door in front of us opened.

“Oh, there we go.”

I nodded at the opening door, and he stammered a question.

“...How. How did you do that.”

“Sir?”

“I never told you how to handle this mechanism...”

“Oh, this?”

Nothing special.

“I noticed there was a rule.”

“...A rule?”

“Yes.”

I’d felt it in the day as well: there was a peculiar rule to disengaging his mechanisms.

“There are dots on the wall. You connect them, right?”

“...!”

At that, his eyes went wide like lanterns.

“You actually saw those...?”

“Yes. They were tiny and hard to see, but if I focused, they came out.”

The sizes and heights were different, but—

‘The shape was the same.’

The pattern formed by the dots was the same, and the same rule lived inside it.

There were all sorts of instructions about how to move your hand, what direction to turn—but in the end it came down to one thing:

‘How you connect those dots.’

That seemed to be what determined whether the mechanism opened or not.

“...But there aren’t just one or two dots.”

He sounded like he couldn’t understand.

Right. It wasn’t one or two. You had to connect six dots to open the door, and there were dozens of tiny dots etched into the stone of the door alone.

Since it was stone, at a glance they just looked like part of the rock.

So, how did I pick out the mechanism dots in all that?

“I calculated it.”

“...What? Calculated?”

“Yes. Since the shape the dots make seems to be the same... I fixed reference points, gauged the scale, and calculated.”

“Hah. Out of all those dots, how do you set a reference?”

“Come on now. Don’t be like that.”

I told him, deadpan.

“You kindly gave me two biggest dots—one due north, one due south. And you ask how to find it?”

[...]

Out of the countless dots, one in the north and one in the south were larger.

Those were the references. From them, you estimate the pattern’s size and length, find the remaining four dots, and connect.

“...You... found that... in that short time...?”

The more I explained, the stranger his face got.

What was with him?

“I just calculated and connected. Why are you so surprised? Once you know the rule, it’s simple.”

“Simple...? No. It can’t be simple...”

He looked like something inside had broken.

I watched quietly until he came to and asked something else.

“No, no. Fine, say you found it. Boy—like I said, if you handle a mechanism wrong, a big accident can happen. Knowing that, you still did something risky. That doesn’t make sense.”

“...Ah...”

True, that part was true. If I’d blundered, it could’ve blown.

“It’s true, but...”

I told him flatly,

“I didn’t think I’d get it wrong.”

“...What...?”

“Just looking at it, there wasn’t really a chance to be wrong, so I did it.”

“No... even so, to just go and—?”

“Yeah. If I’m not going to miss, there’s no need to hesitate.”

[...]

“In the end it worked, so isn’t that what matters?”

“...Ah... uh... yeah.”

“I can go in, right?”

Leaving him looking dazed, I stepped through the opened ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) entrance.

“...That boy’s twisted in the exact same way as my master.”

He said it in a small, heavy voice behind me.

It was so quiet I didn’t hear the Poison Sovereign mutter it.