Chapter 825: Let’s Commit Slaughter (5)

The Blood Cult’s lowest kind of human trash—among them, the absolute strongest kind of human trash—howled with his whole body.

With a grim, almost heroic expression, he clamped his mouth shut and, lying down, squirmed and squirmed—what you might call the classic “lie-flat and crawl,” belly-down, arms dragging, inching forward.

A method that’s basically swimming with your left and right shoulders.

So for Jeong Ryujang—whose shoulders were already shattered—every single wriggle, every single inch, had to be accompanied by monstrous pain.

And yet he still gritted his teeth, forcing his way through this silent world of pitch-darkness where he couldn’t see and couldn’t hear, pushing forward no matter what.

Human stubbornness. That raw tenacity to live, even like this.

It could’ve been a scene worthy of applause, a page out of some hymn to humanity.

If the subject weren’t a villain who had deliberately spread a plague, made it epidemic, and butchered close to a thousand commoners.

Still—his will to survive, his will to live, his desperate urge to slip out of this place in secret—wasn’t it impressive?

Of course, he couldn’t overcome the lack of sight and hearing, so he was crawling straight toward the office’s dead-end wall.

Watching, Qing found it so funny her mouth kept twitching upward.

Hmm. Plucking eyes and bursting ears makes them even more miserable than I thought?

Damn. This is exactly “not killing” and “valuing human life,” the great principle. Should I start adopting this aggressively from now on?

Jeong Ryujang, oblivious to Qing’s glances and snickering, crawled with everything he had.

The pain coming up through both shoulders was indescribably horrific, making his gums ache from clenched teeth—but he still did it, because he wanted to live.

And then.

Poke.

Something sharp jabbed right into the philtrum beneath his nose.

“Hhhaaaah......!”

A scream erupted at maximum purity—fear distilled to its highest proof.

He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear.

In a world of total silence and total darkness, something tapping his philtrum—just that touch was so terrifying he got overwhelmed by the unknown and spiraled into a panic attack.

What tapped me? Did they catch me? Was I stabbed? It feels like it’s burning—poison? It stings— I don’t want to die like this......

Right by Jeong Ryujang’s head—his {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} whole body trembling—was a small kid crouched down, holding a tree branch and grinning.

A tiny child, Jayeo—so cute it was unfair, made even cuter by the shadows under her eyes that looked far too exhausted for her age.

“Heehee.”

Jayeo reached out like she was going to touch him—

“Sssht. No. Don’t. That’s yucky.”

“Hng.......”

“It’s dirty, so don’t touch it with your hand. Blood Cult is yucky, got it?”

“Yeah. Heehee......”

Jayeo used the long branch to poke—poke—poke Jeong Ryujang here and there.

Every time, he jolted in terror and tried to leap away.

Jayeo giggled and giggled—eyes that had always been dull and rotten suddenly sparkling, bright-bright, as something childlike finally bloomed in her.

Watching that, Qing let out a quiet, private sigh.

Not sure “lighting up” is what you’re supposed to do at a time like this, but...

Still. Jayeo had the right.

She had the right to take revenge on Blood Cult.

Gyeon Pohee stuck right to her niece’s side, smiling so happily her face practically split, cooing, Is it fun, sweetie? Want to poke here too?—pouring out affection like she couldn’t help herself—

“Mm. Nanna. Do you have any kind of prescription for detoxing corpse poison?”

“Yeah. Antidote pills, or Snake-Destroying Wormwood, and Dongha grass works well, right? Or there’s something called gada-mi leaf—almost never used medicinally, but there are others too.”

“If what’s going around right now isn’t an illness symptom but poisoning symptoms, then it’s something the Blood Cult spread, so they might’ve used corpse poison. If that’s the case, normal medicine for illness won’t be enough.”

“Ah.”

“Mm. Then we’ll need to go to Lord Physician and make a new prescription. Getting treatment medicine out of the Blood Cult is basically impossible.”

Qing rubbed her chin.

“And we should tell Diancang Sect what’s going on, too. Not just the Five Poison Sect—Blood Cult bugs could be buried in other places as well.”

“That’s right, big sister. Given the circumstances, even the rumor itself—calling it Bai Smallpox—should be viewed as a scheme to drive a wedge between the Bai people and the other ethnic groups. And the ones spreading that rumor are either Blood Cult, or connected to them—so we might even be able to trace a large Blood Cult group.”

“Then either way it’s urgent, so I think we should split up and head to Diancang Sect and Kunming separately. We need to explain things properly to Diancang Sect, so Jegal should go, and... hmm, I think Jayeo should stay at Diancang too. Heema, can you take her?”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“For Kunming, Nanna should go and help Lord Physician. Since we don’t know what the Blood Cult will do, San and Iri should go too and help.”

And then—every gaze in the group suddenly piled onto Qing.

Qing burst into clear laughter.

Eyes asking where you are going.

What are you—ducklings trailing behind their mother duck?

Good grief. You still can’t get close with each other?

If I’m not there, it feels like “friend of a friend” or something?

Still... honestly, good.

It made her feel a little relieved.

Like she could say this much.

“Guys, actually... I... there’s something I need to tell you.”

Qing’s lips parted. Then parted again.

Mm. Now that I’m actually about to say it... is it okay? Me being different from them—people can’t help it, you know. Like... you know.

Qing hesitated and hesitated.

Seeing Qing—who normally never filtered what she said—unable to open her mouth, the group’s expressions turned serious.

Of course they did.

This was Qing—the one who always fired everything off like bullets, never caring what should or shouldn’t be said.

And now she was hesitating like this.

What kind of difficult thing was she about to bring up?

“I... actually.”

Qing’s mouth opened again, silent.

And then it happened.

Warm skin touched the back of her hand—so cold by nature that it was hypersensitive to anyone else’s warmth.

Qing flinched and turned her head—

And there it was. A rare sight.

Seol Iri was looking at her with a graceful smile, something she almost never showed.

Then Nanna went grrrr and immediately hooked her arm through Qing’s, leaning in.

“Wow, look at that—more fox tricks. Hah. Qing, I don’t even care from the start, okay? I don’t care about anything. I’m not bothered at all.”

Peng Daesan looked away and muttered.

“From the start, you were never normal.”

And Jegal Ihyeon—

“Big sister, are you really going to make it awkward between us now? Even if you learned some wicked demonic art—no, even if you mastered all of the Ten Great Demonic Arts under heaven—you’re still the chairwoman of our Half-Sword Twin-Blade Society.”

Qing jolted.

What? What does that mean? Does he already know?

Jegal Ihyeon had just assumed the worst—words with no deeper meaning.

But back in Qing’s homeland, they said a thief’s feet itch first.

Still—maybe it was a pointless worry.

Qing finally confessed the secret she’d carried for a long time.

“I’m... actually... immune to all poisons.”

“......?” “......?” “......?” “......?”

Everyone froze, utterly blank at the identity they never would’ve imagined.

“What?”

“Immune to all poisons. Every poison in the world doesn’t work. What—San, you don’t know? You know less than I thought.”

“No, it’s not that. Hah.”

Peng Daesan let out a deep sigh.

He looked like someone who’d worried for nothing and gotten fleeced for it.

“So you mean... big sister has achieved the Poison-Immune Divine Body?”

“I didn’t ‘achieve’ it or anything. I was just... born like that in this world? It’s just a constitution.”

“Uh... mm. Th-that’s... an incredible constitution.”

Jegal Ihyeon nodded with a bitter face.

“What’s that? If Qing says so, then it’s so. Qing, I believe you. So our Qing was immune to all poisons? Wow. That’s... amaaaazing.”

Mm. Even pretending to believe me is something.

When Qing turned her head—

Nod.

Seol Iri, already back to a blank, stiff expression, only dipped her chin once.

...Seriously? I worked up the nerve to say it and this is what I get?

“I’m serious.”

“Hm.”

“Nanna, you’ve got poisons, right? Give me the most poisonous one. No—give me all of them. You won’t believe me unless I swallow them all.”

“No. I believe you, Qing. So—yeah.”

“Fuck.”

Qing scratched the back of her head hard.

But only for a moment.

“Anyway. So I’m going to keep an eye on the Five Poison Sect. I’m immune to all poisons, so the Five Poison Sect isn’t a threat to me at all, right? I fought those so-called first-generation disciples in Sichuan, and even then it wasn’t really threatening. So you guys go to Diancang Sect and Kunming first, and I’ll look around the Five Poison Sect in the meantime......”

Everyone stared at her with that of course you would look.

“You’re saying you’ll go alone again?”

Peng Daesan’s ultra-low rumble—something she hadn’t heard in a while.

Not fully sunk yet, so he wasn’t that sulky.

“No, this isn’t me saying I’ll take on danger alone. It’s not dangerous to begin with. If I’m immune to all poisons against people who use poison arts, you all know what that means, right? Once you take poison out of poison arts, all that’s left is ‘arts.’”

“Big sister. Like I told you before—”

“Fuck. You guys don’t believe I’m immune to all poisons at all, do you?”

Of course they didn’t.

“Immune to all poisons” wasn’t a realm that actually existed.

The people of the Central Plains loved tall tales so much they’d invent realms no one had ever reached.

Stuff like “Heart Sword,” where you can kill people just by wanting to.

Even a Poison Person—whose very bloodline ran with fierce venom, the ultimate end of poison arts—wasn’t immune to every poison in the world.

They were just immune to most poisons.

And sometimes, the wrong kind—something with barely any toxicity at all, a “miscellaneous poison” that should’ve been harmless—could throw their internal poison balance off and make them self-destruct.

You could say that sounded like too big a weakness for someone at the peak of poison arts.

But think about it: a human embodiment of lethal venom, where even a splash of blood in a fight could poison you—how terrifying was that?

Of course, if you were a Manifest Realm master, even if you got hit with a famous deadly poison, you could suppress the toxin with internal energy, buy time, and force it out.

So if you surpassed Manifest Realm—if you reached the so-called Natural Realm—wouldn’t poison simply not work at all?

That was how “Poison-Immune Divine Body,” a body poison couldn’t affect, was born as a concept.

For reasons like that—

It was only natural they couldn’t believe her.

No matter how many people existed under heaven, no matter how many constitutions there were—

where in the world would you find a person for whom all poisons were invalid?

“Nanna. Take out poison. Show it.”

“Uh... Qing, you’re Transformation Realm, so even if poison gets in, can’t you hold it down anyway......?”

“You’re Tang Clan—so you must have some insane poison too, right? That Seven-Treasure Soul-Severing Sand? The one where they say you die before you can even take seven steps?”

“Uh, Qing. I’m fine. I believe you. So we don’t have to, right? It’ll be okay? Wow. Immune to all poisons. Amazing.”

“No, you said you believe me......”

Then—

Snatch.

Seol Iri grabbed Qing’s sleeve and shook her head left and right.

A vein bulged on Qing’s forehead.

So you don’t believe me at all, but—

“No, honestly, it’s not like before, where it’s ‘my business so you don’t matter.’ I’m not saying I’ll take some huge risk either.”

But the group still looked doubtful.

Qing thumped her chest—no, slap-slap.

“No, I’m not telling you to go hide somewhere safe. Jegal’s going to Diancang Sect to explain the situation, Nanna’s going to help Lord Physician, and San and Iri are going to guard her in case the Blood Cult tries something. I’m trusting you with that.”

Qing was wronged.

They told her to trust them with it, so she did—so why was she getting treated like this?

And the poison immunity she’d hidden because she didn’t want to get treated weird—now they didn’t even look like they believed it at all.

You, me, us—are we even real? Or is this a hallucination?

“Nanna, you’ve got that poison that makes tears and snot explode, right? Give me that. I’ll eat it, and you guys can take turns checking whether my internal energy is circulating or not, okay?”

At that, the group finally exchanged looks like they were conspiring among themselves.

If she’s saying it that far, maybe it isn’t a lie.

Whether it “makes sense” is secondary—big sister’s realm never made sense to begin with.

Wait... something’s ringing a bell.

Well, she’s not trying to ditch us. Hm.

And in the end, it seemed they reached a consensus.

“Fine. Thinking back, you haven’t lied to us so far.”

“As expected, big sister. You’re incredible. Immune to all poisons? Truly, the righteous martial world’s great blessing.”

“Ah! Right. Ah. That time too.”

Nanna smacked her fist into her palm.

A scene from the past surfaced—when Qing first entered Tang Clan, as the tiniest prank between best friends without a single grudge, she’d released poison a few times.

Back then, Qing had cruelly “returned” it and Nanna took the hit instead.

Qing might say Nanna was twisting things a little—but people’s memories always changed under their own subjectivity.

“Good. Then you get it now, right? Heema, look after Jayeo. Jayeo, listen to auntie.”

“Yeah.” “Yeah.”

Anyway—like this.

Half-Sword Twin-Blade Society—each of them toward their own destination.