The door creaked open slowly, revealing a white-haired elder.
Her lips were set in a stubborn line, her eyes sharp and piercing.
Despite her advanced age, the old woman stood with her back straight, radiating a formidable vitality.
"So—"
She snapped, spitting out her words bluntly.
"—you do know your mother is here."
"Being cooped up in a place like this actually sharpens my senses."
He let his eyes fall half-shut as he spoke.
The flickering candlelight, a draft slipping through the gaps in the window frame, the dizzying swirl of incense smoke rising through the air…
He had no more desire for achievement, no more hope for the future.
Ironically, his martial realm had only deepened, but that was all.
I won't live much longer anyway.
Brushing away his lingering regrets, he opened his eyes.
Staring at the piece of jade in his hands, he spoke.
"I'm just surprised the Poison King would visit such a shabby place."
The old woman—the Poison King, Tang Yiseo—raised her voice in anger.
"Of course I came! My one and only son is rotting away in this dump!"
He remained silent.
He simply moved his hands, refining the intricate patterns carved into the hem of the statue's skirt.
Yiseo squeezed her eyes shut.
She had sworn, truly sworn, not to lose her temper this time.
Getting her son out of this godforsaken place was her only priority.
This was all because of that cursed hereditary disease.
Damn it.
A disease that turned the afflicted into a breathing toxic hazard—a living poison.
Throughout the long history of the Tang Clan, someone would occasionally suffer from this condition.
Once it triggered, those nearby would begin to wither.
It always started small—with a pet dying suddenly, or a potted plant withering overnight.
By the time anyone noticed something was wrong, it was already too late.
Antidotes were useless. There was no cure.
The only way to slow the progression was to abandon the poison arts entirely—but since the toxin had already taken root in the body, even that merely bought a little time.
In the end, the afflicted would dissolve into a gruesome puddle of blood and poison.
My son… why did it have to be my Woohyun…
Fortunately, Tang Woohyun had discovered his symptoms early.
But the moment that foolish boy learned the truth, he locked himself away. He treated this annex like his tomb, refusing to step outside.
Perhaps fearing for her life, Woohyun's wife had left him.
It was cruel, but wise.
Everyone knew the family of the afflicted was always the first to die.
Her beautiful granddaughter was forced to grow up in the care of a nanny, effectively orphaned.
And as if that weren't enough, Woohyun had sent the girl away to the Tang Clan village, a place reserved strictly for branch family members.
No matter how much Yiseo raged, he refused to take back his decision.
Her insides twisted every time she thought of him.
It was painfully obvious he was just tying up loose ends in preparation for his imminent death. He even ignored his own mother's visits.
What more was there to say?
Who did he inherit this damned stubbornness from, anyway?
She took a slow breath, reining in her temper, and cast around for another topic.
Just in time, something caught her eye.
"Impressive," she muttered.
Her tone was still blunt, but it had mellowed somewhat.
"You haven't been carving jade long, and yet you're already at this level."
"I've heard of monks who can engrave an entire sutra onto a single grain of rice," Woohyun said, his ox-hair needle moving without pause. "This is nothing more than a pale imitation."
It was a trivial pastime he had chosen to clear his mind in the face of death.
But thanks to his natural talent, the results were remarkable.
The real problem was something else entirely. His carvings were soaked in lingering attachments.
"When do you plan on returning to the main estate?"
"I won't."
The answer shot back without a moment's hesitation.
Dumbfounded, she asked, "Do you… plan to leave that bright young child rotting in the Tang Clan village forever?"
A bitter smile tugged at the corners of his lips.
"She's safer there."
Yiseo watched her son as he worked on the sculpture. The longer she looked, the more certain she became.
He was carving his wife. The woman who had walked out on him.
"Do you… do you still think she's coming back?"
The head of the Tang Clan asked, her face twisting as if she were about to cry.
"She left you. She is never coming back."
For the first time, his hands stopped moving.
"…"
"You need to accept that."
Snap.
The ox-hair needle split clean in two.
"My wife will return."
Yiseo was stunned.
That was a Tang Clan ox-hair needle—forged using their secret smelting techniques, harder than most legendary swords.
Even if it wasn't made of ten-thousand-year cold iron, snapping one barehanded was supposed to be impossible.
Yet he had done it so casually.
She squeezed her eyes shut again.
How can the heavens be so cruel?
To give her a son as precious as a jewel, only to take him away like this.
No matter how deep into the darkness he sank, his brilliance refused to fade.
And yet here he was, doing nothing but waiting to die. It burned her from the inside out.
"Return?"
"I told you she left a letter when she departed."
"That was years ago!"
"She asked me to wait, so I'm waiting. That's all there is to it."
Yiseo caught herself and stopped. She bit her lip before she could say anything worse.
She didn't want to spend this rare visit fighting with her son.
"Isn't there… some other way?"
She tried again, her tone pleading.
"I am your mother. I am the Poison King. I lead the Sichuan Tang Clan, one of the five great clans of the world. Surely, somewhere out there, there has to be a cure. We simply haven't found it yet."
She insisted stubbornly, but her voice was far too broken to belong to the fearsome Poison King.
"Didn't my uncle suffer from the exact same disease? Didn't he throw himself at the mercy of the Demonic Cult just to survive?"
His heavy eyelids blinked slowly as he continued.
"The man who desperately clung to life, even bearing the stigma of a traitor to the Orthodox faction, still died in the end."
Yiseo's face turned bitter, as if she had swallowed a deadly poison.
Her brother, Tang Yirak, was the clan's greatest disgrace and her deepest wound.
"Do you think I haven't already tried everything?"
Setting down the broken needle, he rubbed his tired eyes.
"Also… I wasn't carving my wife."
Yiseo let out a soft sound and finally looked properly at the statues around her.
"Y-you don't mean…"
She spotted a tiny carving she had overlooked earlier. It was a baby. A tiny infant wrapped snugly in swaddling clothes.
Next to it, the baby grew into a young girl, and then a teenager. The figure that had bloomed into a full-grown woman undeniably resembled her runaway daughter-in-law.
But the smile on her face was something Yiseo had never once seen on Woonhee.
So bright and innocent.
And it didn't stop there.
The figure matured into middle age, then into an old woman, frail and white-haired.
Every single one of them wore a radiant, happy smile.
Yiseo's vision blurred.
A shiver ran down the Poison King's spine.
"Please leave."
The door swung open without a hand touching it.
And yet the man who had displayed such martial prowess kept his back turned to her, unmoved.
He drew a fresh ox-hair needle and returned to etching the unfinished lips of his carving.
Sunlight spilled over his slouched shoulders as he sat there, his back turned to the entire world.
The jade smile sparkled in the light—bright, innocent, and utterly heartbreaking.
Overcome by a sudden surge of emotion, the Poison King all but fled.
The door slammed shut behind her.
She staggered away.
As a lifelong martial artist, she had never once needed a cane. But right now, her legs had forgotten how to hold her up.
Leaning heavily against a nearby pine tree, she gasped for air.
Is this far enough? Can he hear me?
The second she convinced herself he couldn't, the painful sobs she had choked down came pouring out.
She had spent every waking moment grieving the fact that her son would die before her.
Woohyun… that poor child.
"You damned fool… you fool…"
Tears streamed uncontrollably from the wrinkled eyes of the fearsome Poison King who ruled over all of Sichuan.
The statues he had been so desperately carving… were his daughter's future. A lifetime of moments he would never live to see.
* * *
"My lady!"
With a gasp, the nanny cupped Soye's cheeks, turning her face from side to side.
"Why are your eyes so swollen?"
She fussed dramatically, declaring that Soye's face looked like a squashed dumpling.
"I d-dunno."
Soye sniffled.
Her face was indeed puffy from a terrible night's sleep.
Couldn't sleep anyway. At least I found something useful while turning the room upside down.
She had spent the whole night plotting and discarding plans until the sun finally rose.
Thanks to that, she had finally cooked up a brand-new, piping-hot scheme.
It's a bit rough around the edges since I don't have much to work with, but…
"Dat tickles!"
When she let out a slight whine, Gong-hui frowned with concern.
"You weren't like this before…"
Was it just her imagination, or did those words carry some deeper meaning?
"Let me fetch a warm cloth. Wait right here."
She must have already had warm water prepared, because she returned in a flash.
The damp cloth pressed gently against Soye's eyes was warm and soothing.
"That looks much better, my lady."
A soft, satisfied smile settled on the nanny's face as she drew her hands back.
"Oh, you're so pretty."
"Pretty?"
Soye asked in return.
Her voice came out colder than she'd intended.
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