Chapter 121

Jin Ja-gang did not return immediately.

Mr. Jang’s condition was critical, but not to the point of immediate death. However, if he returned without any preparation, Jin Ja-gang would be helplessly defeated, and if Jin Ja-gang was defeated, Mr. Jang, who had no one to care for him, would surely die.

For both of them to survive, even if time was somewhat delayed, sufficient preparation was necessary.

He never even considered the option of fleeing without returning to Mr. Jang’s house. Mr. Jang was Jin Ja-gang’s benefactor and had gotten involved because of Jin Ja-gang. If he abandoned him and left, Jin Ja-gang would be giving up on being human.

The first thing Jin Ja-gang did was to replenish the poison he had used because of Dan Ryeong-gyeong.

Pinellia could be found anywhere along the roadside.

Jin Ja-gang dug up pinellia, lightly brushed off the soil, and chewed the roots. While replenishing poison, he thought about the Parting Hand Arrow Shot technique that Dan Ryeong-gyeong had taught him. There must be a reason why Dan Ryeong-gyeong had taught it to him.

The problem was that Jin Ja-gang couldn’t properly execute it.

Dan Ryeong-gyeong probably didn’t know that Jin Ja-gang’s left side meridians were blocked, causing problems with operating internal energy.

Therefore, Jin Ja-gang had to find the hidden meaning in Parting Hand Arrow Shot.

The motion of lowering the body, then raising the fingertips diagonally to thrust with the thumb.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about the motion itself. It was a single-move technique that was not linear but soft and graceful.

‘I should start internal energy from the Yintang point of the left foot’s second toe, but my left meridians are blocked. I have to start from the right foot…’

He had to do the opposite of what Dan Ryeong-gyeong had taught him to be able to operate internal energy at all. Moreover, another problem was that every time he used internal energy, he felt unbearable pain. The pain was extreme, and the speed at which internal energy circulated was several times faster than before, making it difficult to control.

Jin Ja-gang drew energy through his Baihui point and circulated it within his body. The initially weak energy began to transform into internal energy as it circulated through the meridians.

Because the meridians were wide open, the movement of energy became dramatically faster.

Originally, martial artists accept natural energy through breathing and accumulate internal energy in their dantian. However, Jin Ja-gang had unintentionally learned to accept energy through the Baihui point at the crown of his head.

The upper dantian. This was considered the supreme method for accepting natural energy most quickly and smoothly. It had several times higher purity than energy accepted through nasal breathing via breathing techniques.

So the handful of internal energy that Jin Ja-gang created had much stronger power than what Jin Ja-gang actually perceived.

When this grew through continuous circulation, it was inevitably difficult to handle.

The internal energy instantly escaped Jin Ja-gang’s control. He failed to catch the tail of the internal energy that was stretching out like a long tail and send it to the intended meridian.

“Kugh!”

Pain came without fail.

Internal energy began flowing fiercely through the meridians. A wheel formed in Jin Ja-gang’s right side. Each time the wheel rotated, cracks appeared in the weak meridians.

In just a moment, there were dozens of rotations.

Jin Ja-gang couldn’t bear the pain and fell to his knees. He put both hands on the ground, half-prostrated, and swallowed the screams that were about to burst out. If he couldn’t endure this pain, he couldn’t use internal energy, and if he couldn’t use internal energy, he couldn’t execute Parting Hand Arrow Shot either.

‘Endure it!’

Jin Ja-gang didn’t discharge the internal energy outward but endured it.

Sweat fell from his face like rain.

The uncontrolled internal energy caused ruptures starting from the weakened meridians.

Thud thud thud.

“Kreuuk…”

Still, he gritted his teeth and endured.

This time, he planned to endure to the limit of what he could bear.

Thud thud thud thud thud!

In the time it took to breathe a few times, the wheel spun hundreds, thousands of times. The meridians screamed in agony.

Pain like rubbing salt on raw flesh.

No matter how strong Jin Ja-gang’s endurance for pain was, it wasn’t easy to bear.

But he endured it.

Hoping this pain would become familiar.

So that he could use it whenever needed.

‘Uaaaah—!’

Jin Ja-gang screamed internally while enduring and enduring again.

But at some point, he felt as if his body was floating, and pain and consciousness separated.

The pain remained the same, but it seemed as if a thin wall had formed between himself and the self that felt pain. It was a strange experience of feeling pain while watching his own pain from beyond the thin wall.

During this, Jin Ja-gang witnessed a strange sight.

The appearance of ants crawling on the ground came clearly into his right eye.

Drip… drop.

When the sweat that had formed on Jin Ja-gang’s cheek and gathered at his chin fell in a droplet, the ants marching in a line scattered in panic to avoid the sweat droplet. Soil particles were gradually moistened by the sweat droplet, and the wet moisture spread out radially. Dozens of ants circled in confusion avoiding the sweat droplet while finding their formation, and he could see all six legs and two antennae of each moving ant.

It was a mystical experience where everything visible was being perceived.

‘Is it because of internal energy…’

Masters use internal energy to employ enhanced vision. They can see things as clearly as day even at night, and can see a much wider range in detail than ordinary people.

The internal energy spinning wildly like a wheel was giving vitality to Jin Ja-gang’s entire body, producing the same effect as intentionally drawing up internal energy.

The appearance of the internal energy that had been spinning too fast to catch was clearly felt moment by moment.

The pathways of meridians through which internal energy passed and the identity of the rupturing meridians were perceived as clearly as if seen with the eyes.

That’s how Jin Ja-gang came to know.

Why his meridians had been blocked.

It was because of the Flower Essence Pure Heart Pill that Son Wi-hak had fed Jin Ja-gang.

The spiritual power of the Flower Essence Pure Heart Pill made from boiling a thousand types of medicinal herbs had combined with the poison energy of the Five Colors Five Merits and blocked his meridians. Like lava flowing from a volcano that had hardened black.

But when his meridians were forcibly opened recently, those hardened substances had broken and remained as residue in the meridians, and as the internal energy wheel began spinning fiercely, they were spinning together.

It was like sharp broken pottery shards circulating inside his body.

Because of this, the meridians suffered even more severe wounds, and his body was being destroyed even faster.

‘At this rate, my body will be destroyed.’

The pain was extreme, but because his consciousness was detached from the pain, Jin Ja-gang could think relatively calmly.

Jin Ja-gang concentrated his mind even more to observe internally.

Not only a way to stop the internal energy wheel spinning rapidly, but also a way to handle it… Suddenly, he realized that when part of the energy spinning like a wheel passed through the meridians toward his dantian, his dantian kept feeling pulled.

Poison energy extracted from pinellia was accumulated in his dantian.

‘Could it be?’

Jin Ja-gang opened his dantian.

Due to the force of internal energy rotating in his right side, poison energy was instantly sucked out.

But surprisingly, some of the residue began sticking to that poison energy.

The spiritual essence of the Flower Essence Pure Heart Pill combined with the Five Colors Five Merits poison began clumping together using the pinellia poison energy as a core and spinning together. The mass gradually grew larger.

Kwadrdrdrdr!

His body trembled from the impact of the rapidly growing wheel.

Jin Ja-gang concentrated on the movement of internal energy. Although it was moving at tremendous speed, because the mass had grown larger, he could more easily perceive the tail end of the internal energy.

He caught the tail end of the internal energy. Once he grasped the reins, the internal energy finally began to obey.

Jin Ja-gang quickly moved the internal energy according to the formula of Parting Hand Arrow Shot.

Yintang, Neiting, Sanli, Dubi!

Internal energy flowed rapidly through the designated meridians.

His right shoulder felt stiff as if it would dislocate. This was because the fiercely moving internal energy had suddenly stopped.

Jin Ja-gang blocked the internal energy for a moment as Dan Ryeong-gyeong had said, then released it.

The moment he extended his thumb, internal energy explosively burst out.

Swoosh!

A sharp sound of cutting through air rang in the void. The old tree standing in the direction his thumb was pointing vibrated dully.

Thong!

Tree branches swayed here and there.

Jin Ja-gang stared blankly at the old tree, then raised his body. His limbs were trembling so much that he fell several times without realizing it and got up again.

He limped toward the old tree.

He felt around with his hands to check where the sound had come from. The bark was cracked and the inside was deeply gouged as if struck with a pointed hammer.

The gouged mark even had pinellia poison seeping out, giving off a fishy toxic fragrance.

He was dumbfounded.

‘Finger wind…’

Jin Ja-gang had just shot out finger wind.

Moreover, it was a poison finger mixed with poison, hitting a tree that was a good six or seven steps away.

“Urgh.”

As soon as he came to his senses, pain striking his right side found him.

Even the thumbnail of the thumb that had shot the finger force was half broken and gone. Blood dripped steadily.

But his mood was incredibly refreshing.

Jin Ja-gang sat down and composed himself.

He reflected on the series of events that had just occurred.

In Jin Ja-gang’s right side, there was still plenty of residue created by the Flower Essence Pure Heart Pill and Five Colors Five Merits poison sticking together. This meant that the energy of the Flower Essence Pure Heart Pill and Five Colors Five Merits remained exactly as when he had consumed them nine years ago.

As far as Jin Ja-gang knew, the spiritual power of the Flower Essence Pure Heart Pill had roughly the level of sixty years’ worth of internal energy. That power was latent intact inside Jin Ja-gang.

It was power he could use by taking the poison energy accumulated in his dantian as a seed.

The more poison energy used as a core, the more powerful the finger wind’s destructive force would naturally become.

“New power…”

Having new power meant gaining various options for dealing with situations.

The methods of revenge could also change dramatically.

Although it was only his right side, and each use would bring terrible pain along with accelerated bodily destruction, it was a power of ruin…

After briefly catching his breath and resting, Jin Ja-gang looked up at the sky.

A power that would destroy himself the more he used it.

Was this encouragement sent down by heaven?

Or was it a demand sent by those waiting for him in hell?

* * *

Zhuge Yan looked at the house in front of her.

A low wall and a closed gate.

It was an ordinary house that could be entered anytime if one had the mind to.

“You’re saying that evil faction assassin is here?”

“Yes, Miss.”

The warriors accompanying Zhuge Yan answered from beside her.

“We confirmed that he left the house this morning.”

“Thoroughly check what’s inside and who’s alive.”

“Yes.”

The Zhuge family warriors who were about to enter through the main gate stopped walking.

“What’s this smell?”

The closer they got to the gate, the more severely rotten it smelled.

Zhuge Yan frowned and muttered.

“Could it be poison?”

“Since they said he handles poison, it probably is.”

“But why does it give off such a severely rotten smell? Isn’t poison something that should be used secretly? Can this be called proper poison usage when it makes people alert like this?”

It wasn’t subtly wafting or anything like that, but smelled so terribly that one would automatically cover their nose just by getting close. If several corpses were rotting on the road in summer, this is exactly how it would smell.

“It’s too severe.”

“I’ll check.”

One warrior covered his nose and mouth with cloth, drew up internal energy, and slowly pushed the gate.

Creak.

“The gate is open.”

At that moment, something fell with a thud onto the head of the warrior who opened the gate.

The warrior was startled and stepped back. It seemed like objects placed on top of the gate had fallen, but looking closely, they were rotten leaves.

“Ugh! The smell!”

The warrior frowned and vigorously brushed off his body. The rotten smell was coming from the wet fallen leaves. The other warriors stepped away from the warrior who had been hit by the leaves.

“What is this?”

Zhuge Yan looked on incredulously.

“It’s not even a mechanism or trap…”

The warrior who had been covered with wet fallen leaves and had the rotten smell stick to his body was tense, but seemed to have no particular problems.

“It doesn’t seem to be poison either.”

“I thought he was someone great since he’s called Snake Scorpion Poison King, but he seems to just be someone with bizarre hobbies.”

Elite masters from orthodox factions who had systematically learned martial arts from childhood generally tended to look down on those who used poison. Originally, if one’s martial arts were high, there was no need to use poison, and if one’s martial arts were low and they used poison, no matter how well they used poison, it couldn’t compare to orthodox martial arts.

“Well, shall we take a look at that fellow’s hideout?”

The stern-looking martial artist standing behind Zhuge Yan, who had been following her, spoke up.

“Approaching like this is not right.”

Zhuge Yan replied in an annoyed tone.

“Shin Yung. You worry too much. We came after he left precisely because we needed to confirm whether that person is really Snake Scorpion Poison King.”

Shin Yung was also in his early twenties like Zhuge Yan, and as someone from a vassal family of the Zhuge family, he had assisted only Zhuge Yan since childhood.

Vassal families attach someone of similar age as a shadow to accompany the main family’s martial artists from childhood. Shin Yung had already been with Zhuge Yan for more than ten years and had accumulated martial world experience together. To Zhuge Yan, he was her most trusted confidant and a reliable presence with whom she had spent a long time.

“If confirmation is needed, we can do it by meeting directly.”

“Why go to such trouble?”

“That is the way of the orthodox faction.”

“Don’t make such stuffy remarks. You know me, yet you’re still nagging?”

Zhuge Yan giggled and laughed.