Chapter 198

Tang Ha-ran was in a state of tremendous shock.

She had never dreamed that what was sent to her was not an antidote.

Why hadn’t she checked the antidote on the spot?

Why couldn’t she confirm it and confront him right there?

It was because she had been too swayed by emotions.

Because of that, she had foolishly fallen for Mang Ryo’s scheme…

“How pathetic.”

Tang Ha-ran muttered to herself.

It was self-reproach.

How could someone who couldn’t even handle such matters properly become a great figure of the family?

She was on the verge of letting out a hollow laugh.

If this was Tang Qing’s test, then Tang Ha-ran had failed spectacularly.

Confronting Mang Ryo belatedly would only reveal her own stupidity. He would surely brush it off saying “Oh my, did I make a mistake?”

Of course, it couldn’t be a mistake. How could someone like Mang Ryo make such an error?

Tang Ha-ran shook her head to dispel her agonizing thoughts.

Now she had to think of how to remedy the situation going forward.

As Tang Ha-ran was suffering while looking at the dark moon from atop the slope, Jin Ja-gang approached.

Jin Ja-gang saw Tang Ha-ran’s attitude and realized that she too had been used by Mang Ryo.

Jin Ja-gang held out a rice ball wrapped in bamboo leaves to Tang Ha-ran.

“You haven’t eaten anything since evening.”

Tang Ha-ran looked at Jin Ja-gang. Jin Ja-gang didn’t avoid her gaze and met it calmly.

Tang Ha-ran asked.

“Are you… pitying me?”

To Tang Ha-ran’s question, Jin Ja-gang answered without particular emotion.

“How many times have I seen you that I would pity you?”

Tang Ha-ran accepted the rice ball. But she didn’t eat it right away.

“Actually, I’ve seen Young Hero Jin four times now.”

“I only remember twice, including today.”

“That would be so. The first time I saw you, you were dying covered in poison powder at Poison Valley. I wanted you to be cleanly disposed of, but that fellow Mang Ryo insisted on saving you. The result is what we have now.”

Jin Ja-gang’s eyebrows twitched.

In the martial world, it was known that the massacre at Poison Valley was Jin Ja-gang’s doing.

However, what Tang Ha-ran just said…

She had confessed that she was there at the time. And with Mang Ryo too!

Was the Tang family behind that massacre?

Jin Ja-gang’s emotions wavered and he was slightly shaken.

Tang Ha-ran felt this too. Tang Ha-ran gestured to the seat beside her.

“Sit down. It seems like this will be a long conversation.”

Jin Ja-gang sat beside her as Tang Ha-ran suggested.

Tang Ha-ran asked.

“What exactly is your relationship with that fellow Mang Ryo?”

This was what Tang Ha-ran wanted to ask Jin Ja-gang. Paradoxically, it was the same thing Jin Ja-gang wanted to ask Tang Ha-ran.

“Someone who must be killed. The enemy of the Medicine Sect lineage.”

Tang Ha-ran flinched. When the Medicine Sect story came up, Tang Ha-ran too couldn’t escape from original sin.

“I see. I had forgotten for a moment. Young Hero Jin was from Yunnan’s Medicine Sect. Yet for someone from the Tang family like me to propose to such a person.”

Tang Ha-ran laughed weakly with a powerless laugh. Then she looked at Jin Ja-gang, but his eyes were cold.

Tang Ha-ran stopped laughing. Her heart felt cold. Of all the many people, the one she had given her heart to was from an enemy relationship. She had fallen for this person’s burning eyes, but the target of that gaze’s killing intent was herself and her family.

Tang Ha-ran tried to hide her emotions and asked.

“Let me change the question. What meaning do you have for that fellow Mang Ryo? What meaning that makes him so obsessed with you?”

“I didn’t know he was alive until last year. Not even at Poison Valley. I killed him with my own hands nine years ago.”

Jin Ja-gang looked at Tang Ha-ran and said.

“Perhaps he resents that I took away everything from him.”

But Tang Ha-ran’s doubts still weren’t resolved.

“That fellow has his hands not only in our family but also in the Martial Arts Alliance… precisely with Baek Li-jung, and even in Shandong’s evil faction. No one knows why he’s acting that way.”

In the past, Jin Ja-gang would have immediately answered that it didn’t matter since he was going to kill him anyway. However, after experiencing a series of events, he realized that it wasn’t as simple as Bian Bu’s words suggested.

Of course, no matter how complex the process, the conclusion would be the same anyway.

“In the end, he’s someone who must die.”

“Then you’ll be considered an enemy of our family.”

Jin Ja-gang stared at Tang Ha-ran for quite a while.

“Is there a reason that shouldn’t be the case?”

Tang Ha-ran’s heart pounded as she received Jin Ja-gang’s gaze. Even knowing that his eyes didn’t mean what she was thinking.

Tang Ha-ran forced herself to speak.

“You’ll receive our family’s terrible revenge. Kindness repaid tenfold, grudges a hundredfold. That’s our family’s policy.”

“So?”

Jin Ja-gang’s expression didn’t change at all. Tang Ha-ran was rather left speechless.

But when she realized the life Jin Ja-gang had lived, her strength completely drained.

‘That’s right.’

This man had crawled out of hell and was in the middle of seeking revenge. He had even received the Zhuge family’s death warrant. He lived with death as his constant companion. He lived a life where death could come at any time.

Torture before death? Pain? What meaning could that have for this man?

How great a threat could the Tang family’s revenge be to such a person?

“He… has grandfather’s full support. He wields the King of Hell Plaque and shakes all authority. Sending me here was also his doing.”

“Why did he send you here?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know that either. I simply thought he had ill feelings toward me. I never imagined he would tell me to propose to… to his own enemy…”

Tang Ha-ran’s face grew hot, but she turned her head and continued speaking.

“I didn’t know he would tell me to propose and bring you back.”

“Then… let me ask just one last thing.”

With the words “one last thing,” killing intent could be felt from Jin Ja-gang. Tang Ha-ran felt a surge of sadness. Jin Ja-gang’s eyes were revealing killing intent without a trace of compassion.

“The Tang family…”

Jin Ja-gang’s lips twitched. Jin Ja-gang too seemed to find it very difficult to say those words. Thanks to this, Tang Ha-ran could understand what he was trying to ask.

“Was the Tang family involved in the massacre of Yunnan’s Medicine Sects?”

Tang Ha-ran had received the most difficult question to answer, the one she had hoped Jin Ja-gang wouldn’t ask.

She felt as if her heart had stopped.

Tang Ha-ran couldn’t directly answer her thoughts.

Instead, she recited an old passage from the Five Classics:

“Father’s enemy – cannot live under the same sky,

Brother’s enemy – must be struck down immediately upon meeting,

Friend’s enemy – cannot live in the same country.”

Tang Ha-ran finished speaking and quietly looked at Jin Ja-gang.

The passage Tang Ha-ran recited spoke of irreconcilable enemies.

It meant that the relationship between Jin Ja-gang and the Tang family, or between Jin Ja-gang and Tang Ha-ran, was already that of irreconcilable enemies.

Blue flames slowly began to rise in Jin Ja-gang’s eyes.

Tang Ha-ran felt suffocated. So she wanted to say something, anything.

Without realizing it, an excuse came out.

“I was assigned certain duties in our family and was active. Even if I wasn’t directly involved, I’m not entirely without responsibility for what happened to Yunnan’s Medicine Sects.”

“Speak.”

Grind.

The sound of Jin Ja-gang grinding his teeth could be heard.

“What you did.”

“Our family’s secrets cannot be revealed to outsiders. I can only protect them with death.”

Jin Ja-gang’s killing intent grew thicker.

Jin Ja-gang’s killing intent had surpassed visual and auditory killing intent to reach observational killing intent. Even Myowol had once gotten goosebumps from Jin Ja-gang’s killing intent.

Tang Ha-ran, receiving Jin Ja-gang’s killing intent from close range, became short of breath.

“Huk.”

However, she didn’t respond. She could have drawn up her internal energy to respond, but she just left it alone.

“I was testing… one type of poison… A poison that could be toxic to all people… Especially one that martial artists would find difficult to endure… That was my mission…”

Poison doesn’t affect everyone equally.

When attacking Iron Umbrella Sect, someone called Wang Yi-saeng was fine even after being hit by Wishful Fairy Maiden’s technique. Jin Ja-gang could only barely kill him by attacking with Serpent Swaying Divine Water and Joint Breaking Needle.

As is well known, the deeper a master’s internal energy, the more they can endure ordinary poisons. While it’s possible to restrict movement through poisoning, it’s difficult to immediately bring about death.

Jin Ja-gang obtaining Kunlun Sulfur poison at Mixed Spring Ground at a young age was truly heavenly fortune. Without that, he could never have survived against all those martial artists of Extreme Poison Sect at the time.

“The Tang family has countless poisons. Why was such a thing still necessary?”

“For mass… production of poison possible with ordinary materials in large quantities… to manufacture, huk!”

Tang Ha-ran felt the pain of her heart being squeezed and clutched her chest. Her face was already drenched in sweat.

But Jin Ja-gang’s curiosity still wasn’t satisfied.

“What does that have to do with the Medicine Sects? For what reason did Poison Sect attack not only Yunnan but all Medicine Sects throughout the martial world!”

“That’s…”

Tang Ha-ran’s face turned pale from the extreme killing intent. Tang Ha-ran looked at Jin Ja-gang with a pitiful expression.

“You… haven’t answered my question yet. Will you…”

The answer to the question of whether he would take her in.

Tang Ha-ran wanted to hear that answer.

But suddenly Jin Ja-gang pounced on Tang Ha-ran. Emitting killing intent from his eyes, he strangled Tang Ha-ran’s neck.

Tang Ha-ran struggled. Jin Ja-gang gritted his teeth and strangled her neck. Tears flowed from Tang Ha-ran’s eyes.

“Kuk, keuk!”

Crack, crack.

Sounds like neck bones being displaced could be heard, then Tang Ha-ran let out a big breath.

“Kek!”

A pill flew out of Tang Ha-ran’s mouth.

Jin Ja-gang immediately removed his hands from Tang Ha-ran’s delicate neck. Bluish handprints remained on Tang Ha-ran’s neck.

Jin Ja-gang snapped.

“You said you’d die if you revealed secrets, yet you spilled everything. Did you think I wouldn’t know you were trying to die? Or did you want me to notice?”

“Kek kek!”

Tang Ha-ran clutched her neck and kept coughing.

Jin Ja-gang picked up the pill Tang Ha-ran had spat out, crushed it with his hand, and tasted it on his tongue tip. Sizzle, his finger and tongue tip corroded and melted, with skin slightly peeling off.

“As expected. The assassin who harmed Miss Zhuge was sent by the Tang family.”

Tang Ha-ran looked at Jin Ja-gang resentfully with a face covered in tears and saliva.

“Why did you save me?”

However, Jin Ja-gang’s expression was also very complex. The killing intent still hadn’t subsided, but his face was troubled.

“Didn’t you say with your own mouth earlier? That you weren’t directly involved.”

“I’m a dead person anyway if I return to our family. No, I’ll suffer something more terrible than death. Rather… rather, it would have been better if you had just let me die now!”

Jin Ja-gang ground his teeth and shouted.

“How should I know such circumstances! I don’t know what to do with you either, so don’t force me!”

Jin Ja-gang abruptly stood up and turned around.

Supporting herself with both hands on the ground, Tang Ha-ran looked at Jin Ja-gang’s back and spoke.

“Five Fall Death Pill.”

Jin Ja-gang paused.

“That’s the name of the poison.”

“I understand.”

“And…”

Tang Ha-ran looked up at the sky and briefly stopped her tears.

“If you truly seek out your real enemy, it will probably be… my grandfather… Tang Qing. King of Hell Tang Qing.”

“King of Hell Tang Qing!”

The real enemy!

It was a name that came from a part Jin Ja-gang had never thought of.

“The attack on the Medicine Sects was all planned by grandfather’s hand.”

Jin Ja-gang stood still with his back turned. He seemed to be pondering Tang Qing’s name again.

“What grandfather was thinking when he incited Poison Sect to attack the Medicine Sects…”

“Don’t say any more. I’ll ask directly.”

“…What?”

Jin Ja-gang didn’t even turn his head and just walked away.

Tang Ha-ran picked up the dirt-covered rice ball rolling in front of her. She wasn’t hungry, but she peeled off the bamboo leaves and took a bite.

Chew chew.

Her throat was choked. It was gritty and tasteless because of the dirt. Her throat felt so choked she thought she might die.

But she could feel warm warmth from the rice ball…

Tang Ha-ran wept silently.

Having revealed the Tang family’s secrets, Tang Ha-ran could no longer return to the Tang family.

But when Tang Ha-ran suddenly felt a presence and raised her head, she saw someone standing by the grass.

Soso was looking at Tang Ha-ran with a complex expression.