Since it was quite unexpected that Clan Head Tang knew medicine, I asked one of the Tang clan warriors while following the village chief to his house.

From what I’d learned living with them recently, the Sichuan Tang clan was a martial arts clan based in Sichuan.

However, their specialty was unusual – poison specialists?

In other words, they were a clan that researched and cultivated methods of killing people with poison.

Like some legendary clan of assassins?

So their reverse interview score had been dropping quite a bit.

But if the Tang clan was also skilled in medicine, I could learn medicine instead of their terrifying methods of killing people with poison.

I could spec into that non-mainstream path.

After all, speccing is up to the person, right?

Sichuan Tang clan medicine specialist. That’d be sick.

[But is the medicine thing real?]

So when I looked at the Tang clan warrior with a questioning expression, he smiled and answered.

He seemed to really want me to join the Sichuan Tang clan, as he answered my rare question with great sincerity and effort.

“Since our clan’s martial arts are poison arts, we must be skilled with medicines as much as we handle poisons. After all, medicine and poison are connected as one vein[1]. And since martial arts begin with understanding the body, we naturally know something about medicine. To harm others’ bodies, you must know that much about the body.” Well, our Sichuan Tang clan needs to know how poisons react in the human body, so we sometimes catch bad guys and inject them directly. So of course we’re more knowledgeable about medicine than other clans.”

“Ah… I-is that so?”

The warriors were so eager to draw me into the Sichuan Tang clan that they were even using honorifics.

But after hearing his explanation, my image of the Sichuan Tang clan became one of a mad clan that researched human anatomy and even conducted human experiments in order to kill people.

They even seemed like a psychopath clan aiming for mass murder using poison.

Researching anatomy to better kill people… Reverse interview score -50 points. Crazy human experiments reverse interview score -100 points. Complete psychopath clan. But public service +3 points.

In the end, the Sichuan Tang clan’s reverse interview score was only dropping except for the flying lightness skills and public service.

As I was evaluating the Tang clan’s interview performance in my head.

Having arrived at the village chief’s house, Clan Head Tang placed his hand on the child’s chest and seemed to do something, and the child’s rapidly beating chest calmed as she let out a deep breath.

Hoo…

Clan Head Tang had somehow restored the child’s breathing.

He wiped his forehead and said to the village chief:

“I’ve put some internal energy into her body to prevent her from stopping breathing for now.”

“Th-thank you! Sniff… She’s my only remaining granddaughter, please save her.”

However, after examining the village chief’s granddaughter for a while, he made an expression of incomprehension.

“But this is strange. An irregular pulse[2]…”

“Wh-what is that?”

If it’s irregular pulse, does that mean arrhythmia? Heart disease?

Though I hadn’t studied medicine, being a venomous creature and insect specialist in my past life meant I had some knowledge of poisons and medicine.

So I had some sense of what Clan Head Tang was explaining.

“It means her heart[3] isn’t beating properly. Has she been like this since birth?”

Ah, so he is asking if it’s heart disease.

“Of course not. It’s been half a year already – people suddenly fall ill and waste away until they become like this. We call it a plague. That’s why we told you to turn back at the village entrance earlier.”

Though the Miao are relatively kind people, it seemed their troubles were why they’d treated us so coldly, and after hearing his explanation, Clan Head Tang nodded and answered:

“It doesn’t seem like a contagious disease, so it should be fine. Anyway, to save the child, I need to examine others. Could you gather people suffering from the same plague?”

“Alright!”

I felt slightly relieved since, as he said, none of the contagious diseases I knew affected the heart.

At the village chief’s direction, sick people began gathering in front of his house one by one, and Clan Head Tang began taking their pulses, spending considerable time.

But after examining all the patients and writing their symptoms on paper, Clan Head Tang shook his head with an incomprehensible expression.

“Lethargy and swelling around the eyes, irregular pulse, mild fever – but the symptoms aren’t all the same. Though those with severe symptoms all seem to have heart problems, strangely.”

Some people were losing energy and had fevers, while others had irregular pulses and swollen eyes, and those with serious symptoms all had heart problems.

At those words, the village chief asked with a fearful expression:

“C-can’t you cure it!?”

“For now, I’ll write down some medicines good for the heart – could you gather them quickly? Let’s try some medicine.”

But true to someone trained in medicine, Clan Head Tang avoided giving a definitive answer and said he would try treatment.

It felt like he would treat the symptoms since he didn’t know the cause, but since that was hope for the village chief, he called villagers to run out searching for herbs.

“Everyone gather! The doctor says we need to find medicines!”

***

The reason he couldn’t just pass by others’ troubles.

Seeing the sick girl reminded him of Hwa-eun in Sichuan.

F-forgive me, Father. I-I’ve been unfilial.

His daughter’s face, turned deathly pale from poison after failing in martial arts cultivation, saying she was sorry.

That face came to mind and he couldn’t just leave.

So Tang Cheolsan examined the child with utmost care.

Because he understood better than anyone the feelings of parents with sick daughters or granddaughters.

And between caring for the child, he made medicines, washing and applying medicine to the eyes of those with eye problems.

He made fever-reducing powder[4] to feed those with fevers.

After examining all the patients like that, the surroundings grew dark.

One of the Tang clan warriors approached and offered a water-soaked towel.

“Clan Head, please at least wipe your face. You’ve worked hard.”

“Thank you, Gu Pae.”

“Don’t mention it.”

The one who handed over the towel was Gu Pae, deputy commander[5] of the Poison Blood Squad[6].

He was a person of excellent character respected by the clan warriors.

The reason he remained here was because he was injured trying to save other warriors who were in mortal danger during the process of catching the Blue-spotted Centipede.

“By the way, where’s the young hero?”

“Ah, he seemed tired from helping with the work so I laid him down in a room since he was dozing.”

“I see, it must have been hard for him to keep up with us for days without martial arts training. So, what do you think of the young hero after observing him these past days?”

Tang Cheolsan asked Gu Pae about Wi Soryong.

Apart from the young hero’s talents, he wanted to know his character, so he had asked Gu Pae to observe his personality for several days.

Since he would become his son-in-law, his character was as important as his talents.

“Since the young hero hasn’t become a member of our Sichuan Tang clan yet, may I speak honestly?”

“Of course.”

Since that was what Tang Cheolsan wanted, he nodded, and Gu Pae began talking about his experiences with the young hero.

“First, he’s an extraordinary person[7] to have lived alone raising venomous creatures in this Hainan jungle as an orphan. At that age, one would naturally long for human company.”

“Yes, the young hero is certainly extraordinary.”

“Yes, but if you ask whether his personality is rough like martial world eccentrics, that’s not the case. Though he’s not ordinary, he doesn’t seem to have a vicious or cruel personality.”

“Seeing how he released some of his raised creatures before coming here, thinking they might die, he’s certainly not cruel. So, would he be suitable as my son-in-law?”

Gu Pae lowered his head at Tang Cheolsan’s question.

“Yes, but there is something concerning…”

When he said there was something concerning after saying he was fine, Tang Cheolsan tilted his head and asked again:

“Well, what’s the problem? You just said he was fine.”

“His potential…”

Tang Cheolsan knew too.

The young hero was only fourteen or fifteen.

A bit late to learn martial arts, and the fact that the young hero’s own potential wasn’t very good.

But they had Hwa-eun for martial arts, and the young hero’s value wasn’t in martial arts, so he shook his head.

After all, with just the young hero’s talent, he might be able to advance the clan’s martial arts to another level.

No, he definitely would advance them.

“Don’t worry. The young hero’s value isn’t in such things. Haven’t we all seen it? The venomous creatures the young hero raised.”

“Still… For young miss’s match, if he were excellent in many ways…”

“Haha, such greed from this person. Someone might think you were Hwa-eun’s father.”

“I apologize, Clan Head.”

All of Gu Pae’s words came from concern for the Tang clan and Hwa-eun.

Tang Cheolsan smiled gently at those words.

Because it showed how much Gu Pae cared for the Sichuan Tang clan and Hwa-eun.

And after thoughts of the Sichuan Tang clan and Hwa-eun, his gaze turned to the girl still lying unconscious.

“This girl is in serious trouble.”

Though he’d managed to reduce her fever with the fever-reducing powder and given her medicine to raise her fallen energy, he hadn’t found the root cause.

If they couldn’t solve the heart problem, the irregular pulse would return.

And if he left then, he couldn’t guarantee the girl’s life.

“You couldn’t find the cause?”

“Not at all. As you know. Few in our clan have read as many medical texts as I have. But this disease, I’ve never seen or heard of it.”

“We can’t stay here indefinitely – this is troubling?”

“Indeed. Would you check it out?”

Hoping for something, he had Gu Pae check her pulse too, but Gu Pae shook his head after checking the girl’s pulse.

“I have no idea either.”

In the end, though they both pondered for solutions, nothing came to mind.

Now it was completely dark, and insects were starting to fly toward the lights outside.

“Ah, I should check if our son-in-law is sleeping well. All these insects flying in. Being a hot place, there are as many insects as in Yunnan’s jungles.”

“I’ll escort you. This way please. You all watch over the young lady.”

“Yes, Deputy Commander.”

After leaving the young lady to other warriors and arriving at the room where the son-in-law was sleeping to check on him.

The young son-in-law candidate’s sleeping face in the flickering lamplight.

As he was looking at his son-in-law’s sleeping face with satisfaction.

Flutter flutter.

There was a sound of an insect flying in from somewhere, and one landed on his son-in-law’s forehead, then slowly began crawling across his cheek toward his lips.

No, that thing!

It would be terrible if his son-in-law got bitten by an insect.

There were many poisonous insects he didn’t know about in Hainan.

So Tang Cheolsan quickly ran toward his son-in-law and struck the insect with all his might.

Smack!

He couldn’t forgive it for daring to try to bite his son-in-law.

“Kyaaa!”

However, in his thought to catch the impudent insect, he had forgotten the fact that where the insect was crawling was his son-in-law’s cheek.

In the end, the son-in-law woke up and grabbed his reddening cheek, looking at Tang Cheolsan with resentful eyes.

“Wh-what is this about!? Ow, it hurts!”

He must have been bewildered and resentful at suddenly being slapped in the middle of the night.

Tang Cheolsan scratched his head and answered:

“S-sorry. There was an insect crawling on your cheek and I tried to catch it. I thoughtlessly…”

“No, elder. You nearly caught me first while trying to catch the insect. Oh my poor cheek.”

“I’m sorry. Really. Such a large insect was crawling on your cheek and my hand moved thoughtlessly. Look, isn’t this a huge insect?”

Saying he’d tried to catch such a large insect, that it was all for his son-in-law’s sake, Tang Cheolsan held out the insect he’d caught to make excuses.

It was still stuck to his palm.

Fortunately, his son-in-law’s resentful gaze turned from Tang Cheolsan to the insect.

But something strange happened.

After checking the insect, his son-in-law’s sleepy, bleary eyes suddenly widened, and he brought his face close to the insect still maintaining its form on the palm.

And finally pulling Tang Cheolsan’s hand near the lamp, a strange question burst from his son-in-law:

“Th-this? Why are these things here!?”

Like it was an insect that shouldn’t be here, but was.

Tang Cheolsan carefully asked:

“What kind of insect is this that you react so?”

Then his son-in-law looked up at Tang Cheolsan and answered:

“A kissing- no… since this is the Central Plains… What should I call it? Ah! Yes! This is an insect called the Kissing Bug[8]! Elder.”

“K-kissing bug?”

An insect that kisses.

Tang Cheolsan raised his eyebrows at the lewd name of the insect.

The insect’s name was quite lewd indeed.