Chapter 173 - Venomous Knowledge

Once Alchemist Ma Xiaohua handed over the dark leather bound book, Ao Wen led her back to the courtyard she shared with Feng Xi. Once she had the older woman settled to rest, Ao Wen pulled Feng Xi aside to explain what she'd heard from Ma Xiaohua. 

"So do you really intend to help this Lord White?" Feng Xi asked, deeply concerned by what she'd heard so far. "He doesn't sound like the kind of person we should get involved with."

"I don't know," Ao Wen said, looking at Feng Xi and imagining what she would be willing to do if it were Feng Xi who were struck by an incurable curse. As a healer, she'd encountered more than a few desperate parents and lovers who'd been driven to extremes to save their loved ones. It was never easy to judge such people and she'd been glad that such matters were handled by other groups within the sect. Now, however, there were no Disciplinary Hall Elders to turn to for guidance, nor did she have Qi Yue or Cong Houzi's nuanced advice. This one, she'd have to decide on her own. "I won't really know until I study the manual. All I know is that Alchemist Ma is suffering and I have a chance to intercede. She's been kind to me since we arrived and that kindness should be repaid."

"Getting involved with someone like this man goes beyond repaying simple kindness," Feng Xi pointed out. "Your Senior Sister Qi Yue said that you always thought about others before yourself, I just want to make sure you're not going to hurt yourself badly by trying to help this time."

"I know," Ao Wen said, placing a reassuring hand on Feng Xi's hands. "I promise, I'll be careful. For now, can you help me care for Alchemist Ma? She's ragged and distraught and I think that your music can help heal her more than my medicine's can." 

"Of course I'll help," the young musician promised. "I'll make sure she gets a good meal when she wakes as well. Promise me something though Wen," she said, staring deeply into Ao Wen's amber eyes. "After you study the manual, before you do anything, I want you to at least talk to me about it, and maybe Brother Bai and Brother Jin as well. I don't want you making plans on your own."

"Okay," Ao Wen promised readily. "I'll talk to everyone before I do anything." Internally, Ao Wen didn't feel like she'd do anything too dangerous. This wasn't like when Long Ma had captured her father. She cared about Alchemist Ma but not so much that she'd be driven to madness to rescue her. Still, after what she'd done before, she couldn't blame Feng Xi for wanting her to talk to everyone before she acted. 

With Feng Xi tending to Alchemist Ma, Ao Wen turned her attention to the dark manual the alchemist had handed over. 'Dark Whisper Venomous Binding.' The four words that adorned the book were enough to chill any heart even without the embossed symbol of a spider at the center of a web that adorned the cover of the book. 

"It is the nature of the strong to prey upon the weak," Ao Wen read from the opening of the manual. "This is nonsense," she realized, as the entire first page attempted to convince unwary readers that morality was irrelevant in the face of the natural relationship between predator and prey. It went further to explain that superior predators didn't restrict their methods to those of 'honorable hunters' but instead used everything at their disposal whether it was cunning and trickery or poison and manipulation, any method that allowed the predator to stalk, capture, kill and consume their prey was in the service of the natural order. The opening page arrived at the conclusion that the Dark Weaver Spider represented an apex 'True Predator' that could hunt even the nobler apex predators through devious means. 

"No wonder the Vulture King wanted this cult exterminated," Ao Wen muttered as she continued to explore the manual. Across the cultivation world, nine in ten cultivation manuals followed a single path. Most cultivators like Ao Wen who followed multiple paths would select a manual for each of their paths, much like Ao Wen practiced the Obsidian Night Scorpion Saber Art for her Martial path and the Flame Wind Fan Dance for her Mystic path. The 'Dark Whisper Venomous Binding' however, fell into a much rarer category of manuals, one that required cultivators to follow two specific paths and to blend them. Such manuals were not only an order of magnitude more difficult to practice than standard manuals, they were an order of magnitude more powerful as well. This particular manual was for Scholars and Mystics. 

"I see now why Alchemist Ma said it took a special kind of Alchemist to cultivate this manual," Ao Wen said as she began to examine the requirements to practice its techniques. A dual awakening wasn't enough. A person had to attune themselves to the Dark Weaver Spider by injecting themselves with its venom in a ritual that allowed them to turn it into a source of their own power. If a person couldn't conquer the venom, they were doomed to die by it. The cult that created the manual considered such people to be prey who mistook themselves as predators and scorned their weakness. It was the next requirement, however, that froze her blood cold. "A true predator sees only prey, if one cannot wash their hands in the blood of those the world considers innocent, one cannot become a true predator." 

From the twisted perspective of the cultists, it made a sick kind of sense. The sheep never did anything to threaten the wolf but it was hunted and consumed nonetheless. The cultists wanted to apply the same logic to how their members interacted with people. Fellow cultists were predators, everyone else was prey. After experiencing the war against the Yin Fiends, Ao Wen had no shortage of innocent blood on her hands. For a moment, Fen's face flashed before her eyes, his face contorted in pain as he begged her to give him medicine to make him better. The medicine she'd given him eased him to a deep sleep that he'd never awakened from and while he was the first person she'd needed to treat in such a manner, he was far from the last. 

"Is this why Ma Xiaohua was unable to cultivate the manual? Because she's never been forced to," Ao Wen stopped before finishing the sentence. There was a gulf as wide as the ocean between what she'd done to relieve suffering and prevent the spread of disease and what this twisted manual advocated for. Perhaps it wouldn't matter to the people who wrote it, but she knew better than to place herself on the same level as these monsters. 

In a way, the manual was reassuring. Not that long ago, she'd thought of herself as a monster for what she'd done, what she'd had to do. Now, reading the perspective of the real monsters who held no hesitation towards the slaughter of innocents and children, she fully realized just how far she was from being a monster. She also realized something else important. 

"These people might think of 'Perfect Sleep' as a tool of a predator to kill mortals," she whispered. "But I know that in the hands of a healer, it's a kindness. The techniques in here are likely the same, they may appear wicked and cruel but it's the application of the technique that determines whether it is cruel or benevolent. As long as I hold true to myself, I don't need to fear learning this to save a life."