161

Chapter 161 - Inevitability - 5

There had been times when she aimlessly gazed toward the setting sun.

Feverish agony, as if her entire body was being pounded with a hammer, skin that looked infectious enough to make others believe she carried a plague. After enduring a hellish day, when the pain slightly subsided, she could hear whispers from around her.

Fatherless wretch, pestilent girl, vile creature, leper wench. She could not count the numerous ways she was referred to.

Numbed by pain, she was unable to raise her body and seek affection from her mother while avoiding the disgusted and scornful stares.

"If it weren't for you, you wretch! Get lost, you brat!"

Dodging flying liquor bottles had become second nature.

Why does mom treat me this way? What have I done wrong? Maybe if I keep approaching, she will love me. Maybe she will turn around and look at me?

Such were her vain hopes in childhood.

A child born of rape. A marriage path obstructed by that child. A life ruined. Slander behind her back because of the child.

Though she was her mother, as a flawed person herself, she must have directed all her resentment toward her.

She had only recently learned the reason, but sometimes she wondered if it would have been better not knowing. Had she lived without knowing, had she not died today because of her, perhaps she would have lived forever in hatred.

Thoughts of her mother weighed heavily on her heart.

A childhood bereft of even her mother's love. Inevitably, she was left to gaze endlessly toward the sinking sun.

When? At which moment? On which day?

"Haha, were you waiting?"

Uncle Dang Geo Ho, I didn't know you would come.

"I've brought an interesting toy from Sichuan."

"What would you like to eat? I'll buy you anything."

West of Daehung County. Uncle Dang Geo Ho, coming from Sichuan into the sunset, had been the sole ray of light in her youthful days.

Like a father. She even fancied the absurd thought that he might actually be her biological father, such was his significance as a pillar in her youthful days.

"I'll come again next time. But remember, you must take your medicine every day."

Dang Geo Ho would always leave after patting her head with a gentle smile, promising a reunion.

The martial arts he taught were difficult, and the medicine he told her to take tasted bitter. But believing she wouldn't see him again if she stopped, she took the pills daily.

Unaware, it might have been the cause of all her suffering.

"Dang Hwa Rin...!"

The man who always promised to return was now before her eyes. The dawn was brightening. After more than a decade, he stood before her.

Not as the light that had helped her endure unbearable ordeals, but rather as the man behind everything.

The repulsive man, as if afraid of the light, tried to escape into the darkest shadows, but was stopped by her.

What is this emotion? Betrayal, resentment, anger, it's difficult to express this complex feeling with a single emotion. But one thing is certain.

Today we'll untangle the knots that bind us.

***************

"Save me."

Dang Geo Ho, as his charred arm grasped the embedded flying dagger, begged Dang Hwa Rin for his life.

"What were you thinking when I said that ten years ago?"

Uncle, please save me. Please treat me. It hurts so much. Dang Hwa Rin's words during her childhood, writhing in pain and asking for Dang Geo Ho's help. With a voice mixed with bitterness, Dang Hwa Rin spoke to him.

"I know a hundred apologies wouldn't be enough. It was for a greater cause, but still, I subjected a child to atrocious experiments. But do you really think it didn't hurt me to watch you suffer?"

Dang Geo Ho hung his head, holding his chest as though troubled by a guilty conscience.

"..."

Dang Hwa Rin stopped momentarily at the sight. Was his act successful? Dang Geo Ho, with the same affectionate expression he had often shown to the young Dang Hwa Rin back then, spoke.

"I thought of you as my own daughter. I always tried to keep you alive even when you were ill, only giving trials you could endure. Isn't that why you've grown so admirably into who you are today?"

The man spoke to Dang Hwa Rin with deceptive words that might seem reasonable.

"Bullshit. I suppose you didn't think of the other bastards you killed as your children, eh?"

But Dang Hwa Rin was not fooled by his sweet talk.

"...Tch."

At Dang Hwa Rin's words, the man's mask was stripped away in an instant, leaving only his vile desires flickering.

"Idiot."

Dang Hwa Rin looked at Dang Geo Ho with a ridiculous expression. If she was still that child who used to stare hopelessly towards the setting sun, perhaps she might have been duped. But not anymore.

It wasn't because of Dang Geo Ho that she became a poison master.

It was because she met a man. A man who reached out to her while she lay in the darkest abyss of despair, tumbling into a pit of desolation.

Had it not been for him, she would have been one of the corpses strewn about.

With venom coalescing in her hand, Dang Hwa Rin stood before Dang Geo Ho to untie the bound knot.

Sensing his impending death, Dang Geo Ho opened his mouth in desperation.

"You were different from those other children to me! You were special! Do you not remember how much I tried to leave memories for you in your life? The one who brought you dolls and sweets when you were little! The one you thought of as your father! Are you going to kill me?"

For a moment, Dang Hwa Rin's hand stopped at the man's pleading.

It wasn't that she was swayed by his words. It was just that it saddened her that each cherished memory of her childhood had been part of an ugly man's scheme.

She indulged in sentiment for a moment, but had no intention of changing the outcome.

However, Dang Geo Ho didn't miss that brief opening.

"Die!"

Dang Geo Ho pulled out a case from within and thrust it towards Dang Hwa Rin.

With the lid bursting open, three hidden weapons shot out. Dang Hwa Rin tried to dodge them, but they were too close. All three embedded themselves in her forearm.

The weapons weren't powerful enough to inflict a grave wound, piercing only her flesh, but they served their intended purpose.

The poison concealed within the weapon coursed into Dang Hwa Rin's arm in an instant.

Using poison on a poison master? Dang Hwa Rin nonchalantly removed the weapons embedded in her arm, looking at Dang Geo Ho with disbelief.

"You think this would work? Poison, on a poison master? You idi... Huh?"

Dang Hwa Rin's body staggered.

"Hahahaha!"

"What have you done?"

"You thought poison wouldn't affect you, didn't you! But the poison of the Thousand-Year Toadstool is different! Even if you managed to stabilize the toxins you've ingested, you won't be able to control double that amount of the Thousand-Year Toadstool poison!"

He had used up all of the Thousand-Year Toadstool poison he possessed. It would cause instant death to anyone in the martial world. Dang Geo Ho was certain of his victory.

"Guh!"

As Dang Geo Ho anticipated, Dang Hwa Rin clutched at her chest and dropped to one knee.

"I will take your corpse with me! I will dissect it, research every piece of your internal organs, every drop of your blood! I'll create a new poison master!"

Even if one became a poison master, the scope of toxins they could control had limits. She would soon lose consciousness and suffer from high fever. Even if she tried to endure, it would be in vain.

Dang Geo Ho waited excitedly for her to fall.

"Ah..."

Dang Hwa Rin closed her eyes and collapsed.

Regardless of the process, the last one standing is the victor. Dang Geo Ho smiled in triumph and approached the fallen Dang Hwa Rin.

"Cough!"

It was over in an instant – Dang Hwa Rin rose and seized Dang Geo Ho's throat.

"Enjoying yourself?"

Dang Hwa Rin smiled triumphantly, turning the tables on the flustered man.

"No?!"

"Dang Geo Ho, you really are vile to the very end."

"How? How could you withstand it? Your body shouldn't be able to bear it!"

Dang Geo Ho stared at Dang Hwa Rin in shock. The body he had designed should not be able to withstand that level of toxicity. It was pure chance she had become a poison master, but this should be impossible.

"It's all thanks to the most important person in my life."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't need to know."

"AAAAAAAH!"

The toxins Dang Geo Ho had accumulated over more than a decade within Dang Hwa Rin's body now surged into his own.

Fever, difficulty breathing, skin rashes, itching, muscle pains, the deep-seated pain penetrating to the bone marrow, all the countless sufferings Dang Hwa Rin had been unable to articulate—he felt them all in a brief moment.

"Does it hurt? That's the pain I endured."

"Sa-save me... It will... benefit the Dang family..."

Dang Geo Ho might be useful to the Dang family while alive. He could restore the lost martial arts to the family, or train new poison masters.

"So what."

Dang Hwa Rin scoffed. The poison master experiments had to end with her. She could not allow for any more victims. Like excising a gangrenous wound or squeezing out pus—it was time to eradicate the source of all her suffering.

"I made you…"

Dang Hwa Rin opened her mouth with a face full of fury towards Dang Geo Ho, struggling to look at her.

"Get out of my life now."

She infused her grip on Dang Geo Ho's throat with years of resentment and rage, injecting the most vicious poison.

"Ga-gack."

Delivering Dang Geo Ho's coup de grace was far too easy.

A simple dose of the Thousand-Year Toadstool poison he had forced upon her, and with a single scream, his life was severed.

Dang Hwa Rin released her grip from the man she had waited over a decade to confront. Was it because her resentment ran too deep? Or was it because her anger burned too fiercely?

Dang Hwa Rin emotionlessly gazed upon the corpse, the root of her painful life.

The worst person in her life.

But if there was one decent thing he did,

"Yoonho."

It was that he led her to meet the best man in her life.

Dang Hwa Rin turned her head to look where Kang Yoonho had fallen.

"Yoonho?"

Where Dang Hwa Rin looked. In the place Kang Yoonho had fallen, only bloodstained clothing was left behind.

--------------------------

"Yoonho!"

Dang Hwa Rin rushed to the spot in the stable where Kang Yoonho had collapsed.

Where could he have gone? Disappeared to? She certainly had told him to take the chance to escape. Dang Hwa Rin looked at the horses in the stable, but none was missing.

"Yoonho!"

Had he fled secretly? Or perhaps was he kidnapped by the demonic cult?

"Kang Yoonho!!!"

Under the dark night sky, with not a breeze stirring, Dang Hwa Rin called for Kang Yoonho with a perplexed expression, like a sailor who has lost the stars on an uneasy sea.

Where did he go?

Just where did he go?

Did he not see that she was winning? Could he have abandoned her and fled?

No, that's not possible.

Her heart, which didn't want to fall even when poison invaded her body, even in the face of the glinting blade, felt as though it was about to crumble.

Just as her legs, having persevered to the end, were about to give way, a dazzling sunrise shone towards her.

"Don't look for me here; come over and help out!"

"Wha?"

Dang Hwa Rin turned her head towards the light.

"If it's over, stop spacing out and give a hand!"

Kang Yoonho was in the distance, methodically untying the bound captives.

"Really! You scared me for nothing!"

He hadn't disappeared. He was, as always, simply looking for something he could do.

Dang Hwa Rin let out a sigh of relief as she watched Kang Yoonho, who was helping the bound people as if nothing had happened.

"Hwarin! This one's too severely injured!"

"Wait! I'm coming!"

Before going to Yoonho, Dang Hwa Rin briefly looked back at the past she had just killed.

The child who once helplessly waited, gazing westwards, was gone.

That child had grown into a woman, willingly rushing to smile and aid the man who reached out for her.

Dang Hwa Rin turned her head away from the past and raced toward the man.