Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

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Spirit Medicine 3

“That’s the huge Black Dao from Chengdu, including Wind Origin Gate, Yuan Hou Gate, and the Dragon Peak Pavilion, along with the White Jade Demon Slayer from Mianyang. Damn it, that guy really sold information everywhere.”

As I looked over the folks standing in the clearing, Deputy Commander Gu Pae’s explanation followed.

Right now, we were in a double booking, no, a pentuple booking situation.

The guys who sold us information had already sold it to four major Black Dao groups in Sichuan.

So, near what appeared to be the giant dead tree where the home of the Golden Hair Bee King might be, five factions were forced to face each other in disbelief.

“Wh-why is the Four Heavenly Houses here…?”

“C-could it be that those crazy people sold information to the Four Heavenly Houses too!?”

“Those lunatics! How can they sell information to the Houses!?”

My older sister’s lips trembled with anger at their reactions.

‘Those two we saw last time are definitely dead meat…’

From my sister’s expression, I got the feeling those two wouldn’t be enjoying a peaceful retirement.

While I silently wished for the two’s souls, my sister stepped forward with an angry demeanor and spoke to the Deputy Commander.

“Whoever it is, they’ve got some mighty guts. Selling information about our Four Heavenly Houses to others.”

Her words seemed like she was trying to establish that we had the information first.

But even more than her words, the fact that she had appeared had the enemy in shock.

“Eeeek! Poison Flower Moonlight!”

“Is the direct descendant of the Tang Clan’s Poison Flower here!?”

“W-whaat!?”

Seems my sister had unknowingly gained quite the notorious reputation.

The leaders from the four factions looked at each other with expressions of utter defeat.

‘Are they really the Central Plains assassination clan? But what kind of deeds have they done?’

I was curious about why everyone was so frightened by my sister’s appearance, but more than that, I wondered how we were supposed to make sense of this traffic jam.

It felt like we had all been scammed into sharing a house.

Like running into everyone at the entrance of a tiny one-room apartment on the day of moving in.

So, I quietly asked Deputy Commander Gu Pae how we should sort out this situation.

Though my sister had stepped forward, I was the one to ask about the solution, as I was the leader of this group.

“Wei So-ryong, it’s your first outing as a member of the clan, so please be cautious, and don’t forget that you are from the Tang Clan.”

“Yes, father-in-law.”

“And while Hua Eun will be assisting, you will be the one leading them, so take this opportunity to learn how to manage people.”

“What? You want me to lead them?”

“But Hua Eun…?”

“Oh come now! Hua Eun is your person, and since you’re her consort, you’re the eldest.”

“Consort? Ahem… I see.”

Right, with my sister as my consort, I was decided as the leader of this crew.

Even though I was the superficial leader, my sister would handle everything anyway.

[But what should we do about this? I don’t know how many we’ll get, but should we distribute?]

I asked if we should share the honey equally, but Gu Pae-shi shook his head as if to say what nonsense I was talking about.

With an annoyed expression, he replied.

[That jerk created a really annoying scenario. Distribute? Which fool dares to share with our Four Heavenly Houses?

Fortunately, they’re just the Black Dao folks, so they’ll retreat. If the White Dao sects were involved, we would’ve had to endure tedious negotiations. But then again, we might have to be wary of a stab in the back.]

I nodded at his assurance they would retreat, but his last remark about the backstab made me furrow my brow.

“Uncomfortable at the back?”

[They’ll undoubtedly want to pull out without making enemies with us, but won’t completely withdraw. The Black Dao guys gather like rats when a strong person appears. They’ll hide nearby and watch in case we fail.]

Gu Pae’s disdainful comment about the guys clustered together made me raise an eyebrow.

As if on cue, my sister began quickly sorting out the situation.

“So, what will everyone do? Are you going to compete for the honey with our Tang Clan and the Golden Hair Bee King?”

‘Do you seriously think you can mess with us?’ My sister’s voice was chilling.

At that, the leaders of the four factions exchanged glances, as if in agreement, and then responded one by one.

“If the Four Heavenly Houses are involved, we’ll withdraw, Wind Origin Gate.”

“Cough. What a letdown. We can’t afford to make enemies with the Houses, so we’ll back out, Yuan Hou Gate.”

“Poison Flower, our Dragon Peak Pavilion will also withdraw. We have no reason to fight over low-grade Spirit Medicine with the Four Heavenly Houses.”

“Damn it! That bastard! I’ll catch the one who sold my info and make him pay! Our White Jade Demon Slayer will also be departing.”

Defeated expressions, sulking looks as they disappeared.

They all scrambled back towards the direction we had come.

With the Black Dao folks gone, our group finally settled down in the cleared space.

We had to observe the Golden Hair Bee King’s home and figure out how to approach it.

“Alright, two of you prepare dinner, and the other two, keep watch. The Black Dao won’t just go away quietly. And Gu Pae, check where they have set up camp.”

“Got it, Deputy Commander.”

Deputy Commander Gu Pae took off to investigate while the warriors prepared camp. I approached my sis, who was sitting on a rock, to ask what had been on my mind.

“Um, Hua Eun, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, Wei So-ryong. What do you want to know?”

She seemed a bit uneasy while keeping an eye on the direction the enemies had retreated to, but smiled when she heard my voice.

“But what’s the deal with the Black Dao? From the Deputy Commander’s words, they seem undesirable?”

“Ah… It looks like Grandfather skipped some important points about real-life battles. Come sit over here. I need to explain. It’s crucial, so don’t forget this.”

With my sister’s explanation, how could I possibly forget?

I sat next to her, ready to use my full concentration.

“To explain the Black Dao, you need to understand the concepts of righteousness, loyalty, and benevolence first.”

“Righteousness, loyalty, benevolence?”

“Righteousness refers to the proper way to act as a person, and benevolence means having a kind heart. Loyalty combines the character for a person with the one for embrace, meaning to protect the weak…”

Her lengthy explanation continued, but in short, as long as you don’t recklessly take lives and adhere to righteousness, loyalty, and benevolence, you’re either on the White Dao side or the Black Dao side.

The Four Heavenly Houses are White Dao, but they place great emphasis on practicality.

You have to uphold righteousness, loyalty, and benevolence, but don’t get lost in them, she implied.

As I pondered for a moment, it made sense.

‘Ah, it’s a moral compass, right? So White Dao is good, Black Dao is evil, and the Four Heavenly Houses are like a middle ground?’

And to embrace and protect, hmm… That didn’t sound so bad.

For now, since my sister was stronger than me, she’d be looking out for me.

Being tucked under my sister’s wing…

The character for a person and the one for embrace, I swore in my heart I would become a righteous hero one day.

*

[There it is, the Golden Hair Bee King!]

At a point just twenty meters away from the giant tree with the beehive, my sister, the Deputy Commander, and I were hiding behind a small rock.

After setting up the camp, I had come out on reconnaissance with the Deputy Commander and my sister.

While the Tang Clan has a method to harvest honey from the Golden Hair Bee King, I insisted we needed to inspect the beehive first to surely plan how to gather the honey.

Giant bees buzzed around the tree.

I had hoped it would be a rock bee, but it looked like it was a yellow-orange type.

[First time seeing it, and it’s really big.]

My sister’s voice was filled with admiration.

Just as she had described previously, the Golden Hair Bee King was indeed the size of a small dog, and it had a rather unique appearance.

Though it looked like a regular honeybee at first glance, its fur was fluffy like a bumblebee.

And now I understood why they called it the Golden Hair Bee King.

Its golden fur was, indeed, very fluffy.

[So cute!]

[Cute?]

[Isn’t it round and adorable?]

[I suppose you could say that…]

My sister didn’t seem convinced, but honestly, where else could you find an insect as cute as a honeybee?

If not for its stinger, it’d really be an adorable insect.

[By the way, its colony isn’t that big. There are maybe a few hundred? But considering its size, I guess that’s fair.]

[Colony?]

[Oh, that refers to the size of a group of bees. Normally, a small honeybee swarm has around five to seven thousand.]

[Can you tell that without even going in?]

My sister seemed surprised, but I could roughly estimate the number of bees in the colony because honeybees form a highly organized society.

A newly born worker bee remains inside for about fifteen days to help with housework, and during this time, their tasks include cleaning, caring for the queen. After fifteen days, when the glands that produce wax have fully developed, they move on to repairing or building the hive. Then they gather honey or pollen outside.

They are extremely vigilant, which is why I couldn’t get too close, but while observing the number of returning bees against the backdrop of the sunset, I could guess the internal situation.

[Yep, something like that.]

[Someone’s coming, dear lady.]

I was analyzing the beehive when the Deputy Commander’s voice alerted me that someone was approaching.

We all tensed as we turned to see Deputy Commander Gu Pae, who had gone for reconnaissance, emerging from a distance towards the camp.

[Quickly signal! It’ll be serious if he comes without warning!]

As I whispered this, the Deputy Commander signaled Gu Pae.

However, just before he stepped into the clearing, Gu Pae paused, quickly activated his lightness skill, and landed on a rock.

[Oh, there you are!]

Gu Pae’s arrival allowed the Deputy Commander to ascertain how things were unfolding.

[So, what happened?]

[Those bastards have also set up camp on the opposite side. I confirmed they circled around trying to avoid being noticed by us.]

[Those damn fools!]

– Thud.

As the furious Deputy Commander moved, a small rock fell from the edge where we were perched.

Immediately, an ominous sound echoed in the air, just as I feared.

– Whooooosh!

The distance between us and the beehive was about thirty meters.

Even so, the rock dropped by the Deputy Commander triggered a buzzing sound from the tree, reminiscent of a propeller engine’s noise.

Bees began to emerge from the entrance of the beehive, looking our way.

[Run!]

We hurried back to the campsite.

Once we settled onto a rock, catching our breath.

“Phew, that was close. I suspected from the start, but those things seem really sensitive to ground vibrations.”

“Ground vibrations?”

Bee King, the king of bees, indeed, the Golden Hair Bee King seemed to possess all the characteristics of bees.

Because the ground-nesting bees like bumblebees or ground bees are incredibly sensitive to vibrations, it made sense they’d react even from thirty meters away.

We had found refuge on the rock due to their keen sensitivity.

“Yes, from what I can tell, they seem to react as soon as they step into the clearing.”

The Deputy Commander nodded at my explanation.

“That certainly feels like how it was earlier. Then tonight, let’s wrap this up the Tang Clan way.”

The Deputy Commander had the experience, and the method he referred to was to gather a lot of mugwort and send smoke towards the beehives to drive the bees away.

Mugwort contains ingredients that repel or calm insects.

They use mugwort to soothe bees during honey harvesting, so this was indeed a quite effective method.

“Then let’s do that.”

With anxiety over the Black Dao and a consensus to strike quickly, we decided to collect honey that very night, but then Gu Pae had a perplexed look as he spoke.

“Deputy Commander, the wind…”

“The wind?”

I tilted my head at Gu Pae’s mention of the wind, but then the Deputy Commander’s expression changed to one of dismay.

“Of all times…”

I wondered what he meant by suddenly mentioning the wind.

But after listening to him explain, it turned out that if we wanted to set the mugwort on fire to send smoke towards the beehive, the wind needed to be blowing from our direction towards theirs, but now the wind was blowing from the beehive side towards us.

“Then can’t we light it on the other side?”

“That would put us right in between the Black Dao and the Golden Hair Bee King. They wouldn’t attack us unless they were insane, but you know how eager the Black Dao are to stab someone in the back.”

The Black Dao would not attack us unless they were mad, but it was still an undesirable scenario to be caught in between the two.

Suggestions floated around about how to go and subtly assert ourselves to push them away, but if we were spotted, the Black Dao’s slippery tactics would come into play.

“Haha, we just thought we’d drop by for a little hunt. Why don’t you all keep an eye out?”

“Exactly! Just swinging by for a hunt!”

If they scattered in different directions, creating confusion, it would just make things way more complicated, and that’s when my sister’s angry voice rose.

“I’m seriously tempted to just sweep them all away!”

Hearing my sister’s angry tone made me think.

‘Looks like my sister is going to clean up once married…’

A cleansing of sorts, in reference to humans.