The Eldest Daughter of the Sichuan Tang Clan Protects Her Family

“Geumso’s child.”
Smiling, the Blood Demon warned her.
“It would be best if you kept your mouth shut for a while. I’m weighing whether to tear your mouth to stop the impudence, or break your neck.”
Sohwa pretended not to hear and kept moving her lips.
“Ah, your scribbled preface was amusing, too. You wrote that blood is the source of all things and a force that continues along time. But blood has no power at all.”
She openly slighted the Blood Demon’s words.
“What continues along time is not an ancestor’s blood but the clan. The ground and momentum handed down and guarded by the ancestors—that is the true power.”
Strength gathered in the foot she had on the Blood Demon’s Will.
“A body that merely inherits blood holds no power. As time passes, what holds power is not a new flesh but the accumulated prestige of a clan.”
Crack.
A small bead under her foot crumbled without strength.
“That’s the system of the Central Plains you so wish to possess. No matter how fine a ‘frame,’ to use your word, you are born with, if you belong to no clan, it’s hard to unfold your will. Even if you get lucky and become a grand master and leave your name, if your later generations disappear, in the end you vanish in time. You leave behind no power.”
Sohwa bent forward and laughed.
“But aren’t the Blood Demon’s children nothing but high-grade pouches of blood?”
Lowering the ends of her brows, she said,
“So when time passes and your flesh returns to the earth, the Blood Cult will disappear. You care only for being worshiped and have no thought to protect your descendants. To you, descendants are merely graded property, aren’t they? When the owner dies, property simply goes into another owner’s hands.”
In that instant Sohwa’s view rose.
The Blood Demon, gripping her neck, gazed at her with a look of pity.
“Did I not tell you to keep your mouth shut?”
Though her breath was cut off, Sohwa, smiling, added,
“You will vanish in the end.”
She scratched the Blood Demon to the last.
By mocking him with the preface he wrote when he founded the cult.
“A disgusting monster, not a god… unable to be with time, buried alone in the now, in this age.”
Sohwa squeezed her eyes shut.
A fire-devil had swept over her.
Her breath ran short and her mind blurred, but she gathered her strength and opened her eyes again.
The heat and cold that flayed her skin were agony. But she endured all of it.
Because she could not afford to miss what came into her eyes.
Light rose from the Blood Demon’s arm.
It was a different light than Hae-rak’s inner energy.
The Blood Demon’s body was packed with tiny motes of light like the Milky Way.
Some shone pure white like Hae-rak’s, and there were those that glowed red, blue, and even purple. There was even a place where, whether it was demonic energy or not, black smoke clumped like darkness.
The cluster of lights drifted slowly, like a cloud.
Beholding the Blood Demon’s body, Sohwa froze.
She had deliberately provoked him to examine his body, but upon confirming it, her head went blank.
Those motes of light were the inner energy of others that the Blood Demon had absorbed.
They were beyond counting. And a single qi-blood point had only just opened.
A low voice fell above her head.
“Geumso’s child.”
Holding down his fury, he spoke calmly.
“My years are not few. So your little tricks are transparent to me.”
The Blood Demon let out a breath and brushed back his disheveled hair.
“If you’re curious how I accumulate, you could simply say so. I was seeing how far you’d go, but your tongue is rather vicious. If I listen any longer, I may break your neck… so watch quietly.”
Swallowing a breath, the Blood Demon flung Sohwa away.
Thud.
“Ugh.”
She hit the wall and let out a low groan.

It seemed he had thrown her with some restraint, yet her spine cracked.
Sohwa raised her upper body and then collapsed back down. A hideous pain pressed in, as if bones had broken.
Sitting on the floor, Sohwa looked up at the Blood Demon.
On the path from the center of the palm to the dantian there were concealed qi-blood points, but the Blood Demon did not touch them and moved his inner energy straight to the dantian.
The Blood Demon could not form meridian pathways, yet he could sense inner energy. As she could.
Since he could keenly feel others’ inner energy, moving the inner energy he held in his own body with delicacy was an easy thing.
Inner energy that had slipped out from a single qi-blood point swam through his upper body.
When the stretched-out inner energy touched the dantian, his upper body glimmered.
It was then.
Whether the qi-blood was closing, the inner energy flowing from the center of the palm gradually lost its light.
The Blood Demon, as if he could predict when the opened qi-blood point would shut, swiftly moved the remaining inner energy back before the point closed.
The light, sucked back into his hand, disappeared completely.
The Blood Demon’s gaze dropped lazily to his hand.
“Did you watch well?”
Clenching and opening his hand, he smiled.
“As you can see, it’s very inefficient. At the very least, until the Small Heavenly Circuit is completed I must keep the qi-blood points open to unite these things inside me into one. If time allows, before the qi-blood conceals itself again I can separate them again and return them to where they were. Then I can prevent loss.”
In a voice full of regret, he muttered,
“Though it is a martial art I perfected, I cannot combine these inside me. Before they even pass the dantian, the qi-blood blocks.”
Looking at Sohwa, the Blood Demon said,
“You said with your own mouth you can make the Blood Jade, so you will complete it within two days.”
His gaze fell. Seeing the shattered divine object, the Blood Demon gave a laugh.
“Since you took the reward first, you should pay for it, shouldn’t you?”
Sohwa could not say a word. Whether her neck was broken, no sound came out. Seeing Sohwa close the mouth she had opened, the Blood Demon let out a hollow laugh.
“So you do know how to be afraid.”
In lifted spirits, the Blood Demon laughed loudly.
“Do not think to come to me until you complete the Blood Jade. And if you do not bring the Blood Jade in two days, it will not end as leniently as today.”
To the Blood Demon’s warning, Sohwa answered with silence.
***
Back in the bedchamber, Sohwa stopped.
Because Hae-rak was sitting on the window ledge connected to the garden.
Just then, perhaps sensing a presence, the Lord of the Red Blood Hall turned his gaze.
“Why aren’t you coming in?”
Sohwa did not answer and went to the desk. Because she had not yet fully recovered, her voice would not come out properly.
Fortunately, perhaps used to being ignored, Hae-rak did not say more.
As she approached the desk, Sohwa frowned. ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) Tools for making medicinal ingredients were piled there, brought at some point. They were the same things she used in the Tang estate’s pill room.
It seemed the Blood Demon had already prepared so that she could make medicine before he summoned her.
Sohwa picked up a large basket. She meant to go pick herbs from the garden before the sun set.
Turning her body, Sohwa flinched.
Without a hint of presence, Hae-rak had come up behind her.
A large hand swept her hair back over her shoulder. The gaze that had fallen to her nape rose.
“Was it the Blood Demon?”
As she tried to go out without even hearing the answer, Sohwa grabbed Hae-rak’s arm.
“Why?”
It was absurd that the words she should ask came from him. What business is it of yours. Separate from the fact that no voice would come out, she was at a loss for words.
Looking at the quiet Sohwa, Hae-rak seemed to sense something wrong and lifted his thick brows.
“What, can’t you speak?”
“…”
“The old man really has gone mad.”
When Hae-rak tried to go out again, Sohwa finally opened her mouth.
“Where are you going.”
A thin metallic rasp came out.
When Sohwa frowned, Hae-rak, frowning even more, said,
“He promised to leave you in my care and then took you without a word and laid hands on you, didn’t he? The old man’s been senile a long time, but sometimes you have to turn his insides over before he at least pretends to keep his promises.”
Even saying that, since Sohwa did not let go, Hae-rak folded his arms.
“What. Is it because you’re worried about me?”
Since she did not want to make that rasping sound, Sohwa kept her mouth shut, and Hae-rak let out a hollow laugh.
“No need to worry. When I come to Geumeunsan, fighting with the old man is my job to begin with. Even without you, I’ve stacked up three years’ worth of reasons to visit the dungeon, so don’t try to stop me.”
“You’re the one not in your right mind.”
At her cracked voice, Hae-rak laughed.
“Aren’t you tired of saying that by now?”
Hae-rak started his characteristic teasing, but Sohwa did not let go.
“You can’t beat the Blood Demon.”
At that, Hae-rak laughed as if it were absurd.
“I’m not picking a fight to win. I’m mouthing off to foul his mood.”
“…”
“Now let go. And ease the force in your eyes.”
But the grip with which she held Hae-rak’s clothes only grew stronger.
In a voice that had become halfway decent, Sohwa said,
“I need your help.”
As Hae-rak kept seeking a chance to slip out, Sohwa drew him toward her and said,
“The Blood Demon told me to make something, and if I’m to make it within two days, I’m short of hands.”
“What did he tell you to make?”
“An elixir.”
Hae-rak let out a hollow laugh.
“Elixir? Tang Clan alchemy isn’t anything special, so why would he tell you to make an elixir? If he were going to bring someone from the Central Plains to make elixirs, he’d have gone to Shaolin. Ah, wait. Is that why the Blue Blood Hall Lord was dressed up like an old monk so out of character?”
Following his stream of consciousness, Hae-rak arrived at a strange realization.
Sohwa ignored him and stared at the garden.
“I have to sort the medicinal ingredients before the sun sets, but time is short.”
Her black pupils slid to Hae-rak.
“You said the Honin could be Blue Blood Hall believers in disguise. Help me.”
“You’re telling me to play herb-picker for you right now?”
Though Hae-rak asked with a look of distaste, Sohwa calmly nodded.
“I have to make it within two days.”
“If I help, is it possible to make it within two days?”
“Yes.”
“…”
Hae-rak, not hiding his annoyance, scratched the back of his head.
“It might be better to just take a few hits from the old man. I don’t like getting my clothes dirty.”
Grumbling, Hae-rak nonetheless let himself be led meekly into the garden as Sohwa pulled him along. He even naturally took the basket for her.
“I can’t tell medicinal ingredients apart. So what can I do?”
“There are ingredients that need sun-drying, but with only a day to dry, the efficacy will fall if we leave them in the sun.”
As Sohwa stepped into the middle of the garden and bent to sit, Hae-rak reluctantly sat down beside her.
Sohwa pulled up a grass root straight from the mud and put it into the basket Hae-rak was holding.
“So you can dry these for me.”
“…”
“Whatever you do, don’t burn them. They have to be dried naturally as if they were sun-dried for three days straight.”
Hae-rak smacked his lips and asked,
“…I’m asking just in case. Are you telling me to use my Yeolyanggong to dry herbs?”
Sohwa nodded.
Hae-rak let out a long sigh.
“Sohwa, that’s not what this martial art is for.”
“It will do.”
Sohwa added evenly,
“Then you’ll be helping to kill the Blood Demon, too.”