The Outcast Writer of a Martial Arts Visual Novel-Chapter 142: Daseogak in Crisis - 2

Someone standing on the line tries harder to stay within it than someone already safely inside it.

A mad scientist.

You know the type. A genius but eccentric inventor straight out of pop culture.

One who teeters on the edge of morality and ethics, crafting wondrous tools for our side.

People might admit, “We need his brilliance to fight the powerful enemy,” but they never truly trust him.

Now imagine this: one day the mad scientist goes too far. He creates the enemy himself—and even hands them weapons.

In an instant, all the “Doctor! Our brilliant Doctor!” types would start yelling, “We knew that bastard would go off the rails!”

He’d no longer be the “mad scientist”—just plain mad.

The Sichuan Tang Clan’s image within the orthodox sects is exactly like that.

Though they fall under the banner of orthodoxy, their use of poison and throwing weapons has always earned them suspicion and mistrust.

And because they themselves take so much pride in being “orthodox,” they react with pathological vigilance to those external doubts—treating them as the guardians of the line they dare not cross.

They were actually a pretty decent group in the original story.

Sure, the game shouted “This ain’t proper wuxia!” every time it could, but the Sichuan Tang Clan still came across as a decent orthodox faction.

Then came the problem: the Lecher incident twenty years ago.

To them, that event must’ve been a massive threat—one that could’ve pushed them over the line for good.

Even if it was officially banned, the Poisoned One was created by someone from the Tang Clan.

And he became a Lecher while carrying an aphrodisiac developed by the clan itself.

At the time, the current clan head—then the young heir—chased him down personally in secret, killed him, and buried the entire incident.

Based on what I’ve heard, they handled it as cleanly as one would expect from a prestigious sect.

They figured out what went wrong, took swift action, and even tried to compensate the victims properly.

They managed to stop the rumors before they spread.

The problem is... now we’ve got Storm of the Tang Clan.

Twenty years later, the Lecher’s own child appears and publishes a book proclaiming, “My father was the Lecher. A victim of the Tang Clan’s experimentation.”

A full-blown exposé.

Poisoned Ones, created through countless human experiments.

An aphrodisiac potent enough to be used for rape.

Both traced back to the Sichuan Tang Clan.

And now, twenty years later, the truth threatens to explode.

If I were them, I’d be furious too.

To them, it must feel like this foreigner of a bookstore owner just got his neck wrung out of nowhere, and now they’re forced to yell, “We handled this twenty years ago! Why dig it up now?!”

The fact that Storm of the Tang Clan lines up so closely with real events is ridiculous... but I get it.

It’s absurd, but the clues were there.

Hwa-rin’s Poisoned One father and her mother... Starting with her father: given the way Hwa-rin turned out, it’s hard to believe he was mentally sound.

And her mother too—her obsessive hatred toward her own daughter might actually make sense now, if it all stemmed from rape.

This world has no abortion.

Imagine a young, unmarried woman getting raped by the Lecher and falling pregnant. The trauma alone would be overwhelming.

And with her prospects for marriage destroyed, how easy could it have been for her to love that child?

Add a few wuxia-genre tropes to that mix, and boom. It’s just too real.

This is insane.

They won’t let this go lightly.

Storm of the Tang Clan poked at the Tang Clan’s most shameful secret.

And it became a massive hit.

From their perspective, this isn’t a case of, “Oh, it’s just a novel. Haha! Good luck with sales!”

No. They’re far more likely to see this as a challenge to their authority.

We’re going to be imprisoned in one of the Tang Clan’s cells and punished.

Even if I burst through a window and ran straight to the authorities right now, no bureaucrat is going to stick their neck out for a black-haired barbarian like me.

Worse, when they see Hwa-rin with me, they’ll bow and say, “Ah, a private family matter. Government should not interfere,” before neatly tying her up and handing her over.

So what do I do?

“We didn’t write Storm of the Tang Clan because we wanted to die. We wrote it... because we wanted to live.”

Misunderstanding for misunderstanding.

If we must be accused, we need a reason that justifies the offense.

---------

“Talking about a direct bloodline member of the clan here is a little... delicate. Is there another floor above?”

The Pavilion Head glanced at the nearby martial artists, clearly uncomfortable with the mention of Tang Geo-ho, then turned to me.

“We have a third floor where we stay.”

“Only the Vice Pavilion Head will come with us. Let’s go.”

Me, Hwa-rin, the Pavilion Head, and what looked like his most trusted subordinate climbed up to the third floor.

Why do we go up a floor every time we speak?

Is this some kind of hellishly hard tutorial tower? Or a deadly game show?

“Hey. Yun-ho.”

On the way up to the attic, Hwa-rin whispered and shot me a look that screamed “What the hell are you saying right now?”

To her, this whole thing probably sounded like total nonsense.

Just trust me and stay quiet.

I grabbed her wrist and gave her a look that said, Trust your oppa. Leave this to me.

Hwa-rin responded by squeezing my hand and giving a subtle nod.

We’ve done so many rehearsed cons together that this much chemistry comes naturally now.

“That can’t be true! I admit I’m not fond of Tang Geo-ho, but he’s a direct bloodline member of the previous Clan Head. He’s the current Clan Head’s own brother. If you’re lying just to save yourself, it’ll backfire spectacularly.”

The Pavilion Head glared at me as he sat down in the attic, clearly trying to scare me into backing off.

Of course he doesn’t believe it.

Even if he wanted to, it’s too unbelievable. Who would believe that someone from the main bloodline of the clan is secretly running human experiments?

You don’t want to believe it because it’s a direct bloodline member? Fine. I’ll make you believe it.

By the time we’d reached the attic, I had already worked out the logic.

Now I just needed to say it.

I smiled lightly and readied my first move.

“There’s a rumor I once heard. About twenty years ago, a direct bloodline member of the Tang Clan mentioned wanting to experiment with the Poisoned Ones. It caused quite a stir, if I recall.”

Let’s start with something buried.

“How do you know that?”

The Pavilion Head’s eyes widened in surprise.

How do I know? Because the original setting explained exactly how Hwa-rin got like this.

But I can’t say that out loud.

Luckily, I have another angle.

“Before working here at Daseogak, I wandered the Central Plains as a storyteller. And while storytellers specialize in telling things others haven’t heard, they’re also experts at hearing things others haven’t said. Of course—some of those stories must never be repeated aloud.”

I struck a playful pose, holding my lips shut with my fingers to suggest I heard it but never told anyone.

The Pavilion Head looked at me suspiciously.

A vague rumor, told by a wandering storyteller? Easy to dismiss.

So I stared him down, then shifted my gaze to Hwa-rin—subtly signaling that the evidence was sitting right there.

“...Twenty years ago, Tang Geo-ho really did talk like that. He was punished for it. But afterward, I heard he changed. That he opposed the Poisoned Ones project ever since.”

He closed his eyes slightly, admitting the truth behind the rumor.

Nice. Good start.

“And yet, after being punished, Tang Geo-ho decided to continue the experiments in secret. Ten years ago, he visited Hwa-rin. Maybe... he was deliberately searching for children tied to that secret?”

Now I brought up a detail he didn’t say—that Tang Geo-ho sought out illegitimate children.

This wasn't a wild accusation. It was a question, deduced from evidence.

A nudge to build empathy.

“Yeah. He volunteered to track down the Lecher’s bastards.”

For a brief moment, doubt flickered in the Pavilion Head’s eyes—Could Tang Geo-ho really have...?

This was it.

My opening.

I had to take that sliver of doubt and pull it toward us.

“It’s been more than ten years. In all that time, Tang Geo-ho’s been teaching Hwa-rin the Tang Clan’s martial arts... while secretly feeding her poison. Trying to make her into a Poisoned One. Do you know how often he’s been mysteriously ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) absent from the clan during those years?”

“...He has been taking a lot of trips lately...”

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

“Do you know how much pain and humiliation Hwa-rin has suffered over the past ten years while being deceived by Tang Geo-ho? Look at this! Look at her arms—her face! Anyone can see these are signs of Poisoned One experimentation!”

If the first two truths had planted the seeds of doubt, then the third had to pull sympathy.

I grabbed Hwa-rin’s arm and held it out toward the Pavilion Head.

Most of the markings had faded, but the traces of the Poisoned One experiment were still clear enough.

The Pavilion Head, being a Tang Clan man well-versed in both poisons and medicine, wouldn’t be able to deny it outright.

“Hrmm...”

He stared at her skin for a moment, then turned his eyes away.

He didn’t want to admit it—but he didn’t seem to realize that turning his gaze was admission enough.

“Pavilion Head. Do you truly not believe us? Or do you just not want to believe it? If Hwa-rin hadn’t discovered the true nature of the medicine Tang Geo-ho was giving her and fled when she did, she’d be in a far worse state by now.”

Time to corner him using both facts and sympathy.

“Those marks really are the marks of a Poisoned One. But if Tang Geo-ho truly did all this, then why didn’t you come to Sichuan? If you had, he would’ve been severely punished.”

He couldn’t deny Tang Geo-ho’s actions.

He couldn’t deny Hwa-rin’s symptoms.

So all he could do now was question us—our motives, our path, our judgment.

Just as I’d expected.

“Hwa-rin barely managed to escape. But Tang Geo-ho is still after us. Even if we did go to the Tang Clan in Sichuan, who would believe the bastard child of the clan and a black-haired barbarian like me? Worse, we’d just be handing her right back into his hands.”

Direct bloodline versus a bastard child.

In a world that values bloodlines more than justice, the Pavilion Head knew whose words would be trusted.

“So... that’s why you wrote the book?”

Good.

He was starting to understand.

“Yes. That incident twenty years ago—was one that the Clan Head himself dealt with. If we published a story that touched on that buried secret, we were sure someone truly trusted by the Clan Head would come. When you didn’t recognize Hwa-rin’s name, I was certain.”

I spoke without hesitation, like someone finally revealing a long-hidden plan.

Like someone who’d been prepared for this moment.

“So Tang Geo-ho really did experiment with Poisoned Ones...”

I heard it in his voice—anger.

Almost there.

“It’s true. That bastard tricked me. I’ve suffered for ten years because of him.”

Right on cue, Hwa-rin delivered supporting fire.

Thank you, Hwa-rin. I’ll handle the finishing blow.

“We were going to die if we did nothing. We didn’t publish Storm of the Tang Clan because we wanted to die. We published it because we wanted to live.”

Misunderstanding for misunderstanding.

But not one that simply reveals the past.

One that plants the possibility of an even greater scandal.

Use a larger, newer secret to distract from the old.

Now we wait for the result.

Silence fell.

The kind of silence that always comes right before the culprit is revealed in a detective comic.

I stayed quiet and stared at the Pavilion Head.

Sunset light streamed through the attic window, casting a dusty glow across the floor.

The Pavilion Head stared at Hwa-rin for a long moment.

“...Child. What martial arts of the Tang Clan have you learned?”

Finally, he spoke—and directed his question at her.

Hwa-rin answered, listing the techniques she had mastered.

“You’ve trained in the inner clan’s arts. Ha... of course. If he was going to make a proper Poisoned One, he’d need the more stable internal poison arts from the direct bloodline. So that bastard Tang Geo-ho really was continuing those cruel experiments on bastard children... Ha...”

The Pavilion Head looked at Hwa-rin and gave a hollow laugh—one filled with disbelief.

Even the remaining evidence now pointed to Tang Geo-ho as the culprit.

But I couldn’t let my guard down.

We were still the underdogs—underdogs who had bet their lives on this.

“Hwa-rin. We can finally live.”

I pulled her into a hug, like a lost child who had finally found an adult after hours of wandering.

“Yun-ho...”

Hwa-rin flinched slightly before returning the hug.

She’s gotten good at acting.

She understood what I was doing.

Still... why was she hugging so tight? I could barely breathe.

Not that I was going to complain—moist melons make for good cushioning.

“It’s finally over... Sniffle.”

I forced out a tear, drawing from the well of injustice I’d been carrying.

Crying wasn’t hard when your whole life had been unfair. Life... really.

“Don’t cry, you idiot. Why are you the one crying when it’s about me?”

“Tsk... To think the mighty Sichuan Tang Clan has come to this...”

The Pavilion Head let out a lamenting sigh as he watched us.

---------

“Child. Give me your hand.”

After what felt like forever, Hwa-rin finally let go of me.

The Pavilion Head stepped forward again.

Hwa-rin extended her hand, and he checked her pulse.

“What’s this? No way. Sit down. Circulate your internal energy. I’m going to check your meridians.”

He was startled.

What now?

“It’s true... I can’t believe it...”

“What is it? Is Hwa-rin’s condition getting worse? I thought she was improving since she stopped taking the poison recently...”

“No. This isn’t recovery. It’s just like you said... If Tang Geo-ho did this, then of course he wouldn’t give up on her. Not after this.”

The Pavilion Head stared at Hwa-rin like she was some kind of priceless treasure.

“...What do you mean?”

What’s happening?

Tell me what’s going on.

Is Hwa-rin not recovering?

Was the Fate-Reverser ability just a placebo all along?

The Pavilion Head brushed his beard once or twice, clearly organizing his thoughts before finally speaking.

What he said next, I never expected.

“The Tang Clan’s forbidden, tragic ambition—the complete Poisoned One. This girl’s body is evolving into the perfect vessel for it.”