Episode 71: The Walnut Tree

The carriage stood still for a long time amidst the blizzard, appearing calm from the outside. Inside, however, the quietest battle in the world was taking place.

Then, the door of the carriage swung open.

A thick, poisonous aura dripped onto the snow, staining it, and the mist-like poison dispersed into the storm.

A man dressed in black, a middle-aged figure known as Goeui, stepped out. He clutched the “Book of Poisons” to his chest and glanced back inside the carriage, where the half-melted corpse of a poison master lay.

“Did I underestimate him?”

The poison the master had refined was more potent and abundant than Goeui had anticipated. If the master’s poison had not collapsed at the last moment, it might have been Goeui lying dead in the carriage instead.

“You should’ve just died quietly.”

Coughing a few times into the blizzard, Goeui rolled in the snow to rid himself of the lingering poison. The cold and poison stung his wounds.

His skin, hidden beneath his black clothes, was covered in scars, remnants of his escape from relentless assassins. Blood from his wounds had frozen in the harsh cold, threatening to tear his flesh if he removed his clothes.

“Those damn assassins.”

Since late autumn, Goeui had used every trick to evade them. He would pretend to rest in a village only to slip away at night, run through dense forests for days, and swim across icy rivers. The blizzard, though blinding, had been more of a help than a hindrance, erasing his tracks and masking his presence.

His bold maneuvers had bought him brief respites, but the assassins always reappeared. At first, he thought they might have marked him with a tracking scent, but that wasn’t the case. They were simply relentless.

If only they would confront him directly, but they preferred to wear him down, waiting for the right moment to strike. That was what Goeui despised most about them—they were hunters in the guise of martial artists, circling their prey until it was too exhausted to fight back.

Yet, paradoxically, the more dire the situation became, the more Goeui felt a sense of satisfaction. Leaving Tang Mujin and Dan Seolyeong behind had been the right decision. Had he lingered with them, they might have been corpses by now.

Goeui surveyed his surroundings. For now, the assassins were nowhere in sight, thanks to the blizzard that obscured everything, even footprints.

He looked towards the sun through the swirling snow, gauging the direction of the northeast. It was time to return home.

Home. The place where it all began. Where his wife and daughter were buried. Where the great walnut tree stood.

Goeui began his journey northeast. As he walked, a faint trail of poison seeped from him, darkening the snow beneath his footprints. But soon, the fresh snow covered them.

As he walked, Goeui found himself lost in thought.

“What will I do after I bury the Book of Poisons?”

He hadn’t thought that far ahead. Ideally, he wanted to return to Luoyang and wander the central plains leisurely, as he had for the past few months. In his current state, he might live another year or two.

He imagined bickering with Tang Mujin over trivial matters, then spending evenings in a tavern, savoring rich dishes with a drink. Dan Seolyeong would quietly reach for her chopsticks, knowing she could order more food but never doing so.

Perhaps, during their travels, they might even encounter Hong Geolge. It would be nice to coax him into joining their journey. And if they met Manryeokseung, they could be five.

He imagined the five of them traveling to the southern coast, to Guangxi or Guangdong. Maybe even taking a boat to Hainan Island. As he trudged through the biting blizzard, he envisioned the warm beaches of Hainan.

Or perhaps they could head north to Inner Mongolia, or east to Jilin or Liaoning. The central plains were vast, with much to see. There were so many things he wanted to show to the young and naive, or to friends who had been cloistered in Shaolin, unaware of the world.

When his thoughts reached that point, Goeui paused and sighed deeply. He realized that in his barren life, a longing had bloomed like a wildflower.

After losing his wife and daughter, the young father had lost his will to live. It didn’t matter if he died today or tomorrow. He wanted to die but didn’t, so he lived.

But as long as he was alive, he needed a goal. He set one and clung to it, living on. He had nothing to lose, thinking he wouldn’t live long anyway, so he lived without regard for others.

But now, his thoughts had changed. He found himself wishing he had been a bit more careful. Just enough to keep the assassins at bay, or to prevent the poison from collapsing.

”…It’s all pointless thinking.”

Goeui sighed deeply and continued walking northeast through the blizzard. He needed to keep moving while the snow covered his tracks to increase his chances of reaching home.

He didn’t know how many days he had walked without proper rest. His mind was foggy, but his legs kept moving, as if his upper and lower body were separate.

Then, suddenly, he sensed a presence.

Looking up, he saw five assassins blocking his path. He had encountered the assassins many times before, but this was the first time they had boldly stood in his way.

“I must look pretty bad for them to be so confident.”

None of them seemed particularly weak. They all appeared to have surpassed the pinnacle. Even in good condition, he wouldn’t have stood a chance.

“How much is my head worth for such a grand reception?”

As always, there was no response. The assassins silently drew their swords and lowered their stances.

Goeui grumbled.

”…You bastards. After all this time, you should at least introduce yourselves.”

He took a deep breath.

Just as he had lived wanting to die but unable to, there were moments when one wanted to live but couldn’t.

This was one of those moments.

As the fight began, Goeui unleashed his inner strength and lunged forward, thrusting his sword.

The simplest, fastest thrust, like a beam of light.

In one strike, he pierced the throat of an assassin.

The look of surprise on the dying assassin’s face was almost comical.

“What? Didn’t expect me to use Jinwonjin from the start?”

If inner strength was water in a vessel, Jinwonjin was the vessel itself. Once shattered, it poured out everything until nothing remained. Jinwonjin couldn’t be rebuilt or recovered. Once used, it was over.

Using Jinwonjin was as certain a death as having one’s throat slit or heart pierced, so most martial artists never used it, even in their dying moments.

The remaining four assassins took defensive stances, clearly intending to wait until Goeui exhausted himself.

“Yeah, I figured as much.”

This time, Goeui charged at the assassins.

The power of Jinwonjin was immense, but it couldn’t overcome the overwhelming disadvantage in strength. Every time he swung his sword, four swords blocked him, and when he focused on the front, a blade would come from behind, dividing his attention.

The assassins avoided direct confrontation, focusing solely on defense.

As the fight dragged on, Goeui accumulated more wounds. At some point, his forearm was deeply cut, rendering his right hand unable to form a fist.

He was losing too much blood. His movements had slowed to the level of a novice. Even if he swung his sword all day, it seemed unlikely he would take any of them down with him.

Anyone else might have given up and laid down to die, but Goeui stubbornly held on, wielding his sword with his left hand.

Then, at a certain moment, Goeui sheathed his sword and laughed.

“Haha, hahaha!”

The assassins, wary of any sudden moves, took even more defensive stances. There was no need to rush against a man who was already dying.

“You don’t know why I’m laughing, do you?”

Goeui pointed at the assassin directly in front of him with his left hand.

The one he had clashed swords with the longest, the closest.

“You should be feeling it by now. Die.”

The assassin Goeui pointed at staggered as if struck by an invisible blade, then collapsed. The remaining assassins were left bewildered, unable to comprehend what had just happened.

“You fools. Did you really think I’d use my True Origin Energy just to stab one of you in the neck at the start of a fight? My life isn’t that cheap.”

The poison core resides within the dantian, surrounded by internal energy. If the dantian is damaged or the energy disperses, the poison leaks out. The quickest ways to disrupt this energy are either to stab the lower abdomen, shattering the dantian, or to use True Origin Energy to break the vessel.

Only then did the assassins grasp the fiend’s intent. They finally noticed the faint poison seeping through the fiend’s seven apertures and pores. The fiend had been slowly poisoning them, hidden by the blizzard and their blood-soaked black clothes. Realizing it too late was their mistake.

The assassins tried to leap back, but their bodies felt unnaturally heavy. They had thought the blizzard’s cold and the long pursuit had dulled their senses, but that wasn’t the case. Their bodies stiffened, and they collapsed where they stood.

“Fools. I told you because you’re already too poisoned to survive.”

The fiend walked slowly among the assassins, who succumbed one by one to the thickening poison. The fiend, shrouded in a misty aura of poison, seemed more like death incarnate than a man.

After confirming the deaths of the five assassins, the fiend scanned the surroundings. In the distance, a shadowy figure appeared. It was a scout sent by the assassins’ leader, one who never engaged in battle and would flee at the slightest approach. The fiend thought the figure resembled a crow waiting for corpses.

The fiend assessed his own condition. The poison hadn’t fully dispersed and had seeped into his own body. His hearing and smell had vanished, leaving only a faint tingling in his sense of touch.

He looked around and spotted a snow-covered walnut tree not far away. His vision was blurry, so he wasn’t sure if it was a walnut tree, but it felt like it was.

It took him half an hour to cover the short distance to the tree. He leaned against it and exhaled deeply.

“Hoo…”

Finally, he released the last drop of poison from his core. The once white snow turned pitch black, the poison so potent that it would kill anyone who came near. The scout wouldn’t dare approach now.

The fiend fiddled with a book tucked inside his robe. ‘Did they see me take the book?’ he wondered. He didn’t know. Now, everything depended on luck. If Tang Mujin was fortunate, he might get his hands on it.

A fleeting thought crossed his mind—should he have burdened Tang Mujin with this debt? Was it right to impose his dreams on a young man full of his own aspirations?

‘No, it’s too late now.’

He stopped thinking. Sleep was overtaking him. He could no longer feel the cold. Even with his eyes open, he couldn’t see.

Finally, he closed his eyes. The walnut tree of his hometown, his wife, and daughter appeared before him.