No sooner had they reached the Tang estate quarters than someone came running.“You…!”Tang Hae-han shouted with a flushed face, then shut his mouth.He had burst out in agitation, but the force radiating from the Clan Head and Heukcheon Amgui standing before her was so fierce he could not come any closer.Swallowing his anger, Tang Hae-han spoke in a low voice.“We’ll talk later. For warning—consider yourself dead to me.”Sohwa did not so much as twitch.There was already someone who had told her she was dead the moment she returned. Compared to Tang Min, Tang Hae-han’s threat was nothing more than a rabbit flailing its little forepaws.When Tang Hae-han stepped back, the household members all bowed to the Clan Head at once. The Clan Head received their bows and gave a brief order.“Make ready to return to Sichuan at once.”“Yes.”They added no quibbles and moved immediately.Before crossing the threshold, the Clan Head looked back.A chill gaze fell on Tang Sohwa. And a voice colder than his gaze pierced her eardrums.“You will follow me.”“Clan Head, now hold on a breath. Let me fetch a club, so don’t start without me.”The Clan Head refused Heukcheon Amgui’s request to jump in swinging.“There is no time. We will finish this talk within a quarter of an hour, and the rest I will hear on the way back to Sichuan.”“You’re not just using time as an excuse because you’re afraid I’ll lay a hand on your daughter, are you?”Heukcheon Amgui knit the brow, but the Clan Head did not entertain the jest.“Right now it takes priority that the Alliance Leader notify the other sects of our return, so I have said no more—but soon they may insist we lock Sohwa in the dungeon.”At those words Tang Min closed his mouth. Much had been omitted, but he understood what was meant.There was little chance the Alliance members would be lenient to the one who had caused this uproar; until they confirmed evidence they acknowledged, voices would likely rise to interrogate her.Given that it was the Clan Head speaking and even Heukcheon Amgui—who would normally snipe at any word—did not sneer, it seemed the atmosphere at headquarters had been more serious than expected.The Clan Head headed straight for his room.Tang Min followed without reading the mood, but as there was no time to wrangle, the Clan Head closed the door as it was.Someone had likely set up a qi screen; the sounds outside vanished.Cutting through the sunken air, the Clan Head spoke in a heavy voice.“Speak.”He ordered while still standing, not even taking a seat.Sohwa cared less for the Clan Head’s fearsome voice than for his soiled garments.The sight overlapped with the past.It overlapped with the humiliation of the Tang Clan Head who ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) had gone to the Namgung to bow his pride.Holding down what had surged in her chest, Sohwa answered.“What is it you would have me say?”“Do not think to drag out time.”A voice colder than a blizzard asked again.“What is happening?”“How do you ask me that?”“Tang Sohwa.”The Clan Head swallowed a sigh and spoke again.“I will take the Tang household and leave headquarters. But if Blood Cult dogs left in Wuhan are chasing you, we may be ambushed the moment we go out.”“……”“Speak before I make the worst choice and drive everyone into a dead end.”Dispelling his wrath, the Clan Head let out a long breath as he looked at his daughter, who was half his size.“What on earth is happening?”Sohwa’s sealed lips slowly parted.Hesitating, she spoke as if testing the two pillars of the Tang Clan.“The Blood Demon needs me.”“The Blood Demon?”The Clan Head’s brow twisted.“The Blood Demon? Did we not just return from Daebyeol Mountain having confirmed that the Blood Demon does not exist?”He was truly angry. In all this, he was greatly disappointed in his daughter for playing with words.Tang Min also rebuked Tang Sohwa with his eyes.Seeing the two elders’ fixed gazes, Sohwa resigned herself.As expected, the Alliance Leader had erased the Blood Demon’s existence.In the end, he had apparently come to terms with that fiend.It was not that the Alliance Leader had grown particularly evil and therefore made such a choice.For a Daoist who had lost his path, this life must have been hell.To a Daoist living hell, the Blood Demon was no longer an enemy—only that.Sohwa recalled the empty mokham the Alliance Leader had thrown. It seemed the Blood Demon had taken the medicine she had left in the black horn.'Reckless. Who knows what side effects it carries.'Perhaps he had waited so long that he forced himself that far.Sohwa understood why the Blood Demon had followed all the way to the Central Plains.'It seems the pill worked on him.'Now, to the Blood Demon, Tang Sohwa was not just a useful person. She was the very target he must obtain.She was a human who could place in his hand an endless supply of blood-jade.Lifting the gaze she had lowered, Tang Sohwa fixed the Clan Head with her eyes.Tang Ji-ha’s suspicion was not wrong.If they left this place now, the Blood Cult would attack them. Yet if they remained at headquarters, the Alliance Leader would spirit her away and place her in the Blood Demon’s hand; it was a dilemma.But if a choice had to be made, the latter was better.At least the Alliance Leader would have received a promise of peace from the Blood Demon.It was many times wiser to ride a false peace and seize a chance to strike back than to see the Tang Clan’s strength annihilated.Blinking slowly, Tang Sohwa withdrew her words.“I misspoke because I am tired. I did not mean the Blood Demon; I meant the Blood Cult.”She brought out a story Tang Ji-ha could believe.“The Blood Cult bore a grudge because I warned of their stirrings and so targeted me. In the midst of that, they learned of my constitution.”Because Tang Ji-ha had always feared that, his brow twisted deeply.“They have always liked to seize people for experiments; they have been curious about my body for months.”She mixed truth and falsehood as she testified.“The Alliance Leader, knowing this, sought to lure the Blood Cult. That is also why I scattered tracking incense and followed them. I did not say so for fear you would worry; my thinking was short.”“Clan Head.”Tang Min cut in on Sohwa’s words in a low voice.“Grant me a moment. I truly must go out and fetch my club.”Glaring at Sohwa with wrathful eyes, he said,“How dare you lie to the Clan Head? Whom do you think you are deceiving!”The Clan Head said nothing. It was because he was thinking the same as Heukcheon Amgui.Rage and killing intent tangled and filled the closed room.Ordinarily one would faint under such pressure, but Sohwa’s expression did not change.Rather, she lifted the eyes she had dropped and met the two martial men’s gazes.“If you do not believe me, what should I do?”“What?”“Tell me what you want to believe. Then I will answer that it is so.”Tang Min was at a loss for words.Tang Sohwa was certainly lying. Yet if asked why he thought so, he had nothing to say.Once he had registered the Alliance Leader’s words that Tang Sohwa was terrified, all her inscrutable behavior had begun to look like that.Fortunately, Tang Ji-ha pointed out her weak point.“When you disappeared, the Alliance Leader did not try to rescue you. Yet you say he used you to track the Blood Cult?”“The Alliance Leader’s aim was not to protect me, so he may not have thought to save me.”“Do you know what the Alliance Leader’s aim is?”Sohwa started to answer and, before she knew it, let out a hollow laugh.Steadying her voice, she replied plainly.“What he desires is peace in the Central Plains.”In a grave voice, the eldest daughter declared,“And I have no interest in peace in the Central Plains. I have not the least intention of fighting the Blood Cult for peace. I merely resisted because they targeted me and sought to harm me.”“You resisted? The Blood Cult?”Tang Min’s eyes rolled up and down quickly. A slender body with no bent toward martial studies filled his eyes. She had practiced external arts in her way, but to eyes of the foremost masters of the martial world, her sinew and bone were poor.“You expect me to believe you stepped forth and fought the Blood Cult?”“Yes.”“Ha.”At Tang Min’s open sneer, Tang Sohwa answered evenly.“Because I want to live.”“……”“I have no intention of meekly handing my life to the Blood Cult. Unless it be after I make them regret targeting me.”This was sincere.She wanted to survive by her own power.So that she would not repeat a ghastly life of surviving by others’ lives.“Of course, it is also true I lacked fear and was arrogant. Because of that, I dared to make the Clan Head and the Grand Elder step out and wasted the Tang Clan’s precious strength. And the Young Clan Head…”The calm voice wavered for a moment.“I… harmed the Young Clan Head, so I will accept whatever punishment you decree.”This, too, was sincere.Thus the Grand Elder and the Clan Head were thrown into confusion.It sounded like truth, and also like falsehood.Unable to decide readily, the Clan Head’s heart grew complicated.Surely the power-holders of other sects would try to hold Sohwa responsible for this turmoil.To them, whether Sohwa was connected to the Blood Cult or not did not matter.Even if they believed she had been a victim kidnapped by the Blood Cult, they would demand she take responsibility.If they loaded a debt on the Tang Clan, it would return to them as at least some gain.Had Tang Sohwa been merely one of the Tang household, it would have been less worrisome. But Tang Sohwa was the Clan Head’s direct daughter. Since the Clan Head would not readily hand her to the dungeon, the Alliance members had much they could wring from the Tang Clan.Tang Ji-ha let out a sigh without realizing it.Naturally, he could not allow those vultures’ greed to be the reason Sohwa ended up in a dungeon.'But truly…'If fiends like devils were after Sohwa, they could not leave headquarters.Headquarters would rather be the wall that blocked the outside foe.Caught in contradiction, Tang Ji-ha rubbed a tired face.At the very instant Sohwa, perceiving his worry, also darkened in expression,the Clan Head, sensing something, withdrew the qi screen.“Clan Head, someone has come from Sagye Hall.”From outside, a retainer announced a visitor.The muscles of his jaw twitched broadly.'Has headquarters already decided?'It seemed even the time to deliberate had been taken away.The Clan Head answered in a low voice.“Say that this is no time to receive guests, and that I will go to them myself.”The Clan Head tried to hold out meaninglessly, but the retainer reported in an awkward tone.“Forgive me… they did not request an audience with the Clan Head; they only asked that a message be delivered.”“A message?”“Yes, that when the Young Clan Head later regains consciousness, they will send him to his quarters after screening…”The Clan Head did not even listen to the end before he flung the door open.“What?”“That person said they do not know the details either—only that the Young Clan Head will, for the time being, receive treatment at Sagye Hall from the Divine Physician and headquarters physicians, so please do not worry and remain here… That is what they asked us to convey.”Even with the qi screen gone, a heavier silence fell than before.The Alliance Leader had taken the Tang Young Clan Head hostage.Without a word, the Clan Head left the room. Knowing where he was going, Tang Min neither asked nor tried to stop him. Rather, with a face gone cold and hard, he followed after the Clan Head.Seeing the Clan Head and the Grand Elder going to the Alliance Leader, the retainer did not know what to do.He hesitated, wondering whether to go and stop them or to continue packing as ordered by the Clan Head, and stared at the Clan Head’s room. Then he knit his brow.Though her face was habitually expressionless, Tang Sohwa’s face was utterly unresponsive.Cold as if facing a corpse, with not so much as warmth, let alone vitality.As if thinking alone of something, she looked down the corridor the Clan Head had taken and then closed her eyes. When her long lashes lifted again, her face changed subtly. As if someone had made a decision.“There is no need to pack, so do not come in.”Passing the retainer, she added,“Heat the bathwater. When he returns, he will bathe first.”“Y-yes.”The retainer nodded awkwardly.Watching Tang Sohwa head toward the Medical Division, he turned the other way to draw water.

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