I Am This Murim's Crazy Bitch-Chapter 232: Even a Ronin Has the Loyalty of a Ronin (5)

The title Mad Demon of Accusation meant just that — a mad bastard obsessed with despair. A sick pervert who got off on the sound of other people’s cries of anguish.

That, precisely, was why the Blood Sect was so dangerous.

Because the chaos they caused wasn’t driven by any lofty pretense like ruling the martial world or exacting revenge — just one twisted man’s personal thrill.

The thing that really made the Mad Demon of Accusation tick — his entire reason for living — was to push someone into utter hopelessness, then sit back and watch their face crumble. That ecstasy... the bliss of ruin.

And of course, even among the many victims, there was a favorite type.

Someone born kind, naturally righteous. The kind who never breaks, who never loses their resolve. The kind of person whose eyes still shine even when the world is cruel. That radiant sense of virtue — that’s what made them the perfect toy.

And now, the Mad Demon of Accusation was practically trembling with joy. He had just found one of the finest subjects of his life.

“Khrrrk! Hahahah! Oh, you’re amazing. Just incredible. Loyalty? That kid staked her life for something as stupid as loyalty? What a masterpiece!”

Gyeong Damgan burst into mad laughter like a lunatic.

“Yes, yes, now... what should I do with her? What would make this even better?”

To take that dazzling, beautiful child and plunge her into the pitch-black pit of despair—make her curse the world, sobbing, shattered beyond repair... God, the joy. Unspeakable joy. He had to calm down. He really did.

Face twisted from trying to hold back his excitement, Gyeong Damgan finally choked out,

“Well then. A promise is a promise. You rogue martial artists may leave now.

If you try anything stupid, you’ll die in agony. But if you just obey everything I say from now on, you might get to keep your pathetic little lives. Of course, you’ll have to follow my orders for the rest of your miserable days.”

How thrilling it was to control someone by the throat — to command them with death hovering overhead.

The looks of slow decay on the faces of those rogues, who suddenly realized their fate, made Gyeong Damgan dizzy with pleasure.

And yet—one stood out. That disciple of the Divine Maiden Sect still glaring at him, her face utterly unwavering.

Yes, she was strong.

Good.

Like a brilliant, unyielding diamond — stay hard.

The sourc𝗲 of this content is freēwēbηovel.c૦m.

“Aaagh!”

Another scream tore through the hall.

The disciple from the Divine Maiden Sect crumpled to her knees and collapsed forward. The Gu parasites had released their poison all at once.

“I told you to listen, didn’t I? When I say ‘leave,’ you leave. When I say ‘come,’ you come. Like a good little dog.”

That was when the disciple mumbled, stammering,

“I’m... I’m okay. Please... all of you, leave now. I’ll find a way to deal with this somehow...”

“Miss...”

The rogues, eyes red with shame, couldn’t bring themselves to say anything else. They left without another word.

What a glorious scene.

For the first time in years, Gyeong Damgan felt something stir in the place that had long gone numb. A tingle, even.

****

Meanwhile, Qing had mostly figured it out.

Hmm. When the parasite spits out its poison, it feels like a warm burn.

So the bug inside doesn’t kill you outright.

The poison’s the problem — not the bug itself. It just... kind of sits there, doesn’t do much damage on its own.

If it were like eating a piece of fried chicken and digesting it right away, or if you didn’t feel a thing when it released the poison, there’d be no way to know when to pretend you were hurting.

Luckily, just as her solar plexus began to flare with heat, all the rogues started screaming in sync.

Qing, of course, played along and put on her best “I’m in agony” face. The mad bastard looked thrilled.

“Khrrrk! Yes, child. Right. You probably need a clearer picture of your situation. First things first...”

The old man clicked his tongue and said,

“Strip. Let me take a look at your body.”

Qing immediately scowled.

So the bastard really was a crazed old pervert. Can’t even age with some grace, huh?

Wait... wasn’t this guy supposed to be a sharply dressed middle-aged man with a really nice nose? Why does he look ancient?

In any case, Qing had no real reason to obey. The hostages were gone. She was under no one’s thumb now.

“You’re dreaming big, huh? Pay me about fifty thousand gold upfront, and I might consider. Payment first, dear customer.”

“Khrrrk! That’s the spirit! A little resistance at the start makes it fun!

But of course, a naughty little child who doesn’t listen must be punished...”

Her solar plexus suddenly blazed like it had been doused in fiery liquor. The Gu parasite started spitting its venom again.

Qing immediately collapsed and began moaning on the floor, mimicking pain.

Thing was, when she actually hurt, she’d choke, gag, wheeze, and sound like her throat was being clawed out. But when she pretended to hurt?

It came out more like “Ahn... haah... ngh...”

Practically sounded like moaning.

Not that she cared. No one was filming her. She was proud of her performance.

As she writhed on the floor, sounding unintentionally obscene, Qing thought:

This is... kinda perfect? It’s warm like a shot of booze. If I can get drunk without drinking, this is a goddamn jackpot. Free liquor, unlimited supply.

That line of thought sparked a rare moment of clarity.

Unlimited? Nah, no way.

The thing’s just a tiny bug. It can’t make that much poison.

And it probably needs to eat to keep producing it. There’s no way it just spits out an infinite stream. There has to be a limit.

Not that it mattered to Qing, since poison didn’t work on her anyway. Still, if these parasites were so damn useful, everyone would be raising them like house pets. There had to be some major flaw. That’s probably why she’d never heard of them before.

Qing, lost in thought, didn’t even notice the Gu had run out of venom and was catching its breath.

Gyeong Damgan chuckled.

“How long are you gonna keep that up? For someone who talks so big, you sure squirm like a worm. Hah!”

“Oh. So that’s it? Whew. That’s all? Weak. If you want me to strip, you’re gonna have to try harder. I thought I was about to feel some pain. Haah...”

Damn it. Can’t even monologue in peace.

With that drunken flush surging back up inside her, Qing leaned into the performance.

“Done already? Hah... Weak.”

“You think this’ll make me strip? You gotta be warmer than the wind. The sun’s what makes people take clothes off—haaah!”

“Enough! Enough already! I get it! ...You tricked me, didn’t you?! The Gu isn’t even that bad! Aghh!”

“Seriously, stop! Okay, okay, I said stop! ...Wait, but what exactly do I need to understand? Huh, haah...”

Qing kept poking at him with smug little lines, coaxing the Gu to spew more venom.

But this was nothing like the scene Gyeong Damgan had wanted.

He’d imagined her trembling, eyes wide in fear, stripping herself down while begging for mercy.

Instead, she was writhing like a drunk, mocking him after every bout of pain.

The real victim here wasn’t Gyeong Damgan — it was the poor baby Gu inside Qing.

Damn humans! Even Gu need a break sometimes!

Eventually, it had burned through its entire poison sac and flopped limp inside her, completely ignoring the queen Gu’s orders.

“Hmm. Looks like the little bug ran out of venom. Guess that’s it for today? What a shame. You were so close to getting my clothes off. Try harder tomorrow.”

“...You’re all talk for someone who just spent five minutes rolling on the floor.”

Gyeong Damgan’s voice trembled oddly.

Qing had been the one who rolled around like she was dying, but somehow, he was the one left irritated.

Was this really how someone who swallowed a Gu was supposed to act?

That unbreakable will of hers... didn’t this go beyond that? It felt almost carefree. Insultingly so.

Grinding his teeth, Gyeong Damgan watched as Qing started spewing random nonsense again. “Talking” wasn’t quite the right word — it was more like verbal diarrhea.

“So... I can go now, right? You’ll just call me when you need me? Don’t bother trying that weird shit again. It clearly doesn’t work.”

“Go? Who said anything about letting you leave?”

“Huh? You let my rogue friends go, didn’t you?”

Qing asked back, like she genuinely didn’t get it.

Wasn’t this whole thing about planting a Gu parasite, taking hostages, and forcing her to do all sorts of dirty work?

“Oh come on, just let me go too. I still gotta play my round in the Eight Rivers Tournament, and if I don’t show up, my master’s gonna be worried sick. I’ll keep my mouth shut, and when you call, I’ll come running. So how about we call it a day? Sound good, you degenerate old pervert?”

“You brazen little bitch... Obviously, you’ll try to remove the Gu once you’re out. Like hell I’d let you go.”

Damn it, why am I the only one not getting released?

Wasn’t the whole idea: ‘Now that you’ve got a bug in you, you’re our Blood Sect mole! We’ll let you go, and then we’ll slowly make you do shady shit!’ or something like that?

But now he’s saying she’ll remove the Gu?

So if he lets her go, that means she’s capable of getting rid of it.

Which must mean the rogues couldn’t — and that’s why they were let go.

Money? Skill? Connections? Whatever it was, there had to be something Qing had that the others didn’t. Something that could get the Gu out of her.

Qing’s brain kicked into overdrive the moment her life was on the line.

Though honestly, she could’ve saved herself the mental gymnastics if she’d just asked someone like Jegal Ihyeon.

Gu parasites weren’t exactly classified information.

But hey — this is why people say knowledge is power.

“Fine. Let’s see how long that little attitude of yours lasts.”

With that, Gyeong Damgan tapped the ground. A moment later, a cleverly concealed trapdoor ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ clicked open, revealing a secret passage.

Naturally, the lid was manual.

Qing's eyes sparkled as she saw the hand lifting the trapdoor.

There were Blood Sect bastards down there!

Wow, the Blood Sect! Boo! Villains!

“Go on. Get in.”

Gyeong Damgan gave the command.

Qing obediently descended the stairs into the hidden passage.

Once she stepped onto the dim stairwell, the eerie violet gleam in her eyes finally flickered to life.

****

While Qing — now saddled with a damn Gu parasite — was being dragged into the Blood Sect’s evil secret lair...

Or rather, while the evil, terrifying Qing herself, with a Gu bomb loaded inside her, was casually infiltrating their base...

During that time, Cheon Yuhak wasn’t just sitting around twiddling his thumbs.

The moment Qing and the rogues burst through the doors like a wrecking crew, a figure had quietly slipped away over the rooftops, vanishing from the scene.

“Tsk tsk. What did I say?”

That girl always left the cleanup half-finished.

Clicking his tongue, Cheon Yuhak leapt into action.

If Qing had seen it, she absolutely would’ve demanded to know who exactly he thought was being sloppy.

****

Why the hell is there such a fully developed underground structure in this so-called ancient, backward Murim?

Aren’t basements supposed to be a modern thing?

Of course not.

Subterranean architecture was a proud tradition of all ancient civilizations — even primitive proto-monkeys hovering somewhere between chimpanzees and early humans had a knack for it.

And in cities across Zhongyuan, built along wide rivers, flooding would bury the towns in layers of silt — and then they’d just build another city on top. Over and over again.

Which meant entire underground networks stacked beneath your feet.

So when it came time to build a secret base, all you had to do was repurpose the ancestors’ handiwork.

Thus, in a dungeon so deep that not even a shred of moonlight could sneak through, Qing lay down inside a murky iron cell barely lit by a fingernail-sized oil lamp.

So this is how they treat prisoners here, huh?

Not even a single blanket. She wasn’t asking for a pillow — just give her one filthy rag to sleep under, come on.

The floor was cold, hard, uncomfortable. How was anyone supposed to sleep in a place like this?

Exactly half a keok later...

Qing was snoring.

Inside her, the baby Gu — which had been passed out from exhaustion — finally came to.

See, plants produce their own toxins naturally.

But animals, or venomous creatures like Gu, need to consume something toxic to make more.

Gu were no exception.

They originally started as beneficial parasites that lived in the human body and ate harmful substances.

Only after certain breeds were discovered and refined did they evolve into tools for domination and control — nasty tricks for nasty people.

In Qing’s case, though, thanks to her Blood Poison Human constitution, poison didn’t affect her.

But that didn’t mean she was like some divine artifact that purified toxins on contact.

Poisons just... kind of sat there.

If they broke down naturally, they dissolved over time. If they were excreted, they left the body. But a lot of them just lingered.

Which meant: there was still plenty of stuff floating around inside her that a hungry little Gu could snack on.

The baby Gu — now semi-conscious — began twitching and squirming, searching Qing’s guts for anything usable to refill its empty venom sac.

It was a textbook toxicivore — a poison-feeding parasite.

Eventually, it stumbled across a spot and tasted a drop of bile. And holy shit—

There it was.

A golden, radiant droplet of poison unlike anything it had ever known.

The apex elixir of its entire miserable Gu life.

The little parasite wagged its stubby tail in joy, diving into that delicious nectar without a second thought.

As it slurped down that heavenly bile, its color changed—just slightly, almost imperceptibly—tinged a deeper, richer red.

Of course, Qing had no idea, since she couldn’t see inside herself.

And neither did the Gu — since, well, it didn’t have eyes.