The Outcast Writer of a Martial Arts Visual Novel-Chapter 158: Inevitability - 2

What the hell is she doing here.

Didn’t that woman flee to Shaanxi Province? Did Tang Geo-ho seriously go all the way to Shaanxi just to find Tang Hwa-rin?

So—someone who lived in Sichuan passed through Seong Family Manor in Daeheung County, Hubei, went to the estate in Shaanxi, heard Hwa-rin was headed to Sichuan from Yichang, and set a trap there? And while he was at it, he even turned Hwa-rin’s mother into a hostage?

Even to be a villain, you've got to be hardworking. With that kind of dedication, he could've actually built the Greatest Clan Under Heaven if he’d chosen the right path. That’s some serious commitment.

“Even in open terrain, there’s no escaping.”

There aren’t many black-clad warriors left, but every one of them is an elite. If I try to run with these legs, it’ll look like a turtle trying to escape.

Better to observe for now.

“Crazy bitch? You little shit, talking to your mother like that after all these years.”

What a heartwarming mother-daughter relationship.

Tang Hwa-rin’s mother, apparently oblivious to her situation or the fact that she was tied up, snapped back at her {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} daughter the moment Hwa-rin called her crazy.

Right. This is the same lady who ruined multiple lives back at Seong Family Manor. Her personality really hasn’t mellowed with age.

“Why are you here?”

“What do you think happened? Some bastard dragged me here! Are you dense or just—hngh!”

“Enough.”

Tang Geo-ho pressed her throat with a look of annoyance, silencing her instantly.

He must’ve struck her pressure point. Pressure point strikes—no matter how many times I see them, they’re fascinating. Like having a mute button... or a sleep button.

“So what now? What’s the plan with her? Don’t tell me you’re gonna try threatening me with her life?”

Hwa-rin stared at him like she couldn’t believe the stupidity.

Threatening to kill her mom? That’s not gonna work. If anything, he'd be better off threatening not to kill her. Like, “Take the poison pellet or I’ll keep her alive for a long, healthy life.” That might actually work.

“I’ll give you her life.”

Tang Geo-ho dropped a bombshell.

“What?”

“Your mother knew everything—and for the sake of her own luxury, she went along with it. She’s garbage. In fact, after she fell out with the Seong Manor Head, she came begging me for poison to use as leverage.”

So she knew about the experiments on Hwa-rin? And even tried to kill her own husband? Wow. Even rebellious royal princes who usurp thrones would bow out of that level of degeneracy.

“So what. Who do you really want dead?”

Hwa-rin’s voice was cold with murderous intent, but Tang Geo-ho just smiled like some benevolent father.

“Hwa-rin. I understand that you want to kill me for what I did to you. But I’m not like your mother, who threw her child into hell. I cherished you like my own daughter. If you become a Poisoned One, I’ll give you a life beyond pain and suffering—wealth and glory beyond imagination. So calm your anger... and come with me.”

So now child experimentation is how we show love? What a load of delusional crap.

“Untie her.”

Hwa-rin... you’re not actually falling for this, are you?

As she stared at her mother with burning eyes, Tang Geo-ho nodded and released the pressure point.

“H-Hwa-rin...”

Her mother looked up at her with fear in her eyes.

“Did you really know everything?”

“I-I found out later!”

So she did know. Hwa-rin’s face darkened. She exhaled softly and closed her eyes, trying to stay calm.

But her eyelids were trembling. She wasn’t okay. She was at the edge of a line she might never come back from.

“Hwa-rin! You don’t have to become a monster just because she was one!”

I shouted, and she looked at me in shock.

It’s not about morality. It’s because I know you, Hwa-rin. You’re softer than you let on.

If you kill your mother in anger, you’ll carry the scars forever. That guilt will eat at you, rot you from the inside—and eventually, it might turn you into the very thing you despise.

“She’s not even worth killing.”

Maybe she heard me. Hwa-rin threw the knife to the ground.

“Then she’s useless. I’ll kill her myself.”

“No!”

Hwa-rin blocked the flying throwing knife Tang Geo-ho had aimed at her mother.

“Ha! So her life does mean something to you. If you want to save her, take the poison pellet.”

Tang Geo-ho laughed mockingly.

“Keep dreaming. She’s not even worth that.”

“You say that, but look at you—protecting her with your own body.”

Tang Geo-ho sneered, watching Hwa-rin subtly shift to shield her mother.

“I’m not like that crazy bitch.”

She’s right. She doesn’t want to kill her—but taking the poison to save her is going too far. And yet, if she does nothing, her mother will die.

Then she’ll be no different from her mother, who stood by and did nothing while her daughter was destroyed.

The standoff between Tang Geo-ho and Tang Hwa-rin dragged on. A person neither worth saving nor killing... This woman really was a cursed burden.

“Stupid girl.”

But unlike I expected, Tang Hwa-rin’s mother wasn’t the bland, boiled chicken breast of moral dilemmas. She grabbed the knife from the ground.

“W-what?”

“You’ve always been blind. Do you really think they’re gonna let me live after this? ...Ugh!”

She charged at one of the black-clad warriors with the knife, but they weren’t the type to stand around and watch.

In a single move, both of her arms were severed and she collapsed to the ground.

“A-Are you insane?!”

Hwa-rin ran to her fallen mother.

“Stupid brat. I was dead the moment I got dragged here, so I figured I’d act like a mom once in my life.”

She was bleeding too much. Her injuries weren’t limited to just her arms—her abdomen was split open too.

“Stop talking like some saint! What’s with the act, huh?! Why are you pretending to be good?!”

“Pretending, my ass. I’m just being a bitch to the bitter end. So don’t screw up your life like I did. You like that black-haired brat, right? Then think carefully. Once you date a black-haired man, you’ll never be able to be with anyone else.”

“You crazy hag! Hey! Heyyy!”

Hwa-rin shook her mother by the shoulders, but her eyes were already losing focus.

“I don’t wanna see your face anymore... so take your time coming to the afterlife...”

Was that a trace of maternal instinct stirred by Hwa-rin’s words? Or just the final spiteful gesture of a woman who refused to be used by anyone to the very end?

For someone who destroyed her daughter’s life—and the lives of countless people in Seong Family Manor—it was a pitiful, anticlimactic end.

And yet... Hwa-rin didn’t shed a single tear.

“...Mom.”

She only bit her lip in silent grief.

---------

“Useless to the end.”

Tang Geo-ho muttered coldly at the death of his final card.

“What did you just say?”

“If you won’t eat it, I’ll kill them all. And if you still refuse, I’ll take you to the Demonic Sect.”

“Hwa-rin! Even if you take it, we’re all dead anyway!”

Everyone here was now a hostage. As long as Hwa-rin remained in this Schrödinger’s state of "maybe" taking the poison pellet, our lives were safe.

“This black-haired bastard has done nothing but interfere.”

Tang Geo-ho apparently had enough of me. He grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground.

Getting choked again?

But it wasn’t the pain in my neck that came—it was weightlessness.

“Huh?”

That sensation—like my body had just disconnected from the ground. Like a scene sped up fivefold in a video when a massage gun hits someone and they just fly off screen.

Oh. He threw me.

Just as I had that thought, an immense impact slammed into my back.

“Yun-ho!”

Through the haze of blood, I saw Hwa-rin running toward me.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

********

Tang Hwa-rin rushed toward Kang Yun-ho with a panicked expression.

“Yun-ho! Are you okay? Yun-ho! Yun-ho!”

Was something seriously wrong? With a heart full of fear, she quickly began checking his condition. Her hands were urgent—but it was the injured Yun-ho who remained calm.

Yun-ho grabbed her wrist gently to show he was alright, then whispered in a voice only she could hear.

“Hwa-rin. Let’s take the horse and run.”

Fortunately, only his skin was grazed. His body, already resistant to blades, hadn’t suffered a major wound. Hwa-rin let out a quiet sigh of relief. But—run? What was he talking about?

She didn’t move her head but followed Yun-ho’s gaze with her eyes. Only then did she notice—this was the stable of the inn.

A roofed structure in a 丁-shape with no gates. If they just untied the reins, they could escape on horseback immediately.

To think he found an escape route mid-flight—his crisis response skills were truly something else.

“But could we escape together?”

The horses the Tang Clan had ridden were undoubtedly well-bred warhorses. Most martial artists wouldn’t be able to catch them.

She could feel the gazes of the black-clad warriors behind her. The reason they hadn’t followed even when she ran to Yun-ho... was probably because they were confident they could capture her any time.

“If we run together, I might live—but Yun-ho will die.”

Her mother was dead, and the man she’d trusted like a father for ten years had betrayed her. Now, there was only one person left who mattered to her.

Was her own life worth so much that she should gamble him as collateral?

“Yun-ho. Pretend to be dead.”

She had made up her mind.

“What?”

Yun-ho stared at her in confusion.

“If things get chaotic—run.”

She didn’t want to die. But if she did die, she wanted the last face he remembered of her to be one with a smile.

Hwa-rin gave him a smile, then turned her body away.

“Give me the Thousand-Year Centipede’s Poison Pellet.”

Leaving Yun-ho behind, Hwa-rin stepped toward Tang Geo-ho and held out her hand. freewebnoveℓ.com

“So you’ve finally made your decision.”

“If one more person dies, I won’t go with you.”

“I promise.”

Hwa-rin looked down at the poison pellet placed in her palm. Upon closer inspection, it was cracked—a fragment.

Did that mean it was too precious to use all on one person?

She looked down at her palm, soaked in Kang Yun-ho’s blood. That face she had just seen might be the last she ever would. Maybe she should’ve kissed him while she had the chance.

No—that would’ve only drawn more attention to him.

If Yun-ho was going to escape, she couldn’t afford that.

She clenched her fist tightly, smearing the pellet with Yun-ho’s blood as a talisman, and swallowed it whole.

---------

The poison spread through her system in an instant.

The ultra-toxic venom raced through her meridians like flaming centipedes crawling beneath her skin. Poison strong enough to melt flesh remained trapped within her bloodstream, unable to escape.

Her body—prepared for over ten years—refused to surrender itself so easily to the invading venom.

“Shut up and follow my lead.”

At her command, the poison began to converge.

“Gather the poison. Condense it.”

Obeying her will, the poison that had tried to spread throughout her body began to gather in one place, forming a core.

The deadly toxins slumbering within her body for a decade began to swirl around the newly forming core of the Thousand-Year Centipede’s poison.

Like a spider cocooning its prey in silk, her will and the poisons in her body came together to forge the Poison Core.

“No... it’s not enough.”

The core was barely forming—and now it threatened to collapse. If she failed to contain it, her body would fall apart. She had to hold on. But it wasn’t enough. Something was missing.

If it continued like this... she would die.

Despair crept into her heart.

Then she heard voices—Tang Geo-ho and the black-clad men, speaking.

“If she forms a poison core right here, wouldn’t she be able to take revenge on us?”

“Impossible.”

“Why?”

“We’ve already fed fragments of the pellet to several test subjects.”

“Didn’t they all fail?”

“Some were partial successes. Two died during core formation. One survived but died days later, his brain boiling from fever. The last one endured the fever... but his body melted away within days. This girl will lose consciousness from the fever. Once she does, we’ll take her away.”

The last one—he must’ve been Yun-ho’s friend.

Suddenly, Yun-ho’s face—his sorrowful longing for a woman—flashed in her mind. Her heart throbbed as fiercely as the venom did.

She had to endure. If she died, she would leave another scar in his heart.

Worse than death—was something she could not accept.

“I don’t want to be second.”

If she died like this, she would be remembered only as “the other one.” Just “one of the friends.”

She wanted to live. If she could live—even as second—it was fine. Because someday, she would push out the first and claim her place.

If she survived, she would be the final victor. But if she died—she would forever remain second.

“Yun-ho. Yun-ho. Yun-ho.”

Her heart was filled with one man. If she died, she’d lose him. If she died, he might die too.

She couldn’t lose him.

And maybe because her heart had filled with that man... something strange stirred inside her.

“This... Yun-ho?”

The blood she had swallowed with the poison pellet. It carried Yun-ho’s energy. As she touched upon it, the energy flowed strangely—toward the most dangerous place: the forming core.

“No way...”

A small thread—yet the one thread that could solve everything.

And Hwa-rin refused to let it go.

“Then I suppose we no longer need the hostages. I’ll go cut the throat of the one who flew off.”

One black-clad warrior drew his sword and moved to kill Yun-ho.

“Who said you could?”

“Gaaaagh!”

Hwa-rin opened her eyes and rose. She grabbed the man’s shoulder—and in an instant, his body melted away.

“Did it work? Tell me.”

Tang Geo-ho stepped back, his expression mixed with awe and wariness.

“No. It failed.”

With a calm face, Hwa-rin looked at the black-clad warriors—then down at her own body.

It wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t complete.

No one knew that better than her.

She was not a perfect Poisoned One.

But—

“Still... it’s enough to kill all of you.”

It was enough to protect him.