VL 01

Chapter 1

 The Eldest Daughter of the Sichuan Tang Clan Possessed a Palace Intrigue Novel.

Some events shake a life as abruptly as a lightning strike.

Today was precisely that kind of day for Mokyeong.

“You insane Demonic Cult bastards!”

No, wait.

Since those wretches were consistently insane, the truly mad one here had to be her own uncle, who had chosen to join hands with the Demonic Cult despite being an elder of the orthodox factions.

‘A wretch worse than a maggot drowning in a cesspool!’

As a murderous glint flashed in Tang Mokyeong’s eyes, a crimson venom leaked over her green robes.

At that moment, the small body embraced within Mokyeong’s arms—contaminated by demonic energy—wriggled and burst into a fit of coughing.

“I-I’m sorry, Sister. Cough! B-Because of me, the Patriarch succession ceremony was ruined…”

“It’s fine. What does a mere succession ceremony matter?”

Contrary to her casual words, the venom radiating from Mokyeong as she continued to suppress the demonic energy while holding her younger sister was nothing short of fragrant and tender.

Tang Mokyeong, the venomous seed raised by the Sichuan Tang Clan.

In the Jianghu, she was called the Iron-Blood Demonic Witch, but to Tang Soye, she was someone entirely different.

She had to grow stronger simply to survive, and even more venomous because she now had something to protect. She was Soye’s proudest and most beloved older sister.

And yet, Soye had ruined such a sister’s Patriarch succession ceremony. A position won after rolling around on poison-stained dirt floors for a grueling fifteen years.

Glancing down at the weeping face of her young sister, Mokyeong let out a sigh and lowered her voice.

“Don’t cry, Soye. A trivial thing like this is truly nothing.”

Indeed.

A trial like this was nothing compared to the past she had endured just to survive within the Tang Clan.

It was nothing compared to those vicious times when even death had seemed sweet.

‘In truth, even this little farce that just unfolded is entirely due to that madman of an uncle.’

Truly, no one in the Sichuan Tang Clan was in their right mind except for Soye.

Even Tang Mokyeong herself.

With a self-mocking smirk, Mokyeong pulled Soye into an embrace and walked into her grandmother’s secret cave.

It was undoubtedly a trap set by Tang Baekcheon, yet she had not avoided it.

Underlying that choice was her absolute confidence that she could win no matter what petty schemes Tang Baekcheon attempted.

The Venomous Flower of Hyeonhwa, Tang Mokyeong.

Immune to all poisons, she was one who wielded every poison in existence.

The Queen of Venom, whose mere appearance was dazzling enough to blind.

Was it that arrogance that ultimately caught her by the ankle?

“Heh heh… You are truly affectionate toward that half-wit, Mokyeong! Of course, that must be why the Demonic Witch Tang Mokyeong dropped everything to come running and save her.”

Boom! With the sound of the secret cave’s door bursting open, an unpleasant voice that scraped the vocal cords like rusty iron wire echoed through the cavern.

Upon identifying the intruder, a blazing, murderous intent surged from the depths of Mokyeong’s Danjeon.

“Tang Baekcheon!”

“Tsk tsk, how lacking in manners to casually call your own uncle by his name, Mokyeong.”

“It’s laughable for trash like you to demand to be called uncle. How did you find this place?”

“I dipped the Array Master’s nephew into a vat of poison a few times, and he confessed quite readily. Of course, his body melted away in the process, so I couldn’t spare his life.”

At the mention of a familiar face, Mokyeong’s expression hardened. Throwing his head back, Tang Baekcheon burst into loud laughter.

“Ha ha!! But Mokyeong, do you really think you’re in any position to worry about your grandmother’s Array Master?”

True to Tang Baekcheon’s words, black demonic energy quickly began to billow from all directions.

‘Demonic arts!’

Mokyeong hurriedly pushed back the demonic energy with her internal qi, but the smoke, split into ten thousand threads, clung to her like malignant spirits.

However, the demonic energy of a mere lackey like Tang Baekcheon—who was not even an elder of the Demonic Cult—could not possibly harm Mokyeong. But the young child, already poisoned and suffering from internal injuries, was a different story.

“Aah!”

“Soye!”

Black demonic energy poured like a waterfall into Soye’s unconditioned body.

The child’s mottled skin was instantly dyed pitch-black by the demonic energy.

“S-Sister… L-Leave me… b-behind… and run…”

Instead of pleading to be saved, the eight-year-old child pushed Mokyeong’s arm away with her tiny hands, her eyes filled with desperate anxiety as if urging her to flee quickly at once.

She was the only person Mokyeong could call family. Everyone else had already died trying to protect her, leaving just this single, small, and precious family member.

‘What foolish talk. I am never leaving you behind.’

Without replying, Mokyeong channeled her venomous qi to carefully wrap around the child’s body. Though she tried her absolute best to remain calm, the tips of her fingers trembled minutely.

“Hold on for just a moment, Soye.”

Confirming that the barrier made of venomous qi was protecting the child from the demonic energy, Mokyeong gently laid her down.

“Mokyeong, do you wish to save that little wretch?”

Sneering broadly, Tang Baekcheon pulled an ominous ritual artifact from his robes. The black demonic energy was streaming directly from it.

“Then obediently surrender your physical body!”

The black force erupting from the artifact bound Mokyeong tightly.

The moment she felt a pain as if her soul was being forcibly torn from her flesh, Mokyeong realized the true identity of this demonic art.

The Reverse-Heaven Soul-Transfer Technique (逆天轉魂法)!

A demonic art that swapped two souls to usurp a physical body.

It seemed that technique, long believed to have been lost to history, had somehow fallen into Tang Baekcheon’s hands.

‘Just how on earth did a piece of trash like that…!’

However, Tang Baekcheon was not the only one with a trump card.

The small flying daggers she had hidden throughout the folds of her garments swirled up into the sky like a raging tempest.

The sight was almost breathtakingly beautiful, resembling a storm of tiny, falling flower petals.

It was the ultimate assassin technique of the Tang Clan: Ten Thousand Flower Rain (滿天花雨).

“T-Ten Thousand Flower Rain?”

Seeing Mokyeong unleash the Ten Thousand Flower Rain—a technique only the Patriarch of the Tang Clan could master—Tang Baekcheon’s momentum wavered.

Thanks to that, the black force that had been clinging to Mokyeong like a ghoul and tearing at her soul weakened for a brief, fleeting moment.

‘I mustn’t miss this opportunity.’

Simultaneously releasing her secret weapon, Mokyeong drew the Ten-Thousand-Flower Venom Whip from her sleeve.

The whip moved with fluid agility, as if acknowledging her will, instantly tearing Tang Baekcheon’s body away from her while pulling Soye, who had been crumpled on the ground, straight into her arms.

Everything happened in an instant.

Tang Baekcheon, shoved out beyond the secret cave, frantically reached a hand out toward Mokyeong, while Mokyeong batted that hand away and tightly clutched Soye’s body, which was still protected inside the barrier.

Amidst the storm of demonic energy rushing back like dark clouds, a dark red lightning bolt flashed down.

The moment a blinding black light enveloped the two—no, three people—in a swirling vortex, Mokyeong drew up the purest reservoir of energy stored in her Danjeon and twisted her energy pathways.

Consequently, Tang Baekcheon’s soul, which had been trying to usurp Mokyeong’s body, began to violently shudder.

“No! No!! That body is mine!!”

‘Rather than handing it over to scum like you…?’

The moment her spiritual entity opened its eyes, Mokyeong twisted the corners of her lips into a smile, grabbed the slender beam of light departing Soye’s body, and whispered:

‘I’ll give it to you, Soye.’

When Tang Mokyeong was still a young child, there were many people around her who tried to protect her.

From her own mother—who had entered the Tang Clan as the second wife—to the uncle who always supported her, and even Madam Cho, who served as both her wet nurse and private chef.

Only when the Grand Madam’s schemes picked them off one by one and Mokyeong’s standing plummeted to the very bottom did she realize that lacking power was her ultimate weakness.

Thus, she cultivated strength.

A strength so powerful and absolute that even the leader of the Murim Alliance could not trifle with her.

She exacted a fitting price from the countless enemies who had tried to trap her, and she showed not an ounce of mercy to the wicked members of the Demonic Cult.

Thus she earned her fearsome moniker: the Demonic Witch Tang Mokyeong, or the Venomous Flower of Hyeonhwa, Tang Mokyeong.

It became her status, her strength, and an authority that prevented anyone from looking down on her easily.

And yet, she had believed that from then on, she would never have to lose anyone ever again…

“S-Sister… L-Leave me… b-behind… and run…”

I still have a long way to go.

My martial arts were still inadequate to protect someone.

Grind.

Her teeth grated together. She could not die like this.

Not like this, in a manner such as this…!

I won’t die!

“Hah!”

Gasping for air like someone who had just broken the surface of the water, Mokyeong snapped her eyes wide open.

Her vision was hazy, as if shrouded in fog. Scowling fiercely and shaking her head, her focus finally returned.

‘What is this?’

Everything entering her field of vision was completely unfamiliar.

A massive building made of marble, gorgeous silk embroidered with patterns she had never seen before…

The bizarrely high ceilings and furniture of a bizarre architectural style were also entirely new to her.

And.

“…A colored-eye barbarian?”

She spotted a man with golden hair collapsed on the floor.

Mokyeong’s brow furrowed.

Thinking it might be yet another trap laid by Tang Baekcheon, she was about to force herself up when—

“Ugh!”

Accompanied by a pain as if her head was splitting open, memories that did not belong to her poured in like a waterfall.

‘Rowan Oult, you shall become an imperial consort in exchange for the family debts being written off.’

‘Sister, because of me… I’m sorry…’

‘A body that is resistant to poison? Interesting. Perhaps it could serve as a useful weapon.’

‘Imperial Consort. I am well aware that you are a spy for the Empress. However, bear in mind that the Empress is not the only one who can rattle your lifeline.’

Mokyeong slowly lowered her gaze to look at her own hands.

Hands so slender that the bones protruded sharply. No matter how she looked at it, this was not Tang Mokyeong’s body.

Oult, a hotbed of poisons and demonic beasts, known as the graveyard of the East.

And the young patriarch of that land, Rowan Oult.

Her consciousness was undeniably that of Tang Mokyeong, but her physical body was that of Rowan Oult.

It was as if her soul had slipped solely into someone else’s vessel.

A single hypothesis flashed through Mokyeong’s mind.

The Reverse-Heaven Soul-Transfer Technique.

Could it really be because of that?

A demonic art of the Demonic Cult that supposedly defied the heavens to swap souls.

A wicked technique that even the orthodox factions had recognized for its terrifying power and sought to eradicate by any means necessary.

It made no sense to begin with that Tang Baekcheon could execute the Reverse-Heaven Soul-Transfer Technique, let alone that it had actually succeeded.

“Ha…”

An absurd sigh escaped Mokyeong’s lips.

If she had simply died outright, things wouldn’t be this bewildering, yet she had survived. And in the body of Rowan Oult, someone who had zero connection to Tang Mokyeong whatsoever.

However, the period of bewilderment did not last long.

Slap!

Mokyeong struck her own cheeks hard with both hands.

“Pull yourself together, Tang Mokyeong.”

Dream or reality, dead or alive, this was not the time to be spacing out.

The man collapsed right before her eyes was none other than Rowan Oult’s husband, and the sworn nemesis whom the Empress wanted dead more than anything else:

The Third Prince, Carden Rubert.