Wreath of Lilies, Cauldron of Poison

Chapter 4

Body Tempering: Yin Gu Body

After that short nap, not a blackout, a short nap. The old monster trapped inside a girl’s body looked at her fingers. It had turned purple and sign of necrosis had set in. The poison had even reached the rest of her arm, making it swell two times as large. She paid it no mind as anyone would know, those practiced in the art of poison are used to these types of things.

“My body is weak and not fit for my cultivation technique. Just that one fight rendered my arm swollen like an elephant’s trunk.”

The poison king quickly regained his composure and crouched.

“No, wait. Then why not temper it instead? The art of poison is an extreme Yin technique. The body of a man is innately Yang while a woman is innately Yin. I’ve trained for years yet I cannot perfect my art because my body is Yang. What will happen if I trained with the body of a female?” She glared at Fasina’s body. “And I have the most important ingredient!”

“Yes, that’s it! I only have to start from the very beginning. But now with my experience I can create a better foundation!”

With a new determination, she began drawing up a plan for the body tempering to achieve a state called Yin Gu Body.

First she found Fasina’s empty nest, which was about two meters deep and dug in further. It was rather hard due to one of her arms being swollen. After a meter in, she cut apart part of the snake’s neck and let the blood came pouring in. Letting it fill up to the brim. “I would have preferred a bronze cauldron, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

She then filled a discarded helm with all manners of poisonous insect she could get her hands on. Apparently, some of Gerudo’s creatures also included snakes and lizards, she took those too. It was fortunate that he was so overconfident that he didn’t even think to try and use his other monsters, otherwise the battle would have taken longer.

She gathered up the gallbladders and the insects, then crushed them all together, before pouring the mixture into the blood pool. With the addition, the mixture’s stench turned so revolting that normal people would have vomited, but to the poison king this is merely another concoction.

“All is ready.”

Wang Tian Gu took a sword and cut the Crimson Firesnake’s flesh into parts, eating them raw. She ate ferociously as if to sate the hunger of ten men. She ate and ate until her stomach bulged. She kept on eating even though she wanted to vomit because she will need all the energy she could have for the process.

After that she took the Crimson Firesnake’s gall bladder and swallowed it whole, even to the point of dislocating her jaw. As it went inside her stomach, she could feel the venom inside being gathered and refined into her Core.

This was one of the Foundation Technique he inherited from the ancient scroll of Thousand Poison Claw. Anything that enters his body can be refined into materials for poison inside his body.

With all preparation done, She took off her clothes and plunged into the pool.

Submerging fully in that viscous liquid, she began inhaling, letting the blood enter her lung. Normally, it would result in her drowning, but the Thousand Poison Claw technique lets it enter her innards and seep into them, baptizing her inner body with poisonous blood. After assuming a fetal position, her breathing slowed until she seemed to be dead. The Poison Core within her chest slowly absorbed the giant snake’s bile poison into itself, strengthening its weakening structure and using it to grow larger into the size of a fist, before finally beginning to absorb the poison and energy from the blood pool greedily.

During this rigorous process, pain and comfort became undistinguishable as her blood and marrow were tempered and washed.

It was not long before her consciousness dimmed and she fell into a deep sleep.

And as she fell into deep sleep, Wang Tian Gu began to dream.

In that dream she was standing in the Red Jade Pavillion, behind her was a table with a small vase with a single wisteria branch. Its pink flowers seemed ephemeral.

She was in her old body. A tall, muscular man draped in purple robe with immaculate white beard reaching to his waist. His hair was tied in a bun and decorated with a simple hairpin.

The robe was decorated with golden centipede embroidering. It was the wedding gift given by Grandmaster Jian Yuxiang upon his marriage to his wife. On his belt was a red pouch with the pattern of spider lilies containing tobacco. Something his wife made for him. She was not great with handicraft, proven by the occasional loose threads.

“The Centipede and the Spider Lily,” he said in reminiscence as she caressed the pouch. “Whoever you are, you are making me very angry right now.”

“I am sorry, sir. This is your domain, not mine. I have no control over it.”

Wang Tian Gu stroke his magnificent beard as he turned to see the source of the voice. It was a girl with long golden hair and beautiful blue eyes. She was wearing a thin armor that was made exquisitely. He could see that it was made for show, not for battle.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that if she was in his world, countless men would destroy their own lives simply to gain her affection.

However, Wang Tian Gu simply glared at the little girl standing a few feet before him. There was no sign of attraction from him. After all, one does not feel attraction to one’s own flesh.

“You are the past owner of this body?”

“Y-yes. My name is Cornelia Asterium Steelheart. My mother called me Connie.”

“Connie, Connie,” he tasted the name in his mouth and let out a grunt of satisfaction. “I like that name. It is similar to a poisonous flower in my world that stops your breathing within seconds. I am Wang Tian Gu, Heavenly Poison King!”

Connie stepped back, her face taut from the charisma and fierce aura that the old monster exuded.

“Well, what do you want from me, Connie? I am in the middle of something.”

“I-I know it is rude for me to ask, but I have a request, sir. You see, I prayed to the Great Goddess to help me take revenge on the ones who killed me,” the girl frowned. “But I never expected an elderly man.”

“Hohoh. If you aren’t already dead, I would have killed you for that presumptuous tone,” The king of all poison showed a smile of cold indifference. “Nevertheless! I have already killed those who killed you. So consider it done.”

“No, sir. The bandits were just tools. I suspect that someone had tricked me into taking an assignment far beyond my strength.”

She then started to tell him a brief story about how she took a quest from the hunter’s guild and expected to fight low levelled bandits. Instead he found more than 20 high levelled ones. She hit her head upon trying to run away, thus killing herself.

“I was too rash, too eager to prove myself worthy of my family’s sword, the Grunford.”

“Regrets always come far too late, little one. That is how it is. No one is free from it,” he remembered one small, bald man who has a perpetual smile on his punchable face. “Except for Mountain Bamboo, but that monk had attained enlightenment so I suppose he does not count.”

“Sir?”

“Never mind. Whether I want it or not, your enemy is my enemy too. Now, tell me who I should kill.”

“I-I don’t know.”

“What? You want me to kill someone and you don’t know the name? What about the appearance? Male or female? Young or old?”

“I really don’t know, sir!”

“Useless thing!” Wang Tian Gu shouted. “No matter. If you don’t know, you don’t know. I will find out myself. After all, your body is mine now. And I dislike people doing things I don’t approve to my body.”

The girl bowed with an expression of gratitude. “Thank you, sir.”

Her body then started to disappear, the scenery around him had also begun to dim. The wisteria flowers hanging on the vase started to wilt.

“Is that all? So, what is going to happen to you, girl?”

“I don’t know. I’ve…never been dead before.”

He chuckled. “Most people haven’t. It’s not something you experience more than once. Perhaps you will reincarnate somewhere else.”

“I…see,” she said awkwardly.

The color of her body began to fade and her voice became softer.

“Is this…it?”

“I suppose so,” the old monster said, not knowing what to say. He had never been good with this kind of thing. His wife used to nag him about being more considerate. He never got around to do it.

He glanced at her and clenched his fist. “Hey, little girl,” Wang Tian Gu began. “I barely knew you, but I hope that you will live a happy life in the next one.”

The girl nodded while saying something. But by then he could only see her lips moving.

Thank you.

The old monster’s gaze was still as a lake.

Then he saw memories that weren’t his, flooding into him like a stream. Memories of a girl who wished for approval, for love. A foolish girl who lost her life due to a villainous scheme.

Wang Tian Gu then closed his eyes, comprehending them.

“Cornelia Asterium Steelheart,” he said.

“Let me destroy our enemies.”