Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang Novel - Chapter 10

Chapter 10

When the young woman awoke, Cheolsan promptly assessed her state and requested the village chief to assemble the afflicted villagers once more.

“The remedy appears to be working, especially considering how insignificant these parasites are. Could you please have the patients brought here again?”

“Right away!”

The chief was just turning to hurry out when I called out to stop him.

“Hold on!”

I knew that Chagas disease could remain dormant, and that only a fraction of those infected ever developed serious symptoms. This meant that the entire village needed to be treated, not just those who were visibly sick. There were probably many more carriers than actual patients.

“What is it, Young Hero?” Cheolsan inquired.

“Elder, if it’s possible, the medicine should be given to everyone in the village. The illness doesn’t show itself right after a bite, so we have no way of knowing who will get sick or when.”

Cheolsan examined the girl again and nodded slowly in agreement.

“Hmm… You’re right. We will dilute the medicine in water and administer it to all. It seems the dose given to her was somewhat too strong, in any case.”

From what he could see, a less concentrated solution was enough to eliminate the parasites, unlike the more potent mixtures required for countering gu.

Soon, following the chief’s instructions, the villagers gathered outside his home late in the night. Cheolsan, the head of the Tang Clan, dissolved his Mugoyonghwadan in water and gave a spoonful to each person, intending to cure both the sick and the hidden carriers.

“Look! They’re waking up!”

“The fever is breaking! Their minds are clearing!”

“They’ve been saved! You are truly the saviors of our village!”

“Waaahhh…”

Even diluted, the medicine worked spectacularly, just as Cheolsan had expected. Many people quickly regained their senses and their strength.

For once, Cheolsan’s immense pride in the Tang Clan didn’t seem arrogant. This time, it was entirely justified.

As the villagers poured gratitude onto him, Cheolsan waved it away modestly.

“I merely supplied the medicine. The credit belongs to this Young Hero who discovered the cause. Without him, we wouldn’t have known where to begin. Your true savior is him, not me.”

“Thank you, Young Hero!”

“Young Hero, we owe you a great debt!”

“The benefactor of our village!”

In many groups, a superior would claim the achievements of their subordinates. Yet here, Cheolsan was freely giving me the credit, even though it was his own medicine that had healed everyone. My respect for the Tang Clan grew immensely. A leader who recognizes the efforts of those under them? That speaks to a truly admirable character.

‘+100 points. Cheolsan might be a decent man after all. Even considering he was the one who slapped me awake…’

The village, which had been nearing total ruin, started to regain its life force.

Naturally, not everyone was made whole again. While the medicine had killed the parasites responsible for Chagas disease, it couldn’t repair the harm already inflicted on the hearts and organs of the most severe cases. In my previous life, something like an enlarged heart would need a transplant—an impossibility here. Most of the affected would have to live with their impairments.

The chief’s granddaughter, Meijin, was fortunate. Her collapse was from a frail constitution, not major heart damage. Once she took the medicine, her erratic heartbeat stabilized. After several examinations, Cheolsan verified her heart was sound.

After medicating the entire village, Cheolsan addressed the chief with a look of deep sympathy.

“Those with the most advanced heart damage will be hard to cure. When I go back to Sichuan, I will notify the great physicians Euisun and Yakseon. If this illness is caused by parasites, their curiosity may well draw them here.”

Cheolsan explained that the martial world spoke of two legendary healers: Euisun and Yakseon, titled the “Immortal of Medicine” and the “Immortal of Remedies.”

The chief, overcome with thankfulness, bowed low.

“Please, Elder, do not trouble yourself further. What you have done for us is more than sufficient. We believed we would all perish… To be alive is a miracle in itself.”

The mood was tender and sincere.

The sounds of rejoicing from recovered villagers filled the night air, but I interrupted to remind them the task was not complete.

“This isn’t the time for celebration. We’re not finished.”

“What do you mean, Young Hero?”

“Ah, yes. There is still a matter to resolve.”

The chief looked confused, but Cheolsan appeared to grasp my meaning at once.

“Elder, how long does the protection from Mugoyonghwadan last?”

“The pill usually guards against parasites for roughly three months. But since we diluted it in water, its power may only persist for a fortnight.”

Fifteen days was sufficient for the moment, but I had another question for the chief.

“This sickness spreads through insect bites. What will happen if someone is bitten again after those fifteen days?”

“Ah, that’s right! We must get rid of the insects!”

Precisely.

Kissing bugs are elusive pests, hiding in roofing or wall cracks by day and coming out at night to feed. The Yuezu’s palm-leaf roofs were probably full of them. These bugs, which look similar to stink bugs, are actually a type of bedbug that thrives near humans.

I turned to Cheolsan, the self-styled master of toxins, for assistance.

“Elder, do you possess anything that can kill these insects?”

Given his boasts about the Tang Clan’s expertise with poisons, I trusted he would have an answer.

Thankfully, Cheolsan smiled.

“Naturally. At home, we use pyrethrum from the Western Regions. But here, cinnamon bark and Sichuan pepper will work. Boil them in water and spray the liquid everywhere. The smell repels bugs and kills them on contact. It should be effective.”

‘That’s right, I recall now. In the past, cinnamon and Sichuan pepper were common natural insecticides.’

I remembered my studies on venomous animals, which mentioned the insect-repelling qualities of eugenol from cinnamon and sanshool from Sichuan pepper.

“Excellent. Chief, can you have people collect cinnamon bark and Sichuan pepper? We’ll boil them and spray the entire village—the roofs, the walls, every crack. We can also hang some near the beds to keep the bugs away while everyone sleeps.”

“Understood, Young Hero. I’ll send everyone to gather what we need immediately!”

The chief’s command rang out through the village, initiating a massive operation to eradicate the pests.

“Gather cinnamon and Sichuan pepper! Tonight, we drive out these wretched insects!”

Invigorated by their recovery, the villagers set to work with enthusiasm. Soon, the comforting scent of cinnamon and pepper perfumed the air as the community united to expel the disgusting kissing bugs for good.

***

The morning after the busy night of bug extermination, the village should have been weary—but instead, it was buzzing with a festive energy.

No, it was more than just lively—it was an outright celebration.

Any memory of the chilly welcome we had received was gone; the villagers had organized a magnificent festival in our honor.

Though tired from the previous night’s efforts, we were summoned to what appeared to be the village hall first thing in the morning.

Inside, a long table was set, covered with bamboo platters holding a vast assortment of food: meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables. It was a heroic feast.

“This is the Yuezu’s traditional welcoming feast, the Jangtak Banquet. Please, our saviors, eat your fill. And we offer our most sincere apologies for our behavior yesterday!”

“““We are so sorry!”””

The Jangtak Banquet was explained as a custom deeply rooted in Yuezu history. True to its name, it involved sharing a meal while seated at a very long table.

For someone like me, who had been subsisting on lizard meat, snake meat, a handful of rice, and a few radishes from behind my deserted temple, this was a banquet from the heavens. I hadn’t even entertained the idea of spending money on meat—I only sold snake skins to buy rice. This was the first real home-cooked meal I’d had since being reborn.

‘I never knew a simple meal could bring such happiness.’

I ate ravenously, relishing each piece of venison, while the village women, amused and endeared by my appetite, fuss over me with broad smiles.

“Young Hero, would you like some more meat?”

“Oh, yes, please! Thank you!”

“You must try this fish as well. Isn’t he just precious?”

“Yes, fish too! Thank you very much!”

With the Yuezu women singing traditional songs and serving drinks to Cheolsan and the Tang Clan warriors, the mood became increasingly merry.

It was in the midst of this cheerful scene that the village chief, sitting with us, spoke up hesitantly, his face showing a trace of shame.

“Elder, regarding what you asked about when you first arrived at the village…”

“What was it I asked about?”

“You were inquiring about villages where people had vanished.”

“Ah, yes, indeed. Why do you ask?”

While curing the Yuezu’s illness had become our immediate priority, our original mission was to find the hideout of Tak Wonyang, the Blood-Handed Rakshasa. To perfect his notorious martial art, the Bloodwater Poison Claw, he needed human blood and marrow. We were looking for a village that had suffered mass disappearances.

When Cheolsan nodded in recollection, the chief’s expression brightened.

“I could not let your kindness go without an attempt at repayment, so I asked around. I heard a very odd tale that might be helpful.”

“An odd tale?”

“Yes. One of the women who recovered last night originally came from another village. She said her home village endured a strange disaster several years ago—people started vanishing, one after another.”

We all looked at one another, the same realization dawning on each of us.

‘This is it!’

“And where is this village located?” Cheolsan asked urgently.

“Well, it’s… that direction…”

The chief lifted his hand and pointed toward the west.

***

The directions from the village chief brought us to a ghost village hidden deep in the southwestern mountains of Hainan.

The settlement was utterly lifeless—not a single person could be found.

“There’s no one here at all.”

“It looks as though they left in a great rush. The belongings inside the houses are still there, but it’s clearly been a long time.”

“If people began disappearing because of a disaster, wouldn’t the survivors have fled to a neighboring village to report it? It’s very strange…”

Judging by its size, the village must have been home to a hundred or even two hundred people. The fact that every single one was gone felt deeply unsettling.

As we pressed our search further up the mountain near the village, a revolting odor suddenly assaulted us.

The stench was so intense that Cheolsan muttered darkly.

“The smell of death…”

He immediately released his qigong and sprinted toward the source of the smell. The stench of death could mean only one thing: rotting corpses.

The rest of us, trailing behind the Tang Clan warriors, pushed through the undergrowth toward where Cheolsan had gone.

What we discovered was a scene of horror.

A large cave mouth, sealed off with bamboo bars, stood before us. Beside it, on a bare patch of ground, was a dreadful heap of remains.

From whitened bones to recently decomposing bodies, it was a nightmarish spectacle of death. Worms and maggots squirmed over the corpses, attracting hordes of insects and venomous creatures. Snakes slithered in to eat the insects, only to perish themselves, their bodies becoming nests for more pests. Life and death were twisted together in a vile cycle.

“This is… a poison pit.”

“It’s monstrous. Young Hero, don’t look!”

‘If they wanted to shield me, they should have done it sooner…’

The Tang Clan warriors moved to block my view, but it was too late—I had already seen it all. It felt unreal, like watching a horrific documentary broadcast live.

When we finally broke the bamboo bars and entered the cave, we found no one alive. The cavern was fouled with waste and rot, a place where no human could have remained living.

According to Cheolsan, the existence of fresher bodies indicated that the last victims might have been alive until very recently—likely killed after the culprit had accomplished their objective.

“From the look of things, that monster probably finished developing his martial art and then slaughtered them all,” Cheolsan stated grimly.

He theorized that Tak Wonyang, the Blood-Handed Rakshasa, had targeted him specifically because Cheolsan’s father—the Heavenly Poison Deity—was so famous and feared throughout the martial world.

‘Good riddance to that scoundrel.’

While the gruesome sight hung heavily over us, we soon noticed a small shack near the cave, likely used by the perpetrator. The Tang Clan warriors, directed by Cheolsan, started searching the shack for any useful martial arts manuals or evidence.

Meanwhile, I knelt near the cave entrance, passively observing the venomous insects and snakes crawling toward the pile of bodies.

Suddenly, I heard the sound of flapping wings.

Flap. Flap.

I turned to see a large bird landing on top of the mound of corpses.

“What is that?”

It was unlike any bird I had ever seen. It was as large as a big eagle, with long legs and feathers that shone with a purplish hue, glinting an iridescent green in the light. A brilliant golden crest adorned its head like a royal crown.

Its behavior was even more arresting. I assumed it had come to feed on the dead, but instead, it strutted among the bodies, neatly beheading snakes with sharp pecks and swallowing their heads.

As I watched, captivated, one of the Tang warriors came over to me.

“Young Hero, what are you looking at? Huh? What is that bird?”

The warrior, assuming the bird was defiling the corpses, clicked his tongue in disapproval, picked up a stone, and hurled it at the creature.

Thud.

Caw!

Instead of fleeing, the bird let out a piercing cry and fixed the warrior with a menacing, blood-red stare.

Annoyed, the warrior picked up another rock and threw it.

“Damned bird, how dare you!”

Flap!

The bird finally took to the air, but as it did, something bizarre began to occur. The atmosphere around it grew dark, as if a shadow had fallen across the land. With every beat of its wings, a sinister black mist spread outward, making every snake and poisonous insect in the area convulse in agony. The creatures rolled onto their backs and started to melt, their bodies dissolving like butter on a hot pan.

Hissss.

Even the warrior who had thrown the rocks was affected. White smoke began to seep from his chest, as if he had dry ice concealed under his clothes.

“It’s the realgar!”

The warrior frantically pulled a pouch of realgar from his clothing, but the substance was evaporating at a terrifying speed. Realgar was supposed to be a powerful antidote against poisons, effective against venomous beings. For it to react so violently could mean only one thing: the mist coming from the bird was a toxin of incredible potency.

At that moment, I felt a hand seize the collar of my shirt.

“Urkk!”

Before I could respond, I was hauled backward into the cave by Cheolsan.

“Everyone, fall back into the cave! That is no ordinary bird—it’s a Zhenbird!”