The moon hung low over the Tang estate, its pale light tracing the contours of tiled roofs and shadowy courtyards. The night was unusually quiet, save for the distant chirp of insects and the faint rustle of bamboo leaves in the wind. Tang Yun sat alone beneath the crooked pine tree in the abandoned courtyard of the outer disciples. A cup of cold tea rested by his side, untouched.
He had spent the day navigating the subtle webs of clan life, maintaining the illusion of weakness. It was a delicate balance. Too much strength, and he'd attract dangerous attention. Too little, and he'd be cast aside completely.
Tang Yun's fingers slowly traced the rim of the cup as he reviewed the events of the past few days.
Three minor poison tests. One encounter with a nosy inner disciple. Two new herbs cultivated in secret. And most importantly no one suspected a thing.
"Still waters hide the deepest threads," he muttered.
His cultivation remained in the early stage of the Qi Awakening Realm (Gi Gakseong-gyeong), the first true step toward martial power. It was a realm of awakening: where one opened their dantian, the core that housed internal energy, and began to draw in and circulate qi (energy) through their body. But unlike most disciples who rushed toward brute refinement, Tang Yun had chosen a slower, more insidious path.
He had begun experimenting with the Venomous Silk Circulation, a technique from his past life that rotated his poison qi in loops so fine and controlled they mimicked the motion of silkworm threads. It didn't increase power explosively, but it refined it, strengthening each strand of qi to be more potent and harder to detect.
A soft cough interrupted his thoughts. Tang Yun didn't move.
"Still pretending to be asleep, Young Master?"
Tang Yun opened one eye lazily. It was Huo Lan, a fellow outer disciple who had taken to delivering meals for extra work points. He wasn't particularly talented, but he had good instincts and a quiet mouth.
"Shouldn't you be back in the dormitory?" Tang Yun asked.
"Shouldn't you be drinking that tea instead of letting it cool like a ghost's bathwater?" Huo Lan quipped.
Tang Yun allowed a faint smirk to cross his lips.
"Leave it. I like watching things rot."
Huo Lan blinked, unsure if it was a joke.
"Are you still trying to refine qi by listening to dead leaves? That won't help you climb past anyone in the clan."
"Is that so?" Tang Yun plucked a dried leaf from the pine tree and held it up. "Do you know what this is?"
"A dead pine leaf?"
"It's laced with rot-root toxin. A slow-acting poison. Only fatal if consumed repeatedly in small doses over months. But it's tasteless, and odorless."
Huo Lan took a step back instinctively.
"Relax. I didn't put it in the clan food. Yet."
"Y-You really shouldn't joke about poison."
"I'm not joking," Tang Yun said, calmly.
That was the problem. Everyone in the Tang Clan feared poison but they treated it like a sword: something obvious, sharp, and brutal. Few understood its elegance.
Tang Yun didn't cultivate poison to kill. He cultivated poison to control.
As the moon reached its zenith, Tang Yun quietly slipped away to the small cavern behind the medicine hall. It was a forgotten place, blocked by broken crates and fallen shelves. But he had cleared it out weeks ago.
Here, he stored his growing collection: dried herbs, venom sacs from snakes, crushed insect shells, and handwritten notes on various poison interactions.
Tonight was not for experimentation.
Tonight was for testing.
He removed a glass vial from beneath a loose stone. Inside it was a powder, faintly glowing green under the moonlight.
"Dustless Thorn."
A Tang Clan technique once feared across Murim. It produced a fine, nearly invisible toxin powder that clung to the skin and entered through pores. It caused paralysis, then numbing death within minutes. But it required precise qi control to activate something few outer disciples could achieve.
Tang Yun sat cross-legged, breathing slowly. He gathered his poison qi thin, cold, and acidic and guided it to his fingertips. His meridians still ached from lack of complete opening, a sign of his early-stage cultivation. But he endured.
He pressed his finger into the powder.
It shimmered. Faintly. Just a flicker.
"Again," he whispered.
This time, he reversed the qi flow a technique no early cultivator should be able to perform. Poison qi surged backward through his veins, stinging like molten ice.
The powder vibrated. A tiny plume lifted into the air and dissolved.
He smiled. "Soon."
Outside the cave, the Tang estate remained still. But whispers had begun to rise among the outer disciples.
They had started to notice strange things.
Like how Elder Tang Mo sometimes lingered outside the outer courtyard longer than needed.
Or how some of the less cautious bullies found their meals tasting slightly bitter.
Rumors floated like spores in damp air.
But Tang Yun? He simply sat beneath his tree, sipping cold tea, and listening to the leaves fall.
Still waters, after all, hide the deepest threads.
[Tags]: Reincarnation, Martial Arts, Poison, Scheming Protagonist, Cultivation, Weak to Strong, Anti-Hero, Cold Protagonist, Clan Wars, Hidden Identity, Revenge