Chapter 3
“Hey, you little brat!”
At the youngest sister’s utterly impudent remark, Dang Cheomryeo’s face twisted into a look of sheer disbelief.
No matter how uneducated one might be, how could she spout such nonsense to her elder sister, who was nine years older?
For the sake of maintaining discipline in the household, it would have been only proper to pick up a switch and punish her immediately. However, considering that the current situation was about to shake Riser’s life to its core, Cheomryeo decided to be magnanimous and let it pass.
“Very well. You’re no longer a child, so you have the right to know the truth.”
“…? If you’re young, you don’t have the right to know the truth?”
“Th-that’s not what I meant. Just focus on the story.”
Caught off guard, Dang Cheomryeo lost her composure for a moment, cleared her throat, and continued.
“You know that a guest has arrived from the Heavenly Lotus Palace, don’t you?”
“Yeah. Dang Sorin told me.”
Cheomryeo tilted her head slightly, puzzled.
There was no reason for Dang Sorin to show Riser such kindness.
“…Are you two close?”
“More or less. I’m staying over at Hanjeong Pavilion with her tonight.”
Riser answered casually, saying something Sorin would vehemently deny if she heard it.
“I see. Well, Sorin does tend to associate indiscriminately with just about anyone.”
“……”
I’m a direct descendant of the Sichuan Tang Clan too, you know.
Riser felt a bit sulky.
“Anyway, back to the point. As you know, the Heavenly Lotus Palace regularly recruits external talents and trains new demonic practitioners. Prestigious martial families like ours often visit, since it’s a good place to find individuals with exceptional aptitude.”
It was something Riser already knew.
“But this wasn’t a routine visit. They came with a specific purpose, and that purpose was…”
Dang Cheomryeo suddenly closed her mouth, as if anger surged up within her, and took a moment to compose herself.
“…Me.”
Was that really something to get so angry about?
Unable to understand Cheomryeo’s emotional shift, Riser simply stared blankly.
‘I would’ve been happy.’
Being accepted into the Heavenly Lotus Palace was, fundamentally, a cause for celebration.
In a world where the Demonic Cult had triumphed, becoming a demonic practitioner was overwhelmingly advantageous for achieving success.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Yeah, I don’t. If the Palace Lord personally came to take you, that sounds like a good thing.”
“That’s exactly the problem—the Palace Lord came in person.”
As mentioned earlier, recruiting new members from the Heavenly Lotus Palace was a common occurrence.
However, for the Palace Lord to personally come and take someone away—there was clearly something unusual about that.
“The Palace Lord… came to take me as a concubine for the Cult Leader.”
Riser was startled.
“A concubine?”
Not even a secondary wife, but a concubine?
Since when had the Heavenly Demon become a king?
‘No, more importantly, isn’t the current Heavenly Demon about our father’s age?!’
Even in an era relatively tolerant of age-gap relationships, this was far too much.
“That’s right. It’s all a scheme by Lady Seo.”
Lady Seo… that referred to the First Madam, Seo Yeonjeong.
She was the mother of the eldest son Dang Hyeonmin, as well as the sisters Dang Harin and Dang Seoha. Even in the Sichuan Tang Clan, where distinctions between wives and concubines were blurred, she was subtly treated as the main wife.
“So what you’re saying is, Lady Seo deliberately called the Palace Lord and recommended you as a concubine to drive you out of the Tang Clan.”
“You’re quick to understand.”
‘I see. That makes sense.’
Although Dang Muncheon was still in his vigorous fifties, he was both immensely wealthy and powerful—on par with major tycoons—so the competition for succession within the Tang Clan was already fierce.
Among the candidates, the strongest contenders were Dang Hyeonmin, the eldest son of the First Madam, and Dang Cheomryeo, born of the Second Madam.
“And then there’s you, Dang Riser.”
“…?”
Was she just trying to flatter her?
Riser felt an odd mix of emotions at Cheomryeo’s transparent attempt to include the ninth and youngest daughter in such a fierce succession race.
“Uh… well. Sure. Thanks, I guess.”
“Hmph. Acting like you don’t know—how shameless.”
“?!”
At Cheomryeo’s scoffing reaction, Riser felt wronged.
‘What did I do?!’
Though Riser wore an aggrieved expression, Cheomryeo paid it no mind.
Whether she was aware of it or not, Riser ranked quite high among the candidates for the next head of the Sichuan Tang Clan.
“Anyway, I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
“I think you already understand.”
Cheomryeo shrugged.
“For a woman of the Tang Clan to become the head, a live-in husband is essential. But we can’t very well bring in the Heavenly Demon as a son-in-law, can we? And we can’t send the Palace Lord away empty-handed either. Someone like you would manage just fine in the Demonic Cult…”
“You’re saying you’ll send me to the Demonic Cult in your place?”
“You already knew. Don’t bother asking.”
With a self-mocking tone, Dang Cheomryeo faced her own guilt.
Though the root of this mess lay with Lady Seo, it was Cheomryeo who had redirected the consequences toward her youngest sister.
‘How pitiful. Your talent is what doomed you.’
Cheomryeo recalled Riser’s extraordinary childhood.
A baby who understood speech from birth, learned to read before she could properly walk, and, out of boredom, devoured hundreds of books in a single sitting. (In truth, she had been desperate to absorb information early in her second life.)
A once-in-a-generation genius who, without formal medical training, instinctively understood the structure and functions of human organs, and grasped both the medicinal and toxic properties of substances. (Merely common knowledge for someone from the modern world.)
‘I even tried to hinder her marrow cleansing to suppress even a fragment of that terrifying talent… but it only deepened my own sense of inadequacy.’
This, perhaps, was what people meant by a heaven-sent genius.
But Riser’s most frightening trait was not her unparalleled talent in both martial and scholarly pursuits.
It was her unshakable resilience—losing her mother at six, yet never missing a single meal!
Her composure—remaining utterly unfazed despite countless assassination attempts!
More than once, Cheomryeo had broken into a cold sweat, as if she were witnessing the childhood of a legendary hero.
“If you were in my position, you would have made the same choice.”
A talent this dangerous could not be left unchecked.
Before Dang Riser became an uncontrollable force, she had to be uprooted.
On this matter, even Lady Seo shared Cheomryeo’s view.
Had Cheomryeo proposed sending any other sister, Lady Seo would have strongly objected. The reason she raised no opposition to sending Riser instead lay in this very truth.
‘…Wait, is this really right?’
Meanwhile, Riser felt a fresh pang of sorrow at having lost her mother so early.
Instead of sending her twenty-five-year-old elder sister, they were offering the sixteen-year-old youngest daughter as a concubine to the Heavenly Demon.
There were even several unmarried sisters in between.
As for their father, Dang Muncheon—he was practically devoid of human sentiment, so there was no helping that. But if the Fourth Madam had still been alive, would things really have gone this far?
‘…Hmm. Maybe they would have.’
Even when she had been alive, her mother hadn’t held much influence within the family, so perhaps it wouldn’t have made much difference after all.
