“Don’t bring him inside.”
Ma Yeongsun’s tone allowed no argument.
“We have to save him.”
“All the more reason not to put him in the dining room. Do you plan to serve breakfast beside a man covered in poison?”
Ryu Dan stopped with one arm hooked beneath Oh Gak’s shoulders. She was right. Contaminating the entire inn in the name of saving one person would not be benevolence. It would be a rampage.
“I’ll use the crock room behind the kitchen. We’ll move all the food to the front storehouse, and I’ll mark every cloth and bucket we use.”
“You’ll boil the floor clean yourself.”
“Yes.”
“And the treatment cost comes out of your wages.”
Oh Gak’s eyes cracked open.
“That... I’ll...”
Ma looked down at him.
“Have money, do you?”
Oh Gak closed his eyes again.
“The patient has stabilized,” Ryu said.
“He has enough strength to talk nonsense. Move him.”
No sunlight entered the crock room. Ryu opened the door and window, carried the jars outside, and scattered ash over the floor so that anything dripping from Oh Gak’s body would not spread. His right hand still trembled, the price of channeling Baek Mugyeol’s core for all seven heartbeats.
When he tore open Oh Gak’s black jacket, blue veins branched like a winter tree from the man’s chest to his throat. A tiny puncture marked his armpit. It was not a blade wound. Something had been injected there.
*Secure the jade token first,* Baek said.
Inside the night-shrouded Return Inn in Ryu’s mind, the dead Sword Saint paced before the counter with remarkable impatience for a dead man.
*That man died in the original course of events. Preserve the corpse and Azure Peak can trace the poison’s source.*
“Did you?”
*What?*
“You took his corpse that day. Did Azure Peak learn the poison’s name?”
Silence answered him.
Ryu remembered what had followed Oh Gak’s death. Azure Peak and the Tang Family had fought over his body for three days. Azure Peak refused to surrender what it called evidence. The Tang Family refused to offer a cure without an intact sample. While they argued, people collapsed in the market.
“So you didn’t.”
*The Tang Family concealed information.*
“And Azure Peak concealed the body.”
*That was a matter of jurisdiction.*
“It probably made little difference to the dead man.”
Baek’s expression hardened.
Ryu pried the token from Oh Gak’s hand. It was a blue-jade identification token issued to an inner disciple of Azure Peak. Future Baek claimed it was his, but Ryu still needed to establish who owned it in this time.
Ma came in carrying a small wooden box.
“I’ll take that.”
“It may be dangerous.”
“Which is why my lock is better than your pocket.”
She picked up the token with a cloth, placed it in the box, locked it, and attached the key to her belt.
“What now?”
Ryu had no answer. In the failed future, Oh Gak had died. He had never survived this poisoning. Baek did not know what the poison was. All Ryu knew for certain was that if they left the man like this, his breathing would stop within a few hours.
Oh Gak’s body suddenly arched like a bow. His teeth chattered, and his fingers curled into claws.
“I need cold water, clean cloth, salt, and a bamboo tube.”
“You’re not a physician.”
“Which is why I’ll do only what should keep him from dying.”
Ma studied him for a long moment. Since dawn, the twenty-year-old she had raised had spoken strange words and moved in stranger ways. But perhaps what she saw in the end was still the inn boy who always fetched water and rags before going near an injured guest.
“Don’t touch the well rope. I’ll draw the water. Use only what I give you.”
“Yes.”
Ryu rolled Oh Gak onto his side so the foam would not block his airway. He cooled the man’s throat and armpits with wet cloth and trickled tiny amounts of salted water through the bamboo tube. Whenever Oh Gak vomited, Ryu turned him sideways again.
He could not force the poison out with internal energy. Baek’s core would not open again before a full night’s rest, and attempting to wrench it open would injure his meridians.
*You’re ruining the evidence.*
“Living testimony is better.”
*There is no guarantee he’ll talk.*
“He certainly won’t if he’s dead.”
Oh Gak’s eyes flew open. His pupils had lost focus, but his hand found Ryu’s throat.
“You... called Deputy Leader Jang.”
“Until yesterday, I didn’t even know where the eastern warehouse was.”
Strictly speaking, Ryu had reconstructed its layout years later by studying the ruins in the failed future. He could not assume the current warehouse matched what he had found.
“Liar... two bells means... move it, three means burn....”
“You said three papers and one bell before.”
“A ledger... folded three times... one bell... west door....”
His words dissolved into a mumble. Ryu did not try to force them into a convenient meaning. Fever speech mixed truth with fear.
A drop of blue-black fluid seeped from the wound beneath Oh Gak’s arm. When it struck the ash, its edges turned pale green.
A lock boomed somewhere deep in Ryu’s mind.
Thud.
One of the six guest-room doors that had not yet opened.
Baek turned toward the sound.
*Who is it?*
The door remained closed. Oh Gak’s pulse weakened again.
Ryu pressed a clean cloth to the puncture. He had a choice. If he wanted to preserve the fluid uncontaminated, he needed to remove the cloth and catch the poison as it drained. That might allow more of it to spread through Oh Gak’s body.
He pressed down.
“The person comes before the evidence.”
*Inn boy!*
“I’m not taking your advice this time.”
It was not because Oh Gak belonged to the Black Tooth Gang. Nor was it solely some beautiful conviction that even enemies deserved saving. In the failed future, Oh Gak’s life had ended today. A man should not be denied fifteen years of life for the sins of a single day.
The second door opened.
The scent of medicinal herbs flooded the inner Return Inn. Beyond the door stood row upon row of shelves. Broken medicine bottles and blood-soaked bandages covered the floor. A gaunt woman sat amid the wreckage.
Tang Soryeong at thirty-six. Poison needles pinned her black hair in place, and she had rolled up the sleeves of her dark physician’s robe.
Without opening her eyes, she said, *Remove that cloth at once. If you seal the wound, the poison will flow backward toward his heart.*
Baek objected immediately.
*Let the fluid drain and you contaminate the sample.*
Tang opened her eyes.
*If you know anything about poison, I’ll eat my sword.*
*I was preserving the evidence on the corpse—*
*Which is how you got everyone killed.*
Their voices collided inside Ryu’s skull. He pressed two fingers to his temple.
“One at a time. This is an inn.”
Tang surveyed the inner Return Inn: the open first room, then Baek, already prepared to continue issuing orders after death. Understanding settled over her face.
*When I see Seol Muyeon, I’m pulling out her tongue first.*
*Get in line.*
“The patient is dying.”
Both echoes fell silent at once.
Tang examined Oh Gak’s body through Ryu’s eyes. Her memories surged into him: dozens of bodies stiffening along green veins, medicine cauldrons, failed prescriptions, a young hand driving poison into its own arm.
Ryu fixed his attention on the sound of Oh Gak’s breathing so those memories would not swallow him.
*Green Vein Poison. But you cannot seal the wound. You need to guide the flow toward the limbs, away from the heart. Press three points along the inside of his arm, in order.*
“Can I do it without internal energy?”
*Don’t press with force. Feel which way the pulse is running. When you carry several plates, you can tell which side is tilting, can’t you?*
“Yes.”
*It’s the same. You aren’t blocking the direction of the flow. You’re narrowing the path by which it can return.*
The explanation of a legendary poison art sounded remarkably like managing dirty dishwater. Ryu understood it at once.
He straightened Oh Gak’s arm and pressed his wrist, the inside of his elbow, and the point below his armpit in sequence. Ryu lacked the strength to perform perfect medicine, but he could understand where not to touch and how much force would be too much. Tang called the timing. Baek counted the breaths.
*Remove the cloth. Now.*
Ryu lifted it. A thin stream of blue-black blood escaped the wound. A porcelain plate appeared beneath it at precisely the right moment, extended by Ma from outside the room.
“If you break another of my dishes, I’ll charge you.”
“I won’t break it.”
“You said that yesterday.”
Three drops of poisoned blood collected on the plate. One look at the color, and Tang swallowed a curse.
*They mixed lime oil into the Green Vein Poison. It’s a binding agent that slows absorption. That method did not exist at this time.*
“When did it appear in the future?”
*Two years from now. As far as I knew.*
Baek said, *Then someone advanced the recipe.*
“Or Senior Tang never saw this sample in the original history.”
Tang glared at him.
*Questioning the memories of someone who just woke up?*
“You said you were a person-shaped memory. Memories can be wrong. People can be even more wrong.”
The corner of Tang’s mouth rose by the smallest degree.
*I like you.*
Baek looked as though he did not.
The emergency treatment continued until the sun stood high. Ryu cooled Oh Gak’s fever and kept his airway clear under Tang’s direction. Ma boiled the contaminated cloth and supplied clean water.
Around noon, the blue veins stopped spreading.
Oh Gak opened his eyes. This time, they focused.
“Why... did you save me?”
“Someone dying at the front door is bad luck for an inn.”
“That’s your reason?”
“We also need someone to pay for the treatment.”
From outside, Ma said, “Ten taels.”
Oh Gak turned paler than he had under the poison.
“Ten taels to save one man?”
“My kitchen was closed for half a day.”
“If I die again, do I get a discount?”
“Then I add funeral expenses.”
Oh Gak had found a reason to live.
Ryu gave him a little warm water.
“What happened at the eastern warehouse?”
Oh Gak closed his mouth. Ryu did not rush him. The Black Tooth Gang might be waiting outside, while inside were the people he would have to betray.
“Deputy Leader Jang knew you took the ledger this morning,” Oh Gak said at last. “He thought I stole the jade token. Truth is, I picked it up off some blue-robed man collapsed in the warehouse. I was going to return it, but then I thought it might be worth something....”
“Honesty paid you a very brief visit.”
“Those bastards stabbed me with a poison needle to shut me up. One bell is the signal to move the goods. The carts leave by the west door. I hid the ledger, folded three times, in a roof-beam crack.”
It was information that had never emerged from a dead man’s mouth.
“When will they move the goods?”
“After they confirm I’m dead.”
Ryu looked out the window. Once the Black Tooth Gang learned Oh Gak had survived, they would change their schedule. The exact sequence he remembered from the failed future ended here.
He found that terrifying—and strangely liberating. From now on, he would not be following memory. He would have to choose.
*Seal the residue from the wound separately,* Tang said. *Only the Tang Family can analyze it properly.*
Baek cut in at once. *The evidence came from a man carrying an Azure Peak token. It must be surrendered to us first.*
“Neither of you.”
Ryu placed another porcelain dish over the first and sealed the rim with wax. On one side of the sealing cord, he took Oh Gak’s thumbprint. On the other, Ma’s signature.
“For now, this belongs in the custody of Return Inn, where the patient is being treated. When someone with medical expertise arrives, they can receive a treatment sample. If a sect comes, they can witness the transfer.”
Ma accepted the sealed dish.
“Why does my inn keep accumulating troublesome objects?”
“Because if we put them anywhere else, people fight over them.”
“And if they fight here?”
“You can charge them for broken furniture.”
“That works.”
She placed the evidence in a separate box from the jade token and used a different key. No one had asked her to, but she was already thinking in two layers of custody.
As the sun dipped westward, hoofbeats stopped before the inn.
Martial artists in blue surrounded the gate. Their leader looked about twenty-four. Not even the dusty edge of his robe had fallen out of order. Ryu knew him. Nam Sogun, Azure Peak’s field examiner, who in the failed future had carried out his orders to the end and died without anyone remembering his name.
Nam displayed a blue seal.
“Azure Peak investigation detail. The resonance of a stolen inner-disciple token ended here.”
His gaze swept over the saber marks in the courtyard, Oh Gak lying in the shed, and Ryu’s trembling right hand.
“According to the Black Tooth Gang, an inn worker at Return Inn used Azure Peak sword techniques to subdue them.”
Baek sighed inside Ryu’s head.
*Nam Sogun. Once he sinks his teeth into something, he’ll drag it all the way up the mountain.*
Nam rested a hand on his sword hilt.
“Ryu Dan. You will have to accompany us on suspicion of stealing the token and Azure Peak martial arts.”
Ma stepped into the middle of the gate.
“No.”
Nam’s eyebrow moved.
“This is official business.”
“This is my inn, and that is my worker. If you want to arrest him for theft, show me the token he supposedly stole first.”
“We are telling you to surrender that token.”
“Write a receipt.”
Seven people holding swords faced one person holding an abacus.
For the first time, Ryu felt a little sorry for Nam Sogun.