The Eldest Daughter of the Sichuan Tang Clan Protects Her Family

Chapter 4: The Divine Physician's Troupe

 
Tang Min stared at her, his face etched with astonishment. “Y-you… Don’t tell me you can make Yeonjuhwan now?”

Yeonjuhwan referred to the miraculous elixirs created by the Divine Physician's troupe. Sohwa looked at him askance. “…Of course not.”
The Tang Clan didn't possess the recipe, and she didn't even know the necessary ingredients. No matter how exceptional her understanding of poisons and medicinal herbs, she couldn't possibly recreate an elixir she had never even seen, let alone consumed.
Tang Min, however, seemed to believe it possible. Embarrassed by her skeptical gaze, he cleared his throat. “Then why are you asking about them all of a sudden?”

“Would you believe me if I said I knew where the Divine Physician’s troupe is located?”
Tang Min would probably swallow anything she said, even if she claimed that a random mud ball from her garden was a miraculous elixir. Even if he later discovered her deception, he would sooner pluck out Tang Jiha's beard for raising such a deceitful daughter than confront Sohwa directly. After all, he couldn't risk losing her assistance in procuring rare herbs and concocting potent mixtures.
Moreover, Tang Sohwa rarely spoke, let alone indulged in embellishments. He tended to interpret her infrequent pronouncements with amplified significance. Thus, he remained silent, a tacit invitation for her to continue.

Sensing his permission, she continued in a calm, even tone. “You know how Hak brought home a hawk recently?”
“Of course. What’s with that boy anyway?” Tang Min grumbled, frowning.
Sohwa smiled faintly. “And you know that hawk is a spiritual creature?”

“Naturally. Jiha keeps bragging about how his son can even find spiritual creatures on the side of the road. It's infuriating. As a Tang, I shouldn’t say this, but that man was born to be the Clan Head. Filled with venom, he is. He pretends to worry about Hak’s soft heart, but if you listen closely, it's all just boasting. ‘Oh, my son is so kind and compassionate, unlike those ruthless brutes…’ Honestly, why can't he just be straightforward for once?”
“It seems the hawk had an owner.” Sohwa quickly interrupted him, sensing that her father’s character assassination was about to escalate.
“Really? Someone managed to tame a spiritual creature? They must be mad.” Coming from Tang Min, “mad” was a compliment.

Intrigued, he emptied his cup, his eyes fixed on Sohwa.
Sohwa seized the moment, pushing a plate of dongpo rouk towards him. “I didn’t tell Hak, but I found a small bamboo tube attached to the hawk’s wing. It was made of thin bamboo strips.”
The sound of a nearby stream suddenly intensified. Tang Min had stopped breathing.

Sohwa pulled a note from her sleeve and presented it to him respectfully. “I discarded it at the time, thinking nothing of it, but it struck me as odd later, so I rewrote it.”
Tang Min’s eyebrow twitched as he took the note. Eight characters were written on the small slip of paper:
[煙霞痼疾蛾眉細腰 (Yeonhagojilamiseyo)]

Yeonhagojil (煙霞痼疾) - a love of nature, almost to the point of obsession. Amiseyo (蛾眉細腰) - a beautiful woman with delicate brows and a slender waist.
A bizarre combination. Had someone simply scribbled down a string of aesthetically pleasing characters? If anyone else had brought him such a note, he would have flipped the table in anger. But since it was Sohwa, he felt compelled to consider it.
A long silence ensued. Tang Min emptied three cups of wine, as if needing time to process the information. Sohwa refilled his cup a fourth time. Still unable to decipher the meaning, he finally asked, “Why do you think this leads to the Divine Physician’s troupe?”
Tang Sohwa, as if anticipating his question, offered a small smile. “Yeonhagojil refers to a yearning for nature. Amiseyo describes a beautiful woman with fine brows and a slender waist. But the phrase ‘a beautiful woman with a pathological love of nature’ seemed… odd.”

“Well, it could have been scribbled down by some drunken lunatic who tamed a spiritual creature. Perhaps he just liked nature and women, so he wrote that down.”
Sohwa smiled faintly. “I interpreted it differently.”
“Oh? How so?”

“Mist (yeon, 煙). Sunset glow (ha,霞). Fine brows (ami, 蛾眉). Slender waist (seyo, 細腰).” Tang Sohwa broke down the characters, explaining their individual meanings. “It expresses both natural and human beauty visually, as if painting a picture with words.” Her gaze met Tang Min’s. “So, I thought, perhaps it is a picture… painted with words.”
“A picture?”
“Yes. A picturesque scene of the setting sun casting its glow over the mist-shrouded mountainside. A breathtaking view from a mountain peak.”

“…Mount Emei.” The words slipped out before Tang Min could stop them. He chuckled softly. Mount Emei was one of the most famous mountains in the central plains. Its twin peaks, resembling a woman’s delicate brows, were the source of its name (蛾眉山).
“You think it describes a view from Mount Emei?”
Sohwa nodded slowly. “Yes. Specifically, I believe it refers to the view from the summit of San’e.”

Mount Emei encompassed four peaks: Da’e, Er’e, San’e, and Si’e.
“Mount Emei is named after its twin peaks, Da’e and Er’e, which resemble a woman’s eyebrows. So, I think it depicts the moment when both peaks are visible from a single vantage point, likely the summit of San’e.”
Mount Emei, due to its height, was often shrouded in mist and clouds, obscuring the sunset glow from the lower slopes. To witness such a view, one would have to ascend to the summit. A summit from which both Da’e and Er’e were visible. That could only be the peak of San’e.

Sohwa continued, her voice calm and steady, “The sloping sides of a mountain are called its ‘waist.’ And a narrow, steep descent is called a gorge.”
“So?”
“I believe the message is a description, like a map, of a specific gorge on Mount Emei.”

Silence.
Tang Min let out a hollow laugh and reached for his cup. “Do you have any idea how vast Mount Emei is? Do you think there’s only one gorge? And even if you find this gorge, do you plan to excavate the entire mountainside looking for whatever it is you think is buried there?” He shook his head dismissively, his interest waning, and reached for the wine bottle.
Sohwa intercepted his hand, a sly smile playing on her lips. “If it doesn’t refer to a buried treasure but to the location of the Divine Physician’s troupe, there should be traces of their presence, making them easier to track.”

Tak.
Tang Min, who had been toying with his cup, set it down, no longer interested in refilling it. The Divine Physician was a respected healer, renowned for treating everyone regardless of status and accepting disciples without any conditions, believing that it was the only way to save as many lives as possible. Consequently, the Divine Physician's troupe, comprised of numerous disciples, had grown large enough to form a small village.
Yet, now, not a trace remained.

The Divine Physician’s fame stemmed from miraculous healing abilities, capable of mending broken bones and even reattaching severed organs. However, it was later revealed that, in the name of thorough research, the Divine Physician had used numerous cadavers, from children to the elderly, for anatomical studies. When this gruesome practice came to light, enraged mobs stormed the troupe's residence, unearthing hundreds of skeletons buried in the courtyard. The Divine Physician claimed they were the remains of those already deceased, but no one believed him. Faced with overwhelming public condemnation, the Divine Physician and his disciples vanished without a trace.
Ironically, the same people who had condemned them now desperately sought their return. Despite years of searching, no one had ever found them. Of course, after half a century, the stories of their medical prowess and the efficacy of their elixirs might have been exaggerated. People tended to embellish tales over time.
However, it was undeniable that those who had consumed the Divine Physician's elixirs had achieved great prominence in the martial world, making it difficult to dismiss their reputation entirely.

The future Heavenly Ten Swords, whom Sohwa knew from her past life, had been a disciple of the Divine Physician.
- When I die, please deliver this to the Patriarch.
The warrior had left her a note before departing for Sichuan.

She had asked him about its meaning then, unable to decipher the eight cryptic characters.
- What does this mean?
Instead of explaining, he had simply offered a cryptic smile.

- It is where I will be buried.
After retrieving the warrior's body from Sichuan, Namgung Hyeon had personally transported it to Mount Emei for burial. Upon returning to Anhui, he had accused Sohwa of causing Yeon-a’s death, ranting in his drunken rage about the Divine Physician’s troupe. If they were still around, Yeon-a would have lived. He would go to them, find them, and save her.
At the time, she had dismissed his words as the ramblings of a grief-stricken man. Now, however, she wondered if the Divine Physician's troupe truly existed.

She had heard rumors in Anhui that, in his youth, Namgung Hyeon had brought a young girl to the Namgung estate and given her a name – Yeon-a. Perhaps she was named after the Divine Physician’s troupe, a child taken from them.
The pieces began to fall into place. She needed to find the Divine Physician's troupe before Namgung Hyeon did, not just to weaken him, but for another reason entirely.
She had initially asked her father to allow her to search for them, but he had refused outright, dismissing the troupe's existence as mere folklore and declaring that she was not yet permitted to leave the estate. Persuading her skeptical father with words alone was proving impossible.

She briefly regretted discarding the bamboo tube and the original note. Perhaps she should have fabricated them? But her father wouldn't have been fooled. He would have recognized her handwriting and seen through her deception.
Instead of giving up, she changed her approach. If persuasion wouldn't work, perhaps a request from someone he couldn’t refuse would. That was why she had come to Tang Min.
“I asked Father for permission to investigate, but he refused. However, if you were to ask, I’m sure he would reconsider.”

Tang Min, the “Mad Dog,” unbound by the Tang Clan’s conventions, was the only one who could sway their father’s mind.
Sohwa refilled his cup and asked, “Elder Tang Min, would you take me to Mount Emei?”