The night sky stretched endlessly, filled with clouds that choked out the moonlight. In the heart of the Tang Clan estate, nestled deep in the Poison Forest of the Southern Murim Region, a strange silence replaced the usual chorus of insects and owls.
A boy was dying.
Tang Yun, the twelfth son of a forgotten concubine, lay curled in the corner of an abandoned storage hut. His body was thin, frail, and covered in bruises. Poison coursed through his veins—not a weapon he had used, but one placed in his food by a resentful cousin.
He was twelve years old.
And dying alone.
He should have screamed. Should have begged for help. But the boy did nothing.
His breaths grew shallower. His vision blurred.
And then—
The world shattered.
Far away, in a place beyond life and death, a soul stirred. It was heavy with rage, thick with venom, and burning with unwillingness to rest.
Baek Mu-Hyeon, once known as the Poison King, had died atop the cliffs of Hyeolsae Peak. Surrounded. Hunted. Hated.
Hundreds had come to kill him. Righteous sects. Hidden clans. Mercenaries. Their blades, swords, and flames had ripped his body apart.
But not before he made them pay.
The final moments of his life were carved in legend. They spoke of a poison storm so thick it turned the sky green. Of warriors dying mid-strike, their bodies melting into black sludge.
And when he fell, he did not scream.
He laughed.
His laughter echoed across the battlefield, chilling the hearts of even the victors.
That soul now descended.
Drawn not by fate, but by poison.
By the dying breath of a boy named Tang Yun, whose blood carried a unique and ancient venom—the same type Mu-Hyeon had crafted in his final moments.
Tang Yun's body twitched.
The pain vanished.
His eyes flew open.
A sharp, hissing breath escaped his lips. His gaze darted around wildly before settling on his thin, bruised hands.
"No..." he rasped. "What... what is this body?"
He sat up slowly, ignoring the stiffness, the hunger, the ache of neglected muscles.
Then the memories hit.
Twelve years of beatings. Twelve years of neglect. Twelve years of crawling through a life unworthy of even pity.
And yet, it was perfect.
He was alive.
He touched his face, tracing the fragile cheekbones and sunken eyes. A crooked smile tugged at his lips.
"Tang Yun... is it?"
The name tasted foreign. But he would wear it.
Baek Mu-Hyeon the Poison King was gone.
But Tang Yun would rise.
Stronger.
Smarter.
Crueler.
The next morning, a servant found him stumbling out of the storage hut.
"Young Master Tang Yun? How... how are you...? They said you were dead."
He didn't answer.
His eyes were cold.
Too cold for a twelve-year-old.
Whispers spread.
The forgotten son had survived poison.
But Tang Yun didn't seek the attention of elders or family heads. He returned to his routine of being ignored, lurking at the edges of clan activities.
That was his strength.
To be unseen.
To be underestimated.
Two weeks passed.
Tang Yun said little. He walked the estate like a ghost, unnoticed as always. But inside, he was reborn. Relearning his limits. Testing his reflexes. Slowly rebuilding the shattered meridians of this fragile vessel.
He stole herbs from the clan's gardens. Just a leaf here. A root there. Nothing noticeable.
Each night, he brewed concoctions in secret.
Each morning, he drank them.
Pain returned.
Searing, white-hot pain.
But he welcomed it.
He smiled through the vomiting, the fever, the bleeding gums.
Because beneath the agony...
He felt it.
Qi.
Poisonous, corrupted qi but qi nonetheless.
He studied his pulse each night with a cold calm, sensing the sluggish crawl of energy. He pressed the weak points in his arms, his thighs, his chest, forcing qi to stir. When it didn't, he gritted his teeth and endured another dose of venom laced with spiritual roots.
One day, he snuck into the Tang clan's abandoned inner library, a hall thick with dust and silence. Most of the scrolls had been untouched for years.
Perfect.
Tang Yun brushed his fingers over the shelves, selecting old manuals on poison constitution, body refinement, and spiritual corrosion. They were nothing compared to what he'd mastered in his past life, but they were enough to build a new foundation.
He took them, one by one, memorizing pages under moonlight, reciting formulas in whispers, testing mixtures on rats he caught behind the granary.
Most died immediately.
Some lingered.
One mutated.
He noted everything.
Then he consumed the poison that had caused the mutation.
And screamed.
At night, he revisited memories of his past life: the secret techniques, the forbidden formulas, the betrayal of unity. They had surrounded him not because he was evil, but because he had grown too strong. Too feared. No one wanted a Poison King to remain unchecked.
But he had never relied on brute force.
He had conquered with intelligence. Precision. Cruelty wrapped in elegance.
This time, he would start earlier.
This time, he would build an empire before anyone realized he existed.
One cold dawn, crouched in a hidden hollow behind the Tang Clan's storage sheds, he swallowed a pitch-black pill that reeked of rotting copper.
His veins bulged. His throat closed. His vision darkened.
He bit his own tongue, forcing himself to remain conscious.
He gritted out a whisper
"Open... damn you... OPEN."
Something cracked inside him.
His dantian a useless, dried-out seed of energy shuddered.
Then bloomed.
The poison qi surged.
When the sun rose, Tang Yun opened his eyes.
His skin still looked sickly. His bones still ached. But his aura had changed.
He had stepped into the Early Qi Awakening Realm.
And now, everything would change.
That day, he walked into the courtyard where the younger disciples trained.
Some recognized him.
"Isn't that the sick one? Didn't he almost die?"
"Maybe he's here to beg for medicine."
"He always was useless."
Tang Yun stood silently, listening.
Then, without a word, he raised his hand.
A black mist surged from his palm.
It hissed.
The ground beneath his feet withered. A beetle crawling nearby twitched once and died.
Silence fell.
For the first time, they looked at him.
Not as a dying boy.
But as a threat.
Tang Yun turned and walked away.
And as he did, he whispered under his breath:
"This time... I won't be hunted."
"This time... they'll kneel."
Back in his room, beneath loose floorboards, he unrolled a scroll he'd copied from memory an ancient posion technique only he had mastered in his previous life. The original had been burned with him. But now...
It would return.
Along with him.
His rise would be slow. Secret.
But inevitable.
Because the world had forgotten what poison truly was.
And soon, they'd remember.
[Tags]: Reincarnation, Martial Arts, Poison, Scheming Protagonist, Cultivation, Weak to Strong, Anti-Hero, Cold Protagonist, Clan Wars, Hidden Identity, Revenge