Tang Poison Research Compound – Sleeping Quarters
The air was damp and stale as Shin Jiho returned to the dim, stone-walled quarters that served as a resting place for what remained of Batch #17. There were no beds, only thin mats laid across the cold floor. A single lantern flickered near the entrance, casting long, weak shadows across the room.
Four others sat or lay silently—expressions empty, movements sluggish.
But Jiho... felt strangely alive.
He lowered himself quietly beside his mat, back against the wall. His gaze wandered for a moment before it settled across the room—on Sohee.
Sohee, the only girl among them, offered him a tired but genuine glance. Her thin frame curled near the wall, her long hair tucked behind her ear, face hollowed from years of surviving poison after poison. Yet somehow, she still looked human. More than the rest of them.
"You were gone all night," she said softly, barely above a whisper. "They've never kept anyone that long."
Jiho paused.
He could feel her eyes on him—concerned, not suspicious.
"I guess they were just trying something new," he replied, his voice neutral.
A lie. But one he had to keep.
Because despite everything—the pain, the cruelty, the experiments—Jiho didn't feel hatred toward Tang Meiyin.
Ever since she had taken over two years ago, things had changed. The screaming stopped. The random injections became structured protocols. Even the pain was calculated now—no longer senseless. Her methods were colder, but never careless. Cruel, maybe. But never sadistic like those before her.
And he had heard rumors. Whispers among the guards. That Meiyin was the daughter of the Tang Sect's leader—a prodigy born with a silver needle in one hand and poison in the other.
Strangely, Jiho didn't fear her. Not anymore.
He understood her.
And more importantly, he knew she saw something in him.
Something that no one else ever had.
Over the past year, his body—once frail and on the brink of collapse—had begun to change. Where others coughed blood, he stood. Where they grew weaker, he moved with more strength.
He wasn't sure when it started. Maybe it was gradual. But the poisons no longer broke him. They made him... more.
Even now, he felt it—beneath the aches, beneath the cold. A pulse of something powerful, flowing under his skin.
"You okay?" Sohee asked again, shifting closer now, her hand brushing his lightly.
Jiho nodded, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Just tired."
Around them, the others stirred but said nothing. They were all too broken, too drained. None of them shared the strange endurance Jiho had developed. And none of them seemed to care about the bond he had with Sohee.
Jealousy was a luxury they couldn't afford.
The room fell into an almost suffocating silence again, the faint flicker of the lantern the only sound breaking the stillness. Jiho's thoughts remained far from the others, lost in the strange new sensations he was experiencing, and yet, he couldn't shake the guilt.
He glanced at Sohee, noticing her again. There was a quiet gentleness about her that reminded him of a time long forgotten—when he was a child, before all of this began. She was like a memory of what could have been. She didn't deserve to be here, locked away in this dark, endless cycle of suffering. And yet, here she was. Here they all were.
A part of Jiho—though small, though buried—felt a deep ache for them. For Sohee.
She had been the one who'd always stayed close, offering comfort in small gestures—a soft word, a light touch, a smile whenever she could manage. But Jiho knew that her strength, like the others', was slipping away. Each of them had been altered by the poison, in more ways than one.
"Maybe… maybe we'll be free soon," Min murmured from his corner, voice hopeful. Raka and Gaon sat up to listen. "I heard the guards say we're the last batch—Murim Alliance has ordered all orthodox sects to end human experiments."
Raka exhaled slowly. "If that's true… we might actually leave this place."
Gaon's eyes narrowed. "Rumors have a way of dying in here. But for once, it'd be nice to believe one."
Sohee tilted her head, a soft, wistful smile gracing her lips. "I'd be happy… just to be somewhere warm, somewhere peaceful," she murmured, her voice barely audible.
The words were meant to be simple. Yet Jiho felt their weight—the longing in her tone. He didn't know how to answer.
"I don't care where we go… as long as it's together," she added quietly, her gaze meeting his.
Her words hit him harder than any of the poison they had subjected him to. He could feel the warmth in his chest—the closeness he had come to feel for her, despite all the suffering around them.
And yet, another part of him—a darker, deeper part—knew that he was no longer just the weak test subject she had once known. Not after everything that had happened. Not after Meiyin.
Jiho took a shallow breath, fighting the surge of emotion that threatened to rise. He couldn't speak the truth—not yet. Not about Meiyin. Not about what he had become.
He felt a sharp pang in his chest. His mind flitted to the meals, the warmth, the care she had shown him. Meiyin, the woman who had once been nothing more than a shadow in the back of his mind. And now… she was the one who had shown him something he thought was lost forever.
He could almost hear her voice in his head, a whisper, a reminder: "You're worth more than bones and pain now."
The silence stretched on. Sohee's eyes remained on him, questioning, patient. Jiho turned his gaze away from her, staring out the small window where the moonlight flickered faintly against the stone walls.
"Sohee…" he whispered, then forced a small, reassuring smile. "I'm fine."
But it didn't feel true. He wasn't fine. And nothing here would ever be simple again.