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He is born into the Tang family for the second time.
He has a face too similar to the first for him to want to avoid his reflections; the same green eyes; and white hair. He knows his family appreciates him (even more than the first time), but he hears what others say; he knows what the people working in their house and living below in town are thinking.
They say he — curse.
And he has nothing to say in response to this as he looks at a portrait of himself (what his family considers pride), barely recognizing; he knows his new name, Tang Wang; he has an older brother and sister who worry about him; he has a really strange but caring father. And it's wonderful, it's beautiful, the descendants of his brothers — are great people.
He just shouldn't be here.
It's been ninety years since the battle with the Heavenly Demon when he was born.
They're all dead.
Ninety-one years had passed since his death, when he reopened his eyes to be the only one.
Dosa-hyung kept his promise, he cut off the monster's head.
Tang Wang is born a sad child, rejected by the gods, — that's what they say about him; that's what seems true; he doesn't want to be here in the world after all.
Amzone is man of history; it is a man his descendants are proud of, knowing nothing of what he was like; it is hands that can give or take a life.
Tang Wang is the ghost of Amzone, a man capable of creating new things for death and life. As much as he wants to go, he has no right to throw away chances like this; his hyung would be very unhappy with him. So one day, with a body ignorant of training, ignorant of strength, he stands up to take on the poisons.
If he can help his family a little, if he can lighten the burden of Huashan a little, if he can be a little helpful — he will try.
It's harder than the first time the core could protect him, where he chose to live this life without it. He gasps more often than he should, and his family becomes anxious, but he understands what he is doing. He doesn't know what they see when he refuses them, when he avoids unnecessary rest and sits in stuffy rooms without suns and moons, when even the elders have tried to order him to stop for a moment.
How ridiculous.
As if there was anyone left to listen to him.
Tang Wang glorifies his family even more, and they try to kill him or kidnap him in equal measure; it is no less ridiculous; he has enough poison up his sleeves to paralyze an entire city. But people are stupid, or scared — he's not sure. Sometimes very foolish but strong men call him a monster, tugging at his white hair; to them he also gives the slowest of his poisons.
(He wonders what Dosa-hyung would say, looking at him now; has he become what he has always feared; should he have just finished?)
His family sends some of the money he has earned to Huashan without asking questions; perhaps because it is the only thing he has asked of them in fifteen years.
He loses track of the days and nights and years as his body grows weak and he does not prepare an antidote for himself as he should.
He breathes through fizzing pain and coughs up dust, sick every moment of the winter, frightening and disturbing his still worried and caring family.
One day, in the midst of all this, a Huashan disciple arrives; he hears it from the conversations of the servants, barely moving from his work, for food; when he turns to the door, as he has hundreds of times before, to greet important guests from afar and disappear from sight, he sees the plum eyes.
He knows this face, let it be more tender; he knows these eyes, how could he not know; he knows this man even before he hears:
"Third grade Huashan disciple, Cheong Myeong", says his hyung to his family, and his feet move forward, just as they did a hundred years ago.
Strangely enough, as always, as it must be forever, his hyung recognizes him at glance; his hyung catches him without hesitation, without falling or faltering; his hyung soothes his sobs as if it were his original duty.
His hyung will explain everything to everyone, his hyung will resolve everything, his hyung is back — and nothing else matters.