Chapter 1009: Journey to Nanjing (9)

The Madam hadn’t been like this from the start, either.

Originally, the Madam suffered from a constant sickly resentment every single day.

This damned household’s damned long-cherished wish—filthy and petty and filthy and filthy—and it’s only killing off my precious daughter.

If the family’s long-cherished wish hangs on a single little girl, then just how small and narrow-minded is that “wish,” anyway?

I’m sorry. Because your mother committed the sin of marrying wrong, you, so young, are being put through truly terrible disgrace.

And even so, I can’t protect you, and this damned family—now they say this is my family too—locks you inside that cold training-grounds chicken coop, and I can’t do a thing about it... I’m truly sorry......

But now, hadn’t they achieved that tiresome long-cherished wish and entered the Ten Great Houses, spreading their fame?

So in the Madam’s eyes, even after becoming one of the Ten Great Houses, it was just so heartbreaking that Gongsun Yoye kept doing nothing but train, letting the last fringes of the youth she had left rot away.

It’s just that, when Gongsun Yoye had it the hardest—back in that young childhood—the Madam’s guilt for not stopping it was deep.

Because she couldn’t raise her voice then and take her side.

Because it was truly painful and shameful, and she had no face.

Because she was so terrified of words like, What were you doing back then, and why are you only saying this now?—so frightened that she couldn’t properly speak.

So, as just a passing remark, she cautiously brought it up, and—oh no—then—

And it was true that the Heavenly Flower Sword was pretty and elegant, and the reason the Madam overpraised her a bit was because it was also flattery laced with a request: Please watch over our daughter, to the one and only friend her daughter had.

It’s just that she had no tact—no tact at all.

If the Madam had simply laid her heart bare and said it straight, Gongsun Yoye wouldn’t have been so offended.

She might even have immediately remembered how much comfort she’d taken from that one hair ornament the Madam had secretly slipped her when she was little.

Someone might find it stifling enough to smack their own chest.

Just say it!

Mom’s sorry! I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you!

But?

How is being honest easy between parent and child, in the first place? Even a child saying I love you to their own parent can be embarrassing and hard—so you can’t really blame the Madam for being stifling......

Anyway.

Whatever the intention, the result was CRASH!

Because Gongsun Yoye got sulky again.

If there was one saving grace, it was that this time her most precious friend had come to visit, so she didn’t spring up and shut herself back inside the training grounds like before.

So.

Gongsun Yoye’s room.

As the Eldest Young Lady and the future of the clan, Gongsun Yoye monopolized the biggest, best detached wing in the estate all by herself.

And in that inner room, in this hot summer—even though it was an even more horrifying furnace of a summer because it was Nanjing—an icy wind blew in steady streams.

Because Seol Iri was blasting Cold Aura at maximum output, sending out that frigid wind.

To begin with, Gongsun Yoye wasn’t bold enough to put on a truly upset act with Qing right there.

“Haaah...... My god, it’s so cool.”

“Cool.”

In Nanjing’s summer, where even sitting still made it hard to breathe, they sat in the cool room—and Jayeo had planted herself squarely on Gongsun Yoye’s lap.

Deploy Seomun Jayeo, strategy package, to comfort Gongsun Yoye!

This was the ultimate happiness!

But as if she didn’t know how to enjoy even this lofty happiness—because she was Gongsun Yoye—she looked stiff as a board, like she had no idea what she was supposed to do with the little kid sitting there owning her lap.

Watching that, Qing carefully chose her words.

“Um, Yoye. You’re upset, aren’t you? Of course you are. I’d feel hurt too. Right?”

“No, I... it’s just that......”

Gongsun Yoye fumbled, then finally hugged Jayeo tight and nodded with difficulty.

“Yes. I think... it’s like that. Now, all of a sudden, telling me to behave like a proper woman... it makes me wonder if my childhood was... if it meant anything at all. Because I don’t even know how, and it’s not like I don’t want to, but I’ve never done it, and I wasn’t allowed to, so.”

It was pretty disorganized, but maybe because of that, it was a confession soaked through with aching hurt.

And Qing went, mm. This, huh. Hm.

At times like this, it’s very easy to just take your friend’s side unconditionally.

When you’re hurt, there’s nothing more reassuring than a friend who takes your side—and you know how much comfort that can be.

But that’s only for a moment.

If the root problem doesn’t get solved, then after I leave, Gongsun Yoye could turn into a shut-in martial hermit again, training alone until she becomes some weirdo, right?

Isolation feels like it makes your insides comfortable, but that’s just an illusion—little by little you keep swallowing it down, and it rots deep inside, and in the end the wound can fester and decay.

Who am I to give advice, but... what else is being friends for......

“Still, what can you do? She’s your mother. Miss Gongsun should accommodate her.”

Gongsun Yoye’s expression hardens.

But Qing kept talking like she didn’t care.

“Family’s like that. If they’re your parents, the kid’s the one who accommodates them. Of course, if they’re not parents at all, then you don’t have to. But do you remember when we first met? You were keeping that hair ornament really carefully. Doesn’t that mean your mother thinks about you like that, too?”

All of a sudden, Qing thought about her own mom.

My mom was a battle tribe. That’s what me and that little sister of mine used to say.

Dad used to say she was a complete fighting rooster.

Mom was always ready to fight.

If anything rubbed her the wrong way even a little, or if she took even a tiny loss, she never endured it—she’d immediately get aggressive, snorting through her nose and raising her voice.

So she fought everywhere.

If something she bought smelled even slightly off, she’d run to the department store, to the big discount mart, to the market, veins bulging as she fought.

If something during a meal out displeased her, she’d instantly grill the staff and go, “Tell your boss to come out,” and roar like a furious lion.

Truly everywhere.

Even at hospitals—how much did she fight at hospitals? She fought doctors and nurses like she was going to grab them by the hair—right up until I was about to die—huh. Not die. I’ve never died. I’ve never experienced death. Why did I think that?

Anyway, right up until the moment I got abruptly dragged into this fake Central Plains pseudo-primitive antiquity, my mom was charging at the very front line of the battle tribe.

In the future of a similar world, she’s probably still doing it.

Please calm down, and solve things nicely with words—she always charged in like she’d decided to fight, so it wasn’t just once or twice that the other side, regardless of who was actually at fault, came out emotional too.

She fought and fought, and most of the time she got what she wanted—then she’d hold up the refund, the exchange, the freebie like a proud trophy and tell me—

See? You have to raise hell for people to listen. That’s why you can’t let people think you’re an easy mark.

When I was little, I was so embarrassed by her.

And even when I grew up, I was embarrassed.

She was the kind of mom you really couldn’t show off, so me and my sister and dad would just quietly hide anything that might make her angry and let it slide.

But still—she was my mom.

And the points where she got furious—the losses she couldn’t endure—those included losses any one of us in the family had taken.

That embarrassing mom fought embarrassingly for her family.

So as the kid, what else could you do but accommodate her.

That’s what family is, in the first place.

If both sides accommodate each other, that’s the best—but if not, then if you know the other person’s sincerity, there are relationships where you have to accommodate them one-sidedly.

“Still, now. It’s not like I wanted to keep staying in the training grounds forever. But when she says it like that...”

Gongsun Yoye’s voice flushes slightly.

Qing went, mm. Can’t be helped. This kind of talk is absolutely not my taste, but, well.

“Yoye had it hard, sure, but I don’t want to casually call it ‘pitiful.’ And what, it’s not like training was a loss. I’m a little sorry that I’m in this body, but still—Yoye’s at least a pretty useful expert, right?”

“What are you—”

“Honestly, if you had to trade childhood for being a peak expert, who wouldn’t take that deal? Training is hard and grueling, but there are tons of martial artists out there who don’t even measure up to you.”

“That’s...!”

Gongsun Yoye, who was about to blurt something out, froze.

Because she was running out of things to say.

Because in this primitive ancient Central Plains, martial arts themselves carried value like power and wealth.

By Qing’s hometown standards, it was no different from wealth—no, it was even better.

You’re healthy, and you’re freer.

So by Qing’s hometown standards, it was like this:

From kindergarten all the way through graduating college—about sixteen years—you stayed alone in a tiny room and did nothing but roll money.

You don’t know anything except how to make money, you don’t have friends, you don’t even have a single childhood memory—

But your net worth is, say, ten billion, and you put up a nice commercial building in Gangnam.

Can you really call that “pitiful”?

So Yoye would feel a surge, but her mouth would still get blocked.

Of course, as a friend, it really does feel painful to watch.

And you absolutely shouldn’t measure someone’s unhappiness by someone else’s yardstick.

Even while thinking that, the reason I still said this was—

“Yoye. Actually, I don’t have childhood memories. One day I opened my eyes, and I was alone, abandoned in some cave. That’s the earliest memory I have.”

“Ah.”

“Having no memories—knowledge? No. Common sense, yeah, common sense. I didn’t even have common sense, you know? Back then, the only thing I remembered was the Moon Maiden Sword. So how would I know how Murim—no, how the Central Plains worked?”

“Ah, then......”

“If you don’t know anything, what else can you do? You live as a beggar. I was a beggar, you know? A real bottom-of-the-barrel beggar.”

A shocking declaration! I’m from beggar stock.

Even Seol Iri—human air conditioner incarnate—stared at Qing with a startled expression.

And Jayeo, who’d been carefully leaning on Gongsun Yoye’s lap, blinked, then for some reason lit up and asked—

“Dad was a beggar? Is Dad a beggar?”

Hey, Jayeo—should you be saying that to Dad?

What is with that line—so what, we’ve got a budding little unfilial criminal here?

“Then somehow I ended up connected to my master, and they gave me a family name I didn’t deserve. And trying to live up to that expectation, somehow I ended up making it all the way here.”

Gongsun Yoye’s eyes tremble.

Mm. This is why this kind of talk isn’t my taste.

If it turns into the Who’s More Pitiful contest, you become a loser no matter whether you win or lose.

The winner becomes the more pitiful bastard, and the loser becomes the lowly bastard who feels low reassurance and low joy from someone else’s misery.

So Qing shook her head side to side.

“No, I’m not saying this to make you pity me. What’s there to pity about me right now? Who am I? The Heavenly Flower Sword. Youngest ever Harmonization—actually Transformation—an expert beyond Transformation, Grand Leader of the Half-Sword Twin-Blade Society. If I’m pitiful, then there isn’t a single person in the world who isn’t pitiful.”

Qing grinned and continued.

“What’s Yoye lacking? A home? You live great. Martial arts? I mean, sure, but even then, among the low-level people, you’re absolutely an expert. And on top of that, you’re even truly friends with the youngest expert-beyond-Transformation Heavenly Flower Sword, me, me, me.”

“Miss Seomun......”

“Friendship isn’t about quantity, it’s about quality. Haven’t you heard, if you have just one true friend who’ll go all the way with you, that’s a successful life? Then Yoye’s successful.”

“Ah.”

“So I want Yoye to accommodate your mother a bit. I think it’d be good. Put on some makeup, too? Of course, I don’t exactly know what mothers and daughters in the Central Plains usually do together. Do you chat about clothes or something?”

“I don’t know either......”

Gongsun Yoye’s expression darkened again.

Qing clapped twice.

“Hey. If you don’t know, you learn. Now—end of gloomy talk. And it’s true Yoye’s hurt and upset. And when you’re like that, you need some fresh air. Want to go get some air together?”

“Fresh air?”

“When you’re depressed, you’ve got to at least look at the ocean—ah, right. Jiangsu is along the sea. Want to go see the ocean? Do you know any ocean nearby?”

Gongsun Yoye sank into thought.

It’s genuinely hard for someone from Jiangsu Province to not know any ocean, but Gongsun Yoye managed to pull off that difficult feat.

After a little time passed, she finally answered.

“I don’t know any, but I heard that next to Suzhou there’s Shanghai—where the Yangtze flows out into the sea—and that area is nice.”

“Oh, Shanghai!”

Qing burst out in admiration.

Shanghai—so, that—Shanghai. Right?

A place I never even got to visit back in my hometown, and now I’m going to see it this late.