Chapter 1043: There Are Sea Creatures in the Sea (8)

Classic little-kid behavior: they play together, then collapse all by themselves.

If everyone played together, then cleanup ought to be shared too, but little kids knew nothing of cleanup. As far as they were concerned, I’m tired right now, so I’m going straight to sleep, and they simply keeled over on the spot. There was no nuisance in the world quite like them.

And yet that was exactly the privilege of being little, so Jayeo—who had been riding on Qing’s back—had already fallen back into sleep and gone limp.

Behind them followed two women who looked quietly spent, their bodies and movements both heavy with fatigue.

You could say, What, martial artists strong enough to be called experts are worn out from doing nothing but fooling around for half a day?

But martial artists were still people!

If you played, you got tired!

By evening the rain had weakened into a fine drizzle and finally lost its strength, but with the sky still covered in storm clouds, it was even darker than a summer evening ought to have been.

In that darkness, heading toward the yellow glow of a bonfire far away somehow carried a faint, aching melancholy.

After trudging quite a long way back inland, they finally reached the carriage and found Peng Daesan sitting there with his back to the sea, quietly facing the bonfire.

What was this? He had definitely heard them coming. If people seemed to be arriving, the least he could do was pretend to welcome them.

Then again, since she was the one who had left him there and run off, Qing was not really in any position to scold him, so she opened her mouth instead in a teasing tone.

“Oh, San. I was just starting to feel a little chilly, and look at this, you even got a fire going. Not bad, San. You’ve got some sense after all.”

Peng Daesan rose from his seat, but he still did not turn around. He only spoke to them with his back still facing them.

“Mm. I’ll go take a quick look around the area.”

What was this? Was he sulking?

No, but he had been the one who chose not to come into the water. What was the problem—did he think somebody would tease him for getting in, or grab his leg from below?

That was what Qing was thinking in bafflement, when—

“In the meantime, you ought to change your clothes first. Even in summer, staying wet like that, ahem.”

“Ah.”

Qing’s expression instantly turned awkward.

So that was why this idiot had not come in. He had been embarrassed over getting his clothes wet.

But honestly, what on earth was there to be embarrassed about? It was not as though they had gone in half-naked. They had gone in fully dressed.

Back in her hometown, there had been women everywhere wearing things that barely covered the top and bottom. If he ever saw that, he would probably faint dead away.

This, this really would not do. At this rate, Changbin was not the only one she ought to have been cursing out.

A real man, in a moment like this, ought to think, This is the moment. Time to feast my eyes! He ought to know how to stand there appreciating the scenery in earnest while lamenting, If only the Central Plains had invented dark sunglasses already!

...was what Qing thought, and then suddenly snapped back to herself.

And once she did, she felt a little ashamed.

No, that was not right. For her, whether someone glanced or stared outright, it would only be annoying because it meant another man’s gaze directed at her. But to Iri or Yoye, it could have been a real discourtesy.

I didn’t think of that...

Mm. Next time they went to play in the water, either it should be women only, or men only, or else she should tell everyone to bring thick spring-and-autumn clothes from the start.

Once she thought that far, Peng Daesan seemed rather admirable.

Instead of standing there to enjoy the view, or even bothering to look, he had moved far enough away that nobody would need to feel conscious of him at all, basically telling them to forget about such things and just enjoy themselves.

He really did have a quietly exemplary side to him.

That said, separately from that—

Were the members of the Half-Sword Twin-Blade Society seriously supposed to split up into male members and female members to play? Honestly, if San himself had just ignored the issue and joined in, the others probably would not have thought much of it either.

Mm. She could think about that later.

Anyway.

They stripped off their wet clothes, soaked towels, and roughly wiped the salt from their bodies. Unfortunately, there was no such thing as a seaside washstand with fresh water splashed into it anywhere along the coast of the Central Plains.

Mm. It had been fun while they were playing, but now that it was over, the feeling was a little unpleasant. It had not been plain water but saltwater, and muddy saltwater at that, so there was a faint gritty tackiness that bothered her.

Still, there was nothing to be done about that. Once they found a house nearby and stopped for the night, they could wash properly.

After finishing that rough post-sea cleanup, the group climbed back into the carriage and headed north.

Where were they going?

That was something no one could possibly have known...

Because even Peng Daesan, who was driving the carriage, and Qing, who sat beside him watching the road, did not actually know where the nearest house to stay in might be.

After all, this was the primitive ancient Central Plains.

Forget some polite voice warning of a children’s safety zone up ahead—this was an age in which even maps were treated as state secrets and never distributed.

In that case, how had ordinary people without maps ever found their way around?

Simple. They just followed the road.

If there was supposed to be a house or settlement somewhere to the north, then they followed the road north and kept looking. Wherever people lived, roads formed there in the end.

Besides, they had Seomun Cheong with them: a being equipped with a superhuman body, superhuman eyes, and absurdly sharp night vision beyond ordinary humans.

No matter how dim the world had become under those thick monsoon clouds, none of it posed the slightest obstacle to Qing as she surveyed their surroundings.

“Ah, there. I think that’s it? There’s a road splitting off to the right about twenty zhang ahead. Beep-beep, right turn in twenty zhang.”

“What kind of bizarre way of speaking is that?”

“It’s a courteous voice, you know? Honestly, you people never understand modern civilization. All right then, beep-beep, right turn in ten zhang.”

“You needn’t say it twice.”

“Pfft.”

A joke was not much fun when nobody understood it, so Qing merely shook her head from side to side.

To Peng Daesan, who ended up mildly irritated for no reason at all by her whole I shouldn’t even have bothered talking attitude, there was nothing to do about it. This was simply how Qing always was.

“Are you sure this is the right way? It doesn’t look like a proper road.”

“Isn’t it just because it rained?”

“Mm.”

And so the carriage turned right, entered the narrow road, and cut across the ever-darkening monsoon evening.

How long did they go on like that?

At the end of the road, something fairly tall suddenly blocked their way: a stockade of upright logs joined together, its height looking to be roughly one zhang.

“Ah. This is a full-on village stockade.”

When people of the Central Plains said village, they usually meant one of two things: either a small rural hamlet, or some remote countryside settlement that had fortified itself completely and did not permit outsiders to enter at all.

Judging by the way a barrier wall had been built to seal it off, this one looked like the latter.

Qing clicked her tongue.

As for villagers avoiding outsiders, she had already experienced that firsthand before. So was this going to be another one of those times when she had to imitate a ghost again, like when she had bolted with Jangmyeong on her back? And with Jayeo here too, it would have been perfect.

But a ghost arriving in a carriage was a little strange...

“I told you it didn’t look like the right road. If we’d followed the main road, we would’ve found a proper settlement sooner or later.”

“And yet you still drove us all the way here. Also, you were not talking about the main road earlier, just so you know. If you’d said that sooner, I might maybe possibly not have told you to turn off. So are you allowed to make it my fault after the fact, or not?”

“Mm.”

“Well, it’s not like we’re in a hurry.”

That was when it happened.

RRRRRUMBLE!

Was that thunder from a rainy day?

No. The monsoon rain had already quieted down by evening. This was not thunder but the sound that burst from inside Qing’s belly—an intense declaration that she was hungry.

“Heh. It seems you are in rather a hurry after all.”

“Ugh, I’m starving to death. Hey, Peng. Turn the carriage around. Hurry up and find us a house so I can eat. At this rate I might actually keel over.”

“...Here. Eat this for now.”

Peng Daesan tossed a bundle onto Qing’s lap.

When she unwrapped it, she found what looked like hardtack inside—or more precisely, a handful of dry, thin biscuits.

“Oh? What’s this? Emergency rations?”

“You never know when something might happen.”

“Oho. San, you’re looking kind of cool right now. Then since dinner’s still ahead, I’ll just take the edge off a little—om, oh—ohhh!”

Qing’s eyes flashed wide open.

She had not been expecting anything, but this was good.

Not good because she was hungry. It was simply good to begin with.

They were not even very hard—just crisp enough to crumble softly apart—and the scent of honey rose from them in a sweet waft.

Oh, these are good...

But delicious travel rations? Where did you even buy something like this? Or did a house like his make them itself?

Of course, they had not been travel rations to begin with.

They were expensive sweets he had bought in case he ever ran into her and could give them to her, but because he did not want to make a show of it, he had deliberately changed the wrapping to something shabby.

The trouble was that he would have liked to tell her to eat them by herself, but since there were several people in the group, it had felt awkward to take them out.

Qing, however, knew nothing of such delicate feelings.

Which was exactly why, when you did something, you had to make a point of showing it—professionally speaking, you had to let it be seen.

If you did not make it visible, nobody would ever know.

Just like Qing now, stuffing into her mouth without even trying to savor them the expensive sweets made by a famous confectioner who was often summoned to the Forbidden City.

Watching Qing say she only meant to take the edge off her hunger and then proceed to cram them down with complete abandon, Peng Daesan found the corners of his mouth lifting in quiet satisfaction.

He looked, perhaps, as though he were watching one of those enormous lion-dogs noble houses liked to keep.

And while wearing that pleased expression, he turned the carriage around—but then—

“Ah! Wait! Stop! No—please stop!”

A voice suddenly called the carriage to a halt.

The carriage, halfway through turning, stopped. They turned their heads and saw a man standing atop the watchtower on the stockade wall, only to vanish in a rush.

What was that supposed to mean? He called out to stop them and then ran off?

What was this, ring the bell and bolt? A ding-dong ditch?

Fortunately, that was not what it was.

A moment later, the thick stockade gate opened with a long CREEEEAK, accompanied by the strained groan of warped wood and hinges.

Then a man burst out through the gate. He had come running so fast that he stopped for a moment to catch his breath, panting, before quickly extending his clasped hands in greeting.

“How come you guests are already fixing to turn right around? We may be nothing but country bumpkins, but we’re not so ignorant we’d send guests away without even offering proper hospitality. Come, come now, don’t be like that. Please, come inside.”

At that, Qing and Peng Daesan turned to look at each other.

What was this? This was an entirely new kind of situation.

Nameless little villages were usually the sort of places where, even if you begged just to stay the night, the first thing you got back was get lost.

Forget staying over—you could hardly even get a single meal out of them. They were precisely the kind of people who shut themselves away from the rest of the world.

“Ah, have you had supper yet? And a bath? If there’s nothing special about the horse’s feed, would it be all right if we gave it some bean vines?”

What was this? The man sounded exactly like an inn tout trying to drum up customers.

Such unexpected friendliness left them completely bewildered.

Still, once the other side came on this strong, it would have been rude to refuse, and even if they turned back, there was no knowing how far they would have to go before finding a proper village to stay in.

So they followed the man and drove the carriage into the village, and he shouted loudly as they went:

“Come on out, all of you! We’ve got guests!”

“Guests, you say?”

“Oh, they even came in a carriage.”

At the young man’s shout, the villagers came spilling out one by one, all wearing smiling faces as they greeted them.

Qing was briefly bewildered.

What is this? Why are they being nice? It’s a village.

Following the man deeper inside, they reached the largest and most respectable-looking house in the settlement, where the village elder came out to welcome Qing’s party.

He was a beard-curled old man with the filthy, tangled look peculiar to manual laborers.

“Greetings. This old man happens to serve as the elder of Sangga Village. What brings honored guests such a long way to our poor place?”

“Ah, Elder. We came to see the sea, but night fell, and while looking for a nearby house to stay in...”

“Hoho. They say that heroes look out upon the sea and steel their spirit. So you young people must be heroes indeed. Though what to do? Our village is such a humble place that we have no separate lodging fit for guests.”

At that, Qing and San found themselves nodding without thinking.

Look at this soft, roundabout way of refusing them.

Yes. If it was a village, this was exactly how it ought to be.

...or so they thought.

“But how could we possibly drive away guests who have come to us? This old man does nothing and yet lives in the best house in the village simply because he is called the elder—so if I cannot at least step forward and offer it at a time like this, I would have no shame at all. Please wait just a moment. I’ll have my house emptied for you.”

In other words, instead of get out, what came next was a shocking proposal to hand over his entire house to them.

That left Qing even more confused.

No, why?

Why are they actually being this nice?