Chapter 333: The Showdown Between Man and Ximen Qing (1)

“Shit. I pulled an all-nighter...”

At some point, the landscape of the jungle starts to faintly come into view.

It’s not just a feeling.

The day is breaking.

Of course, the dense canopy of the primeval forest doesn't allow the clumsy morning light to shine through before sunrise.

But Qing isn’t a science type of person, so she doesn’t know anything about how the sun’s wavelength something-something scatters light or the mechanics behind it.

All she knows is that her superhuman eyes finally caught a faint, barely-above-darkness ray of light and sent that signal to her brain.

Even if it’s just outlines visible in near black-and-white, it’s still way more comfortable than the night, when she had to rely on airflow to sense obstacles.

It’s damp, chilly, and she’s exhausted...

She’d kill to soak herself in a hot bath and then throw her body onto a bed.

Wongagye is basically half jungle.

The jungle means dampness and bright red loamy soil with no nutritional value—and Wongagye is no different.

Every time she brushes past some low, miscellaneous bush, the wet leaves generously share their moisture with her dry clothes.

So Qing, having spun around Wongagye all night, now finds her garments damp, sticky, and heavy.

And her feet feel even heavier.

Since fog clings to Wongagye all year long, the fallen leaves conceal a thick layer of loam, which has now caked her shoes, climbing up past her ankles like she’s wearing loamy cement boots.

A martial artist with solid willpower could stay awake for another three days, but that doesn’t mean the morning after an all-nighter isn’t crushingly exhausting.

And so, it's a morning where she really feels like shit.

Had she known, she would've just found a decent tree branch or rock crevice and gotten some sleep.

But now she’s facing the morning soaked in regret, fatigue, and that gross, sticky discomfort.

Still, no matter how fast you regret, it’s already too late.

Qing was never the kind of person to get trapped in regret anyway. She’s the type who goes, Welp, it is what it is, and shakes it off. Easygoing to a fault.

But hey, the sun’s up—so that means she can get out of here, right?

Let’s go take a steaming bath and crash.

It’s the kind of attitude that preserves happiness in life.

Then again, it also means she never really learns from her mistakes, no matter how many times she makes them—a fatal flaw, honestly.

So when you combine Qing’s shallow thinking, impulsive action, and this kind of carefree attitude, what you get is the perfect recipe for chaos.

She’s always acting carelessly, doing things multiple times when once would’ve been enough, wasting time and energy—and yet, when it’s over, she doesn’t dwell on it and just forgets, only to make the same mistake again.

She’s the type who’ll keep living this way until the day she dies.

That said, even with all this pathetic behavior, Qing was still considered competent even before leaving the secular world.

She’s got a knack for work and a good sense of how to get things done, and her mental blueprints usually play out decently in reality—so even her reckless actions somehow succeed nine times out of ten.

She was even acknowledged as a junior carpenter in Naknyeong, and that wasn’t just brute strength—it was her dexterity and sense for assembly that mattered.

But this time? Total bust. The one-in-ten failure moment.

Qing climbed a tree, muttering, “What the hell, why’s this tree so damn stiff?”

Then she figured: the sun rises in the east, so that must be south.

So she carefully climbed back down and pushed south through the jungle for quite some time.

Now that the sun was finally peeking over the mountains and draining the colors from the sky, she reached the southern edge of Wongagye—Goldmask Valley.

“Over there! It’s Ximen Qing!”

“She’s really here! It’s really her!”

PEEEEEEEP!!

Wongagye is a basin surrounded by mountains.

The only lowland is to the south, where a great river—the Geumpyun River—blocks the path. Even across the river, Hwangseok Peak and the foot of Mount Cheonmun rise steeply, forming a dead end.

Entering Wongagye in the first place is like a rat crawling into a trap.

The urgent sound of whistles blaring from across the river snapped Qing to attention.

Oh.

This is bad.

First thing’s first—retreat.

Qing slipped back into the jungle.

Behind her, phew!—a signal flare screamed skyward.

As Qing plunged deeper into the heart of Wongagye, her mind raced.

What do I do?

If I hide in the jungle, they can’t really do anything, can they?

If I just lie low like I’m dead for a month or two, they’ll probably give up, thinking they lost me.

I’m used to mountain living anyway. I can just scavenge and wait out the siege, then escape when things settle.

And then—

Ruff! Ruff! Somewhere, a dog barked.

Qing had been in the martial world for five years—of course she’d seen all kinds of beasts. She knew a wolf when she saw one.

Wolves don’t bark like that.

That was the kind of barking dogs do to be heard by people.

Even though there’s no biological difference, somehow dogs and wolves just... sound different.

Those bastards let the dogs loose!

Qing picked up speed.

Thankfully, it was still dim, but to her enhanced vision, it might as well be broad daylight.

Ruff! Ruff! from behind—then again from the left. She veered right—only to hear more barking on the right. So she turned left again—

And then, suddenly—CRASH!

A huge gray dog burst through the underbrush, blocking her path.

It climbed up onto a stump, bared its teeth, and growled.

Grrrr...

“Shhh. Be good. Quiet down, would you?”

Qing tried calming the dog.

Big mistake!

The dog barked LOUDLY!

BARK! BARK!

She hadn’t given a command it was trained to follow, after all.

And what kind of dog understands strangers anyway?

It wasn’t a dog. Like in some stories, it was a thing—something that must be killed.

Qing turned, about to run—but paused.

Wait. Why am I running again?

Right. Because when a dog barks, pursuers show up.

But come to think of it, does someone like me, the ultra, supreme, transcendent Lady Qing, really need to run?

I mean, judging from yesterday, those bandits were bottom-tier trash.

What kind of proper martial artist, trained in real techniques, would resort to becoming a bandit?

****

Jaryong-sam was a bandit under Geongon Stronghold.

About ten years ago, he’d stolen grain during a famine. His eldest brother, Jaryong-il, got beaten to death for it.

Having no other way to survive, he and his second brother, Jaryong-i, joined the Green Forest.

(Note: il-i-sam—one-two-three—is the most basic name pattern used by peasants in the Central Plains.)

There, he discovered an unexpected talent.

Not for being robbed—but for doing the robbing.

Eventually, he rose to the seventh rank in Geongon Stronghold, surpassing even his elder brother, Jaryong-i, who was still down at seventeenth.

That alone said everything.

So Jaryong-sam headed out to search with more ambition than anxiety.

She was said to be barely twenty. And they weren’t supposed to kill her—just capture.

Even just helping out might earn him martial arts instruction from the elders.

That’s why, when his precious hunting dog, Lady Zhao Yun (female, eight years old), and several others barked loudly, he felt his spirits rise and led his men in.

Pushing through the thicket, he finally spotted Lady Zhao Yun and two other hunting dogs standing at the base of a tree with a trunk thick as three men’s arms.

They barked viciously, staring up.

“Nice. She’s hiding up there!”

Looks like the other hunting parties hadn’t arrived yet.

That meant he found her first. He’d definitely get full credit for this.

Now, what to learn? Blood Meridian Technique? Ascending Dragon Scroll? Heavenly King’s Force?

That was Jaryong-sam’s final thought in life.

SHLICK.

Qing’s Moonlight Sword dropped from the tree and pierced the top of his skull, slicing cleanly down through his crotch.

“Jaryong-sam!”

Jaryong-i, the second brother, shouted out, watching his younger brother—technically senior in rank—die.

That shout became his last words.

The world spun. The ground filled his vision.

What... he blinked three times.

His severed head hadn’t even processed his death when his pupils dimmed.

Blood sprayed from the neck stump.

Chunks of flesh splattered.

And beneath it, Qing’s eyes sparkled with life.

That sticky, foul, heavy feeling she'd been carrying... gone.

Her leaden body felt alive again.

“Here! She’s right here—it’s Ximen Qing!”

“Ximen Qing?! You think we’re friends, asshole?!”

BOOM!

Wet leaves exploded in all directions as Qing vanished from view—

Then reappeared, WHAM, slamming her dark-stained palm into another bandit’s head.

CRACK!

The guy’s skull burst like a melon.

A surviving bandit trembled, holding a signal scroll, facing her mask’s eye slits.

“That... is that fire?”

“No! No, ma’am.”

“Hmm. Looked like you were about to light it. But you know—I hate noise.”

“No, really! I wasn’t! I swear!”

“Oh? Not gonna light it? Hmmm...”

Just as Qing was debating whether to pick a fight over that—

RUSTLE!

A blur of shadows tackled her from all sides.

Caught off-guard, she stumbled.

It was the dogs.

They sank their teeth into her limbs, their bright eyes looking at their masters.

Now, master! Do it!

And the bandits responded:

Your sacrifice will not be forgotten!

And turned tail.

One brother had been split in half. One got his head lopped off. Another had his skull smashed.

They had no fight left in them.

Qing frowned as she prepared to chase them.

One dog on her right arm. One on her left shoulder. One on her right ankle. One on her left thigh.

That makes... how many total hunting dogs were biting Qing right now?

“Goddamn it, you’re heavy.”

Wolves are born losers.

All they can do is bite and shake side to side.

Which is why hungry wolves gave up and became man’s best friend—dogs.

Still, their poor kill rate sharpened their instincts: biting from behind is their specialty.

And these four dogs had flawlessly taken her limbs.

But their masters had run off.

And despite biting her, their teeth didn’t sink in—it felt like biting stone.

“This little shits. Taste good, huh? Hm?”

Qing, having lost the chance at a full kill count, was annoyed.

Her voice turned cold—and the dogs hesitated, jaws loosening, sinking to the ground.

They averted their gaze with that guilty, sideways look only dogs can make.

“Killing dogs just makes me feel off.

But this wasn’t your first time biting someone, huh?”

Any dog that bites a person should be put down.

Sure, the dog may feel wronged.

But Qing kills people who bite too.

You could say she’s fair—creature to creature.

She raised her sword.

And in an instant, the dogs rolled over, exposing their bellies.

Their thick tails curled between their legs, covering their junk.

Whimpering softly—they were begging.

Pure, unfiltered submission.

“Goddamn it. Don’t make me feel soft.”

Qing liked big animals, small animals, pretty ones, ugly ones—didn’t matter.

“Well, can’t be helped. Hey, pups—bark.”

The dogs tilted their heads at her.

That unique form of interspecies confusion only dogs possess.

“Bark. Woof, woof.”

Qing barked.

The dogs tilted their heads again.

Why’s this terrifying new owner barking with a human mouth?

“Come on, bark! You guys know how—woof woof! Arf arf! Ruff ruff!

Wait, are you Western dogs or something? You need the Western version?”

If they were from the West, it’d be bow wow.

But Qing couldn’t imagine any dog in the world actually barking like that.

If they understood human speech, they wouldn’t be dogs anymore.

Still, they understood that she’d accepted their submission.

The dogs wagged their tails, leapt at her, licked her, rubbed up against her.

Goddamn mutts, don’t listen to a word I say, she thought, petting them.

“Shit, bark already! WOOF WOOF! ARF ARF! RUFF RUFF! GRRRR!!!”

Qing made every dog noise she could think of.

The dogs had to bark—for the bandits to gather.

She even let out a long Awoooo! like a wolf—and that, finally, worked.

They lifted their heads and barked—rough, not hostile, but excited.

—Over there! That way!

In between the barking, a bandit’s voice rang out from afar.

Rustling, crashing sounds of men pushing through forest.

Qing grinned.

And climbed the tree.