Chapter 342: The Showdown Between Man and Ximen Qing (10)

Qing planted her hands firmly on her hips.

Right. Focus. Time to immerse.

“I can’t. I can’t do this. What the hell is this? You want me to bear you a son? You—the bastard who wants a son—this is how you behave? I didn’t expect silk bedding and scented candles, but at least make it normal. I can’t do it like this. Not like this.”

“That’s not what we agreed—”

“Oh, please! You even made me take San Gong Poison. Afraid I’d sneak off and cheat? What, you think I’m some fucking animal? Lower than a dog? Is that what I am to you? Is that all I mean to you?”

“Um?”

“I’m seriously heartbroken right now. You know what the neighboring military camp did? They decked out the bridal suite with roses, cherry blossoms, plum blossoms, scattered everywhere like some fucking Shangri-La, and she said she almost suffocated from the scent. But did I ever ask for that? Did I ask for gold rings? For fancy betrothal gifts? Is this why you’re with me? All you care about is my body, right?”

Qing unleashed all the pent-up frustration from before her departure—and unfortunately, she poured it all out on Dou Sam.

Whether here or there, a man was still a man—and what she said struck directly at the primal male fear center.

“No, that’s not it—”

“Then what is it? You don’t have a single other thought in your head right now, do you? You’re not even thinking about me. Can’t you tell how I’m feeling? You seriously don’t get why I’m acting like this?”

“I... I... I’m sorry. I really am.”

“You said you wanted me to give you a son, right? Like it’s just one shot and boom, I pop out a baby? You gonna tie me up like a beast every time we do this? And what then, when you’re bored—pass me around to those oh-so-honorable younger brothers and their wives for a round of fun? And then what, swear you were doing it all out of ‘loyalty’?”

Qing’s tongue, now laced with the slow-acting Intangible Poison.

“This is your idea of loyalty? The woman carrying your child, treated like what? You gonna bring your son back here someday and point at this goddamn animal mating rack and go, ‘This is where Daddy tied your mom up like a dog and fucked her. She screamed so loud it made my ears ring. When you find a girl you like, you do the same, got it?’”

“Stop. Please. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I wasn’t thinking. Just... please...”

Qing sniffled, dragging the sound through her nose. Then she tightened her vocal cords, lacing her voice with trembling emotion—it was unmistakably the sound of someone crying.

“I... this is my first time. My first, do you understand? And this is what I get? How could you do this to me? How?”

First time.

There may be no other phrase that strikes a man’s heart harder.

Dou Sam panicked.

“I... I just thought you were acting so bold... I assumed maybe you’d had some experience... I didn’t realize...”

“You’re awful. Seriously, how could you say something like that?”

“I’m sorry. That was a terrible thing to say. Just—get some rest tonight. I’ll make proper arrangements for tomorrow...”

“Never mind that. Just... hold my hands.”

Qing said this and held out her hands.

For some reason, Dou Sam felt an overwhelming urge to take them.

The atmosphere... everything about this moment demanded it.

So he hesitantly reached out—and Qing seized his hands, fingers lacing tightly with his.

Then she smiled—like spring in full bloom, radiant, dazzling, almost too beautiful to look at.

Dou Sam’s pupils dilated.

His mouth fell open without him realizing.

The delicate bones between her fingers, the uncanny coolness of her skin—it felt softer than any silk he’d ever touched.

Dou Sam had never shown much interest in women. Even wondered, in secret, if something was wrong with him.

But now he understood.

It wasn’t that he had no interest in women.

He just hadn’t met the one worth being interested in.

His heart thundered like it was going to explode—this deep, aching pulse awakening something in his timeworn soul... this was love. First love.

And perhaps Qing felt it too—her expression turned shy, then slowly transformed into something sultry.

Her large, impossibly expressive eyes filled with pleading, staring deep into Dou Sam.

Her lips parted slightly—not quite to speak, more like a silent thirst, breathless, aching—those lips. Yes, those lips.

Dou Sam knew.

This was it.

Now was the time.

He slowly leaned forward.

Lips closing in on lips.

Qing knew it too.

This was the moment.

And at that exact second—her knee shot up.

A brutal collision—kneecap to pelvis!

They were the same height, but Qing’s waist sat a full palm higher, and the angle of her strike was perfect.

Somewhere inside, bones and flesh went crunch.

“GGUUHHK—!”

Even a Huagyeong master—hell, even Huagyeong’s grandfather—wouldn’t be able to withstand the sheer agony of forced gender reassignment.

Dou Sam’s eyes rolled back, white showing, like a puppet with its strings cut.

“RAPE IS BAD! I LIKE PURE LOVE! THINK FROM A WOMAN’S PERSPECTIVE! SO I’LL MAKE YOU A WOMAN! TWO HOLES, GOT IT?”

Qing’s foot returned to the ground—only to launch again with even more power.

WHACK!!

This time there was a proper, satisfying crack—her knee flared in pain from the impact.

Damn, even in this state, the rebound strength’s insane. Must be a real Huagyeong expert.

Dou Sam’s soul should’ve been halfway gone from the pain, yet his hands flailed, trying to escape.

But her fingers—interlaced and locked—belonged to the wielder of the strongest grip known to mankind, hardened by Small Water Demon Arts.

Strictly speaking, calling her a “female wrestler” was inaccurate.

Even the legendary Xiang Yu of old had less strength than Qing.

To be fair, Xiang Yu was just a guy who existed before Qing was born.

In today’s world, it would be more accurate to call him Nan Qing.

Qing dropped her hands downward, folding his arms like paper, pressing and twisting.

She felt him resist—so she yanked her head back and then—CRACK!

The sensation of her forehead smashing into his nose—the crunch of breaking cartilage—ah, headbutts. There’s something addictive about them.

There’s a completely baseless theory that a man’s nose size correlates with... other sizes.

Not sure if it’s in face reading manuals.

But in this case, it proved true.

Because she just flattened it.

“AAAGH!!”

And in the split second his pain stole his strength—CRACKCRACKCRUNCH!

That was the delicious sound of Qing’s fingers reaching his wrists.

Which meant: three dislocated fingers, a fractured wrist, and multiple ruptured tendons.

On both hands. One plus one.

Qing was always generous when it came to punishment.

“Does it hurt?! I’m fine! Isn’t that just fucking frustrating?”

SMACK!!

That was the sound of Qing’s right foot slamming into Dou Sam’s shin.

SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! SMACK!

His arms were completely mangled, locked in place.

He couldn’t even dodge—facing her head-on, his mind torn by the shock of being forcibly gender-neutralized, nasal reconstruction trauma, and compound fractures.

“I mean! What the fuck! Are your bones made of steel?! Did you grow up drinking milk straight from an ox?!”

CRACK. At last—rupture through the toes.

Target: Shinbone. Status: Neutralized!

“Pop quiz! Do you know what you get when you add a crippled hand to a crippled leg?”

Qing burst into gleeful giggles.

“Huh? You think it’s you? BZZT. Wrong. Sure, you’re a hand-cripple and a leg-cripple now, but do you think you’re the first one I’ve made like that? Wrong answer, and that means... punishment! Let’s go for the Big Spin!”

Qing began to spin.

Like the kind of spinning game fathers sometimes play with their kids, the kind that usually ends with a smack on the back of the head.

Except Dou Sam was way too heavy for spinning games—

But that was no problem, since Qing’s strength far surpassed that of ordinary humans.

Still holding his fingers tightly interlaced with hers, she spun.

She’d always been a little unhinged, but now she was spinning fast—no, she had gone full spin—like some lunatic possessed.

Dou Sam’s body rotated around Qing, arms extended, perfectly horizontal with the ground.

Fun Fact: Human fingers don’t have muscles.

So with centrifugal force climbing in proportion to Dou Sam’s body mass—and with the bones dislocated and the tendons already torn—his connection to Qing was now held together by nothing more than tender, stretched flesh.

Result: Even though Qing didn’t let go, Dou Sam’s entire body ripped free of her grasp, flying off like a launched projectile.

BOOM!!!

A tremendous impact to match the tremendous speed.

Huh. I didn’t even let go.

Qing looked down at her hands.

There, stuck between her fingers, were the remains of six fingers—their former owner long gone.

“Wow. What’s the rush? You didn’t even stay to finish the fun.”

Qing began walking slowly, deliberately, toward Dou Sam.

When she saw the mess he’d become on the floor, she had a shocking realization.

Holy shit. He looks just like Young Master!

Ugh—goosebumps. Literal goosebumps.

His fingers were scattered like pebbles, and the bone of his shin had broken clean through, jutting out of his leg.

The first child and first subordinate of the Lord of the Blooming Whip—both ended up in the same condition, ruined by the same woman.

What kind of sick fate, what kind of eerie symmetry was this?!

It was like something you’d see in a Sunday morning “gotcha!” show!

You know, those “Wait, what?!” moments?

...Except in the Central Plains, there’s no such concept as a “week.”

Unlike the gods of the Western lands, their creator deity didn’t work six days and rest on the seventh, so a seven-day cycle didn’t exist.

Meaning no Sundays. No weekends.

And of course, no TV screens to stare at when you’re bored and certainly no “gotcha” shows.

“Guh-hurk.”

Dou Sam, sprawled out like a discarded doll in some avant-garde pose, vomited blood.

Still, it seemed his mind had returned.

“Why... why...?”

“What do you mean why? You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“Why... the promise... it wasn’t that bad for you either...”

“Still not getting it, huh? Try flipping the script. Imagine you’re me. Out of nowhere, some gay bastard pounces on you and says, ‘Let’s sleep together. Just once. I’ll help you escape afterward.’ Now tell me—don’t you want to kill that fucker?”

“...Ah.”

Dou Sam understood immediately.

The power of perspective.

A bitter smile crawled across his bloodied lips.

“Then... if I’d said something else... if I’d acted differently... cough, hurk... could things have gone better between us?”

“Maybe. If back then, when we met, you’d said, ‘I’m sick of being a bandit. I want a new life. Let me help clean up this trash. Let’s take down the Lord of the Blooming Whip and burn the Green Forest bastards to the ground’—then maybe I would’ve accepted you as a comrade.”

“Yeah... that could’ve worked. So why didn’t I? It really wasn’t that bad. I only wanted... if I had a child, to raise him so he wouldn’t be looked down on the way I was.”

“Because you’ve always gotten what you wanted by threatening people. ‘If you don’t want to die, bear my child.’ That’s a lot faster and easier than slowly, patiently becoming allies.”

“I didn’t say it like that...”

“But it means the same thing. You just worded it more gently. Anyway, enough chit-chat.”

“If I’m going... make it quick. Please.”

Dou Sam closed his eyes.

But behind that docile act, his thoughts were dark and razor-sharp.

Come closer. Closer... just a little more... leave an opening when you come in to finish me.

A Huagyeong expert didn’t need a weapon—their body was a weapon, just by channeling inner force.

Even now, with his fingers hanging like rags, if he could just land a hammer-like blow—if he could knock her off balance even once—

I’ll take her limbs this time. Cut them clean so she can’t run.

Yeah. You don’t need arms and legs to make a child.

And come to think of it, the Lord of the Blooming Whip could use a new kid too—

No. No, that won’t do. She has to be mine. Entirely mine.

If I feed her, clothe her, tend to her with no arms and legs, she’ll have no choice but to depend on me. Eventually, she’ll open her heart.

Someone who can’t live without me. Who panics and cries when I’m not there.

Yes. Perfect. I love it.

Dou Sam masked the black bile of his thoughts behind a serene expression, gauging distance, focusing on her presence.

It was pathetic, but with both hands and one leg broken, ambushing her was his only shot.

But then—Qing’s voice cut through the tension like a blade, full of disbelief.

“The hell are you on about? You know how all of Blooming Whip’s kids died, and you think I’m gonna let you off easy? Weren’t you the one saying this place was soundproof? Great. A Huagyeong master won’t just die like some joke, right? Now then... do we have a branding iron? A brazier? Damn, the blade’s up there. Where can I tie you up...? Oh! Let’s try that thing. What do you call it again? The animal breeding rack? Whatever—it’ll do.”