Chapter 396: There’s One Restaurant on the Plain Hill, and Two Hammers (3)

She had slammed the table and shouted big words, but now—

Qing found herself in a bind.

She had learned carpentry in Nagnyeong.

And in Nagnyeong, houses were built with wood.

But now that she was about to repair the Jin Family Manor—

Oh no, why were there only bricks in sight...?

Of course, the whole thing couldn’t possibly have been built entirely out of brick.

The frame must’ve been constructed with wood and the bricks used to fill it in.

But looking at it now, was this thing just stacked bricks? What were they bound with?

Was there maybe a wooden wall inside?

She’d have to dismantle one to find out...

Qing had participated in every part of the process—tearing down water-damaged houses and rebuilding from the foundation up—in the Henan-style. She’d seen it firsthand.

“Clan Head, would it be alright if I dismantled one building?”

“Go ahead. Hm, try the west-side annex. That one’s probably the most damaged.”

Jin Jakang, Head of the Jin Family Manor, readily gave his approval.

Truthfully, he wasn’t exactly sure what to make of Qing’s carpentry skills.

After all, wasn’t she the prodigy who shattered the record for the youngest person to reach the Absolute Realm in Martial World?

Surely she’d spent her days half-sleeping, scarfing down quick meals, and pouring every waking moment into martial arts.

(In reality, she slept soundly, ate way too much way too often, and somehow got stronger for free...)

So when she said she could do carpentry, it could only be assumed she’d just picked up some tricks as a child watching over someone’s shoulder.

That was the obvious conclusion.

She was twenty-one this year—hardly enough lifetime to master another trade.

Unless maybe she were some seventy-year-old master who liked to swing a hammer around whenever bored and, over the decades, could call himself a carpenter.

So no one was expecting much from this reconstruction effort.

More than that, they just liked the symbolism of fighting back against the curse in the exact same way it had struck them.

It wasn’t called a curse for nothing.

The inciting incident might’ve been those unorthodox bastards’ scheming, but now it had turned into a living, breathing curse.

If the Heavenly Flower Sword could become even a small turning point in dragging them out of that pit, they’d be nothing but grateful.

Qing wandered about the Jin Family Manor, arms swaying.

A guest roaming the manor alone—what kind of treatment was this? People might think it disgraceful.

But the head of the Jin family had bowed his head to this junior (technically her senior in bloodline) and asked for understanding, saying they were short-handed. So maybe it wasn’t all that impolite.

Still, if someone saw it, they’d definitely click their tongue.

But Qing was someone who didn’t care a bit about such etiquette, and honestly, when a noble house says it’s busy, isn’t it more awkward to keep fussing over one guest?

So here she was, wandering around the estate to find the west-side annex—literally planning to tear it apart with her own two hands.

The Jin Family Manor hadn’t even been able to hire proper new servants, thanks to being labeled cursed.

There wasn’t a soul in sight, only silence. A faint, damp rot lingered in the air, brushing her nose with a faintly nauseating edge—eerily desolate, to say the least.

Even though the day was bright and sunny, everything looked washed out, as if shadows had settled over a dull, pale screen.

Looking around, she could kind of understand why they’d refused support from the Martial Alliance.

Still, pride aside, shouldn’t they have accepted the help and at least tried to fix things?

Everyone currently working was so stretched thin they were all out managing external matters, and their guest was left to wander alone through the manor.

Thankfully, Qing had come after hearing rumors of their hardship—if she hadn’t, would this cursed estate have just withered away in slow, quiet decay?

The clan head seemed like a calm, kind person, but... maybe a bit lacking in practical sense?

If the buildings still reeked even when sealed off, they were already rotted through—he should’ve just torn them down.

Qing was thinking such mildly disrespectful thoughts when—

A strange sound reached her ears, captured by her superhuman hearing.

Kh-huk, huk, kh-huk.

Someone was crying. Quietly sobbing.

“Oh...”

Qing brushed her arm.

What was that? A ghost? Was that really a thing?

In a world with Daoist temples, chi, and where using the Tathagata Divine Body actually summons the Buddha himself—was it really so strange if ghosts existed too?

And if the Tathagata Divine Body had the energy of divine fire, maybe she could smack ghosts with it?

Qing cautiously moved toward the sound.

Why was it that, in scary movies, characters always trembling in fear still opened doors and walked straight into haunted places?

Now she knew.

Because not confirming whether it was real or not was even scarier.

So Qing followed the sound and gently opened the door to a particularly foul-smelling building—

Creeeeak.

In the stillness, the creak of the door scraped on her nerves.

And there, in the dim interior, was the back of a boy sitting all alone.

Ah. A person.

Well, of course.

“Who’s there?”

“Ah, Lady Ximen. Sniff What brings you here?”

“Oh, you. Was it Hwacheon?”

Jin Hwacheon. One of the sons of the Jin family, supposedly.

With fourteen or fifteen children in the household—boys and girls combined—she couldn’t remember exactly.

“What are you doing here? Why were you crying?”

“I wasn’t crying.”

With swollen, puffy eyes, Jin Hwacheon replied.

“Your eyes are all red.”

“That... must be a mistake.”

He rubbed his eyes with his sleeve.

“Sure. If you say so.”

“I wasn’t crying.”

“Right, right. I didn’t see anything.”

His young face twitched.

But Qing just curled her lips.

What are you gonna do? Twitch harder?

“What are you doing here anyway?”

“Me? I was looking for the west annex. They all look the same, so I couldn’t tell. If you’ve got nothing better to do, mind showing me the way?”

Jin Hwacheon looked at her like she was ridiculous.

“This is the west annex.”

“Oh. This is it? I’m amazing at finding things, huh? Wherever I walk becomes the path. Kaah.”

His expression changed.

Qing realized that people could go from one ridiculous expression to an even more ridiculous one.

“So what brings you here?”

“Oh, I’m about to start construction. But I don’t know what Guangdong-style architecture is like, so I figured I’d dismantle one and use it as a reference.”

“Dismantle...? You mean, tear down a house...?”

“Yep.”

His face darkened.

“You can’t.”

“Hmm? What?”

“You can’t. You can’t do that. You mustn’t.”

“Eh? But I already got the clan head’s permission.”

“But still—”

“Give it up, boy. No one can stop my destruction. I’ll tear it all down and build anew! Destruction is the mother of creation! Have you never seen a phoenix rise from the ashes?”

Qing spouted nonsense for nonsense’s sake.

“You can’t!”

Jin Hwacheon shouted back.

“If you destroy the house, then... then... khhff...”

And then the tears flowed. His nostrils flared. A huge breath, huuuuuufff.

Ah. Here it comes.

Qing realized too late.

Bwaaaaah—

The boy burst into tears.

It took quite a while for him to calm down.

“This was Hyewoon’s house. If it’s torn down, I won’t remember it anymore. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

From what he said, it must’ve been his best friend’s house.

Children of great clans didn’t play outside the clan’s walls—they fought, played, and grew up among each other. Their friends were distant relatives.

Cousins. Neighbors.

Family.

The journey from Henan to Guangdong must’ve taken around two months by leisurely travel.

If he’d returned around mid-August and found the aftermath like this, and they’d just completed the forty-nine-day memorial, then only a little over three months had passed.

Too soon to forget the loss of family.

And not a peaceful farewell from illness or old age either.

It had been a brutal massacre from the Blood Cult.

When the Jin family found the bodies, they’d likely already been left out in the humid, sweltering Guangdong summer—barely solid, more liquid.

And while they’d been rotting like that, wasn’t everyone else off at the Martial World Assembly, enjoying themselves?

Tear it down, she’d said.

To the Jin family, each house must have felt like a memorial stone.

Qing could only guess.

She had no way of knowing what it truly felt like.

So this state of the Jin family wasn’t about interference from unorthodox factions or manpower shortages.

It was closer to sheer despair. Grief.

But still—was just standing there and taking it going to solve anything?

And the city must already be full of scumbags trying to push the devastated Jin family over the edge.

Bastards who’d stop at nothing—brutally murdering innocent workers and more.

Qing dressed herself as a proper Earthwork Immortal Lady and stepped into the city of Guangzhou.

A truly bizarre and divine figure had arrived to capture the eyes of the entire city.

A flamboyant shaman’s robe adorned with multicolored ribbons, a rope belt strung with dozens of rainbow-colored conch shells that clattered loudly with every step—

Her wide-brimmed hat was plastered with talismans written in red ink on yellow paper, dangling down past her shoulders and back—

Only her face was veiled with thick cloth in the front.

To any bystander, she looked like a mystical shaman who had descended to the marketplace.

But a shaman isn’t a carpenter.

Which is why she came out in the first place.

She needed something—some tool, some sign—to scream “divine carpenter” at first glance.

A saw? She could just use Sword Aura. A plane? Sword Aura. A chisel? Punch? Sword Aura was invincible.

But a hammer. She needed at least a hammer.

Her Moonlight Sword No. 10 was five geun and technically a blunt weapon, but it wasn’t quite right for hammering.

So Qing, in full regalia, stepped onto Ironworking Street.

The sound of hammering rang joyfully, the scent of burning coal hung thick in the air.

She wandered, pretending to examine the iron tools spread out at various stalls.

She didn’t actually know much about blacksmithing, so looking around didn’t help.

The whole point was to stamp the image of the Earthwork Immortal Lady into people’s minds.

Then Qing approached the largest blacksmith’s stall and abruptly asked in blunt speech.

Her own version of “shaman performance.”

“Hey, I’m looking for a jangchu.” (big hammer)

“What weight are you looking for?”

“Fifteen geun.”

“Pah! You think we have something like that?”

“That’s weird. They use them in Henan.”

They definitely didn’t.

A fifteen-geun hammer would flatten any man in seconds.

And weight alone didn’t make a good hammer.

A hammer that heavy would break the material instead of driving nails—splitting stakes from the inside out.

“So what’s the heaviest hammer in Guangdong?”

“Eight geun. Wait—Henan folk make fifteen-geun hammers? What the hell do they use them for?”

“What else? Building houses. What, you think it’s for cracking heads?”

“Hah! Even with eight-geun, you’re down in one beat. You’d be lucky to find ten such hammers across the whole street. And you’re talking fifteen?”

“I venerate Lord Xiang Yu as my ancestral spirit. Fifteen geun is nothing. A pity my usual twenty-geun iron hammer broke.”

“Twenty? Ha! Then eight must feel like a child’s toy to you. Well, let’s see your godly hammering.”

“Tsk. I don’t mind you watching. But questioning a divine vessel comes with a terrible curse. You willing to risk that?”

“Heh. You shamans always pull that crap. Get lost, you fake shaman tramp in a fake getup—”

The blacksmith’s sneer stopped mid-sentence.

A long, delicate hand lifted the eight-geun hammer with ease.

She swung it lightly up and down like a twig.

“Feels too light.”

Then she picked up a long iron bar and tossed it—

Tapping it repeatedly with the hammerhead, bouncing it in the air.

In hammers, geun referred only to the head’s weight.

Grabbing a four-foot handle at the end with one hand, she used the heavy, elongated bar to bat the iron chunk half a jang into the air over and over.

The blacksmith’s jaw dropped.

His head bobbed up and down, following the bar flying skyward and falling again.

Clang, clang, clang!—the sound of iron on iron.

With her mystical garb and this divine hammerwork, everyone on Ironworking Street—smiths and customers alike—stood dumbstruck, watching in awe.