Chapter 407: When Mom Follows the Shamans to the Hills (3)

TL Note: I went back through my notes and realized I’d written this name incorrectly. From this point on, “Pohui” will be corrected to “Pohee” to match the intended pronunciation and naming standard. All future uses will be consistent.

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Qing doesn’t stop people from coming, and she doesn’t hold onto those who leave.

Even when senile old Choi Riong mistook her for his daughter in the past, she didn’t say, “It’s your freedom, Grandpa, but I’m not going to play the part of your dead kid.” That wasn’t her attitude at all.

So in comparison, the Supreme Beggar deciding to call her Mother is actually... on the safer side, really.

At the very least, he’s calling her “Mom,” not mistaking her for someone else.

Still, that visceral revulsion—there’s no helping it.

If it had been a daughter instead of a son begging for maternal love, maybe the rejection wouldn’t have hit quite as hard. People might say a child is a child either way, but come on—sons and daughters feel completely different, don’t they?

Goddamn it. If he hadn’t reached the Profound Realm, I could’ve just gone nuclear, dropped a metaphysical warhead on him, gone all-out in refusal and crushed him with sheer force.

This is why national strength lies in the military.

Because I’m weak, I’m being forced to take in a foster son. What a pathetic state I’m in...

Anyway, he said he wants me to give him a name.

Fortunately, he already has a family name.

Apparently, the bloodline of the Heavenly Demon Cult always used the surname Yeom (Flame). So the parasitic soul housing the Heavenly Demon in him must’ve also been surnamed Yeom.

But what should I name him?

Do people in the Central Plains pay others just to come up with names?

Isn’t that kind of unfair, though? If I’m the one handing out the naming rights, shouldn’t I be the one getting paid?

Since it wasn’t a matter of killing bad guys for once, Qing’s thoughts roamed wildly.

It was the usual Qing.

And as expected, a prompt came flying at her.

“Mother, when will I get my name?”

“Can you wait a little more patiently? I can’t just slap something together. You’ll end up named Gaptol or Gapsun if I’m not careful.”

“I don’t mind if it’s something random. As long as it’s a name you give me, it’s good enough for me.”

“Really? Then how about Byeonghal?”

“Byeonghal? What’s that mean?”

“Your surname’s Yeom, right? So... Yeom Byeonghal.” (a pun meaning “f**king bastard”)

“......How much longer do I have to wait?”

Apparently, Yeom Byeonghal didn’t qualify as “random” or “whatever.”

Qing chuckled softly.

“Anyway, could you stop asking three times every fifteen minutes?”

For reference, in Qing’s homeland, one il-gak equals fifteen minutes. So if he was asking three times per il-gak, that meant he was singing “What’s my name? Tell me my name~” every five minutes.

“Just hold out for a few days, okay?”

“I’ve waited fifty years for the day I’d receive a name. Isn’t it too cruel to ask me to wait even longer?”

“Hmph. If you’ve waited fifty years, you can wait a little more.”

“......? Mom? Is that really how this works?”

“Tch. Didn’t I tell you not to call me Mom?”

“Not letting me even call my own mother ‘Mom’... What cruel injustice under heaven! Is this really allowed, Mother?”

“Yeah, you’re disqualified, you brat. Why don’t you go find a real mom who actually lets you call her Mom?”

“Everyone has flaws. Even a cold and critically frail mother is still my mother. I guess it’s up to this Profound Realm son to endure.”

“Tch.”

Qing swallowed back her spit.

Seriously, me? Qing—the transcendent, the supreme, the one and only ultra-Qing—getting called weak by this idiot who stood there gaping and doing nothing while I gouged out his eye?

What kind of humiliation is this?!

Disgusting. Maybe I should aim for the Profound Realm too, at this point... But how the hell does one even “aim” for the Profound Realm...?

It had been a while since her sworn sister, Gyeon Pohee, attended to her—and god, was it heaven.

Without even lifting a finger, she was transported to the bath, her clothes slid off on their own, and aromatic suds enveloped her entire body.

Pohee’s slick hands gently soaped her from head to toe. It was comforting, but also, um... kinda suggestive? Tingly? Weirdly nice in a way she couldn’t quite put into words...

Then she slipped into the bathwater, and it was pure bliss. She might as well have died and gone to paradise.

“Is the temperature okay? Want me to throw in more fire?”

“Nah. It’s perfect right now. Mmm.”

But her gaze kept drifting to the numbers above Pohee’s head.

She’d completely forgotten in the chaos of being called “Mom.”

Qing’s eyes wavered.

Wait. What’s the point of doing mental math like this? I should just stare at Pohee’s tits instead.

Hehe. Pohee’s boobs are huge. They must be heavy. Of course they’re heavy. There was that study back home—looking at boobs extends your lifespan, right? Okay then. Boobs it is. Gotta stare at them and live long and healthy.

Just as Qing was drowning in her own degenerate delusions—

“Qing? What’s wrong? Wanna touch them?”

“Gasp. Don’t just say that out of nowhere—!”

“You were staring so hard.”

“W-Well, if you don’t mind, I might just...”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

Pohee rested her solar plexus on the edge of the bath.

And that meant the hefty blobs of fat above it plopped right into Qing’s view.

A ridiculously generous offer.

“Hngh.”

Qing let out an involuntary breath.

She gulped.

And the effect was immediate!

That soft, squishy sensation obliterated every last scrap of anxiety she’d felt—about merit and karma and other such nonsense.

“Kyaah, Qing, that tickles~”

Pohee’s laughter rang like crystal through the misty bathhouse.

Of course, instead of the karmic numbers she didn’t want to think about, something else inappropriate crept in to take its place.

A flicker of unwholesome energy colored Qing’s eyes.

Right. I meant to ask Pohee something...

“Hey, Pohee. You know when you use your martial art? Does it make the opponent feel, like, really good? Is that a technique? Or just how the martial art works?”

“Mmm, it’s more like... it forcibly pulls the person in. When pleasure hits its peak, anyone can briefly enter a state of egolessness. You know—mu-a, where there’s no self.”

“Hey, I’m a Daoist, remember? I know what mu-a is. That’s the whole reason the primitive Dao had ‘yin-yang absorption’ stuff. That moment where you lose yourself and merge with nature.”

“Exactly! You are smart. Once someone hits mu-a, their Origin Core loses its master and becomes defenseless. That’s when I extract it. Oh, and the Origin Core’s kinda like a person’s innate qi core.”

“I said I’m a Daoist. I know what Origin Cores are. Skip the exposition.”

The Origin Core was the heart of one’s innate qi—basically the spiritual heart of the qi network.

Just as the heart pumps blood through the body, the Origin Core anchored one’s qi to the body.

Because it was located in the dantian, innate qi resided there too. The whole process of cultivation pulled external qi into the dantian using the Core’s adhesive nature.

So if you extracted the Origin Core, you yanked out all the qi in the dantian—innate qi and all.

And if someone lost their innate qi?

They died. Obviously.

Hearing Pohee talk about extracting that so casually made Qing once again think: Yeah, she’s not normal either.

Maybe the reason she couldn’t distinguish good from evil was some kind of neurological disorder. Or maybe she was just that pure.

It wasn’t even clear if she couldn’t tell or just didn’t care to.

“Anyway, the goal in Hwanhui Palace is to stimulate them into a deeper, bigger, faster state of mu-a as soon as possible.”

“Right. So it’s a martial art, then? Can you teach me the incantation or whatever?”

“I can. But there are some side effects. You sure you’re okay with that?”

“Side effects? Like what?”

“You’ll lose sensitivity. Since you’re not supposed to hit mu-a first, I guess it dulls your senses a bit. But maybe it won’t matter since you’ve already trained in the secret manual?”

“Really? Even better. Let’s do it right now.”

“Okay! Want me to recite it for you right away?”

No hesitation whatsoever.

Qing smiled like a predator.

****

Pohee said she’d go wash up.

Qing sprawled out on the bed and spread her hair over the pillows.

When your hair’s that long, drying it takes a damn eternity.

While lying there, Qing opened her martial arts panel.

Joyous Yo-Yo Art. Red border.

She’d already heard the full incantation, so it had been registered temporarily.

She was about to invest training points into it when she paused, suddenly recalling the queasy, brain-scrambling feeling from the last time she trained something new.

Ugh. Haven’t had a full-blown brain-mash in ages. This sucks so bad, seriously.

As she took deep breaths to mentally prepare, a question popped up.

The polite name was Yin-Yang Gathering Art.

People commonly called it bedroom technique.

Its true nature? A sex art that extracted Origin Cores.

So... why the hell was she learning this?

Oh. Right. The side effect dulls sensation.

Still, it had been a while since she checked her martial arts panel, and Maiden’s Joy Technique was already close to maxing out.

Perfect timing.

At twelve stars, it would get a huge multiplier boost.

That one leveled automatically over time, but if it had maxed during a real fight, things could’ve gotten... unfortunate.

And so—

Joyous Yo-Yo Art. Efficiency Build. Six Stars.

And a return to that brain-mashing sensation she hated so much.

As Qing trembled violently on her bed with her eyes rolled back, her vision finally refocused.

Her martial panel was still open.

Maybe it was because of that big score she pulled in the Green Forest, or all the missions she’d cleared while half-blind, but her training points had piled up.

Maybe it’s time to max something out.

But since it might wreck her mentally, she decided to hold off on Great Purification Art, Reverse Tendon Bone-Washing Scripture, and Dragon Vajra Serenity Art for now.

Oh. But this one—Samsara Demon Rupture—this is the real deal.

Qing dumped all her points into Samsara Demon Rupture, pushing it straight to twelve stars.

Her muscles tingled, her eyes itched, her nose burned, and her ears were assaulted by quiet, grating noises.

But she’d been through this before.

You don’t just get stronger overnight when a stat goes up.

It’s a gradual thing, and in the meantime, your body itches like hell while adapting.

Nope. Dangerous thoughts. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.

Qing snapped herself out of it.

Because if she ever started feeling “inhuman,” she’d spiral into a panic attack.

But it was too late.

Once a thought enters your mind, it’s not easy to chase it out.

What kind of freak becomes a superhuman with maxed-out strength, endurance, and sensory ability just like this?

Is this even a human body?

And then—suddenly—she remembered that gaze.

That overwhelming, suffocating gaze of affection from the Empress herself.

Wait a sec... This body belonged to the Princess of Alchemy, right?

So technically, it’s still a human body.

With that realization, a surprising calm settled over her.

Okay. So I’m just transcending humanity in a few ways. Big deal. I’m still human at the core, right?

She couldn’t help but laugh.

Wow. I was stressing over nothing.

As she basked in that sense of relief, Gyeon Pohee entered the room, drying her wet hair.

She walked straight to the bed, brushed some of Qing’s hair aside, and lay down next to her.

Qing shot her a glare.

“What, you’re going to sleep with wet hair?”

“Nah. Didn’t you say you wanted to try out a new martial art? Thought it’d be good to practice on a real person. Said you wanted to know what it feels like to flinch from having your weak spot touched, remember?”

Thinking back... she might’ve said something like that.

Why the hell did I say that?

Qing waved it off.

“Tch. That’s not how family acts. Nope. Not allowed. It was just a joke. A joke, okay?”

****

Qing slept really well that night.

Strangely, being held by Pohee was a different kind of comfort than sleeping with her fluttery, heart-pounding friends.

Of course, that was only natural. Pohee’s posture was all about making her little sister comfortable.

But Qing, who always passed out first, had no idea.

She just thought, Wow, all that backrest experience really shows.

Feeling refreshed, Qing stepped out of her bedroom the next morning...

...only to see that guy kneeling on a mat in the courtyard.

“Mother, did you sleep well?”

“Oh. So that wasn’t a dream, huh? Someone called me ‘Mom’ out of nowhere—I really thought I’d had a fever dream.”

“Isn’t it a child’s duty to greet their parent morning and night? Aren’t you glad to see your son’s face first thing in the morning?”

“This is what you call a greeting? Since when did morning greetings require kneeling on a straw mat? This looks more like a funeral rite than a courtesy call.”

But no matter how coldly she spoke, he just grinned like an idiot.

Qing let out a long sigh and said:

“Fine. I’ve decided on your name.”