Chapter 467: I Don’t Believe in Legends (3)

In Qing’s homeland there is a saying: one loach can muddy an entire pond.

In other words, it only takes a single loach to stir up the water of a pond.

Of course, if the pond’s bottom is solid rock or pressed flat with gravel, no amount of wriggling will muddy it.

For a loach to foul the water, there has to be plenty of filth already settled on the bottom.

So then—why is the Evil Path called the Evil Path?

Because even working together, their eyes always gleam sly and shifty, scheming how to snatch more for themselves, forever obstructing and undermining each other.

And if a mountain is full of such heretics, and someone stirs up a proper bit of discord?

—

A first-rank warrior of the Tyrant Force Sect opened his eyes wide.

When another man’s hand pierces your chest, your eyes widen whether you want them to or not.

“Wh... why...?”

“Why? Keheheh. You ask as if you don’t know.”

Jun Gichung, Sect Lord of the Ironblood Sect, pulled his hand free.

In his grip, a freshly torn heart.

He crushed it to pulp before their eyes.

Watching in hiding was another gaze—

a second-rank disciple of the Tyrant Force Sect.

It was not fear of the mighty Sect Lord Jun Gichung that made him hide.

Someone had to survive.

Someone had to live and report back that the Ironblood Sect had launched a direct assault, led by the sect lord himself.

And if someone had to survive, it had to be him.

Why the Ironblood Sect carried out such an attack was not worth pondering.

The so-called Ten Evil Celestial Sects were made up of the Five Great Heavens and the Five Great Stars.

Put in orthodox terms, it was like the Five Great Clans and the Ten Great Houses.

The five stronger heretic sects were the Great Heavens; the five weaker, the Great Stars. Together, they made the Ten Evil Celestial Sects.

Naturally, the Great Stars longed to shed the word “star” and claim the word “heaven.”

So wasn’t this simply a ploy to erase the Tyrant Force Sect’s depleted scouting party, weakened after the Blood Sect’s attack?

The Tyrant Force Sect disciple held his breath tighter still.

More than ever, he must not be discovered.

It was his duty to see and remember his dying brothers, to report this scheme and prepare the sect.

He was not hiding out of terror.

In truth, his heart burned to leap out and swing his blade, to die a glorious death carving down those vile villains—

but he had to report.

How bitter, how unavoidable.

Oh no—they’re looking this way. Gasp!

Thus, suppressing his heart-rending grief, the disciple saved his life.

Even half an hour after the Ironblood Sect raiding party withdrew, he still waited and watched before finally sprinting to report back.

“What!? The Ironblood Sect!? Why!?”

“They must be trying to wipe us out while they can...”

“Khmm.”

A Tyrant Force Sect elder groaned in dismay.

It made sense.

They had stirred up a whole city, so the rumor of a Blood Sect raid would surely have spread.

Suspicion of slander never even entered their minds.

If enemies who could have struck had indeed struck, it only meant they had shown their true colors at last.

And even if it was a ploy, what did it matter?

After brothers of the Tyrant Force Sect had already been butchered, who would sit down for talk with the enemy?

So both factions shoved the treasure hunt to the back of their minds, lowered their bodies, and began tearing at each other in secret.

—

Strangely enough, demonic thugs always traveled in packs.

After all, weren’t they the type who did nothing but beg to get killed?

Grievances piled up like weeds.

One was weak, but many were strong.

That was why such scum loved to swear brotherhoods and roam in gangs.

Thus the names for such villains changed depending on their numbers and crimes.

The lowest were called “Dogs.”

For example, the “Three Dogs of Chang’an.”

They were petty criminals—drinking and cheating taverns, harassing women, causing trouble at others’ shops, mugging old men, and generally behaving like beasts.

Curiously, a villain’s pride lay in villainy.

So the “Dog”-ranked never called themselves Dogs.

They knew it was shameful, so they were at least humble about that.

But if they kept doing worse, people themselves would upgrade them, changing the suffix.

Those called “Fiends” were heinous criminals.

Those called “Killers” were serial murderers.

And then such villains would preen and boast: “We’re the Three Fiends of Chang’an! Isn’t that cool?”

Even though it was really just a brand telling others to never associate with them.

From Qing’s experience on Mount Lao, “Fiends” and “Killers” didn’t even need to take a human aptitude test. They were just beasts in human skin.

“I’m only gathering cornelian cherries... my child has a fever...”

Qing had been hearing about those damn cornelian cherries nonstop.

But according to the medical texts, cornelian cherries don’t even reduce fevers.

The Huangdi Neijing and Compendium of Materia Medica say they boost male virility.

No fever remedy at all.

So why did people search for them when their child burned with fever?

Had they already given up the child, and were looking instead for medicine to strengthen the husband to father another?

The real answer was simply that Qing’s roots were Korean.

Cornelian cherries, didn’t they call to mind—

a father’s desperate love, trudging through snow to pluck fruit for his sick child?

Of course, why that father thought a natural aphrodisiac would help a fevered boy was beyond all reason.

“We are the Six Killers of Yeo River. Hehehe.”

Six Killers of Yeo River? So they’re Killers, are they?

Qing’s sorrowful expression vanished at once.

“Oh, really?”

She snapped her fingers.

Rustle—

Cheon Yuhak, wearing Ironblood Sect robes, appeared behind them, flanking them with two others.

Qing’s sharp insight: the more ways you can stir up discord, the better.

She was clever only when it came to tormenting others.

“Who goes there!? Ah—Ironblood Sect!? How is it that the great warriors of the Ironblood Sect...”

Qing was amazed.

Did demonic thugs recognize each other instinctively?

They identified the robes right away.

Well, she herself could identify the uniforms of the Nine Great Sects at a glance.

“How dare you disrupt the affairs of the Ironblood Sect. You’ll pay with your lives!”

Cheon Yuhak thundered sternly.

The Six Killers of Yeo River were aghast.

When had they disrupted anything?

But unless you protested, no one would know.

“W-we didn’t—”

Cheon Yuhak curled his lips in a wicked smile.

Qing thought the expression suited him well.

“What’s the best way to monopolize a treasure? Eliminate all the rivals.”

Clang! The Six Killers of Yeo River drew their blades.

But Cheon Yuhak simply raised a shimmering aura in reply.

Their shoulders hunched.

“W-we’ll withdraw. We give up the claim, so—”

“No. If we let men who dared draw steel against the Ironblood Sect walk free, what face would we have left? At least leave something behind, don’t you think?”

“Grr.”

“Mm. You’ve offended the Ironblood Sect’s daughter. To balance the scales, you should try living as women yourselves. Hand over your manhoods and be gone.”

The Six Killers of Yeo River exchanged looks.

“Elder, normally it’s fingers, right—?”

“Your manhoods.”

“Then... three fingers at least—”

“Your manhoods.”

“U-uh. Then perhaps a whole wrist, please—”

“Your manhoods.”

It was as unyielding as the Lee family’s famed neutrality.

Meanwhile Jin Jangmyeong and Murong Juhee, standing at his sides, blushed furiously and stared down at the mud, unable to look.

Qing found it rather cute.

Blushing just over the word “manhoods”?

What were they, children?

Well—considering their small statures, maybe they were.

“Better to die a eunuch than live a man! Attack!”

Thus began the desperate battle to defend their manhoods.

They failed, of course.

“Kekeke, how is it? Aggrieved? Furious? Then come to the Ironblood Sect anytime, bitches. Hah! For women, you lot are handsomely manly. Khahaha!”

The Six Killers of Yeo River were now the Six Eunuchs of Yeo River.

Cheon Yuhak mocked them slyly as he turned away.

Qing followed.

Jin Jangmyeong and Murong Juhee, who had waited beyond, unwilling to watch such filth, rejoined them.

Behind them, the Six Killers ground their teeth, lower halves drenched in blood.

Better to have been killed!

What tyranny, what humiliation!

But here was the astonishing truth—

The idea of castration hadn’t been Qing’s!

It had been Cheon Yuhak’s.

Qing had only suggested taking their hands.

That would weaken them as villains and direct their hatred toward the Ironblood Sect.

But Cheon Yuhak shook his head.

Cut off a wrist, and they’d just cower and vent their rage on peasants.

Their hatred would fall on the weak and innocent, spreading more harm.

So, castration.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he told Qing—she protested it was terribly unfair—

“but a man never forgets hatred against his manhood.”

Even the great historian Sima Qian, after suffering castration, lost control of his urination.

His dearest friends couldn’t bear the stench and shunned him.

Such misery was indescribable, and for men it became a grudge beyond reconciliation—an eternal vendetta against the Ironblood Sect.

They would burn their lives away for revenge.

It was the kind of grotesque idea Cheon Yuhak would never normally voice.

But he was enraged.

He had seen villages slaughtered over and over.

Even without looking, he knew countless others had met the same fate.

And in their party, no one could stop his fury.

Jin Jangmyeong, impersonating another, preferred that the Divine Lady’s Gate not be implicated.

Murong Juhee was equally furious.

So passed one, two, three, four days.

The Iron Sword Sky Sect’s base was raided by the Ironblood Sect.

The Choryu Northern Dipper Sect’s base was burned down by the Iron Sword Sky Sect.

The Guanglong Sect’s base was struck by a Choryu Northern Dipper detachment and suffered heavy losses.

Hatreds chasing hatreds.

Meanwhile the warriors of the Ten Evil Celestial Sects kept attacking small and medium sects, desperate to eliminate rivals.

And then there were the new eunuchs, grinding their teeth toward the great heretic sects.

Some stayed in the mountains, launching ambushes to vent their hate; others withdrew, swearing revenge another day.

To any onlooker, it seemed they’d come to Mount Lao not to seek the Absorbing Qi Demonic Art but to start endless fights.

Well, treasure-hunting too, of course.

But why search themselves?

Slaughter the searchers, and they’d inherit the results.

Crush villains and incidentally cover the mountain—that was the way.

And so, thanks to the chain of vendettas, corpses were now strewn everywhere on the mountain slopes.

Truly, a war of all against all!

Travel quietly along the ridges, and you’d hear the cries: “Die! You enemy of the Little Celestial Lord! Do you know who you’ve crossed?!” Swords and spears clashed all around.

Just four vicious souls had turned the whole of Mount Lao into a sea of blood.

Exactly like one loach muddying an entire pond.

But—

After a loach muddies a pond, the water actually clears again.

Its slimy mucus binds the dirt and sinks it down.

So perhaps, from the world’s view, villains killing each other was a most pleasing sight.