Chapter 488: Snow-Claw-Zhao-Zhao-Zhao-Zhao-Sword: Speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao arrives (5)

Reasoned malice closed in on the Blood Sect.

The technicians waiting at Main Passage, Second Grand Junction, Room Three sprang to their feet.

Of course they did—an armed bunch had just walked into the control room; what else could they do but tense up?

“W–who are you?!”

Qing answered, brows scrunching as if the whole thing bored her.

“What’s this. You. You don’t know who I am? Your whelps slip out for one season and forget their betters. Hey—you. What’s your name?”

“Uh, wh-why do you need my name...?”

“Why? Because I was going to ask the Elder of Ghost Mountain Ten-Thousand Chambers whether it isn’t better to yank your brain out and make you a corpse puppet when there’s some idiot who can’t tell up from down in front of a superior, that’s why.”

“Ghk.”

“Good. Pick one. Do you want to be a corpse puppet or a blood ghoul? No, wait—does someone this precious need the eyeballs that failed to recognize me? Should I pluck them out too?”

“N-no, ma’am!”

“So what’s your name?”

“Uh, well. Um. Er.”

The nameless Blood Sect technician’s pupils rolled like marbles.

From the way she spoke, she sounded like someone very high.

And aren’t all the Blood Sect’s high-born types a bit touched somewhere?

Cold sweat oozed out of every pore as the thought blossomed—damn, I caught the wrong one today, I’m cooked.

He froze there like a gate guard who’d just been hit with “Uh, it’s me.”

People are people everywhere.

Qing relaxed her face and let out a faint snort.

“Kid. Don’t piss yourself. I was teasing you once. So—how’s the Grand Bloodshed Plan going? Anything unusual?”

“Nothing to report! Except, um, your honorable surname and given—”

The technician faltered.

And then the short woman behind Qing—short everywhere except for one... conspicuously overdeveloped middle—let out an animalistic roar.

“Kyaaaaah!”

“Eek!”

“No! Spot! Stop! Sit!”

“KyAAAA!”

“No. Stop. Not food. Bad.”

“Ky-aaah...”

The short woman dropped into a squat, face blazing red.

Is... is that supposed to be how a corpse puppet acts?

Murong Juhee wanted to die.

If she did, the cause of death would read something like: expired of unbearable humiliation.

Granted, she had raised her hand at once when Qing said she wanted someone to imitate a pet that followed its master around like a trained beast. So the fault was hers.

“Sorry. My pet’s got some bad habits. My bad. Anyway—what were you just saying?”

“N-no, nothing!”

“Right, right. Ah. I heard there’s something pretty entertaining to watch in here, yeah? Show me. Now.”

“Pardon?”

“Something entertaining. I said show me.”

The technician’s suspicion melted away completely.

Don’t know her name. Calls Ghost Mountain Ten-Thousand Chambers “Elder.” Walks into a control room like she owns it. Handles a feral brute who growls like a beast.

And asks to be shown the fun stuff. However you slice it, that’s one of ours.

Only one thing snagged in his mind.

Crap. I’m supposed to report—what if she says “it’s me,” how am I supposed to know who...?

Behind them, Elder Cheon Yuhak’s eyelids twitched.

Wait, this actually works?

If the Blood Sect is a den of morons to this degree, then the ones who get fooled by their tricks must have completely hollow skulls.

This from Elder Cheon Yuhak—the very man who’d scolded Qing for “thinking up every strange suspicion” while leading the way and claiming no such thing could be true of the doors and traps she flagged.

Still, a hook-nosed sage had been shouting “know thyself” two thousand years ago for a reason.

“Please, this way. If you look here, you’ll see the situation down below clear as day.”

“Let’s see. Wow. What the—how is the peephole this tiny and yet it’s crystal clear? How’d you do this? This is great.”

“We secured a wide field of view by chaining seven reflector mirrors of differing curvatures.”

“I don’t know what that means, but it’s amazing. I didn’t know the Empty-Blood Hall’s engineering could reach this level. You’ve earned my respect.”

There’s a saying in Qing’s homeland: praise makes even a whale dance.

It came from translating the title of some book by a hook-nosed westerner and had nothing to do with the original title; it was a random sentence born in the process.

But it was such a perfect line that anyone hearing it understood the meaning at once, and it became so famous that the whole world knows it as an ancient proverb of the Korean people.

If even a whale that understands nothing dances at praise, what do you think a Blood Sect technician—who does understand words—will do?

“As for the precise principle: when an image hits a curved surface—”

Qing let the explanation bounce off one ear and peered into the observation window.

It offered a very wide view of a stone chamber where people had gathered; yet the image wasn’t grossly distorted. For the benighted technology of the Central Plains, this really was impressive.

“Let’s see. Red coats are Guangryong Fortress, blue-cloud emblems are Mysterious Clan Mountain-River, green stripes are Suwang Fortress, right? The Evil Path really did all pack into one spot, huh?”

“Yes. From the First Grand Junction we’ve cut their numbers in half and funneled three teams—fifty-nine total—into this room. And here we plan to halve them again.”

“Oooh. That’s fun. Proceed.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Technicians shuffled in from the side, two to a slab, lugging a hanging placard.

On it were words to the effect of: Fight to prove yourselves; only thirty shall—

Qing beamed at Elder Cheon Yuhak.

See? I told you so. How would these primitive cave-dwellers ever build a mechanism array that senses headcount and halves it? The smirking grin said exactly that.

Elder Cheon Yuhak’s face curdled.

Once the placard slid neatly into a groove in the floor, Qing hurried back to the observation window.

They’d already been killing each other once before; on seeing a placard with the same meaning again, they immediately clustered up and drew steel at one another.

The geometry got fascinating.

Three Evil Path sects on one side and “the rest” on another—four packs total—but “the rest” were badly outnumbered.

Which meant each Evil Path sect’s headcount exceeded fifteen.

Only thirty could pass, and if two Evil Path sects allied they would immediately overshoot thirty.

So—what would the Evil Path do now?

Qing’s heart thumped.

“Wait, you were watching something this entertaining by yourselves? Wow, you bastards. I wondered what you’d been digging for twenty years, but like this? Respect. Worth the time.”

Smiles tugged at every technician’s mouth.

Granted, not a one could tear his eyes off the window.

Then, just as a representative from each force stepped out and started shouting—

“Oh, they’re fighting! They’re fighting!”

“Yeah! Kill! Kill them all!”

“Kh-heheh, you wormy trash...!”

The excited technicians kept yelling.

The first to get hit—unexpectedly—were the ronin and small fry without a backing sect.

The three Evil Path representatives had agreed to wipe out the riffraff first.

With nearly five-to-one numbers, it didn’t take long. The minority martial artists were slaughtered, and only the three Evil Path sects’ fighters remained in the grotto.

So—what choice would the Evil Path make now?

Qing swallowed.

Damn it, I need a savory snack formed by heating dried corn until the pressure pops—!

Popcorn. I want popcorn!

She gnawed jerky from an earlier haul to ease the craving.

Then—there!

Reds and greens allied and struck the men in blue-cloud uniforms.

Guangryong Fortress and Suwang Fortress were joining to attack Mysterious Clan Mountain-River.

The “Ten Evil Celestial Sects” meant the ten top-performing sects within the Demonic world.

The top five styled themselves “~Heaven,” while the sixth through tenth used “~Star.”

In orthodox terms, those with “~Heaven” were the Five Great Clans; those with “~Star” were the remainder of the Ten Great—minus the Five Great.

So it looked like the two Star-tier sects, weaker than Mysterious Clan Mountain-River, had allied to kill their men here and now.

Or, knowing the Evil Path’s snobbery, maybe they just found Mysterious Clan Mountain-River extra unlikeable.

“Good! That’s it! Kill every last one!”

Qing whooped, face almost pressed to the window.

Jin Jangmyeong tilted her head.

With her forehead glued to the observation slit shouting “kill” and “fight,” elder-sis and the Blood Sect blurred together in a way that made it hard to tell them apart.

Qing looked... very at home.

Right then—

“Hold it! Twenty-eight—twenty-eight! The door! Open the door!”

“Open it!”

Because the count had dipped under thirty mid-fight, the Blood Sect “Gate Men” dashed to the huge pulley on one side of the room.

Proof that the Sect’s cutting-edge technology ran on the most efficient internal engine in the world: human muscle.

Just as the technicians were about to crank, Qing snapped.

“Hold it! Stop!”

“Ma’am?”

“We’re just getting to the good part. Let them keep killing each other.”

“I-if the headcount at this gate drops too far—”

“Tch. There are other gates, aren’t there? Who cares if a few more die here? If you’re going to do it, do it properly—why cut the fun in the middle?”

“B-but the rules—”

“Oh? You daring to go toe-to-toe with me? Hey—Spot? Hungry? Want to eat a person?”

“KYAOOO!”

“Eeek!”

“See how red her face is—khh—can you see it? How hungry do you have to be for your face to look like it’s about to burst—khk—that red! A starving predator—ugh—damn, khrrk—teeth, taste, just—teeth...”

Halfway through the bit of fake sobbing, Qing couldn’t hold it and cracked up.

Seriously—what beast on earth yowls “kyaooo”?

The “starving predator” (Murong Juhee) shot her a look that was half wounded, half aggrieved while Qing cackled clear as a bell.

“Sorry, Spot. Khf I’ll grant you what you want later—hoo— so forgive me.”

Murong Juhee’s eyes flashed.

Qing regretted it at once.

Shouldn’t have said that. What if she tries to take revenge by swapping roles with me?

“Um, my lord?”

“Khf Just thinking about you lot getting ripped apart by my pet almost killed me laughing. Hands off the winch. I’m watching the good part. Where do you upstarts get off?”

The technicians meekly backed away.

Because they also wanted to keep watching—same as anyone.

Blaming it on an order from a high-up made the perfect excuse; they all pretended regret while plastering themselves to the observation windows again.

They missed a few beats in the middle, but the Evil Path-on-Evil Path brawl was a show with no regrets.

And Qing was still hungry.

Those Ten-Evil-Celestials types—every last one of them had carved up the countryside and looted villages to set up bases, like they’d coordinated it.

“All right, second act. Hmm. Send down twenty. Yeah—twenty. Do it.”

“Pardon?”

“Look. Down there you’ve got Guangryong Fortress plus Suwang Fortress—call it twenty-five heads. If you drop twenty now, then they’ll have to kill their own side this round, won’t they? You can hold that in? Doesn’t that sound fun?”

Technicians’ pupils trembled.

“Wh-what a genius idea!”

“Haah! I—I can’t hold it in.”

“But the numbers... is this allowed?”

Qing drove the wedge home.

“I’ll take responsibility. Do it now.”

“Yes, ma’am!” “Understood!”

Giddy, the technicians grabbed a fresh placard with a blank where the number went and started writing.

Everyone was in such a rush their fans fluttered madly to dry the ink; their hands moved quick as whips.

Elder Cheon Yuhak thought to himself:

Good thing that girl’s a Daoist. If she were truly the Blood Sect’s witch, the Central Plains would have birthed a catastrophe.