Chapter 497: Snow-Claw-Zhao-Zhao-Zhao-Zhao-Sword: Speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao arrives (14)

The instant Qing turned her back, a stern old voice chased her down.

“Eon Yeonyeong! Come back at once! I was awakened by your words and received my mission—your revolutionary thought is as a teacher to me! Do you truly mean to betray the revolution? Were you merely babbling to wriggle out of danger? If not, then return at once and declare your intent to your comrades!”

“Fuh-hoh huh-ee uh-heo-ya hil-kee-eun-ga al-geun-ga ha-hee! Hee-heung-hee geu-reo-geo it-heu aeya!”

Qing, mouth still brimmed with poison, snapped back at full volume.

Roughly: I’ve got nothing to “declare,” and now is not the time—how about not.

“Stop there!”

“Stop there!”

“Freeze, you little bastard!”

The three gate-breaking idiots’ voices lined up in chorus.

Just like when they were hacking at the west gate, they moved in lockstep like a single body.

Qing cut a glance back. That fat bastard—those slabs of meat—so damn broken it’s unfair!

Well... not unfair, exactly.

Vajra Indestructible makes you hard and solid; collide with an enemy and only the enemy hurts.

Jerky Triple Layer makes you soft and squishy; clubbing someone with your fat isn’t actually that effective.

Qing didn’t need insight into martial principles to know this—experience taught her: if he pins you, you can’t breathe; otherwise, not so scary.

Pobidon wasn’t carrying that sword for show, but still.

One-two-three-four.

Okay, fine—did I at least take two out?

Qing, almost unconsciously, offered up a little ritual for safe deliverance.

And since she was a Daoist who’d eaten her share of memorial rice, it turned out to be a very efficacious rite.

“I’ll kill you!”

“Kraaaagh!”

Two men burst from among the Flower Realm masters with murderous screams—

one with blood smeared at the mouth from vomiting it up,

the other weeping a river of blood from his left eye.

Both had their eyes rolled white and were steaming killing intent.

Demon-practitioners. Entering Demon.

This was the decisive difference between true Flower Realm and pseudo-Flower Realm.

If venom stains the eyes or a touch of Lesser Demonic Poison seeps into the dantian, a sane man would sit cross-legged and circulate qi to stabilize his body first.

But let real anger catch fire and murder takes the reins; they forget their own bodies and charge the enemy.

That ferocity made Qing swallow without thinking.

“Ghk—gulp.”

The poison seared her esophagus like a hot knife.

The dregs in her mouth slipped down her throat.

Humans weren’t designed to hold liquid in their mouths that long—she’d managed it for quite a while.

Her pet salamander—lodged somewhere under her upper stomach—seemed thrilled with the rare draught, thumping along, jostling her guts with a strange—but not exactly bad—tingle. A faint, fresh zing. Bizarre. What is that?

Since when did the Drunkard Bottle have this trick? Showing off for me now?

Like a swig of fine liquor after a long drought—her inside buzzed and, lower down, wobbled.

Meanwhile the two she thought she’d finished evolved into demons, spewing murderous qi from their eyes and closing in—

body and weapon blinking in and out of focus as her vision toggled—man/weapon unified—then man—then weapon—hurtling at her.

“This is driving me nuts!”

Right then—TWANG-THUMP!

With the explosive snap of a bowstring returning, an arrow shot from the wall.

The one-eyed demon charging in a straight line took the hit—THUNK!—the arrow skittered off Guardian Qi and pinged away in shards.

He batted the shaft off, lost his line, smashed into a wall, and tumbled.

The blood-vomiting one sped up—

then suddenly—clunk—he dropped straight down.

At the same time the trap’s hatch rumbled back up and sealed with a clap.

Ah! Master! Kids!

The Blood Sect technicians had been thorough; who else would be springing traps now?

Qing gave a big thumbs-up—no idea where the observation windows were, so she flashed signals in every direction.

To the pursuers, it looked like nonsense.

But fools rarely draw suspicion; judged against her usual antics, it read like mockery.

Qing sprinted again; the three masters hurled steel rings without pause.

“Graaah!” “Killkillkillkill—”

The one-eyed demon howled; the Blood-Vomiting Demon burst up the shut trapdoor with a bang and trailed her with a chilling mutter.

All the while, ex–Solitary Blade Jong Jeongpil came on with steady, measured steps.

Qing’s wits started to fray.

Steel rings kept scything at her arms and legs.

Whenever murder flared, the demons came with blades; she dove prone, rolled, skidded—

It was an iron-willed steeplechase—blood-storm howling, seven stumbles, seven rises—bolting helter-skelter in dazed defiance.

Run, Seo Mun Cheong—run!

Had the floor not opened on cue, had arrows not fired, had falling stones not favored her—she’d have been run down long ago.

But the Blood Sect had left many traps unused to “manage survivor counts,” and Qing took full advantage.

She bunny-hopped and tumbled, sprang up—tumbled again—

leapt to the ceiling, tapped down—thud-thud—

skipped along the walls—tap-tap—pushed off—thoom-thoom-thoom—

flitter-flitter, shrug-shrug—

Even for Qing, breath started to run short.

Two steps, dive—roll—up—two more steps—handspring—kick off one wall, then the other—run on all fours—dive prone—again prone—again—

The ultimate endurance drill.

And between breaths she sometimes punched back at those who got too close—and when bored, she’d snatch up the three-hundred-catty rolling pig of fat and whirl him like a hammer throw before flinging him away!

So the chase ran on—

until, suddenly, the corridor yawned wide and Qing burst into a vast grotto.

Corpses still warm sprawled across the stone. Five passages opened on the far side.

Joy lit Qing’s face.

Ah—this cave! The “kill each other” hall!

Not much farther now!

Sweat streamed; it pooled under the Human-Skin Mask at her jaw and sloshed.

Sticky as it felt, the thought of “almost there” was sweet.

“Damn it! That bitch—she’s really going to escape!”

“Central Plains men think stupid! Enter then entrance block itself! Madwoman block herself with wall!”

“You stupid fraud! Didn’t you see her strength? She’ll punch through the door and run!”

“I not fraud! And fat pig stupid! Break stone door then tunnel collapse, ###!”

Amukhalab suddenly spat curses in his own tongue.

Jung Gichung and Jang Sonam froze, eyes wide, mouths hanging open.

They were the very trio who’d hacked at the west gate until they brought the passage down.

If the interior stone doors were the same—

“Stop her! She’ll bring the tunnel down!”

The three pseudo–Flower Realm masters kicked into a higher gear—

finally throwing off restraint and using their full strength.

Qing, with the exit ahead, wrung herself for one last surge.

Past the limit—ankles, knees, hips all creaked; each step throbbed.

But was this the time to pamper her body?

If she could just get out of the Shin Family Tomb—out into the mountains choked with obstacles—she could rip off the mask and switch from Eon Yeonyeong back to Seo Mun Cheong.

Qing sprinted across the grotto and into a passage; the three idiots glued themselves to her heels.

Her movement had the edge.

First reason: the two demonized masters—who’d been chasing as Man-and-Sword as One and Blade-and-God as One—vanished somewhere behind.

The Blood-Vomiting Demon’s dantian, poisoned, guttered; he fell out gasping.

The one-eyed demon collapsed mid-run as the toxin spread.

Qing had no way to know.

Second reason: the corridor’s slight dogleg.

Hug the inside bend and she naturally slipped off the straight lines of those flying steel rings.

She ran herself ragged—

the stone door at the end loomed into view.

And then—what now?

To cut it she’d have to stop; to drive a straight punch and convert all speed into power, she’d have to come to a dead halt.

Then?

Punch through with the body.

Qing took the final true step.

She stretched like an arrow, brought both fists together, and flew.

“No!” “Stop!” “##!”

Their dying shouts dopplered past—and Qing’s fists crashed through the wall.

Beyond the wall—beyond—

THUNK!

Only half her grand plan worked.

She’d raised both arms, shoulders tucked—but her pelvis flared too wide, with muscle and fat laid on thick.

Upper body: outside the passage.

Lower body: still inside.

Who was she going to blame?

Blame that magnificent ass?

“Damn it, why—won’t—this—budge.”

Her upper body jutted from the stone—strictly speaking, just above the solar plexus thanks to the door’s thickness—and she wriggled, stuck fast.

The three idiots chasing her were dumbstruck.

They’d screamed when she blasted through—

but all they saw now was a lower body sticking out of the wall.

Legs kicking.

A plump, well-fed rump—okay, kind of funny.

“Hm?”

“What is this now.”

“Looks like the passage won’t collapse after all. Good. Let’s... pull her out first.”

“Why pull? We can just ask her like this. Hey, Peerless Thunder-Smile Girl—can you hear me? You can, right?”

— ...Yes.

A deflated voice drifted out.

Jang Sonam snickered and asked:

“So—you planning to stay wedged like that?”

—That wasn’t the plan. Um... awkward request, but may I come out that way?

“That depends on you. First, a question. What happened to the manual of the Absorbing Star Great Law?”

—You won’t believe me even if I say it’s gone. But it really is gone. What do you want me to do about it.

“Is that so? Possible.”

Surprisingly, Jang Sonam accepted it.

Not out of faith—but out of logic based on what he’d seen.

“Wouldn’t she have stashed it?” someone said.

“Did you not see the bodies in that room? Not the dried ones—the ones with hearts torn out. Dead a day? Two? In stone it’s hard to tell, but they weren’t fresh.” Jang Sonam.

“Ah. Right.”

Jung Gichung nodded.

If she had somehow lured people in a day or two early and monopolized the divine art by killing the rest,

she’d have had time to memorize it and destroy the text.

“Central Plains dogs. You speak only what you know. What is that, you rude pigs?”

They ignored him.

“What is that, you pig bastard!”

Amukhalab ranted; still ignored.

In the gap, Qing’s voice came again:

—So, I’ll come out your way.

“Slowly. Try anything and you’ll live without legs for the rest of your life.”

Her lower half squirmed; her waist inched out.

The feet, which had been bicycling in midair, found the ground—she grunted, wriggled—

—Uh... my arms are stuck. Sorry, could you break a bit of the wall?

Of course they were.

She’d gone in with arms raised and shoulders tucked. Coming out, they’d spread.

“...You do the most,” Jung Gichung muttered, shaking his head.

When Qing was polite, it was always when the odds were bad.

And her abject posture was always the coil before the spring—never forget that.

There’s the “push through with fists together” method—

and the “draw the fists back, then smash” method.

Which has more destructive power?

Qing had backed her rump out as far as it would go, feet set on solid ground.

Which meant she was ready for a second-stage launch.

They wanted the divine art—they wouldn’t aim to kill, right?

If it worked, great.

If it failed, she’d apologize.

Her arms flung up in a cheer—then whipped down like blades.

From the soles of the lower half beyond the wall, Heavenly Demon aura geysered.

KRAK!!

A thunderclap—and Aagh!—a ripping bolt of pain across the hips.

At the same time—pop!—her body shot free.

She rolled, sprang up.

“Ha! Idiots! You live in there—I’m going home! I am the Peerless Thunder-Smile Girl, the Strongest, Eon Yeonyeong!”

—Eon Yeonyeong! You—!

With the bellow echoing from the hole at her back, Qing pelted away again.

Behind her came the thud-thud of fists on stone—they’d smash through and pursue, sure.

Ha! Too late.

A blink and she’d be out and sprinting into the mountains.

She giggled and ran.

The passage grew darker.

Not that it dimmed; it only seemed darker to her, because ahead, a corridor burst open with daylight pouring in.

And at last Qing hurled herself out of the Blood Sect’s damned grotto—into that bright light.

“Come on, you arrogant world! I’m back!”

She threw her arms up in a victory roar—

the kind of nonsense she always shouted when she felt good.

And in answer, dozens of eyes fixed on Qing.

Which, of course, was only natural.

Who in their right mind storms a suspicious, dangerous cavern to fetch treasure themselves—

and who waits outside to steal from whoever comes out?