Chapter 524: Chaos (10)

The crowd blinked at Qing.

What’s that? What’s she bringing out? A... crescent blade?

Besides the giant greatsword slung diagonally across her back, she gripped a long, heavy polearm in her hand—the very quintessence of the military armory: the crescent-bladed halberd. Some call it the “reclining moon blade,” and the most famous exemplar is the Green Dragon Crescent Blade said to have been used by the ancient Guan Yu.

Of course, in Guan Yu’s own era, that weapon didn’t exist.

It’s a arm that shows up at least five hundred—maybe a thousand—years after Guan Yu died. Luo Guanzhong, who wrote Romance of the Three Kingdoms, may have been sharp on history, but for weapon proofing he could toss it to the dogs.

Five hundred years isn’t just a blink.

Claiming Guan Yu swung a crescent blade is like, in terms from Qing’s homeland, insisting that a certain naval admiral in the Imjin War shouted, “I still have three nuclear submarines!”—a grotesque warp of history. Then again, whether you sail a multi-decked warship or a nuclear sub, the “we win” ending looks the same, and frankly, the nuclear sub makes for a flashier, more persuasive story.

So even as a novelist—not a historian—Luo Guanzhong might have known and still couldn’t resist.

Guan Yu with a Green Dragon Crescent Blade?

Eighty-two jin? A human being swings that?

Nonsense—yet stylish.

According to Central Plains military treatises, the crescent blade is the peerless head of ten thousand arms—the best of all weapons.

That clashes with what most martial artists preach: sword supremacism—the sword as the perfect weapon.

Why the discrepancy?

Because if a martial artist used a crescent blade, the state wouldn’t leave him be. By statute, it’s a cutting-edge secret arm forbidden to commoners. Get caught carrying one?

Treason.

“Fine, then you lot keep the good stuff to yourselves”—and the stopgap imitation was the long-staff mounting an iron maul instead of a blade: a mass weapon on a pole.

And last night, while sorting her skill archive, Qing found an unknown martial art preregistered.

Huh? Heaven-Shaking Great Sage Demon Rod? Red border?

Only red? Where did I pick this up?

Think it through... wasn’t that what the bandit chief used—leapt high and came down like a human meteor?

Qing pictured herself vaulting skyward and pouring down like a meteor—an Absol—(skip)—solute’s decap—decimation.

An invisible shock front ripples out; the earth’s skin buckles and rears; the core glare drowns the world in black silhouettes.

Then a furnace wind incinerates all, shattering and burning the shadows to ash—

I am become death, the destroyer of worlds...

Ooh. Killer.

If it worked as imagined, Heaven-Shaking Great Sage Demon Rod wouldn’t even be a martial art but raw heat release from a nuclear chain reaction.

Granted, it won’t pack that kind of punch.

But even just a method to drop abruptly from midair? That’s something.

On top of that—

whenever the column halted to eat and rest during the march, elite troops very conspicuously staged “drill dances” with crescent blades.

Wang Ssangryong explained it wasn’t for show.

Shandong’s elites always exercised like this after meals, to aid digestion.

A truly admirable fighting spirit.

Elite soldiers under a great commander—of course. She said as much, and Wang Ssangryong smiled like the happiest man on earth.

Only, watching them, Qing got the itch—you could almost see the next motion coming. Yes, that’s the follow-up.

Wait—this is the Moon Maiden Sword Formula, isn’t it?

It was.

As the first martial art ever to emerge in the world, it set the troops of Yue State flying, and from there evolved into the military’s long-standing basics.

Stripped of its heart-image and true body, what the army retained was the husk—an inferior imitation.

Call it a Moon Maiden Sword demo version.

So—shall I swing a Green Dragon Crescent Blade too?

Besides, she hovered just shy of the Flower Realm; trying various arms might help.

Lo and behold, there was a polearm art to go with it.

Thus—Heaven-Shaking Great Sage Demon Rod, activate!

Only after force-installing that art did a thought occur: if she spiked the ground with the blade edge, it would snap after a few uses.

Then what? Mount an iron maul on the back!

The result: an all-steel crescent blade with a massive iron maul grafted to the opposite end—front a crescent blade, back a maul-on-a-pole; a vicious, two-ended polearm.

Thoom! The iron head of the maul hit earth and kicked up a dusty shiver.

At a brutish twenty-five jin of metal, even the ground balked and burped dust.

“Since so many of you left handprints, proving your fury, then we martial folk must resolve our grudges in the martial way.”

At that, the warriors looked at Qing—or rather, at the crescent-maul standing upright in the dirt.

In the martial way.

Except this arm is forbidden to martial artists.

Which means a forbidden arm that no one carries is also an unfamiliar arm that even battle-hardened masters have never faced.

A restless murmur rolled the ranks.

“Mm.”

“I’ve never heard of the Heavenly Flower Sword using a crescent blade. She won’t handle it well, will she?”

“Her intent is too transparent—hide her usual arts, seize advantage with an unfamiliar weapon—and so brazen about it?”

“Brazenly underhanded...”

The crowd, of course, didn’t know the deeper currents.

Their take ran to: Come to think of it, nobody’s ever swung a crescent blade here, right?

Or: That thing looks heavy. Can she even move it?

“If anyone here would demand their grudge of me, let’s untie the knot right now.”

And the side-glancing began anew.

Didn’t you lot swear it’d be today?

Sure, but who knew she’d bring out a crescent blade? You first—be the demo—show us what tricks she uses?

“No takers? Strange. We gathered so many handprints yesterday. In that case—hmm—Steward Cheon? Read out the names on the handprints, please. Seems they signed and then had urgent business elsewhere.”

At the edge of the arena, the man called Steward Cheon flicked open a thick sheaf of handprint slips.

Faces of the enemies went gray.

Read names? Here?

If your name is called and you don’t step out?

Abandon the grudge? Run after staking your name?

In front of this many people.

Is there anyone here who wouldn’t recognize the named martial artist’s face?

From that moment on, you wear “coward, craven” like a brand—until you kill the Heavenly Flower Sword.

If someone else kills her first?

Then you wear it for life.

They had underestimated Qing.

At least when the aim is to put an enemy in a bind, her brain runs frighteningly fast.

“Let’s see... Juseong-un of Anpil! Is there a guest from Anpil County named Ju Seong-un!?”

“Here!”

A man shouted, flustered—

and raised high a bun he’d just bitten.

“I only held back because I skipped breakfast and am eating! Just a moment!”

The other avengers scowled.

That dog—slipping out alone?

You take one bite and call that breakfast?

“Friend, pass me a bun.”

“How much for a duck-noodle? Hurry!”

Thanks to him, the snack-sellers with trays on their shoulders had a field day.

It was also the moment the public’s illusions about the martial world began to shatter.

These are “martial men”?

In front of us they puff up, promise to cut throats if crossed—and with their enemy right there, they dodge and stuff their faces?

Hell with them—are you really letting this slide?

We ditched work in the busiest season to come watch, and these sorry clowns don’t even look ready to fight their enemies.

As for the avengers—how could their gall not boil?

To stand before the enemy and stall while watching that swagger—

They were not shy about expressing it; they chomped buns, noodles, flatcakes like they were biting chunks out of Qing’s flesh.

“Mm. Everyone’s eating, I see. Let me check... Pingdu—Oh Pingdu. Gu Jun-on of Pingdu in Shandong—yes, Master Gu Jun-on of Black Tiger Gate, are you here!?”

Steward Cheon hailed from Pingdu.

He recognized the big name of a local underworld head and, though the sect wasn’t even written on the slip, called it out by name—pinpoint.

Damn the timing.

With the sect name spoken aloud, what could he do?

Gu Jun-on squeezed his eyes shut.

His son’s face swam up—

a bright, angelic smile, the boy’s living portrait.

Though, by occasional word from Steward Cheon’s trips home, that “bright-smiling” son was a human scumbag who beat several people to death.

Right. Revenge.

Even if I die failing to avenge him, that bitch won’t live long.

Those who watch her methods will follow and keep the life-and-death duels going; if I fail, I can wait in the underworld and laugh when she arrives.

“Yes. I am Gu Jun-on. Do you remember the name Gu Yeong-jun?”

Qing answered: “No.”

“He was my son.”

“I see.”

What more needs saying?

Men in matching garb surged out in a pack.

To Qing’s eye, aside from the gate master himself, few showed any real fight in them.

Dragged out because the master’s son died—how much fire could they have?

Qing snorted and raised a fist.

A white, translucent hand; the index finger alone stretched long and sleek—beckon, beckon.

****

The most famous city in Jiangsu is Suzhou.

But Suzhou isn’t the provincial capital.

Its Jiangnan nightlife is so legendary that to outsiders it outshines any capital as a travel magnet.

So what is Jiangsu’s capital?

Nanjing—that place famous in the Central Plains for the foulest weather.

Summer is hot.

Not just hot—soaking, stifling humidity that strangles the breath.

And winter is cold.

Cities up in the Northeast that freeze water even in summer would scoff—“You call that cold?”—

but even as one of the hottest cities in the Central Plains, Nanjing gets ice in winter, so the seasonal swing makes the cold cut deeper.

That’s in Central Plains terms.

If Qing spent a year there, she’d sniff: This is your “filthy weather”?

Her homeland knew equally hot summers and far colder winters—barely a blip to her.

A provincial capital isn’t the biggest city of the prefecture-level region; it’s the oldest.

Old means good siting.

Back in antiquity—back when logistics were stunted (they’re still backward; they were more backward)—if cave-men settled a spot, it meant a location with heavier geographic advantage than other towns.

And as old towns do, such places usually cradle at least one very old family.

Thus—what family in Nanjing?

The Gongsun Gong clan: people who did nothing wrong yet were hassled—“Are you entitled to that surname? You dare share the Emperor’s name?”—until their family name was chopped in half.

In truth, “Emperor” in the Central Plains functions like the modern concept of “god.”

Put in Qing’s homeland terms, imagine surnames like Jesus, Buddha, Allah; then “Minsoo-of-Jesus,” “Minsoo-of-Buddha,” “Minsoo-of-Allah”—it reads a bit much, doesn’t it?

So, strictly speaking, you could argue the name-cutting made a certain warped sense—but anyway.