Chapter 539: Poison-Blade Uproar, Poison-Blade March (12)

There are Four Heavenly Kings famed for poetry in the Central Plains:

Li Taibai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, and Su Shi.

Li Taibai’s epithet is the Poet Immortal.

Du Fu’s epithet is the Poet Sage.

It only feels “literary” and not martial; if they’d been swordsmen?

Sword Immortal—and Sword Sage.

That instantly fixes their standing in the Central Plains’ literary world.

Wang Wei might have grounds to complain.

He wrote superb verse, but two monsters erupted in his era and overshadowed him.

Wang Wei’s epithet is the Poet Buddha—literally the Poet Buddha.

Poets beneath the Four Heavenly Kings get called the Poet Ghost, and yet he’s the Poet Buddha.

Judged by martial ranks, though, Sword Buddha and Sword Ghost sit a tier below Sword Immortal and Sword Sage.

You could say Su Shi, a junior three centuries later, at least gets an honorific out of seniority.

Su Shi doesn’t really have one; if you force it, call him “Dongpo Pork’s Su Dongpo.”

Why Hangzhou folk named a pork dish after Dongpo because “Dongpo made it,” who can say.

And Qing’s destination was Hangzhou—the homeland of that Dongpo Pork—toward which she was running.

If this were the old Qing, the binge-eating maniac who can’t resist appetite, she would have sprinted with glee.

“Dongpo Pork, just you wait—crunch, crunch,” and off she’d go.

But Qing’s heart was heavy; some bleak wind seemed to lash her ears—eve of a storm, a drink taken...

Ah, a harsh, high road.

The Shu Road is so hard that it’s harder than soaring to heaven.

A way that cranes can’t cross in flight and monkeys fear to cling to.

I clutch my chest, sink down, and sigh—when will you return from the west?

Only a sorrowing bird wails in the dead branches.

The Shu Road is so hard it’s harder than soaring to heaven.

I turn toward the west and only breathe a long, long sigh.

A very un-Qing-like elegy.

Li Taibai’s poem “Hard Roads in Shu.” Qing hadn’t memorized it by love; Seo Mun Surin, spotting her disciple’s uncanny hand, forced her to cram it. And as with all forced cramming, anything that didn’t catch her interest blew away. What remained were the scraps that stuck—quarter of a poem, stitched into a stump.

Interpretations differ.

Some say Li Taibai saw the savage road into Sichuan and, past angry, wrote out of disbelief.

Others say the “hardness” isn’t the path but office—tightrope life with superiors kicking down and inferiors sniping up.

But poems touch the chest the way they do.

Other people’s glosses are good for exam scores and useless for anything else.

Hmph—“original author”? What would the original author know?

To Qing’s ear it wasn’t hardship but loneliness—the pain of going alone.

Hard Roads in Shu not because Shu’s cliffs are hard—but Hard Roads Alone; if the road is solitary, even a level highway is hard.

Of course.

No matter how rough the trail, if someone walks it with you, what’s hard about it?

“Ledge here, boulder there, damn these mountain paths,” laughing and swearing as you shove and haul—“hands off, let go, won’t you get up, just kill me instead, our base camp is in these hills, leave me and go, then live here, buck up, let’s go”—you’d have crossed it merrily.

Buddhists say all vistas a person beholds and paints well up from the person’s own heart.

So if, under a bright moon, Qing put on a show of melancholy just this once, perhaps that deserves a little mercy.

Look at the moon—pale and lonesome; that’s because it’s alone.

That ugly star of Heaven-Killing Lone Life is all twisted up—because people, no, stars, were left on their own.

Look at that Heavenly Demon Soul—mental parasite. Shut in a crystal horn with no one, waiting hundreds of years for its next body—of course you go mad.

If Qing’s friends heard this, they’d rub at their gooseflesh and blurt, “What’s wrong? Are you hungry?” and freak out.

If Seo Mun Surin saw it, she’d say, “You know that, and still you slither out at midnight to dash off alone?” and crack a sublime knuckle on Qing’s skull.

But Qing hadn’t come out without a plan.

From Suzhou to Hangzhou, said the Great General, was about three hundred li—flat lowland with not a single mountain rib to block the way.

For Qing—arguably first in the Central Plains at lightfoot—running without a stop, that was roughly a shichen and a half.

Her arrangement with Eon Yeonyeong was only this: spend three nights in each city en route and meet in the very best room at Hangzhou’s Top Inn.

So why not run ahead, take one look at Nyonyeong’s face, and run right back?

Of course she’d mobilized troops.

Eon Yeonyeong herself said she didn’t have to come alone—indeed, that having helpers would be better.

And now—this.

Excuse me? You said helpers were fine, but one thousand two hundred and thirty is... not a bit much?

Qing, for her part, had her own faith.

She is sensitive to favor.

How could she not notice the bottomless, unaccountable affection Eon Yeonyeong sends toward her?

She’d ridden roughshod at Dongting Lake, using the five corpse-puppets Eon attached to her.

Wait—back then it was Dongting Lake, right?

This time it was Hangzhou, famed for West Lake.

Do I have a Water Hex on me?

If a famous lake lies on the road ahead, maybe I should avoid it.

Anyway, if I had set out to be a public menace again, it wouldn’t have been hard.

From the Martial Alliance you can take the canal and be there in no time.

Nearby I’ve got the little Hwangbo brothers, Miss Murong’s household, Daesan’s, the blabbermouth’s—ask and none of them would have turned me down.

Thinking of that, Qing felt a fresh pang of guilt toward Wang Ssangryong.

Mm. “Civil and military noninterference” or no, I did behave a bit rotten.

If some brute who doesn’t respect noninterference had shown up, how would those fragile soldiers have held out?

Lucky for us they were all cowards—so they left the troops alone and we sailed through—but if someone had bled because of me?

In any case, Eon Yeonyeong was safe for now.

She’s not the type to lace a meeting place with traps and cackle, “At last I’ve got you—how dare you meddle with the Blood Sect’s affairs?”

That’s the problem.

She’s the woman who took a lick of human blood, reeled, and clung to me going, “What is this—delicious!!” (truly exquisite taste).

On some sudden day she could just as suddenly say, “My palate’s changed. My blood sugar spiked, so from now on it’s zero-calorie spiritual drinks only. I don’t need you anymore,” and turn away—and it wouldn’t be strange.

Just as I dropped into this world out of nowhere, so, on some day—

Good thought, good thought. Yes—Hime’s chest, Hime’s soft, springy chest. Mm. I want to see Hime. Ah—Hard Roads in Shu, hard roads—harder than the blue of heaven.

Qing gritted her teeth and pushed her speed higher.

The reckless issue of inner power made her blood channels throb faintly; even her iron body protested—Woman, for once, run sanely—as her heart pounded, blood pressure battered vessels, and overworked lungs cinched on their owner with a cramping pain.

Better the body hurt than the mind.

When the mind reels, overworking the flesh is one of humanity’s basic defenses.

How long did she run like that?

Sweat poured like rain, slicking down; when she licked her lips, it was brine—like someone had doused her in sticky saltwater.

Her brows lost their waterproofing to the flood—sweat stung her eyes and she squinted.

Her whole body ached, clamping inward.

Her heart had run past beating into pain; she wanted to rip her lungs out and fling them away; her throat felt clawed by nails. Hoo—can’t breathe.

Then, far off—lights.

In the greatest pleasure city of the Central Plains, even outside the walls the night market burned bright at this hour—doing lively trade.

Hangzhou had been a wetland before development, and even now its low ground held water.

She couldn’t stride straight into town like this, so Qing threw herself into tall grasses and flopped.

“Huh—huh—hah—augh—gh—hah.”

Her spine drank the chill—she’d lain on soft, wet earth—and the cold rushed into her overheated body.

A shocking truth: the backlash of long-distance running hits after you stop.

If you already feel like dying while you’re running?

Stop and you’ll die.

Qing lay a long while, dragging breath.

But a body beyond human carries recovery beyond human.

After about a gak of lying there, Qing pushed up and smacked her own backside.

“Ugh. Soggy. Must’ve been wet ground.”

Anyone seeing that rear view would scold her—A grown woman lying in mud?—but she was drenched in sweat anyway; front and back were both soaked. The front was warm; the back was cold.

“Fuuu—ah. Right.”

Qing scooped mud and slathered it over her face.

It smelled, but people pay good money for mud facials.

Given her constitution, she’d keep perfect skin if she smeared mercury, not mud. Hm—then would radiation roll off me too?

No way to know.

Qing entered the night market.

Her clothes were soaked through and clung; the Central Plains’ most singular figure showed in full.

But no matter how voluptuous the frame, if your face is caked thick with mud—

People parted.

Not because the mud-face itself was grotesque, but because people like that do walk these streets in the Central Plains.

Leper, that one.

Don’t get close—you’ll catch it.

Tch. Filthy leper.

Across East and West alike, every civilization treated leprosy this way.

“Excuse me?”

“Get lost, will you? What kind of leper fouls a fine night—uh—heh—how may this small one be of service?”

The merchant’s scowl turned on a dime into a cringe.

Steel-bright Guardian Qi in someone’s hand turns even the rudest into saints to lepers.

“Give me a broad conical hat to hide my face.”

“Ah—yes. Right away.”

Qing reached for a coin; the merchant shook his head, cringing.

He grimaced at the coin like it was dirty, then forced a smile.

“Heh—just take it.”

“...All right.”

He didn’t want a leper’s money.

Mm. Now I’ve wronged him.

I’ll remember and pay him back later.

Qing stared to memorize his face, and for some reason he went even paler.

She pulled the hat deep.

With mud on her face, there was no way they’d let her through a gate.

Even at this hour the gates were wide open and the streets so bright there was nowhere dark.

The sentries leaned on the wall, gawking at gaudily dressed women.

One guard glanced Qing’s way.

A female martial artist with a greatsword and a hidden face was suspicious enough, but what good comes of poking a martial wanderer?

Martial types doing strange things isn’t unusual; and so long as she wasn’t a plague-ghost like a leper, the gate detail had no reason to meddle.

“Sorry—may I ask directions? Which inn is known as Hangzhou’s Top Inn?”

The fact she asked so calmly made her less suspicious.

Suspicious people try not to be noticed; they don’t ask gate guards for directions.

Besides, rumor had it some expert was due at Hangzhou’s Top Inn—how many martial folks must have asked the way by now?

“If you mean the Top Inn of Hangzhou, that’s the Full Moon Hall. Follow the main road to West Lake—you’ll know it the instant you see it.”

“I’ll know it... when I see it?”

“You’ll know it when you see it.”

Know it when I see it?

Qing found the answer curt, but he spoke with such finality she couldn’t accuse him of unhelpfulness.

As if stating a plain fact.

And so—Hangzhou, West Lake. Before the Full Moon Hall.

Qing muttered before she knew it.

“You really do know it when you see it...”

A lone pavilion stood there, gilded and towering—how could you miss it?

Hundreds of lanterns blazed—how they’d even lit them all was a marvel—so bright the place flashed.

Anyone would peg it as Hangzhou’s Top Inn.

Qing strode up.

I’m coming to see you now.