Chapter 548: Hanga Yoran (8)

Skinny and Fatty. In a way, they made a well-matched pair. Average the two and—still clinically obese.

From the perspective of someone who’d once been crushed under Pobidon’s belly-attack, you’d need about five Skinnies just to bring the average down to “normal weight.”

Qing decided to play dumb for the moment.

The demonic-art prospectors’ core aim was to acquire the so-called Absorbing Qi Demonic Art; unlike those Blood Sect bastards, this wasn’t, right this second, a life-and-death duel.

Their plan was to capture her and extract a “divine art”; if caught, she’d see even filthier treatment—but at least they weren’t charging in wild-eyed to kill her on the spot.

“I’m going to lose it. What will it take for you to believe it doesn’t exist? I’ll stake my school, my teacher, my honor—hell, add my grandfather’s honor too?”

“The Central Plains are the Five Defilements, certified by Buddha—degenerates bound for guaranteed hellfire. Women are ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) filthy beings; no matter what sound you make, I am a true Buddhist who will not be deluded!”

The “Five Defilements” were what the Buddhists called a dirty world—also known as the Saha world—which is to say, the world we live in now.

Its opposite was the Pure Land, a clean world—basically a higher-reward realm akin to “heaven.”

For reference, in certain Buddhist talk, women are impure and filthy; the Pure Land is a field of men only, a literal “pepper field.”

It’s not that women can’t go; it’s that even women are reborn as men, and there are multiple tiers of “Pure Lands,” with exceptions in some neighborhoods.

In any case, that’s precisely the fatal flaw: no actual reason to pile up merit to be reborn in the Pure Land.

Our neighbors run suicide shock troops by peddling, “In heaven you’ll be served by seventy-two beautiful virgins.”

Born a man? Death’s unavoidable anyway. If the promise is true, jackpot; if you got duped and died for nothing, you didn’t exactly lose anything. Our neighbors’ “high intelligence” is simply that kind of cold arithmetic.

Anyway, Amukhalab, who liked to call himself a Buddhist, was spouting scripture.

Is this world the Five Defilements? Yes.

Are women filthy beings? Yes.

Qing was speechless.

“If you won’t believe anything I say, then what exactly do you want me to do?”

“Come with me to Holy Mountain Arabdaltek! You bitch of the Central Plains, I now provide a peerless chance for ordination and entry into nirvana! Be reborn as a true bhikkhuni under the Right View, Right Speech, Right Action of the Noble Eightfold Path! Then you shall obtain the most precious thing in the world—my trust!”

Become a nun—specifically a Tibetan nun—to earn his trust? What a joke.

“Uh, I’m a Daoist, thanks? Not a thief—Daoist. Why would I take monastic vows? And your ‘Holy Mountain Arab-whatever’ isn’t even the holy mountain. With Kangin-Paje Peak sitting there, intact on Mount Meru, you’re going to move the sacred mountain on a whim? This is screaming ‘cult.’”

In Tibetan Buddhism, the sacred mountain of the Dharma was Kangin-Paje Peak, out there on the edge of the Western Regions—the foothills of the mountain range my homeland calls the Himalayas.

Rooted in an Indian name; Westerners also call it Kailash.

“Ho. You know Kangin-Paje Peak? Central Plains woman—commendable. You have gained a sliver of my trust. You already have interest in the Dharma. A free ordination—no second time in a lifetime!”

He’d fired blind, assuming she wouldn’t know.

To be fair, betting on Qing’s ignorance wasn’t entirely unreasonable.

But once you’ve taken a peanut that contains the secret of nuclear fission to the forehead, ignorance ceases to exist.

“I am a named master. Central Plains woman, victory is impossible for you! Throw yourself meekly into Buddha’s arms!”

“Sometimes the foot is short; sometimes the inch is long. Think height alone wins every time?”

Foot-and-inch—Qu Yuan’s allusion. If Lecturing Scholar Cheon saw Qing letting classical characters flutter, he’d be nodding, pleased.

But—

“Foot? Inch? What bizarre babble! Speak the Central Plains tongue, Central Plains woman.”

“...Why am I getting mad? Why am I being told to speak Central Plains to him?”

“It is as I said. A good opportunity even for you. Buddha’s arms are wide open. A chance like no other to offer your ‘divine art’ to the Dharma!”

“‘Divine art,’ my ass. It’s always the same bastards drooling over demonic arts—divine-art-this, divine-art-that—when it has a name right there: the Absorbing Qi Demonic Art—”

Qing suddenly dropped a knee and flattened her torso.

A heartbeat later, the king of fatties—Pobidon’s colossal body—scythed through the air right over her.

As she lay back, she snapped upright, shot both arms out, and clamped that pudgy ankle. With a barked kiai—hryaaah!—her muscles bunched.

What was that, about four hundred geun?

How does a human weigh four hundred geun?

Qing whirled Pobidon’s ignorant block of blubber round and round; his body slammed left and right into the alley walls—crash, crash!

A human body carved a cyclone of destruction as it advanced; the speed was savage, the impact incomparable—the Rotating Whirlwind of Seo Mun Cheong!

Even if you can exert a thousand geun of force, mass is mass; two bodies with that difference will list and wobble—it cannot be helped.

Even so, she made nimble, rapid advances—thak-thak-thak—human flail, Pobidon-hammer, coming through! At midnight the alley walls suffered an unexpected demolition—crraash!

“Ggh-uurk! Ggh—stop, stop! Gghk!”

Pobidon Jang Sonam felt the blood rushing to his head—tasting death.

In truth, a Flower-Realm fighter has no reason to “suffer” while being swung by the ankle.

Bend the waist and counter—done. Anyone Qing had ever used as an improvised toilet—no, weapon—were second-rate at best, or first-rate already softened by a beating.

But Pobidon?

His thickest part was his waist; he wriggled, straining to fold his spine.

A disgrace that begged for an inquiry into whether the rumors about his “self-cleanup” failure were true.

“D-Do not come!”

Amukhalab, terrified, backpedaled.

Qing, instead, sped up.

Two revolutions per breath—faster was actually easier to balance: the higher the RPM, the stabler the axis.

Of course, that loads the axis; Qing’s teeth ground as she shredded muscles in real time.

“Madness! A great pig of nothing but fat! Filthy pig! Useless livestock fit only for roasting! Even Buddha would command: slaughter Pobidon! ###! #####! ## ## #### ######! ### ## #### ## ##### #######!”

Amukhalab unleashed a blizzard of curses at Pobidon, retreating.

Qing’s internal translator rendered something like: were Pobidon’s parents even human, given his shape; perhaps the result of loving animals too much, and for that sin his parents now burned in hell—he sent his regards.

Had Pobidon understood, he’d have demanded a life-and-death duel on the spot. But he didn’t speak Tibetan, and even if he did, with blood pooling in his head and cranial pressure spiking from the rotation, he had no bandwidth for “sound.”

KA-THOOM!

Both alley walls blew out. A colossal calamity burst from the lane.

“Kyahhh! Uwaaa! Run!” Civilians screamed; Qing winced despite herself.

Then she stamped, a savage Jin-gak with Heavenly Demon Conquest Step, carving a footprint into the earth; she fed that recoil into the spin and let go.

Pobidon broke the land-speed record for the living, for the Central Plains, and for the world’s skies, and launched like a shell—whudda-thud! He tangled with Amukhalab and—KWA-BLAM!—smashed into the wall of a poor, four-courtyard luxury manor.

They punched through the thick wall and exited the scene together.

Qing staggered. Oof—maybe spun him too much.

Night-strolling sightseers stared wide-eyed at the blood-smeared woman. Among them—fighters.

“The Heavenly Flower Sword! The Absorbing Star Great Law!”

“The divine art! The divine art is there!”

How many times had she said it wasn’t—these stubborn shits never listened.

Once a person fixated on a single object, rational thought died; belief crossed into faith. Even in a far more advanced world—Qing’s homeland—there were morons who insisted the earth was flat. Throw them into space and they’d say, “Oh, that curve proves it’s flat,” and die satisfied.

How much worse in this backwater Central Plains?

And in Hangzhou, the ones waiting for Qing were exactly that sort.

“I swear—I’m going insane!”

The Three-Headed Beauty’s silly circus would’ve been preferable; at least that still treated her as a person.

“The divine art is over there,” my ass—she’d coddled them, and these bastards—

Qing’s body split into eight, fanning out to the eight directions.

Wave-Skimming Steps drew a straight line with the target; two jang behind that line, she’d stand with her back to the target, twisting through the world’s breath with a stepping array.

If someone stood between her and the mark, and the distance between those two was more than three jang—

Qing’s translucent form leapt over some nameless tourist and slid into being right under the nose of a man who was still bellowing, “Absorbing Qi Demonic Art! Absorbing Qi Demonic Art!”

Her hand punched through his belly—fwump.

“The divine art is—gugh!”

“Do you fight with your mouth? You call yourself a fighter and wear a blade?”

Qing let the contempt show.

If you crave a “divine art,” be a fighter and come at her. Standing back and shouting to draw a crowd—what was the obvious reason?

No skill—so gather bodies first, lurk at a distance, then fish for an opening.

She yanked wet viscera free and, with the other hand, drew the saber from his belt.

Unbalanced, crude—no one would call it a good blade. But it was a heavy, sturdy military dao; she liked it far more than Mahi’s fluttery toy.

“Fine! The Human Divine Art is coming through! If you’ve got a problem—come on! Let’s do this like fighters, in a life-and-death duel!”

Having shouted that boldly, Qing immediately unfolded lightfoot and tore off.

Target: another loudmouth.

Seeing her grim momentum closing, the loudmouth turned pale and bolted.

“Eh—? Wh-Why—why are you doing this!?”

“The ‘divine art’ you were searching so hard for? Now the divine art will come to you!”

“Some misunderstanding—no! Not me! I—I have no interest in demonic arts!”

“Get bent! Think I don’t know you were yelling ‘Absorbing Star Great Law’ right here? If a man runs his mouth, he takes responsibility!”

“N-no, I was just! Just—so—”

“Shut it! You wanted to gather people and snipe a fisherman’s profit? Do your own work! Handle your own shit! If you don’t have the skill, give up. How dare you try to borrow other people’s hands, you sneaking little bastard!”

“Now listen—that’s rich coming fro—”

“No more words!”

“You run your mouth and then say ‘no more words’—”

“You little shit—so damned talkative!”

Qing’s lightfoot had already been praised by authorities as first under heaven.

A loudmouth whose only weapon was his scream could never outrun her. A slicing hiss—the line of sword-qi parted the air and blood sprayed.

“Kh—sp—spare—”

“Remember this. Wounds on your back are a fighter’s shame. Learn to be ashamed.”

Qing looked down, cold, at the fallen loudmouth.

Then—peep peep—a flute trilled; her head snapped toward the sound, eyes sharpening into axe-blades. Who was it—what bastard dared blow a flute?

Only for a moment.

From every seam of the alleys, over the walls with whips of motion, along the eaves of tall buildings, vaulting down from household roofs—

From streets and not-streets, fighters appeared one by one with weapons in hand: one in nightclothes, just woken; one in such a rush he held his spear upside down; one even clutching a liquor bottle.

Qing’s face twisted.

What the hell was a “demonic art” that it brought this many people, at this hour, into this kind of riot?