Chapter 562: Recuperation Trip (7)

Jegal Ihyeon and Sima Chunbong burned their inner energy to scour the stacks for the volume.

It was not merely a matter of finding a book.

The honor of their houses was on the line!

With two proud prodigies set against each other, Qing sat there cramming tender-cured lamb into her mouth.

From Peng Daesan’s vantage point—hm. Honestly now.

Is she even chewing before she swallows?

Can she taste anything at that speed?

Maybe she isn’t eating because it’s delicious so much as shoving something—anything—into her mouth just to gulp it down.

What sort of woman eats like that—no, not “eats,” the blunt word “scarfs” fits exactly.

The way she rams it in helter-skelter, doesn’t even chew, and swallows—what do you call this spectacle? Looking at it, well, there’s a word.

Right. Prosperous. She eats with a blessed abundance.

What a heartwarming sight.

Peng Daesan watched Qing with a satisfied smile.

Women, he thought, always pick at food with scraps the size of a chick’s eye crust, pretend to chew, pretend to be demure, jawing for show though there’s nothing to chew and it would melt down their throats anyway.

If the Imperial Kirin’s household guard—the Life-and-Death adherents—had seen this, a craze of “eat like a rabid dog” might have swept the Central Plains.

Then, suddenly—she grinned.

“Not even going to tell me to try some anymore?”

“What are you talking about? San, you don’t eat this stuff.”

“Hm?”

“You don’t like snacks, and if you have to, you pick dry things that don’t wedge in your teeth, or—if anything—something mild with a faint sweetness. Strong aromas that linger in the mouth? You hate them.”

Peng Daesan’s eyebrow twitched at the bull’s-eye.

She noticed that? How?

For the record, lamb tender-cured with incense and Sichuan pepper was exactly his older sister Peng Choryeo’s taste—and despite having piggybacked him through childhood, Peng Choryeo still didn’t know her little brother’s snack preferences.

What the siblings did agree on was this: the two of them had to eat well. So the sister who fretted if she couldn’t feed him snacks simply piled up the very things she herself didn’t like in front of him.

With nagging on top: so when, exactly, are you giving me grand-nieces and nephews?

This, more than anything, was why Peng Daesan kept leaving the compound to roam despite leading that detestable cohort of women—the harassment that wasn’t “harassment.”

“Ahem. I may look like I’m scarfing thoughtlessly, but with each bite, each chew, I’m offering deep gratitude. What, San—my feelings haven’t gotten through till now? Wow. Seriously? That stings. How could you.”

“Hmph. Sure.”

Peng Daesan chuckled to himself that sneaking out at night to bribe the night watch and snatch a delivery share had been worth it—

Wait. Does that mean she knew I’d been buying her snacks this whole time?

Ahem. He turned his head.

Earlobes reddening, he pretended to scan the stacks—

“A Theory of Anatomical Development by Sword Form, Based on Sui–Tang Records.”

“That long-titled record on Sui and Tang you mentioned—would it be that one?”

“Huh? Oh! Ah! That’s it! Guess the title was so long it threw me.”

“Threw you? I figured you were so gluttonous you were hunting down food write-ups to read.”

“I don’t trust essays that ‘introduce’ food. All they ever say is ‘it’s delicious.’ You go in hyped and end up disappointed.”

Hard to tell whether that was wise or not.

Anyway.

At the Flower Realm, you can pluck a book off a shelf with a point of your finger.

Like so.

“San! Deploy!”

The instant Qing had the volume in hand, the Martial Arts Store made its presence known.

It sparkled and fussed, fluttering for her to open it; Qing said, fine, I’ll count this as losing once and open you.

Eon Family Fist. Red. Birth-Heart Formula. Red.

Eon Yeonyeong’s words flashed through her mind.

Not even fit to be called a Divine Art, she’d said.

Turns out it really was a not-quite-art...

“Just looking at it, this is the kind of book a blabbermouth would read. Is it a hidden secret manual or something?”

“Mm-hmm. Says ‘Eon Family Fist’ and ‘Birth-Heart Formula.’ You know them?”

Peng Daesan’s face hardened.

“Eon lineage. Seems Eon Yeonyeong told you.”

“Yeah. Just in case. Knowing the art you’re facing and not knowing—that’s heaven and earth apart.”

“It wasn’t that impressive. ‘Pierce one point’—a fist art that makes the whole body’s muscles springy to focus destructive power in a single strike. The Eon line didn’t receive anything formidable on the internal-energy side, so they had no choice but to lean into external art.”

“Oh? You know it well? Oho—acquainted, are we?”

Both of Peng Daesan’s eyebrows twitched.

“I used to knock around with my older sister.”

“Oh, with Choryeo? Then you hung out too, San?”

“Hm.”

“So you’re not denying it?”

“You know my sister’s temperament. Had nothing to do with my wishes.”

“Oooh—so, San didn’t particularly dislike it either? Older-sister’s friend? Ha, older-sister’s friend. First love. I mean, her personality may be wrecked, but she was pretty.”

“Absolutely not. Absolutely. And we’d known each other since childhood, so—hm. Beyond that there was nothing. Nothing at all. Perfectly nothing. Nothing untoward in any way. I could swear by my house’s name—k-khm.”

“Oh. So, childhood friends?”

“Not friends—more like, if I had to say, a distant cousin with whom things were formal.”

“Oh, childhood friends and like family? Ooh.”

“That’s not it, hm.”

“What is it, San? Hot? You’re sweating. You sick? Lunch had some heat—did Nana finally slip poison in?”

“Yes, that. She really does slip poison. Who in the world actually poisons acquaintances—”

“Enough trash-talking Nana. Anyway, what kind of person was Yeonyeong? Back then, was she the type to flip people inside out with an ‘oh my,’ that kind of thing? Choryeo said she was a real scaredy-cat. Like she was afraid of squirrels.”

Can someone that frightened blanch a man alive without blinking?

Peng Daesan picked his words carefully.

“Not so much fear as revulsion. The two of them are similar.”

“Eh? How are they similar?”

“You know how some people ‘fear’ bugs. Does a martial artist truly fear bugs? More precisely, they find them so skin-crawling they shudder. Revulsion.”

“Oh. Now you say it—true. I mean, you too, San—”

“Why is my name coming up?”

“Because you don’t like women.”

“The ones who tail you around and act like they’ve deposited their hearts with you—those, yes. Otherwise I don’t care.”

“Isn’t that exactly what bug-haters say? They only hate the ones that show up and cling; what’s tucked away, living quiet where you can’t see it, they don’t mind. Anyway. So? People—was Yeonyeong always a bit dogged, sly, with something off-putting about her?”

“She wasn’t. She was... kind. A decent person. Frail as she was, she never could walk past someone in trouble. Easy company too—always accommodating, got along with everyone—khm. I’m not making excuses for her; that’s how she seemed to me.”

The way he kept glancing at her.

What? Did those two actually have something?

This could be fun—ask Choryeo later?

Your first love is a Blood Cult demon.

It would be funny to tease him, but this would cross a line.

You don’t tease people over raw nerves. Pity, but shelve it.

“What? ‘Kind’? Doesn’t match. Was she just putting on airs in front of you?”

“Ask anyone and you’ll hear the same, I think.”

Qing cocked her head.

“Yeah? Then we can ask.”

Sima Chunbong and Jegal Ihyeon looked stung at losing, yet relieved not to have lost.

First, there was something to ask them.

“You know ‘Shedding Fate Saber’ and ‘Shedding Fate, Right-Mind’? Are those demonic arts? ‘Right mind that steals life’? Using the character for ‘right’ makes the meaning odd.”

“Ah! My lady! You know of ‘Right-Mind of Shedding Fate’! ‘Shedding fate’ there is not—”

“Heh-heh-heh, Heavenly Flower Sword indeed. ‘Shedding’ is not ‘to take’ but ‘to cast off’—a proper study to cast off destiny, originally—”

“Wuyi Sect! Originally an art outside the Buddhist schools, but during the First Orthodox–Unorthodox War the line was wiped—”

“Originally! Thus you may call it a legitimate lineage. Hm. Someone keeps butting in with half-baked trivia; even a magnanimous Sima such as I begins to feel his dignity dip.”

Jegal Ihyeon flinched, then apologized with a rueful face.

“Oh dear, Sima Chun!bong! My lady, this younger brother failed to read Sima Chun!bong!’s heart and has been remiss. Might the venerable Sima Chun!bong! show, just once, the indulgence befitting an elder?”

Veins stood—pop, pop, pop—on Sima Chunbong’s brow. One, two, three, four...

Huh. Jegal had a hidden temper.

Not that any of that mattered to Qing.

Ta-da: turns out Shedding Fate Saber and Right-Mind of Shedding Fate are not demonic arts!

Then learn them.

The higher my realm climbs, the more my inner-energy side feels relatively thin.

By the time I reach the Translucent Realm, calling it “Translucent-level inner energy” is just “Translucent level”—nothing to brag about.

Come to think of it, maybe the Martial Arts Store isn’t some outrageous cheat after all.

In front of true powerhouses it’s nothing—and yet it keeps kneading people’s brains to spook them.

The Martial Arts Store could be grievously, profoundly wronged.

How can there exist in the world such an ungrateful bitch!

“Enough of that. Do you know Eon Yeonyeong? What kind of person was she before she betrayed us?”

“If you mean Sister Eon—she was a graceful lady. Honestly, I still struggle to believe she betrayed us. But she was frail by nature—ah! The Eon line is famous for sturdy frames, isn’t it? I suspect her main house treated her harshly.”

So testified Jegal Ihyeon.

“As for me—she was no match for Sima. Hm? Heh, Heavenly Flower Sword, a merry jest! Why would the outstanding remember such a commoner? Hm. By Sima’s genius inference—ah, Sima, you sinful genius!—upon learning Sima stood among the orthodox, she despaired and cast herself into the Blood Cult where she could shine. Heavenly Flower Sword? Where are you going? Sima has not finished—!”

Shouldn’t have asked him.

He never knows anything, only makes noise.

No wonder he ranks last among strategists.

Still... the sack of wisdom itself might harbor immense potential.

When my body’s healed, should I invite him to bathe?

What on earth is inside that head? It’s a watermelon no matter how I look—and I won’t believe it until I check with my own eyes.

“Eon sis—no, that Eon bitch, you mean? She was, like, a tiny bit grown-up, I guess? At the Dragon-and-Phoenix Meet, whenever fights broke out she’d always step in to stop them. Of course, my lady, you are a hundred times—no, a thousand times—more mature, and on top of that you’re stylish, so stylish it’s chilling. Hehe.”

Moyong Juhee, stating the obvious out loud.

“No.”

“Gunyeong? Was my question a yes-or-no?”

“I’m not Gunyeong. And: no.”

“I know you’re not. Why—hm. Forget it. Asking was my mistake.”

Gunyeong of the snow.

“Eon line? I’ve never even met them. And even if I had, for me there’s only you, Qing. Eon or dung, if that Blood Cult traitor shows her face—”

Tang Nana first came out to Sichuan for the martial meet.

Naturally she had never laid eyes on Eon Yeonyeong.

“Yeonseo, hey, by chance—hm. No, never mind.”

“......?”

On second thought, no point asking Yeonseo.

Even within the clan, the sword maniac holed up in the training hall.

“Eon Yeonyeong? She isn’t a swordsman.”

“Mhm. Called it.”

“As expected of Sword-Friend! We are of one mind! Shall we have a bout?”

“My bones haven’t knitted yet...”

After asking around once through the lot of them, Qing could draw a fairly meaningful conclusion.

Is the Short Blade & Twin-Swords Society really okay like this?

Our members’ social skills are... what is this, a club for loners?

Granted, full member and ghost member Changbin was away—but even if I’d asked, I already know the answer:

“Uh, mm, Lady Eon, um, I don’t particularly—yes, indeed.”

That sort of awkward babble, neither honorific nor casual, just nonsense.

A vein bulged on Qing’s forehead.

And where is that brat hiding?

The president crawls back from the jaws of death, blazes a record for youngest Flower Realm that will shine forever in martial history—and he won’t even show his face.

Just let him cross my path.

I’ll set a reserved seat smack in the Phoenix Society’s banquet hall—and seat Elder Jo beside him.

Far away amid Mount Hua’s savage crags, at the Changbin Dojang training the Mysterious Purple Immortal Sword—flinch.

What is this, a sudden, ominous chill...!

The Daoist’s ultimate is ascension through opening the upper dantian to commune with the world by heavenly insight.

So is it not truly impressive that Changbin, reading a vague thread of heaven’s will unconsciously, foresees doom already?