Chapter 575: Toward That Remote, Rural Backwater (7)

Qing is now almost fully recovered.

Strictly speaking, the bones finished knitting long ago, but they are still tender, swollen in uneven knots; they will gradually settle, harden, and return to the sturdy, rock-solid frame she had before.

Back in Qing’s homeland, at about this point one could conduct everyday life with no trouble at all, whereas for Central Plains folk—whose “everyday life” tends to be hard labor—that might prove a bit more difficult.

In any case, Qing can get around just fine on her own.

And not merely “get around.”

Even if the skeleton guarded by Protective Steel Qi is still tender, it is hardier than a commoner’s; and more than anything—was Qing’s body ever “just a body”?

A marvel of flesh closer to a monster beyond humans, a strange living thing disguised as a human being.

Compared to when she’s in perfect condition she’s still a long way off, but she’s at least at the level of an ordinary warrior—spry enough to fly about.

Then why is she still being carried in the arms?

Because it’s comfortable.

Gunyeong’s Stand ability keeps growing. She can’t be compared to the world’s best Stand, Gyeon Pohee, but she’s about at the point where she can be acknowledged as a Stand for one person.

Stand No. 3, imagine that. Youngest on record, and the Stand of the Heavenly Flower Sword—who is beyond Harmony at the Flower Realm and into early Harmony of Transcendence—now that would be an accomplishment to brag about for generations.

She’s even still only at Pinnacle!

To grant such glory—to lift the Heavenly Flower Sword—upon so humble a lower-hand... honestly, I do worry Pinnacle might be contagious, but.

What are friends for? That’s a friend’s privilege.

Of course, that doesn’t mean she’s so rotten she would feign illness and work her friends like beasts simply because it’s convenient.

Back in the Heavenly Demon Cult she had to put on the act of being two-fifths disabled—lower body paralyzed—while Grandpa and Gyeon Pohee had yet to reach “family advocate” rank in her heart, so she still counted them as nameless minions of the Cult.

Even so, the reason Qing employs the lofty divine art of levitating without setting her feet to the ground is purely because of Gyeon Pohee.

Even when Qing’s fine, if she isn’t in Pohee’s arms, Pohee gets glum; three times a day she asks, “Hee-mae, do your legs hurt? Shall I carry you?”

Much less when Qing isn’t fully healed—how could Pohee let her walk on her own?

At some point even Seol Iri began slyly shoving the duty off, and so all day long—truly asleep or awake—Gyeon Pohee, delighted, hugged her one and only little sister.

“Mmm. Now that we’re here, detouring would be silly, no?”

If that was the plan, we could’ve skipped Sichuan, gone straight by way of Chang’an, and traveled in comfort by carriage—we’d be in Lanzhou by now.

Granted, we had to see Nana home, and we did have that meal with Jayu.

“There’s no need to assume pointless risk. What will you do if we meet brigands when you’re not yet whole?”

“Right.”

“Mm. Hee-mae hasn’t fully healed either.”

Gunyeong agrees—and you too, Hee-mae?

“Tsk. Unless we meet proper warriors, in my current state I can swat small fry with ease. For reference, ‘proper warriors’ means those who have reached Harmony and can handle Ideation.”

“Clicking your tongue about the Flower Realm again.”

“Why? If the mountain feels wronged, it can attain the Flower Realm too.”

Qing bares white teeth in a smirk.

Irritating sight; Peng Daesan lets out a long sigh.

“Alright then—shall we put it to a vote? It’s not as if I’m some lord who can this-and-that you and order you here-and-there. So let’s decide strictly democratically.”

Despite being down one to three, Qing confidently produces a majority vote.

“Now then. Because you’re so terrified, so frightened, of nameless, vile, cruel-brutal little brigands—so scared you might just wet yourselves and shake all over—you propose we leave the people who suffer and burn with grievance to keep suffering ‘because that’s their lot,’ even fling them aside and go. Like despicable Unorthodox scum—only our own skins matter; who cares about Righteous-path warriors—so we’ll run away shamefully and avoid the brigands. Hands up.”

“......” “......”

Who could raise a hand to that phrasing.

A mean, despicable, downright childish gambit.

And yet—one hand goes up.

“Hee-mae, could you lower your hand? After I’ve gone this far—what does that make you?”

“But I still prefer you safe. They’re strangers anyway. You’re much more important to me.”

Qing’s eyebrow twitches.

What is this—vexing and endearing at once?

“Hee-mae? That won’t do. Unacceptable. Truly rotten. As punishment, set me on your knees and reflect.”

For Gyeon Pohee it’s a reward, of course.

With a delighted giggle she sets Qing right on her lap.

Qing gives a buoyant little bounce and enjoys the soft press of Pohee’s chest against her back, then raises her hand high.

“Well, Hee-mae isn’t of the Righteous path, so fair enough. Next. As befits late-blooming pillars of the Righteous, we shall not turn from injustice; we’ll face the brigands and practice proper justice and chivalry. Hands up.”

“Wait, that wasn’t the question, was it? How did this slide into a brigand-suppression campaign?”

“Now then. No questions will be taken. Only pre-agreed inquiries, please. Again—hands. Hee-mae, hand up, quickly.”

With faces as if they’d licked lemons, Peng Daesan—and Seol Iri with a faint wrinkle between her brows—both raise their hands, sour and tart.

“Good. Then, through a very fair decision process, by unanimous consent we proceed to Hainan. Bang-bang.”

Qing lets a sheepish little smile blossom.

“Hey now, don’t make funeral faces. How many true masters can a brigand band boast, really—and you know the officials will do nothing. If we didn’t know, fine, but to leave it alone after knowing—that’s a bit much.”

Qing slowly lays out her thinking.

She has no grand notions about Righteous ways and whatnot, but she doesn’t want to pretend not to see.

Her master might flick her with a nuclear forehead flick—“How dare a wench not yet fully healed strut about?”—and yet in the end she’ll praise her.

And honestly—with this lineup, what brigand band is there to fear?

If a famous master were among them, it wouldn’t be “brigand rumors”; we’d be hearing “so-and-so’s such-and-such Corps,” an ill-omened name ringing wide. Since we aren’t, they’re run-of-the-mill.

If mutts who are nothing to me are a great pain and threat to someone else, then isn’t a little trouble worth accepting? Well?

“Mm.”

“I know you all feel the same as Hee-mae. Thank you for worrying about me. Sorry to be pushy—but you’ll come with me, won’t you?”

“If we said no, you’d bolt alone at midnight again. Still, saying it out loud first is better than before.”

Peng Daesan’s face loosens as he says it.

“To speak plainly—will your paltry skills even help? What I’m doing is graciously taking you along so you might glean even the smallest hint from witnessing a mighty warrior of the Flower Realm. Frankly, shouldn’t I be charging you?”

Peng Daesan’s face seizes up again.

He has mouthed off to the Mouth of the Formless Poison Hell and pays the price.

Isn’t this the very tongue the Head of House Tang acknowledged and the Jegal heir admired?

Not that we’re going to storm out into the dark this instant, shouting, “Where are you, brigand brats? You’re dead, heh-heh,” with our war-lust raised high.

First we bathe.

Bathing is a grave matter.

Even with a river running by the town—why is water so expensive?

Because the river water isn’t clean: there isn’t much river water fit to wash in.

Here is where the saying “Central Plains folk don’t wash often” comes from—because there isn’t much river water fit for washing.

Good clean water is mostly in the southern Central Plains, in Sichuan, Shandong, and Liaodong; elsewhere it’s mountain rills and mineral springs at best.

So clean water is precious and dear.

Thus the wealthy and noble bathe very well indeed.

For Daoist warriors in particular, bathing is a very grave matter.

For Daoism, bathing is a kind of rite—not only of the body but of the mind—akin to offering.

“Purifying by bath and fast” means exactly that.

Daoist offerings are performed daily, however modestly; one must cast off defilement by bath and fast before the rite.

It is precisely to secure such pure water that Daoist temples hole up in the mountains; clean water is the top ingredient not only for bathing but for alchemy and nourishing life.

Accordingly, Nima—one of only two cities on the Ruoergai Great Grassland—has three proper baths inside its high-end inn.

Which is to say: many guests are seeking a bath.

Why not just build one large pool?

Because Central Plains folk consider it unclean for many to enter a bath together unless the water flows; so of course you build several small ones.

At any rate, after a long soak the party’s skin gleams milk-pale.

No matter how you wipe with a damp towel, it can’t match the feel of sluicing with true water and drawing the grime away.

It’s a bit shabby for a “high-end inn,” but after a long time we sleep deep on a Central Plains–style comfortable bed; by morning the inn servant has already procured our kit for sleeping rough.

A simple tent, sleeping bags, thick quilted coats, dry rations, a big heap of dried yak dung for fuel—and even pack-frames so we can haul the mountain of it on our backs.

Of course there are three frames. Qing is exempt.

Thus, looking more like traveling hawkers than warriors, we depart Nima and head north into the scooped canyon that cuts the foothills of the Rangnapcheong range.

A miraculous wonder: Qing walks!

A near-miracle of a nearly chair-bound woman walking.

The loads are many, but for a party ranging from minimum Pinnacle to maximum super-transcendent, it’s nothing.

And we can’t very well set a mountain of baggage on Hee-mae’s back and then put another mountain—me—in front for balance forever, can we?

Gyeon Pohee looks regretful, but even from Nima the massif of Rangnapcheong looked no joke; best to conserve strength.

As is the way with high mountains on the plateau, it is a wilderness bare of trees.

Most of our freight being yak dung is for that reason: there is no firewood to gather.

Though the flanking peaks don’t look so high, {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} white perpetual snow glittered from about chest height upward.

On the slow ascending path, if you look carefully, there’s a strip of firm earth, pebbles kicked to both sides; that would be the side-trail tamped by the river folk the inn servant spoke of.

Following it along, we are suddenly led off a gentle rise and onto a vicious climb along a ridge.

“Is this right? Cutting straight across would be much faster.”

“Don’t stray; follow the trail. It wouldn’t bend for nothing.”

“It might not even be a trail. What if there was a landslide up there on that peak.”

“If so, we can turn back. In any case, there’s a reason for the bend.”

“Mmm. San—are you cold? Your lips are blue. Ah—now that I look, the air’s pretty chilly.”

Only then does Qing notice the weather.

With the Ice-White Divine Palm’s faculty she holds ice in her lower field; she’s dulled to cold itself.

And indeed, the moment we left the grassland for the mountain’s skirt, the temperature dropped hard.

It’s early Twelfth Month; by the measure of Qing’s homeland, the mountain’s temperature is already below freezing.

“Not ‘perhaps’—the climate is quite—mm. And yet you’re all fine.”

Qing is immune to cold; Seol Iri is immune; and Gyeon Pohee was born and raised in Tianshan’s divine marketplace—in those high, frigid uplands.

Warm Hebei never had nights this cold even in deepest winter.

So to Peng Daesan it is the three of us—faces unflushed by cold—who seem strange.

If that’s day, night will be that much worse.

We pitch the tent under a knife-edged cliff to block the wind, but we can’t burn fuel all night.

“No help for it. Want to share a sleeping bag with me? One bag will be warmer—you’ll have body heat.”

“What?”

Peng Daesan’s face goes blank.

Did I just hear that?

“No.”

Seol Iri steps sharply between Qing and Peng Daesan and, unusually, states her will.

“But what if you catch a cold? Iri, you know how it is—we’ve no physician here.”

“If it’s cold, we put a stone in. Join the bags and put him in the middle.”

Being from the North Sea, where sleeping rough in the cold is a specialty, Seol Iri produces a sensible fix.

We heat a big stone, bleed off a little heat, wrap it in cotton, and tuck it inside Peng Daesan’s sleeping bag; and we lay him in the center. We even pile all the pack-covers on top for extra warmth.

“How is it? Alright?”

“Warm enough; no need to worry.”

“Still—if you’re cold, I mean if you feel chill, say so. If you catch a cold there’s no remedy.”

“Did I not say I’m warm now.”

“Don’t be like that. No need to be shy. We’re fully clothed, so what.”

“No.”

“You—no, forget it. I’ll handle it. Sleep.”

Peng Daesan emits an infrasonic growl.

Truth be told he’s quite upset, though he himself cannot explain why, and so—thrum, a low note.

Qing’s eyebrow twitches.

Excuse me?

Why drop your voice like that when I’m worrying for you? If you dislike it, just say so.

If it were a woman, maybe—but I don’t want to share a sleeping bag with a man either, you know.

Still, a cold here would be misery, so I went to the trouble.

She’s about to snap back—then, eh, forget it.

If he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t like it.

Pressing when someone dislikes it could be annoying.

Or perhaps—being super-transcendent and all—his pride’s hurt that I’m fussing he’ll “catch a cold.”

As a master of the Flower Realm, to squabble with a mere super-transcendent—

Who am I? Early Harmony of Transcendence.

I should be magnanimous.

Qing closes her eyes.

And because when she closes her eyes she falls asleep at once, in not long at all—

Her eyes fly open.

No, but thinking on it, this fellow is laughable.

What is he, exactly? Shouldn’t he be bowing to me and saying thank you, gilding a sleeping bag and presenting it?

What kind of man is this?