Chapter 578: Toward That Remote, Rural Backwater (10)

Seol Iri and Peng Daesan both look displeased.

One might think it doesn’t matter who subdues the brigands and who merely helps, but in truth he’s claiming to be the principal of the campaign.

Is it “the Heavenly Flower Sword and her friends suppressed the brigands and the mad monk helped,” or “the mad monk cut down the brigands and the Heavenly Flower Sword and her friends assisted”—two stories with completely different flavors.

Of course, Gyeon Pohee knows nothing of this higher-plane play of justification, honor, and a swordsman’s brand of politics—nor does she care to learn.

So she simply helps Qing by stamping the ground flat, preparing to pitch the tents at the foot of the least steep slope.

While Qing is cutting the frozen ground, Peng Daesan sidles up and asks about it.

The usual answer comes back.

“Mm? Why would it matter who’s ‘helping’ whom? Either way, beating down harmful brigands benefits the world, doesn’t it? What good is there in chasing a name?”

Then a sly, puckish smile.

“And I am not short on fame anymore, am I? Though of course a mere super-transcendent trinket like you, San, wouldn’t know.”

“There you go again with realms—haah. And that’s not all. The mad monk is entangled with various grudges across the rivers and lakes. Get mixed up with him for nothing and nothing good comes of it.”

“If it’s not, he can just say it’s not. If some fool charges in yelling, ‘So you slew brigands with me and that makes you my enemy!’—then he’s no different from a devil-head to begin with, is he?”

“It isn’t that simple. You don’t know how narrow and absurd a thing human hatred can be.”

If the mad monk’s enemies see him making a name with a deed resembling chivalry, how sorely will it gall them?

And if you say you helped him do it, human nature will tilt toward hatred whether it wants to or not.

“You have it rough, San.”

“I don’t know how you leapt to that conclusion.”

“There are those cheap women—you know the sort. They ‘give their heart’ on their own, then grind their teeth: Why won’t you repay me? How could you do this to me? San doesn’t need to mind such trifles. Sure, as you say, that’s how human hearts are—but there’s no need to move while accounting for hearts that have nothing to do with us. Total strangers, aren’t they?”

Peng Daesan wears a struck expression.

She plays the fool most days, then once in a while pierces straight through and sounds like a master.

“Ah. But what grudges, exactly? Did Fishcake Three-Combo do a lot of bad things?”

Peng Daesan flicks a glance at Amukhablap, seated cross-legged by the fire.

“His hand is cruel and his temper perverse—unreadable. If it doesn’t suit him, he kills without hesitation even if the target is blameless, and he moves to uproot any aftereffects.”

“To ‘uproot aftereffects’—you mean he tidies up anyone positioned to take revenge.”

Family, sect, friends.

“Mm.”

“So I don’t want to travel with him. Who knows when he’ll turn and strike.”

“Mm. Is that so? Let’s go ask him.”

“What?”

“Keep pitching the tent.”

Qing slots the Moonlight Sword back into its scabbard and walks to Amukhablap.

“Excuse me, monk?”

“You—why disturb meditation?”

“There are nasty rumors. Did you truly go around killing people whenever your feelings were hurt?”

Qing doesn’t ask without basis—and it’s not as if she fears losing a fight.

More than that, didn’t he bicker and rub along with that fat ox Pobidon?

If he were the sort to kill on a mood, he’d have done it long ago; given they stuck together for ages, he doesn’t seem that type.

“Hmph. Absurd talk. Everyone I killed died of natural causes. Vile, base Central Plains scum who exploited the most precious blood under heaven—the plateau blood. They rushed me, and since I am not yet Buddha, I am a merciless judge. Like the wrath of Mahākāla Avalokiteśvara that does not cease. My judgment none escape, even hiding in the Central Plains.”

Mahākāla, Avalokiteśvara—three names out of the Indian pantheon; all point to that god closest in feel to every pantheon—Śiva.

“Vile Central Plains breed—especially blood like yours, Han blood—the dirtiest, filthiest, and fated to swindle. Those who suck the marrow of us barbarians are not barbarians at all, but Han. So I judged. Any complaint? Yet you’ve won astonishing fortune—escaping your vile Han blood to be reborn a barbarian.”

“Enough of that. And how can you lump all Han together as villains?”

“Not every Han exploits barbarians. But every exploiter in the Central Plains is Han.”

“Mm.”

Qing has seen and heard enough to know how Central Plains folk treat barbarians.

They’re easy marks; the government always takes the Han side; Central Plains merchants swindle even their own—how easy must the barbarians look?

So he hunted such swindlers and killed them—so he says.

Qing looks at Amukhablap’s bad karma.

Peng Daesan said he kills them all and then “uproots the aftereffects,” while Amukhablap says he killed only those who came at him.

Qing suspects San is right—she knows the feeling all too well herself.

Leave aftereffects and what if the blowback lands not on me but on our chicks at Divine Lady’s Gate, on friends, on Seol’s Trading Company?

Perhaps the ones he “uprooted” weren’t plateau folk, then. Mm.

Or maybe I’m just an unlucky Heavenly Flower Sword.

If not for my master, our Divine Lady’s Gate, and our orthodox kin, I might have ended up like him.

“What are you doing, anyway? Practicing how Central Plains dogs pitch tents?”

“What else? Why pitch tents? To sleep, obviously.”

At that, Amukhablap’s sunken, hollow eyes fill with question as he stares at Qing.

“To sleep?”

“Come to think of it—your load is light. No sleeping bag? What—how did you get this far without one?”

“The plateau is the plateau-man’s house. The sky is the roof, the earth the foundation—unlike you weak Central Plains curs.”

“Roof and foundation, fine—but where are the walls? So you’ve just been sprawled on the ground till now?”

“Fool! That is how you die! That’s not a plateau-man—that’s those North Sea barbarians!”

What is this—barbarian-on-barbarian hate?

“Then how did you get this far? Some plateau-style bivouac method?”

“I am a master. A master can go five nights without sleep, no problem.”

So—he hasn’t slept.

No wonder the eyes are bloodshot; I thought it was a side effect of that Big Handprint—turns out he just hasn’t slept.

So when he’d had his eyes closed earlier, it wasn’t meditation; he was nodding off in the warmth of the fire.

“Then tonight, sleep within walls. All right?”

“You—truly a mad woman? However true a Buddhist I am, how can you trust and sleep with me?”

“Why? Planning to do something suspicious halfway through?”

“Madness. I told you—I am a pre-Buddha. In this world none to trust more than me—save the Buddhas.”

Qing grins, impish, and tosses it back:

“Then it’s settled, isn’t it?”

“For that reason then, San—good news. It’s cold; share a bag and you’ll be warm.”

“No.” “No!”

Peng Daesan and the mad monk speak at once.

Then they whirl and glare at each other.

“No.” “I refuse more.”

Mm. I thought it was a pretty good idea.

The man shivers through the night as it is; two in one bag would be warm and fine.

And with skin stretched on bone, the two of them won’t even crowd the bag.

“Then it can’t be helped. I’ll share with Hee-mae—”

“Use this.”

“Oho! How does a North Sea barbarian know propriety! Astonishments unending!”

Before Qing can finish, Seol Iri flips her own sleeping bag to Amukhablap.

“Lady Ximen. Then Iri has no sleeping bag.”

Qing is impressed.

What—referring to herself in the third person by her own name?

Where does that confidence come from?

Because she’s a little pretty—no, very pretty—she commits such outrages?

Unforgivable—

...forgivable. Beautiful women are allowed to do anything; third-person speech, twin tails—she’s earned amnesty.

“Mm. As expected, Iri. True to a North Sea barbarian—fine on the cold floor.”

“No.”

“Ah, sorry. Even if we’re close, calling you a North Sea barbarian—did I cross a line?”

“Not that. And North Sea brats are truly savage barbarian brats.”

“I didn’t go that far.”

A subtle ravine forms between Seol Iri’s brows.

But it’s the easiest ravine in the world.

“Iri, Iri—come.”

And just like that, the ravine vanishes as if it never was.

“Aw. Shame.”

“Sis, sorry.”

“Mmm. It’s good you two get along.”

Gyeon Pohee only smiles, pleased.

This is the dignity of family, a level above friends who aim for Qing’s sleeping place.

Thanks to this peculiar party, our average age jumps by about five years, but in the Central Plains, middle age is when you fly the highest anyway.

And so, once more, we walk the wilds...

“Truly atrocious. A flavor fit to yield to livestock.”

The plateau barbarian now has the leisure to gripe about meals.

Of course, there’s nothing else to eat; he grumbles, but leaves the bowl clean.

We walk and walk, eat lunch and walk, dusk falls fast, we eat dinner, and we’re about to pitch the tents again when—

“Weak Central Plains curs—do not pitch tents. Keep moving; we arrive by morning.”

“It’s pitch dark.”

“Fool. That means a sign of falling snow. All the more—go, stout as a bull’s horn.”

So snow is coming; if we walk through the night, we’ll reach Hainan County by morning.

Only, once a cloudy sky drops night—

Even with transcendent eyesight, these conditions show nothing.

On a moonless black night, even my night vision can’t help it.

Try to dodge snow by traveling and get lost, and we’ll spend days wandering; otherwise we’d take a little snow tomorrow and reach the city by evening.

“Your Central Plains luck is immense! Here stands the mighty starlight to cleave the dark and guide your way—me! The plateau is my home; I see it bright with eyes shut.”

“You were lost.”

He’d been attempting a straight fire-grill on an abandoned road because he’d gotten lost, wandered, and grown hungry enough to betray human decency.

Where Qing is from, starving enough to eat the dead bears no guilt—but a lost wanderer should not be talking big.

The mad monk explodes:

“That was an unknown road! This one I know!”

“Mm. What do you think, you two? The old man’s confident. Honestly, I want to go. I can’t stand the sight of ration porridge anymore.”

Peng Daesan sneaks a look at the fire.

Where Qing sat, a scrubbed-clean porridge bowl sits lonely.

What—is she saying she can’t stand to look at it after downing two bowls and cleaning them away?

But Peng has had his fill too; at this point, anything that isn’t ration porridge would taste like a supreme delicacy.

“Hrm. One night shouldn’t be an issue.”

Gyeon Pohee and Seol Iri are of the mind to go along with whatever, so long as Qing isn’t endangered.

Thus Qing wraps dried yak dung round the iron head of the Hexagonal Flanged Mace and lights a colossal torch.

Closer to a beacon fire than a torch.

A great flame cuts the wilderness; along the way, a shard of chill kisses the cheek.

“Oh. Snow.”

Qinghai is dry, so “snow” amounts to a flimsy, teasing sprinkle—flakes one by one.

Even so, the massive fire—three bundles of dried yak dung knotted together—casts the sparse flakes in all directions.

The feathery snow flurries far into the darkness, touched by the light—surprisingly charming.

Snow is a cursed byproduct of heaven when I’m the one who must shovel it.

Otherwise, snow is simply a beautiful scene.

As the dung burns, the light dwindles.

We paid at the unmanned store and still have plenty to spare; once the fire dies, we pack on fresh bundles—our mobile beacon rekindling again and again as we cross Qinghai.

Only, the torch—meaning the composite weapon Mace–Moonlight Sword, the flanged mace half—has cause for grievance.

What does this lunatic mistress take a weapon for!

Bladed or blunt, how dare she set it aflame until it glows red—how is it to remain intact!

If the flanged mace had consciousness, eyes, and a mouth, it would weep blood and curse its owner.

But a weapon has no say.

Such is the harsh fate of a tool matched to a savage master.

Five beacon-fires gutter out; on the sixth, the high flame rises again—

At last, far off, a hint of Central Plains–style walls, barely there.

The southern gate of Qinghai—Hainan.