Chapter 585: Let’s Kill the Bandits (7)

“Mm—do you two know each other?”

Amukhablap scowled.

“This filthy beast—this person I do not know.”

He didn’t know Qing’s command of languages.

She could catch a word here and there, but even Central Plains folk in Qinghai could do that much.

“Expensive! Discount! Expensive! Not! Expensive!”

Or, “Privy! Hurry! Backhill! Urgent!”

Sure, you can make yourself understood—but a string of nouns doesn’t mean you can speak.

“Liar! Heh. Did you seduce a very beautiful woman in the Central Plains? Feel like settling down now? You used to say plateau women are the most beautiful—turns out even Master is a man after all?”

“Gal! And you blockheaded skull! All Central Plains beauty flows from the blood of Tibet, from the plateau’s great ancestors. Pure Han blood—does not exist!”

“Tubo” was the old plateau kingdom of roughly a millennium past—the one that even took Chang’an, the Central Plains capital.

In that distant day, the strongest state—the one the Central Plains bowed to and called elder brother.

Naturally, Qing knew none of that foreign history.

“Heh. It fell anyway, and that’s why we plateau folk are in this sorry state. Say it all you want—it’s just filthy self-consolation, isn’t it, Master?”

“Eh.”

Master. She’d suspected as much, but those blunt two syllables were too naked to ignore. Qing glanced at Amukhablap.

“This vile seed plays dog-tricks. Pretends closeness to the Great Me. But the Great Me has nothing to do with bandit rabble. This beast—he gifts you delusion.”

“Not that kind of dog-trick... Mm, but you did teach him something, right?”

“That is false. The compassionate Great Me found a beggar once. Gave him a dharma-name, took him in to save his life—the Great Me, who is Buddha’s great compassion embodied.”

“No—you wanted an obedient slave. Hey, do you know what name this bastard stuck on me? ##—in Central Plains terms, Gal-Dol Yudu—‘Thick Clothes—Protruding—’”

“Gal!”

Qing barely stifled a laugh.

Gal meant thick clothing, and dol meant protruding—bulging.

“Kkhff.”

Truthfully—she didn’t stifle it. The monk’s “Gal!” tore her composure; the laugh leaked out despite her best effort.

In a voice thick with a smile, she spoke.

“Whatever the name—didn’t he save you from starving to death? If it were me, and someone fed me then, I’d thank my lifesaver like a parent.”

“Adorable one—you are indeed wise. You pierce truth as a high monk pierces fruit.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! He only needed a slave he could work to the bone! He took me in, stuck me with a low, filthy dharma-name, and left me to rot. If he’d taught me even the basics! He used me for errands until my bones set, stealing my chance—kept me from ever becoming a master! And when the venerable Saritasa tried to transmit Vajra practice—you blocked it!”

They say the younger you start martial arts, the better.

Only when bones are soft can training reshape the frame—your one window before remolding the skeleton.

Not only external arts.

Children’s upper–middle–lower dantians connect easily and their channels are clean; internal flow speeds and outputs leap by bounds.

That’s why, once past twenty, great breakthroughs are rare.

“Mm.”

Even if he’s a monk, a training temple is functionally a martial sect—like Shaolin is more sect than temple. He took the boy in, then barred him from martial arts?

That’s... a bit harsh.

Amukhablap clicked his tongue.

“Shameless beast—how dare you resent the Great Me? Your wretched life was replaced by the Buddha’s mercy. You wept and ate barley porridge—then showed a swindler’s face. Before study of combat comes study of scripture: you should have thanked the resplendent Vairocana. You craved only martial arts, broadcast your grudge everywhere—chattered and slandered.”

“Mm. That’s not wrong either.”

Hearing him, Qing had to admit—there was sense in it.

He saved a dying wretch, brought him in—yet the boy ignored monastic study and duty, sulked because he wasn’t taught martial arts, and bad-mouthed his benefactor.

If it were her, she’d think, No way I’m teaching this yellow-sprout punk martial arts.

“Even so—you shouldn’t have blocked me! Because of you—”

“No matter how fine the bones, if the heart is wicked, you birth a rakshasa. Fools who, greedy to churn out masters at once, plant future disaster—what they create is a beast.”

The mad monk kept saying monkish things.

Though considering he’d chased the Absorbing Essence Devil Art like a madman—well—pretty thick-faced to lecture others.

When you do it, it’s the Buddha’s will; when others do it, it’s evil greed? No wonder your karma’s black.

Anyway—he took him in, then blocked him from training. That was a cruel master.

“Even so—poisoning him and trying to kill him crosses the line, doesn’t it? You tried to give me a weird cow-themed dharma-name, but when I refused, you didn’t bear a grudge or force me. So isn’t it really that he wanted your sect’s arts, accepted the ‘Iron Nipple’ name, and now cries about it?”

“Hah. Useless to reason.”

With that, the bandit chief with the embarrassing name flopped flat on his back.

If you’re going to kill me, do it quick.

“Heh. How would a well-fed girl understand? You wield terrifying arts—which means from childhood you built your base with bone-washing and learned fists before words. Do you know hunger? Do you know the sorrow of being hungry because you are weak?”

“Give me a break. When I got spat on and clubbed every day—stealing scraps under the eyes of vermin—if someone had picked me up then, I’d have served them as a savior, like a parent, for life. You’re just a rotten bastard. Who are you blaming?”

“You—!”

“Enough. He knows no shame—a beast beyond recall. The Great Me’s tiny mistake or shameful sin—lives saved by the Great Me must be taken back by the Great Me.”

Amukhablap lifted the cudgel the bandit chief had dropped.

Qing slid a shoulder in front of him and blocked him with her back.

“Adorable one—you stay the Great Me’s killing. More adorable still—the Buddha will grant you ten thousand merits. But that thing is already a beast—”

“I’m not saying don’t kill him. I’m saying it’s weird. Ah—right, you were too busy coughing blood while fighting the bandits to notice.”

Qing kindly explained.

What kind of “bandit gang” has everyone using inner energy—some even edging toward weapon-aura? Most were just second-rate junk with dim glow-tape sword sheen, sure—but still.

Very suspicious.

And as she cut them, more than half looked Central Plains—by your logic, that’s collusion with foreign powers.

Such men block a road in this backwater? They’ve got a purpose.

Amukhablap’s brows knifed upward.

—

Thankfully, the bandit camp was packed with ingredients.

With so many mouths, of course their larder was full.

So tonight, Qing was head cook.

She’d never trained as a chef, but as a grandmaster of eating she knew which flavors, added to which, produced what synergistic lift.

Had she chosen the kitchen over the sword, she might have made a name to shake the land.

But kitchens in the Central Plains belong to men.

All physicians are men; a woman, no matter how brilliant, is an herbal woman, not a physician.

All master chefs are men; a woman with hands that slap a top-grade chef silly is a pantry-mistress or kitchen-mother at best.

Women may cook rice, but not “cuisine.”

Ximen Surin’s radical woman-first doctrine didn’t erupt from nowhere.

Thus, fate denied Qing the title of master chef—and it’s not something you say to a true master who reached Flower Realm youngest on record.

So what Qing makes, no matter how splendid, is not “cuisine”—it’s a meal.

Truth be told, she’d never learned kitchen craft beyond bachelor fare; strictly speaking, yes—this is a meal, not cookery.

“I’ll help.”

“No need. It’ll be quick. Want a taste? What bandit gang lays in luxury provisions like this? This batch might be a masterpiece.”

“Yes. I want. Hurry.”

Seol Iri dipped a big wooden paddle into the great pot of bubbling mixed congee—and without cooling it at all, shoveled a mountain into her mouth.

Boiling like molten iron—and she didn’t even blow. A traveling-quack strongman act by the medicine wagon, honestly.

“Haa—eut—hah—hhuu—tasty—tas-ty—Mi-mi! Mi-mi! Hoot—haat—eut—hh—hhhuut.”

She stuffed, then blew to cool—the shocking, utterly visible indecency of her table manners—and chanted mi-mi (exquisite flavor) without pause.

“A bit plain? How’s the salt?”

“I’ll try a little more.”

Another heaping scoop.

Those shameless little moans leaked out again—haat, haa, ahhn—but everyone heard them anytime hot porridge or broth hit the table. Background noise by now.

“Haat—gulp. I—I can’t tell yet. Need more.”

“At this rate, Yi-ri’s going to eat it all herself.”

Qing wrapped the great pot in a cloth and hefted it.

Outside—three big bonfires.

One for the party to sit around; the other two ringed with dying bandits, wheezing faintly as they writhed.

They’d been too noisy begging for life—so she chose the foulest-karma bastard and sentenced him to Direct Fire-Grill. After that, the rest quieted down.

“Must we eat right here?”

“We have to keep watch. One of them might try something, and—more importantly—dinner tastes best when we all eat together. We can’t take turns standing watch and not eat. Family eats together. Sharing a meal matters.”

“I ask if you aren’t showing too much leisure. Rot’s melting their wounds—more than a few will stop breathing soon.”

“Freeze to death or bleed to death—same end. The important thing is messaging—what our actions mean. We don’t care whether you live or die. We won’t intervene. So when we ask something, you won’t gamble for mercy—you’ll answer straight. They’re not negotiating; they’re begging.”

“Astonishing! Astonishing wisdom! Adorable one—your skull isn’t empty after all? To dare deceive the Great Me—how impish.”

“You’re not one to talk. A Flower Realm master gobbling bread without noticing it’s poisoned?”

“Adorable one also lacks a brain. Alms are not for the self—accepting them grants others merit. Thus even if poisoned, not refusing is a disciple’s fate. The living Buddha Śākyamuni most enjoyed others’ phlegm.”

Qing was a Daoist, and of course she’d been forced to memorize basic Buddhist study, too.

There is a rule: refuse no alms.

With countless Buddhas and sects, some keep it, others don’t.

Qing snorted.

“More like you didn’t want to share, so you swallowed without chewing—never tasted the pepper-bite, never noticed the poison.”

“You twist truth. Thanks to the Great Me, you all did not get poisoned. I took all your venom into the Great Me.”

“Fine—call it a good outcome. But why do you keep giving people names like that? I’d go crooked too.”

“Adorable yet ignorant one—Śākyamuni named his son Rāhula—in Indian tongue, ‘burden.’ A slur—hindrance to practice, devil-child that snares with blood ties. But Rāhula wasn’t ashamed; he pursued secret practice and, at last, became a great teacher of the plateau’s Vajrayāna.”

Qing understood Rāhula as a lament born of unbidden affection for a child—an honest sigh over worldly attachment, rather than malice.

“Unbelievable. Not losing a single exchange—and the more plausible you sound, the more infuriating it is.”

“Because the Great Me is invincible—by the Buddha’s glory, never defeated.”

“Whatever. Have your porridge. Oh—does your Buddha forbid the five pungent roots?”

“Adorable one’s memory is a chicken’s. The Great Me has said: as alms, eat everything to grant merit.”

So—shouldn’t eat, but if given, he’ll eat.

Qing’s heart said don’t feed him.

But no matter how you hate someone, you don’t starve them. That was Qing’s bedrock creed.

She ladled a generous bowl. The look wasn’t pretty, so she checked the contents with care.

Her friends had once been cautious too—but now? When Qing cooked, they swallowed secretly, expectant.

As expected.

Amukhablap took a careful mouthful—then made a scene.

“Oh. Oooh! Astonishing flavor! A shabby porridge—even a dog would turn its head—and yet how is it delicious? Adorable one—take refuge at once and head our monastery’s kitchen! A wicked taste that will make even the Buddha break his fast!”