Chapter 603: Mirror-of-the-Sky Blood (7)

Thus one monk, bound by rope, was dragged over the frozen ground across the alley.

With his windpipe cleanly split, no sound leaked.

But the bulging veins, the blood running in rivulets, the glaring red eyes—the facial muscles all twitching in spasms—were a raw scream expressed as a face.

“—Hk.”

For townsfolk out early to draw water—or brine from Qinghai Lake—it was a bit much this early in the morning.

Still, reactions came only here and there.

Most pretended not to see and edged far aside.

They stared intently at the ground, the sky, or some neighbor’s door ornament or window—as if to declare, “Something else has seized my gaze; I do not see you.”

They were faithfully keeping the Middle Kingdom teaching: avoid entanglement with a man wearing a blade.

But some among the plateau folk—

Even as they startled, at the sight of the monk’s shaved head they cried out and ran up.

Then they saw the giant letters branded on that bald pate—“Fake Monk,” carved in both the Middle Kingdom script and the Tibetan—and spat, tcht, or swallowed curses, relieved, and walked on as if to say, serves you right.

“Where are we headed, though? If you’ve learned something, you could at least tell us.”

“Hm? Ah. Haven’t learned a thing. Except that the Blood Thunder Sound Temple’s baldies are sons of dogs who, while hunting the runaway mad monk, also performed a massacre as a side job.”

“And right now?”

As in, where are we going now.

San—taciturn—had picked up the bad habit of speaking in fragments.

What, he thinks that looks cool?

The tough-guy way of talking?

“Nowhere in particular. Since the baldies split up to ‘receive lodging offerings,’ if we keep walking the lanes, we’ll bump into one or two, won’t we?”

“You walked so boldly I thought you had some plan.”

“When you know nothing of the enemy, the plan is to make one on the spot. We know only they split up to sleep. In a small town like this, if we step onto a main street, we could face a gathered enemy already; but since the town is small and there are fifteen left, maybe we can nab one or two before they regroup.”

Only at times like this did Qing get clever.

Not strange.

Even people who never think day-to-day can spin their minds fast when it’s about their favorite hobby.

If you had to name it—murder intelligence, or sabotage intelligence.

“Mm.”

With nothing to say, Peng Daesan only grunted.

A stupid plan—wander until you maybe run into the enemy because you might run into the enemy.

But there truly wasn’t a better way.

Critique without alternatives is just opposition for its own sake; Peng Daesan wasn’t such a small man as to refuse to acknowledge what merited acknowledgment just because Qing’s cocky face irked him.

“Still, shall we work up a bit of a plan? If we meet one to start with...”

So all morning, four people busying through alleys—plus one bundle of freight dragging behind—kept startling the industrious people of Tianjun.

Then—like a lie—around the corner at the fork ahead, a bald head flashed.

Qing bellowed at once.

“[Monk! We found the traitor you were looking for! A baldy who speaks the Middle Kingdom tongue strangely—Is this the one!?]”

“[What!?]”

Eyes round, the monk tapped out swift steps and sprinted straight at them.

Qing, for show, lifted the rope and held it out with both hands, respectfully.

The moment the monk took the straw rope by reflex—

Qing’s hands writhed like snakes, each coiling up his left and right wrists—climbing like serpents making loops.

An illusion of Form—Form attained—of the No-Shadow Divine Hands.

And—

Qing’s forearms, twined around his, snapped straight—chak!

Crunch-crunch! With the sound of bones ground to gravel, ta-da: now the monk’s forearms were wrapped twice around Qing’s forearms.

Human arms aren’t made of rubber; you can’t wrap someone else’s forearm twice unless—

Naturally, the forearms were crushed to grit.

“Ghh—!”

Sss—ss.

Before the monk’s scream could even gather volume, it turned to leaking air.

Right on cue, Gyeon Pohee’s finger punched a hole under his uvula.

The sisters-by-oath were perfectly in step.

Strictly, it was the elder who always watched (only) the younger and matched to her.

Qing, like that, flung her arms up—hands raised high.

With her dreadful strength, she swung the monk—forearms mashed and entwined—up and around in a half circle through the air—

“San!”

As prearranged, Peng Daesan’s saber traced an arc of blade-aura light.

Below the monk’s knees, his legs executed a breakout and tumbled far, far away.

As the brutally downsized stumps slammed the ground and the countless shards from the twisted forearms drove into the muscles, Qing’s heel thudded into his lower belly.

Since grasping the principle of breaking a core, she broke them just fine with her foot.

No reason to worry about side effects; with the Heavenly Demon Pacings she rammed in a burst of Self-Driving Demon-Energy—easier than using the hand.

“K—”

Blood must have pooled in the pierced airway; he managed a single-syllable scream.

One syllable—and then blood fountained through the hole punched in his throat.

And then Seol Iri froze the severed, writhing legs solid.

Done.

Qing nodded in satisfaction.

Three martial artists pulling a fine combined strike—and the looker-slash-dogsbody tied it off clean.

For a leader, nothing feels better than watching the gears click just as planned.

Peng Daesan wore a face that said, Why does this actually work.

Because no one is a master in the face of carelessness.

Qing was Harmony; and if a true master stooped to dirty tricks, well—in my hometown there’s a rule that if you don’t know, you get hit (there isn’t).

So—two fake monks on the line.

“[Monk! We caught the traitor here!]”

Three fake monks.

“[Monk!]”

Four fake monks.

The last one actually kept some guard up, so they had to scuffle a bit.

Fair—if there’s only one traitor and three baldies being dragged along, that’s suspicious.

But how long can a super-transcendent-level Lama Monk last against Harmony plus another super-transcendent?

The result would be the same anyway; add the sin of sapping our strength, and she cut all four limbs short and left only the torso.

Staring at the frost-burned wounds, Qing looked at Seol Iri with fresh curiosity.

Gunyeong could be useful?

Sure, I could do it too if I wanted.

And so, everyone holding a rope apiece like best friends, they dragged the loads around while the loads screamed with body and face.

Then Qing realized the plan’s blind spot—a very serious problem.

Grrrrowl! An earthquake of a sound.

Damn, I’m hungry...

Maybe I shouldn’t have learned the Birth-Heart Formula.

Ever since learning it, I get ravenous any time.

That wench “Gunyeong”—no wonder she gave up the locations of martial veins so obediently; was this her intelligent trap?

“Hm. Shall we go have breakfast first?”

“You’d eat breakfast now?”

“Food is a major matter. It takes priority over any operation; it’s about humanity—dignity. You know the rule: a general who fails a battle can be forgiven, a general who fails supply must be beheaded.”

“First I’ve heard of it.”

“You don’t even know the basics of strategy? San, I’m disappointed. Pohee, you’ve heard it, right?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Pohee’s “mmm-hmm” meant no. Hm. She could have matched me. Pohee’s great, but her sense sometimes—

Qing looked to Seol Iri.

“Iri, you’ve heard it, right?”

Seol Iri’s pupils trembled—grave inner conflict.

Then—

“I—I have.”

“Good girl, our Iri. Come here, come get a hug.”

Giggling, Qing hugged her and patted her head a few times—then cleared her throat, face solemn.

“Okay, kidding. Even I won’t stop and eat at a time like this.”

With daylight up, wandering more likely wouldn’t flush any more out.

Those who were to regroup had regrouped.

So dump these somewhere suitable and monitor their state.

“Besides, as dog as they are, they won’t rampage killing everyone inside a city. This isn’t a hamlet you can roughly exterminate.”

Once they realize comrades are missing, they’ll surely scatter to search again.

Shadow them and trim them again—and once the numbers drop, strike or whatever.

Peng Daesan marveled, purely.

Honestly, almost unfamiliar.

They returned to the first house, tossed the monks down, and—lest the frozen wounds thaw and bleed out—refroze them hard once more.

They blocked the bedroom door with a toppled wardrobe so it couldn’t open, just in case.

If they escaped after all that?

Then, as humans, you let them go.

Locked house, locked bedroom inside, and all four limbs wrecked—if they still escape, Qing will hail that human victory and gladly let them go.

If you can—be my guest.

Then they picked a stall near the square in the middle of town to enjoy a slightly late breakfast.

“Four bowls of barley porridge to start.”

“I’ll have two bowls, please.”

“Iri. Eat and order more. It’s porridge.”

“Ah.”

Seol Iri, who goes crazy for porridge, tried to be greedy—but with cold weather, what’s the point of ordering in advance?

“Master, mind if we buy sides from other stalls and have them with this?”

“Mm. We all do this to eat—good if you spread the coin.”

With the owner’s easy assent, Qing made a circuit of the square and collected a variety of bowls.

Not that there was much variety: milk porridge, noodles, a plate of dried meat stir-fried with dried vegetables, and a small tray with a heap of grain flour.

So they slowly enjoyed breakfast out in the cold—

And people slowly gathered in the square.

More and more wore the plateau’s traditional outer garment that serves as blanket and coat—the chuba, so called in Tibetan and in the Middle Kingdom tongue.

Then, all at once, they dropped to their knees in unison to pay respect, and monks with distinctly unenthusiastic faces came in and took the center.

They looked reluctant at a glance.

They were doing it because not doing it would look suspicious—but they didn’t want to dispense sermons to those they called ethnic traitors... probably.

There were six.

From a total of sixteen, four already dealt with—that would leave twelve; the rest could be out searching for Amukhablap, or looking for comrades who hadn’t appeared.

The sermon began.

And—

“[...] A tree whose roots have rotted can never survive; it decays alive and dies in pain—that is the way of the world. By ‘roots’ we mean soul and spirit; examine yourselves and repent whether you have not been walking toward death all along.”

The content was... off.

“[We of the plateau must not follow the crude customs of the Middle Kingdom. Especially, in a few days, by the Middle Kingdom’s crude reckoning they ‘welcome a new year’ in the dead of winter; see that sons and daughters of the plateau are not seduced into following at will.]”

Suddenly, political-education hour.

The plateau folk who had come to hear the sermon wore faces saying, Isn’t this odd?

The monks clicked their tongues.

“[Cut it off! Rather than take in defilement, gouge out your eyes; rather than hear defilement, slice off your ears—if you cannot thus block the source of vexation, then at least stay at home and plug your ears that you not be stained by those defiled customs...]”

And on it went for a double-hour and a bit.

Low-grade drivel: the Middle Kingdom’s customs are base, defiled, and vile; to keep your purity you must reject them and follow the plateau’s teaching strictly.

Qing whispered to Peng Daesan.

There was no one else to ask.

“San, those monks... the A—Arab... Ar—Arabiannaisa?”

“Ahabdalhaptak Temple. How do you twist it so badly?”

“Whatever. Isn’t that in the Middle Kingdom’s territory? Then aren’t those monks Middle Kingdom people?”

“They are.”

“Hah. What a joke.”

“That, too, is true.”

Peng Daesan agreed without fuss.

Anyway, the sermon ended.

People lined up politely to offer alms.

Only when all was done did the monks mutter among themselves, split into two groups, and scatter.

Qing’s party rose, quietly.