Chapter 620: I Am Wronged (10)

Qing’s head snapped around.

The Ten Great Demonic Arts? What was left again?

But if it’s not an inner cultivation method, there’s no reason to learn some depraved demonic art.

Back when I was a novice, I might’ve whooped—great, I’m almost done collecting!

But this body is a true master now.

Qing could now read someone’s mental image with ease.

I know exactly how dangerous demonic arts are—and I’ve already got more than enough supreme arts without them.

Still... registering it wouldn’t hurt?

The Ten Great Demonic Arts are a kind of insurance.

There are four of the Ten I haven’t collected.

If I fill one here, that leaves three.

And I’ve banked good-karma exchanges; I don’t know what the next cost is, so I can’t swear to it, but I should be able to trade for at least two.

Maybe even three.

But I don’t have to cling to it.

There’s plenty of time to roam the rivers and lakes, and if I keep stacking merit, I’ll collect them all in the end.

So if I at least register it here—

That saves time.

Qing snorted first, though.

“The Ten Great Demonic Arts? From you, old man? You think a Ten Great Demonic Art is tucked between the cheap manuals hawked by a street quack?”

“Newbie, the Light-Roaring Murderous Steel Qi is the Butcher Demon’s proprietary art. If the Ten Great Demonic Arts outside are what they were back then, he is indeed the holder of one of them.”

The opium king in the front cell, obsequious again, had recovered enough to provide commentary.

“Oh? Explanation. Helpful. Plate—hand it over.”

“Hehe—huh! Not that one—how about the bigger—ohhh, thank you!”

He’d been pretty deflated, but one piece of meat perked the opium king right up.

He once ran every opium den across two prefectures and was counted among the five richest men under heaven.

Now he was a wrinkled old flatterer, eyes shining as he tried to cadge another bite from a prisoner young enough to be his granddaughter.

Qing pulled up the Martial Arts Window to search.

Light-Roaring Murderous Steel Qi. Violet. Inner cultivation method!

Qing had only meant to register it, but that changed the calculation.

Wait—an inner cultivation method? At the exact moment I need one?

Still—not something to grovel for. Qing cleared her throat.

“Whoa. It really is one of the Ten Great Demonic Arts. Hm. How much would that sell for? Enough to live high and mighty to the end of my days?”

“Kh-heh-heh... So, your appetite is whetted?”

The Butcher Demon smiled hideously.

Cross-legged, he could pass for a normal old man; wrinkle his face into a smile, and the malice bled through—nothing but evil.

“Whetted? That even a question? Say you’re selling a Ten Great Demonic Art and they’ll haul gold by the cartloa—hm. No. On second thought, no.”

Qing scowled on purpose.

“Old man, who are you trying to kill? How do you ‘sell’ one of the Ten? Who brings money to that deal? They’ll come with blades, eyes blood-red.”

“A woman without even that level of craft dares to scheme an escape. How amusing.”

Oh, you’re poking my pride?

Even better.

Like a cheek offered to be slapped, Qing furrowed her brow as if she’d taken the bait.

“What? I’ve got plans, okay? Fine—life’s one big bet. Go on then, recite the mnemonic. If I turn up missing one day, assume I sold a Ten Great Demonic Art and I’m patting my belly somewhere.”

“Kh-heh. Come closer.”

The Butcher Demon stepped up to the bars.

He’d always sat there cross-legged; I wondered if his legs were bad—but no, he walked over just fine.

Qing shook her head.

“Just recite from there. What’s so lovely between us that we should huddle up and whisper? You think I don’t know your angle? What if you bite?”

“The things a little girl thinks are savage. Still—you have a nose on you. I thought I might finally taste girl’s blood again.”

He gave that repulsive grin.

“Spare me. Recite.”

“Now? Their ears are all cocked.”

“Hey, Junkie. Knife Robber. Make some noise.”

The Junkie was in the cell before the Butcher Demon.

The Knife Robber—who only cut down owners of famous swords and collected the blades—was in the next cell over.

“AaaAAAAAAaaaaa—”

“Body-mind-takes-its-course, Five Elements, Five Aggregates, Namo Amitabha—”

Qing, who now wielded kinglike power through leftover distribution, had the two raise a ruckus at once.

“Alright. Drag it out and their voices go hoarse. Make it quick and cheap—recite.”

“Kh-heh-heh, a very shrewd girl indeed. I’ll recite it once; open your—”

“Once? In what world? You keep going until I’ve memorized it.”

Qing cut him off with a predatory smile.

The Butcher Demon knit his brows once, then, as if resolved not to bandy more words, began chanting the mnemonic.

“‘When a man lifts a blade, it is to kill; therefore the sole purpose of study is to kill well...’”

He flowed on with a preface as demonic as it gets, then recited smoothly.

The current of inner energy, its operation, the aura, the momentum, the chained transitions—quite detailed, a clear progression.

After first connecting true-energy through the upper dantian, it rides major points from the middle dantian and spears out to the limbs—a distinctive route.

It demands opening the Conception and Governor vessels.

In essence, a rising steel-qi that’s layered on after you build foundation through basics and ascend in realm.

But... even from the mnemonic alone—

It’s ugly. The kind of thing you wonder if it should be learned at all.

Qing is no longer the ignorant Qing.

Her base in the nondual learning of Daoist/Buddhist lore is solid; by stretch she’s matched the poise of a master.

It sounded like you fill the upper dantian with murderous intent and rotate it through the whole body. I don’t need to try it to know how vicious it is.

It’ll make you cruel. It’ll make you crave blood.

The thicker the killing-mind, the greater the power—and the very circulation of true-energy incites the killing-mind. The longer the fight, the more the malice spikes and the stronger the force.

Call that a virtuous cycle—or a vicious one?

Power-wise alone, it deserves the violet border.

“...and thus, by sheer momentum one can kill a man; this, then, is the ultimate Way of the blade.”

A flicker in the corner of her vision.

To her surprise, the Martial Arts Window lit at once.

What? It’s real—why?

Qing couldn’t make sense of it.

She’d targeted him with tossed food because she hated how the worst bastard here pretended calm, class, decency.

The plan was to give him a taste or two, get him hooked, then really start to toy with him.

So from the old man’s side, she must have been infuriating—

Lucky if it stopped at anger; sometimes he glared at Dumpling-Ear like a blood enemy just for being opposite him.

Telling him to keep reciting until she memorized it was part of that.

You can’t register without a complete mnemonic.

And if he tried to “edit” the mnemonic, making him repeat it again and again would expose inconsistencies—lines drifting, front and back not matching.

Then she’d tear into him—why is it different, why aren’t you reciting it right—and make a whole scene.

But he recited the martial mnemonic without changing a single word?

“Hm. Four repetitions should do it.”

She’d have to burn a “repeat” on someone else later, so Qing pressed him to go again.

Four times like that.

“Hey, you two. Enough noise. Hm. Old man—what’s your game? Why does it sound legit? I expected fake—five times, exactly the same?”

The Butcher Demon grinned.

“You think a man like me would stoop to deceiving a mere girl? If you do slip out, the lineage of a Ten Great Demonic Art continues.”

“What, a late-life itch for a disciple?”

“Disciple? Hardly. If you somehow escape, I’ll have released into the world a murderous fiend blinded by blood. How could I not be delighted?”

“A murderous fiend?”

“Ha. Shows your level. It’s an art that forges a ghoul intoxicated with slaughter—blind, devoted to the business of killing.”

He meant he cooperated without haggling because it would harm the world.

Qing was sincerely impressed.

Mm. A supreme bastard truly thinks on another plane.

His smile deepened.

Even with no dantian, a thick killing aura billowed like black worms curling into the air.

“Ahh, I miss it. I do. Do you know the difference between smashing bones, grinding them, and slicing them? Do you know the hand-feel when you rip a man apart so the jagged ends jut through the skin? Do you know what it is to rake bare hands through viscera, yank them out, and squeeze until they tear in your grip? Do you know how sweet the screams when you pare flesh along the whole body and salt it? Do you know the feel of peeling skin by hand until human fat clots up under your nails?”

Qing swallowed.

Yes—be afraid—his grin was curdling into something nastier when—

“Wow. Old man. You do know how to kill.”

His face fell apart; he stared, dumbstruck.

“What?”

“Damn. Hearing that suddenly really turns me on.”

The Butcher Demon looked into Qing’s eyes.

Glazed, pupils loose—eyes gone.

And inside them, the most ill-omened color on earth spreading.

A chill crawled the Butcher Demon’s spine.

This woman—this is Heavenly-Slaughter Fate. This is slaughter—born to slaughter. She’s it.

He’d already lost his martial arts.

But instinct, layered by countless killings, recognized a kindred.

Qing, certified by a world-class demonhead—one of the infamous two-character epithets who terrorized the Central Plains—is a bona fide slaughter-fiend!

Had Qing known, she’d have balked in disgust, exploded—why lump me with that—and fired a tactical nuke on the spot.

“Of course, only if you really do manage to escape. Girl—what do you think happened to that ‘cripple’ you call Foot-Invalid? If you mean to try, do it before this old man’s life ends. It’ll be amusing.”

In short: prison breaks are impossible; a heartfelt curse blooming from a whiff of defeat.

Qing snorted.

“We’ll see. A promise is a promise. Fine—since it’s one of the Ten, I’ll pay big.”

If I’d known, I’d have saved the old man for last.

You can’t let personal like-or-dislike sabotage your collection; the first customer must always be treated generously so others line up.

The Butcher Demon didn’t get a ladle’s share; he got an entire big plate with a fair spread.

He lifted his brows.

“Cl-cl—didn’t think you’d be so liberal.”

“Hmph. I don’t like your act, old man—but I pay fair. The first customer gets the royal treatment.”

“Buying a swift horse’s bones for a thousand gold. Yes—cunning girl. No wonder a fresh young woman like you ended up tossed in a Repentance Hall.”

He meant the parable of buying the bones of a thousand-li horse.

Once, a king sent a minister with a thousand gold to procure such a horse; the man returned with nothing but bones, bought for five hundred.

The king seized his collar in fury; the minister pleaded:

“If word spreads we pay five hundred gold for mere bones, won’t every owner of a true thousand-li horse come running?”

And so the king bought three fine steeds and lived happily ever after.

The state treasury was surely less happy.

She tossed three pieces of meat each to the opium king and the knife robber—who had shouted and chanted to lay down smoke.

Then Qing looked down the corridor.

Long hall; prisoners clinging to bars, sneaking hopeful glances at the remaining dishes. She flashed white teeth.

“You saw that, right? That’s how I do. Now—who’s selling martial arts?”