Chapter 628: Kunlun Sect vs Blood Thunder Sound Temple (4)

“W-why... why go that far? I’ve already told you everything I could tell you. What harm did an old man shut in a cell ever do you—why....”

Butcher Demon’s voice trembles.

Qing snorts and answers.

“Eh. Did the old man ever need some grand reason when he killed someone? He just didn’t like them. Wasn’t that all? It’s just that now it’s the old man’s turn.”

Butcher Demon’s lips work, shaping words that never make it out.

His lips quiver; his pupils tremble to match; the grime-caked fingernails at their tips tremble with them.

His shoulders sag, his back rounding and collapsing until he looks like he’s just hanging off the bars.

A former great demonhead who at least used to sit stiff and pretend to meditate—now, as if trying to act his age at the last possible moment, he turns in an instant into a shrunken, withered old man.

The beads of sweat gathered on his brow swell, then finally slide past the corner of his eye and down his cheek.

Qing stares, as if spellbound.

Butcher Demon’s eyes—his pupils dilate until they look like nothing but black holes. The eyes are the windows of the heart; a lusterless gaze lets you peer into hollow emptiness.

Qing lightly bites her lip.

A pleasure she had never felt before.

As the demonhead’s gaze goes muddy, Qing’s eyes sparkle the other way; and her heart thuds—thud, thud, thud—racing as fast as this sudden acceleration of time that makes a person grow old.

It was the soul, the mind, collapsing before her eyes.

The moment someone falls apart completely.

Qing clenches her teeth to master her trembling body.

Even so, she fixes her ragged breath on the ancient murderer, as if to engrave this scene in her mind forever, to replay it without end.

That once-fearsome killer, now so pitifully old, will never sit in meditation again.

He won’t stiffen his back out of stubborn pride to hold his center, either.

And I hope he hasn’t lost even that shabby urge to pick food up off the floor when no one’s looking.

Rather than just waiting weakly for death, I’d like him to cling to the paltry life he has left and suffer through it, grinding along for a very, very long time.

Qing rises to her feet.

The prisoners’ heads rise with her.

“Alright. Time to be off. I said I’d take one of you along. Let’s seeee.”

Qing sweeps her eyes along the length of the Repentance Hall and then—pfft—puhaha—ahahaha—bursts out laughing.

Her clear laughter rings through the Hall.

If its owner weren’t a fiend drenched head to toe in blood, it would have sounded clean and bright, a honeyed tone that seeps into the ear.

“No, really, all of you—khff—your eyes are shining like lanterns.”

Even now they can’t let go of hope, those prisoners, sending up desperate eyes.

How am I supposed not to crack up looking at this?

Aren’t they one and all demonheads who committed crimes that cry out to heaven, wringing tears of blood from hundreds of innocents?

A few days of fawning doesn’t erase that debt, but they plead with rock-solid certainty that I just have to take them—what even is that.

“Now then. Only one person can walk out of here. And my choice is—”

Dum-dum-dum—Qing beats out a drumroll with her lips.

The Repentance Hall’s dog-bastards gulp, unable to hide the tension.

And at last Qing announces the lucky winner.

“It is—me! Institutional Supreme King Deity Molsal’s Dayeoreum, Holder of the Ten Great Demonic Arts, Dayeoreum of Annihilation—my very own self! Congratulations, Ms. Dayeoreum!”

Qing asks and answers herself.

“Oh my, such an honor for me, wow, really how—how could I ever thank you. First, I’d like to thank all you dog-bastards gathered here in the Repentance Hall. Thanks to you I’ve realized, ‘I must never live like this. If you’ve got no ability but tons of greed and a filthy temper, you end up like this.’ A priceless lesson.”

The prisoners’ faces go half dumbstruck, half at a loss—apparently they can’t make heads or tails of what she’s saying.

Whatever.

Qing’s eyes gleam, shining at their brightest.

“Alright then, Ms. Dayeoreum: upon escape you’ll also receive, as a bonus, provisions for eleven minutes. Ah, would you be willing to use them for a good cause?”

With that, Qing takes hold of the food cart’s handle.

“No. I’m going to eat it all by myself. Solo dining, in prison. Your breakfast has been repurposed into my escape rations. Be grateful, always.”

“Wait—”

“Goodbye, everyone! I’m casting off every shackle and chain of this Repentance Hall and setting out in search of happiness! May you all be unhappy!”

Then she bows, bending at the waist and drawing her right arm in to her chest—offering a formal salute in the Western fashion.

Of course, there isn’t a demonhead here with the knowledge to recognize a Western salute, but they’ll probably remember it for the rest of their lives.

And then she opens the Repentance Hall door and trundles the food cart out in one piece.

“Hold on—that’s not what we agreed to, hey!”

“You bitch! Why are you taking the food! Leave the food, you goddamn bitch!”

“Y-you Baldie punks! That’s a jailbreak—jailbreak! That bitch is breaking out!”

Belated shouts explode all at once and clump together.

They strain their neck veins and flay their throats, and the massed bellow turns into one indistinct howl that tears at the ears—

Thud. The door closes, and even that dies down to a market-stall murmur beyond the wall, the usual background noise outside a tavern.

In fact the outside gets louder once she passes the inner door and opens the Hall’s outer door.

Each cell has at least a palm-sized window, and from each comes a full-throated uproar.

—Jailbreak! It’s a jailbreak!

—She’s slipping out! Baldie! Hey, Baldie!

A single Kunlun Daoist—Baldie—listens to the clamor with a placid face.

“Is it over now?”

“Yes. Whew, talk about proper fun at the very start of the new year. But I got carried along by the mood and brought their breakfast out... what do we do with this?”

“Didn’t you say you were going to dump it?”

The original plan was: ‘You had breakfast—and crash—actually, you didn’t.’

But she just couldn’t.

“How could I dump untouched food? And someone else has to clean it up—that’s just making trouble.”

No matter what, you can’t throw out perfectly good food.

Especially Qing, who bears a grudge where food is concerned—better to feed it to the local stray dogs than just flip a whole tray of fresh food.

“Good. Then give it to them for lunch.”

Qing looks over today’s breakfast.

Carrot porridge with a fair amount of meat.

And fried meat—what meat is this?

She pops a piece into her mouth—munch, munch, yum—ah, it’s beef.

So it’s fried beef. Just not brined.

For reference, today is Month One, Day Five.

And it’s midwinter in Qinghai, which is cold even at the best of times.

Food left outdoors doesn’t just cool—it turns properly chilled.

In other words, the prisoners’ lunch today will be carrot porridge with little rafts of ice ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) and fried beef gone past cold to downright chilled.

Hmph. Where else are they going to get even this.

When I was a beggar, if someone had given me just this—

I’d have let out a cheer—what, is today my birthday? Or the Last Supper?—overjoyed beyond telling, unable to tell dream from waking.

I’d have shoveled it in like a fiend so no one could snatch it, weeping grateful tears because it was so delicious.

If you’ve got room to gripe about side dishes, aren’t you living pretty well?

These dog-bastards really think they’re in clover.

Qing almost mixes a handful of dirt into the carrot porridge, then stops—no matter what, you don’t play with food.

“Mm, but isn’t Master Danlun the one who has to handle the cleanup? I might’ve gotten too excited and overdid it... Should I at least mop up the blood I sprayed with my face covered?”

Master Danlun shakes his head.

“Now it’s my turn. You’ve likely had a rough time; get some real rest. We can talk sorcery later.”

He looks, for some reason, decidedly pleased as he says it.

She did make a mess, but he really does look fine, so—alright then.

——

The Repentance Hall stayed noisy.

But that was all.

They roared about jailbreaks and that bitch Dayeoreum, but since absolutely nothing came back in response, it just petered out.

Inside they shouted that when Dayeoreum escaped she must have turned Kunlun upside down.

That bitch—she was even using Ideation—she must be a demonhead who’s crossed Entering Demon.

She showed four of the Ten Great Demonic Arts right there; if she really rampaged and tore the place up, who would have the leisure to care about some Hall?

And therefore—what?

Even if the Repentance Hall were neglected, what could the prisoners actually do?

They clutched their rumbling bellies—surely they wouldn’t just leave us like this.

Surely they wouldn’t let us starve to death.

If Kunlun has problems right now, you think they’ll look after the Hall?

So the prisoners who’d been screaming themselves purple soon lost steam and slumped down.

Time passed like that, and at last the Hall’s inner door opened with a rattle and the sound of a food cart being pushed in.

“Today’s lunch is carrot porridge and fried beef.”

“Hey, is this the time to be calmly reciting lunch? What about that bitch Dayeoreum—what happened to her?”

Master Danlun blinks. Blinks again.

Then, as if he truly doesn’t know what they’re talking about, he asks back:

“Dayeoreum? What do you mean?”

“That bitch—the Small-Count Witch! No, Black-Slaughter, Self-Driving, Turning-Wheel—whatever—she learned every vicious demonic art under the sun, that bitch!”

Master Danlun scratches his chin.

“Did you have a dream?”

“No, the bitch who was locked up right there!”

“You’re not thinking straight. That one’s been empty the whole time. The door’s broken; the cell’s unusable.”

“No, but even with the door open she sat quiet and all that, and you praised her for being well-behaved and brought out a whole spread—said they were the dishes you were going to eat yourself!”

“Who would bring out dishes for me? Why would I drag my own meal all the way to the Repentance Hall to eat it?”

“No, you—you said—so—”

In place of the stammering prisoner, Dumpling-Ear lets out a scrawny, mean little shout.

“Shit, you lost her so now you’re trying to pretend it never happened! Ha! You Baldie bastard, then what—what is that puddle of blood, pig’s blood? Pretty damn sure it’s Baldie blood, yours!”

For the record, it was pig’s blood.

Master Danlun looks down at his feet.

He lifts both feet and sets them down again.

Splash, splash goes the sound of blood—and echoes loud—

“Blood? What blood? It’s clean.”

“No, it’s splashing right now—”

“This is why you lot don’t improve. I lay on a rare feast for breakfast and you’re so full of pep you’re trying to pull tricks.”

“When did you ever—”

“I distinctly served Five-Spice Pork and Sweet-and-Sour Beef, Water-Boiled Lamb Soup, and one Peking-style roast duck per head. You were in such a hurry to eat you didn’t so much as say a word and it was quiet—now you’re full, I see.”

Master Danlun lies with perfect composure.

The prisoners just open and close their mouths like fish.

“You little bastard, quit screwing—”

“Since breakfast clearly hasn’t settled, that must be why you’re jumping around. Therefore, I’ll serve lunch at dinnertime.”

Rattle—Master Danlun drags the food cart back out.

“Hey, wait—”

A desperate voice tries to hold him.

They’d missed breakfast and were about to miss lunch—the prisoners’ last-ditch plea.

But how are prisoners behind bars supposed to stop a determined martial artist?

As he closes the door, Master Danlun sniffs in hard—khhng—and forcibly smothers a snicker—khh-hek.

It’s the way Master Danlun enjoys himself.