Chapter 645: Joint March (1)

Where is this, who am I.

When I snap to, I find myself seated in an inn.

I blink my big eyes—once, twice.

Huh. When did I come to a restaurant?

But the question passes.

So what—this is fine, isn’t it? I feel like it’s fine.

By the look of it, this isn’t your ordinary inn either.

Something smells delicious, and a fresh tang of blood wafts up.

First I’ll eat something and think things through slowly.

“Excuse me, inn boy!”

“Yes, honored guest. Will you order?”

Call once and—like he’d been waiting—what service springs up from the back.

Only, the outfit is a bit...

“Eh?”

I look over the inn boy’s clothes.

A silver vest over white cloth, and over that a black coat.

At the throat, buttoned all the way up, sits a butterfly-shaped cloth ornament—Western formalwear they call a tailcoat.

What. Western fashions got in?

Of course, in this period the western regions didn’t have jet-black Western suits as a trend; that’d be odd.

If anything, people would balk at draping themselves in such gloomy black.

But how would I know.

“Uh, mm. What do you do well here?”

“Here is the menu board.”

Eh. A menu board?

I take the board, feeling absurd.

In the Central Plains, a “menu board” is a cheap thing you hang in a humble eatery where you feed people for a handful of coins.

It’s what a small place posts on the wall when they can’t afford anyone for service apart from the cook.

Because the inn boy is the human menu.

He is the Central Plains’ cutting edge and humanism itself: from that day’s ingredients, the cook’s skill, and the guest’s taste, he recommends the optimal dish!

Which makes an inn boy high-grade labor.

Good features, a friendly manner, quick wits and a smooth tongue, plus connections—you don’t do this just because you want to.

I snort.

Look at me, I’ve gone all Central Plains.

A few years there and a menu board already feels strange.

Aside from that, I grasp the situation.

Right, this place is that place.

That ground I’ve gone in and out of dozens of times.

The gate of Entering Demon.

I lean back easy into the chair.

Footsteps, steady.

As if it were his proper seat, a “guest” plants his rear across from me.

Where a head should be, a whirling celestial body: black void, and a destructive starlight running down through up, down, and center.

“What is this, tired of the sticky scenery? But what is this. You peeked at my memories? No? Since you’re a star, do you rise in the West too? Did you make this for Westerners?”

The inn’s scenery shifts.

A vista only I, in the present Central Plains, could recognize: a vast cosmos spread across the table between us, and countless blue stars skimming past—compressing eternity into an instant.

I get what that means.

This friend says the world that the nonexistent star lights is not only the Central Plains.

Now that I think of it, I did hear the baleful star casts its light across the Three Thousand Worlds.

I didn’t know that Three Thousand Worlds meant those Three Thousand Worlds.

But if you can say it, then say it—what’s with this visual... well, it’s a spectacle.

Without a word, the baleful star sets a hand on the table.

He lays down an eyeball with its root dangling and flicks it with a finger.

The eyeball rolls toward me.

“What’s this? A present?”

[Do you want it.]

Only then does the baleful star toss one line.

“Uegh.”

I look at the eyeball with a face of pure disgust.

An eyeball where the long root—the optic nerves—crawl and squirm in a nasty tangle.

Aside from that, something pops up in my mind.

Was it at Mount Lu.

A vision I saw while killing those Unorthodox dogs.

That memory where past misdeeds showed.

“That was you showing me that? Still, even if I’ve got a strong stomach, this is a bit... Tempting, but.”

If I can see others’ misdeeds, I’d know in one shot who deserves killing.

But even so, this is a bit—what, pluck the eye and stick it in?

The eyeball shifts shape.

A form I know quite well—what the Central Plains calls a precious thing, spectacles.

“Oh, that’s better. See? When you can do it, why... you always want to make it a talent show.”

I giggle and reach out—

And freeze.

“No. Suspicious. What is this? A present, suddenly? We are not exactly at the warm-give-and-take-gifts stage, are we?”

The baleful star bares a sly, baleful smile—or so it feels.

A celestial body that’s nothing shouldn’t show a face at all, and yet.

And then—shrrrk—he fades and is gone.

Like: take it or don’t, suit yourself.

This definitely feels like some scheme.

I stare down the spectacles on the table.

Then slowly reach out—

SMACK!

In that instant, something dusky-black lashes my wrist viciously.

A pain like the bone snapped.

“—Hk!”

I bolt upright.

Rubbing my throbbing wrist hard, I think:

What struck my wrist—I’ve seen that, right, a branch, it was definitely a branch.

Then my cheek prickles—the feel of someone’s gaze—and I snap my head around.

Filling my vision: a pitch-black pupil.

“Eh.”

An unusually black eye gazes in utter stillness—quiet, without a twitch.

The sheen feels thin; a lifeless look, calm, steady.

“You’re up?”

“Nooo, Iri sleeps more......”

From the other side, a voice still plastered with dreams answers back.

Mm. Gunyeong, not you.

And now she even speaks in her sleep calling herself in third person?

What is that.

Is her mental age sliding younger?

Anyway, I don’t go waking sleepers for a hobby, so I leave her.

I study the child watching me.

“Mm. Hello?”

When I wave, her eyes flick for a moment to my long white fingers, then—without a word—she goes back to taking in the world’s most beautiful face.

It doesn’t sound like she understands at all.

Maybe she doesn’t know the tongue?

“[Hello?]”

No reaction.

I try the foreign phrases I know.

In this primitive martial world I still haven’t spoken with Westerners, Wa people, Dongyi, etc., so these are just greetings stuck in my own memory.

Still nothing.

Mm. Usually, even if you don’t understand, if someone talks you show some response, don’t you?

Say you don’t get it, or something.

She only stares in silence—mm. Deaf? No, even then she’d see my mouth move.

Besides that, she has a strangely faint presence.

She stands as still as a statue without a flicker; if my beyond-human hearing weren’t catching her thin wheezy breaths, I’d wonder if she were even a person.

Only—

Eight? Nine? Ten?

This isn’t how a very young child behaves.

Kids aren’t creatures who can sit still for even a moment.

And yet—no movement at all, a chill gaze, a face without expression looking up.

And for that, her stare is relentless.

Even while I fumble into my clothes, she only turns her head and watches, blankly.

Mm. Does she want something.

If she won’t talk, I can’t tell.

I’m not exactly a child-care expert.

And, mm, she’s not exactly a normal child.

I scratch my head hard.

A normal child is not found with her chin buried in a hill of shaved flesh.

That vision when I dug her out and lifted her—how she carved up a drugged human and ate the flesh raw—mm.

And those glaring red numbers above her head.

RUMBLE— KWA-ROOOOM!

Suddenly, in a masterless bedroom, a tremendous noise booms like a mountain collapsing.

It’s my belly, empty, urging me to fill it.

“Hungry?”

“Iri wants soup—”

“Gunyeong, sleep. Since when can you act cute in your sleep. Mm. First, morning salutations. Kid, wait here nicely.”

Of course, there’s no sign she understands.

Then it hits me—can I even leave her with Gunyeong?

She’s the child who’d slept all through since yesterday afternoon while I cleaned up Blood Thunder Sound Temple, washed her, dressed her, laid her down.

She’s long past the time to be hungry.

Only—the way she eats is... not exactly civilized.

I’m hesitating what to do when the child carefully climbs down from the bed.

Her arms and legs are short, so the way she crawls backward down is truly adorable beyond reason.

Then she comes up to me and stares up, unblinking.

She wants something.

What does she want?

Either way, there’s a teeny creepy edge to her, so leaving her as-is feels off.

She’s pretty to look at, but like a glass bead—thin sheen, and something eerie.

Best to take her along for now.

I reach out my arms to pick her up, bending at the waist—

And, as if she’d been waiting, she loops her arms around my neck and nestles in tight.

Then sets her chin on my shoulder, letting her weight hang—like she’s found her rightful place.

I can’t help a wry smile.

Well, a kid is a kid.

Looks like she wanted a carry.

For a moment I had the thought that she was a bit skin-crawly; I scold myself, and with the child in my arms I leave the room.

****

“Master, your disciple comes to pay morning respects. Did you sleep well?”

“Hmph. You come quickly, don’t you.”

Ximen Surin’s morning is early.

Very early.

Old folks never sleep late.

She had long since risen and sat in quiet meditation.

But a disciple coming for late-morning salutations—hardly a once-or-twice thing.

More to the point, Martial Buddha and Namgung Daero, loosening up in the yard over there, can’t hide the envy in their eyes when they see the disciple coming to pay respects.

So though her tone is chilly, her face is—oddly—preening.

“Have you eaten? Shall I bring breakfast?”

“I’m not some back-room crone—they won’t make a disciple carry a breakfast tray to me. Well then, the child is—mm.”

She starts to say something, then lets out a long sigh and waves a hand.

“She slept all day yesterday—she’ll be hungry. All us old ones are here anyway—will the master eat alone? Don’t worry about me—go feed the child first.”

So—brief salutations done—we head to the refectory.

Blood Thunder Sound Temple still had provisions in good supply, so the morning smells are respectable.

Porridge made by soaking and boiling dried fish; a few hunks of water-boiled pork from simmered dried meat; stir-fried dried greens.

And the meal that never leaves Qinghai: barley meal with honey.

It’s a bit disappointing that it’s the same spread as last night, but this isn’t an inn—no point complaining.

If anything, for a Kunlun elite punitive force to Blood Thunder Sound Temple, one should be grateful we can set a table like this.

“Thank you for the meal.”

“Hah-hah, vigorous from morning. I think I see the secret by which Lady Ximen rose to so lofty a realm.”

“Of course. Eat well and your skill shoots up.”

At the hearth stands none other than the crybaby, Jade Dew Sword.

Hobby: cooking—so he says.

From last night’s meal, I’d say this level would get him recognized anywhere as a proper cook.

“Looks like the child’s awake. Mm. Hello?”

Jade Dew Sword gives an awkward smile and waves.

But the child just stares, with no special reaction.

He lowers his hand with an embarrassed look.

I put in a word for her.

“She’s not very responsive—maybe from what she’s been through.”

“Heuuh. So young, and yet—”

And in an instant his eyes flush red.

Well, there’s a reason his epithet is Crybaby.

I’m used to it now; I leave the one trail of tears trickling down and, showing off the trick of stacking several plates on one hand, I head deftly to a table.

And—mm.

It’s a disaster.

The child has no concept of table manners; she grabs with both hands and shovels.

She even reaches to scoop porridge with her hands; if I hadn’t stopped her in a start, it would’ve been a catastrophe.

What is porridge.

Hotter than it looks—an infernal molten steel that never cools, holding a heinous heat like hellfire.

When I stop her, she shows no regret, just gives up the porridge and crams down other food.

Even with both cheeks stuffed to bulging, she keeps pushing more in, frantic as if someone might snatch it away.

This is exactly the picture of a little beggar.

Where do I start, and how do I teach her.

I let out a long sigh and, for now, start my own breakfast.

I pack my cheeks full till they bulge, chew, chew, and gulp it all down in one go—the way I usually eat when no one’s watching.

Which, if others saw, would get them saying the big one and the little one act exactly the same.