Chapter 648: Joint March (4)

The three Translucent-realm elders chose to remain with the Kunlun Sect and keep watch on the Plateau.

The Plateau’s foremost under Heaven had been broken, and they were tangled with the Blood Cult besides, so they likely wouldn’t try tricks for a while—but who can know the world.

Even Qing knew how far brazen men could push their brazenness.

Even without Qing’s eye for reading people, sounding them out, choosing the right line, and sliding into camaraderie, any master who’d roamed the rivers and lakes had seen it a hundred times.

They could just slap on a brass face and say, “The Central Plains framed the Plateau’s foremost under Heaven as Blood Cult and turned him into a cripple and locked him up.”

And claim they’d put him in a state worse than death.

They could even stoke rage and make a pretext to come charging in.

Of course, the Plateau probably wouldn’t do that.

Plots, in the end, live in the realm of interest.

Take Qinghai’s martial world, seize it, set up branch sects, and covertly transfer Plateau masters in.

Then, once they’d gathered enough strength, retake the land of Qinghai in one stroke—Lhundup Rinchen had testified to a plan at least that far.

But the Plateau’s foremost under Heaven had been thrashed even with the Blood Cult’s aid.

When risk outweighs gain, the greedy don’t move. That was the hope to lean on.

Only Namgung Daero would briefly drop by the Martial Alliance to spread the word and return—handing the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign over to Shaolin along the way.

For Qing, it was a tiiiny bit of a letdown.

If they swung by Divine Lady’s Gate on the way home and brought him along, she could torment him for ages.

Depending on how things went, she meant to quietly chop off every last one of his fingers—Celestial Sovereign, Celestial King, whatever he called himself.

From what she’d seen of life in a Repentance Hall, being unable to speak will drive a man mad; cut off the fingers too, and he couldn’t even write.

But thinking it through—

If not the right hand, then the left; if not both hands, then toes; if not toes, then he’d use two blunt stumps somehow.

So—well.

One could only hope the prisoners in Shaolin’s Repentance Hall would do a thorough job tormenting a stiff-necked mute barbarian.

More to the point—

“Mm.”

Qing’s steps slowed.

Turn this very corner, and the temporary quarters of Blood Thunder Sound Temple would come into view.

More to the point—the kid, mm.

I didn’t say anything wrong.

What’s the kid’s fault.

A healthy kid—no, not healthy, mm, I don’t even know if she’s healthy or not—but anyway, you can’t just get rid of an innocent child.

Her master had said it was merely a test from a suspicious, fearful old man (the Martial Buddha).

And the Martial Buddha had apologized for it.

In the first place, when he was fretting over how to treat the child, Master had suggested he try hearing the disciple’s view.

She’d believed—no, not “believed,” simply assumed without hesitation—that her disciple would surely oppose it and show her spirit. So she’d admonished the Martial Buddha: Look at my disciple. See how even the one who bears the Ten-Thousand-Slaughters stands.

But that was all.

Qing herself hadn’t thought taking the child in would be that hard.

The child looked gentle and meek.

Wouldn’t she get along with the kind disciples of Divine Lady’s Gate and grow up among them?

Wouldn’t she become a bright, boisterous goof like the others and laugh cleanly?

But—was that right?

Of course, Qing had her share of grievance.

Must one take responsibility for the rest of one’s life just because one saved an innocent child?

If you won’t take her in, are you saying you should have left her?

But then—what happens down the line because you saved her?

Strictly speaking, Qing wasn’t even a formal disciple of Divine Lady’s Gate.

She was Ximen Surin’s disciple—an outside-the-gate disciple whose name was not entered on the sect rolls.

Only then did Qing understand her master’s choice.

Of course Master had hesitated to take in a disciple bearing the Ten-Thousand-Slaughters.

If she’d entered the register of Divine Lady’s Gate and then flipped and caused trouble, they might be cast out of orthodox society—no, and getting off with only expulsion would be lucky.

Even so, Master had deliberately taken her in as a disciple and even passed down her family name.

Yes—she’d passed down her name.

It meant, if problems came, she herself would bear them.

Now, today, if Qing said “I will formally enter Divine Lady’s Gate,” she’d be admitted at once as the youngest disciple of the Lineage Head rank.

But back then—Master didn’t know.

Back then she was basically a vagrant from who-knows-where who’d happened to show one thing Master liked; how could Master impulsively bring such a one into the sect.

In truth, she’d been a houseless drifter, so “vagrant” fit.

And she’d been a murderer who lived by spotting evil-doers, killing them, and taking their goods.

And what of me—had I had that thought?

She couldn’t quite stop walking outright, so Qing cut across the monastery at a pace that looked, to others’ eyes, very leisurely.

A manufactured Ten-Thousand-Slaughters nature.

Honestly, Qing herself had had more than a few dangerous moments.

In the demonic cult, her eyes had flipped hot and she’d moved to “remove” Hee-mae—only, it wasn’t fun and did no good, so she hadn’t.

She’d thrown herself again and again through the gate of Entering Demon because she needed strength.

Even aside from that, in dangerous times, the true-energies of Buddhism and Daoism—Confucianism, not so much—had cleansed her mind more than once.

Of course, the child might not be that far gone.

But there was no guarantee she wasn’t.

Can I do it?

But—how?

It’s not like she can learn many true-energies the way I did.

Qing thought of the Great Pagoda Celestial Sovereign and the lamas.

Qing had learned the arts they’d learned and held them in her core.

Even those cruel, inhuman bastards held proper Buddhist teachings inside.

Mahāyāna teachings to pity all beings, spread merit, and enter nirvāṇa together.

And yet—what were they.

Even now they seemed unrepentant, but at least their babble about the Plateau’s nationhood—that much was likely sincere.

Whether that sincerity was right or wrong—or nothing but a thoroughly rotten, hideous greed—was a separate question.

Even if it was self-delusion hardened into obstinacy, they’d had no qualms doing what they believed.

Her heart thunked down.

Would any transmitted art truly help this child?

A child whose brutal childhood and formative view of the world was nothing but slaughter?

No matter how much an art teaches compassion and love—as soon as a person sets their mind, it becomes a tool to harm; a knife, nothing more.

That is the essence of martial skill.

A technique for harming others.

Martial arts train you to slip past the enemy’s weapon and strike the opening.

Beasts don’t wield weapons.

It is a craft made solely for facing people.

Martial arts are the art of killing.

Qing’s steps finally stopped.

One more step to the corner. Turn here, and she’d see the child.

Anyone watching would think she was hiding behind an anonymous pillar of a Buddha hall.

But—

In this harsh world, in this prehistoric age of savage killing—how could a child live without martial arts?

Qing recalled that brutal first year—the awful days.

An ignorant outsider thrown into a strange world she knew nothing about—what way was there to live?

Only because her body was sturdy could she gnaw down whatever she could and survive; otherwise she should’ve died long ago.

And the child was no different from her.

No—was I better off?

At least my world taught that human life is precious—taught me to believe that.

Even if, in the end, “morality” is merely a set of social rules established because the social loss of people killing each other is far greater than the gain of people saving each other—even so, I fell from a world that lived relatively well.

The child’s world, short as it was, must have been a hellscape so ruthless you’d want to deny it.

And if the child is like me—then what?

If every act of slicing and hewing and tearing, the screams of pain and despair—if all of it is an ecstatic pleasure she cannot bear—

Can you tell a child to bear that forever?

While I myself go out and gorge on it catching bad men?

The child will not live without martial arts.

Qing cannot keep her under her arm for life.

She must not.

No one in this world can be cared for for life; and must not.

That’s a pet, not a person.

I’ll have to teach her martial arts.

Why?

So she can protect herself.

And if she has a thirst for slaughter, then a right way to slake it.

No—that’s wrong. There is no “right way” to kill.

Rather—I must teach her how to kill and not be hated.

“Ah.”

The sound slipped from Qing before she knew it.

Martial arts are for protecting oneself.

Now she understood why the orthodox have so many inner disciplines.

Martial arts cut others to protect the flesh—but they cannot wash the wounds of the heart; so they soothe the heart with good words.

The Gentle Heart Sutra, the Muscle-Bone Cleansing Sutra, the Great Stillness Meditation, and so on.

Yes—martial arts are my means to protect me.

Are steel and fists the only things to fear in the world?

How much do hatred and enmity hurt.

Bad men should die.

Because that is right.

The innocent should live.

I want the decent to be happy.

At least—that’s what I want.

If not, my heart will hurt.

And I want the innocent and the decent to love me.

To smile when they see me—not necessarily to rave and praise me, but at least to send a glance of fond greeting.

Justice, chivalry—those were never things I cared about.

I move because I’m made this way—selfish.

And the martial arts I need are for that.

Suddenly, somewhere in her heart, a road unfurled.

A way through a mountain range of sheer cliffs at every side, peaks like knives—an impossibly harsh, impassable chain.

But there was a road.

When there is no road, it’s only part of the scenery.

But once a road stretches into it, it becomes no longer scenery—only then does it gain meaning as an obstacle I must pass, climb, overcome.

The direction to go—what martial arts must aim toward.

The moment when a martial artist who has ascended to the Flower Realm and reached Ideation and doesn’t know where to go finally gains a ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) destination—the moment she reaches mid-stage.

Qing’s lips curved into a smooth arc.

A supremely hateful little smile.

This body. Flower Realm mid-stage—attained.

What does mid-stage let me do?

Time to show those pitiful scrubs in our Short Blade & Twin-Swords Society what a real master looks like.

At this rate, won’t I stamp into the Translucent Realm by mid-summer for real?

Qing stepped out.

She strode straight on, without a sliver of hesitation, as always.

The stride that even the countless bombardments of Ximen Surin’s discipline had never cured, and had instead preserved and elegantly evolved.

With legs long and lissome as her reach, her steps were wide—graceful and exultant.