Chapter 652: Joint March (8)

Jayeo, as Qing saw her, was a child who watched for cues.

The way her eyes would spin at the sight of food so that she crammed it into her mouth first and thought later—that vanished after barely a day. Now she sidled, checking faces, reading whether she was allowed to eat.

It was a trait you don’t usually see in a child—no, a trait a child shouldn’t show.

A child, by nature, is the incarnation of selfish thinking in which only the self matters most in the world, is it not?

A child relaxes only after satisfying a desire; that’s how children are. And yet here she was, unable to speak, just sliding her eyes around for permission. Pathetic.

If I had to guess, she was carrying a worry much like mine.

That what had suddenly been given to her one day might vanish.

That one word or motion from her would make people spew malice like the Blood Cult’s dogs.

Qing didn’t know Jayeo’s exact feelings.

How would you know, if she didn’t speak?

But there were a few tricks she could whisper to help win favor.

Affection is not something you wait to receive; it’s something you win with effort. Relationships are that, at the root.

And so, Kunlun. Cleaned and dressed neat, Jayeo stepped before Ximen Surin.

Jayeo edged forward, cutting her eyes toward Qing as if begging for help, but Qing only nodded.

“Mm. What is it? If a girl has something to say, she should say it properly.”

Seeing the child hesitate and dither, Ximen Surin pressed her gently.

The child hunched her neck and, forcing it out with pain, managed the single line Qing had drilled into her.

“Hello, Grandma......”

For the record, Qing had specified the pronunciation to be perfect.

At the sudden little bow and salute, Ximen Surin’s eyes went wide.

Then, quite automatically, her lips loosened into a faint curve, and her eyes followed into crescents.

Perhaps the reaction slipped out unawares; she coughed—hem, hem—and worked to put on a stern face.

“Why are you calling this old one ‘Grandma’?”

“Come on, Master. To a child, teacher or parent, what’s the difference? She’s far too young to be held to strict rites, don’t you think?”

“Khmm, at that age she ought to be reciting Elementary Learning by heart.”

Jayeo’s shoulders shrank, and she flicked her eyes back and forth, reading Qing and Ximen Surin.

At that, Ximen Surin startled and beckoned her over.

“Oh dear, child. Come here. I know your circumstances weren’t easy. Yes, that’s right.”

Only then did Jayeo scamper in and fling herself into the embrace, and Ximen Surin’s face bloomed, didn’t it.

Really, Master is much too concerned with face.

A snot-nosed little thing had brazenly claimed the bosom of the Foremost Among Women.

Knees, perhaps—but the bosom was a territory even disciples had barely trespassed. That is the granddaughter privilege.

You’ll spoil the child? Don’t care.

Upbringing? Let the parents handle it.

Oh my, why is the child so thin—feed her first.

It is the pure, responsibility-free pleasure of doting without limit—the supreme filial piety.

(Within the limit of not actually handing over the childrearing.)

Just then—

“Well now, that’s a pleasant sight. If you like it that much, you should’ve married ages ago. By now you’d have a real great-granddaughter—no, maybe a great-great—”

“What?”

Martial Buddha Muhak slipped into the Kunlun guest quarters and, for no good reason, scratched at their insides.

The Foremost Under Heaven would not needle people for nothing.

First, because the two were old friends. Second, because if you looked at those eyes, brimming with lingering regrets and envy, you could guess the rest.

They say for a monk who left home, the most desolate time comes late in life.

“Martial Buddha, you’re here?”

“Yes. I was passing by and stopped in. Come to think, you said you’d do the Hair-Shearing & Marrow-Washing, didn’t you? I meant to give this long ago, but it slipped my mind.”

Muhak, looking a touch abashed, held out a small wooden chest.

Qing opened it, and a pure, somehow familiar medicinal scent pleasured the nose.

It wasn’t the explosive fragrance of the Great Rejuvenation Pill—the riot of aroma that felt like it could blast open even severe, chronic sinus—and so it wasn’t that; likely the Small Rejuvenation Pill.

Or perhaps there was some intermediate “Middle Rejuvenation Pill” not known to the public.

Of course, no, that didn’t exist.

Shaolin’s Small Rejuvenation Pill was named “small” because it thriftily collected what remained after concocting that Great Rejuvenation Pill.

Qing roughly guessed the reason for Martial Buddha’s awkward look.

He probably had a Great Rejuvenation Pill too.

He must have weighed whether to give the great one or the small, and in the end decided on the small.

But come now.

Even the Small Rejuvenation Pill is already a treasure of the mortal world, a peerless elixir that all the vagabonds of the martial world would beg just one taste of, even if it meant steeping tea leaves to gnaw them.

“Hehe, thank you. Jayeo, smell this. This is the Small Rejuvenation Pill, you know? A supreme elixir money can’t buy. The monk is giving it to you.”

“Smell.”

Apparently she liked it; she sniffed and sniffed, drinking in the medicinal fragrance.

Being a Shaolin elixir famed for stability across all constitutions, it seemed even its scent offended no one.

Qing put on a mock-stern tone.

“Jayeo? What do you say now?”

“Thank you, Grandpa.”

Even while nestled in Ximen Surin’s arms, she dipped her head as far as she could, showing her crown.

This too was a fruit of Qing’s lessons in conduct.

The closer you are, the fewer the formalities.

If you’re less close, mind the forms.

Grandma only for Master.

As for Grandpa... mm, do we say it to Grandpa too?

Grandpa would probably die of happiness, but if we did that, it would be a bit—something. Something something.

“Heh-heh. The child is already truly polite—auspicious, auspicious.”

Martial Buddha’s face brightened.

A pretty little thing, if she simply isn’t finicky and stays quiet, has a lethal power to stir people’s goodwill.

Besides, Jayeo had already racked up great achievements: she’d wrung gifts from three of the Ten Great Experts.

From Martial Buddha, the Small Rejuvenation Pill; from Ximen Surin, Hair-Shearing & Marrow-Washing; and from Namgung Daero, costly, top-grade wooden swords. Perhaps the Sword King fell a little short, but it’s not like we left the gift with the clerk.

A good name for the achievement might be: “On the day you were born, the whole martial world whispered your name.”

It feels a bit ominous, as if she’ll have to assume the throne proactively. Well, surely not.

And whatever heavenly talent the little Jayeo has, this Transcendent-of-Transcendents-of-Super-Transcendent, Primordial-Transform Sword, the great Ximen Qing—no, not merely great, but three times great—the great great great Ximen Qing is not someone she can surpass.

While Qing’s thoughts wandered, Ximen Surin fed the pill to the child herself.

And a great emotion surged up Ximen Surin’s spine—a thrill that blazed. In the instant the child’s tiny lips took it in with a gentle nom-nom, a joy she had never felt before.

This—this demands—feed the child!

It was the moment the inescapable instinct of a grandmother awakened.

However, time was what it was.

Not quite like the Great Rejuvenation Pill, but with a medicinal power that melted away in the mouth, Jayeo’s throat bobbed as she swallowed.

Then Ximen Surin pressed a sleep point.

“Sleep point” refers to those acupoints that put a person to sleep—very mysterious and marvelous!

There is a side effect: a hangover-grade headache upon waking.

But the process of Hair-Shearing & Marrow-Washing involves fair pain, and if the child thrashes it’s dangerous; the step is unavoidable.

Ximen Surin hoisted the limp child carefully and carried her into the Kunlun guest quarters.

With the Foremost Under Heaven personally standing guard, Qing quietly kept the yard, focusing every bit of attention into hearing.

Of course, what untoward thing could happen in the very heart of Kunlun.

The “immortal diet” spoken of by the Daoists forbids cooked foods and also shuns stimulating spices.

Buddhism and Daoism influenced each other, and so the monastery fare that avoids the five pungent roots and forbids meat overlaps with it.

In contrast stands the “vicious diet,” a deliberate ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) way of eating to load the body with poison.

This does not merely mean cooked food.

It is a regimen to pack the body with taint: a bad habit of choosing only things bad for the body or unfit for human consumption.

Chief examples: rotten things; eating animals or insects alive; poisonous things; and things that make you hallucinate.

And foremost among vicious diets is human flesh.

In Qing’s common sense, the reason you don’t eat human flesh is because it drills holes in the brain.

In the martial world’s common sense, cannibalism provokes a person’s evil nature and accumulates baleful taint.

It’s not surprising.

Qing’s homeland and this primitive, ancient Central Plains hold subtly different common senses.

Whether it’s the influence of the universe’s marvelous breath, or a branch of sorcery whereby what the many believe becomes real—she didn’t know.

In any case, Qing had seen baleful taint that exists.

She saw it in Jayeo—black, viscous taint coating her as if you dunked a child in glue-kneaded coal water and pulled her out.

And then Qing herself felt sullied.

Haven’t I eaten all sorts of things I shouldn’t?

What if that kind of stuff oozes out of me?

Of course, Qing’s taint had already been handled by the drunkard-in-the-bottle, so there was no cause for worry.

“How vile. Those Blood Cult bastards. Huh.”

“Ah—your disciple will do the washing—”

“No. The teacher’s hands and hems are already a mess; why stain some bystander, leaving the one dirtied as is?”

She said it thus, but didn’t it mean she wanted to wash Jayeo with her own hands.

It felt as if this pleased Master more than it did Jayeo. If she’s pleased, her disciple is pleased too.

“When the child wakes, I’ll send her to you. Disciple, start your packing. You cannot sojourn in a foreign place forever. The child must also learn what her home is.”

“Mm. Should I rebuild the hut? It might be small and a bit bleak for Jayeo.”

“Would you lay the child down in that desolate house, in this cold? In a place where the river wind cuts like knives?”

“Desolate...?”

Qing felt wronged.

It seemed Master had provided most of that desolation; no—more to the point, Master herself had thought it desolate.

“Just come stay at your teacher’s quarters. The owner has been away; I’ll look after the house.”

Somehow the words were brimming with private intent.

Even without Jayeo, she’d expected to hear this someday; using the child as an excuse, Master seemed ready to lodge her in the Grand Sect Master’s residence outright.

Granted, a house is that rare commodity that decays swiftly if no one lives in it.

Thus Qing headed for her own guest room.

Her purpose at Kunlun had been more than fulfilled.

She had mostly uncovered who that Eon Family girl was to Nenyeong.

She’d roughly learned her own constitution.

She’d seen the Sword-Cut Wall, and in the Repentance Hall had this and that—Repentance Hall had been great fun.

Now it was time to go home—home sweet home.

With a dash of desolation on the side.

Of course, she’d drop by the Hollow Mountain Sect first.

That suspicious grandpa—Heavenly Martial Emperor, or was it Heavenly Blue Emperor—had told her that the next stop should be Hollow Mountain; this time the pieces fit perfectly, thank goodness.

If he’d said to stop by a place like the Mount of Orthodox Revelation... mm—ugh, far, even to imagine.