Chapter 653: Joint March (9)

Between Xining, capital of Qinghai, and Lanzhou, capital of Gansu, the distance is—tsk—only, merely, just about a hundred miles.

For Central Plains folk who are masters of walking (frankly, people of any era, really), that’s practically next door.

The height difference is the violent part: high-plateau Xining sits up where the air is thin—by Qing’s homeland math, about the height of a 300-story high-rise.

Which means the road to Lanzhou runs like a downhill ramp for 300 floors.

The other way—uphill to Xining—would be grueling even for the walkers of the Central Plains, but downhill is easy.

Downhill kills your knees, but the body finds it comfortable.

By design, the human frame has that fatal defect of calling harmful things “comfortable,” they say.

Thus, Lanzhou!

One of the old capitals of the Central Plains, with some seventeen centuries on the ledger. Say “Lanzhou,” and what pops up first is that strange shape.

Lanzhou is long.

Gansu stretches north–south, but Lanzhou sprawls east–west along the upper Yellow River, a city shaped like a snake.

Because of mountains.

Gansu’s flanked by ranges so the province is long top to bottom; Lanzhou is pinched north and south by tall ridges, so the city is tugged out side to side.

Truth is, Qing had been here once.

Only that time she was a kidnap victim—properly, the abducted—and truly stuck in place.

Thanks to that, sightseeing my ass; she didn’t even get a decent look at a single street.

Mm. Thinking on it now, I’m freshly pissed.

That Yeom bastard—should’ve gouged both eyes, clean.

Anyway, Lanzhou.

The weather alone is different already: coming down from cold heights, the late-winter sun here falls warm and gentle.

Jayeo, installed squarely in Qing’s arms, was half-awed, half-afraid.

First time outside her birthplace; her eyes rolled everywhere with curiosity.

But crowds still spooked and repelled her.

The moment anyone’s eyes met hers, she shoved her face into Qing’s nape.

One way or another, Jayeo stuck to Qing like a limpet.

Even though our party included Gyeon Pohee, the Foremost Mount across past and present—no, across past and present and beyond.

Past is past and present is present, so “past-and-present” covers only then and now.

There will be no carrier finer than Gyeon Pohee even in the future, so “Foremost Mount across past and present” is stingy. Call her the Foremost Mount across all time, the universe’s supreme ride, offering an unprecedented, never-to-be-equaled smoothness.

Even so, Jayeo refused that first-class perch and clung to Qing’s arms.

Still, Qing is strong, and the shock-absorption is... large and soft, so it wasn’t exactly uncomfortable.

Qing patted Jayeo’s back and asked:

“San? What’s famous here?”

Of course she asked Peng Daesan.

He just knows things.

See? He opens his mouth as if by right—gunning for “smartest among non-intellectuals,” no doubt.

“Well, there’s the White Stupa—”

“Hey. Really? San, is this how you’re going to be?”

Qing cut him off.

Peng Daesan snorted and corrected himself.

“First off, beef-noodle soup. They say Lanzhou’s is the original across the Central Plains. Mind you, that’s Gansu people talking, so who knows how much to trust it.”

“Good. Mm. Mm. Then? And what else?”

Only then did Qing nod, satisfied.

Ask what’s famous, and of course you start with food. What’s a white stupa to me; who cares about a white tower.

“Cold-skin noodles, lamb braise, a beef-offal ‘stair-steps’ specialty, ribbon-sheet noodles, a three-assortment platter, huitouzi, mixed-mutton offal soup, and a wheat-noodle ‘drip-tower,’ roughly.”

With Central Plains dishes, the names usually betray the thing itself.

For instance, “lamb braise” is the long, bubbling kind, so “braised lamb” is exactly what it is.

Right around “mixed-mutton offal soup,” Seol Iri’s eyes flashed and she swallowed—same principle.

Say the word “soup,” and Seol Iri’s ears prick and she drools by reflex.

Qing thought of a certain not-yet-born Westerner’s dog named Pav—, but Seol Iri’s conditioning came first, so it’s not Pav—’s dog; call it the “Seol-Soup Theory” of reflex.

Of course, there was a question far weightier than whether Seol Iri came before the dog or the dog before Seol Iri.

“Why is everything noodles?”

From beef-noodle soup to cold-skin noodles to ribbon-sheet noodles to the wheat-noodle drip-tower, that’s already four noodle dishes.

Qing didn’t know it, but even the lamb braise comes with noodles boiled in the broth, so not four but five.

“In the north we eat noodles.”

“No, that’s even better. Mm. First let’s eat a proper meal. San, got any places you know?”

Peng Daesan was about to rattle off a few famous eateries whose names he’d bought with coins from traveling storytellers.

“Ah, Hee-mae—I know one. There’s a place called Azure-Sky Pavilion; it was good.”

“Hee-mae? You’ve been here?”

“Yup. But I only know the area around the trading company.”

“Trading company?”

“Uh-huh. Seol Trading Company.”

A name that burst out of nowhere.

A familiar name heard in a strange place.

“Eh? Seol Trading Company pushed out to Lanzhou too?”

“Uh-huh. The building is huge.”

Thus, Lanzhou—Seol Trading Company.

Even if Seol’s ingenuity had grown at light speed, a small city is still a small city. No matter how faded a provincial capital may be, a city representing an entire prefecture cannot be compared in scale.

And the Seol Trading Company estate that had planted itself properly in such a metropolis—uh. What is this.

The plaque reading “Seol Trading Company” ran roughly one full panel to the left and right; how big, then, was the gate needed to hold a structure like that?

Honestly, it made sense.

Lanzhou is the biggest waystation on the Silk Road, the corridor tying the Celestial Demon Church’s Tianshan Divine City to the Central Plains.

Seize Lanzhou, and to the east lies Qinghai, to the west Shaanxi, to the south Sichuan—the road to the Central Plains thrown wide. Of course they’d pour everything into locking that market down.

Qing knew none of that.

Seol Iri just stared up at the palace-like main gate, pupils trembling thinly.

“Seol bastard”—the “uncle-in-kind”—was richer than she thought, no, rich beyond imagining. The surprise of one who realized late.

Qing was a little surprised.

Not much.

She knew the prowess of “the province’s keenest mind,” Seol the Bastard; success was pre-written.

Just... uncanny. Unfamiliar.

Like finding your neighborhood diner has “expanded” to a tribe village in a primeval forest.

At this level of success, the “province’s keenest mind” badge needs a range bump.

Two provinces? No—the Shaanxi branch is effectively run by the son who stole a certain heart, so make it three provincial-level cities.

So... is he the keenest mind of about one-sixth of the Central Plains?

The Central Plains’ keenest mind five-sixths?

None of those sound right.

While Qing pondered Seol the Bastard’s title with grave sincerity, Gyeon Pohee strode forward, bursting with confidence, and addressed the guard on the main gate.

“This is the grand estate of the Seol Trading Company. What brings you here? Do you have an appointment?”

“Mm? Mmm-mhmm.”

“Mmm-mhmm” meant “no.”

Women other than Gyeon Pohee can use that; men may not.

Because if a man uses it, he might get smacked.

Anyway, that coquettish denial made the gate guard squint: what kind of woman is this?

Gyeon Pohee added one line.

“I’m Gyeon Pohee.”

An outrageously arrogant statement.

As if to say, “You ought to know I am Gyeon Pohee.”

So the guard went blank a moment—“What’s a ‘Gyeon Pohee’? Some slang the kids use?”—and then, bang, a certain name flared in his head.

“Gasp. Do you, perhaps, carry a token?”

“Mm. Here. Ah, and the sworn sister? Is she here?”

“She has gone to the Holy City.”

“Shame. Right—by the way, I came with my sister.”

“Hu—!”

The gate guard’s eyes flew wide.

Gyeon Pohee, the Church’s Guardian Lion, the woman who is the Celestial Majesty’s sworn sister.

And that Guardian Lion has only one sworn sister; if she says she came together—

“J-just a moment. Hey—no, never mind! I will escort—es—escort you—huh!”

He stopped breathing mid-fluster.

Because a woman holding a child had stepped close. And the woman wore a very, very stupidly large sword.

“Mm? Are you all right?”

“Y-your Ladyship... Are you truly Her Ladyship?”

If one were ever to meet the Celestial Majesty, one must not say “Celestial Majesty” or “Heavenly Demon” or “Supreme Excellency.”

So drilled were the guards that, after searching, he found the one acceptable term.

“Mm? Have we met? Were you posted in Jagwi County? Seol the Bast—tsk. This won’t do. You can’t assign people this far out—well, it’s not overseas, but still.”

The guard reached certainty.

It is her! My light! My liege!

“No, not that! I have only heard much from the Chairman! To behold you is an honor—three lives’ worth—no, ten thousand lives’ immeasurable honor!”

“It doesn’t have to be immeasurable—”

“May I dare ask if it would not be a breach of propriety to humbly inquire whether you might grant me the honor of escorting you inside?”

“Of course.”

“Oh! How merciful! I, Ji Han-ru, will treasure this glorious moment as the blessing of my life! This way, this way!”

Qing’s face, following behind, puckered sour.

Given this embarrassing—no, overwhelming—VIP treatment that could be sincere or sycophantic, this sure was the Seol Trading Company.

But how in the world do they train employees to act like this?

Is the culprit Seol the Bastard— or Grandpa?

In the Lanzhou branch of Seol Trading Company—also called, in other words, the Celestial Demon Church’s Lanzhou Holy See—a massive bomb dropped.

The One Who Cannot Reveal Her Identity—descends!

To the faithful, Qing is a living sage-deity.

And she is also the great conqueror who, in real time, is carrying out what the Church had failed at through its history in blood: conquering the Central Plains.

She moved into the unconquerable Central Plains without a drop of sacrifice and taught people how to live like humans; she now visited as the merciful liege of our fifty million faithful (Church estimate) who enjoy a loyal happiness.

For believers who had once known the wild law of the Celestial Demon City in the Tianshan, the present life felt like a dream so good they feared to sleep—supreme bliss.

Among them, Seol Trading Company employees were an especially privileged caste—devout from long ago, their fanatical faith proven.

Result:

Seol Trading Company’s losses were currently shooting up.

With the Celestial Majesty manifest at HQ, who could work.

Those inside were racking their brains: how to brush against Her naturally and offer tribute.

Those outside simply couldn’t focus, so the Company’s business—usually a precise machine—screeched: creak-creak, slip-ups large and small popping everywhere.

Of course, no one blamed anyone.

That’s the difference between enterprise and religion.

Money is good if it comes; if not, that’s that.

More to the point—God had descended in person. How could you possibly hold back.