Chapter 658: A Cunning Mind, a Wicked Heart (2)

Qing pictures herself driving the Eighth Gate’s brush (a writing brush) in with crisp, measured force.

How stately would it be to mete out justice to villains with a single brush—so stately that, if the enemies heard the rumor, they’d wet themselves and shake that the ghostly woman was coming.

This is something I absolutely have to learn, isn’t it?

Only—am I even allowed to learn it?

“It’s not some secret art anyway. I’m telling you to watch a few tricks and pick up the knack. If a famous girl like you actually uses Stratagem Arms, shouldn’t we be the ones grateful?”

In a way, it was the same logic as Ximen Surin’s.

Just as Qing, as a top expert, must set the example for the revival of women warriors, so too would attention to odd-weapon arts rise.

Put that way, there was no reason to refuse.

Only—

“I’m sorry, but may I first pay my respects to the Eighth Gate Master and then come back? My desire to learn right this instant is like a grassfire.”

“Of course, of course. Not that we need to ask that fellow anything anyway. He’s the one who keeps asking when you’ll come.”

He’s the one who ends every sentence with “orthodox, orthodox—truly orthodox martial arts,” and says before he dies he must at least once behold the movement the Heavenly Martial Emperor left behind.

The one who kept pestering, asking when the Heavenly Flower Sword would arrive.

“Oho, Heavenly Flower Sword! You’ve come to see the Sword-Cut Wall? Yes, this way—what insight did the Heavenly Martial Emperor gain from viewing Hollow Mountain’s arts, I think on it every single day without a single night’s sleep to be had.”

The Eighth Gate Master really did react like that.

He was a Hollow Mountain elder trying to lead us straight to the Sword-Cut Wall even now.

But you can’t just go bulldozing in to ogle the Wall first thing; Hollow Mountain would have to finish selecting the viewers, at least.

“Ah. Right. I’ve been making a fuss. Before I close my eyes, I want to see that one move—ah, foolish of me.”

So, after cheerfully securing the permission of the eight gate masters, Qing headed back to the Seventh Gate.

After making the rounds of all eight gates, it took just one look to understand why the Seventh Gate wasn’t popular.

At the Eighth Gate, the Mystery Void Taiji Gate, it was bustling—young and old disciples mixed together in practice, and the shouts—hiya, hrrap!—rang out with spirited force.

Compared to that, the Seventh Gate was quiet and sparse.

Of course, odd-weapon work by nature isn’t the kind of courteous study where you belt out a kiai to announce you’re about to attack.

“The phrase ‘odd weapons’ isn’t really proper. They’re only called ‘odd’ because they aren’t used often. For example—chairs. Chairs have been a favorite weapon since antiquity.”

The Central Plains has lived at table height since time immemorial, so the chair’s history is practically the history of the Central Plains.

And when you have to clout someone right now, what’s as handy and effective as a chair?

“There’s also the pestle. Once a commonly used weapon, now in decline and treated as an odd weapon.”

He meant the rice-pounding pestle.

As a weapon it’s modified far more viciously—fix two iron maces together at the grips, set a sharp spearhead on the end, and you have the “pestle” weapon.

Only—

from what Qing felt using the Iron-Mace Crescent Sabre, any weapon with killing ends at both top and bottom and a gripping section in the middle handles rough.

Martial artists of the Central Plains fly around on the cosmic mystery called qi, unleash monstrous strength, spit out lightsabers, even reach Ideation and ignore the laws of nature.

Simplicity is supreme; the more your path is constrained by “grip the middle and swing,” the more, along with the advance of martial arts, it is naturally eliminated.

“The tiger rake is the same. One of the Eighteen Classical Weapons with a venerable lineage in the Central Plains—how many arts still use it now?”

In truth, the rake is still powerful.

Back where Qing grew up it looks like a pry bar, but its hook is a sharp blade, and the handle carries a hand-guard blade—so just by mimicking fist-work while holding it, you can stab and cut. It’s an all-purpose weapon.

Only, it’s a nuisance to carry.

And, more than anything—it isn’t stylish!

Style is a grave matter to people of the rivers and lakes.

Why else would they say that when a tournament is held, every last foxtail grass in town vanishes?

Why on earth do they walk around with that stuff in their mouths, and which idiot started it—who knows.

In truth, style isn’t a grave matter only to martial folk; it’s the temperament of Central Plains people themselves.

Back when Shu, Wu, and the Jiangnan Vigilante Coalition split the realm in three, every strategist clutched a great fan.

Afterward, the helmets of martial officers grew ever more flamboyant, carving and raising the heads of various birds on high.

“Still, it’s true that odd weapons fall short in raw power. For thrusting, cutting, beating—what beats sword, saber, and spear? But when everyone uses the same weapons, there’s a problem. What if a swordsman meets a swordsman better than himself?”

If a swordsman meets a better swordsman, he has no choice but to get cut and die.

So with the saberman; so with the spearman.

“But what about odd weapons? The other side won’t know the counters; even if they’ve heard of them, unless they’ve seen or taken them, they can’t handle them easily. That, child, is the very meaning of Stratagem Arms.”

“Wow! If you don’t know, you have to get hit!”

The Gate Master of the Stratagem Arms Gate’s eyes flew wide.

“If you don’t know, you have to get hit”? A sweet resonance he was hearing for the first time in his life.

For a man who’d given his life to odd weapons, how could he not both marvel and feel chagrined he hadn’t coined it himself!

“Yes, that’s exactly it. Here, child. Take this.”

“Ah—thank you.”

Qing accepted the basket the Gate Master offered, politely.

She opened it—hm? What?

Nothing inside?

What does this mean? An empty food tier?

He said he’d teach me—was this some unseemly prank, handing me “nothing”?

As Qing blinked, the Gate Master gave a hearty old man’s laugh.

“Child, that is the odd weapon.”

At that, Qing examined the basket.

A bamboo carrying basket, with a long strap and flat body—familiar even from Qing’s homeland—made to sling over the shoulder and tuck against the flank.

“It’s also the weapon used by Lan Caihe.”

Lan Caihe is one of the Eight Immortals of Daoism.

Dressed in women’s clothes, one hand holds a staff about 3 ft long, the other a flower basket, singing while begging—an immortal of very peculiar tastes.

There is, however, no record that even if Lan Caihe rides a crane through the sky, Lan Caihe ever clubs people with the flower basket.

But since this was coming from Hollow Mountain’s Grand Elder of strict Daoist orthodoxy, presumably that’s how it’s transmitted here.

Even so, if you say you beat people with a flower basket... there’s the immortal’s face to consider—perhaps a tale secretly passed down.

Only, this is the immortal who lets the hair down, wears women’s clothes, and begs with only one foot barefoot in mismatched shoes.

I’m not sure there’s any “face” left to protect.

“It’s a basket with iron spines set in. With the iron spine in the base you can clout or stab, and by weaving iron wire through the warp and weft you can even use it as a shield.”

“Ah.”

Now that Qing groped the bottom, sure enough—a hard, rather thick iron rod was there.

So that’s why it felt a touch weighty.

“And above all, there’s a great advantage only baskets have.”

“What is it?”

“They can hold things.”

“Oooh! Storage function!”

Qing burst out in admiration—and then paused.

It is, after all, a basket.

You use it to hold things.

Well—of course you do.

But that was the basket’s true worth.

An actual weapon that’s highly practical?

That’s not the point.

If you install a concealed-weapon tube, do you get a basket that fires poison needles?

Still not the point.

The point is: no one in the world tenses up at the sight of a basket.

In a fight, how powerful is that one unexpected move?

“The way of Stratagem Arms is to sublimate anything you can grab into a weapon. The world may point fingers and call it cowardly.”

The Gate Master smiled, kindly.

“But our Hollow Mountain ancestors bore that stigma to protect innocent commoners from our enemies. Isn’t that the very spirit of chivalry—refusing no means to cut down evil foes?”

Yes, it was basically, We’ll gladly get dirty to win.

It’s all in how you wrap it.

And the words fit Qing’s heart exactly.

Of course.

Why on earth would you hold back on means when you’re smashing scum?

“Now then, child—let’s begin.”

In truth, the odd-weapon lesson was of a different grain than what Qing had expected.

Qing’s little scheme:

Make the Armory of Martial Arts shine—log a formal “art” for handling each of various odd weapons.

But Hollow Mountain’s study wasn’t like that.

It wasn’t about building a system of fixed forms; it was a study whose aim was to make anything in your hand into a weapon—analyzing an object’s utility and contriving how to use it.

Even so, it was truly profitable time.

If there’s a sharp part—stab.

If there’s a long part—strike.

If there’s a curved part—hook; if it dangles—whirl it to entangle; if any part can be hidden—hide it.

If it can be ground into a blade—grind it savagely.

This is the subtlety of Hollow Mountain’s Stratagem Arms: pursuing the very use of shape itself, not the use of standardized weapons.

Of course, in a one-day cramming session you can’t grasp applications that deep.

Especially since Qing doesn’t have the Martial Arts Window.

It was, in truth, a dumpling with no filling, sweet-and-sour beef with no meat, mala soup with no mala, and porridge with no grain.

In contrast to the reputation as a super-prodigy, there was no core.

For that reason, the Gate Master’s lesson turned into not Qing practicing odd weapons, but Qing experiencing getting beaten by odd weapons.

But then again—when else would you get to be beaten, broadly and thoroughly, by every kind of odd weapon?

Also, although the Gate Master kept calling her “child, child” with great tenderness, he surprisingly didn’t pull his blows.

Well—since Qing took the hits stoutly with barely a sign of pain, the Gate Master relaxed—“The child sure is tough”—and laid it on good and hard.

If you don’t know, you have to get hit.

If you get hit, you learn.

If you know, you don’t have to get hit.

As a result, Qing acquired resistance to that innumerable variety of odd weapons!

By dusk, she was even analyzing the strange weapon in the Gate Master’s hand at a glance.

What is that—its body bends and twists but there’s a sharp section; if I block, it’ll flex in and snake for my neck or armpit.

If you insist on putting it into words, it wasn’t learning how to kill with a pencil.

It was achieving the eye that, if someone brandishes a pencil at you, you guard your eyes, ears, and throat.

Above all, it was a change in viewpoint.

People only see as much as they know, they say.

Back in Qing’s beggar days, mountains and fields were nothing but weeds to tear and eat when hungry.

But once she read medical texts and learned her herbs, the grasses of the wild showed differently—as weeds, medicinal herbs, and greens. The same principle.

And now, a woman already ferocious at baseline had begun to look at anything and everything and think, This could be used to club or stab someone.

In other words—the Gate Master of the Stratagem Arms Gate has released a poison into the world.