Chapter 662: Heaven-Earth Seeing Hound

By the time we were nearing Xi’an, it wasn’t hard to find green hints of spring here and there.

Out of the drab, winter-yellow dead grass on the earth, green was sprouting little by little—

“Here, look. Jayeo. This is, uh. This is, uh. What was it again?”

Qing stepped right up to the flowering quince tree leaning against the wall and spoke; nestled there, Jayeo gazed in wonder at the light-green buds hanging from the branches.

For someone from Qinghai, the vegetation of the Central Plains was the strangest, most marvelous thing of all.

Even Qinghai—where she hadn’t properly experienced much anyway, what with being shut in—seemed to have fewer trees; the sheer number of trees here was getting on her nerves.

“What was it. A sprout? No, a sprout is a little different.”

Qing suddenly couldn’t recall it—maybe because she’d had so little occasion to use the word.

“A shoot, a fresh shoot.”

“Ah. Right. A fresh shoot. Anyway, Jayeo, from here you get grass, and flowers, and fruit—that is, you get fruit.”

“Fruit.”

Jayeo gulped, stretched her ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) hand straight toward the fresh shoot, plucked one off—

and popped it into her mouth. Munch munch munch.

“Bleh.”

Of course it didn’t taste good.

Tongue stuck out, Jayeo let the half-mashed quince shoot dribble down.

Then, for some reason, she met Qing’s eyes with a look that resembled reproach. What? Why eat it yourself and then look at me? What’s that supposed to mean?

“Fruit.”

As in: why did you say fruit, and yet it doesn’t taste like fruit—so astringent and bitter and sour that even Jayeo, who had cheerfully made staples out of inedible things, spat it out.

Qing snorted, heh.

“I said it grows into fruit; I didn’t say it was fruit. If it were tasty to begin with, I would’ve eaten it first, Jayeo. The world isn’t that easy. If there’s something good, someone will snatch it first; and if it’s this common and everywhere, there’s no need to put it in your—”

“Tsk. Teaching the child a grand lesson, are we. Well done.”

“What? Life is live combat, you know? You need to taste bitterness to get your head on straight, and the habit of sticking anything in your mouth gets fixed that way.”

Ignoring Qing’s defense as naturally as if he hadn’t heard it, Peng Daesan held out a candy to Jayeo.

The so-called educational candy.

To Qing’s eye, a curriculum that paid out that kind of reward for memorizing characters—was that really proper?

“Here. If you pick things up and eat them, you can get very sick, so be careful.”

Jayeo promptly took it and put the candy in her mouth.

On that tiny head, the little cheeks bulged with the candy’s presence—it was unbearably cute.

So the party strolled along Chang’an Street (which used to be the center of the upper market of the Central Plains) on the west side of Xi’an.

Ever since Qing had raised a ruckus here in Chang’an, the people of Xi’an had developed a peculiar habit.

Namely, “If you’re from Xi’an, use Great Pure Upper Ward goods.” Not some folksy “love our soil”—more like a primal, ancient, benighted nativism.

If a Ward with money of murky origin starts spraying cash with no aim of profit, sets its mind on capturing the market and the people’s hearts, this is what happens.

Thus, Xi’an—Chang’an—had already fallen head over heels into Great Pure Upper Ward’s clutches.

After seizing a dominant position in the market, Great Pure Upper Ward bared its vicious, devious, wicked, cunning innards.

The machinations of demon-church scoundrels without equal!

They lent money at interest rates that were basically a giveaway, driving out honest usurers.

They committed the horrific outrage of handing out free meals to the poor, breaking their will to work and desire to succeed.

They tore down shabby houses and forced three-story expansions, afflicting the owners with the pain of managing larger homes while shaming them by taking in the homeless drifters as tenants and making them live together.

Then they prepaid physicians and made them treat people for free, causing the people of Xi’an to forget the preciousness of medicine.

And as merchants, they looked more to the other party’s profit than their own—ignorant louts who knew nothing of the ethics of trade.

By now their claws had spread over all Shaanxi, and it wasn’t hard to hear the dreadful line: “Please, if you’re from Shaanxi, use Great Pure Upper Ward goods.”

And so—Great Pure Upper Ward!

In truth, it was the exact repeat of what had happened at Seol Trading Company’s Lanzhou branch.

Flimflam, flimflam, flimflam. And more flimflam.

The only difference was, many faces had already experienced Qing; and while not exactly familiar to her, they weren’t entirely strange either.

So the Great Pure Upper Ward staff acted a little more at ease as they laid on the flimflam.

After a night of lavish hospitality, it was time to part.

“Hm. Get back safe. Give my regards to Choryeo, too. Ah, come to think of it, I kept saying I’d visit and then kept breaking the promise.”

From Xi’an, if you take the Yellow River–Grand Canal to Kaifeng and keep riding the Canal, you reach Hebei, don’t you.

With a homeward route where you arrive by doing nothing but breathing on a boat, there was no reason for Peng Daesan to detour to the Yangtze.

Qing was headed home anyway, and Divine Lady’s Gate was a men-prohibited zone—he couldn’t come even as a guest.

“Where are you going? Not coming with us?”

“I need to go home too, don’t I. Your mom—no, your dad—”

At this point Peng Daesan’s expression got quite grotesque, but in any case—

“—listen well.”

“Can’t you come with us?”

Perhaps she’d grown attached to her writing teacher; Jayeo was plainly reluctant.

“You’ll see me again. You planning to live glued together for life? Come on, San’s leaving, so Jayeo, wave.”

Qing’s partings were always plain.

If you see them again, that’s that.

And so Peng Daesan boarded.

Then Qing looked at Seol Iri.

“Iri, why are you standing on the send-off side?”

If we’re being precise, isn’t Gunyeong’s house the Martial Alliance guest house?

If a guest house isn’t a house, then you’ve got no house; and if it’s an unlimited, auto-renewed residence that even pays an allowance instead of charging rent, it hardly falls short of being called a home.

“I’m going to buy a house in Jagui County.”

“Mm? Do you have money to buy a house?”

“No. But I have Uncle Seol.”

An unabashed answer if ever there was one.

She knew Seol’s true wealth now, and was bluntly declaring she would latch on and secure a house in Jagui County off him.

“Really? Then fine.”

Of course Qing didn’t scold her for it.

Basically it was Seol family business; it wasn’t as if Qing had done anything for them—so who was she to say they were being brazen, or ask if she’d left a house with Seol before.

If anything, with a friend moving in next door, Qing was only glad.

Seen that way, it even felt like a morally upright decision.

First, Gunyeong. She could stop doing the Martial Alliance’s errand-girl—no, errand-wench—work; that was a gain.

For me, well, I like seeing Gunyeong often.

For Jayeo, we’ve called her “Mom” for now; for a child’s emotional health, seeing her often might be good—although I should think about whether Gunyeong is harmless to a child’s education or just a harmful layabout.

Even the Martial Alliance scored huge—reclaim a guest house and stop paying her an allowance.

If we sacrifice just one Seol bastard, so many become happy; clearly he ought to provide the house.

Thus we took the carriage south.

The western parts of Shaanxi and Hubei are small, lumpy mountain terrain; normally a carriage would make for a rather uncomfortable trip.

But with the cutting-edge comfort carriage provided by Great Pure Upper Ward, not necessarily so.

Its drawback was a single cooling mode that made summers hot, but in early spring, still chilly, it provided heating via a warming mode and a concealed brazier—no problem.

So the days passed, and Boang County.

Since Mount Wudang lies north of Divine Lady Peak, that savage ridgeline always catches the eye on the way back from somewhere.

But since the Heavenly Martial Emperor meant to stop there last—well.

Regretfully, we would leave Wudang for next time.

Then we went straight down south; at last a great waterway peeked out between two sheer mountains.

The Wuxia Gorge of the Yangtze—

and the great city stretching out from its mouth—

“Mm. Every time I look, the city’s bigger.”

This was Jagui County, developing at the speed of light; winter in the Central Plains is the agricultural slack season—that is, construction season—so its expansion stood out all the more.

It wasn’t the same as last autumn. Hm, so this is what they call “blink and you’ll miss it.”

Originally Jagui County had been a small town perched only on the southern bank of the Yangtze, an ambivalent thing somewhere between a small town and less than a small town.

Now, around the ferry on the far bank, countless lots had already been staked out; the thock-thock of mallets driving wood never stopped.

“Ah! Young Lady! You’ve returned!”

“Oh, little Young Lady, it’s the little Young Lady!”

“Um, it’s truly humble, but...”

From time to time, Seol Trading Company staff who recognized Qing greeted her warmly.

Certainly, seeing each other often made the main-hall staff less flimflammy.

Only, as if by statute, they always handed over a snack pouch; since there’d been no word ahead that Qing was coming, the contents really were so humble it made you laugh.

So the three of us chewed jerky side by side, and Jayeo sucked the salt out of hers with little slurps, and we crossed the Yangtze, passed through Seol Trading Company’s open gate—that now felt like my own home—

“Oh, Mother? You’re back already?”

—only to have a one-eyed youth pop out.

That Yeom brat, Yeom Hwiyeong.

“Ugh.”

Qing’s expression twisted at once.

“What. Why are you here?”

“Mm. Mother, that’s a rather cold reaction. Didn’t Aunt tell you?”

Qing’s head snapped around.

She shot a fierce look at Gyeon Pohee, as if demanding the truth.

“Hm? Didn’t you hear your nephew went to the holy ground?”

“No, why is this the holy ground?”

“Uuun, I don’t know either. They just said it is.”

If they said it’s a holy ground, then it’s a holy ground.

A very Gyeon Pohee answer.

“My my. With the top expert in this town away, I was worried this punk might get into some unsavory business, so I came. Shouldn’t you be praising me?”

Divine Lady’s Gate sat in the west of Hubei, and south of the Yangtze at that.

In terms of orthodox–unorthodox lines, it was a border zone; he’d come to fill the gap left by Ximen Surin’s absence.

The Yeom family boasted a Harmony-realm expert, too.

“Mm. That... thank you. You were considerate.”

A smile blossomed on Yeom Hwiyeong’s face.

“As expected, Mother—you’re forthright about things like this. But what’s that, hogging Mother’s arms like that? With Aunt right there, even.”

Jayeo glared at Yeom Hwiyeong.

Qing, and oh no—

come to think of it, there was my son-claimant.

Not knowing how this lunatic would react, Qing carefully broached it.

“Mm. My daughter. I took her in recently—”

“Oooh! What, a little sister? No wonder the kid’s eyes looked bright and clever—truly born of different seed. Seed!”

For reference, Jayeo’s eyes are anything but bright and clever.

If you had to pick the closest thing, it’d be the dull, lifeless eyes of a dead fish.

“Who?”

“Mm. Can’t be helped. Your older brother.”

“Really? You’re my brother?”

“Ghk. My heart—good heavens—this tiny thing—”

Clutching his chest, Yeom Hwiyeong collapsed.

Qing looked down at him with a cool gaze and thought: the madman is laying it on thick.

And one woman, watching, set off a fierce earthquake in her eyes.

Would Qing—who shuddered just thinking alone about foster sons—ever have told her friends?

“Miss Ximen. This person is...”

“Mm. It’s a bit complicated. A pitiful friend, and, um—ugh—well, I ended up taking a parent-adjacent role. You know, like a part of poverty relief or helping the unfortunate?”

“Yes. I understand.”

Seol Iri answered.

Though as far as Qing was concerned: I don’t understand—so what did you understand, exactly?

Then Seol Iri looked down at the son-claimant and self-proclaimed heart patient still complaining of chest pains, and solemnly spoke.

“Nice to meet you. Son.”