Chapter 714: When Going Out, Maintain Your Dignity (8)

At those utterly unprecedented, explosive lines of verse, everyone’s faces turned into expressions that seemed to be asking whether the poem they had just heard was truly a human poem of this world, as if they were trying to distinguish reality from illusion.

In other words, they looked completely dumbfounded.

“C-come on, Instructor, that kind of joke is...”

“Put the cups down. It’s a pretty powerful poison. You there, Cadet Gu Sangbak, pour the liquor back into the bottle and gather the remaining cups in one place. We’ll keep the liquor as evidence and burn all the cups; what’s left in them could be dangerous.”

The poem had sounded like a joke, but Qing’s next instructions were stripped of any grease, pure and lean.

Seeing that grave expression, the cadets finally swallowed—GULP—Huh? It really was poisoned?

Qing started to bolt out in that state, then halted.

Poisoning, really? Who were they aiming at—surely not this dog-bone bastard? Had his life actually been in danger? Had there really been assassins during the march, and not just that ridiculous lie woven out of bravado?

And on top of that, a rare liquor that would go around the table at least once for everyone—a vicious mindset that said, “To get one person, I’ll kill all of them first.”

If she left him here now, he might end up in danger again.

“Cadet Mandarlo. The assassins were real?”

“They were real, how many times do I have to—hkk.”

Just as Mandarlo started to pour out his grievances, he choked.

It was the sound of someone being yanked by the nape and hauled in like a sack to be pinned against a hip.

And Qing immediately burst out of the room.

Not toward the corridor, but toward the wide open outer wall facing the lake.

“Uwaaaah—!”

Mandarlo screamed as he was suddenly subjected to a free fall.

Regardless, Qing went TAP, TAP, TAP, TAP, landing and jumping in sequence from roof to roof.

The architecture of Central Plains pavilions tended to have skirt-like eaves on each floor, narrowing as they went up, a structure that made emergency escape easy in times like these.

“—Aaagh! Aaah—! Aaah—!”

Mandarlo, tucked under one arm like luggage, had his waist clamped tight each time they dropped a floor.

Hence the strange screams.

Regardless.

With a man under her arm, Qing dropped in a neat, cool pose in front of the tavern entrance, using the tip of one foot, one knee, and one hand.

Then she launched a re-entry assault back into So Pyeonggak by the fastest route.

“Hey, Jeomsoi. The one who came to sell liquor on the fifth floor just now, who was he? The bastard selling Purple-River—no, Purple-Heaven Dukang Wine.”

“What are you talking ab—”

“Hurry.”

Qing’s eyes flashed with the starlight of truth.

The glow of Steel-qi was like a painfully cold starlight, a threat that made people feel danger instinctively.

“Ai, great heroine! I really don’t know what you mean! This serving boy’s been here twenty years, and I’d never even heard the name ‘Purple-Heaven Dukang Wine’ before today!”

“Tch. Just as I thought.”

Qing scratched the back of her head.

The real Jeomsoi obviously hadn’t sold poison.

Then that guy’s face... hmm.

Qing reflected a little.

She’d just treated him as a “server” because he was a server, and hadn’t looked at him as a person, so she hadn’t particularly bothered to memorize his face.

She was in the middle of trying to drag the man’s features out of a hazy, almost-coming-back memory.

“Put me down! What is this! I’m not luggage!”

Mandarlo shouted, face beet red.

Not a child but a fully grown man (no, eighteen years old) wriggling around tucked under someone’s arm at the hip—how mortifying was that supposed to be.

“Cadet, you’re getting insolent again.”

“To hell with all this! Do you even know who I am!?”

It was at that moment.

In Qing’s field of vision, one suspicious conical hat was quietly slipping out of the tavern.

Qing raised her voice immediately.

“You there, hold it a second!”

A solid, heavy footstep thudded—THUD!

Followed by a loud BANG as the door slammed open.

The conical hat shot out, kicking away his seat and bolting.

“Stop right there!”

Qing hurled herself forward in pursuit.

Mandarlo’s waist bent in another harsh arc as she took off.

“I am none other than Kang Tong—urgh!”

The moment Mandarlo’s true identity was finally about to be revealed, it got postponed again—but no one had particularly asked, or wanted to know.

More important than that was catching that bastard.

People blurred past on either side of Qing.

“Whoa, careful!” “Wh-what the—!”

Sky-colored eyes swept the front, tracing a path through the gaps.

She shot between bodies like a sudden fork of lightning, above them, over stall tables, kicking off walls.

The conical hat’s back grew rapidly closer.

“Stop!”

If he was the sort to stop when told, he wouldn’t have run in the first place.

Once he confirmed who was chasing him, the conical hat slipped into a narrow gap between pavilions, more of a crack than a proper alley.

Qing went straight in after him.

The low evening sun, the shadowed alley; in an instant the space turned dark and gloomy with shade.

Qing’s nerves went taut.

A man fleeing through a crowd inevitably kicked up continuous commotion, making him easier to chase.

But in these cramped, dim, and convoluted gaps, one wrong turn and you could lose your target in a blink.

Or he could hang from a corner or overhead, hold his breath, and strike back in ambush.

If she lowered her speed, she could lose him; if she raised it, she greatly increased the risk of an ambush.

The man in the conical hat was around the corner, holding his breath with his sword raised high.

The rapid TATATATAK of footsteps drumming the ground drew closer.

And at the very moment they reached striking distance, true qi surged from his lower abdomen and raced down his meridians as if exploding.

Now. The man in the conical hat brought his sword down.

SWEEECH!

As the two hands clutching the sword dropped to forehead height, the fearless woman popped out from the corner at that exact timing.

A perfect beat, as if they had coordinated it in advance.

Or as if she were throwing her body into the falling blade.

The woman’s startled expression.

Her forearm jerking up reflexively.

The man’s lips curled up under the conical hat.

The sharp sword-qi would slice through her forearm and chop her torso clean in two—more than enough of a lesson for daring to chase after the elders...

And then—KANG!

A sound that should not have rung out.

His eyes flew wide as if they would split.

The sudden lightness in his hands; the blade, snapped in half.

With pain throbbing in his grip, the man simply couldn’t understand.

If sword-qi was running along the blade, how did a bare forearm snap the blade instead?

Well, that was because the forearms of Minor Water Art were Diamond-Indestructible forearms.

Sword-qi, not even sword-gang, wasn’t going to so much as scratch that soft, translucent skin.

Qing immediately dropped Mandarlo and stretched out her arm with a loose, strange motion.

It created an illusion like her arm was lengthening and writhing like a snake: the crafty burrowing thrust of No-Shadow Divine Hand.

Then—WHACK!—she smashed the man’s wrist.

With a groan—“Khhk”—CLANG, the broken half-blade hit the ground.

And behind them—“Uuugh”—came a very similar groan from Mandarlo, flung aside.

The moment the man clutched his wrist, Qing’s No-Shadow Divine Hand whipped back and snatched off his conical hat.

It was hard to recall from memory alone, but once she saw his face, Qing’s recollection snapped into focus.

Right, this bastard. The one who’d sold the liquor.

Qing’s lips split in a wide grin.

A vicious smile that almost reached her ears, the kind of horrific expression you’d fear to see in a dream from some murderous fiend or evil spirit.

Because yes, this bastard was one she was allowed to kill.

Her other hand grabbed his opposite wrist—the one holding his own mangled wrist.

And then—CRRRUNCH.

There were sounds that you heard with your sense of touch.

The squelching, pulping, grinding sound unique to bones being crushed into powder, shattered fine and rubbing against each other—ah, that unbelievably sweet sound.

“Gyaaaaah!”

The bursting scream added its part to the symphony.

Enjoyed with the skin and enjoyed with the ears—a duet.

Qing kept holding the limp, boneless wrist, that lump of pure meat, and hauled it straight up.

Thanks to her superhuman, beyond-human strength, the man’s arm went straight up—Qing was tall for a woman, but still a woman, so she didn’t get him entirely off the ground, his toes were just barely brushing the earth.

But the act of lifting him wasn’t as important as the fact that his torso and legs were now wide open and unguarded.

Qing’s leg traced a graceful curve.

A glorious kick that smashed her shin into the side of his calf.

POK—such a clean sensation of bone snapping.

As the man’s body, held by the wrist, flew up like a pendulum and reached nearly horizontal with the ground, he was finally released, and WHUMP, he floated for a brief moment and then crashed down.

A pulverized wrist, a broken shin.

Yes, you always began from the outside—arming and disabling one limb at a time was best.

So he couldn’t run or fight back.

“Khhh...”

“Tell me, is it okay to play around with food? Or not? You dared to put poison in my liquor? I will never forgive that.”

Qing chattered lightly.

If the man’s mind had been intact, he might have felt wronged—that’s the part you’re angry about?—but in the middle of thrashing in agony from pain he’d never experienced in his life, he had no such leisure.

She’d said it mostly to test him.

This guy’s not snapping out of it. What is he?

Sure, after you crushed a wrist that way while someone was still alive, even an assassin’s ancestor would have trouble staying sane.

But Qing also knew an excellent form of emergency treatment that brought people to their senses in times like these.

She promptly set the sole of her foot lightly on his intact ankle.

And then, slowly, very slowly, she applied pressure.

CRRRK.

How were you supposed to explain this sensation of bones being crushed.

Whether with hands or with feet, that current that seemed to tingle up from there, running straight into the spine, suddenly making you feel like you had to pee.

And since this wasn’t in the middle of combat, she could focus all her nerves on it and savor the sensation to the fullest.

Huuuuh—Qing couldn’t stop herself from letting out a strange little sound, the kind you’d be afraid of someone overhearing—

“Aaagh!!”

But it was drowned out by the hideous scream.

“Are you a bit more awake now? Let’s see. That leaves one wrist, right? Maybe once that’s crippled too, you’ll feel like having a conversation.”

“Stop! Stooop!”

See?

One go and he snapped right back.

“Cadet Mandarlo. Look here. Do you recognize this face, or—no, forget that.”

Qing swallowed the second half.

If it had been a familiar face she’d have recognized it when he sold the liquor; she hadn’t, and that was why she’d accepted the poisoned liquor without question.

“Now, shall we have a little talk? Who are you, and why are you targeting my cadet?”

“You bitch, do you even know what you’re doing? Do you know whose work you’re interfering wi—aaagh!”

“Oh no, I stepped on your foot. My mistake. Still, all this fuss over a little stepping? I’m asking because I don’t know. Confucius said that if you don’t know, you should ask, and isn’t it also a virtue for those who know to share what they know?”

“My foot! My foooot! Aaagh!”

Such whining over something this small.

Still, she thought, at least he was going to be easy to talk to.

If I’d known, I wouldn’t have bothered bringing dog-bone. If I’d left him behind, I could have taken my time enjoying this.

Only then did Qing lift her foot off the crushed ankle.

“Huff, huhh, ghh, who are you, what are you, why are you meddling in our affair?”

“I’m an instructor at Righteous-Proper Martial Academy, and an instructor has a duty to protect her cadets. You tried to kill him not once, but twice. If I don’t know the whole story, who’s to say there won’t be a third or fourth?”

“Kkh, kkh-heh... khh—cough, hurk! Guh! Ghaa!”

The bastard, who’d started to let out a sneer, suddenly got something caught in his throat and hacked out a harsh cough.

Then, when he reflexively tried to cover his mouth with his hand, the flopping back of his hand tapped at his own wrist and sent sharp agony lancing up his arm, and he went back and forth between coughing and screaming, making an absolute mess of himself.

What is he, an idiot?

Qing relaxed her guard a little at the sight.

“What’s so funny?”

“To save one, you’ve practically doomed all the rest. Hehhh, I wonder if the ones in that brat’s room are still safe?”

The sly, annoying smile on Qing’s face vanished, replaced in an instant by a chill—no, by a fury so cold it went beyond cold.