Chapter 717: When Going Out, Maintain Your Dignity (11)

“What about Thousand-Household Commander Cheon?”

“Well...”

“No. I don’t really need to hear it.”

The middle-aged man grimaced and gave a twisted smile.

Over So Baekho Plaza, under an evening sky choked with black smoke billowing upward, a voice kept ringing out from the center of the square.

—I! AM MANDARLO!! YOU SNEAKY ASSASSIN BASTARDS!! CAN’T YOU COME CRAWLING OUT RIGHT NOW!! ARE YOU AFRAID OF ME!!

The only question was: who could possibly be afraid after seeing that.

A young man wedged under a woman’s arm like baggage was bellowing at the top of his lungs.

Plenty of onlookers, faced with the choice between watching the fire and watching people, chose crowd-watching instead—trying to figure out just what chain of events had led that idiot to be carried like a sack under a woman’s arm while chanting his own name.

“What will you do?”

“Heavenly Flower Sword. A supreme master.”

He’d heard the rumors—about how at Nosan she’d fought a life-and-death duel against three masters at the same level, all supreme masters who could wield Steel-qi.

“Rumors are always exaggerated, aren’t they? Storytellers in the martial world make a living puffing things up and rattling their cups for coins. And if the subject is some devastating beauty who’s also a master, they’ll hype her up into some celestial Divine Lady or other.”

That was the assessment of Qing in the martial world.

Whether it was storytellers or bystanders, people were always desperate to dress up what they’d seen, make it more dramatic, spin a better, more entertaining tale.

Add in the fact that she was a very young, top-tier beauty, and it became an even juicier story to tell.

The Martial Alliance also had no reason to clamp down on the rumors being inflated about one of their own rising dragons; if anything, it was good for the Alliance’s image.

So even if unorthodox sects or wanderers heard the tales, they weren’t about to just swallow whole the claim that some girl barely past twenty was heaven-sent talent, already late-stage supreme master and battle-hardened in real combat.

More than anything, they didn’t want to.

If she was Martial Alliance, then even if they didn’t believe it, they’d still say, “Well now, what a fine young talent, that’s wonderful, splendid,” because—like it or not—she was their side, their Martial Alliance family.

“In that case, why not seize the opportunity to send a stern warning to those thug-punks of the martial world? Give the order, and all of us—”

“No.”

The middle-aged man shook his head.

“If she can display even half of what those rumors claim, then as a rule, a master who’s genuinely steeped in real battle is far more dangerous than their realm alone would suggest.”

“Then...”

“First we wear her out a little. A young martial artist, if they don’t know any better, burns hot and runs wild and gets tired quickly. Send the signal. Let’s see if our real assassins can handle it.”

****

PEEEEEEP—! PEEP! PEEP! PEEEEEP!

Out of nowhere, a whistle shrieked.

To someone who didn’t know better, it was just noise, like some child randomly blowing a pipe.

But to a certain subset of people—specifically, to professional assassins—it was a signal with a very particular meaning.

“Boss, it’s Heavenly Flower Sword, Heavenly Flower Sword. You really going through with this?”

“At the end of the day she’s just some little thing a bit past twenty, isn’t she? I hear she’s decent enough with a blade, but you know battle skill and our line of work are two different worlds. One careless graze from a knife and she’s dead.”

“Who said anything about that? I’m asking what you plan to do about the fallout. You think the Martial Alliance is going to sit on its hands?”

“Once we do this job, we’re washing our hands of the trade. You know our patron’s got another big backer behind him, right? If this one goes well, we’ll spend our twilight years in a big estate being called ‘sir’ while we grow old and die.”

“Even so, this’ll be stomping all over the Martial Alliance’s face...”

“Life is one big bet. One shot. Mm. Do we do it or not? If little brother’s absolutely against it, I suppose that’s that.”

“Mm...”

If Qing had heard them, she’d have been speechless.

Because they were talking on the assumption that if they stepped in, Heavenly Flower Sword was obviously as good as dead.

A little later, the one called “little brother” reached a conclusion.

“Fuck it. Let’s do it. Do it. Might as well try changing our fates while we can. They say they’ll cover for us after, and it’d be awkward to back out now—and even if we tried, you think they’d just politely let us walk away? If we’re going to have problems whether we do it or not, we might as well go all in and fight tooth and nail. Tch.”

****

Qing’s ears pricked.

PEEEEEEP, PEEP, PEEP, PEEEEEP. Her inhuman hearing caught the harsh piping.

There were a few sounds Qing hated more than anything in the world, and proudly occupying one of those spots was this exact kind of signal whistle.

Who was it? Who the hell just blew a whistle?

Still clamping Mandarlo under her arm—Mandarlo, who was still yelling, Mandarlo, Mandarlo, my name is Mandarlo—Qing swept her razor-sharp gaze in all directions.

If the whistle had sounded, then it was the signal that the enemy was about to come charging in, wasn’t it?

And sure enough—

“Mandarlo!!! My name is!! Man—urk!”

Mandarlo, mid-name, suddenly folded and let out a squashed-frog sound as he was stomped.

At the same time—SWEEEEEESH, the vicious sound of arrows.

An arrow aimed at his head sliced through the air and THUNK! hit the ground, losing force and spinning away.

Qing snapped her gaze toward the source, but all she caught was a fleeting silhouette, an attacker darting away out of sight over the opposite pavilion roof.

Damn it. This was bad.

She’d expected them to pop out and swing blades.

Instead, they were already hiding in every direction, loosing either arrows or bolts, the cowardly bastards refusing to step out into the open.

So what do you do?

You move.

This was a pleasure district, packed tight with two- and three-story pavilions—perfect nests for snipers.

But if the enemy couldn’t snipe, they’d have no choice but to appear right in front of her.

“Cadet, we’re moving.”

Qing grabbed Mandarlo by the scruff of the neck.

“Gk—!” Mandarlo clutched at his throat, choking, about to protest what kind of woman had this kind of stupid, brutal strength—

But the instant that brute force yanked his body back and snapped his head up, a bolt hissed past the tip of his nose, SWEEESH, and he slammed his mouth shut.

Instead, a different outrage burst out.

“Why! Is this! All on me?!”

“Which is exactly what we’re about to ask.”

Qing answered offhandedly as she took off, still crushing the back of his neck.

Tucking him under her arm was no good—too many protruding parts front and back made it too hard to shield.

Throw him on her back, and he’d be like an invitation: a big shield tied on saying, Please, shoot me in the back.

Carry him princess-style, and both of her hands were locked up, which was a problem.

What else was there? That dog-bone brat had two legs of his own; the only answer was to make him use them.

Qing propped Mandarlo up and bolted across the main street.

SWEEESH, SWEEESH—bolts came sporadically.

—It’s an ambush! —Everyone, get down! —Aagh! —Run! —Somebody help!

You can only spectate when you’re safe. With arrows raining down, the pedestrians scattered in panic.

As Qing barreled forward, a chorus of shrieks followed. With that much chaos, even if Mandarlo didn’t chant his own name, their position was going to be crystal clear.

That was when it happened.

“Wait, wait, you there—over here, over here!”

At the mouth of a side alley up ahead,

Some man was waving frantically, shouting to Qing.

“This way, come this way!”

Staff from the Academy? Or was there one group trying to kill the dog-bone and another trying to keep him alive?

And the answer?

Assassins.

The moment Qing closed in, the man thrust a dagger forward like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Qing’s hand snapped out and seized the dagger he’d lunged with.

The tip stopped just barely shy of her Adam’s apple.

“Hiiik.”

Mandarlo landed on his ass.

“Nrgh!”

The man strained, pushing forward and back, but Qing’s hand closed around the dagger barely budged.

“I’m feeling generous. I’ll give it back.”

Qing yanked the blade toward herself and in the same motion put strength into her arm and shoved it forward.

THUD! The dagger’s hilt rammed into the man’s nose.

CRACK—his nasal bone collapsed in an instant.

“Aaagh! Mmmpf?!”

His scream cut off with a choke.

Qing’s fingers had clamped tight around his lower jaw.

The man stared at her with wide, shocked eyes. Qing smiled, a bright, somehow savage smile.

Nice attempt. Pretty fresh, pretty sly.

So you can lure someone in like that and try to stab them while their guard’s down, huh. Lesson learned.

And now it’s time to pay your tuition.

CRRRK—the feeling of hairline fractures spreading through bone, little by little. A bit more force. Yes, just like that.

CRUNCH!

Qing’s thumbs and middle fingers, pressed to both sides of his jaw, met somewhere in the middle.

A truly astonishing phenomenon, considering there had still been a lower jaw somewhere between them.

“GYAAAAGH!!”

The beastlike scream of an assassin whose jaw had just gone missing.

Without its support, his tongue sagged out and lolled past his uvula.

“Confuse people, will you.”

Qing’s toes slammed into the man’s knee.

Her body was already a human weapon. A punch from her shattered things to pieces, a kick turned bone into powder.

Qing pressed her foot down on the collapsing man’s shoulder.

Feeling that distinctive sensation of something hard being crushed into fragments, she swallowed.

Hoo. That’s the stuff. Now she could breathe. Now she felt alive.

One missing jaw and one busted knee, plus one crushed shoulder—it was a solid tuition payment.

There was no need to bother with the coup de grâce.

In this state he’d just live miserably and die miserably later anyway.

Maybe he’d end up begging on the streets, scraping by, and Qing knew from experience just how vicious the Central Plains could be.

In the Hall of Repentance in Kunlun, Qing had learned the sublime spirit of “respecting life.”

Kill someone and the pain is sharp and brief and then over.

Let them live, and they cling desperately to a wretched existence and eventually die in long, drawn-out agony.

What could be more fitting as an end for villains?

Qing forced down the laughter trying to slip out of her, grabbed Mandarlo by the scruff again—he was still sitting there, stunned—and hauled him up.

“Get your head on straight. Is this the time to sit and gawk?”

Then she glanced briefly down the back alley—

A back alley? If it dead-ended, that might actually be better; then the enemy would have to funnel in from one direction.

But if this guy had planned to stab the dog-bone and run, he’d probably set a trap.

She didn’t care about herself, but it could be dangerous for the dog-bone.

With the taste of blood in her mouth, Qing’s mind was at its sharpest. Her brain, fired up by the thrill of slaughter, was finally working properly for once.

And so, heading toward the outskirts of the city, she began a hands-on field trip into assassin ecology.

First up: the straightforward, “manly” type.

If a man is a man, he raises his voice, declares his purpose, and charges straight in—

Even if he’s just an assassin, a pest of human society, there’s a subset of the breed who are oddly faithful to the laws of manliness.

“Die!”

A man in black vaulted down from a rooftop, stabbing his blade toward them.

Qing’s dagger flashed up.

Blade tip met blade tip exactly, and in that instant the most destructive starlight—Steel-qi—drove down the assassin’s sword and split it in half.

Like pressing a cucumber through a guillotine, the blade parted cleanly.

It kept going, all the way to the hilt, slicing through until half his palm, fingers still attached, dropped to the ground with a soft thud.

Call it “Grafted Blossoms” or “Four Ounces to Move a Thousand Pounds,” whatever you like.

Using the enemy’s strength, cutting them at their own speed—this was that exact art.

“Urgh.”

The assassin didn’t even stop to grab his half-hand; he spun on his heel at once. Fine decision-making. But his opponent was who she was.

Qing’s dagger sliced through the air.

A normal martial artist would never have tried this barehanded, too afraid of losing their weapon.

The dagger drove vertically into the dead center of the assassin’s lower back.

He collapsed, his lower body twitching in wild spasms.

A reflex, the nerves going haywire after a blade to the spine.

Confirming the sight, Qing’s feet were already carrying her briskly on.