Chapter 739: The Great Instructor Ximen Qing (11)

Of course, no matter how sorry or proud she felt for Mandarlo, favoritism was out of the question.

They said there was no finger you could bite that didn’t hurt, but obviously some fingers hurt less than others.

There were plenty of tales and legends about cutting off the ring finger or little finger to offer up or feed to someone as a pledge, weren’t there.

Thumb, index, and middle—those three were superior to the other fingers, and this was an established fact proven by history, folklore, and the left-hand palm-reading tradition.

If the Academy schedule went on long enough, who knew how things would turn out later, but she didn’t want to show anything that looked like doting on someone in particular this early.

So Qing just kept it to an internal thought.

I’ve changed my view. They say a person’s nature shows when things get hard, and he might never have had a chance to become better before.

Only... what was with this atmosphere?

“Thank you, Instructor!”

“Thank you for your guidance, Instructor!”

“Instructor! May I respectfully ask which flow is smoother between CHUK-CHEOK-CHAK-CHEOK and CHAK-CHEOK-EOK-CHAK!”

For reference: BOOM-BANG-BOOM was Heavy Sword, SHWAK-SHRAK-SHWIN was Quick Sword, and CHEOK-CHEOK-CHAK-CHEOK was Gentle Sword’s Strong–Middle–Weak—very intuitive terms.

Anyway, Sword Hall somehow felt hot.

Granted, the academic mood had already been very good.

None of the cadets had been dragged here by force; they’d all been selected for their hunger to learn, so they weren’t slackers and trained hard.

“THANK YOUUU!!”

“I see! I’ll work hard!!”

But the sheer volume had jumped up a notch, hadn’t it?

All of a sudden, maxed-out discipline and hot-blooded disciples.

Did the outing pump them up somehow?

But then the next day—

“Instructor!! HELLO, MA’AM!! WAS!! YOUR MEAL!! DELICIOUS!!”

“THANK YOU!! FOR TODAY!!”

And the day after that—

“Instructor!! A GOOD!! MORNING TO YOU!!”

“WE’LL!! SEE YOU TOMORROW!!”

The next day, and the next.

She’d thought that in a few days they’d go back to normal, but the discipline just didn’t drain away.

Anyone listening from outside would think she’d really been riding them into the ground. Mm, they were budding martial artists, so their voices boomed.

And it wasn’t just their voices.

The friendly “Hey you bastard, you little shit” nicknames that had started appearing as they got closer were gone; they now addressed each other as “Brother” and “Younger Brother” and spoke politely.

During breaks, instead of plopping their asses down any old way, sprawled out and even lying flat complaining they were tired, they now dropped into lotus position, circulated qi, and composedly eased their fatigue.

And who were they? Sword Hall cadets. Just now—

It went so far that—

“Instructor, you’re here!”

“Have you eaten dinner?”

Qing couldn’t hide her surprise.

This was a nighttime surprise visit to the dorms—the “I won’t touch you as long as you stick to the basics, let’s just do the basics, basics” surprise life-hall inspection.

They called it basics, but nothing in this world was harder than sticking to the basics.

So whenever Qing kicked the door open with a cheerful BANG for a surprise visit, the basic pattern was a blast of bachelor stink like her nose would fall off, an indescribable masculine fragrance of piled-up, sweaty laundry.

And yet, somehow—

SNIFF SNIFF. Qing sniffed.

Aside from the inevitable parts of a men’s space... mm, it was neat?

The rooms were clean, and unlike before, there were almost no cases of guys lounging around with their shirts off and then scrambling to cover themselves in shock.

Of course, there were always exceptions.

She flung open the door and found they’d strung several long lines horizontally across the room, from who knows where, with all kinds of underwear hanging in rows.

It looked like Christmas decorations or festival day international flags back home. Mm, thinking about it, they really didn’t have anywhere else to hang underwear.

Ah—Cadet Chang Yohong. Qing had never realized because of that thick leopard coat she always wore, but wow, she really was something.

And somehow, the women’s dorm was always the biggest disaster...

In any case, Sword Hall was full of discipline.

At first Qing figured it was just the lingering high from the outing, and they’d settle down in a day or two, but the vibe just kept going. Mm. What the hell?

Did they all go mad together or something?

After thinking hard about it, Qing arrived at a conclusion about this desirable phenomenon.

This is thanks to the bonehead, the New Mandarlo.

Qing was an educated person from back home who had, no less, graduated from college and taken a course called “Liberal Arts Psychology That Changes Your Life.” She was a master of psychology.

And through professional life she had observed and analyzed people as naturally as breathing, becoming a living avatar of Harmony who could blend smoothly into any group, water in water and liquor in liquor.

In the eyes of such an authority on human understanding, what had happened was simply this: they’d stopped being tacky.

In a group, people preferred to avoid looking tacky rather than trying to act out some officially “cool” role.

Same logic as behavior in class.

If you wanted to be the teacher’s favorite and personally achieve great results during class?

Everyone knew the answer.

Ask questions whenever you don’t understand something, participate aggressively, and throw yourself into the lesson.

In a lot of media, that’s the image of the ultimate student, the hot-blooded learner—very cool.

But the vast majority of students didn’t do that, because it was extremely tacky.

Seeing that, people would just say, That jerk’s sucking up to the teacher, why’s he making such a show of it, what an annoying prick, and so on.

In the military, they outright shunned that kind of earnest attitude, so everyone tried to slack off as much as possible.

And it was the same in the workplace afterward.

An “enthusiastic coworker” was labeled a nuisance, or a stooge for the company, and people said things like, You’ll never last in society acting like that.

Of course, there were a few sane groups.

In those groups, it wasn’t considered tacky to show off your proper, assigned coolness, and the atmosphere was already set that way.

And because Mandarlo kept making a fuss, somehow that kind of atmosphere had taken root in Sword Hall as well.

The perfect part was that the original bonehead had been such an epic pain in the ass that no matter how much of a fuss he made, New Mandarlo—Shin-darlo—was still better than the old bonehead, even seemed like a fairy by comparison; thanks to this so-called “fairy effect,” he didn’t draw that much backlash.

Strictly speaking, this sort of atmosphere was usually the leader’s job.

Qing had also heard that part explained as “the reason leadership matters,” when it came to group leaders.

Mm? Then what, this is thanks to me?

Has Transcendent Flower Realm, Ultra Flower Realm, Super-Verbal Heavenly Flower Sword once again made a massive contribution to the Orthodox martial world?

Heavenly Flower Sword, are you telling me the instructor is the strongest too?!

Separate from that, though, Qing’s daily routine had become a little more—no, a lot more—exhausting.

Because of countless requests for handshakes—no, countless requests for counseling.

The cause was bonehead Mandarlo’s constant praise of Instructor Ximen.

“Instructor Ximen sternly scolded me and sincerely worried for me, embracing this lacking disciple. How could I not change my mindset?”

“Instructor Ximen has shown me the proper road of life; it is a teacher’s grace, pointing a petty man to the great road. I have engraved it deep in my heart; every line is a golden maxim with a refined fragrance, truly moving. I was ashamed, but hot tears flowed.”

“Oh, are you talking about the most beautiful under Heaven? Sword Blossom? Ice Lily? What are you saying? Who but Instructor Ximen dares argue about the world’s greatest beauty? Come now, Brother Jang. Of course, there are many famed beauties in the martial world, and everyone has their own taste, so in outward looks alone you could say one is more beautiful than another. But whose cultivation, character, dignity, and lofty martial arts can match hers inside and out, if not Instructor Ximen?”

“Brother Yu, you seem down lately. Ah, I’m sorry I didn’t notice sooner. Still, I’m young and don’t know much, so what about asking Instructor Ximen for counseling?”

“If it’s Instructor Ximen...”

“If it were Instructor Ximen...”

“This too must be Instructor Ximen’s grace.”

Mandarlo would end ten “Instructor Ximen” praises a day by circling back to, In the end, I revere Heavenly Flower Sword, so with that much hype, how could you not want to ask her at least once, just to see what the counseling was like.

Qing had used her injuries as an excuse to hand Sword Jade Girl’s instructor classes over to Namgung Sinjae.

Just when she’d thought she could finally enjoy some recuperation and rest, she was blindsided by a wave of cadets coming to her with “I have something on my mind.”

She couldn’t quite bring herself to turn them away with “I’m recuperating” either; her useless sense of responsibility grabbed her ankle.

“Instructor Ximen, I have something I’d like to consult you about, if it’s okay...”

“I don’t mind, but there is a bit of a waiting list. If you’re fine with waiting a few days, I’ll write you a number.”

“Huh? A number? I’m number twenty-two—uh, what’s with this writing, h-holy...”

To prevent number-ticket forgery, she wrote them using hard characters, so the cadet stared at the slip bearing the characters for twenty-two, 貳拾貳, and his eyes shook.

He could read.

What kind of handwriting is this, so forceful and yet so neat? The first 二 and the last 二 looked like they’d been cut and pasted from each other, perfectly identical—the work of a master who’d completely polished her own calligraphic style.

How could this be—Instructor Ximen was even the strongest in handwriting!

The writing alone was a precious treasure to keep and admire forever—how could she lightly hand out such a treasure, counseling or no counseling!

So the cadet worried: maybe I should take this consultation, and then find another problem worth consulting about.

Even before she counseled them, the clients’ satisfaction level had already pierced the sky.

In other words, Qing’s evening rest was now in serious danger.

****

Have you heard of the Law of Asshole Conservation?

It refers to the mysterious phenomenon where the number of assholes in a group stays constant.

For example, say your boss, coworker, or subordinate is a fucking asshole who makes you fantasize about quitting every day.

If, for some reason (they quit, get fired, or someone finally snaps and makes that stabbing fantasy real), that asshole disappears, of course you’ll be overjoyed.

But the joy doesn’t last long. Someone you thought was perfectly normal suddenly inherits the asshole’s throne and starts pulling asshole shit.

In other words, in a company or similar place, when one asshole leaves, a new asshole appears to fill the slot, so the total number of assholes stays the same.

This is scientifically proven.

When they observed ants, about thirty percent of them just slacked off all day.

If you remove all the slacking ants?

Amazingly, thirty percent of the previously hard-working ants go, Finally, it’s my turn and start slacking off.

Humans are the same.

Once the asshole slot opens up, some guy awakens to the calling of, It’s time for me to fulfill the asshole’s role.

Of course, some people insist it’s not like that, that their workplace has no such asshole.

If you genuinely feel that way, you might need to reflect on your own behavior and have an honest talk with your coworkers.

Sword Hall was not exempt from the Law of Asshole Conservation.

Because Mandarlo had declared, “I’m done being an asshole,” and turned into a polite young man wrapped in inhuman diligence, the Sword Hall asshole slot had opened up.

And a new batch of assholes had appeared.

Worse, this time there were three of them; one asshole had disappeared and three had been added—a horrific exchange rate.

These assholes were the three whose skill had suddenly risen after the outing.

The ones who had spent that summer day sweating half-naked in that cramped palm-sized shack of a room with other men, in a stifling hot space.

The servants of the Blood Cult infiltration squad—in other words, the ones whose abilities and brains were so lacking they’d been worked as gofers, and whose bad karma was still low enough that they’d slipped through the exam by accident.