Chapter 747: The Great Instructor Ximen Qing (19)

Qing’s mornings usually started with making eye contact with Jayeo.

You could say she was the most filial daughter under heaven, showing up every day at dawn to offer her morning greetings—but in any case.

“Jayeo, did you ‘Jayeo’?”

“Heehee.”

Qing still wasn’t sure how this dumb little wordplay on the kid’s name stayed funny to her every morning, but that was how children were, so fine.

What mattered was that Jayeo’s complexion, today, was noticeably less rotten.

Her baseline expression was always exhausted, so it wasn’t as if she suddenly looked radiant. But for her, this level counted as genuinely refreshed—less rotten than usual.

The dark shadows that had seemed ready to drag down from under her eyes all the way to her cheeks had eased a bit too.

This was the importance of a proper pillow.

Qing was once again struck by the sheer value of good bedding.

Sima Chunbong quietly opened her eyes.

Her pupils were unfocused with sleep, sclera clouded in that dazed, just-woke-up way—but since those eyes were so tiny to begin with, like little beans, the effect wasn’t exactly dramatic.

Still, there was no mistaking the dreamy look on her face as she mumbled,

“Heh-heh, my dear friend. My dear friend Ximen Surin...”

“Oh, you’re awake?”

“I did not sleep a single breath last night, yet had to pretend to sleep calmly for the first time in my life for a friend...”

Not drunken truth-telling—sleep-talking truth, apparently.

Then she suddenly startled and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Sima?”

“A-ah, y-yes, yes indeed, this Sima Lang was in no way flustered. Ahem. To share a bed with this Sima Lang is a glory for ten thousand generations; you ought to spread the tale all across the realm—no, no, wait, you must absolutely not spread such rumors.”

“Did you sleep well too, Sima?”

Sima Chunbong’s face flushed bright red.

“Ahem. If I had to speak frankly, this Sima Lang’s sleep was not what one would call comfortable. Well, for a time it was... but how shall I put this, your daughter’s sleeping habits are somewhat... severe? Of course it is natural for a child to seek out her mother’s bosom in her sleep, but this Sima Lang has quite sensitive ears. Young lady, that is not proper behavior. At your age, you cannot simply keep groping your mother...”

“I didn’t—”

“Hey now, Jayeo. That’s not... wrong, I mean—it’s fine, Sima, a child can grope her mom a bit, why are you crushing my kid’s self-esteem? Whose kid is Jayeo? She’s my kid, isn’t she? What kind of mother would do that?”

Qing babbled in a flustered rush.

Sima Chunbong was the one who panicked in turn.

“N-no, that is not what this Sima Lang meant, it is merely that your daughter’s hands were very cold, so I was concerned she might have some ailment...”

“Cold hands are—”

“No-no-no. Jayeo is perfectly healthy. Being healthy is Jayeo’s one and only virtue. Our Jayeo is wonderful because she’s so robust. Right, Jayeo? Our Jayeo is the best, isn’t she?”

“Mm!”

Qing looked thoroughly refreshed.

For a while, she probably wouldn’t miss Heemae.

Well. No, that was a lie—of course she missed Heemae. That feeling, that softness, it was almost impossible to put into words.

She let her eyes linger wistfully on Sima one more time as that old longing rose up again, then began tugging on her clothes piece by piece.

In that instant, Sima Chunbong’s tiny pupils flashed.

She was shorter in overall height, which made her seem more feminine, but when seated, her head came up higher, lending her a certain imposing air; this was the same Sima Chunbong who had already notched two razor-thin victories against Heavenly Flower Sword.

Now she was preparing to launch a fair contest as a woman of matchless talent in order to even the score.

In lap-pillow combat, this Sima Lang was Number One Under Heaven. Her center of gravity was low, granting superior stability. This time, she would notch another pair of wins and pull ahead two victories once more...

“Right, you’re heading back to the Martial Alliance again, aren’t you? Sorry to throw you back out the moment you got here.”

“Heehee. Oh, Heavenly Flower Sword. How cute, trying to change the subject because you’re at a disadvantage?”

“Eh?”

“And this is a duty that this Sima Lang ought by rights to shoulder. It is too grave to entrust to those half-baked strategists in Command Hall. You, Heavenly Flower Sword, have actually made our work easier. Heehee... a truly befitting feat for my de... de... dear... friend.”

The moment Sima got back, she was scheduled to head right back out to the Martial Alliance.

Because they had discovered that Sword-Spirit Sect, on Sword-Spirit Mountain in Guiyang County, Guizhou Province—once a venerable old sect perched on a regionally famous mountain—was now a nest for the Blood Cult’s Eating-Hearts Unit.

Because the villages of Bang Milgok, Jang Milgok, and Jo Milgok—hometowns of the Three Idiots and linked by blood to the Blood Cult—had been precisely located.

Because they even had information that someone claiming to be Soul-Seizing Demon King’s closest henchman was staying down in Nosan County.

These were all matters grave enough that the Martial Alliance had to move in person.

For the record, the Three Idiots of the Blood Cult were to be left alone for now.

That was Sima Chunbong’s idea.

She wanted to recruit them as Martial Alliance warriors and stuff them into some dead-end post. Was that all right?

They would naturally maintain contact with the Blood Cult, and the Alliance might be able to seize those secret lines. They could also feed false information back along the Blood Cult’s channels to sow confusion.

Or, after enough time living a comfortable Central Plains life, the three might simply be won over.

Qing had no particular objections.

Aside from the man-eating spirit pills, they hadn’t had especially high bad karma to begin with.

Yes, they had committed the unforgivable crime of shoving a spirit drug down her throat and then providing health supplements to Bottle-Necked Drunk, but even so, there was room for leniency.

Sima Chunbong departed again, and days at Sword Hall flowed on.

Sword Hall’s mornings.

After morning roll call, the cadets gathered and stood in orderly ranks in front of the platform, waiting for Qing.

The moment she stepped up, voices exploded as one.

“““GOOD MORNING, INSTRUCTOR!!! A VERY GOOD MORNING!!!”””

Qing had never run any kind of drill practice.

At some point, they had just started speaking in perfect unison.

When hearts were in sync, that happened. Obviously.

Just look at them now.

Those eyes glittering with passion for learning, all that bright eagerness.

An overwhelming thirst for instruction that simply couldn’t be ignored.

Qing met those gazes one by one, answering that passion in kind.

Granted, in the middle of high summer, she was standing there with a face veil over her head, so the cadets probably had no idea whose eyes she was meeting or not meeting.

“The Instructor looked at me! She turned her head and looked straight into my eyes!”

“She meant Chang over there, not you.”

“No, she chose me! She’s going to lead me beyond this plateau!”

See? Hearts really did communicate.

You could say it was weird to wear a veil draped over your face in the middle of summer.

But Qing’s Cold-Heart Art sent a cool chill seeping inward, letting her enjoy the most refreshing summer of anyone.

In truth, the Academy itself was never all that hot.

Mount Yosan, at the far western edge, was where the temperature dropped sharply—a steep mountainside lashed by seasonal winds all year round.

With a gorge running alongside it as well, the nights could get downright chilly even in high summer.

The Academy was in this little mountain hollow precisely for its cool climate; they hadn’t picked summer term by accident.

There was, however, something hotter than the heat of mountains in summer.

Namely: the cadets’ blazing love for swordsmanship burned much hotter than that.

“‘WHOOOOSH-CHAK-SHAK-SHAK,’ hm. In my sequence, I’d say ‘WHOOOOSH’ or maybe ‘SWEEEISH’ would be better.”

“No, no. I was throwing that out as a feint, to prepare for ‘CLANG-CLANG-CLANG’ later. That way I can flow smoothly back into ‘WHOOOOSH’ for Soft Follow-Through in ‘CLANG-CLANG-CLANG.’”

“But just now, didn’t my ‘WHOOOOSH-CHUNK-CHAK-CHAK’ break through yours? We stopped there because it was a single-exchange match, but what will you do if you get caught by a counter-thrust with ‘SHAK-SHAK’ when you transition into ‘CLANG-CLANG-CLANG’ like you say?”

“Hmmm. There is some merit in that point, but...”

By now, the cadets were freely mixing all three secrets of the Three-Paths Sword into their sparring.

Anyone overhearing them would have no idea what they were babbling about—but astonishingly, the overall swordsmanship level was shooting up like bamboo shoots after a rain.

The best learning was what you did on your own.

In truth, Sword Hall was in a state of abnormal overheating.

They were stuck in the mountains, eating three bland meals a day, with no real entertainment, and pouring all that boredom into training.

You might say, Well, they’re only studying because they have nothing else to do.

But no one who said that had ever actually studied out of boredom.

In situations like this, people usually went slack, got lazy, and worked hard at being even lazier.

You didn’t even have to look far. If you’d ever visited a garrison back in Qing’s homeland, the state of mandatory education before enlistment made the truth obvious.

If class was boring, you either slept, doodled, or snuck notes to each other. You absolutely did not study, even if you had nothing else to do and no way to escape. That was a matter of great principle—refusing to bow to a blind, dehumanizing education system.

So the academic atmosphere in Sword Hall was clearly abnormal, belonging squarely in the realm of the unnatural.

There were a lot of reasons for that.

First: most of the cadets came from humble backgrounds.

They had been starving for learning from the outset; their motivation was already high.

Ronin needed no explanation.

For those who came up under local martial instructors or backwater minor sects, training had always meant endless “laying foundations”—running, crawling, horse stances, over and over.

Then they got to Sword Hall and—surprise—instead of wasting months on basics, they spent only the first few weeks on that and then were allowed to swing their swords to their hearts’ content and actually learn.

Of course every single day felt new and thrilling.

Thanks to that, this feverish atmosphere had settled in as the new normal.

Humans were extremely vulnerable to atmosphere.

When everyone around you was going all-out, it was very hard to slack off alone.

On top of that, Instructor Ximen’s guidance was so exalted that calling it miraculous was barely an exaggeration.

At the entrance exam, she had personally coached the Level-Seven cadets into becoming first-rate, and on top of that, two more cadets had already climbed to first-rate.

If you asked Qing, she’d say those cadets had piled up enough experience from long years as ronin that reaching first-rate at any time wouldn’t have been strange.

But from the cadets’ perspective, they got nagged, took a few hits, and suddenly they were first-rate, so of course they knelt, did full prostrations, and wept in gratitude.

Add to that the Three Idiots and others whose skills had suddenly skyrocketed, plus those who had basically been reformed as human beings—after getting their metaphorical bones broken with a dog treat.

Watching peers they’d considered on their own level suddenly leap far ahead was more terrifying than you’d think.

So now they had a “let’s all study together” vibe.

The pressure of, If I slack off, I’ll fall behind.

And the hopeful thought, If I work hard, the Instructor will notice me.

Sword Hall was in full runaway mode—like a driverless cart barreling down a slope, like a three-thousand-catty wagon with its brakes ripped off.

The results were visible in concrete achievements.

First ever: King of All Weapons Tournament.

Sword Hall: complete, undefeated sweep.

What was the King of All Weapons Tournament?

The pride of all weapon-bearing fighters.

One extra day of leave. But more importantly, it was a life-or-death match with everything on the line: special meals, snacks, even alcohol.

Granted, there had been just a tiny bit of match-fixing.

“Qing, how did you set the mood so well over there? My brats spend all day staring at that mountain brat’s face instead of swinging their sabers. The boys are too busy trying to impress that insane girl, strutting around like peacocks.”

Lately Peng Chor-yeo’s expression had grown noticeably harsher.

One in three of her cadets was a woman, and more interested in the offerings than the rites.

They came out to the yard with their faces full of makeup, wobbling around pretending to be delicate flowers. On top of that, she had no idea why their faces were so carefully made up while their uniforms were ripped, stained, and filthy like beggar rags.

“And seriously—ugh—I get secondhand embarrassment. Why are those girls so desperate to show off their chests? How are the boys supposed to concentrate like that? I swear, youngsters these days...”

“Ah.”

Qing felt a little bad about that one.

It just... sort of turned out that way.

“Honestly, Qing, you’re all I’ve got. When term’s over, don’t go straight home. Why don’t you come meet my parents instead? We can eat together. I’ll stack the table so hard the legs snap—no, I’ll empty the whole family storehouse. Eat until you burst, and if you stay like that for, say, ten months straight...”

“Mm, I can’t eat that much, and I can’t impose on you for ten months...”

Still, thanks to that, Chor-yeo seemed to have completely lost interest in those uncultured little fan club types.

Which was a huge win for Mountain Brat’s side, really.

At least there was no danger of Chor-yeo dragging some weird girl in and trying to push her on her.

“The Weapon Hall cadets are doing their utmost, but even so, they can’t quite compare to Sword Hall. I didn’t expect Heavenly Flower Sword to be this gifted at teaching. We’re on the same campus, but I wish some of that fervor would rub off on us.”

Hand-to-Hand Hall instructor Yu Uga couldn’t hide her envy of Sword Hall’s academic atmosphere either.

So Qing carefully floated a suggestion.

“Then how about some shock therapy? For the King of All Weapons Tournament this time—how about Sword Hall takes a clean sweep, Blade Hall takes a total loss, and Hand-to-Hand Hall goes fifty-fifty?”

Sword Hall’s motivation was already exploding; if they won, it would only push them further in a positive direction.

Blade Hall, meanwhile, would get a shocking report card of total defeat, which they could use as justification to work their cadets until they cried and puked.

Hand-to-Hand Hall’s atmosphere was decent already, so if the grapplers beat the others here and there, that might fire them up even more.

And so, for the cadets’ sake, a benevolent bit of match-fixing took place, and the bracket was drawn up accordingly.

That was the truth behind Sword Hall’s undefeated championship in the King of All Weapons Tournament.