Chapter 814: Our Wish Is Slaughter (5)

“What kind of—what kind of outrageous talk is this! A contract to a merchant is—”

“I wouldn’t know, since I’m not a merchant. And it’s good for the people who have the treatment medicine, too, you know? I’m planning to pay an appropriate price and buy it.”

The woman who’d just threatened him with no repercussions was now talking about paying and buying—it was nothing but ridiculous.

“And anyone watching would think you ran into a gang of bandits. A passing knight-errant says, ‘Let’s do something good for the world,’ and you can’t even bow deeply and say, ‘Thank you for giving me this opportunity,’ and cooperate right away—you’ve gotta go, ‘What is this, how dare you’?”

“What is this tyranny! There is no such law under Heaven!”

“Of course there isn’t.”

And with that, Qing tapped her sword hilt, tap-tap.

“But the sword is right here, isn’t it?”

Qing was brazen.

Law is far, fists are near.

Let alone fists—this was a sword.

If Jeong Ryujang were an ordinary merchant—meaning, ordinary by evil-karma standards—Qing might’ve felt a little guilty.

Digging out the treatment medicine’s prescription was extremely important, and it was for the world.

To learn the prescription and save the sick, and further, to prevent future patients from falling ill, and to prevent the countless human and material losses—tangible and intangible—that would come from the strange plague’s spread.

But if it was for that intent, that cause, that justice, that public good—could you accept someone else’s one-sided sacrifice?

To put it bluntly: could it be permitted to empty a rich man’s pocket to help those in trouble?

But there were also cases where you could say it clearly.

If that rich man hadn’t made his money properly—if he’d accumulated illicit wealth with the blood and tears of countless people?

Then you could empty him without hesitation.

You could strip him clean while looking up at Heaven without a single speck of shame.

“With an estate this grand, an orchard, and even a mining business—you’ve eaten plenty already, haven’t you? Someone’s doing a good deed and you can’t even help, but you’re still raising your voice because you want that petty little profit? You—bastard! I can’t forgive you!”

Qing shouted as she sprang to her feet.

It was a radical, escalating rage.

Jeong Ryujang gaped, stunned—then at the cold sound of a blade leaving its sheath—

SHRRRING—

—his face went pale on the spot.

“Wait—”

“The blade moves toward Jeong Family Manor’s lord’s arm at a speed that crosses fifty-thousand li in the span of a single moment.”

“What—”

“And when Jeong Family Manor’s lord’s arm is half a zhang away from the blade, at that moment, obtain the source of the treatment medicine. Five, four, three—”

“Wait, hold on—”

“—Two. One.”

Qing’s hand flashed up.

The blade in her grip shot high, and then—

“I’ll tell you!”

“See? You should’ve done that from the start. You made me pull my sword—how rude. You know this is all your fault, right, Manor Lord Jeong Family Manor?”

“Keuk.”

“Alright. So who supplied the treatment medicine?”

“B-before that... if you promise to keep it secret that I said this...”

“Mm. Sure. I can do that much. If you’d done this from the start, I wouldn’t have had to embarrass myself. I wouldn’t have had to pull a sword and strain my arm. Look how nice it is when we talk with words?”

Jeong Ryujang felt like his insides were bursting.

She barged in out of nowhere—what was this, this kind of rampage, a horrifying tyranny that didn’t even fit the word “rampage”?

Why—what did he even do wrong?

At his wronged expression, Qing could only be dumbfounded, but still.

Stack up that much evil karma and you want to feel wronged.

But wronged was wronged.

Humans were creatures who only felt wronged about their own losses—if you took a loss because of your own mistake, you’d still feel wronged, and if you believed it wasn’t your mistake, how much more would you?

Thanks to that, a faint dampness—subtle moisture—mixed into Jeong Ryujang’s voice.

“The Five Poison Sect sent the treatment medicine.”

“The Five Poison Sect?”

“On Yunnan soil, who else could make a treatment medicine for the strange plague besides the Five Poison Sect...”

“The Five Poison Sect, the Five Poison Sect. Why does that sound familiar? I feel like I’ve heard it somewhere...”

Qing repeated it to herself.

Five—Poison—Sect. The tip of her tongue took a step along her palate, then hopped lightly and tapped her front teeth—mm, where had she heard that?

Then Tang Nanna acted like she knew.

“Hey. Back then at Dujiangyan—don’t you remember?”

“Dujiangyan?”

“No, why—back then, that Baek—”

“Ah! Right. Those bastards?”

The one who got hit ended up mentally ill and kept it in their heart for ages, unable to sleep—while the one who hit forgot immediately and slept like a baby.

You could say it should be the opposite, but?

The attacker forgot easily, the victim never forgot for life—so that hometown proverb about hitter and hittee was total bullshit, probably made up by someone who’d never been hit.

“Those guys who released the Oyangjeuk, right?”

She’d forgotten the Five Poison Sect {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} and she’d forgotten Dujiangyan, but Qing immediately remembered Baek Changja—the world’s number-one master chef—and the Oyangjeuk, the rather delicious fish.

Right. There’d been guys like that. Killing them had been fun....

That was about all that remained in Qing’s memory.

But once she remembered, she realized—

Damn. This was tangled.

Back then, she’d been a bit heavy-handed—well, they deserved to die, so of course, but still—either way, they weren’t the kind of people you could stroll up to and say, I’m here to buy the treatment medicine, please and thank you, was it.

Mm. That—well, anyway.

“Now that I’ve told you everything, will you please leave? I’m very tired, and I’d like to rest.”

“Aw, you’re pretty stingy with your hospitality.”

“...Hospitality, you say?”

Qing nodded shamelessly.

“Sure. If a valuable guest comes, the manor lord personally guides them around the estate, shows them the operation—‘This is what we’re doing’—lets them tour the business site, and so on.”

“What are you even saying?”

“You can’t understand plain words? There’s chaos because of the strange plague, and you’re hiding the treatment medicine prescription while secretly taking people—so I need to check whether those people are living well.”

She’d rather entrust fish to a cat—she’d rather entrust a steaming hot soup to Ice Chicken.

How could she trust the words of human trash who’d stacked four digits of evil karma and just let it go?

Judging by the evil karma he’d already eaten, she had to doubt not just the families’ welfare, but whether the patients shoved into the mine were even alive.

Qing tapped her sword hilt again, tap-tap, and continued in a voice stripped of all playfulness.

“Right now.”

If he’d lied to her?

You know the typical scene: whips, shackles, rags torn to shreds, slaves reduced to skin and bones, someone brave cradling a collapsed coworker who couldn’t eat, a supervisor cold-blooded with no tears or blood, and, mm—cotton? No, not cotton—whatever, anyway.

If it was like that, then it would have to become a long-overdue, rewarding on-site study of the human body—an exhibition of human mystery—followed by a deep time of repentance and atonement.

...That was what she used to think.

“Whew—no, no, that’s not it, miss. At first, when they told me to dig coal, my heart dropped clean out of my chest. But in the world, where else is there a luxury like this?”

A miner with a face blackened by coal dust grinned broadly, baring his teeth.

Crooked bite, yellow teeth—if anything, it made him look even more simple and honest. Either way, it was a smile so satisfied you couldn’t deny it.

By his account, they were doing well.

Rather, since they washed every day, there was no itching, the bedding was soft, they ate meat four meals a day—and even that: four meals. For “hard labor,” they actually gave four meals.

Likewise, the women’s faces were bright.

Since there were many workers, there was work that came with it, so they handled the mining village’s household—cleaning, laundry, cooking, serving meals, and so on.

It wasn’t a lie—you could tell at a glance.

What the hell? Why is it real? Why are you actually treating them well?

“Didn’t I tell you.”

“No, why? If you were just going to make the women do household work like this, why did you pick only young women and bring them at the highest price with a one-year term?”

“If you count the daily wages, whether it’s a man or a woman, in a year it covers the cost of hosting them. And for the men, we promised to pay wages beyond that once the contract ends, so it’s not that we’re paying a more expensive price to use them—only the contract term differs.”

“Then why pick out only young women, and make them work for a year? That’s extremely suspicious and harsh and nasty.”

“Because then men will come. If it weren’t for conditions that suspicious, it wouldn’t have been miners gathering—there would’ve been nothing but older women swarming in.”

If someone in a family had to be sold, in this primitive, barbaric ancient Central Plains, the first priority would’ve been to send out older women.

Next would be young women, but anyone would hear those conditions and think they were filthy—like she’d have to pour alcohol, like she was scheduled to be harassed.

You couldn’t send your daughter, your sister, to a place like that—so men stepped forward instead.

“Mm.”

“Are you satisfied now?”

“Damn. Why is it real.”

The shockingly honest men’s welfare of a villain with twelve hundred points of evil karma.

Strange. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

Of course, she didn’t feel particularly sorry.

If you didn’t want to be suspected, you should’ve lived clean.

What was it—he said he came from Hangzhou?

Then maybe he’d sucked blood and tears dry there with brutal methods, and wanted a fresh start in a far-off backwater frontier village.

Tsk. Then it couldn’t be helped.

Whether it was laundering the past or whatever, she couldn’t just harm a kid who was currently running a proper operation.

If she listened to her heart, she’d love to skip questions and turn him into a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, but then what about these people smiling here?

“Fine. This is a desirable labor site. If you keep it like this, there won’t be bloodshed.”

“And besides that—do you have anything else to say?”

“Nope.”

“Like, you misunderstood me, or how you feel about that.”

“I said no.”

She could tell what he was hoping for, but of course, Qing wasn’t sorry at all.

If anything, she’d been merciful enough to let it go, so shouldn’t she receive one hundred and eight deep bows of gratitude?

“Then your business here is finished. I’d like to rest now.”

“Is the sun about to set? Ah, I’m hungry.”

“I’d like to rest now.”

“Who asked you for food? Even if you offered, I’d refuse. Guys, let’s go eat.”

Who knew what they’d mix into food—why would she accept a meal from them?

She had zero desire to eat food with a generous serving of someone else’s saliva added, so even if they told her to eat before leaving, she’d refuse on her side.

And so Qing left Jeong Family Manor behind.

With Qing’s superhuman hearing, the words from behind lodged themselves cleanly in her ears.

“This fucking—what rotten luck. Hey, go throw a dipperful of salt. No—fuck it, dump a whole straw sack out. Do we need to run a shaman rite or something? Fuck.”

Originally, curses were the highest praise.

Qing walked off humming—actually humming outright.

But.

Qing saw the world a little differently, and read people’s karma as numbers, so she could feel this refreshed—

but her friends couldn’t.

Peng Daesan and Jegal Ihyeon met each other’s eyes, exchanged a look, and only shook their heads silently.

The amazing part was that it was only two reactions in the whole group.

Because Gyeon Pohee had no thoughts.

Because she had no thoughts at all.

And Seol Iri also had no thoughts.

Because she, too, had no thoughts at all.

Jayeo was still young.

And Tang Nanna couldn’t find a single thing wrong in Qing’s attitude—if anything, she felt newly impressed.

She even used respectful speech to a lowly merchant bastard. Seriously, Qing was too kind—that was the problem.

This was why merchant bastards didn’t know their place and dared to act disgustingly, putting on airs and crawling up because she looked easy.

Being gentle was good, but Qing needed to learn how to be ruthless, too.

It would be terrifying to imagine what kind of three-headed, six-armed monster would be born if Qing got even more ruthless in her current state, but.

Anyway—this was the true nature of the best friendship society that would lead the martial world’s future: the Half-Sword Twin-Blade Society!

If someone knew, they would have sighed long and deep.

The future of the righteous martial world—was it really going to be okay?