Chapter 969: It’s Me, You Fuckers (5)

But Qing could understand.

Because Jayeo was a major matter.

Jayeo was cute. Because she was cute.

And she was heartbreaking, too. A little kid who never caused the usual trouble or threw the usual stubborn fits—like she was always watching everyone’s mood because she was afraid someone might hate her.

Qing almost wished Jayeo would flop onto the floor and throw a tantrum, or cry over something stupid with snot bubbling at her nose, making a scene...

Still, it would get better, little by little.

Qing shook off the pity.

She just had to make it get better, no matter what.

“Come on, old man. Jayeo—I can bring her over. You’re really doing this in front of a guest?”

“Yeah? Then... let’s all have dinner together, quietly, as a family.”

“No, old man. Now that you’ve got a granddaughter, what am I—some kind of Jayeo stand? A Jayeo stretcher? A Jayeo launch platform? I show up and you don’t even say ‘let’s eat,’ you just tell me to go up, grab Jayeo, and come back down?”

“Ahem.”

Choi Ri-ong seemed to realize they’d gotten carried away, and swallowed an embarrassed, pointless cough.

Well. That just meant they missed her that much.

“All right, all right. Mr. Kim—this is my grandpa. Old man—this is my friend, Hero Kim Heojung.”

In the Central Plain, even if there was a huge age gap, people could become friends if they clicked. It wasn’t anything special—pretty common, really.

More precisely, it was something that was taken for granted in most cultures across the world, except for Qing’s hometown—the Joseon that formed her “root.”

Had Qing, now seven years into life in the Central Plain, really become a Central Plain person just because she’d “drunk the water” here?

Well, in a place like this, you didn’t need seven years to adapt to “you’re allowed to do that.”

Back in Qing’s hometown, did it take foreign trading companies a whole year to move in and start running every local trick and scam in the book?

Humans really were animals of adaptation.

Kim Heojung flinched a little.

But somehow it didn’t feel bad—if anything, it made him relax. Asking whether they were “friends” or not was one of those humiliating, difficult questions, and Qing had solved it in a single stroke.

So he just kept his mouth shut, and Qing continued.

“He says he wants to put down the sword and rest, but he doesn’t really have anywhere he can call home. Do you have any work at the trading house?”

Qing didn’t bother stating Kim Heojung’s realm because Kim Heojung was saying he wanted to go into seclusion—

Well. “Seclusion” was a bit off.

Retirement?

Even that was weird, since he’d never really stepped into Murim in the first place, so calling it retirement didn’t quite fit either.

Anyway, he’d lost his will for martial arts.

He was only cultivating the Lunar Jade Maiden Divine Art to fix his ugly face. He wasn’t interested in any achievements beyond that.

More than anything, it was an outrageously shameless job referral.

But in the Central Plain, there was no such thing as an Employment Procedure Fairness Act, so there was no problem.

And in this era, someone introduced by a person you knew was far more trustworthy than a complete stranger.

Choi Ri-ong let out a long sigh.

“Every time you go out, you come back dragging a person with you. If he wants to stay at the Seol Family Trading House, talk to that Seol bastard first. If they say there’s nothing, I’ll find him something at the Daechung Merchant House. Work’s the kind of thing where, if it exists, it exists—and if it doesn’t, you make it exist.”

It wasn’t like this was the first person Qing had “picked up.”

She picked up Seol Iri (who followed on her own), an old man and his grandson rolled in, and she recruited Sasa-ui—wasn’t her record already plenty dazzling?

Not that it was actually troublesome. It was a minor issue at most.

“Forget that. You hungry? Even if you’re a cruel bitch who only shows up when you need something, I still have to feed you. That’s what I live for, at least. My fate’s like that.”

Qing snorted.

That “fate” was a lot better than when Choi Ri-ong was in the Demonic Cult, wasn’t it? Just looking at how generous they’d gotten, how their face had filled out enough to smooth the wrinkles.

*****

Usually, when Qing arrived at the Seol Family Trading House, she ate right away.

To be exact, it was a vaguely awkward time to call it “dinner.”

If she ate lunch in Xingshan County and walked at an easy pace, it took about two shichen—so, in the timekeeping here, right around the middle of the Monkey Hour.

In Qing’s hometown style, that was four in the afternoon.

Even on the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, it would still be light then.

And in late spring, when spring was in full bloom and the first hint of heat was starting to show, the sun might as well be hanging right overhead—the daylight was blazing.

Of course, Qing ate four meals a day thanks to the influence of the Life-Breath Formula—nothing as grand as some “Jinju Eon Family Internal Art,” just a normal martial art—so it was the perfect time for dinner for her.

For normal people, it would still be heavy, like lunch hadn’t even fully gone down yet.

But what did that matter?

If the Supreme One called it dinner, then it was dinner!

From now on, Qing would eat dinner at the Monkey Hour.

Wasn’t dinner originally eaten at the Monkey Hour?

The dinner table, as always, was packed with Qing’s tastes—meat, meat, meat, and more meat.

Before, she’d eaten nothing but meat until she got a little sick of it.

But now she had something like the taste of home: a soup with salted napa cabbage.

Of course, the napa cabbage of this era was thin and skinny—closer to big, thick bok choy than real cabbage—and since the fish sauce was made with the Central Plain’s style of “fish brine,” it didn’t match perfectly.

That fish brine was one of the Central Plain’s fermented sauces, made from freshwater clams, usually using the liquid—an ancient, primitive kind of fish sauce.

And if you pronounced it the Central Plain way, it turned into something like “kechiap,” and then after it spread to the western regions, they started calling it “ketchup,” or so the story went.

Anyway, Qing’s appetite was number one under heaven.

She stuffed her cheeks until they looked ready to burst, gulping food down whether she’d chewed it properly or not—more drinking than eating.

And as the Highest Sacred-Flame Priestess watched Qing’s ferocious meal—unable to tell whether she was looking at the Supreme One or a pig—her heart still filled with nothing but joy.

How could the Supreme One eat with such gallant dignity!

Surely this was the same force with which she crushed the enemies of the faith—declaring a grand, righteous ambition!

In front of a zealot with blinders welded onto their eyes, it didn’t matter whether Qing ate like a pig, ate a pig, or started a bizarre dance mid-meal while howling at all four directions.

Either way, she would look amazing.

So the Highest Sacred-Flame Priestess was happy.

Qing was happy too, getting a table spread endlessly with her favorite dishes.

And Choi Ri-ong—grumbling nonstop while still ladling more food onto Qing’s plate—was probably happy too.

They finished that meal, all of them happy in their own ways.

Then they moved seats.

Qing dropped her generous ass into the front seat across from a cool, striking beauty.

Big, deep-set eyes with a sharp hollow to them, and a high bridge of the nose that stood out in contrast—features so vivid she looked like a beauty from the western regions.

Straight on or from the side, she was beautiful.

And this was the person whose beauty had been making waves lately—the Trading House Master of the Seol Family Trading House.

The peerless “beautiful man”—

Seolga-nom.

“Wow, Seolga-nom. How pretty are you planning to get? I swear I got fluttery without meaning to. How about you take Gunyeong’s place and join the Five Flowers of Murim?”

“Lately I’ve been thinking the nickname that suits ‘the most beautiful in the Central Plain’ is ‘Giant Breasts.’ It means the breasts are so big they’re bigger than the head. Of course, it’s also because the head is small. Ah—your suggestion is right.”

“Ha ha ha. So funny. Seolga-nom, you’ve gotten a lot better at jokes too.”

“Ha ha ha. Not compared to you.”

It looked like the classic kind of “girls’ greeting”—praising each other to their faces while somehow both sides got annoyed.

But in reality, one person was a man mentally...

...and the other person’s body—everything except the face—was a man.

Besides, men’s friendship was built on talking trash and then having the one who was wrong get mad first. It definitely wasn’t called “bosom friends” because you become gentle and polite.

Anyway, it meant they were close, so it didn’t matter.

And the reason Qing specifically pointed at Seolga-nom and told him to push Seol Iri out of the Five Flowers of Murim?

It wasn’t because Seol Iri was the least pretty.

It was just because they were relatives. If Murim’s “top five” had two people with the surname Seol, it felt weird.

Some kind of surname quota system.

Because of that, only Kim Heojung was left awkward, staring hard at the wallpaper pattern like he’d found religion there.

The result of the two beautiful “men” sizing each other up was... Kim Heojung’s loss.

“This is Seolga-nom. Smartest person I know.”

“Could you stop doing that? You say it like a joke, but everyone starts thinking it’s true.”

“...?”

Qing tilted her head.

Thinking it’s true? But it is true.

Ah. Right.

“Come on, that’s modesty. You know how it is—people who are genuinely impressive don’t bother saying they’re impressive. Only people who are sort of impressive stay busy bragging.”

Truly rich people didn’t flaunt wealth.

Only people who were barely rich—or who got rich suddenly—couldn’t stand not showing it off, and tried to display it in every tacky, petty way possible.

Same thing here.

Real experts didn’t show their expertise. If you asked them anything, their answer was always vague: Huh? That? Yeah, it’s that... because... wait, why was it again? Anyway, there’s a reason, I just can’t remember.

“This is Hero Kim—Kim Heojung. Seolga-nom, remember how I told you about the Lunar Jade Maiden Divine Art before? I told Hero Kim about it.”

“I don’t care. If we’re being strict, I stole it too. Later, when I go to the underworld, I can grab those bastards and ask them how it feels that I handed out their secret martial arts for free. So really, it works out.”

“Stole” was putting it mildly. It was more like: slaughtered them all, burned the house down, tore the roots out of the ground, and took it.

“Let’s see... you called him ‘Hero,’ so he must have a bit of age on him. Ah, is that so? It’s not like we’re decades apart. I’ll just call you Brother Kim.”

Qing nodded along.

See? Everyone looked at his small frame and assumed he was some kid, but a smart person could tell just from hearing him talk that it wasn’t like that.

“I’m Seolga-nom. I’m from the Northern Sea Seol Clan, and my name is nasty—‘ga-nom’—but you can just call me Seolga, or Seolga-nom, either way. Now then, Mr. Kim... would that mean you came from the east? I’ve heard the surname Kim is as common there as Jang is here.”

...But why was Seolga-nom acting friendly?

Seolga-nom wasn’t an antisocial person to begin with, but Qing didn’t remember him being the type to close distance this hard from the first meeting.

“Brother Kim. With only the Lunar Jade Maiden Divine Art, it’ll be hard to see real results. The cultivation of Snow Mountain is an inner-and-outer unity. When the divine art is only one, it’s like one effect—so you should cultivate these three together to bring out ten effects: Jade Maiden Cold-Ice Palm, Jade Maiden Profound Ice, and Jade Maiden Treading Snow. The owners of these martial arts are no longer in the world, so it won’t cause problems. If you’re interested, I’ll teach you.”

Seolga-nom spoke with a gentle, pleasant smile.

But it was an expression Qing had never seen from him before.

If anything, it felt suspicious.

Or maybe... slippery.

And then the thought hit her.

Don’t tell me he’s trying to recruit him because he doesn’t want to be the only peerless “beautiful man” anymore?

But honestly, it sounded fun.

And fun aside—there was still a warped shape behind Kim Heojung’s mask. Why else would he still be covering up?

Kim insisted he was handsome originally, but no matter how Qing looked at it, the “original” state—

No. Bad thought. Don’t think bad thoughts...

“Ah, Brother Kim. I have something private to discuss with this friend of mine. Make yourself at home. If you get bored, help out with a little work. Someone—take our guest to the annex.”

So Kim Heojung was escorted out.

Only then did Seolga-nom return to his usual face—maybe it was an Ice Palace trait, maybe it was the Seol family style, but his expression thinned into that muted, slightly sullen look.

“So what is it? Did you really learn seed-extraction demonic arts? With that face and those breasts, it feels like it would already be easy enough to take a man’s desire. Did you really need seed-extraction demonic arts on top of that?”

“Can you pick one—teasing or attacking? The first one still pisses me off, but if you’re going with the second, you realize the main character of the next Dragon-Phoenix Assembly is going to be ‘Seol Garyeon, Newly Appeared in Murim,’ right?”

“Ahem.”

Seolga-nom coughed and changed the subject.

“Fine. That’s enough. So—did you really learn seed-extraction demonic arts? If you were going to use it, you should’ve used it carefully, in secret. Why were you so careless that the rumor spread everywhere? Well... I knew a day like this would come.”

“What ‘day’? Seed-extraction demonic arts—I didn’t learn it.”

“You didn’t?”

“I didn’t.”

“Hm. I thought maybe your killing intent flared up and your hand got so vicious it was unspeakably horrific. I figured you got caught slaughtering villains at night.”

“Uh... yeah.”

Seolga-nom gave a bitter smile.

“That part you don’t deny. That really is you. So what the hell happened?”