Chapter 978: It’s Me, You Fuckers (14)

Qing examined Jang Chiwang.

He looked like he was holding his head stiffly high, but his pupils were caught under his lower lids, his gaze hovering roughly around Qing’s feet.

His mouth corners drooped, his lips pressed shut—like he had forgotten how to speak—standing there in mute silence with a vacant stare.

It was a kind of surrender, but at the same time it was also an outpouring of grievance.

Yeah, I made a mistake, but did I deserve this much? Couldn’t you do it in moderation and let it go? Sure, talking down to you out of nowhere was my fault, but isn’t this excessive—like we’re blood enemies?

It was so transparent that Qing found it absurd.

Grievance? Why is he “grieved”?

The talking-down part was something she’d seized as an excuse. The real problem was that he was even here in the first place.

Why would a guy who was an “elder” come all the way here? Because he heard the seed-extraction demonic arts rumor and came hoping to get his hands on it somehow, obviously.

He was loitering and watching because this was the Priestess Order Temple’s front yard and he was scared of her master—but if something ugly started, he was exactly the type who would flip instantly and start spraying sword strikes.

His very reason for being here was a scheme meant to harm her, and yet he’d expected her to laugh and grin and treat him politely like an “elder”?

Qing let out a deep sigh.

“Ugh, forget it. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth. I’ve been upset lately, so I was going to quietly look at the moon and sort out my thoughts, but...”

And at the same time, she resumed her booming “talking to herself.”

“Seriously—some ridiculous rumor nobody would believe. I figured only a brainless idiot, worse than a dog, would fall for it, so it would die off on its own... but no. Man. I want a drink.”

Everyone listening flinched, all at once.

She was saying it out loud so they could hear: if you believe this rumor, you’re a brainless idiot worse than a dog.

And then, as if separate from that, Qing suddenly snapped.

“The more I think about it, the more pissed I get. A public statement? Fine. I’ll do it! Ha! You even built a whole platform just to beg for my ‘position’? Bunch of useless bastards—why don’t you work hard on your own lives.”

The crowd was wronged.

We didn’t build the platform!

“Everyone, could you clear a path for a moment?”

And the whole time she moved toward the platform, she never stopped muttering loud enough for everyone to hear.

“What—there are this many morons who won’t listen unless I explain it with my own mouth? The future of the martial world is dark. Dark as hell. People like this should just bite their tongues and die. If they breed, they’ll pass that brain down and those idiots will flip the whole world over. If any of these bastards have even a shred of conscience, they should castrate themselves. Honestly.”

Just listening made hearts pound THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP like it was damaging their chests. It made their insides feel like a thousand flames were roaring up, their internal energy twisting and surging, as if the shadow of deviation was settling over them.

So by the time Qing climbed onto the platform, the eyes looking up at her were vicious—hatchet-eyed glares.

Like they were saying, Let’s see what kind of bullshit you spit.

Like they’d decided, We’ll never listen nicely. We’ll twist whatever you say however we want.

So what was the very first thing Qing did after stepping onto the platform and sweeping her gaze over the crowd boiling below?

She lifted the gourd flask at her waist and took a long, cool gulp.

“KIIYAAAH...!”

All of a sudden, it turned into a drinking show.

Qing didn’t stop there. She rummaged and unwrapped a bundle tied in bamboo leaves, then took a huge bite out of the braised pork inside.

If you drank, you took a bite of food too.

Hadn’t she said from the start that she was on her way to board a flower boat and have a drink? In the Central Plains, when you went boating, it was normal to bring your own liquor and food from what people usually did.

Still—biting straight into a whole chunk of braised pork like that was a fresh kind of shock.

What is this? Why does it look so good? I should try eating it like that later... GULP.

So Qing went munch munch, nom nom, gulp.

Then she drew in a big breath—HUUUUP—and in that short span the crowd swallowed down the saliva that had pooled, and leaned in again.

But the crowd got fooled again.

“Haaah...” Qing let out a refreshingly cool sigh, put the gourd flask back to her lips, and started chugging.

GULP. GULP. Her throat bobbing smoothly.

Then she opened wide and took another huge bite of the braised pork in her other hand, cheeks puffing up like a squirrel as she chewed and chewed.

“W-what, what...!” “What is she doing right now?” “What the—!”

A wave of grumbling outrage burst out all at once.

The plaza filled with a noisy MURMUR MURMUR.

Qing didn’t care. She kept going—GULP GULP, munch munch, utterly calm. For scratching at people’s nerves, she was creatively, brilliantly gifted.

How long did it go on?

At last, the angle of her chugging reached its peak—she lifted the bottom of the flask straight up to the sky and shook it out, wringing every last drop like a miser.

Her liquor-and-food ratio must have been perfect, because the fist-sized chunk of braised pork vanished without a trace, leaving only the bamboo-leaf wrapping behind.

The crowd’s insides were boiling, their heads burning, their inner demons bearing down—and after watching Jang Chiwang’s humiliation and disgrace, they couldn’t even raise their voices. They could only keep swallowing their saliva over and over.

Now you’ve eaten, so aren’t you going to say something?

But then—

The Heavenly Flower Sword reached behind her waist as if feeling around, and pulled out another gourd flask with a crisp motion.

There’s more booze. There’s still a whole flask left!

“What the hell kind of stunt is this!!”

In the end, someone who couldn’t endure it let out an enraged roar.

But Qing beamed.

“Oh? Did some honored elder just speak? It sounded like it came from over there. You addressed me so boldly, so you must be a venerable senior from a great sect, yes? The one in blue martial robes with a white vest—may I ask which sect you’ve come from? Shall we hear your wise opinion?”

In an instant, the crowd fell silent and swallowed—this time for a different reason.

So that was it. She’d been chugging in front of them on purpose, provoking them, to do this!

A terrifying woman. A wicked woman.

Separately from that, the crowd around the man she had pointed at scampered away, opening distance in a rush.

Partly to avoid getting burned by stray sparks—but also as encouragement: We’ve cleared the stage. Say what you really think.

Suddenly left standing alone, the man made a bold, principled declaration.

“It—it wasn’t me. I didn’t— It wasn’t me. I just... I thought I heard it too. Somewhere around here.”

A principled denial.

Qing kept smiling.

“Not you? Not youuu? Then which sect are you from, that you’re using formal address with me? You look young.”

“N-no. I— I panicked and misspoke. No, it’s not that the sound misspoke, it’s— I— I’m not— I’m not.”

Qing’s eyes narrowed.

It’s you, isn’t it?

But it wasn’t particularly important.

This was enough. The opening move had done its job. Now everyone had learned exactly what would happen if they moved their mouths carelessly.

Qing withdrew her gaze.

The man who had denied it let out a relieved breath, then—under the looks of contempt from the people around him—slipped away and disappeared.

That should do it.

Qing clapped twice, gathering attention.

“I’m the Heavenly Flower Sword. Seeing you all gathered here like this, I have to say—you look like people overflowing with leisure. It’s really a nice sight.”

Including what came after, the gist was:

Yeah, it’s me, you useless bastards.

A magnificent opening.

Of course, she didn’t want to deal with these disgusting idiots for long, so she went straight to the point.

“All right. I will state my position.”

Ahem. She cleared her throat once.

“There seems to be a rumor going around that I have learned seed-extraction demonic arts. That is not true. In the first place, I wonder if believing a rumor like that isn’t a matter of intelligence—and as for you, who ran all the way here to waste time over it, I find it truly difficult to hide my astonishment at how little you have to do. If you’d swung your sword even one more time in that same span, you could have become a master who has no need for any demonic arts. Ah—thinking about it, I suppose only pathetic bastards with no skill and no effort are the ones who chase demonic arts.”

It was a statement that made you doubt your own ears.

That rumor? Anyway, it’s false.

She spent exactly one line on the rumor, then devoted most of the “statement” to insulting them while pretending to be polite.

Mockery like this had no equal. Ridicule like this had no equal.

It was so unprecedented that it almost felt like witnessing a brand-new technique, leaving everyone slack-jawed.

“......Still, there will surely be those among you who can’t accept it if I leave it at that. So, in my generosity, I will grant you a Q&A session—me, the impressive one, granting it to you, the unimpressive ones. If you have a rebuttal, raise both hands high. I will explain it so simply and clearly that even a seven-year-old child can understand.”

For a moment, it looked like people were checking each other’s faces—

Then coughing broke out here and there, loud and showy, and soon quite a few people raised their hands.

Qing’s expression twisted.

“Are your earholes clogged? I said if you have a rebuttal, raise both hands high. And not halfway—high. Can’t you understand human speech? Do I have to make it even easier than this? Here—raise them up like this.”

Qing thrust both arms straight up, pressing her upper arms tight against her ears.

The pose was exactly like a child standing to be punished.

Hands that had gone up began to sink back down.

Because raising both hands high like a kid being punished wasn’t an easy thing to do when you were a grown adult.

Because it was ridiculous...

And for Central Plains people who prized face, it was even harder to endure the humiliation.

So the crowd was busy reading each other’s eyes.

It’s too humiliating for me to do it. I want someone else to shout it for me, cleanly, in my place...

But soon, the crowd found a trick.

There was always a trick.

In groups dispatched by sects that included both seniors and juniors, they started jabbing the youngest in the side, hard.

The youngest in a family might be happy, but the youngest in an organization was always miserable—so in the end, under pressure that was pressure in everything but name, they had no choice but to raise both hands high.

Qing spoke again, as if remembering to ask.

“Just in case, I’ll ask. ‘Group customers’—can I even call you customers? Anyway, those of you who came as groups won’t push out your underlings, will you? To say it again, I’m dealing with elder-rank figures here. If there isn’t a true senior among you, then basic manners say the representative of the group steps forward. Ah, seriously. Do I have to explain even this kind of common sense? Even you bastards who’ve thrown manners in the trash can’t be that bad.”

Fists that had popped up here and there vanished as if they’d never existed.

Seriously—dark-world trash, you’re transparent. Transparent as glass.

Qing clicked her tongue and scanned the people still holding their hands up, volunteering to stand in punishment.

Like she was choosing who to call on.

But it wasn’t choosing.

It was searching.

Let’s see... a wolf-fang pendant, a hero headband with a three-taegeuk emblem... ah. There.

What a shame—but the questioner had been predetermined from the start.

She had asked Seolga-nom in advance: could they prepare a plant who would disguise themselves as a nameless wanderer and ask a question?

“All right. You there—the martial artist wearing a wolf-fang pendant. Start with an introduction, please.”

“......I’m a wandering rogue active in Honam.”

“Oh, Wandering Rogue—”

“THREE-ISLAND SWORDSMAN!”

Qing’s words got chopped off mid-sentence by the epithet that suddenly burst out.

The echo wasn’t loud, so it didn’t look like many people knew it—but it still meant he had a reputation of his own.

Qing’s eyebrow twitched.

What? A curveball? Did I pick the wrong person? Wolf-fang pendant, blue headband with a three-taegeuk emblem—hm. Is there a shop that sells those?

Of course, Qing had picked the person correctly.

It was just that Seolga-nom’s “recruiting ability” had, more precisely, amounted to briefly calling in a spy that the Demonic Cult had planted in the southern dark-world territory.

If the crowd had known, they would have exploded in rage on the spot, righteous sect or not, generation order or not.

They’d taken humiliation after humiliation from a bratty young girl, swallowed it all, and finally clawed out this precious “interrogation”—this Q&A time—only for it to be nothing but a cunning rigged setup.

But they didn’t know, so what could they do?

It couldn’t be helped.

Because Qing came from a future that hadn’t arrived yet—a society where tricks like this were so normal they weren’t even worth remarking on.

In Qing’s common sense, at an official press conference and position statement, everyone knows the questioners are predetermined.

Compared to that, the Central Plains people were nothing but innocent, artless primitives.