Chapter 979: It’s Me, You Fuckers (15)

First, the predetermined questions were simple.

If you picked at the rumor even a little, it was flimsy to the point of absurdity—and most rumors were like that.

So, if Qing organized it in the style of her hometown, the Q&A went like this.

Q: Lately we keep hearing about the Heavenly Flower Sword’s feats. But is it realistically possible to reach Harmonization at twenty? And since then, you’ve continued with unprecedented achievements—so we can’t help but wonder: did you borrow the power of demonic arts?

A: That’s entirely because I’m just that amazing. (Laughs.) Reaching Harmonization at twenty was possible because I had talent and effort beyond anyone else’s—and above all, because I had a great master who taught me with devoted dedication.

Q: In the martial world, there have been countless talented people, and countless who worked hard. Many of them also had good masters, yet no one has ever achieved that at twenty. Even the Martial Emperor Who Defies Heaven couldn’t do it—are you claiming you’re an even greater genius than that?

A: The Martial Emperor Who Defies Heaven—good point. In truth, there are surely many lucky people besides me who have talent, effort, and a master. But am I not the only one who has the Martial Emperor Who Defies Heaven’s karmic encounter? The Martial Emperor Who Defies Heaven reached a realm beyond the Mystical Realm, so I likely received a great deal of influence from that.

Q: Hearing it that way, it makes sense. Please continue with your splendid feats in the future.

Then the questioner changed.

Q: I want to ask about the life-and-death bond during the atonement march after the Nosan Blood Temple incident. At that time, the Heavenly Flower Sword was only at Harmonization, yet you won even against several martial artists of the same realm. That clearly violates the rivers-and-lakes rule—the principle that three face one. If you did not learn seed-extraction demonic arts, how was such divine might possible?

A: That, too, is entirely because I’m just that amazing. (Laughs.) First, there was a difference in resolve. I fought with the determination to kill, but they only wanted to plunder demonic arts. If I died, they couldn’t plunder demonic arts anymore—so their blades lacked decisive killing intent. You could say the outcome was decided from the level of resolve.

Q: Then isn’t that cowardly and base? Even though your opponents did not harbor killing intent, you unleashed a killing move?

A: Let’s not ask meaningless questions when we both live by the blade. And I said decisive killing intent. Are you saying I should have shown mercy to men who were willing to cut off my arms and legs?

Q: Even so, it’s impossible divine might. If it wasn’t Slay-in-Slay, how could you display divine might that transcended your realm?

A: There were, with a little exaggeration, thousands of spectators at the time. If I used demonic arts, wouldn’t someone have recognized it?

Q: With so many watching, you would not have used demonic arts.

A: A moment ago, didn’t you ask whether I used demonic arts to win? At least that answers that, doesn’t it.

Q: ......

The important point was this: the questioner threw suspicion in a way that leaned on emotion.

And Qing answered with logic, creating a sharp contrast.

In Jagwi County, it wasn’t only wolves who had come hunting for demonic arts. A considerable number had come simply because they were curious and wanted to watch.

And on top of that, storytellers—hustlers who made their living collecting events like this—had crowded in as well.

Wouldn’t those types, unaffected by Qing’s insulting attitude, objectively evaluate this exchange and spread it in all directions?

Ignorant fools trying to force the label of seed-extraction demonic arts onto the Heavenly Flower Sword.

And the Heavenly Flower Sword rebutting them with reason.

So the rigged Q&A continued...

.........

......

...

And then, in the middle of it—

“I heard something interesting. They say the Heavenly Flower Sword defeated two unit commanders of the Blood Cult—both at the Mystical Realm, no less? If it wasn’t seed-extraction demonic arts, how could a mere Harmonization martial artist defeat two Mystical Realm opponents? Isn’t this the strongest proof that you learned seed-extraction demonic arts?”

“H-huh, ah, that’s...”

Qing startled and trailed off.

At the same time, her eyes jittered helplessly from side to side as if she’d lost her way, and her lips trembled, trying to forcefully stop the words that wanted to come out—like she was hiding something.

“Whew. Everyone. Actually, that...”

Qing stammered as if her words were blocked.

The crowd’s eyes flashed.

That bitch has something! We got her properly!

But then—

“It’s true that I defeated two unit commanders of the Blood Cult, the Heart-Eating Demon Emperor and the Plunder Demon. However... that result was achieved through a shameful ambush, so I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone, and I hid it. Haah... truly, it seems there are no secrets in this world.”

“I ambushed villains who were completely unguarded. It was far from fair and square—an act of the utmost baseness.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You think you can wriggle out of it with that!? Even if they were ambushed, does it make sense that two Mystical Realm martial artists would lose to a mere Harmonization brat?!”

“That’s...”

Qing trailed off again.

“In truth... those two... no, those two bastards were...”

Still stammering, Qing squeezed her eyes shut and then screamed, like she was forcing out something she couldn’t bring herself to say.

“Those two bastards were screwing each other! The Plunder Demon on the bottom! The Heart-Eating Demon Emperor on top! Two old men! Together! Ugh—those two were doing that!”

Silence fell over everyone present.

It was so far beyond imagination that their brains simply stopped working for a moment.

“Screwing each other? What are you saying?”

“It’s... what they call... male-on-male sex...”

“Male-on-male sex.”

“Yes. Men with men. Ugh.”

Qing twisted her face like she truly hated saying it, and revealed a bright, unmistakable glare of contempt.

“When I found those two, they were already so engrossed in each other that they couldn’t see or hear anything beyond the two of them. There were loud wet sounds of flesh smacking—ugh—and the two old bastards were kissing and sucking, slurp-slurp...”

“URGH.” “Wait—I don’t want to hear this!” “Stop, stop!”

“At that moment, I thought, Now is the chance to execute these villains, and I attacked the two who were lost in their same-sex desire. I meant to pierce both and erase them, but everyone—do you know what the Heart-Eating Demon Emperor looks like?”

“I can’t hear, I can’t hear, I can’t hear...” “T-this—my blood and qi—KHUHK!”

“A lump of meat that looks like it could easily remember five hundred jin—old, sagging flesh—and that fat bastard completely covering the Plunder Demon and pumping his hips, the wobble of all that flesh—”

“GAAAH!!” “STOP!!! STOP!!!” “PLEASE!!”

Horrified screams cut across Qing’s explanation.

Had anyone ever heard anything this horrifying in their life? Just listening made it feel like their ears were rotting away.

“I wanted to kill both demonic masters in a single stroke, but the Heart-Eating Demon Emperor’s huge body completely covered the Plunder Demon, so I could only deal a fatal wound to the Heart-Eating Demon Emperor. And the Plunder Demon was fine.”

Qing swallowed.

Then she continued in a trembling voice.

“At that time... I was so afraid. In front of an enraged Mystical Realm martial artist, I... I ended up taking the Heart-Eating Demon Emperor hostage. Even now, the feel of that soft, squishy flesh is vivid in my hands...”

“Ah...” “Aah...!”

Pitying laments rose up in chorus.

Whether they were pitying the base act of taking a hostage, or whether the phrase soft, squishy flesh had forced a horrible image into their minds and they were expressing pure disgust—no one could tell.

“At that moment, the Plunder Demon knelt and begged me! Please spare my beloved! I can’t live without him! Please, don’t take my love from me! I beg you like this!”

Qing stomped—THUD.

“At that moment, I became truly ashamed. Can you imagine it? A Mystical Realm martial artist—though it was an inappropriate love between man and man—still, a Mystical Realm martial artist! Kneeling, begging, pleading like that to have his love returned!”

Qing’s speech reached its peak.

“So ashamed, I fled in a daze. The reason the Plunder Demon did not chase me was likely because, rather than me, he needed to save his lover—the gravely wounded Heart-Eating Demon Emperor. This is the truth of that day...”

Qing dropped her head.

And somehow, the mood turned solemn.

What was the best way to bury a rumor?

Spread a bigger, more shocking rumor to cover it up.

Use barbarians to strike barbarians. Use poison to subdue poison. Fight heat with heat—when it’s hot, you swallow something even hotter.

Look at these bastards—incitement and fabrication?

You think I can’t do it because I don’t know how?

(She already did. Constantly. Open her mouth and it’s incitement and fabrication—born an inciter.)

Of course, she didn’t usually lie.

Because lies grew bigger and bigger, and in the end they tended to bring bad results. The more you lied, the more it became a losing game.

And there was also a psychological line—call it resistance.

She’d rather mislead than outright lie.

But lies deserved lies.

An eye for an eye, blood for blood—lies for lies.

Blood Cult bastards, you started it first.

“Even now, the blood-boiling scream the Plunder Demon let out is still clear in my ears! Why do you Central Plains bastards persecute our sect like this?! Is it such a great sin for a man and a man to love each other?! The coupling of man and woman is to bear children, but the coupling of man and man is not—so isn’t it an act purely for love?! You who don’t understand that are pitiful and wretched!”

“T-this—!” “T-that’s—!”

“From the beginning, it’s you bitches who are the problem! You’re afraid we’ll take your men, so you control men and oppress us—drive our sect out! So when our sect rises again, we will kill every woman in the Central Plains and violate the men!!! We let you go for now, but remember!!! The wrath of our sect will soon cover the Central Plains!!!!!”

Qing’s imitation didn’t merely feel real.

It felt like the vicious malice itself was stabbing straight out of her mouth.

The crowd clamped their mouths shut again.

“I... was so afraid. Afraid of my own shameful ambush, and afraid of the true nature of the Blood Cult—afraid of the world they dream of. So... so I couldn’t speak...”

Qing pretended to wipe away tears.

Then someone suddenly shouted.

They’d forgotten formal speech out of habit in their urgency, but the opening move had ended a long time ago, so there was no reason to grab it as a pretext now.

“How—how can anyone believe that!? I’ve never heard something that bizarre in my life—evidence! Do you have any evidence?!”

“There is no evidence. But!”

Qing put force into the next words, cutting off noise and pulling everyone’s focus back before she continued.

“I encountered those two demonic masters just last winter. But if it was last winter, how could the rumor already be spreading like this? Unless someone deliberately spread it, it can only be that someone who bears a grudge against me distributed a slander meant to frame me widely—so what group could do that besides the Blood Cult?”

“D-do you have proof it was last winter?”

“Last winter, when I went traveling to Changbai, I found a Blood Cult lead in Liaodong. After that, together with the Liaodong Grand General Noihapjeok’s elite Eight Banners, I carried out a villain-suppression campaign. And in the midst of that... I witnessed the unit commanders’ cou—that. If you go to Liaodong, you should be able to secure such testimony without much difficulty.”

In other words: there were witnesses.

No—there were plenty of witnesses.

The crowd fell silent, mouths closed.

Blood Cult unit commanders, so engrossed in male-on-male sex that they allowed an ambush—and were even gravely wounded?

It was an outrageous story that was hard to say even as a joke.

And yet—somehow, it felt more convincing than the claim that the Heavenly Flower Sword was a seed-extraction witch.

Sometimes, the more impossible something sounded, the more persuasive it became.

The Blood Cult was a gathering of male-on-male perverts, dreaming a horrific ambition to invade the Central Plains, kill women, and violate men?

Just imagining it made your knees go weak.

So it was only natural that the crowd, shocked to the core, couldn’t easily crawl back out of this silence.

Inside, Qing repeated to herself with a sinister little laugh.

Rumors? They don’t disappear.

Even if I do this, the backbiting about me being a seed-extraction witch will keep going forever—and there’s no way to catch and kill a rumor once it’s already ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) spread. Not even in my advanced future world.

Backbiting? Let them backbite.

In the first place, you couldn’t be loved by everyone.

Maybe the old Qing—maybe the Qing who was a foreigner and a loner in the Central Plains—would have cared.

But now? She had plenty of people who liked her.

So sure. There could be people who hated her too.

People didn’t need a reason to like someone.

They just liked them. Wasn’t that reason enough?

And people didn’t need a reason to hate someone either.

But if you were hated for no reason, it felt unfair.

So you made them a reason to hate you.

And when the ones spreading rumors about someone revealed their personal hostility toward that person, the truth of the rumor itself inevitably became suspect.

If someone badmouthed the Heavenly Flower Sword and, in that badmouthing, exposed their animosity toward the Heavenly Flower Sword?

Then the listener would naturally filter it out.

So—seed-extraction witch? Fine. She’d bear it.

So what are you going to do about it?

But you all can taste a rumor too.

If the Blood Cult became seen as a group of male-on-male perverts hungry for same-sex desire, maybe it would jolt them awake.