Chapter 985: Tears, Drop by Drop (6)

Martial people commonly liked to say that the Mystical Realm was a realm that “touched the cosmos.”

It was the sort of thing Mystical Realm seniors always said, and the sort of thing martial people who’d picked it up somewhere repeated with an air of knowing.

But maybe because of where she came from, Qing found it awkward—people in this primitive, ancient Central Plains casually putting the word “cosmos” in their mouths.

And yet the word “cosmos” had existed for about two thousand years.

In the Huainanzi—a book that gathered and organized the thought of the Hundred Schools—there was a line like this:

“From the past to the present in sum is called zhou; the four directions, above and below, in sum is called yu.” (往古來今謂之宙四方上下謂之宇)

In other words, “cosmos” was a concept that combined all time and all space—everything that existed. And the laws by which all of it flowed; the flow that arose from those laws; the phenomena that changed due to that flow; the order those phenomena formed when gathered...

“Mm. I don’t get it at all.”

THUMP.

Qing shut the book with refreshing decisiveness.

In the first place, the era of the Hundred Schools was the time of primitive ancient primitives—no, the time of ancient primitive primitives. How would they know the cosmos? They wouldn’t.

They probably just used the word “cosmos” to express each thinker’s ideal world and ultimate destination—another word for truth itself.

Of course, in that sense, even when it came to what the “cosmos” martial warriors pursued was supposed to be, Qing could vaguely—sort of—feel like she almost understood, until she actually thought about it and it became a bleak, blank wall.

And asking her master didn’t help much either.

Because it was fundamentally impossible for a person to convey their lived experience to someone else.

Even if you tried to convey the scenery you were seeing right now, no matter how detailed your record or explanation, you couldn’t deliver its true form.

Even in Qing’s hometown, even with photographs and videos—things created alongside the very beginning of human civilization—people still couldn’t convey the scenery they saw exactly as it was.

Because scenery wasn’t only visual stimulus. It was the wind brushing your skin, the temperature of the world surrounding your body, the vivid depth that changed with focus, the sounds you heard, and even the patience you had to endure to arrive there.

An experience formed by all those senses interwoven together.

The thing you needed to understand the scenery someone else described was experience.

If you had already lived through something similar—if the description and lines could awaken that memory—maybe it would feel vivid.

But her master was in the cosmos.

If you asked someone in the cosmos, “What is the cosmos like,” and got an explanation—if you even received a photograph or a video and played it—at best it would be fascinating. Without the experience to understand it, it was like the old saying: a blind man feeling an elephant.

So even if Qing listened to Ximen Surin talk about the Mystical Realm day in and day out, what use would it be?

So Ximen Surin didn’t really try to talk about the scenery visible from her realm, either.

Qing had begged a few times at first, but afterward she realized it didn’t help.

Because the Mystical Realm was the realm you had to reach by stacking your own steps, one by one, on the highest peak of the Transformation Realm.

But.

Who had the time to sit there stacking that high staircase one step at a time!?

Qing had roughly learned the method of stacking the stairs.

Reworking martial arts into a complete interpretation that was wholly your own—or attempting to create new martial arts—those would be the toddling first steps into an un-trodden land on the way to the Mystical Realm.

And Qing had tried it before.

For the education at the Righteous-Proper Martial Academy, she had interpreted the Five Principles inside Oro Sword and produced the Three-Route Swordsmanship.

She could add even more principle to Oro Sword’s five flows and make it Nine-Route Sword—nine principles, nine routes.

Or while she was at it, rename it something cooler and call it the Gari Peak Sword—“adding principle to climb the peak.”

But Qing needed immediate combat power.

With the Blood Cult bastards clearly starting to stir in earnest, she couldn’t afford to sit around fiddling with swordsmanship and weaving stairs.

Founding a dynasty could wait. If she didn’t win right now, she was going to die.

Even the Martial Emperor Who Defies Heaven—who she’d been counting on—was sulking and told her to come back after she reached the Mystical Realm.

Seriously, the more she thought about it, the funnier that old man was.

If she hit the Mystical Realm, would she really be craving the Nine Solitary Swords?

It was because she couldn’t hit the Mystical Realm that she wanted to try the Nine Solitary Swords, a Transformation Realm-overpowered art...

And if she absolutely had to, she could follow Thousand-Kill Ancient Star’s guidance—obviously ominous.

Or, unreliable as it was, she could accept the grudges of Heaven-Crushing Demonic Energy.

When she thought about it that way, instead of leisurely stacking steps through orthodox training, what mattered first was finding a measure that could raise Qing’s combat power immediately.

And that method was?

Laughing, of course!

There was a saying—Qing wasn’t sure if it was actually an old saying or not—that when things were hard, the one who cried was third-rate, the one who endured was second-rate, but the one who laughed was first-rate.

Because laughter was the power and driving force that overcame adversity.

And as it happened, Qing knew a martial art (a demonic art) that turned laughter into power.

Its name was Skyward Laugh Kill.

According to the mnemonic-engraving formula carved into her head, the name Skyward Laugh Kill was taken from Skyward Great Laugh—“looking at the sky and laughing loudly.”

Separate the laughter-sounds and let them flow into the enemy’s ear, with differences in arrival timing and each direction distinct.

So the more the enemy heard the laughter, the more dizzy they became—their mind muddled, losing direction and wandering.

To do this, you had to understand laughter containing many emotions and be able to deploy them freely, because the emotions inside the laughter shook the enemy’s spirit, and their body would grow dizzy along with it.

At first, you separated two types of laughter left and right, governing a total of four flows.

But when you reached the extreme, if you released eight kinds of laughter in all directions, the sixty-four hexagrams would be formed from laughter-sounds, like establishing a killing formation.

And since the Ten Great Demonic Arts had all come from part of Northern Sea Divine Art, Skyward Laugh Kill was, among them, a demonic art that imitated the principle of the Eight-Directions True-Position Formula.

The Eight-Directions True-Position Formula was a secret that grasped the world through the flow of energy, but since Qing already cultivated the Awakening Divine Art—roughly similar in principle and function—it was more like, nice to have.

More than that, she wondered if she could use this to overcome Ripple-Stepping Mystic Stride’s “appearing from the blind spot.”

Ripple-Stepping Mystic Stride split into eight phantoms, and Northern Sea Divine Art also had a secret that emphasized eight directions, so there had to be something that connected.

Mm. So I need to collect laughter-sounds...

Once she made up her mind, Qing’s useless action-impulse was immediately excellent.

So she launched at once!

But Jayeo had gone out to play with her master, Heema was on lunch duty, and Jangmyeong was in the middle of Priestess Order work right now, wasn’t they?

Then there was only one leftover human available.

*****

“Iri. Laugh a little.”

“...?”

“Hurry.”

She popped up out of nowhere and told her to laugh—of course the listener would think, what kind of bullshit is this?

But Qing’s bullshit wasn’t exactly news.

Wasn’t she the kind of person whose mouth, when opened, produced fifty percent nutritionally empty bullshit by default?

And Seol Iri didn’t normally ask for reasons behind Qing’s antics. If you told her to do it, she did it.

It wasn’t that Seol Iri lacked ability—she just couldn’t manage it. In her nature, she was someone unfailingly earnest about anything.

So she tried, in her own way, to respond sincerely to the request to laugh.

Over her usual blank face—sullen, cold, without a trace of emotion—a faint but gentle smile appeared, like a miracle.

Dim like the morning star yet clear in presence, glittering—yet trembling like a wildflower, with a fragile, mournful haze that made you—

Qing let out a deep sigh.

No, I told you to laugh and you’re sitting there smiling. My Ice Chicken can’t even understand words anymore.

Seriously. My Ice Chicken’s face is her fortune. The problem is her only fortune is her face—but at least her face is pretty, so thank god, yeah...

“No. I said laugh. Don’t smile.”

Seol Iri’s pretty smile vanished instantly.

A subtle crease carved itself between her brows—GLARE.

Because she’d laughed when told to laugh, and now this was the bullshit she got?

And to be fair, the request “laugh” was ambiguous. Did it mean laugh out loud, or did it mean smile?

“Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Iri’s laughter. Can you even laugh?”

“No, yes.”

“You heard it? When did you hear it?”

“Yes, yes.”

“That ‘yes’ just now wasn’t a ‘no,’ was it? I asked when you heard it—why is ‘yes’ coming out?”

“Yes, yes.”

“You’re messing with me, right?”

“Yes.”

“What? You dare mess with me? Unforgivable!”

Qing lunged in and jabbed her fingers into Seol Iri’s side—POKE POKE POKE—delivering merciless punishment.

A ruthless, vicious killing move that once drove Sima Chunbong of the Jinan Hyunhwa to the brink of death by suffocation!

But Seol Iri just stared at Qing blankly.

Qing scratched the back of her neck, embarrassed.

“Mm. Iri doesn’t get ticklish...”

“Yes. But.”

Seol Iri suddenly, with complete calm, extended a finger and poked Qing in the side.

A sneak attack Qing never imagined—

“KYYAAAGH!”

Qing—who was ticklish herself, despite jabbing other people—jumped straight up and had a full-body fit.

At the same time, a sound brushed past Qing’s ear.

“Huh. You laughed just now, didn’t you? You laughed?”

“No. I didn’t.”

That was what she said—

But Qing had heard it.

A laughter-sound soft and quiet like snow piling up, warm like a blanket, and at the same time faint like a breeze.

*****

Sasa Bo-yeol wasn’t originally the type to enjoy taking walks.

His greatest hobby was caring for pet snakes, and snakes didn’t take walks. Bo-yeol’s joy in life had been staying shut inside a room watching snakes, then steeping tea leaves and taking little sips.

But once he got old, he discovered walking was fun.

Well, if everyone you met beamed at you and welcomed you—of course walking would start to feel good.

“The divine physician elder’s come out.”

“Oh, the divine physician elder! Are you heading to the ferry!”

“Hello, divine physician elder.”

From the ferry boatman passing by, to merchant house porters and merchants, and even runny-nosed little brats who bowed from the waist—

“Hehe. ‘Divine physician,’ my ass. Don’t make an old man feel ashamed.”

Even as he said that, deeper wrinkles formed across Bo-yeol’s wrinkled face, and a full bloom of laughter opened.

Bo-yeol knew very well that he was nowhere near worthy of being called a divine physician.

But still—how could he stop himself from feeling puffed up and pleased?

There was just one thing to consider.

Was this “divine physician” the divine physician meaning divine physician—the “divine physician” called that because his medicine had reached a ghostlike, wondrous realm?

For example—

In a certain group, back when they followed a Heavenly Demon and worshiped the king of all demonic arts, that group’s greatest physician was called a “demonic physician.”

But if that group switched its worship to a heavenly god and decided to follow the Supreme Most Venerable Sage Maitreya Goddess, the Priestess Supreme One—

Then the greatest physician of that sect should no longer be called a demonic physician, but something else.

And here, one merchant from Taecheong Merchant House smiled brightly at Bo-yeol.

“Ah, divine physician elder. Didn’t you ask before if we could get White Tiger Silver Needles?”

“Oh? Don’t tell me.”

“On this trade run, I helped a friend from Fujian when he got into trouble—and he thanked me by offering to sell me a whole doe.”

It might sound strange—he helped someone and didn’t get it for free, only “offered to sell.”

But among teas, the most valuable ones have an owner decided before the leaves are even picked, and the payment is made in advance.

So for a merchant to say he “sold” it meant he did a real favor—he took the hit, claiming the goods were damaged to the original owner, paying penalties and taking a reputation loss to redirect it.

And White Tiger Silver Needles—gathered by picking only the top three new sprouts from the precious white cypress trees of Fujian, then drying them—was so rare that “sold” was exactly the right word.

He’d obtained an entire doe of tea that precious.

And Silver Needles was famous for its flavor not changing even with time—people even said it had integrity—so he could keep it and drink it for a long, long time.

Old man Choi loved tea in no ordinary way, so maybe he’d serve it and make a big show of it. Maybe he’d let Seol the Grand Leader taste it too, since he was always indebted. And he should set some aside for when the Heavenly Flower Sword came to visit...

Ha. Today really was a lucky day.

Bo-yeol was so delighted he looked like his mouth might touch his ears, grinning with innocent glee, and because he was curious what this precious tea tasted like, he hurried back like he was flying.

So he returned to the clinic, took out his tea tools, and began cleaning them carefully.

And then.

—Elder, a guest has come to see you.

“Hm? Who is it?”

—He says he’s the master of the Golden Hawk...

Bo-yeol’s hand, wiping the tea tools, stopped dead.

Master of the Golden Hawk.

The only Golden Hawk Bo-yeol knew was the Golden Hawk Unit, the Evil Path Alliance’s special combat unit—and the one who could be called its master was the Golden Hawk Unit Commander.

The Golden Hawk Unit Commander.

Hyung Taejak, Iron-Fruit Grim Vulture.

Bo-yeol’s hand began to tremble in a thin shake.

What reason would there be for an Evil Path Alliance commander—of all people, the commander of a special combat unit—to come in person now?

What did that mean?

It could only be...

—What should we do? If he’s someone you don’t know, should we turn him away?

“No. No—don’t. I know him. Guide him in.”

The karma he had pushed aside finally crashed down over Sasa.