Chapter 796: Diancang Expedition (7)

Since the road is laid along a gentle mountain route on its own, even as you climb and climb, the rising slope stretches onward without end.

But if you ride a carriage, it doesn’t matter.

Am I the one suffering? The horse is the one suffering.

Ride a carriage up the bumpy mountain road—follow an uphill climb for two thousand li—and you reach Guiyang, the largest city and provincial capital of Guizhou Province.

And thus, Guiyang!

Amazingly, there is nothing here!

Because Guizhou Province is the countryside of countrysides.

If you grabbed Central Plains people and asked, “Where’s the most backwater place in the Central Plains?”, eight out of ten would pick Guizhou.

The remaining two would pick Guangxi.

You could argue Qinghai and Yunnan were farther, sure, but Guizhou was still considered the Central Plains.

Qinghai and Yunnan to the west, Liaodong and beyond to the east—those places weren’t even treated as the Central Plains, so they didn’t count as “countryside” either.

Meaning: Guizhou was awkward.

Guizhou was in-between.

The weather is mild year-round—summer isn’t hot, winter isn’t cold—but it’s not like it’s so exceptional you’d come here specifically to spend a summer or a winter.

The scenery is pleasant enough that it doesn’t bore you anywhere you look, but it’s not breathtaking, either.

There’s no famous “you must see it” spectacle, so tourists don’t really stop by.

And unlike Qinghai or Yunnan, it also doesn’t flaunt an exotic way of life as a land of foreign tribes.

Being “counted as the Central Plains” meant it had been incorporated long ago—Central Plains culture and customs had taken root.

Even the local specialties were awkward.

If you had to name one, there was Guizhou tea—but the neighboring Yunnan Province was the homeland of famed tea, where the finest tea in the world was grown.

But.

At Guiyang’s Finest Inn—Sword-Spirit Lodge—there was a sweltering heat in the air despite the cool weather.

People were sweating buckets, sucking in breath over and over—SSSIP, SSSIP—drool streaming down as they ate with obsession, failing a million times to hold back their exclamations.

“GASP—what on earth is this flavor...?!”

“Sweat pours, my mouth feels like it’s on fire, my heart feels ready to burst! And yet—SSSIP—ah—I can’t stop!”

“SSSSK—more, more alcohol—hey, inn clerk! Bring a bottle of Maotai—no, bring a whole jug!”

“OOOH—my chopsticks won’t stop!”

“AAAAAGH—what is this?! SSSSSK—this taste—how can the world hold a taste like this! The greatest taste of my life! What—what in the world is this taste?!”

“Incredible. You don’t know? Ah—this is called ‘spicy.’ They put in a generous amount of chili pepper.”

“Spicy! This flavor is...!”

“Spicy! It’s spicy! It’s too spicy! But I love it!”

Qing’s eyes flashed as she came down to eat after unpacking.

Oh. So spicy food is famous here?

“Spicy food’s famous?”

“In Guizhou? I can’t say I’ve heard that, exactly.”

Zhuge Hyun looked troubled.

Chili pepper—that mysterious red spice that had slipped in from somewhere at some point—wasn’t widespread yet.

But if Qing knew Central Plains history well, she might have known: Guizhou wouldn’t become famous for spicy cooking for another hundred years.

And she might have known, too, that this was the era when the legend of the Central Plains’ number-one spicy taste was just beginning to stir.

Later, people would say: Sichuan people do not fear spicy food, Hunan people do not care about degrees of spice, and Guizhou people fear food that is not spicy.

It was the beginning of Guizhou’s love of heat.

Of course, Qing was ignorant of Central Plains history—and at least here, you couldn’t really blame her for being ignorant.

Who among all humanity under heaven cared about the Central Plains’ history?

Not knowing it was normal; the one who knew it in detail was the weirdo, the suspicious one.

“If you insist on naming a Guizhou specialty, I’ve heard the liquor called Maotai is at least worth drinking.”

“Wait—Maotai?”

Qing’s ears perked up.

Maotai.

Wasn’t that ridiculously famous? The most expensive liquor in the Central Plains, that kind of thing?

Of course, not yet.

For Maotai to become the Central Plains’ top liquor would take another two hundred years.

Qing’s eyes glittered.

Liquor, sure—but more than that: spicy stuff!

It had been a long time since she’d eaten anything properly spicy since coming to the Central Plains.

Spicy flavors existed here, of course.

Even without chili pepper, there were spices that made heat.

But the burning punch chili pepper gave—like the people of Guiyang were feeling now—was a brand-new sensation.

Qing’s spiritual roots were Korean.

And “Korean” meant spicy.

Her ancestors might have protested—what are you talking about, we didn’t historically eat spicy, where did this suddenly come from, how did spicy become “our” taste—

but anyway, by the time Qing had stepped into the martial world, Koreans loved heat.

“Inn clerk! Spicy stuff seems popular here—how spicy is it? Is it really spicy?”

“Heh-heh-heh, honored guest. It’s hard to say it’s famous yet, but it will certainly become famous. Our cook Isai—last year in Sichuan, he ate the so-called world’s greatest cook’s Mara Ultimate Soup and was shocked, wasn’t he?”

“Oh. Mara Ultimate Soup. That was good.”

“Tsk, tsk. Honored guest, you don’t understand taste. What shocked Cook Isai was this: with chili pepper that burns like this, they make only that and call it cooking? Is that even cooking? That’s just thin soup you haul around and sell.”

“What!? You dare insult Mara Ultimate Soup? That’s the same as insulting me—I can’t stand it!”

“Nanna, endure it.”

“If Qing says so, then... I have no choice...”

Nanna’s flare-up was suppressed instantly.

“Ahem. And that was Cook Isai’s fated meeting with chili pepper.”

Cook Isai fell in love with the taste, took the seeds, and cultivated them himself.

And naturally—crops taste different depending on the soil.

So of course, what grew here became far hotter than Sichuan’s chili pepper.

“That’s why—even if you go to Sichuan, you’ll never taste heat like ours.”

“Hmph. Like it’s really that spicy.”

Sichuan had been a traditional stronghold of heat even before chili pepper, so the inn clerk’s pride in spice seemed to irritate her.

“That sounds delicious. Then... half properly spicy, half not spicy. About ten plates of dishes. And alcohol—Maotai, and if you’ve got anything better, bring that too. And meals—what are you all having for meals?”

Ten plates meant she was a big spender among big spenders.

“YES!!! HERE!!! TEN PLATES!!! ISAI’S SPECIAL CHILI-PEPPER PORK!!! LOVE TOFU FRITTERS!!! CHILI-PEPPER CHICKEN!!! HNNNGH—AND ALSO...”

The inn clerk bellowed the dish names loud enough to shake the place as he ran off.

Qing swallowed her saliva, looking forward to spicy food for the first time in ages.

Love Tofu Fritters.

Qing tilted her head at the spicy tofu fritter that would later become Guizhou’s signature.

What? It doesn’t look that spicy.

So she shoved a big chunk into her mouth—CHOMP—CHEW—CRUNCH—

“KH—HNGH—KH...!”

Inside the tofu, dizzying chili pepper stuffed to the brim set her mouth on fire.

It wasn’t just spicy—the pepper had been crushed and pickled in vinegar, so there was a sharp sourness that shot up into her nose on top of the heat.

It was unbelievably spicy.

A heat she’d never felt before.

“W-wow—SSSSK—what is—SSSSK—how do you—wow—SSSSSK—”

“What? It’s that spicy? Let me—oh. Yeah, that’s spicy.”

“It’s spicy, sure. But is it really worth that much fuss?”

“Oh. Sister, this is fiery.”

That was Tang Nanna’s, Peng Daesan’s, and Zhuge Hyun’s verdicts.

Seol Iri only cared about hot soup to begin with, and Gyeon Pohee just tilted her head at Qing—who was in shambles from the spice.

“SSSSK—no, you guys—why—SSSSK—GASP.”

Qing took a massive shock.

Me—me...!

I’m a spice weakling?!

I’m a spice weakling!! No way!!

Qing’s spirit was Korean, but Qing’s body was Central Plains-made.

And spice tolerance wasn’t something you held up with mental strength and preference—it was genetics. Flesh.

Yeonsul’s body couldn’t endure the intense heat it had never known.

After all, the Central Plains’ “spicy” had mostly been numbing rather than burning.

“HNNNGH... there’s spicy food and I can’t eat it.”

“Sworn little sister, are you crying?”

“No. I’m not crying. SSSSK—my eyes are just... watery. SSSSSK—Jayeo, no. Don’t eat it. It’s bad. Kids don’t eat this. If you mess up and eat spicy food wrong, you’ll seriously suffer. SSSSSK—you’ll die.”

“Mm...”

But.

“W-wah—SSSSK—spicy—too spicy—wahhh—SSSSK—wow—this is killing me—WAAAH.”

Qing’s stomach was invincible. It had to be.

There couldn’t be food under heaven that Qing couldn’t conquer—today’s suffering would return later as bliss.

Too spicy?

That’s weak talk.

Spice is training.

If you keep eating spicy food, you build up and the threshold rises.

Do you think people who love spicy were born drinking spicy formula?

It’s all mental strength. Mental strength.

You just don’t make the effort—EFFOOOORT—because spicy is so delicious. WAAAH.

Even if she’d lost all the precious spice tolerance she’d built by eating for years—SSSSK—ugh, it’s spicy.

What you lose, you fill again. WAAAH.

The party looked at her with pity.

If it’s spicy, don’t eat it—why is she shoveling it in while tears stream down her face?

Why is she doing this to herself?

And so, Qing accepted her true identity as a spice weakling—and even then, she didn’t despair, but tried to overcome it.

Being born able to eat spicy, and overcoming a spice-weak nature through great effort—what was more admirable?

It was all a posture toward spice that everyone should learn.

Anyway, after she spilled saliva, sweat, and tears at long-awaited heat—

She rested a full day, then in the morning spilled saliva, sweat, and tears again.

To everyone else, it looked like she was possessed.

Like the ghost of someone who died because they couldn’t eat spicy had latched onto her.

The schedule wasn’t urgent, but it wasn’t like they were going to go sightseeing on purpose, either.

They said there were famous temples and pretty mountains—

But Central Plains temples were more impressive, and Yunnan mountains were prettier.

So they left the boring city of Guiyang early and headed for Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan Province.

Distance remaining to the Diancang Sect: about two thousand li.