Chapter 798: I Don’t Like This Trend (2)

It felt like time had stopped.

The gate guard had frozen in the exact posture of peering into the pouch—an uncanny trick that reminded Qing of street performance artists back in her homeland.

Time flowed on, and only he remained motionless within it.

Then the guard’s expression sank flat.

After carefully inspecting the silk pouch he’d just roughly untied—turning it forward and back as if searching for some “damaged” spot—he naturally dropped to one knee, pressed his palms together, lifted them high, and offered it back with extreme care.

“I-I beg your pardon for my rudeness. You idiots, hurry and load their luggage! Hurry! No—gently, carefully, slowly! No, hurry! But gently!”

“Hm? The inspection’s over?”

“Th-this is official business. If you had told us, we wouldn’t have troubled you like this. Th-this subordinate only carried out his duty, so please do not be angry.”

His face was bleached white. The trembling in his knees made his voice wobble so badly Qing almost felt sorry for him.

Ah. Right. She had that censor seal.

She wasn’t going to use it, so she’d just tossed it into her pouch.

The gate guard stayed in full-body tremor mode.

Some hero’s uncle once said that with great power comes great responsibility, but in reality, great power just comes with great wealth and great authority.

That inseparable trinity of power, wealth, and authority granted the privilege of escaping responsibility for pretty much any wrongdoing.

In other words, the greater the power, the smaller the responsibility.

And among those “exempted responsibilities” was the petty, grubby act of following order like a citizen and standing in line.

Standing in line was a wretched act that didn’t suit the powerful.

For the record, with that worldview, people of the Central Plains considered cutting in line a natural right—because it was “valuing oneself,” apparently.

Anyway, if a mere main-gate guard got singled out as someone’s stress relief, it was nothing for them to point a finger and say, “Cut him,” and instantly sever the man’s livelihood.

A gate guard who blocked a high official trying to “fast-pass” by “the law of the land” was the kind of thing you saw in fairy tales—no, in fairy-tale morals.

...Or so she would have thought.

“No, this is the time for it. You said a strange plague is going around, right? Then even if it takes time, you have to check thoroughly.”

Qing waved it off.

Sure, he’d been irritable and unfriendly, but guards were people too. If you had endless work piling up where you could literally see it, you could get like that.

And closing the city gate at night wasn’t Kunming acting on its own—it was the realm of national law in any city.

“But what’s the plague’s situation like?”

Qing slipped the question in, since the moment was perfect.

She didn’t plan to act like a Royal Censor, but it would be stupid to waste an opportunity like this.

“Yes! Right now, we have herded the sick into the northern part of the city and sealed it off! And we are strictly monitoring entrants in case the sick come in from nearby villages after seeking out physicians!”

The plague had shown up two months ago.

Of course, “two months ago” was just when Kunming recognized it—realistically, it had spread far earlier than that.

Patients had already been pouring out in the city, coughing up blood as the plague tore through them.

So the prefectural magistrate of Kunming gathered the sick in one place, sealed them off, and strictly inspected movement within the city to prevent the disease from spreading.

“Mm. Then what about the Dali side? Is it chaos over there too?”

The Diancang Sect was in Mount Diancang.

And with that long, north–south-stretching mountain behind it, a large city had taken root—Dali County.

That was also Qing’s destination on the way to Diancang.

“Ugh. Don’t even get me started.”

The guard practically ground his teeth.

“Those Bai bastards—those bastards definitely spread the plague. Those bastards are fine even in this mess, and it’s only Han people like you, sir, and other tribes that are dying off, isn’t it? What did they say... that it’s some old local endemic disease over there, and they’re used to it so it doesn’t affect them, and only everyone else dies off. I heard that if you get close to those Bai bastards now, you’ll catch it—just like that.”

Yunnan Province was originally the site of a barbarian kingdom called the Kingdom of Dali.

And the Bai were the descendants of that Kingdom of Dali—the ethnic group that the royal family of Dali belonged to.

Meaning, the Bai of Dali were the people who had held the same status there as Han people held in the Central Plains.

And right now, among those dying from the plague, there wasn’t a single Bai person.

All the nearby villages were in chaos because of the plague, but Bai villages were completely fine.

Even inside Kunming itself—the neighborhood where the plague first spread was the North District where Bai people lived clustered together, but the Bai themselves were all perfectly fine.

So Qing went, Mmm.

What was it again—like how those nosey Westerners spread some horrific disease in the New World?

A plague the Bai were immune to, but that was lethal to other peoples?

It... sort of fit, logically.

And she’d heard Dali County was the former capital of the Kingdom of Dali—a Bai city in Yunnan Province.

If the Bai really spread the plague the way the guard said, then wouldn’t Dali County—the Bai’s city—be the most dangerous place of all?

Mm. Well. Then there was nothing to do about it.

They’d come this far, so it would be awkward to tell her party, “Go on ahead.”

Instead, she could have the kids wait in Kunming, then tell them to return with her together.

From here to the Diancang Sect was nine hundred li.

It was pretty far, but if she ran there, looked at Broken-Sword Cliff, and ran back, it would be quick enough....

But... mm. Would that really be okay?

Perfected Danlun—the spell-arts fanatic—had said my constitution means poison and illness don’t “work” on me, but it doesn’t mean I have some built-in purification function.

If I became a... what was it, a carrier? If I turned into some kind of plague-spreading monster, then I couldn’t just casually go back either.

While Qing was sinking into that dilemma, the guard kept talking—worthless nonsense, really, but more precisely, a long rant condemning the Bai.

That those barbarian bastards had always been like that, that they acted smug while picking up and eating weird shit so they didn’t even realize they were infected.

That he’d known it from the moment he saw them boiling pangolins and eating bats.

The moment he said “eating,” Qing’s mind snapped awake.

Pangolins and bats, eaten, and then a plague?

This was totally—

Mm. But pangolin was delicious, though....

And pangolins and bats were, in fact, eaten in plenty of Central Plains places.

Central Plains people ate anything they could see. If bats lived there, they ate bats. If pangolins lived there, they ate pangolins—and those were even animals that weren’t particularly dangerous, and were slow and easy to catch.

The saying that Central Plains people ate everything with four legs except a table didn’t come from nowhere.

“Especially among them, the Dali bastards—”

“Chief! We’ve loaded everything!”

The endless Bai-condemnation session ended with the subordinate reporting that the luggage had been loaded back up.

“Ah... mm. Anyway. Thanks for your hard work.”

“Yes! I will continue my duty!”

The guard, bristling with discipline, barked out a loud salute as he sent Qing off.

And like that, they entered the provincial capital—Kunming.

*****

As packed as the previous city, Qujing, had been with travelers, Kunming’s streets were relatively quiet.

Well, with inspections this strict, the number of travelers actually passing through the gates couldn’t be high in the first place.

So the moment their carriage arrived in front of Kunming’s top inn, Manchun Pavilion, a swarm of servers burst out and almost looted their luggage from them.

So they wouldn’t go to another inn, they’d just take your luggage first and set it down—logic similar to how, back in Qing’s homeland, animals that evolved to tow vehicles would just hook a chain first and worry about everything else later.

Normally, an establishment that represented a city—the “Number One Pavilion” kind of place—would never do something like that to preserve dignity.

A city’s top inn got customers no matter what.

But Kunming was one of the biggest cities even in the Central Plains, and if even the top inn in a major city like that was acting this desperate—

Just from that, you could tell how hard the plague had hit business.

First, they unpacked.

It was an awkward time to eat dinner, so they ordered bathwater first and melted away the fatigue that had piled up from sleeping outdoors.

Qing’s manners deteriorated rapidly when Gyeon Pohee was around, so after a long time, getting a crisp, competent bath attendant left her feeling fluffy-clean and refreshed—and hungry.

Then Qing ordered a table so loaded it looked like it could snap the legs, and the server beamed, a flower of laughter blooming for the first time in ages in the middle of this recession.

“Oh? Isn’t this Sichuan style? Nanna, what do you think?”

“It’s lacking a bit of ma, but... it’s not bad.”

Ma meant that numbing, mouth-paralyzing flavor from Sichuan pepper—Sichuan people’s bizarre obsession.

A Central Plains person’s pride in their hometown food was important enough that people would talk themselves into a knife fight over it.

So if Tang Nanna—a Sichuan native from one of those “real” culinary regions where they supposedly actually pulled blades—said it was “not bad,” then this was basically Sichuan food.

Kunming cuisine was just Sichuan food that numbed you less.

That too was part of Yunnan Province’s trait of resembling whatever neighbor was closest in each direction.

Of course, Yunnan had its own local dishes too.

“Hah—this—hah—ohh. Yes. Hng.”

Seol Iri also seemed to have finally been liberated from broth that crossed “tart” into straight-up “sour,” and was now fully enjoying a proper hot soup.

It was Yunnan-style rice noodles: chicken stock simmered so thick the oil layer came out, with noodles and toppings served separately so you dipped and ate.

A steamed wild duck dish—called dianji ma ya—also got high praise.

And it was while they were deep into eating—

that something outside started getting noisy, voices snapping back and forth, the sound of commotion beyond the bamboo blind.

Qing’s hearing was beyond human.

She perked her ears and eavesdropped.

—Sir, you can’t do this.

—Can’t? Get out of the way. Right now.

The one wailing was the inn’s server.

The other was a harsh voice—old, but seasoned.

—Sir, you’re a precious guest we only managed to get after three days. You have to consider our situation too, yes? We’re seriously at the point of going under like this.

—Ha. Saying the top inn in Kunming is “going under”—even a dog wouldn’t believe that. Move. Are you moving or not? Do I really have to toss you aside?

—S-sir, please, yes? If you cause trouble again—

—Trouble? You just called this “trouble”? You little bastard, watch your mouth. Wanting to get a little help from people stuffing themselves with expensive food that’s going to come out the other end anyway, in a fancy inn like this—that’s trouble? That’s trouble? At a time like this, we should share a little gold together and eat something cheap, shouldn’t we? If rich bastards eat cheap food, what, do they catch the plague?

Mm. So he’d barged into a high-end inn to shake down the guests.

Normally you called that “causing trouble,” didn’t you?

And “the rich” weren’t “eating expensive food,” they were supposed to “share,” and not copper coins, not even silver—he was talking about sharing gold.

Mm. What was this—was this old man planning to wave a red flag around and make people stand up with revolutionary spirit?

—Move! You punk.

—Sir, please. Please.

—You bastard, let go! You’re making it sound like I’m some thug shaking people down for money. I’m saying I’ll take gold and use it for a good cause—huh!? I said I’ll use it for a good cause!

That was also something extortion thugs commonly said.

“I’ll use it for a good cause” meant “a cause that’s good for me.”

—Look at this, this punk is grabbing an old man! Everyone! Look! The server is grabbing an old man!

—Sir, no, sir—ah! If you must, step on me—ngh! Sir! Siiir!!

Mm. If you tell someone to step on you, of course they’ll step on you.

An old man brazen enough to extort gold—gold, not even silver—wasn’t going to be stopped by a server.

Half expectation, half curiosity, Qing looked toward the inn’s entrance.

This had the vibe of an inn-shakedown.

Was it time to punish evil?

She pushed the bamboo blind aside, and saw the old man striding in, bold as daylight, here to squeeze money out of people.

But then—

Huh?

That face felt familiar, except the person she knew wasn’t that old.

Still, once she saw his face, she didn’t know why she hadn’t recognized the voice—same gravelly voice, unchanged.

Qing stood and gave a respectful clasped-fist salute.

“It’s been a while, sir. Have you been well?”

The old man paused.

He stared hard at Qing’s face, and then his eyes filled with delighted recognition.

“You... let’s see. Aren’t you the heavenly maiden? Why are you here?”

“Ah... so that’s what it was back then. Hehe.”

Honestly, in an inn with no other guests, you didn’t need Qing’s beyond-human hearing to listen to an argument at the front door.

Qing’s group were people who would be called experts by normal standards, even if not by Qing’s strict standards.

So everyone in the group had already been preparing to deal with an uninvited nuisance—

and now they all went blank with confusion.

What? She knows him?

So Qing introduced him to the group.

“Guys, pay your respects. This is Lord Physician.”