Chapter 832: A Moment to Savor (7)

It was exactly when she was already frowning at a rice ball that had started to go off.

“What the hell... food spoils in one day...”

That wasn’t strange.

Hot, muggy weather and high humidity were the perfect environment for food to rot fast.

And rice balls in the Central Plains spoiled easily to begin with.

Glutinous rice went bad the moment you blinked, and on top of that, the filling hadn’t been fresh from the start.

There were no refrigerators yet, so from production to distribution to storage to sale, everything had to sit at room temperature.

Qing knits her brow hard and chews the rice ball that reeks with a stale, musty sourness.

Still, she isn’t going to throw it away. At this level it’s... edible. There’s no mold, nothing’s actually rotten—just a little gone.

She used to survive on worse.

Even so, after a few years of picking only expensive things to eat, it couldn’t help but feel extra irritating.

That was when it hit Qing’s nose—an ugly stench.

Something sour and fermented, that uniquely disgusting “gone bad” smell, like the vicious foot-stink of shoes that got drenched in rain and never dried properly—

But inside that stench, there was also something extremely faint: a crisp, sharp, bracing scent that punched through.

Qing’s eyes snap wide.

This is alcohol. That’s alcohol, isn’t it?

Qing loved alcohol—even though she could drink whole jars and only get full, never drunk.

You could say it was a freakish nose to pick out alcohol inside that stink, but for Qing, it was a combination she knew very well.

Yeah. This is the smell beggars have when they’re drinking.

The exact mix she’d smelled every day back when she lived as a beggar in Geonpyeong—and the memories that come rushing back with it...

Back then, being sober was hard. She’d wanted a drink so badly it made her insane.

She didn’t know where those bastard beggars got alcohol from, but sometimes—no, often—they drank.

If you tried talking to them, they hit you, so you couldn’t talk.

If you got closer, they hit you, so you couldn’t get close.

So you just stood far away, swallowing spit.

And if you caught their eye, they’d beat you up for “making the booze taste bad” by lurking around like a plague ghost—yeah, those sons of bitches. Just wait. If I ever go back to Geonpyeong—

One day, a beggar who was in a great mood from drinking said he’d share what he had left.

Then he poured it right onto the dirt in front of her face.

So Qing hurriedly scraped up the soil, squeezed it out, and drank it.

It was cheap, nasty rotgut, but—god. She still couldn’t forget that taste...

Maybe it amused them to watch her wring alcohol out of dirt. When they were in a good mood and she lurked nearby, they’d sometimes dump alcohol for her like that.

Yeah. Absolute sons of bitches.

Qing shakes off the filthy memories.

Anyway, there was no way beggars would be randomly out here in the mountains, so it was probably an herb gatherer, a hunter, or a honey collector—some kind of mountain worker.

She’d been in the mountains for a full day already, and it was about time she reached a town.

In this world, it wasn’t rare at all for mountain workers to build a temporary shelter in the shallows and head out on multi-day runs.

They had to be melting the exhaustion of labor with alcohol, giving off that hard-earned stink—

And honestly, perfect timing.

She planned to monitor the Five Poison Sect’s movements in Jinping County, and if she got familiar with local mountain workers, she could blend in naturally as an outside herb gatherer.

Qing goes rustle-rustle, deliberately making noise as she approaches.

When you walk up to someone, making your presence known is basic courtesy, isn’t it?

And since she had to play the herb gatherer, she’d been picking any herbs she spotted and collecting them—she could offer some while sharing a drink, and, yeah, perfect.

Qing swallows, pushes through the brush—

And finally, ta-da.

The mountain workers come into vi—

No.

...Huh?

Their clothes are openly caked in dirt and soaked through, but the cut and bearing are clearly martial clothing.

What?

Why are there martial artists in the mountains?

Maybe it’s because they look so filthy, or because their evil karma score is over a hundred, but they look exactly like Unorthodox Sect types.

Not that being human garbage automatically means they’re suspicious—this could just be the Unorthodox Sect average.

Still.

“Who goes there!”

“Uh, my child is sick, and I heard herbs from Dochae Mountain work really well...”

Qing tries the herb gatherer act first.

Right before entering Jinping County, stirring up trouble would do her no good.

But when you meet people like this, it’s rare for things to pass quietly.

Rare—but not impossible. Right, the one she spared back on Mount Nosan... I wonder how he’s doing. For someone with evil karma, he’d been strangely human.

Anyway, Qing hunches up and pretends to be intimidated.

One of the martial artists sweeps his eyes over her—

“What is this, a mountain woman? Hm. I see. And you’ve got the nerve to come harvesting herbs on Dochae Mountain.”

“Y-yes?”

“Dochae Mountain is the territory of our Great Five Poison Sect. And look at this—there’s a thieving bitch here, stealing herbs from the Five Poison Sect’s mountain.”

Qing freezes.

Wait. What did he just say?

Great Five Poison Sect?

Why is the Five Poison Sect suddenly here?

She’d heard the Five Poison Sect was planted right in the best spot in Jinping County—so why are they out here in the mountains, unwashed, stinking like rot, guzzling alcohol?

Since Qing didn’t know about the Ten-Sided Ambush, they were nothing but a completely random encounter.

“Junior brother, don’t talk nonsense—do it by the rules. You there. You climbed Dochae Mountain without the Great Five Poison Sect’s permission, so you must have resolved yourself, knowing that if you’re caught, only death awaits. You dared covet the sect’s property, so you will repay that sin with death.”

What kind of insane bullshit was this?

Death for picking a few herbs?

Who do they think they are—some kind of Blood Pact Alliance?

Hunting ground control? Break the rule, get executed on sight?

Then a scene flashes through Qing’s mind.

Back at Shadow Market, when she’d been looking at poison herbs with Tang Nanna—didn’t someone say something about jungle goods and the Five Poison Sect?

If a black-market dealer had to sell them quietly, it meant the Five Poison Sect really did control them with a firm grip.

Even so—killing people over herbs?

That crossed the line.

What the hell are these bastards?

Qing clamps her hand around the grip of Moonlit Night, disguised as a walking stick.

That was when—

“Senior brother, wait. She said her child is sick.”

Oh?

Is a second human being appearing?

And from the one with the higher evil karma, too?

Qing delays sentencing—just for a moment.

“It’s unfortunate, but we cannot break the sect’s rules for such a private reason. If we let you go because it’s pitiful now, later all sorts of things will come in with all sorts of stories and steal the sect’s property. Rules must be strict, and there can be no exceptions.”

“That’s not what I mean. Haven’t you been hungry for a while too? Her child is sick, and it’s pitiful. If she pays with her body... heh-heh... you get some fun, you build merit too—what’s not to like?”

“Hm.”

“Just look at her hands—she’s a pretty young woman, isn’t she? Senior brother, you go first, and just leave me something clean. Yeah?”

“Absolutely not. We can ‘enjoy’ ourselves later. When we go down, I’ll treat you properly at the Pleasure Pavilion. But no matter what, we can’t break the sect’s rules.”

Yeah.

Of course.

Naturally.

They look like fellow disciples—two of them, and both are absolute filth.

One wants to kill her for picking herbs.

The other is a perverted bastard who says he’ll “spare” her if she lets them use her one by one.

Trying to decide which one is worse is basically an impossible riddle.

Qing, too stunned to even keep up the herb gatherer act, just watches—

And the one called senior brother slips a hand into his sleeve.

WHOOSH!

A throwing knife surges straight for her throat.

But to a transcendent Transformation-Realm master, it’s almost funny.

Slow.

Even the hidden weapon flying at her is slow.

“K-KH—!”

Qing clutches her throat and collapses.

More precisely, she snatches the throwing knife between her fingers and falls as if she’d been hit.

Then a sudden blank panic hits her.

Wait—what did someone do when they got a blade in the throat?

Was she supposed to shake and spasm?

There isn’t supposed to be blood spraying until you pull it out, right? So it isn’t instant death, is it?

She doesn’t want to make a commotion.

Qing’s goal is Blood Cult reconnaissance, no matter what—there’s no reason to kick a hornet’s nest—

Unless her recon results show they’re ridiculously easy.

Either way, she’s not in the same mindset as before—I’ll rampage alone, and if it goes bad, I’ll run.

This involves the Blood Cult. If she rushes and something goes wrong, it won’t end as only her problem.

For now—

Since it’s come to this—

She’ll grab one of them and find out what they’re doing out here in this miserable jungle instead of living in a good house.

And what kind of scheme they’re running with the Blood Cult.

Qing lies there and trembles.

“K-kh... kkh...”

She even makes choking sounds like her breath is slipping away.

A throwing knife isn’t disposable, so if she waits, they’ll come retrieve it.

She’ll kill one cleanly and subdue the other.

Ideally, the senior brother should come.

In her experience, people who are strict about sect rules tend to have deep loyalty to the sect too.

It’s a prejudice, but still—compared to that, the junior brother, the horny one, looks like the kind with a loose mouth.

But then—huh?

The way things unfold—

“Ahem. Senior brother. Then I’ll go handle the corpse. If it rots nearby, how are we supposed to endure the corpse stench?”

“Why are you volunteering—no. You... don’t tell me you’re going to—”

“Come on, senior brother. If I finish before it cools, it’s the same thing. I’ll end it quick, bury it roughly, and come back—what’s the problem?”

“...Haa. Don’t leave your post too long.”

Finish what before it cools—what are you “finishing,” you—

Qing is horrified.

Insane fetish or not, seriously—there are all kinds of disgusting bastards in the world.

Still lying down, Qing measures the distance.

Four steps. Three. Two.

Now.

Qing springs up and strikes.

Moonlit Night shoots up toward the sky.

The blade, wrapped in ragged cloth, rises into the man’s crotch—shears through the cloth, then through flesh and bone, and keeps going up into the sky.

The senior brother’s eyes look like they’re about to burst out of their sockets.

Starlight flashes—

And the junior brother’s body, split clean in two, collapses left and right.

In the split second of stunned disbelief—dream or waking nightmare—

THUD!

With the ground-shock felt through her sole, something crashes in in an instant, and suddenly her airway is clamped shut.

Total panic—her mind going white, her soul about to fly out of her skull—

Right at that moment—

“So, you dropped a throwing knife, yeah? I picked it up for you. You’re welcome.”

As if mocking him for losing focus, a burning, horrific pain slams in from the shoulder!

The Five Poison Sect disciple’s right arm goes limp.

The throwing knife he’d thrown slowly sinks into bone, severing nerves.

“GUH—”

“What kind of treasure did you bury in this mountain that you try to kill a pitiful woman picking herbs because her child is sick? Even bandits extort money first—most of them don’t just fling blades right away. Aren’t you bastards worse than common highwaymen?”

“Grrk...”

“This body—Supreme Thief Overlord, the one who eats rice at home, the rice-eater Many Summers—ah, I mean, Many Summers—no, me, Elder Bandit Lo— I will not forgive you!”

She got “Elder Bandit Lotus” wrong too, but whatever—once you say it, it all sounds the same anyway.

From the listener’s perspective, it’s impossible to tell the difference, and the moment he hears Elder Bandit Lotus, the Five Poison Sect disciple’s eyes go wide.

“Now then. But I, Elder Bandit Lotus, don’t butcher people at random like you—no questions, no explanations.”

The one who got split in half would’ve found that extremely unfair.

But the dead don’t have ears.

“If you answer my questions obediently, there will be no further bloodshed. Got it? If you scream or do anything stupid, you might end up with a hole in your neck. Now—take a breath.”

As Qing growls, she loosens her grip on his throat slightly.

“H-HH—HHK—HHH—!”

Only then does the Five Poison Sect disciple suck in ragged air.

Then, with eyes packed full of venom, he forces out a squeezed, hateful sound—

“You—Heavenly Flower Sword—if I chew you up I still won’t feel—”

Qing panics and clamps his throat shut again.

At the same time, those huge eyes shake violently, unable to hide their shock.

...What?

Heavenly Flower Sword?

How does he know that name?