Chapter 845: If You’re Going to Kill One Person, Dig Two Graves (3)

“Uh, yes. Yes?”

“Hey, you. Why’s a little runt that’s still green behind the ears dressed like a beggar? So there really was a beggar-in-training here. People need to work. If you just laze around and live off handouts, you’re no good.”

Qing kept one hand clamped on the boy’s nape, holding him up high, and walked along at an unhurried pace.

Since the boy stayed hunched up, Qing kept talking to him, partly to loosen him up.

“Alright. First, let’s get a solid meal in you. If you don’t eat when you’re young, you won’t even grow, you know? What do you like? You should know you’re lucky today. Just say the word. Boiled pork? Soup? Grill? No, first, let’s pick the meat. Beef, pork, horse, chicken, pigeon, pheasant—which do you like?”

“Huh? Um, then—”

“Nope. Pork. Eat pork. Pork that’s good for you and tastes good—hey, you know pork is the best-tasting meat of them all? I heard this somewhere, but they say historically, the only meat that was so delicious they had to ban it was pork.”

“Th-that, Hero, just a moment, let me—”

“Now imagine it. You toss it into broth and boil it hard, then fish it out, and with just a little tap it jiggles all wobbly, and when you slice it with a knife the juices just run and run and run, and it shines all pale and glossy, and when you put it in your mouth you don’t even need to chew, the rich fatty part just melts all smooth and lush, and you don’t even hold back, you grab three slices at a time and cram them in and chew, and then you add a mouthful of white rice and......”

GULP. The sound of the boy swallowing hard echoed loud. Then another GULP.

Because honestly, just hearing it made it sound delicious.

The boy, who’d been listening to Qing’s praise of boiled pork like he was possessed, suddenly jolted, eyes wide, head snapping up.

“Wait! Just wait!”

“Hm? Why? Ah, don’t tell me you’re the type who hates soft meat? You think meat has to have that chew to it? Ugh, kid, you don’t know how to eat. Meat has to be soft, period. Is it because you’re still a runt—you don’t even know what delicious is.”

“N-no, it’s not that—”

“That’s because you’ve never been to a place that does it right. Hm. But where’s good in this town? Hey, you’re a beggar in this town, you’d know which place does it best—”

“I have a little brother!”

Because Qing just kept pouring out words and didn’t listen at all, the boy finally ended up shouting at the top of his lungs.

At that, Qing went, ah.

He’d been trying so stubbornly to refuse that Qing figured he was embarrassed to be fed, shy, pride stinging—so she’d been verbally beating him down—no, stripping his soul right out of him with talk.

But it wasn’t that. It looked like it was the responsible pride of an upright big brother who had to feed his little brother, too.

“Huh. You’ve got a little brother?”

“Yes. My, my brother’s sick, so... he has to eat more and get his strength back, but Hero, I’m fine, so if you’d just take my brother......”

In Qing’s mind, she saw the boy again—tripping hard, tumbling, and even then desperately gathering up the spilled food trash.

She’d wondered why he wasn’t running for his life in a dangerous situation—why he was scooping up spilled food trash—turns out he’d been desperate to take care of his little brother.

Meaning, it was a heartbreaking effort to feed his sick little brother food trash.

Even if he himself didn’t eat food trash, he would make sure his sick little brother ate it, no matter what.

Even though he was in danger, even more than his own safety, he had to feed his sick little brother food trash.

He had to shove that rotten, sour, stinking food trash into his sick little brother’s mouth somehow, no matter what.

Mm. Something like emotion tried to rise, and then didn’t.

Because the moment you say “food trash,” mm, it’s not a tearjerking big-brother effort anymore. It’s just trash......

Well, where was a beggar supposed to get perfectly fine food.

And if they weren’t just a beggar, but one branded a plague wretch—then they were untouchable trash even among beggars, the kind that couldn’t even beg in the first place......

And this little runt probably knew it well from experience.

Freshly dumped—okay, not piping hot, but still not too spoiled—food trash was the most popular meal in the beggar world, and just hovering around to try and get it meant taking a big risk.

“Kid. You’re trying to act a little cool, huh? So it wasn’t just one mouth to feed—it was one plus one. Fine. So where’s your little brother? Which way is it? Just tell me.”

Then the boy answered.

“Then... could you put me down now?”

“Ah. Right. You’re so light I forgot I was even holding you. You need to put on weight. Kids need a little chubbiness.”

“Kid? I’m—”

“What’s this? Don’t tell me you’re going to claim you’re not a kid right now? Hey. The words ‘I’m not a kid’ are proof you’re a kid. Real adults, when you say they look like a kid, they love it so much they practically die.”

Kids want to become adults as fast as possible, but once they become adults, they want to become kids again.

Isn’t that the unavoidable way humans perceive aging—an essential contradiction and sadness?

Meaning, the moment you insist you’re not a kid, it’s basically a loud confession of “I am a little brat!”

“So? Still going to insist you’re not a kid?”

“......Tch.”

The boy turned his head away, looking resentful.

Mm. He’s kind of fun to tease.

Anyway, Qing followed the little beggar.

They left the city’s main road and drifted farther to the outskirts, and before long the street had grown bleak—so empty it felt chilly.

But it wasn’t unsettling.

She’d already heard from the inn waiter that Jinping County had lots of warehouses for fermenting and storing tea leaves.

This was the warehouse street, and he’d said merchants weren’t coming these days and business was dying, so of course there wouldn’t be people.

Still... mm. I’m starting to doubt the little beggar’s judgment again.

Beggars don’t tend to read the room, but it’s not like they don’t read it at all.

So even a beggar doing beggar things in front of people means they’re still showing the bare minimum of awareness.

But if there isn’t even anyone watching?

Then only beggars would know what they really do. Apparently, beggar brats eat people.

And yet he’d hidden his little brother in a place with no people?

He wouldn’t hide just his little brother, so he must’ve secretly made a hideout in some empty warehouse.

Then wouldn’t it be beyond “amazing they haven’t been caught”—to the point of calling it a miracle?

Mm. I can’t just leave this as-is.

As a senior plague wretch, I need to hand down survival teachings to a junior plague wretch—mm, so basically...

Survival rule number one.

Give up clean, human-edible food completely.

Beggars are sensitive about food—you need them to believe you’re not coveting their food, so you get hit less.

Instead, you need a shift in thinking.

Start with suspicion: maybe the things people say they can’t eat are actually edible. Then steadily expand your list of edible things, bit by bit.

Mm. Come to think of it, this runt isn’t a corpse-blood poison person like me who can cram anything into my mouth without consequences, so it won’t work.

He’s more useless than I thought, my survival rules......

And my first year in the martial world......

No matter how I look at it, I think my first year in the martial world was just time I burned properly.

Still, didn’t I learn something? Mm, something, something-something—anything small, at least.

Qing followed behind the boy, groping around in her mind, working hard to find what help, what lesson, that suffering time had ever been in her life—what meaning it had.

How long did that go on?

In the end, Qing couldn’t find any meaning at all, and the boy reached the entrance of his hideout.

“Um, it’s here. If you come this way...”

The boy slipped his body into a narrow gap between two warehouses, the two walls pressed close together.

He looked like a runt of runts, maybe around ten.

And for a runt like that, it was such a narrow passage he had to turn sideways and crab-walk through.

This... mm. I don’t think it’s going to work.

Still, Qing tried.

You never know until you try.

How could she give up before even trying?

Not doing it isn’t the same as not being able to do it—those were Mencius’s words.

Don’t give up before you even try.

Besides, maybe up or sideways, sure, but front to back, honestly, I’m pretty slim too, with no extra fat.

This should be an easy pass—

“Mm, it’s kind of nar—ngh...!”

Qing got stuck between the walls and started grunting.

She’d managed to force herself in, but then her chest was wedged tight and her butt was wedged tight too—ngh.

Still, she had natural strength, and flesh is something you can compress if you press hard enough, so she could inch forward little by little.

But honestly, the sayings of famous ancestors in the world often said the exact opposite things about the same topic.

Don’t overestimate your own strength—those were Zhu Wu’s words from the Zuo Zhuan.

In simple terms: don’t even look at a tree you can’t climb.

With all that flesh stuck on her torso, trying to crawl into a narrow crack like this—wasn’t the attempt itself idiotic?

Ah. This won’t work. Impossible. Totally impossible.

Qing realized her place, and with grunts and strain, she finally wriggled her way back outside.

“Mm.”

Now that she thought about it, the little beggar’s judgment might actually be pretty good.

How many people could pass through a crack that narrow?

If you weren’t a starved little runt like that, it was an impossible feat.

If she had to pick, the only adult who might squeeze through would be Lady Moyong.

Mm—no. Even if Lady Moyong is thin up top, her lower body is... impressive, so she probably can’t. Probably.

So it was the perfect hideout for hiding from other beggars.

Even if some beggar forced their way in, they’d get stuck and be unable to move—then you could beat them back with a single rock.

Using a physical advantage, huh. Not bad.

Honestly, the fact that they were still alive despite being branded plague wretches could be called excellent survival ability all on its own.

“Hero?”

Since she didn’t look like she was following, the little beggar’s voice came from the other side of the gap.

“Ugh, I can’t get in because my chest and my butt are getting stuck.”

“......How can you say something that embarrassing?”

A strangely dignified reply came back.

What? Is he a precocious runt?

“Then I’ll bring my little brother out, so—”

“No, it’s fine. Keep going. I’ll catch up.”

“Yes, but, um, th-that, y-you said you can’t come because you’re stuck.”

“There’s a way. Just go. Keep going. Go ooon.”

There was no need to cram her body through that narrow gap.

If she couldn’t go through the gap, couldn’t she just go over the top?

Qing sprang up and landed lightly on the warehouse roof.

The carpenters who built these warehouses probably never imagined that a narrow crack between warehouses would become a little beggar’s lifeline.

If you built them with no gaps at all, fires would spread easily, and the bricks would soak up rain and become vulnerable to damp.

So they’d left only the minimum space and packed them in tight.

Thanks to that, the two little beggar brothers could survive against those vicious cannibal beggars—mm, would this count as merit and virtuous merit rising and all that?

She chased along to the end of the long narrow gap between warehouses, and it looked like the warehouse behind it had been built a bit smaller.

Just enough for one person—there was a hidden back-alley space, narrow enough for a broad-shouldered person to lie down.

And at the far end, a roof barely covered by an old tarp peeked into view beneath her feet.

Qing dropped down into the back alley with a light TAP.

Maybe because of the sound, a weak voice leaked out from beneath a low tarp that came up to about waist height.

“Big brother... you’re here?”

“Yeah, it’s your big brother. Ugh, the smell. You need to empty the toilet quick, you know. Even if you’re poor, live clean. Be clean.”

Qing—former plague beggar, former flower-beggar—chattered shamelessly.

“GASP, w-who are you?”

Qing bent at the waist and peered into the tarp.

A child with a sallow-yellow face.

He looked terrified, so Qing smiled to reassure him, then—ah. Right. He can’t see my face.

“Me? I’m a Therapist. Your big brother said you’re sick, right? Come on, let me check your pulse. Can you hold your arm out?”

“You’re a Therapist?”

Even as he asked, the little brother held out his wrist.

A big padded coat that didn’t fit him, beneath torn, worn rags—an emaciated wrist, nothing but bone with a thin layer of skin, was exposed.

“Actually, I’m not a Therapist. I’m a quack.”

“GASP.”

The little brother jolted and yanked his hand back.

But it was already too late.

“Now, now. In life, what’s dropped can’t be taken back—there’s no undo. Since I’ve already come all the way here, you have no choice but to get your pulse checked by a quack. Mm, mmm? What is this, it’s nothing. You’re not even that sick.”

“Really? I’m not that sick?”

“Yup. It’s because you haven’t been eating. Just eat well and sleep hard and you’ll get better.”

She’d roughly expected it, but it was just malnutrition.

“Thank goodness......”

A faint smile bloomed on the little brother’s sallow face.

But only for a moment—then his face crumpled again.

“But you said you’re a quack. You can’t trust a quack.”

“Hey. You little punk. A true master doesn’t say ‘I’m a master’ with their own mouth—that ruins the style. So if someone says ‘I’m a quack’ with their own mouth, that person is actually an incredible Therapist.”

Qing thought of the Lord Physician.

Well, even if not the Lord Physician—sure, it’s like that.

Real rich people don’t say they’re rich, they just say they get by, and artists too—someone who’s actually great at drawing will post some amazing picture and still say it’s embarrassing because they can’t draw, stuff like that.

“Hehe.”

“What, you’re happy because you’ll get better?”

The little brother smiled, bashful and bright.

“If I get better, I can go out and help my big brother. I’m always just lying down.”

“Ha. Seriously. I can’t believe this. This is such an obvious sob story—do you think I’m going to be moved by this? Ah. Hold on, I think dust is about to get in my eyes.”

With damp eyes, Qing carefully lifted the child into her arms.

“Alright. Then let’s go eat. If you want to get better, you have to eat. Sadly, you can’t eat greasy stuff. But that’ll clear up fast in just a few days.”

Only then did she sense movement behind her.

“GASP, Hero? How—”

“That’s how it is. A true master leaves late and arrives first, that’s the rule. And your little brother just collapsed because he didn’t eat, so if he eats well, he’ll get better.”

Qing, who’d been going on about how masters don’t say things with their own mouth, immediately flipped her words without hesitation.

In the Central Plains, they say if a man speaks two words with one mouth, you should cut off his balls.

Unfortunately, Qing had already lost them a long time ago, so she wasn’t exactly applicable.

“Ah......”

“Then come back out. Now we’re going to eat.”

“Huh?”

Holding the little brother, Qing sprang up without warning.

It was the anti-gravity leap of Moon-Maiden Steps.

And just like that, in the secret back alley, the big brother beggar was left alone.

The little beggar stared up at where the face-veiled swordswoman had flown up and vanished onto the roof, and then a thought hit him.

If it was going to be like this... did she really need to tell him to keep going, to lead the way......?