Chapter 849: If You’re Going to Kill One Person, Dig Two Graves (7)

This time, because things had somehow turned into a setup where she was an elder master, it had become awkward to suddenly switch to a loud, flighty attitude now.

When Qing threw herself into slaughter and “possessed” some vulgar, trashy persona to make a spectacle, it wasn’t because that was her true nature.

(Probably.)

It was just—

Because it pissed them off more.

If a solemn master of the martial world punishes a villain, you know?

When the villain screams, why are you doing this, everyone lives like this, and the master lowers their voice and says just one word—

“Justice.”

Then turns their back without a shred of attachment and vanishes.

It’s cool. It’s genuinely cool.

But then it’s like the villains being punished get elevated along with it.

They were cut down by some chivalrous hero straight out of a story, so their “name value” goes up, and the whole thing feels tragic and weighty.

But what if the one punishing them is a flapping, yapping, shameless clown with zero gravity to them—someone who opens their mouth and spills nothing but filthy, vulgar garbage?

Then it doesn’t even feel like punishment.

It’s just... they had bad luck and got hit by a lunatic passing by.

And the people left behind would just sneer—serves him right, lived dirty so his luck turned dirty too—and that’s it.

Death, or the end of becoming a cripple, would drop into being nothing more than a joke.

For that, Qing could throw face and dignity away without a second thought.

A slaughter genius so great she could even desecrate death itself.

But she’d ended up imitating an elder, and it would be weird to break the setting after it had already been caught and locked in.

When a character collapses, everything they did before collapses with it.

She’d gone to the trouble of blocking the Five Poison Sect’s interference—if her “elder master” act cracked, someone might start thinking, Wait, what if those fake Five Poison Sect disciples were actually real?

So Qing, for once, moved with weight.

Soft, light steps, elegant as she went.

Behind her came a rushing press of footsteps and bodies—well, she wasn’t sure if spectators were really allowed to pour into someone else’s estate like this, but.

Past the main gate, the wide open yard typical of a merchant estate spread out.

And sure enough—every able-bodied man belonging to the merchant house had poured out, lined up with clubs in hand.

Only... their faces were pale and sickly.

No matter how strong a laborer was, they weren’t going to fight a martial artist with a sword at their hip.

They’d come out holding clubs because they were servants and they’d been told an enemy was coming, but if someone actually told them to fight, they looked like they’d run without hesitation.

It was a little disappointing.

She’d half expected at least one wandering martial brute to stand in her way.

Had they really thought calling two Five Poison Sect–Blood Cult impostors would be enough to stop her?

Granted, an ordinary martial artist wouldn’t want to make an enemy of a major sect like the Five Poison Sect.

Still—many men with clubs weren’t a force you could dismiss outright.

A warrior who could freely unleash sword-energy wouldn’t feel threatened at all.

But to a third-rate fighter, they were the kind of opponent you had to stake your life against.

And depending on their numbers, they could be a real threat even to a second-rate warrior.

And what if the one facing them was still just a boy?

Small for his age.

A boy who’d spent nearly a month being hated by everyone he met, without ever even knowing why.

Jong Munun’s hand trembled.

They were servants who used to grin and call him “young master” like it was nothing.

Now they wore ugly faces, spitting hostility at him.

He hadn’t wanted to look at them.

He didn’t want to force his eyes to hold that sight—people he’d lived with, hating him.

Sixteen.

Even if the Central Plains law called that adulthood, he was still just a kid. A child.

No—even if he were an adult, it would be the same.

How hard was it to endure hatred thrown at you for something that wasn’t even your fault?

How terrifying?

Jong Munun stared down at the ground.

When he’d tried to stop his benefactor, it wasn’t only because he was worried about her.

Truthfully, he’d hoped she would just take him and his younger brother somewhere else.

He didn’t want to face this.

He’d imagined—just once—asking her to take him in and teach him martial arts.

He’d imagined it.

But he hadn’t dared to want that much.

If she would only take them as far as his maternal relatives—his mother’s hometown—he would treat it as a lifetime’s debt.

That was when it happened.

A hand—silky, no, softer than silk—slid into his grasp and wrapped around it.

Fingers slipped between his fingers, interlacing, then squeezed as if hugging his hand tight.

The touch wasn’t warm. If anything, it was cool.

But it carried a clear meaning—I’m on your side—and that made it warmer than anything.

Yeah.

On my side.

Jong Munun looked up at Qing.

His benefactor was tall for a woman.

From below, looking up, she couldn’t see her face behind the veil, but he couldn’t help imagining a beautiful face and a gentle smile.

And then her voice came.

“How strange. These days, is it a thing for the owner of a merchant house to return to their own home—only to be greeted by servants holding clubs? What kind of bizarre nonsense is this?”

In an instant, Jong Munun’s expression changed.

The owner of the merchant house, returning to his own home.

That’s right.

The owner.

The Jong Merchant House was his.

Now that his father was dead, the rightful owner was him.

What shameful spectacle was this?

Jong Munun turned his eyes forward.

Faces he knew too well—servants, one after another.

He hated them. He resented them, so much he didn’t want to see them.

But avoiding them because he didn’t want to look—that was childish escape.

More than anything, it was rude to the benefactor who had helped them and brought them here.

And when he faced them instead of fleeing—

Their faces were miserable.

They tried to look fierce, but the fear stuffed underneath was so obvious that only now did Jong Munun finally see it.

And then—

“Shh. It’s okay. I told you, it’s okay.”

His benefactor’s gentle whisper.

Jong Munun turned his head and saw his younger brother on the other side, arms wrapped tight around Qing’s waist, face buried against her.

Jong Munun treasured his little brother more than anything, but in that moment, something surged up in him anyway.

This little punk—

When the owner of the merchant house needed to stand proud, he had no shame at all, clinging like that, burying his face into a young woman’s waist and rubbing—

That—this—this bastard—

That was when—

“Stop. I believe you are under a misunderstanding. ‘The owner of the merchant house’—what are you talking about? How could the wretch who killed my father inherit his wealth?”

A voice that dared to clap back as if it had the right.

Qing looked toward the man stepping out from among the servants.

Square jaw.

Thick brows.

Bulging eyes.

Shoulders spread like a door.

Yeah—he had that “stone-headed ox” vibe.

And beside him stood a woman with a face you could call fairly pretty.

Unlike the servants, they wore silk clothing.

So those two had to be the Chief Steward and the second wife, Lady Lee.

But the people of the Central Plains didn’t know the first survival rule of the Central Plains.

Rule one:

Don’t argue with the Heavenly Flower Sword.

“Well now. A beast who crawled into his sworn younger brother’s wife’s bed, poisoned his sworn younger brother to death, then framed his nephew and drove him out before the funeral rites were even done—those aren’t the words of someone who gets to talk.”

A brutal insult, thrown straight into their faces.

And the spectators—who had stormed in without permission—lit up, eyes sparkling.

What?

He slept with his sworn younger brother’s wife and killed him?

Then blamed the nephew and kicked him out?

Is that something a human being does?

The crowd’s gaze swung toward the Chief Steward.

Half contempt, half expectation—

No, more like contempt plus half a half, with expectation only about half a half.

Of course, the part about poisoning his sworn younger brother to death was something Qing made up on the spot.

Because it made him look even more like a bastard.

But to the Chief Steward and Lady Lee, it felt like their hearts dropped clean out.

The two of them exchanged trembling looks.

How—how did she know?

You... you didn’t talk, did you?

Or did that Therapist bastard spill everything?

“Th-that’s an impossible slander! Evidence—do you have any evidence?!”

“Where in this world is there such a thing as a perfect secret. If we start looking now, won’t we find it?”

“That’s—such nonsense—AHEM. Look here, Hero. This is how things are.”

A man with a huge saber slowly walked out from among the servants and blocked Qing’s path.

“I am Yi Jinbyeong, the Igyang Great Saber.”

The Igyang Great Saber?

By the rules of martial-world epithets, Igyang was the place name, and “Great Saber” meant he carried a big saber.

It wasn’t exactly a standout epithet.

But Igyang?

Was it the Igyang she knew?

If it was Igyang in Hunan... that was a big city.

This was the Chief Steward’s second measure.

By sheer luck, a merchant he did business with had a master as an escort—and he’d managed to hire him for two whole boxes of gold taels.

A master famous in Igyang.

If he treated him lavishly and the man settled down here, great.

If not, he could still beg him to stay only until the child who would be born became an adult.

Qing looked at the saber-wielding martial artist.

Then she looked at the number above his head.

Hmm.

With Igyang in his epithet, he didn’t look weak, and his evil karma was fairly mild. It didn’t look like he’d caused some incident and fled to the frontier.

So why was a perfectly fine martial artist sitting in a dirt-poor backwater like this—under some filthy bastard?

Qing stopped stroking Jong Munyeok’s head.

For a single short instant, she made a red star-like glimmer flicker above the back of her hand—

A brief flash that could’ve passed for a hallucination.

An aura ring, appearing and vanishing in a blink.

A true novice might miss it, but a martial artist with an epithet wouldn’t.

The Igyang Great Saber’s expression hardened—

“Igyang Great Saber, hmm. Do you mean Igyang in Hunan?”

“That is correct.”

“Is that so? I think I heard it from Wang Juhee of the Wang House. You said you had ties with her, didn’t you? Even if it’s only through one person, it sounds like we share a thread of connection—won’t you yield and step back?”

The Igyang Great Saber let out a low sigh.

“I can tell from that great saber. So you are the senior my brother Wang said he must someday repay with his life. You are my friend’s benefactor, so you are as my own benefactor. I cannot dare raise a weapon. This junior will withdraw.”

He dipped his head.

But in truth, if you gathered ten Central Plains people, two of them would be named Wang, another two would be named Lee, and another two would be named Jang.

So “Wang House” was hardly specific.

In other words, their conversation boiled down to this:

Leave while I’m letting you. If you don’t want to die.

...Thank you.

As the Igyang Great Saber stepped away, he glanced back.

And because he still had something to say, he said it—not to Qing, but to the Chief Steward.

The Igyang Great Saber sent a Voice Transmission.

—You should’ve checked where you were laying down before you stretched your legs out. Two boxes of gold taels—who did you think you were paying me to face? I almost died a dog’s death. Normally, that’s the kind of thing that earns a grudge, but... seeing how things are going. I’ll consider the gold I took as full payment.

No refunds.

And the Chief Steward’s face drained blue.

Qing curled the corner of her mouth.

First: Five Poison Sect–Blood Cult “support.”

Second: a hired martial artist.

So what now?

Was there anything left?

All at once, the Chief Steward slammed his knees down—BANG—face to the dirt.

“H-Hero, you misunderstand! I—I can explain everything!”

If he was kneeling, that meant he’d run out of prepared options.

“A misunderstanding? A misunderstanding, you say?”

“Yes! Those—those brats, my nephews. How could a sworn older brother be so cold as to drive out the child my sworn younger brother left behind? I only meant to let them suffer a bit, then take them back in! Truly! I planned to call them back after forty-nine days had passed since my younger brother left us. So to claim I coveted the merchant house from the start—that’s the misunderstanding!”

“Hm. Is that so?”

“Yes. Truly. I’ve already spoken with my younger brother’s people and gotten their understanding. Come now—didn’t I tell you?”

The Chief Steward turned and demanded.

And sure enough, replies came back—yes, that’s right, that’s true, and so on.

Then Lady Lee piled on.

“Elder... inside my belly, the child he left behind is growing. How could I be with another man—how could I do something so horrible with his sworn older brother? I... I only... sob... after he left... ngh... I didn’t know the merchant house affairs, so I needed someone to discuss things with...”

Lady Lee choked up and started crying.

Qing’s brow cut into a deep furrow.

Oh, so now you’re pretending to cry.

There was a technique in this world—terrifying in how realistic it was—that turned tears into a weapon, intoxicating the heart and making pity swell up before you even realized it.

A fearsome formless poison.

Its name was Ten-Thousand-Flowers Fall.

It was Dang Nanna’s signature finishing move—her life art.

And Qing had seen it far too many times.

So how would some clumsy fake crying ever work on her?

Still, among the spectators, contempt faded a lot.

In its place, suspicion took root.

So—whose story is true?

Qing stood there, thinking for a moment.

Hmm.

How should she ruin these two?

How should she ruin them so the story spread as, Yeah, she ruined them good?

She was still thinking—

When a third voice suddenly crashed in.

“Stop! The law of the realm is strict—how dare you make such a disturbance, in broad daylight!”

Everyone’s heads turned at once.

From the merchant house gate, a cluster of people surged in.

On their chests were large insignia characters—some with “constable,” others with “yamen”—marking ranks among the constables who kept the city’s peace.

In other words, government force.

Hmm.

So the yamen took bribes too.

Not surprising.

In the Central Plains, there wasn’t a single person doing business who didn’t grease officials with money.

That was just common sense.

If you wanted to do business in the Central Plains, you naturally had to bring money and place it into officials’ hands.

Qing watched the constables rushing in with hexagonal cudgels.

And then, suddenly, the Chief Steward’s voice—energized, brash—rang out.

“Chief Constable Jang! Over here! You came! It’s nothing major, but still—coming all this way, isn’t that friendship? WAHAHAHAHA!!”

A Chief Constable was the commander leading the constables.

And the way he shouted it so openly—

I’m close friends with that Chief Constable.