Chapter 878: On the Way Home (7)

After finishing the New Year’s greetings and returning to the Sichuan Tang Clan, the moment Qing passed through the round gate of the Guest Hall, the sound of short little footsteps—PITTER-PATTER-PATTER—came rushing closer from somewhere.

There was only one kid staying in the Guest Hall.

Qing spread both arms wide toward Jayeo as she ran in—

But Jayeo slid to a stop with a sharp SQUEEEEEK right in front of Qing.

And then she puffed her round eyes even wider—those eyes already rimmed with heavy, dark shadows.

“O, ooo, ooo.”

“Huh. What?”

“Pretty. You’re super pretty.”

Come to think of it, Qing had never really put on makeup in front of Jayeo.

But... pretty?

As a dad, was her dignity going to survive this?

“Makeup. I wanna do it too. Do it for me.”

A sudden declaration out of nowhere!

Jayeo’s eyes, looking up at Qing, sparkled like crazy for the first time in a while.

Qing let out a soft, leaky snort.

She’d been worried the kid was too gloomy—but it wasn’t that. It was just that her gaze looked rotten and the shadows under her eyes were so deep. Any normal kid her age would react like this.

“Jayeo wants to try makeup too?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“That’s something you go to a pro for. C’mon—let’s go to Heema.”

“Why? You won’t do it? Auntie’s gonna?”

“Auntie? Isn’t she more like... aunt-in-law? Uh. No clue. Anyway, Heema’s the expert at makeup. I didn’t do this myself. But what were you doing, Jayeo? Playing your little heart out and flopping over?”

At that, Jayeo planted her tiny fists on her hips, lifted her nose high, and bragged.

“Me, me. Studying.”

“HEY!”

Qing yelped before she could stop herself—because after roughly ten years in the Martial World, even her reflexive exclamations had turned Martial World.

Of course, that “HEY!” was basically the kind of scolding that meant, You little—!

“My god, how can you be this admirable! Jayeo finally became a person? San did this, didn’t she? It was San, right?”

“Yeah. Handsome Mom.”

“Of course it was San. Seriously. The other moms—I told them to teach you, and my daughter’s still illiterate, and they’re sleeping with their legs stretched out like they don’t have a care in the world.”

Other moms might feel wronged.

They’d say, You’re the one who’s the most relaxed—what are you talking about?

But people talk trash even about the king when he isn’t there—and Qing was the kind of person who could do it right to your face, too.

Qing scooped Jayeo up.

“Alright, let’s go. We’ll make you pretty—really pretty—and then you can show off to Handsome Mom.”

“Heehee, kuh-kuh-kuh......”

Please don’t laugh like that.

But anyway.

They crossed the courtyard, and the door immediately slid open with a clatter.

Not because some expensive Central Plains–style mechanism-formation automatic door had been installed—someone opened it.

Peng Daesan appeared, wearing a face that was strict, solemn, and serious.

“You’re back from resting? Then—”

“Uh, Teacher. Our kid’s been relying on you a lot. So... about when do you think she’ll finish the Thousand Character Classic?”

“.......”

Meanwhile, Peng Daesan’s mind went blank!

And honestly, it made sense.

The difference between a luxury good and something that’s merely luxury-adjacent is always in tiny details—trivial little things.

So if you take something already luxurious and stack even finer detail on top of it, that’s practically ultra-luxury, isn’t it?

Qing’s face was currently in a state where no man could tear his eyes away.

Especially her lips—alone, a lush red blooming against her pale, faded face—the glittering sheen—

It felt like only that seductive lower half of her face filled his entire vision.

“Hello? San? Buddy?”

What, did he break? No response?

Qing waved her hand back and forth in front of Peng Daesan’s face.

Then, for some reason, Peng Daesan’s voice sank low.

“...You even powdered your face just to go to the Prince’s Manor. Was there someone you wanted to show off to?”

“No. They did it there. Show off to who? What benefit would I get from showing off a powdered face?”

“Then you can wipe it off.”

“But the maids at the Prince’s Manor put that much effort into it. Feels kinda rude to just scrub it off completely.”

“They weren’t doing it for you. They were receiving a guest who would pay respects to an Imperial Prince. Isn’t that simply their job?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Isn’t it uncomfortable? My older sister absolutely can’t stand face powder.”

“Mm, it is uncomfortable. It’s annoying, too. It feels like there’s something on my face, and I can’t even touch it. If I wear a veil, it rubs off.”

That was why Qing wandered around bare-faced even while taking endless flick-flick punches to the forehead from Ximen Surin. (Well—she’d started doing it after taking those.)

Qing touched her head a lot.

Scratching the back of her head and the sides was her default. She’d scratch her cheek, scratch her jaw, scratch the end of her eyebrow—scratch-scratch. It was a terrible habit for skin health.

And if the color smudged or wiped away, she’d have to fix her makeup.

On top of that, if she wore a veil, it inevitably brushed her face—then the powder would transfer, and the part where it transferred made her view feel dirty.

If you think of the veil like the lens of a pair of glasses, you’ll get it.

“Mm. Yeah, like there’s anything worth showing off. Ah—Jayeo, I’m taking her for a bit. Looks like she wants to try makeup. Mm... if we put some powder under her eyes, will the shadows fade a little?”

And thus: Jayeo’s first makeup in her life!

For the record, once the white powder erased the deep shadows under Jayeo’s eyes, she didn’t really look like Jayeo anymore.

Those shadows had been packaging her rotten gaze as mere tiredness!

It was like neutralizing poison with poison, like fighting barbarians with barbarians—one of those strangely profound principles.

But once the area under her eyes was brightened, well...

She was just a kid whose gaze had died.

Of course, kids this age are hard to make not cute, no matter what they look like.

“Aww, our Jayeo—who’d you take after to get this pretty?”

“Kihihit. I wanna go to my moms.”

“Why—so you can show off your makeup?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Mm. The moms are training, so... should we show them when we eat lunch later?”

Gunyeong was always diligently building that pathetically tiny internal energy whenever there was time.

And yeah—Gunyeong really did need to put in effort. EFFOOOORT.

What was she going to do with internal energy that small?

But Tang Nanna being completely absorbed in training was... no, it was very unfamiliar.

She used to cling to Qing all day and raise hell about going out to play, and now she suddenly seemed like she’d matured. It left Qing feeling... a little empty.

*****

Two days later.

Tang Nanna, who had come to see them off all the way to the canal, held Qing’s hand.

“Qing... stay a little longer. Yeah?”

“Come on. You’re busy training, and what am I going to do loafing around in someone else’s house? Besides, you’re clearly getting results, right? When the feeling hits, you’ve gotta pour yourself into it.”

“Then... see you later at the Priestess Order Temple.”

Normally Tang Nanna would’ve cried and screamed—well, not real tears, more like stuffing in fake tears and pretending to sob—raising a scene like, Kill me instead, step on my corpse and go!

But this time she retreated easily.

Because Qing claimed she had Myriad-Poison Immunity.

Come to think of it, if poison didn’t work on Qing, what was the point of this young lady tagging along? Even this time proved it. If her Poison Person Realm were higher, Qing wouldn’t have gone into enemy territory alone.

And so, with the Tang Clan seeing them off, the boat bound for the Yangtze River raised anchor.

Along the canal, to the Upper Yangtze.

The Upper Yangtze merged with the Yangtze downstream, and then the Yangtze flowed on—winding, bending, following its own twisting watercourse.

From Sichuan, three days by boat brought them to the edge of Sichuan territory—the entrance to the Yangtze’s great gorge, the beginning of Qutang Gorge, at the border of Hubei.

If you spent half a day watching the sheer cliffs stretching endlessly to left and right, then a peak would suddenly reveal itself atop those cliffs, shaped like the elegant back of a woman.

The famous Goddess Peak of Qutang Gorge.

And what was under Goddess Peak?

Right. Under Goddess Peak—behind it, tucked away—was Qing’s wooden house. Small, but still her home. Sweet home.

So Qing’s heart loosened in a single drop.

Ah. Home.

But with home right in front of her, didn’t it feel a little... weird to take the long way around?

If she lowered a ladder down the cliff... but then random nobodies might climb up, so obviously that was out of the question.

And when the cliffs of Qutang Gorge finally ended, the view opened wide—and along the riverbank, piers sprawled out in a long line.

The docks of Zigui County came into full view—somehow getting more and more bustling every time she visited.

And thus: Zigui County!

On the road to Seol House Commercial Guild, the employees greeted her with feverish enthusiasm—Miss, you’ve returned!—until at last she stood beneath the guild’s large signboard.

Someone must have sent word quickly, because Choi Ri-ong came out to meet them. He saw the group and spoke with a bright smile.

“Oh, Jayeo, you’re here? Come give your grandpa a hug. My goodness—people say you grow anew every day, and now that I look at you, you’ve become a proper young lady.”

“Heehee! Kihihit!”

“Huh.”

“What are you doing? Why aren’t you coming in? Tsk. I thought you’d at least come back to celebrate Spring Festival, but you leave last year and come back this year? You heartless brat. There’s a limit to being cold. Jayeo, you mustn’t take after your dad. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Choi Ri-ong clicked his tongue sharply and carried Jayeo into the guild.

Qing could only stare at his back with a dumbfounded expression.

“...Huh?”

What was this? Why was she being treated like cold leftovers?

Anyway.

Like this—Seomun Cheong, returning!

As usual, she ate at Seol House Commercial Guild.

She ate snacks, drank tea, and soaked her body in the newly built bathhouse until she was thoroughly simmered—mm, when they built a hot bath out of marble, it somehow made her think of her homeland.

Fresh and glowing, Qing stepped into one of the guild’s buildings.

“You’re here. You look well.”

“No, what are you looking at while you greet me?”

“Ah. So that wasn’t your head. I thought it was strange—two of them on the left and right.”

The Seol bastard started by teasing her right to her face the moment they met.

This was what made getting used to someone terrifying. The Seol bastard teased so constantly that now Qing just thought, Oh, I guess that’s how it is, without feeling anything.

Of course, she hadn’t exactly felt much even before.

If anything... she found it interesting.

“Seriously, you get prettier every time I see you. At this rate I might fall for you. You been well?”

“Being well isn’t anything special. Eating well, sleeping well, fucking well, shitting well—if you do that, you’ve been well.”

The Seol bastard’s expression was brimming with smug momentum.

Qing gave him a thumbs-up.

“Oh, wow. You got me. So you must’ve shat a lot.”

“Can’t you at least pretend to be embarrassed? You’re not some aging, mischievous housewife.”

“I’d rather you joke. I’ve heard every kind of thing. Things you should hear, things you shouldn’t—have you ever heard the stuff unorthodox trash talks? Compared to them, you’re practically polite.”

“Mm. Sorry. I’ve heard it too.”

Qing nodded.

The Seol bastard’s looks kept blooming more every time she saw him, so he’d surely suffered plenty of high-octane filth from unorthodox thugs and bandits.

“So. Is it true? The suspicious figure at Changbai Mountain?”

“Not certain. But there were testimonies from Jurchen or Eastern Barbarian merchants. They say there’s a monster living on the slopes of Changbai—its eyes are blood-red, and black veins bulge up in knots, grotesque beyond words. It’s as savage as a tiger. If you offer it a big beast, it rips it apart and eats it on the spot.”

Black veins swelling up through the skin—that was a hallmark of a Blood-Reversal Demon, a representative side effect of the Heaven-Sundering Blood-Reversal Heart-Devouring Needle-Point Formula.

“Demonic arts are all like that, but with the Heaven-Sundering Blood-Reversal Heart-Devouring Needle-Point Formula, it’s worse. To circulate internal energy in reverse is—well, isn’t that the principle of defying Heaven? The natural order is that a lowly creature accumulates virtue, reincarnates, and becomes human. If you reverse that, then a human must fall back into becoming a beastlike creature. So I’d say it’s a Blood-Reversal Demon for sure.”

“...Mm.”

A crease dug into Qing’s brow.

A Blood-Reversal Demon wasn’t in their right mind.

Finding the owner of the Heaven-Sundering Blood-Reversal Heart-Devouring Needle-Point Formula was good news—

But if they weren’t in their right mind, were they even in a state where they could spit out the martial art they held?

“Still, how has word not spread? Even if it’s a demonic art, if it’s one of the Ten Great Demonic Arts Under Heaven, wouldn’t every martial artist in the world come running?”

“That’s because we deliberately went looking. A proper martial artist doesn’t usually talk with barbarians, do they? Some might’ve overheard and caught on, sure—but what kind of loyalty would people have, people who covet demonic arts, to go spreading rumors? They’d go and die.”

Even a sect famous in the region had no reason to chat with barbarians.

And someone who possessed perfectly fine martial arts didn’t desperately chase demonic arts—unless it was some peerless art that could shake the world, like the Life-Draining Demon Art.

So the ones who heard rumors from barbarians would be low-tier martial artists—and people desperate enough to covet demonic arts.

If some low-tier martial artist marched to Changbai Mountain to “catch” a Blood-Reversal Demon, what would happen?

They’d die. What else?

“Mm. Well, a thirsty person looks for a well—if there isn’t one, you either go to the river or you dig your own. Anyway, thanks for checking. As expected, you Seol bastard. I might have to raise your intelligence rank—at this point, you’re basically the North’s top brains?”

“Not a big deal. I’m not even the type to use my head in the first place. That ‘intelligence’ nonsense...”

Qing nodded.

This kind of humility was exactly why she had no choice but to rank the Seol bastard as the top brain.

Jegal Ihyeon and Sima Chunbong—those two read a couple books and can’t stop bragging.

Truly, the Seol bastard possessed the cultivation worthy of a genuine intellectual of this era.

And then that genuine intellectual of this era put an absolutely dazzling joke in his mouth.

“Though I might be the North’s top... big one.”

“Oh? You’ve got confidence?”

“Why. Want to see it?”

“Ugh. No. Forget it. What a creep. You go look at yours as much as you want.”

Anyway, yeah.

And just like that, the first destination of Qing’s seven-year Martial World career became the end of the world—Changbai Mountain.