Chapter 880: To Changbai Mountain (2)

At the beginning, a Buddha existed.

And in the moment that Buddha opened its eyes, the Three Thousand Worlds were formed.

That was why this Buddha was called the Primordial Buddha—meaning the root of all things.

The Primordial Buddha also went by another name: the Great Sun Tathagata, or the Great Sun Buddha—both meaning the Great Sun, the great sun itself.

What made the Great Sun Tathagata different from other Buddhas was that the Great Sun Tathagata had never been born—Unborn.

Because it had existed from the beginning.

No one had given birth to it, so of course it could only be that it had never been born.

And it had conceived and brought forth heaven, earth, and all things.

So it was the mother of all, the oldest Mother.

Therefore, there were those—people who followed the greatest fire and worshiped its radiance—who called the Great Sun Tathagata by yet another name.

Unborn Old Mother!

Meanwhile, the world as it was now was wrong.

Good people should receive blessings, and evil people should be punished, but what was the world actually like?

Good people gave goodness until they were ruined, cast out onto the streets, collapsing and dying.

Evil people rose higher and higher on the back of their evil deeds, sprinting down the road of success.

So the status of the evil rose, and the status of the good fell—this was the reason the world grew more and more ominous, turning into hell.

But.

Darkness always fades before light.

Someday, when the promised time came, the greatest devil would appear from the sky and smash this fallen world awake.

And then only the good would survive.

The Unborn Old Mother would lead all the good—up to that sky, to the true world.

Once, the good dared to predict that great intent with human thinking, and committed a grave mistake.

The greatest devil had descended into the world, they thought, and they sought to help him break the world—so they could welcome the Unborn Old Mother.

But it was we who broke.

The false destruction the Unborn Old Mother spoke of was, instead, the hatred the good carried—after being stabbed by the brutal world, bleeding for it.

And so the good who cast down hatred—the good who followed the great fire and followed the light—loosened the shackles of resentment they had bound around themselves, and at last enjoyed peace within a truly radiant world.

Yes. God existed.

God existed, and she was of the Central Plains.

But, truly regretfully—

This fact could not be revealed widely.

Because the world was still lawless, still full of evil people who slandered this true God.

Until the day the good covered the world and finally reached the great cause, anyone who was not truly faithful would have to hide this secret.

Besides, she herself did not know who she was.

But light does not exist in order to announce itself.

It simply shines brightly wherever it exists.

“Miss, would you like some fish jerky? The fishing was pretty good last fall, so I just kind of laid some out to dry, and it turned out to taste quite nice.”

“Oh, really? Let’s see—munch munch—oh, this is good. Wait, what? I think this is the best thing I’ve eaten.”

“Hehe, you flatter me.”

“No, I’m not just saying it—this is really good. You could sell this. No, you should be selling this for money.”

“No, Miss. I made it casually, so it just happened to turn out well. Who could guarantee it would turn out well next time?”

“Ah, yeah. That’s true too.”

For the record, that “casually” went like this.

She carefully dressed only the big fish—fatty, heavy ones—then used tweezers to remove every single one of those countless freshwater bones one by one, dried it under good sun, smoked it alternating applewood and lacquer tree, suffered through four months of hanging it up and taking it down and hanging it up and taking it down, and then tore it by hand into easy-to-eat pieces.

If she did “casually” twice, it looked like she’d kill someone.

But how should this be explained—this thing where the incarnation who had arrived in the human world existed, could be seen directly, and could even be given offerings by hand?

It was truly, genuinely a good thing, and yet there was no way to explain it!

Now, the faithful’s offering-preparation had entered a new realm.

What use was it to offer ordinary snacks?

They had to offer something more special!

But they couldn’t just buy anything and present it, so the answer was handmade—handmade snacks!

And so, when the divine person visited, they would slip the carefully made offerings to her.

Of course, it was pure self-satisfaction-driven passion—if you had to describe it, it was closer to a productive hobby done in a trance of absorption.

“Ah, Miss, you’ve come? You’re going far again, right? I tried stuffing-dried sausage—my first time, but it seems to have come out fairly well. You can eat it when you’re bored, or slice it thick and toss it into broth when you boil soup.”

“Oh, stuffed-dried sausage. But is it okay for me to take this? Weren’t you making it to sell?”

Stuffed-dried sausage was food made by filling an animal’s intestines with minced meat and drying it.

Making it wasn’t the hard part, but drying it was—most of it spoiled or rotted, so among them, the tasty stuffed-dried sausage was treated as a top-tier ingredient.

“I’m not good enough to sell it yet—I wasn’t sure whether it really turned out, so if you eat it and tell me what you think, I might consider switching careers. Haha.”

“Then... here. Aah.”

Qing chewed, and then swallowed.

“This—no joke, you really need to switch careers. It isn’t salty at all, and—wow, how did you dry the fat so perfectly chewy like this?”

“Hehe, thank you. Ah, but is there any flavor you’d add? No big reason—if I’m going to prepare to switch careers, shouldn’t I try making different flavors?”

“Mm. Spicy might be good. Though, if it’s really spicy... well, only people who like spicy will like it, so it’s a little tricky.”

At that, the Seol House Commercial Guild employee’s eyes flashed.

“As expected—spicy. Understood.”

Beyond that came a flood—handshakes requested, gifts shoved into her sleeves.

“I’ve gotten into baking lately, so please try some honey pastry.”

“Dried kiwifruit, and...”

“There could be a heavy snow, so take a pair of snowshoes.”

“I found this on the road—if you don’t need a fire-striker? No one comes forward even if I try to find the owner, and I don’t have any use for it anyway...”

“Our peanut harvest went well, so some beef jerky...”

Mm. Who was so careless they were dropping an expensive fire-striker, and what did a good peanut harvest have to do with beef jerky?

Anyway, it was that kind of passion—please take it—that forcefulness.

So by the time Qing stepped into Seol House Commercial Guild, she was already clutching countless pouches in both hands.

Choi Ri-ong saw her and wore a faint smile.

He already knew they’d been racking their brains and throwing themselves into it to make the things inside those pouches—wasn’t that all respect and love combined into one feeling?

“Grandpa, I’m here.”

“What’s gotten into you, coming down this fast? And where’s Jayeo? You left her somewhere and came alone?”

“The road’s long, so I wanted to move fast. This time I thought I’d hurry up and come back. Where’s Heema?”

“What? You’re going somewhere again? And you brat—if you tell me in advance, I can have preparations made in advance.”

“What preparations? If I’ve got money and a body, that’s plenty. So Heema—”

It was then.

A shadow fell.

Qing lifted her head—

A black object blocking the sun.

Then, FLASH—the sunlight fired a dazzling beam again.

And the black shadow rushed closer, taking a human shape.

What? Flying Heema? Why are you flying around?

And then—

BAM!

It wasn’t flight. It was a crash.

THUD!

With a roar and a faint quake, Heema—Gyeon Pohee—slammed straight into the frozen ground, hard as rock in winter.

“Heema!”

Qing lunged and threw herself over the fallen Gyeon Pohee.

“Ah, it’s my little sister. Hehe...”

Gyeon Pohee formed her usual innocent smile—bright, and somehow laced with lewdness.

But even as she smiled, blood ran in a line from her forehead, pooled in her eye, and then spilled sideways like a bloody tear.

“Heema?”

Gyeon Pohee lifted a trembling hand toward Qing’s cheek, and then—

FLUMP.

KRRK.

Gyeon Pohee died!

Qing’s heart dropped through the floor.

Here—right now—she had to get out of here—

“Hm? Who’s this?”

Damn it. Too late.

At the voice that followed, Qing’s expression rotted.

It rotted hard.

“Ugh.”

“No, does your face have to look like that? What—are you complaining because training was a little rough? One drop of sweat now replaces one drop of blood later, so you’ve gotta get beat up and pass out and—”

“No, that’s obviously how it is. Training’s supposed to be like that, isn’t it?”

“...Hm?”

Qing nodded and nodded.

Even for Qing, training with her Teacher always ended in passing out.

Sometimes it didn’t end at “passing out,” either.

Train like it’s real.

If it had been real, she would’ve died—but because it was training, it ended at pain, bursting, and passing out.

For a moment, something like pity flickered across the man’s face.

A thick-lined, masculine handsome man.

In the dead of winter, he had his upper body completely bare, each strand of lean muscle announcing its presence—like an excellent human anatomy model that showed you every muscle without needing dissection.

The odd thing was the eyepatch slashing across his face.

A one-eyed man looked at Qing and curled his lips—his smile brimming with savage edge, and yet full of delighted warmth.

“You finally see your son’s face, and you still can’t greet me with a big smile? Right?”

Then—Mother—the one-eyed man added.

“WAAAAAH! I told you not to do that!”

Qing crumpled from secondhand embarrassment.

Right. She’d forgotten this bastard existed.

This bastard—Qing’s adopted son, Jayeo’s older brother—this bastard, the previous Heavenly Demon, and the man she had no idea what the hell he even was now—

Yeom Hwiyeong let out a satisfied snicker-snicker-snicker.

For the record, this ridiculous adoption had not been Qing’s choice.

The bastard threatened her with a sword and told her to say “Mother”—what was she supposed to do?

A super-super-super-master at the level of the Manifest Realm or Transcendent Demon apparently even had the privilege of choosing a mother.

“What, you’re leaving again? You really are cursed with restlessness, Mother. But you know what’s sad? You keep my little sister hugged to you like that—both of us are kids you didn’t even give birth to, but is it fair to discriminate like this?”

“Maybe it’s the difference between daughters and sons...”

“That’s it? Then nothing to do about it. As an older brother, being jealous of my little sister is kind of ugly—ah, right. Definitely. That’s a fair point.”

“What—what is?”

“If she weren’t my little sister, I don’t think I’d be just sitting here taking this unfair treatment. But since she’s my little sister, it’s like I have to protect her? What is it, Mother—why is your face like that?”

“I was just thinking... you must not have had a little sister.”

If he’d had a little sister, he’d never have been able to say that kind of bullshit.

Mm. Come to think of it, I wonder if that pig bitch back home is taking good care of Mom and Dad.

If she finds some idiot with bad eyesight, hooks him, and hands them a grandkid or two—

Qing forcibly erased the thought.

What good would it do to think of it now?

Qing looked down at the limp Gyeon Pohee.

For a real master like that Yeom bastard, opportunities to give “proper teaching” that could make someone pass out weren’t common.

So... asking Heema to come along just so Qing could be comfortable felt wrong.

If Heema came, Qing would get countless perks—automatic outfit changes, automatic baths, and above all, that squishy-squishy psychological stability.

But wasn’t it more important that Heema escape being low-tier as fast as possible?

Being only—barely—at the peak, was it?

How could a martial artist live with their head held up with a realm like that?

Ugh. Horrifying. If it were me, I’d throw away my sword and go farm immediately. Peak—how could a person—

So for Heema’s sake, mm... there was no choice.

This time, Qing would go and come back fast.

What, had she ever not wandered alone.