Chapter 889: The Plague Wretch Is Hiding Its Strength (8)

Green Guard, the Young Master’s guard warrior of the Moyong Family, had once injured his throat and could barely speak.

But Green Guard didn’t feel any regret at all.

Because silence was the wisest way to carry oneself, and a man was a creature who had to speak not with his mouth but with action—who had to speak with silence!

For Green Guard, who held that doctrine, the absence of a voice was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

Just looking at how White Guard—who used to flap his mouth around so frivolously—ended up taking a pay cut and being transferred into an Inner-Court Guard post was proof enough of silence’s wisdom.

And in truth, Green Guard was one of the Moyong Family Head’s most trusted close aides, a man qualified enough to dare call himself the right hand.

That old saying from some hook-nosed foreigner in the Western Regions—speech is silver, silence is gold—could be said to be not wrong.

Of course, it was an era where that hook-nosed foreigner hadn’t even been born yet, but anyway.

And in Green Guard’s judgment as a guard warrior, Beggar Sister—under another identity, the Heavenly Flower Sword—an expert and a sacred figure of the martial world, was an excellent martial artist already complete in character despite her young age.

Especially that discourse on how difficult the life of a chivalrous hero was—the judgments and responsibilities it demanded—was so impressive that even Green Guard, listening in, had to suppress his admiration.

In fact, the Young Master himself looked deeply lost in thought as well.

Even before, the Heavenly Flower Sword had awakened the Young Master to the proper duties of a person—things he should have known.

She was a benefactor who filled in the gaps he’d neglected while his mind was ensnared by the vessel called the Heaven-Martial Body.

The only thing Green Guard couldn’t understand was why, every time he saw her, she was roaming around dressed like a beggar.

And not just that—why, in a woman’s body, she would commit such disgraceful acts without the slightest fear of being seen.

But.

Come to think of it, hadn’t giants who transcended worldly glory and profit always wandered around in beggar rags, across history and folktales alike?

The old grand strategist Taigong Wang was like that, and Hua Tuo of the Three Kingdoms was like that, and Confucius cherished beggars like brothers.

Immortals in stories, too—whenever they descended to the mortal realm, they always took on the appearance of beggars.

And since the Priestess Order also belonged to the Daoist path, perhaps she had already realized a great Way at that young age... and was practicing it...!

If Qing heard this, she would’ve awkwardly nodded with a dry, ahahaha.

But people, when they want to see someone in a good light, see everything in a good light.

If you’re lying around together, and it’s someone you hate, you think, That bastard is always sprawled out—tsk tsk, pathetic piece of shit.

But if it’s someone you find lovable, you think, How exhausted must the kid be to lie down like that. I should let them rest. I need to take better care of them going forward.

Green Guard—the man of silence—couldn’t escape human limits either.

Right now he was in what Qing’s hometown called a “bean-pod shell” state.

More like: Our Heavenly Flower Sword can do whatever she wants—one foot already across that line.

So even hearing Qing’s current state—a petty, filthy, unbelievably small-minded act of revenge—Green Guard could only admire her inwardly.

At such a young age, she already possessed magnanimity!

If one had been oppressed like that, the man’s way would be to behead and resolve the grudge.

Yet she intended to smooth it over with only brief petty spite—if she couldn’t become a great man, she would still become a great person who embraced the world!

Of course, that interpretation was only possible because Qing was strong.

A strong person setting aside revenge can be forgiveness.

A weak person setting aside revenge is just giving up.

Anyway.

Green Guard watched, pleased, as the next generation of peerless experts—the future heroes of the martial world—mingled.

Why heroes?

Because the Young Master was still young—only a crouched young dragon.

But he was a promised giant born with the Heaven-Martial Body!

Just look.

“Ptoo—ptoo, ptoo! That’s dirty, and it’s cowardly!”

“Jun. In a life-and-death duel, what’s ‘dirty’ and ‘cowardly’ on the battlefield? When you die, are you going to tattle to King Yama? If we fight fair, I win—but I got hit by you throwing sand, so is King Yama going to go, awww, what a pity, and bring me back to life?”

“But it’s a vile method!”

“Jun. Even if it’s filthy and cheap, you have to live first, then think. If you live, someday you’ll get another chance to wash away the humiliation. And if you die fair and square... what about the people you leave behind? How sad would Elder Sun-and-Moon and Moyong Juhee be.”

“That’s... but still, doing it like that...”

Qing grabs Moyong Jun—who’d fallen on his butt—and hauls him up, then dusts at his backside, pat-pat-pat.

“If Jun doesn’t want to use methods like this, then don’t. But you can’t not know, okay? The bastards from the unorthodox factions we’ll face don’t hesitate to use dirty, cowardly methods like this. So you have to experience all of it to become a real expert.”

Moyong Jun flicks his eyes toward Green Guard like he’s asking, Is that true?

Green Guard nods gravely to show agreement.

“Now—want another round?”

“Yes!”

Honey drips from Green Guard’s eyes.

The Heavenly Flower Sword was teaching the Young Master practical combat under the pretext of sparring—not the usual principle-and-form sparring they did at the family, but something close to a real fight.

And she was using every petty trick under the sun that only unorthodox factions would use.

It was precious time—basically real, eye-level combat experience.

Qing was just playing with him because she was bored.

Her personality from the start was that type—the mischievous, mean uncle type who was oddly good at playing with kids.

And.

He learns fast.

That was why Green Guard was so pleased.

At first, the Young Master couldn’t grasp the essence of that rough, savage behavior—the nature of a fight that divides life and death.

But as expected of the Heaven-Martial Body!

He was rapidly learning how to respond.

The Moyong Family’s young dragon—who understands ten things when taught one—was narrowing the distance to his moment of ascension by the second!

Green Guard was so pleased he was starting to lose all composure.

Those two were destined rivals who would someday contend for the seat of the world’s strongest expert—how could they not be a perfectly matched pair?

How old was the Heavenly Flower Sword again? Twenty-three, wasn’t it?

The Young Master is twelve—an eleven-year gap. But wait, in this world, a twelve-year gap is the same zodiac—

So if you really count it, it’s basically a one-year difference. A perfectly matched pair!

And with the Madam having left first, the emptiness in the Young Master is large—he’ll need an older partner with tolerance and breadth, like Miss Heavenly Flower Sword.

Somehow, Qing’s title had evolved all the way into “Miss.”

But then.

And then?

“Aigo, after going wild for the first time in a while, I’m not like before. Is it because I’m getting old?”

“Uh, Beggar Sister? I don’t think you should just sprawl out like that.”

“Jun, the earth is a bed and the sky is a blanket. Wherever I lie down is the world I live in. What does it matter if it’s this way or that? After sparring, you lie down and rest a bit.”

“Uh...”

“Come here. First you lie down.”

“But Beggar Sister is a beggar, so you can lie on the dirty roadside, right?”

“Then you be a beggar too. Just do it.”

“But beggars are dirty and they stink.”

Moyong Jun, who cruelly spoke only truth.

Qing snorts, heh.

“In exchange, it’s comfortable. That’s why I’m usually not a beggar, but sometimes I decided I’d be a beggar. You can lie down anywhere, you can shovel food in without watching anyone’s face, you can do nothing and loaf around and nobody in the world tells you anything.”

“But it’s embarrassing.”

“What? Secret friend—am I embarrassing? Are you looking down on me because I’m a beggar? Do the fifty million beggars of the world look easy to you?”

“Uh... a little?”

“Yeah. Beggars are kind of like that. Then—just don’t get caught.”

“Huh?”

“If you walk around like a beggar, nobody recognizes you anyway. As long as they don’t know who you are, it doesn’t matter how embarrassing you look, right?”

Moyong Jun sinks into serious thought.

Hearing it like that, maybe she had a point?

“That’s only because you don’t know how comfortable being a beggar is—no, how skilled you have to be at being a beggar. Just lie down. Spread your arms and legs out into a big X, and stare up at that vast sky.”

Good Moyong Jun does as he’s told again.

And once he lies down, it’s... oddly comfortable.

Well, of course lying down is more comfortable than standing.

But even so—some kind of liberation seems to seep in.

Moyong Jun was drenched in sweat, having rolled and been hit and been sent flying during sparring, and in the middle of it all having gotten heated and strained with everything he had just to land one hit.

Now, the chill rising from the frozen ground of cold March seeped into him, thrillingly cooling his overheated body.

“How is it, secret friend? Not bad, right? Makes you want to be a beggar, yeah?”

“Uh... a little? But my head’s kind of uncomfortable. It’s hard.”

“Mm. That can be tough for a beginner beggar. Can’t be helped—want me to give you an arm pillow?”

“Heehee. Yes.”

Moyong Jun wriggles and crawls backward until he settles beside Qing’s ribs.

A future little beggar boy lying with his head on the arm of a sprawled-out filthy beggar.

A breathtaking scene of beggar corruption.

Watching the entire process in real time, Green Guard’s eyes quake like an earthquake.

Green Guard, the Young Master’s guard warrior of the Moyong Family, had once injured his throat and could barely speak.

But Green Guard had no regrets.

...Until now.

Silence is the wisest conduct. A man must speak with action, must speak with silence!

For Green Guard, who held that doctrine, the absence of a voice was only a minor inconvenience.

But never—not once—had the absence of a voice been as inconvenient as it was right now.

Well.

That’s how it was.

******

Why did Qing play with Moyong Jun?

Of course—because she was bored.

Why was she bored?

Because she was staying in Geonpyeong even though she’d already wrung out all lingering resentment.

Why was she staying in Geonpyeong?

Because she wanted to make the Proprietor—who’d earned himself an extra charge—pay the appropriate price: an extended business shutdown.

But now it was awkward to restart the break-in style Geonpyeong gourmet tour, and in the first place those Geonpyeong bastards weren’t eating meat at all just because she’d stolen some—weren’t they?

She’d known it since her very first steps into the martial world, but they were truly vicious bastards.

If others heard her, they might find it absurd.

Is that something the Beggar Venerable should say—someone who’s got nothing to do, bored to death, yet still forcing herself to kill time just to torment the Proprietor?

But people are like that.

Even an illicit relationship—if it’s me, it’s a beautiful pure-love story; if it’s someone else, it’s filthy adultery.

If you really wanted to put it in Central Plains terms, you could call it: I’m pure, others aren’t.

But humans are contradictory creatures like that by nature.

A thorn stuck in my finger hurts more than slander aimed at someone else; my family is more precious than other people’s family—those are natural human traits.

And above all, the most precious thing in the world is the self.

So if it’s pure love when I do it and adultery when you do it—if I’m generous to me and mine but stingy to others—that’s just an unavoidable human side, only differing in degree.

Qing just happened to belong to the “very huge” degree.

A shameless bitch, in other words.

Anyway.

With Qing this bored, coming out to watch the Mongol bastards’ legal (not legal) plundering was as natural as the sun rising and the moon setting.

So.

Geonpyeong’s market square.

All sorts of goods—soon to be plundered—were stacked up neatly, arranged on several wagons so they could be taken easily.

And from far away—

CLACK-CLACK, CLACK-CLACK—

The hoofbeats of many horses drew closer.