Chapter 894: Shenyang Trip (2)

“Honestly, you probably don’t have that much time. Some of the barbarians ran away, which means they could call reinforcements and come charging back in soon. That could be tonight. It could be tomorrow. Or it could be in a few days, or a month from now. If you’re lucky, they might feel a big fear and never come again—but are you going to entrust your lives to that kind of fluke? If you’re wise, you’ll pack up and leave right now.”

Lord Jang looked completely flustered.

Even if they left, where were they supposed to go, throwing away the life they’d built here?

And it wasn’t like he’d be leaving alone—if Geonpyeong’s people, well over a thousand of them, moved as a group, there wasn’t a city in the world that could easily absorb that number.

Of course, spring was coming soon, and if they could just hold out for one month with what they had, it was the season when every place was short on hands.

If they rented someone else’s fields and farmed, they could keep themselves alive somehow.

But they’d be living with grass stuck to their mouths.

“Or go to the government office and ask for military help, and petition for an administrative seat to be established under their jurisdiction. It’s not just one or two people, so they won’t be able to ignore you. And if they build walls, that’ll become your work, and if the army wants to set up garrisons and farm colonies, they’ll requisition your land—but it’s still better than being herded into a mass slaughter by those barbarians.”

“Th-that’s......”

Lord Jang looked hesitant about that too.

If an administrative seat came in and officials were dispatched, the city’s power structure would be reshuffled.

And even aside from that, the taxes you paid the state were higher than the “tribute” they’d been paying those Mongol barbarians.

And if the army stationed here and requisitioned land, the city’s goods would shrink far more.

“If that’s hard too, then you have to come up with a way to stop the barbarians on your own. Ask a powerful faction to protect you, or invite a master who can drive the barbarians off. You’ll have to gamble with your lives, so it would need to be a famed chivalrous hero under heaven.”

Easy to say, but in truth, it was nonsense.

Even if Geonpyeong had some interest rich enough that milk and honey flowed, how many factions would keep fighting a war of survival against the Mongol barbarians?

And before that—how many factions could even handle it?

Masters were even less likely.

A master was treated well anywhere, and if they were going to get the same treatment regardless, they wouldn’t come to a borderland like this and put their life on the line against barbarians.

Lord Jang checked Qing’s expression, then, with an extremely servile face, carefully opened his mouth.

“Um, Beggar Venerable—”

“Stop.”

Qing looked at Lord Jang with indifferent eyes.

“I told you, I’m not a chivalrous hero.”

“Beggar Venerable, please—where are we supposed to go if we abandon our homes? We’ll end up sitting on the street. Please pity us, weak and wretched as we are—”

“You’re the people who were cold to me when I was weak and wretched, at the moment when someone’s kindness was what I needed most. Hm. Saying it like that makes me sound petty. And I don’t even think a beggar bastard who just waits for someone to help them is right, either. Sure. That can happen. It’s not a mortal sin to not give alms to a beggar, is it?”

Lord Jang’s expression brightened a little.

Qing’s brow creased.

“That’s why I helped you. Being cold isn’t a mortal sin. And more than anything—I didn’t want to become the same kind of person just because you were heartless.”

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Pettiness for pettiness.

But deciding not to help the people of Geonpyeong wasn’t revenge for the past.

She’d already shaken off Geonpyeong’s contempt and coldness as nothing more than a trivial, nasty prank.

Just because no one reached out when I was struggling and suffering doesn’t mean I’m going to do the same—turn my face away, mock someone else.

So I helped.

Driving off the barbarian bandits should’ve been enough.

But what, then?

Do I have to live here and block every barbarian that comes charging in?

It wasn’t like I pulled you out of the water and you demanded the bundle on my back too.

I beat back the barbarians who attacked right now, and I told you how to survive the crisis you’re in—

And then you go, But what about our house? Our property?

What a joke.

“And even if I were a chivalrous hero, would it be any different? Chivalrous heroes are people who’ll gladly throw their lives on the line to repay even a small kindness. But out of more than a thousand of you—my god—not a single one gave anything. So thankfully, I don’t have anything to stake my life on.”

Qing swung herself up onto Lu Bu.

Then she grinned.

“It was filthy being with you, and let’s never see each other again. Ha—so I finally got to say it myself. Alright, secret friend, you’re leaving too, right?”

“Ah—ah!”

“What, why are you spacing out? I went to all the trouble of wrapping this up, and if my secret friend stumbles around here, it ruins the picture.”

“Yes.”

Moyong Jun said that, then smoothly climbed onto a riderless horse.

It was a natural mount, like he rode all the time.

*****

Moyong Jun sank into thought.

Of course, now that he was on a horse, he could think about anything he wanted.

Why?

Because, unbelievably, a horse was a ride that could do fully autonomous driving—a ride that ran on its own and avoided danger by itself!

A fully autonomous driving system that was impossible even in the far future, in Qing’s homeland, due to technical and institutional limits—was possible in this undeveloped, primitive age!

It was truly astonishing.

Anyway.

Moyong Jun stole a glance at Qing’s expression.

Beggar big sister said it was fortunate she didn’t have to gamble her life for those nasty people.

But she already had gambled her life.

It was common knowledge that Mongol barbarians’ martial arts were fierce and savage—something everyone(?) knew.

The Mongol barbarians had once conquered the Central Plains, taken the Central Plains’ martial arts, and advanced their own martial ways by adding them.

But the moment the barbarians showed their true colors, beggar big sister stepped forward and blocked them—without even measuring the enemy or weighing the odds.

Wasn’t that plainly an intent to save people first?

And even though she kept trash-talking Geonpyeong’s people for being so nasty—

Beggar big sister said she wasn’t a chivalrous hero, but in Moyong Jun’s eyes, wasn’t she already one?

The idol in Moyong Jun’s heart.

The Great Hero image of Moyong Seongik, strict and solemn, turned even more transparent, while Qing’s loose, cackling, friendly-and-plain illusion grew clearer.

Of course, Qing didn’t even know that Mongol barbarians used martial arts in the first place.

Even this time, when she realized the barbarians were using martial arts, she must’ve been pretty shocked inside.

But even if she’d known, she wouldn’t have left the people of Geonpyeong to die.

So the part where Moyong Jun wildly overestimated Qing’s level of “common knowledge” was just a small error.

Still, something bothered Moyong Jun.

“Um, beggar big sister.”

“Huh? What?”

“Those village people. Is it really okay to leave them like that? They don’t have the power to protect themselves......”

“Mm. How should I put it.”

Qing chose her words for a moment.

If they didn’t have the power to protect themselves anyway, then even if the barbarians hadn’t invaded, their fate was to be taken from sooner or later.

Or you could say the root of the disaster was Geonpyeong’s laziness—because they’d prepared nothing.

They’d thought they could coexist forever, for all eternity, with those Mongol barbarians—laughing together in peaceful plunder.

They’d believed in that baseless peace and made no preparations, so of course they’d nearly been wiped out.

They didn’t pay taxes to the state, so the state had no duty to protect them.

But did taxes only go to the state?

If they’d shown sincerity to the nearby government officials early on and slipped them unofficial taxes, even fleeing wouldn’t have felt this hopeless.

Or if they’d had even one decent martial faction nearby.

The only master they’d brought in was low-tier, late-stage—someone who could barely breathe, and could only handle a little internal energy for gambling tricks.

They’d probably been afraid that if they drew in martial forces, the city would get swallowed whole.

Or if, at the very least, the villagers had made any kind of plan among themselves.

Even if they couldn’t build a fortress-style earthen stronghold—if they’d narrowed the streets, tangled them, placed quickly assembled wooden palisades or barriers like the ones they’d tried to catch people with, buried traps—

At least when the barbarians turned on them, they wouldn’t have been helpless. They could’ve bought time to evacuate someone precious.

But for people who did none of that—

Just because they did none of that—

Was the person with power obligated to help?

Still, wasn’t that way too harsh to say to my secret friend—my former would-be lech, now not-a-would-be?

Moyong Jun was still a little kid, and it wasn’t something you said to a little kid.

So Qing used her finishing move.

A secret art of conversation!

Answering a question with a question!

“Then what do you think, Jun?”

“Um. That’s...... what do I do......”

Moyong Jun sank into thought.

In this way, he was a solid little kid—he didn’t whine and demand an immediate answer just because he didn’t know. He struggled, trying to reach a conclusion on his own.

After being silent for a while—

“But beggar big sister, where are we going? Isn’t this... north?”

“Ah. I’m going to look over the barbarian village—tribe, camp, whatever. I’m still bothered about the ones who ran away.”

“Ah.”

“It’d be annoying if I went to all the trouble of sparing them and they came charging back in half a day. And if they’re getting ready for that, I can try talking them down. Or what—don’t they carry their tent-houses and move around? If they’re already preparing to run, I can just let them go quietly.”

“Ooh.”

So beggar big sister had a plan!

She wasn’t really abandoning the people of Geonpyeong!

Moyong Jun’s eyes glittered again.

No—violently glittered.

In the Central Plains, what was the first passage anyone dreaming of becoming a chivalrous hero memorized?

Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian, “Biographies of the Wandering Chivalrous.”

“Even if it violates righteousness, they keep faith with what they say, and do not hesitate.”

Here, “righteousness” meant law and principle, and what a chivalrous hero “says” was a vow not to leave injustice alone.

The people of Geonpyeong hadn’t paid taxes, and they’d colluded with those barbarians, so by national law they were vicious criminals.

But they were also powerless, living on land the state didn’t watch over, paying tribute simply to survive.

So if you were truly a chivalrous hero, you couldn’t leave the barbarians alone—those who’d greedily gobbled tribute, then tried to wipe everyone out with their mouths wiped clean.

“They always keep what they promised, and they place helping others’ hardships above their own life.”

That was what beggar big sister had done.

“Even if they took on great danger because of it, they don’t make a point of showing it, and they feel ashamed to boast to others.”

Don’t show off.

If you brag and broadcast it, it becomes a means of raising the name “chivalrous hero.”

If you truly want to walk the path, there’s no reason to go around telling others.

So in the Western Regions they said, “Let not your left hand know what your right hand does.”

And in some far future island country they said, “...Nothing happened...!!”

And beggar big sister was heading to the barbarian lair quietly, without making a point of it.

Those nasty Geonpyeong people would definitely curse her, saying she left alone even after saving their lives.

But who cared?

If no one wanted to recognize you, then that kind of backbiting didn’t matter at all.

In that instant, somewhere deep inside Moyong Jun, the heroic image he longed for shifted again.

The heroic image of Moyong Seongik—strict, solemn, and serious—blurred rapidly.

The fictional Moyong Seongik reached out late with a startled face, mouthing something—

Then became completely transparent and vanished.

And in his place, the image of beggar big sister, swinging a huge roasted duck leg like a famed sword, hardened into a full heroic statue wrapped in radiant light.

On the pedestal beneath it, letters began to carve themselves—THUNK, THUNK, THUNK—stone dust sifting down, until finally, in a single sweeping stroke, dazzling gold letters flashed.

THIS IS A CHIVALROUS HERO!

It was truly not something that could not be lamented.