Chapter 895: Shenyang Trip (3)

Qing hadn’t set out because she actually knew where the barbarians’ base was.

She just knew they’d come from the north—and that they’d arrived after noon.

Meaning: somewhere to the north, and probably a distance you could start from after eating breakfast early, ride hard, and arrive a little after lunch.

You could ask, You’re really heading north with just that? If you ride half a day, if you’re even a little off, won’t you end up somewhere totally different? And what if the barbarians traveled for more than a day—aren’t you moving too rashly?

Qing had no answer to that.

Because Qing didn’t think in the first place.

It was open grassland anyway, so if there were barbarian tents, she’d see them from far away, right?

But what if the barbarians had crossed more than a day’s distance to invade Geonpyeong?

So what?

If a man drew a blade, they had to slice something—so since she’d already left, she could just go farther.

It was extremely Qing.

And it wasn’t like she had a deadline breathing down her neck, either.

Still, if there was one stroke of luck, it was this: right when the sun was barely about to touch the horizon, she spotted structures glowing red with sunset light up in the north.

Her eyesight was beyond human—on terrain this open, finding an odd shape wasn’t hard at all.

The barbarians’ tents were already half dismantled and loaded onto wagons, and they were busy taking down the remaining half.

Meaning: they would’ve pulled out tonight and run.

If Qing hadn’t chased immediately, she wouldn’t have found them.

This was why people said if your body was good, your head didn’t have to suffer.

Even if you didn’t think much, if you just shoved forward with a good body, you could still get good results.

Qing tugged the reins and brought Lu Bu to a stop, then stared at the Mongol barbarians working hard to clear the tents in the distance.

After watching for a moment, Moyong Jun asked, puzzled.

“Beggar big sister? Ah, there they are! Aren’t they trying to run? Then we have to chase them right now.”

“They’re running on their own. So what.”

“But they’re barbarians. What if they invade again later? Cut the grass and pull up the roots—right? We have to pull them out at the root!”

“That only works if the roots are deep enough to pull or burn. If there were more bandit packs, I might clean them up a bit, but.”

Qing stared again at the busy barbarians far off.

The small ones looked like children, and the bent shapes had to be old people.

Sure, there were plenty who looked like full-grown adults, but if there were children and old people, then naturally there would be women too.

“Jun. From what I can see, it’s kids and women. Kill them all? Because they’re barbarians, kill them?”

“Gasp. No, I don’t think that’s right.”

“Then spare them? If you leave them, the women will have babies, the kids will grow up and turn into nasty barbarian bandit packs and invade again. Spare the barbarians?”

“Huh? That’s... you can’t do that.”

“Then what? Kill the barbarians? Kill everyone, kids and women too? Kill weak people who don’t even know martial arts?”

“Th-that......”

Moyong Jun fumbled, unable to continue.

It was a genuinely hard problem, the kind with no answer.

While Green Guard watched Moyong Jun sink into thought with a pleased smile—

A brief commotion rose in the barbarian lair, then a few mounted figures came out from among the workers and took position up front, blocking them.

But they didn’t charge.

They just stood there, watching Qing’s group’s movements.

Time flowed quietly.

The sun that had reached the horizon slowly sank beneath it.

People said the sun was brightest right before it set, didn’t they?

Sunset—the brilliance of a dying sun.

The sky stained red, shadows stretching longer and longer until they were more than three lengths long, spilling far—

And it was nearly dark.

At last, the mounted figures in front of the barbarian tribe turned their horses’ heads.

They merged back into the barbarians, now only visible as silhouettes.

And a little later.

Torches flared up here and there through the barbarian tribe, busy dismantling tents.

To work at night, you had to light fires and drive back the darkness, of course—

But seeing that, Qing turned her horse’s head.

“Let’s go.”

“Huh? We’re just going?”

“Why? Kill them all? Right—should we sweep them clean? I could butcher them so thoroughly they can’t even open their mouths.”

“No, not that, but—still. Shouldn’t we go and say something like, I’ll spare you, so don’t invade again—like, you know, I grant you mercy, at least say something like that......”

“If you say that out loud, it’s not cool. Come on. Let’s go. We should go somewhere and sleep for the night too—mm. Damn it. Ah, hell.”

Only then did Qing realize.

There was a kid with them, and she’d dragged him along for no reason—when it was this cold.

Her friends could sleep outside for a day in the dead of winter and it wouldn’t matter, but now that they were actually going to camp out, Moyong Jun finally started to bother her.

Mm. Still, the kid was at least around Jin Jangmyeong’s level of weakling, so maybe it would be better to just stay up all night and head for a house instead.

But going all the way back to Geonpyeong now felt like it would kill the vibe.

“Wow! Beggar big sister, are we camping out? Sleeping outside? Like really—setting up a tent and lighting a campfire and hunting and roasting meat?”

But Moyong Jun’s eyes sparkled so brightly they stood out even in the dark.

The reaction was... exactly—

“Huh? Jun, you’ve never camped out?”

“Well, it’s my first time running away from home too.”

It should be your first time running away from home.

If you were a repeat offender at your age, that would be a bigger problem.

Seeing Moyong Jun’s eyes glittering with life, Qing let out a snort of laughter.

If it got too cold and miserable, she could just hold him while they slept. It wasn’t like he was a kid who didn’t know any martial arts at all—what could go wrong in a single night?

*****

Fortunately, Green Guard had packed proper camping gear.

Since this was a runaway-home that the family had permitted, it was only natural that the escort had prepared everything.

On top of that, wouldn’t a Mongol cavalryman’s gear include camping supplies too?

And since Qing’s group had seized the horses, they’d inherited those supplies as-is.

A waterproof sheet, a fur sleeping bag, an iron pot, and food—grain powder, dried meat, goat milk or mare’s milk, and a few seasonings including salt.

Just looking at it, it was obvious it would be delicious if you threw it all together and boiled it.

And on top of that, Qing had an instinctive cooking talent—so-called “hand taste.”

Qing’s mixed-stew porridge was a masterpiece that even her friends praised with the utmost devotion, saying, “We don’t understand why this is delicious, but it is.”

Her friends were all, without exception—well, except for one—precious children from precious households, raised on expensive food with refined palates.

And those friends guaranteed it!

“Wow, beggar big sister. This is really good. It looks like fodder porridge, though.”

“Heh. That’s the charm of mixed-stew porridge. Different outside and inside. Once it boils, it all looks the same, but it always tastes different—that’s the fun.”

They ate dinner until they were full.

And since there wasn’t anything to do at night anyway, they decided to sleep early. They laid the waterproof sheet thick, then put up a simple tent low enough that you could crawl right into it.

Once they got inside and wrapped themselves in the fluffy sleeping bags like caterpillars, it was pretty cozy, with warmth pooling in.

Though... mm. The sleeping bag smelled a bit, which was kind of unsettling, but still.

Then, after a while.

“Hey. Beggar big sister. Are you asleep?”

Honestly, I’d expected it.

It was their first night camping out—falling asleep immediately would’ve been weird.

“Yeah. Beggar big sister is sleeping.”

Then came the sound of a kid giggling.

“So... beggar big sister let the barbarians go. Can I ask why you did that?”

“Well. They gave up first.”

“Gave up?”

“They lost the staring contest and went back in. Then they lit the torches. Even though they knew I was watching.”

“That’s surrender? Why?”

“They knew I was watching, but they let their guard down and went back in anyway. And it was getting dark, but they still lit torches even though that would make them visible. So it means this: We’re powerless. We’re not trying to pull anything. So kill us or spare us—do what you want.”

“Ah......”

“So do I really need to go over there and say, If you leave now I’ll spare you, never covet Central Plains land again? I don’t need to say it out loud. They’ll know I showed mercy. One action is more trustworthy than a hundred words.”

“O-oh... ooh......!”

The awed exclamation came back, strangely excited.

And sure enough, somewhere inside Moyong Jun’s heart, that beggar-shaped statue of a true chivalrous hero was shining gold—

And on the pedestal beneath it, stone chips flew as a golden maxim carved itself in.

—ONE ACTION OVER A HUNDRED WORDS.

So cool! This is a real chivalrous hero!

Qing’s idol-meter shot up! Limit break!

And so, Moyong Jun’s first-ever monumental first experience—his first night camping out—flowed on.

*****

The next day.

Moyong Jun somehow became even chattier.

Of course, he’d always been chatty.

From their first meeting, wasn’t he the would-be lech who blurted out anything and everything he shouldn’t?

And as an eavesdropping expert, everything he overheard spilled out with zero security—no, not spilled, gushed.

Now he was even worse. That mouth never rested.

Qing thought they must’ve gotten a step closer.

You know how little kids were.

Once they got close, they chattered nonstop, saying literally anything.

It was truly, genuinely anything.

He’d start talking about how some warrior somebody might marry some kitchen somebody, then with zero context jump to a huge bird they’d passed.

Then he’d rave about his favorite foods, praise last night’s mixed-stew porridge, then say next time they camp out they should hunt too—ah, or fish, catch a whole fish and skewer it and roast it—

He was talking about the next camping night as if it was a given.

Then suddenly he started talking about horses again.

“Did you know? Apparently Mongol barbarian horses weren’t pretty like these. They were really ugly. Their legs were short but their necks were like twice as thick, and their heads were huge and they were fat.”

Qing imagined it.

Mm. Then—

“Sounds cute.”

“In real life they’re super ugly.”

“Animals are cutest when they’re ugly.”

“......?”

Originally, “pretty” for people and “pretty” for animals were totally different words.

Qing liked animals that were kind of ugly—especially ones that looked wronged.

Among dogs and cats, she liked the ones with faces smashed flat, or the ones with miserable expressions.

Of course, that didn’t mean she could keep them.

Living alone, raising a pet was hard enough, and even when she worked up the nerve, those kinds were expensive too......

So by that standard, Lu Bu was... well.

He was definitely a well-built beautiful steed, but that stupid-looking big-ass side was kind of my taste.

“Anyway, back then—during that fallen dynasty? The Mongol barbarians saw Central Plains horses and started taking them to use......”

By “fallen dynasty,” he meant a ruined dynasty—specifically the previous dynasty, the Jin Kingdom, when the Central Plains had been conquered and ruled by Mongol barbarians.

Anyway, it wasn’t a story with much nutrition.

Mongol horses were insanely strong, never seemed to tire, and were tough against the cold, so they were powerful forces on the northern plateau grasslands—

But their legs were short, so they were slow, and they were weak in heat, so they couldn’t do much in the south.

And their low height and ugly looks probably didn’t help either, since it didn’t suit a conqueror.

But since the Mongol barbarians had conquered every land from the Central Plains to the far end of the Western Regions, they stole all the famous steeds in the world and bred them together.

So now, supposedly, there weren’t any horses as outstanding as the ones the Mongol barbarians rode.

“So, it seems like these guys want to run too. Horses—especially warhorses—apparently have to sprint once in a while or they get sick.”

What the hell?

People really did live the same everywhere—wasn’t that exactly like saying you had to floor the car once in a while or it would break down?

And considering that was baseless bullshit—

It was basically the same as saying people had to get screwed once in a while to be healthy, which—mm. No, people did get healthier if they got regularly screwed, but—

“Jun, we should probably ask the horse what it thinks—”

“Beggar big sister, let’s run! YAHHH!”

Before Qing could stop him, Moyong Jun kicked his horse in the side and shot forward in an instant.

That had sounded like something you were supposed to do while holding hands and leading each other as you ran out together, but instead he just took off alone—the limit of a little kid.

Behind him, the taciturn Green Guard’s horse immediately galloped after him.

Then—NEIGH.

Lu Bu let out a long cry and blew out BRRRT-BRRRRT rough breaths.

He wanted to run too.

No, shouldn’t you ask my opinion too?

I’m not even that close with the horse......

Truthfully, Qing’s riding was garbage.

Technique was something that developed from bodily lack.

Human fists were weak, so they held weapons.

Flesh was fragile, so internal arts evolved.

But if your body was sturdy, it meant you didn’t need petty skills like that.

So Qing’s horsemanship never rose above simply clinging on with beyond-human physical ability.

And honestly, horses were a brutal ride......

Qing sighed deeply.

“Fine. Let’s go. Alright.”

Looks like we should, first, deliver our secret friend home—

To the Moyong Family in Shenyang.