Chapter 959: Meat Dumplings Without Meat (2)

The Hebei Peng Family had a huge problem.

It was Young Lord Peng Daesan’s “woman problem.”

In great families, when people say a son has a “woman problem,” it usually means he’s too promiscuous and it’s become a scandal.

But for the Hebei Peng Family, it was the opposite.

The problem was that he kept women far away.

And it wasn’t just “keeping his distance,” either.

If it was a woman, he didn’t just recoil—he acted like he was disgusted, like he outright despised her. The second the topic came up, a sharp tsk would slip out of his mouth, his eyes would narrow into vicious slits, and he’d glare with a feral stare while a deep, displeased crease carved itself between his brows.

And yet—

Peng Daesan was handsome.

By the standards of the Central Plain, he was indisputably the most handsome man under heaven. Some even went further and called him the most handsome man of all time.

As for peerless beauties, the martial world’s Six Beauties always had people arguing over who was the best depending on taste—and since those Six Beauties were the pride of the orthodox martial world, the demonic side naturally had famous beauties too. And if you looked at the refined courtesans—the classy kind, the “respectable” kind—how many world-class stunners were there?

But the most handsome man under heaven?

There was no rival to match him. Only one man in the entire world—an ultimate jade kirin of beauty.

Normally, if a man doesn’t even try to hide how annoyed and uncomfortable he is, and makes it obvious—plain as day—I don’t like you...

Women get offended and leave quickly.

Like, what, are you the only man in the world?

But in Peng Daesan’s case, no matter how aggressively he broadcast his disgust, the women just... wouldn’t peel off.

If anything, they’d gush that even his contempt was handsome, declare that from today onward their type was “bad men,” and cling like leeches.

So Peng Daesan’s hatred of women only got deeper as the days went by, with not the slightest sign of improvement.

Which meant the mistress’s worries only deepened too.

To the point where complaining about it to her eldest daughter—now grown enough that they talked like friends—became part of her daily routine.

“Ugh, what am I supposed to do with that boy? I told him to just cover his face when he goes out, and he goes, ‘Mother, why should I have to avoid those women?’ and then he just has to go around showing that ridiculous face, doesn’t he?”

“Wow, Mom. That sounded nothing like him.”

“This girl. Who in the world could imitate his voice? Anyway. So women swarm him from all sides, and seeing that makes him hate women even more, and the more he hates them, the more he goes out of his way to strut around because of that contrarian streak of his—and then women swarm him again.”

“He’ll handle it. He’s my kid.”

“What? Why is he your kid? He’s my kid. I carried him and gave birth to him—how does my son become someone else’s kid?”

“Who fed him and put him to sleep and carried him on their back? Wow—and ‘someone else’? Mom, are we strangers?”

“What am I supposed to do about your younger siblings, then? You try having a baby. When you’re pregnant, it’s misery in its own way, and when you give birth, it’s misery in that way, too.”

“You’re telling an unmarried girl to have a baby?”

“You hurry up too—ugh, forget it. Anyway—where was I? Right, that brat, Daesan. He says he’ll fulfill his duty as family head, but what does that even mean? It means when the time comes, he’ll grab just anyone, marry them, and make them have kids. But marriage is supposed to be because you like each other, so affection blossoms and children come one after another, and that’s how a family becomes harmonious. ‘Duty’—my god, what’s our household going to look like?”

“Well... it’ll work out somehow. Don’t worry so much, Mom.”

At that, the mistress—Lady Gyo—shot her a look.

“...Huh? Look at you. You’re weird. Why do you keep taking his side all of a sudden? Why aren’t you agreeing with me? Why aren’t you sympathizing? Am I the only one worried?”

“No, I mean—what—who said I was taking his side...?”

In that instant, Lady Gyo’s eyes flashed.

She practically shot a cross-shaped glare straight out of her eyes as she clamped down hard on her daughter’s hand.

“You little—our sparrow. A huge, beefy sparrow. You know something, don’t you? Yeah. Did something happen with Daesan lately? He’s seeing a woman, isn’t he? That’s what this is, right?”

“Seeing a woman? Every place he goes, women run into him.”

“You brat. Your mother might only be third-rate in martial arts, but my instincts are a peerless master. Do you think I’m stupid? The woman who beat back all those fierce bitches and claimed your father—do you think I’m a joke? You won’t talk nicely and spill it?”

“Uh... well. Actually—”

“My god! It’s real! Who? What kind of girl? You saw her too? Is she nice? What does she do? This isn’t the time—where is my daughter-in-law?!”

“What are you going to do if you know where she is?”

“I’m going to put her in a palanquin and personally carry her home. Right—tell the Works Office to make one. A golden-flower coral-jade palanquin.”

“What even is a golden-flower coral-jade palanquin?”

“I don’t know. It’s precious because it has all the good things in it, isn’t it? But honestly, I’m hurt. You don’t pity your poor mother, wasting away day after day, unable to eat or drink because she’s worried about her son? And you had news like this and didn’t tell me immediately?”

“No, it’s not like that. I was going to surprise you. I invited you to visit a bunch of times, but—no, she...”

“So? Who is she? What happened? How long have they been seeing each other? And is there any sign she’s pregnant before the wedding—no, I mean, he’s my son, but what kind of woman could see that face and just sit still? Heehee. Am I going to have a grandchild soon?”

“Mom. Let me talk.”

“Okay, okay, hurry up and tell me.”

“Um. Actually, um. The truth is... Daesan’s the one chasing her. She doesn’t seem to have any special feelings.”

“...Is that girl blind, by any chance? Of course, what does that matter? We’ll have to find maids with experience serving the blind. First ten—no, about twenty.”

“This is why I didn’t tell you. It’s complicated, okay? Daesan seems pretty set, but the problem is she thinks of him as just a friend.”

“Friend? What ‘friend’ exists between a man and a woman? That girl’s even higher-level than I thought. Right—because if she says she likes him, Daesan recoils like he’s been burned, so instead she says it’s friendship. Friendship where they eat together, drink tea, go look at flowers, and then—friendship where they hold hands, kiss, and bump bellies, and—well—like that.”

The phrase “bump bellies” was used here, and the “belly” in question meant a person’s belly—an abdomen.

What reason would a man and woman have to press bare abdomens tightly together?

That’s what it meant. Sex. Intercourse.

“That’s not it. I mean—when they’re together, we need to give them some kind of trigger. So I thought of something...”

It was a conversation from about a year ago.

For the record, Peng Chor-yeo’s plan was this:

First, invite them.

Make Peng Daesan go sightseeing in the city.

Then, along his route, hire people and arrange for him to “coincidentally” run into passionate, intense displays of love between men and women everywhere he goes.

And then finally—some special feelings would...?

Of course, Lady Gyo had only snorted.

But hey. Anyone can make a plan, can’t they?

Anyway.

*****

Back to the present.

When she heard that a woman had come to visit holding the eldest son’s VIP token, Lady Gyo—the mistress of the Hebei Peng Family—thought to herself:

So “that girl” really exists.

Ah-ryeo didn’t make it up.

And then her next thought followed immediately.

Of all times—now! When Daesan and Ah-ryeo are both gone!

But still—was she supposed to just sit on her hands?

And as Lady Gyo had already said while mocking Peng Chor-yeo, she was convinced this had to be that girl’s fox-like scheming—approaching the woman-hating Peng Daesan not as a woman but as a “friend,” and achieving success with a once-in-an-age strategy.

Because really—how could she not think that?

Not because he was her child, but objectively speaking, her son was absurdly outstanding.

A martial artist who’d achieved genius-level accomplishments with his own skills, with a family background that didn’t even need mentioning, and above all—that face.

It was enough to make you think the long period where she couldn’t have children wasn’t barren at all, but time spent gathering the energies of heaven and earth just to produce Peng Daesan.

If you picked apart his eyes, his nose, his mouth one by one, you’d say, this part looks like his father, that part looks like his mother, but put it all together and it became a beauty so peerless that neither his father nor his mother could shamelessly claim, He looks like me.

So from Lady Gyo’s perspective, the rice was already cooked and she was in the stage of letting it steam.

Which meant she had to go see her future daughter-in-law.

Cheer her on intensely, reassure her that she was the strongest possible ally, and pull her close—so that later, when the big “operation” happened, it would succeed cleanly.

But then—

“Ah... she didn’t come alone?”

Lady Gyo’s sense of dread prickled.

There were four visitors.

Seomun Cheong and Moyong Juhee. And the other two.

First of all, Juhee wasn’t that girl.

And besides, Juhee was a girl who used to visit often just a few years ago and keep her company—so of course her intentions back then had been to win the mother’s favor to look good to the son.

And of course Peng Daesan had recoiled and scowled like he’d been burned, so how could she come back now and try to approach him as a “friend,” not a lover, and expect it to work?

“Th-the Heavenly Flower Sword? Are you sure?”

“Yes! It’s the Heavenly Flower Sword, the hero Seomun Cheong!”

The maid shouted, visibly excited.

Which made sense—among women of martial families, there was no one who didn’t know the name Heavenly Flower Sword, and few who didn’t admire her.

“That girl” was the Heavenly Flower Sword?

Lady Gyo’s dread deepened.

So that was why her daughter refused to open her mouth no matter how much she demanded a name—saying it could become a huge problem if a rumor got out.

When Lady Gyo had said, If rumors are the problem, and the problem is that it’ll ruin a woman’s marriage prospects, then just make it true, her daughter had—

So it wasn’t that kind of problem.

If things went wrong, it was the kind of problem that required preparing for an attack by the greatest woman under heaven. That was why she’d hidden it to the end.

Still.

Even so, a mother had to do what a mother had to do.

First, she needed to call the Heavenly Flower Sword in and confirm her true intentions.

But—good grief.

That brat had said he didn’t care about looks.

She remembered it clearly: she’d asked him if none of the world’s beauties who liked him appealed to him, and he’d frowned and answered—

That it wasn’t about appearances. It was about the heart.

Was his “heart” maybe a very... broad heart? A heart as big as a head? Was that his taste?

Either way, the moment Lady Gyo saw Qing, she understood.

Ah. She really does see my son as a friend.

That distinctive attitude women show when they meet the mother of the man they’ve set their heart on—whether they’re nervous or shamelessly friendly, there’s always that subtle coquettishness, that faint effort to curry favor.

But Qing’s gaze was completely plain. Clean. Matter-of-fact.

None of that was there.

With that face, you can’t even capture a woman’s heart? If that’s how you’re going to be, return that face. Seriously.

“My goodness. What a shame. You came all this way. Ah—would Longjing tea be all right?”

“Ah, you can speak comfortably to me. You’re Daesan’s mother, and, um... I’ve received a lot of help from your son?”

Lady Gyo responded with warmth as if she’d been waiting for that exact line.

Because this was how you flipped the positions immediately.

If her son couldn’t “catch” a woman, then the mother had to catch her instead.

“Is that so? Oh my, how pretty. I didn’t believe the talk about ‘the most beautiful under heaven,’ but how can you be this pretty? My goodness—your eyes are so beautiful. They say a person’s eyes have to be clear—so how are yours this clear, so... clear... are they?”

Something about them didn’t feel clear.

At a glance, the irises were blue like a completely cloudless sky—until suddenly they didn’t feel like sky at all, but like color reflected on the surface of water, an indifferent hue, something stirring beneath that surface—

“Hehe, thank you. But you’re really beautiful too, ma’am. As expected of Daesan’s mother.”

The sudden, prettily curved smile snapped Lady Gyo awake.

Right. This wasn’t the time.

A woman understands a woman’s heart!

And with heartfelt praise from countless women having been Lady Gyo’s secret weapon for years, the treasure vault opened at last.

“Wow—did you embroider this yourself?”

“Only embroider? It’s all silk I wove myself. I started because I thought, I should make my child’s wedding clothes with my own hands, and then it got more and more fun.”

Brilliantly colored silks hung proudly, showing off the embroidery spread across them.

A hobby that had started “for fun” clearly came with terrifying talent—these were objectively the kind of top-tier silks where the price was whatever the seller said it was.

And of course. Starting with the cocoons themselves—this was silk woven from threads spun by heavenly silkworms fed only the best mulberry leaves, the kind people said were worth their weight in gold—so how could the quality be anything but insane?

But then—

“What color would suit you... Your skin is so clean that any palette would look good. Here, let me hold this up. Here—like this—oh my... it’s perfect, isn’t it?”

“Uh... ma’am?”

“Now, now. I just want to make my darling a set of martial clothes. Let’s see—we need to choose the silk first. My goodness, your face is so pretty that even heavy embroidery won’t overwhelm you.”

“Uh, you really don’t have to go through all that trouble...”

“Our Daesan is so picky—you must’ve suffered a lot catering to his moods. Think of this as being repaid for all your hardship, and don’t feel too uncomfortable, all right?”

At that, Qing stiffly—creak, creak—looked around the room at the countless silks draped everywhere, every color, every pattern.

“Didn’t I say I made too much and it’s hard to get rid of it? But now there’s finally a use for it—how lucky. And there’s nothing to do until dinner anyway, so let’s take our time and look, hmm?”

We just ate lunch and you’re talking about dinner?

Qing’s eyes slowly started to go dead.

The mood had suddenly turned into a department store.

The kind of distant, crushing despair that hit when your mother and your little sister started shopping—and then, somehow, your aunts showed up too.

That son of a bitch Peng Daesan... so this was why he was always wandering outside instead of staying home.