Chapter 242: Wanderers Have Their Own Code of Honor

Gyeongdamgan answered weakly. His voice was drained, almost as if he’d given up.

“I don’t know either. Haven’t seen him since morning. How should I know if he’s passed out drunk somewhere or found some suitable ‘ingredients’ to enjoy himself?”

Ingredients? What ingredients? He still hasn’t learned his lesson.

"Tsk," Qing clicked her tongue, displeased.

Regardless, it meant this was a dead end.

Qing didn’t doubt Gyeongdamgan’s testimony; she accepted it immediately. When it came to selling out his comrades, at least, Gyeongdamgan was a very reliable source. The loyalty among scum like this was shallower than a puddle of muddy water on the road.

Besides, in the Central Plains, the concept of a ‘missing person’ was extremely vague.

Her spiritual roots, the Korean people, might not understand this well.

In the nation of the Korean people, the government collected every piece of information on every individual, even fingerprints.

This level of surveillance, essentially a police state, was an 'achievement' unique to the Korean people in the entire world.

Foreigners who learned of this would cry out “Big Brother!” in sudden shock, a reaction Koreans utterly failed to comprehend.

Even the people of Zhonghua hadn't managed to register all their unofficial non-citizens (the unregistered, often called ‘rats’)!

Therefore, in Qing’s homeland, unless the police were in cahoots with the kidnapper and turned a blind eye, kidnapping someone into slavery simply didn’t happen.

On top of the voluntary surrender of personal information, the entire population was equipped with real-time communicators that doubled as location trackers.

So, if someone suddenly couldn’t be contacted, people immediately sensed something was wrong and concluded they were missing.

You didn’t have to look far; if a location tracker was turned off, deep anxiety would already well up inside you.

But what about the primitive, uncivilized Central Plains?

If someone left home saying they were going to watch the Murim Conference, it might take a month to get there, a month to watch, and a month to return. Even if there was no contact for at least three months, people would just assume they were having fun.

Maybe after half a year, they’d start wondering, ‘Shouldn’t they be back by now? What are they doing?’ After about a year, they’d accept the permanent separation, thinking, ‘The kid probably got stabbed somewhere.’

Furthermore, even the basic postal system in the Central Plains was a government monopoly, reliant on either immense wealth or personal connections who happened to be going that way anyway.

It was a world where you couldn’t send a single message without money or connections!

So, even if Qing disappeared for three or four days, no one would particularly worry. They’d just think, ‘She must have gone somewhere,’ or ‘We must have just missed each other.’

Even if Murong Juhui hadn’t left a letter saying she was returning home first, her family likely wouldn’t have worried much for about a week.

They’d probably just think, ‘Did she cause some trouble again? Is she avoiding us out of embarrassment?’

Similarly, Gyeongdamgan’s statement about not seeing the leader since morning fell into this context.

He might be off playing alone somewhere, or perhaps the higher-ups gave him a separate mission. The fact that the Unit Leader was absent might earn a click of the tongue, but it wasn’t considered a big deal.

“Hmm. Just asking, but are you willing to remove the Gu Poison from the people you infected?” Qing asked.

“Kkkhhhk, just kill me. I should at least take plenty of my companions with me on the way to the afterlife,” Gyeongdamgan replied.

“Aren’t they your enemies, not companions?” Qing countered. “You’re more likely to get beaten up on your way there.”

“Death is the end. What afterlife?” Gyeongdamgan retorted. “If heaven were to punish the wicked, it should show itself while we’re alive. Why spout nonsense about paying for sins after death, whether you believe it or not?”

“Hmm. You have a point there.”

If divine punishment struck immediately after wrongdoing, wicked people wouldn’t exist in the world.

Talk of suffering after death was ultimately just the pitiful self-consolation of the living, wishing it were so.

“Kkkhhhk, what will you do now? If you kill me—” Gyeongdamgan started.

“Ah. Just so you know,” Qing cut in, “the wanderers took some strong medicine and are sleeping soundly. So, threats about the Queen Gu launching an unlimited suicide attack operation if you die won’t work.”

Gyeongdamgan scoffed at that, then said, “I’ll remove the Gu Poison. Just spare my life.”

“Hmm. We seem to be on the same page,” Qing observed.

Gyeongdamgan’s expression brightened.

Qing smiled refreshingly and continued, “It’s fine, you don’t need to remove the Gu Poison. But I really hope you live a very, very long time, Eunuch Grandpa. You can’t die, okay?”

The martial prowess of the Two-Line Blood Gu Unit Leader, the Blood Wheel Demon, was said to surpass the Unrestrained Realm. The exact level was unknown even to the informant.

It was natural to hide one’s true strength in the Jianghu, and revealing specifics like early, middle, or late stage was rather foolish anyway.

She had intended to ask her Master to handle the Blood Wheel Demon, but hearing she was absent was truly disappointing.

Thus, Qing grabbed the sparse hair of the unconscious Reviled Mad Demon and began dragging him towards the exit.

Along the way, she spotted Ximen Surin examining the underground Blood Cult base and smiled brightly.

“Master! Your disciple has captured the Reviled Mad Demon.”

“Are you hurt anywhere?” Ximen Surin asked. “There isn’t a spot on you not covered in blood.”

“Not a single drop of it is mine,” Qing replied. “Why would I get hurt capturing a mere Transcendent Realm brat?”

“I see. So now you can handle Transcendent Realm opponents with ease. You’ve done well.”

Even seeing Qing completely splattered in blood, Ximen Surin simply offered gentle praise.

Seeing Qing's state actually brought back faint, pleasant memories of her own youth—days spent soaking in the blood of sex fiends as she slaughtered the enemies of the women of the Jianghu.

“It seems the Blood Wheel Demon has left,” Qing reported. “Gyeongdamgan said he didn't know if he just stepped out for a bit or what.”

“Then I suppose I’ll have to stay here a bit longer,” Ximen Surin said. “By the way, what do you plan to do with that sex fiend you caught? Aren’t you going to cut off his limbs and throw him in a pigsty?”

The Reviled Mad Demon’s vile tastes were quite well-known.

If they weren’t, he wouldn’t have earned the moniker ‘Reviled Mad Demon’ in the first place. It was only natural.

“Hmm, there’s something I want to try. It might help with my training too. Hmm. But where is Mentor? I need to do it together with him.”

“Hmph. Do you think The Divine Thief is called eccentric for nothing?” Ximen Surin scoffed. “He probably found some other rare object to steal somewhere. Who knows, maybe there’s another woman out there who made her innerwear out of a Treasure Map.”

“Or maybe it’s a man this time,” Qing bantered back.

Ximen Surin pretended to lightly flick her head.

“You brat. Are you making jokes about your Senior Sister?”

The woman who made underwear from a Treasure Map was none other than the Heavenly Muted Sword, Wang Zhuxi, the Divine Maiden Sect Leader.

Ximen Surin often teased Wang Zhuxi when she saw her, asking how the world’s most valuable innerwear felt.

Since the Blood Wheel Demon, the leader of the Two-Line Blood Gu Unit, might return, Ximen Surin decided to remain underground. Qing headed back to the surface.

Along the way, she saw one or two Blood Cult warriors, limbs severed but strangely not bleeding much, twitching and groaning on the ground.

Qing considered finishing them off but decided against it, feeling it would be disrespectful to carelessly dispose of those her Master had deliberately left alive.

Besides, they were living relays for the Queen Gu’s unlimited suicide attack operation.

There was a need to keep them alive to dispose of them all at once later.

In the Mucheon Pavilion bathhouse, there was an apparatus meant for Qing’s torture—no, for her Lithe Grace Refinement training.

And now, someone other than Qing was firmly secured to it: the villain known to the world as the Reviled Mad Demon, Gyeongdamgan.

After binding his limbs with the same rare artifacts Cheon Yuhak had used on Qing, she took a blazing torch and pressed it against his severed wrist.

“Mmph!!!”

“Uh-uh. Stay still,” Qing chided. “Just sealing the blood vessels isn’t enough to stop the bleeding completely, you know? I’m treating you so you can live a long, long time.”

“Mmph!!”

“My goodness, acting like you’re dying just because I cauterized the wound a bit,” Qing tutted. “It’s just a little sting. Such a baby for an old man.”

Qing thoroughly cooked Gyeongdamgan’s wrist.

Since she applied the fire directly, if one had to classify it, it would be direct-flame grilling.

Ah. I want some pork belly.

It wasn’t something one should think while grilling a person’s wrist alive, but the smell of cooking meat filling her nostrils made it unavoidable for Qing.

Qing knew from personal experience that once properly bound to the Lithe Grace Refinement training platform, even the slightest movement was impossible.

It was ergonomically designed because if the subject moved during the delicate process of severing joints and tendons, they could become permanently crippled.

Thus, Gyeongdamgan, who had been only spewing screams past his gag, suddenly went limp.

“Ack, did he die!?”

Qing quickly checked Gyeongdamgan’s pulse.

The life thread of a Transcendent Realm master wouldn't snap from a mere medical procedure like cauterizing a wound.

Qing felt deeply relieved.

Returning to the Mucheon Pavilion proper, she found a familiar, welcome face she hadn’t seen in a while.

“Ah, Grandpa! Have you been well?”

“Oh yes, have you been well too?”

The gently smiling old man, who had aged gracefully, was none other than the Tang Clan's Grand Clan Lord, whom Qing called Poison Grandfather.

Poison Grandfather asked tentatively, “Hmm. So. I heard Surin is here?”

“Ah. Master is downstairs, taking care of the Blood Cult leader,” Qing replied.

“Is that so?”

The Grand Clan Lord’s face lit up.

His shin, broken when Ximen Surin kicked him just for making some aphrodisiacs, still ached whenever it rained.

After hearing of Ximen Surin’s arrival, he hadn’t even glanced towards the Mucheon Pavilion.

But with the Two-Line Blood Gu captured, what did an aching shin matter?

Removing another person's Gu Poison is not easy.

Qing had just ripped it out of the belly, but that was because she intended to kill the host anyway.

Puncturing the intestines is a serious matter, but attempting to forcibly extract a Gu Poison causes it to spew out its poison core, flooding the host’s body with lethal venom.

Qing had just yanked it out because she only needed the host alive long enough for her brief enjoyment.

However, she couldn’t do that to Murong Juhui and the wanderers. Thus, the help of a titan skilled in both poisons and medicine was needed.

And so, late that night.

Poison Grandfather, carrying jars filled with live Two-Line Blood Gu, left gleefully.

Qing had carefully observed the skills wielded by the master of human dissection, and it was truly a divine skill worthy of a physician specializing in the human body.

And the Two-Line Blood Gu were surprisingly… hmm. Cute?

Qing had imagined parasites like earthworms or fleas, but the actual contents looked more like translucent salamanders.

They had broad heads with two horizontal lines across them, making her realize, ‘Ah, so that’s why they’re called Two-Line Blood Gu.’

She tilted her head, wondering if such creatures actually existed, then remembered this was a world where people used mysterious power called Internal Energy, shot laser swords, and flew around.

A parasitic salamander probably wasn’t that strange after all.

With that settled, all that remained was for her Mentor to return.

Now that she had good teaching material, she planned to learn the Lithe Grace Refinement procedure.

She thought it would be good to learn it now, since she’d supposedly have to perform it on her own disciple later.

Besides, the process of severing joints and tendons almost to the point of destruction, guided by sensation alone… wow, just thinking about it filled her with anticipation.

However, Cheon Yuhak did not return.

Instead, a stranger appeared, relaying Cheon Yuhak’s message that he would be late and not to worry.

Hmm. Why did you send the messenger collect?

Master, you have plenty of money.

Five taels of silver for ten characters saying ‘I’ll be late, don’t worry, disciple’ is a bit expensive, isn’t it?

In the end, Cheon Yuhak was delayed, doing who knows what.

The bound Gyeongdamgan was growing weaker, and Qing, fearing he might die, made a decision.

Besides, she needed to send the Queen Gu’s self-destruct signal while the Blood Cult warriors—the relays—were still alive.

Well, if I fiddle with the handles and see how it works, maybe I can teach myself without Mentor needing to show me?

Translator's Note: In the original Korean, Qing uses two different terms for her teachers: 'Sabeonim' (사부님) for Ximen Surin and 'Seuseungnim' (스승님) for Cheon Yuhak.

While both convey deep respect, 'Sabeonim' often carries a more direct martial arts lineage connotation, while 'Seuseungnim' can be slightly broader, like a revered teacher or guide.

To reflect this distinction:

Qing will call Ximen Surin 사부님 (Sabeonim), translated as Master.
Qing will call Cheon Yuhak 스승님 (Seuseungnim), translated as Mentor.

It's confusing I know, but you should have seen me figure this out, when Qing said master this and master that... 🤔

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