Chapter 305: The Fire in Chang’an (7)

Of course she has to go directly.

Actually, for Qing, the option of using people is just unfamiliar.

She asks for things to be bought, but never asks for things to be done, so in fact, she’s always been on the side of doing things for others rather than asking.

For any task, without thinking of the consequences, if she thinks it makes sense in her mind, she’s the very tiring type who tries to do it herself and ends up making things bigger.

So she set out on the night road with Seol Ganom, both wearing black clothes in harmony.

It wasn’t night stealth clothing, just black clothes, and Seol Ganom’s opinion was:

“In a place like Xi’an, quite a few people are out even at night. Night stealth clothing is suspicious, and other colors stand out, so black clothes that don’t look strange to others while not catching the eye are best.”

Additionally, Qing wore a face veil and slightly stiff, loose clothing without a waist sash.

Qing’s face shines brightly even at night, so it needs to be covered.

“I look completely like a pig in this.”

“Is there another woman in Xi’an besides you with two heads on her chest and two pumpkins as big as gates on her behind? Are you thinking of announcing it to the whole neighborhood by deliberately going at night when you could go boldly in broad daylight? If so, you might as well be a sow.”

“Hmm.”

“Sow. Bitch. Isn’t there an animal that gives a more lewd feeling? It doesn’t feel right.”

“I told you not to do it twice if it doesn’t work.”

And one more thing added:

“Yiri doesn’t need to come along. Why are you following? Go to sleep.”

“I’ll protect you.”

“I’m really serious. I just want to accept your feelings…”

With meager inner force and not particularly outstanding external skills, no? Does she have some endurance?

Anyway, how can she protect anyone with just one pathetic Cold Resistance Art?

Still, it’s admirable that she wants to protect.

Actually, well, she’s like a pet.

What use is a pet?

If they have any use, they just cause trouble and create work, needing to be fed and clothed, dogs need walks and cats need to be played with, just increasing chores.

If they get sick, money flies out the window.

Dogs and cats are so useless to raise, but why do people still get one or two?

“Well, what could happen. Let’s go.”

“Yes.”

And then she naturally grasped Qing’s hand tightly.

Since Seol Yiri is very sensitive to heat, I let her cool off with the cold of the White Hand Demonic Arts, and now she acts like it’s naturally hers.

However, from Qing’s perspective, Seol Yiri’s hand is hot and quickly becomes damp. The kid secretly has quite sweaty hands.

It’s a bit better at night, but it’s still hot to walk around holding hands tightly.

Qing has climate resistance at the level of half-freezing, half-steaming.

But this means she doesn’t get damaged by cold, and no matter how hot it is, she generally doesn’t get heat exhaustion.

When the temperature drops, Qing feels cold too.

But even when cold, her body temperature doesn’t drop and heat circulates evenly throughout her body, so she doesn’t suffer cold damage like frostbite.

She can survive naked in sub-zero temperatures with biting winds, and did survive like that, but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel the cold itself.

Similarly, when it’s hot, Qing feels hot too.

It’s just that no matter how hot it gets, she doesn’t have to worry about heat-related illnesses, but she feels the heat just the same.

But now Qing has a means to overcome this too, so she immediately summoned the pathetic cold energy of the Cold Resistance Art.

The pathetic cold energy that can’t even freeze ice is just the right cool and refreshing temperature.

Right, let’s consider this enough reward for taking in a pet.

I won’t have to worry about heat for the rest of my life, right?

As soon as Qing thought this, Seol Yiri, who suffers badly from heat, clung to Qing’s arm like a lifeline, hugging it preciously.

Damn. It’s hot and damp and hard to walk…

Really useless thing.

Anyway, the two women clumped together as one and the woman assistant set out into the Xi’an night.

As they made their way through the night streets, they reached a street with quite a crowd despite the late hour.

Actually, this is illegal in the Central Plains.

By law, you’re not supposed to be out past midnight, or zi shi zheng.

Yet if there’s quite a crowd out, the meaning is clear.

There are places where everyone pretends not to know the law, and those enforcing the law pretend not to see – the entertainment districts of big cities.

Even if three veiled women are walking around there, it’s not strange.

They advanced along the brightly lit main street even at night, then turned into a narrow alley.

As they went a bit further, women’s moans echoed from all directions.

Through windows left open in the summer heat, or rather removed due to the primitive technology of the ancient Central Plains, the fake moans characteristic of prostitutes leaked out.

“Huh? Seol Ganom. Are we going the right way? You kept talking about cocks getting hard, are we going to pull one out?”

“Hmm. So this is how it feels to suddenly hear flirting. No wonder there’s no reaction no matter how much I joke. Don’t say things like a lewd old man.”

“Then, is that technician pulling one out? Wow, his cock gets hard even while hiding for his life?”

“I feel like I’ve heard somewhere that people become more lustful when their lives are in danger. But that’s not it, originally the best neighborhood for fugitives to hide is this kind of cheap brothel district.”

The structure has countless small rooms lined up in rows, so it’s easy to get a room.

The rent is cheap and they don’t ask for identification.

Plus the authorities don’t patrol.

And with doors on both sides leading outside and to an inner corridor for all rooms, it’s good for escaping if needed.

Even if not, you can give a few coins to an idle prostitute to pretend to be having sex and avoid the eyes of pursuers.

It’s a den of pimps and thugs, so if you’re a man you can walk around without looking suspicious, and if you’re a woman there’s no better hiding place in the world.

Qing thought as she listened to this explanation.

As expected of Seol Ganom!

Top intellect among fugitives!

Xi’an is large.

But there are few streets permitted (or not) to operate at night, and among them this is the only cheap brothel district, so the scale is terrifying.

As they listened to the fake moans, with very occasional real ones mixed in, but nine out of ten were clearly false groans with nasal sounds deliberately made to be heard.

Anyway, as she listened, something bubbled up and rose inside Qing, bursting in her pupils and polluting their color a bit ominously.

Hmm. As I keep listening, how should I put it. It’s kind of, arousing.

Come to think of it, why doesn’t Seol Yiri have any reaction no matter how much I fidget? Well that’s natural, but.

Actually, just having your breasts touched doesn’t immediately make electricity run through you and give you a vague, strange feeling like in Qing’s homeland media.

Even for Qing, when Tang Nanah fidgets, it’s just very ticklish, there’s no feeling of pleasure or anything like that at all.

But, hmm. Listening to this is a bit?

I wonder what kind of sounds Seol Yiri would make.

I’m curious how that coldly frigid expression would change, how it would melt.

But if it’s the sounds and expressions she makes while eating, hmm, that’s a bit off-putting.

Surely not. It can’t be, right?

Hmm. Aphrodisiacs or something, if there were no side effects.

No, what if there are some side effects?

She’s a useless and incompetent woman who can’t do anything anyway, shouldn’t she be grateful if I make her a toy?

Who else would take in such an unfriendly and useless thing? If not for me, she’d have collapsed long ago, the crippled bitch.

First I should teach her the Blissful Maiden Arts.

If I feed her elixirs, wouldn’t her level in the Blissful Maiden Arts rise?

As a vicious light gradually settled in Qing’s pupils:

“Here. There. The fourth room.”

“What? We’re already here?”

While I was pondering how to play with her, we had already come to a very deep place.

Of course, the deeper you go the cheaper it gets, so it was a street packed with old buildings that looked like they’d collapse if you just tapped them.

“Wow. How did you find someone in a place like this?”

“I’m curious too.”

“Huh? Didn’t Seol Ganom find him?”

“What ability do I have to find people? I just said he probably hid in a place like this, and the elder sent people to search.”

“Come on, how is that different from Seol Ganom finding him? As expected of Xi’an’s top intellect.”

“What’s with that ‘intellect’ expression? Since when was I a smart person? It’s embarrassing, so don’t say such things.”

Qing thought to herself.

You’re even being modest.

Come to think of it, I’ve met quite a few guys who boast about being smart, but that Demonic Cult kid doesn’t seem like it at all, and Jegal just has a lot of trivia knowledge and knows how to chatter.

Wang Milk Jugs, what was his name? Bongchun? I don’t remember anything except that it was tacky. Anyway, he was just openly a weird kid.

Looking back, Seol Ganom was really the real deal.

Coming out of the Northern Sea too.

They say escape is in order of intelligence, so as the Northern Sea’s top intellect, he must have escaped that nasty place in one go.

So Qing flung open the third door.

“Ah yes, ah it, so go-od, so go-od. Kyaak!”

“Wh-who is it!”

A couple in the middle of the act startled and hurriedly separated.

“Are you Carpenter Wang Zhang?”

Then a strange answer came back.

It was an answer coming back through sound transmission.

-I said the fourth room. Can’t you count? Not the third, the fourth.

“Ah. Sorry. Such rudeness. Please continue what you were doing. Ah, why won’t this door close? Don’t mind me, just finish your business first.”

The worn-out door was flung wide open with superhuman strength, so it actually fell off rather than opening.

But Qing is now a recognized junior carpenter.

People see as much as they know, and the junior carpenter’s skills shone.

Hmm. This is torn. The door needs to be replaced.

I should lean it against the wall so it’s not noticeable.

That’s when it happened.

At a small groan suddenly heard, Qing threw aside the door and immediately rushed into the next room.

A smell of blood hit her nose.

A man sprawled on the floor clutching his stomach. Blood gushed from the wound with each heartbeat.

As a master of human anatomy, it was clear he was already beyond saving.

Damn. I was a step late.

His evil karma is crazy, so we must have come to the right place.

At this point, I should at least finish him off.

Qing briefly pondered whether to smash his head, rip out his heart,

or strangle him to feel that sensation when breath stops.

Seol Ganom clicked his tongue as he entered and placed his hand on the man’s belly.

No way? Seol Ganom?

Is he extending his hand to medicine too, not satisfied with being a great intellect?

However, the neighborhood’s top intellect was not a complete package with medical skills too.

He just froze the wound solid.

Seol Ganom, who had built an iceberg emitting white smoke in midsummer on the man’s abdomen, sighed.

“This should keep him alive for at least a ke (15 minutes). You. Listen. How did you end up hiding in such a squalid place and getting stabbed by an assassin? Since it’s come to this, spill everything you know and hope for the next life.”

“Kuheu, hoping for the next life, kuheuhu…”

The soon-to-be-dead man seemed to find the joke funny and chuckled.

Maybe because the wound was frozen solid, he didn’t seem to be in much pain.

Seol Ganom shrugged at Qing.

A gesture saying to ask if she had anything to ask.

“Hey. Mr. Zhang? You know the Luohe River embankment broke, right? I’ll cut to the chase. Did you deliberately break it?”

“Shit. How could that be. I just, diverted some materials. But, kukuk, yeah. It was bound to break. Less than half the materials went in.”

“Less than half went in?”

“The design was so fucked up. I’d like to see the face of the bastard who designed it.”

As soon as the carpenters saw the design, they spat out curses mixed with 20% admiration and 80% profanity.

Everything should be done in moderation, it was a well-made design but if built exactly to spec, nothing would be left.

“What? So you’re saying you diverted materials?”

“How could that be? As soon as we saw the design, we thought it was shit but figured it must be a great work that would go down in history. Carpenters are like that. If you say it’s a great work that will leave their name behind, they’ll rush in even without pay. Carpenters don’t lack for money in the first place.”

Carpenters are a very precious human resource, in the past, present, and even the future.

“But?”

“From the company’s perspective, it wasn’t like that. You know, even after receiving the construction costs, you have to distribute to the higher-ups and pay the workers’ wages, it’s a business of eating what’s left after subtracting material costs. But if we followed the design, we’d barely eat a couple gold taels and be done. Kuk, kuhuhu, does that make sense? We finally won the water control project, it’s not some charity work.”

Mr. Zhang chuckled as he said this.

Since he’s going to die anyway, it seems he intends to say everything.