Chapter 133: Tang Clan's Paper Flower

Soon, the usual bright sparkle returned to Qing’s eyes.

As the Great Tranquil Zen Art and the Inverse Marrow Washing Sutra amicably chanted Buddhist scriptures together while riding the Du Mai (Governing Vessel) meridian up her spine, the malevolent red star—the Heavenly Slaughtering Star—that had briefly inserted its influence like a straw into her half-opened Upper Energy Center subtly withdrew, pretending it had never been there at all.

Why it retreated so readily remains unknown.

How can a mere human possibly comprehend the intentions of a cosmic star?

Qing, now returned to her version of 'normal'—which is to say, with the Heavenly Slaughtering Star’s cold killing intent receded, leaving her typically emotional, somewhat stupid, prone to distracting thoughts, yet not particularly kind-hearted state—looked down dispassionately at the fallen form of Commander Cho Gwak.

His eyes had rolled back completely, body still twitching with faint convulsions, while a fine foam, like crab froth [^(idiom for foaming at the mouth)], trickled continuously from his lips.

Wow. Still not dead yet.

Wait, she reconsidered. Was the injury actually not supposed to be fatal?

All she’d really done was skewer his energy center with a broken sword and shatter his lower pelvis into several thousand tiny pieces with a well-aimed kick.

Objectively speaking, probably not immediately life-threatening injuries for someone at his level.

Qing squatted down beside the convulsing Commander. She firmly grasped his uninjured right wrist and elbow, then began to forcefully bend the arm backward, against the natural direction of the joint.

Qing possessed monstrous physical strength, capable of easily bending solid steel.

Despite applying considerable force now, however, Cho Gwak’s arm merely trembled violently in her grip, remaining stubbornly straight, refusing to break.

What the hell kind of ridiculously durable body is this?!

She strained harder, grunting with effort—Kking kking—and then she felt it.

Tok, todok, tododok. That distinct, almost sweet tactile sensation of tough connective tissues, clinging stubbornly to bone, tearing away fiber by single fiber. Finally, with a loud, wet Udeuk! sound—

“Oh. Got it.”

A delighted grin spread across Qing’s face. She began cheerfully folding and unfolding Cho Gwak’s now detached lower arm back and forth, left and right, clearly thrilled with her successful dismemberment.

Only then did the surrounding onlookers fully grasp Qing’s gruesome intention.

When they’d seen her grab his wrist earlier, they’d assumed she was perhaps attempting to take his pulse! Not this!

She had been systematically tearing off the man’s forearm!

The Imperial Censor shrieked, utterly horrified,

“Wh-What in heavens name are you doing?!”

“Uh…” Qing blinked innocently, holding up the severed limb. “Collecting war spoils?”

“Stop that immediately! How dare you desecrate an Imperial Official—”

“TRAITOR!!!” Qing suddenly roared back, cutting him off. “Who are you calling an official?! Weren’t you all just standing here listening when he spewed those disgusting insults at the Princess?! Wow! Seriously, that was way too much! How could any decent person say such vile things to a woman?! Even I felt utterly humiliated just listening to him!”

She punctuated her outburst by casually spinning the severed forearm she still held, twisting the dangling skin and tendons for emphasis.

“AH!! RIGHT!!” she continued, a look of dawning realization on her face. “Don’t tell me Your Excellency the Censor is actually on the same side as this despicable traitor?! Is that why you’re trying to protect him now?!”

“NO! NO! NO!” the Censor denied vehemently, genuinely panicked now. “Absolutely not! Not at all! Definitely not!”

Forget the Tang Clan; getting inadvertently associated with Cho Gwak’s potentially treasonous insults against the beloved Princess Haryon could easily lead to his own family’s annihilation!

It was a petty, vile, yet undeniably effective tactic by Qing.

Perhaps poison? the Censor thought frantically. The Tang Clan… surely they must possess some poison capable of inducing hallucinations? Princess Haryon is renowned as the era’s greatest beauty, personally proclaimed as such by His Majesty himself… so perhaps it’s understandable that Commander Cho Gwak (who served long years stationed at the palace as part of the Embroidered Uniform Guard) might have secretly harbored inappropriate desires and fantasized about her? Lovesickness among the palace guards regarding the Princess is notoriously common, after all…

BUT! the Censor reminded himself sternly, Princess Haryon is His Majesty’s absolute most cherished daughter!

The Censor himself, along with a very small circle of other extremely high-ranking officials, knew better than most just how incredibly deep the Emperor’s affection for his daughter ran.

He still treated the fully grown princess with the doting attention usually reserved for a small child, even reportedly insisting she sleep in an adjoining chamber some nights out of concern that her own bed might be uncomfortable.

It was one of the Imperial Palace’s most closely guarded secrets, known only to the absolute highest echelons of power.

Insulting that specific Princess so publicly, regardless of the reason? That guaranteed the offender's entire family would face annihilation—likely down to the third or perhaps even ninth degree of kinship, depending entirely on the Emperor’s mood and how much mercy they begged for.

Amidst the Censor’s frantic internal calculations, Qing finally achieved her objective.

The stretched and torn remnants of tissue that had once been Commander Cho Gwak’s right elbow finally gave way completely with a sickening Jjeoeok sound.

Having successfully detached the forearm entirely from the rest of the body, Qing rose satisfyingly to her feet, holding her gruesome trophy aloft for a moment before casually tossing it aside.

Although the process had been undeniably… unpleasant—

To be precise, it had been a life-and-death duel containing practically zero pleasant aspects whatsoever corner-to-corner—

But, even setting aside Qing's horrific Hellmouth technique and the highly suspicious, cowardly (though ultimately unneeded) poisoning attempt Nanah likely would have made… what were the undeniable facts?

A renowned master of the Unrestrained Realm, and not just any master but the third highest-ranking commander of the elite Embroidered Uniform Guard, had been utterly toyed with, humiliated, and decisively defeated by a mere young girl barely in the Peak Realm.

The Imperial Censor had no choice but to select the option of immediately retreating with the now one-armed (and likely permanently crippled) Commander Wei in tow.

There was absolutely nothing else constructive they could possibly accomplish here now.

More importantly, the morale of the accompanying imperial troops and Embroidered Uniform guards had plummeted past rock bottom, likely drilling deep into the subterranean levels; that situation needed to be managed immediately before dissent spread.

Qing, meanwhile, retrieved the severed forearm and casually presented it like a gift to Poison Grandpa (Grand Clan Lord Tang Jae-un), who had been observing the entire duel with rapt attention.

“Grandfather,” she said thoughtfully, “this arm felt… weirdly tough. Could you maybe take a look? It didn’t feel like a normal person’s body at all. More like steel—no, wait, even Cold Iron probably isn’t this hard or resistant to breaking.”

What possible reason could there be for bringing someone a severed human arm, unless one intended to roast it or perhaps boil it into a stew?

Since neither seemed likely, Qing’s intention was clear: This feels unnatural; could you please investigate it for me, expert?

(Of course, her intention was limited only to bringing it for investigation this time.

If her earlier castration kick hadn't provided sufficient satisfaction, Qing might very well have just torn off the arm purely for fun and then carelessly tossed it away.)

“What is the meaning of this…”

The Grand Clan Lord started to ask, accepting the arm somewhat tentatively, clearly puzzled by Qing’s bizarre request. Just then—

“Yah!! What in the world is this?! What happened?!” Tang Nanah shrieked suddenly, rushing over, having finally noticed the severed limb. “Seriously! I am SO upset!”

She grabbed Qing’s hand and started dragging her forcefully away from the scene.

In truth, none of the actual wounds Qing had sustained during the duel were life-threatening or particularly serious.

If any bones had been broken or major muscles severely cut, the Heavenly Slaughtering Star’s influence likely wouldn’t have activated, and she wouldn't have been able to continue fighting effectively at all.

If she had suffered any wounds causing severe bleeding, she likely would have fainted from blood loss or shock long before the duel concluded.

In the end, the injuries amounted mostly to numerous shallow cuts across her skin and outer robes.

The wound on her chest, however, was admittedly quite deep…

Dragged unceremoniously by Nanah into the Tang Clan’s main medical hall, Qing finally got a proper look at the wound slashed across her own chest.

“Wow.” she remarked with detached curiosity, peering down. “Looks like my chest has become one and a half boobs now. Ugh. Kinda gross, actually.”

1 + (1/2) x 2. It was, arguably, a remarkably precise mathematical description of the injury.

No actual tissue had been lost, so the total volume remained the same, but her left breast had been vertically sliced open at an angle, revealing a rather gruesome cross-section of… well, something she probably preferred not to examine too closely.

“Is now really the time for that kind of talk?!”

Tang Nanah shrieked again, lightly slapping Qing’s shoulder while panting with a mixture of residual fear and mounting exasperation.

“If that cut had been just a little bit deeper, it would have sliced right through your ribs! Why weren’t you being more careful?!”

“Hey! Against an Unrestrained Realm master? I think I did pretty damn well just to survi— Okay. Okay! I’m sorry…” Qing instantly backed down, seeing the genuine tears welling up in Tang Nanah’s angry, concerned eyes.

Annoying as Nanah could be, Qing still possessed enough of a (?) soft heart that she couldn’t bring herself to deliberately upset someone who was clearly distressed out of genuine worry for her well-being.

Instead, Qing subtly tried to change the subject.

“Uh… hey, do you think it’ll leave a scar?”

“Is that what you’re worried about right now, after not even bothering to protect your own body properly?!” Nanah snapped back, instantly suspicious again.

“No, no, that’s not it!” Qing protested quickly. “I just mean… wouldn’t a cool scar look kind of awesome? You know? Character building?”

“HEY!!!”

Smack. Qing yelped as Nanah managed to land another light slap, this time on her arm.

Fortunately, since it was only Tang Nanah, it ended with just a light slap.

If Ximen Surin had heard Qing express such a blasé attitude towards receiving a serious injury, the consequences would have been far more severe—forget the injury itself, Surin likely would have delivered a profound internal energy strike befitting a Profound Realm master, directly targeting Qing’s impudent mouth.

“I,” Tang Nanah declared firmly, taking charge now in her capacity as a physician, “will take full responsibility for ensuring absolutely no scar remains! So just stop talking such utter nonsense!”

Qing felt slightly wronged by this.

Seriously! A deep vertical slice across one breast, combined with that other horizontal cut across her ribs a couple of finger-widths long…

Wouldn’t the two together form a totally cool-looking cross shape?

Wasn’t possessing at least one awesome battle scar practically a requirement for any respectable sword master?

“No, really,” Qing tried again, earnestly this time. “It’s okay! I really don’t mind if a scar remains! So you don’t have to get so worked up about—”

However, her sincerity utterly failed to get through.

Far from reassuring Nanah, her words only served to trigger an even greater misunderstanding.

While women might not openly discuss their breasts in polite company, was there truly any woman alive who didn’t harbor some secret anxieties about them?

Whether perceived as too small, too large, or even perfectly adequate, didn’t almost every woman secretly examine herself in the mirror, worrying if the shape was okay, if the color was strange, if they were truly pretty enough, agonizing over potential future criticisms? The breasts were undeniably a precious, sensitive part of the female identity.

So, for Qing, having just had hers literally sliced halfway open, to then casually dismiss the potential for scarring as ‘cool’… how could Nanah interpret that as anything other than Qing deliberately downplaying the severity of the injury out of fear of making Nanah feel guilty? Naturally, it just made Nanah feel even more guilty and responsible!

(Truthfully, Qing’s words were likely to be misunderstood.

What possible use would a woman have for a ‘cool-looking scar’ across her chest?

It wasn’t like she could just flash random passersby on the street, boasting, ‘Hey, check this out! Wow! A sword scar! Do you recognize the sign of the cross?!’)

“You… You really… Truly…” Nanah finally choked out, tears welling up again. “Hic.”

She finally burst into genuine, unrestrained sobs.

And then, Qing had to pay the price—quite literally, in agonizing pain—for having carelessly mocked a maiden’s sincere concern with her ill-timed nonsense about cool scars.

“ACK! Hurts! Seriously, that hurts! A little gentler! Save me! KYAAAK! Help! Someone help! The doctor is killing the patient!” Qing shrieked as Nanah began vigorously cleaning and treating the deep wound.

“Honestly,” Nanah snapped back through her own tears, aggressively applying some stinging ointment, “I already applied plenty of anesthetic paste! Why are you exaggerating so much?! This dosage is strong enough to work on an elephant, you know!”

“Uh,” Qing gasped between clenched teeth, “maybe some opium? Couldn't you give me just a little opium?”

“Child! Do you have any idea how harmful raw opium actually is?!” Nanah scolded her sharply.

“Ssseup… hook… hook… Kkeup… kkeuheuk… ACK!”

For the first time since arriving in this world, Qing found herself sincerely cursing the game walkthroughs and system guides she had memorized.

Humanely speaking, shouldn't anesthesia actually work on the player character?!

Why the hell does something like opium seem to have an effect, but proper medical anesthetics don’t?

(In truth, it was likely because pain itself serves a necessary biological function for survival.

Therefore, completely eliminating it via anesthesia could be considered fundamentally harmful to the body's natural processes within this world's system.

Opium, on the other hand, doesn’t actually eliminate pain, but merely elevates the user's mood, masking the sensation—a process modern science might analyze through the lens of endorphins or other hormonal interactions…

but naturally, Qing knew none of that.

So, all Qing could do at that moment was silently curse her apparently anesthesia-resistant, ridiculously doomed constitution… and perhaps also curse ‘That Person’ who had recommended the choice in the first place.)

Poison Grandpa (Grand Clan Lord Tang Jae-un) came to visit her later that night.

Qing, remembering his generous gifts from the previous day, greeted the esteemed poison elder enthusiastically.

“Wow! That poison you gave me earlier worked incredibly well!”

Of course it worked well.

The Tang Clan possessed what were known as the Seven Great Poisons—seven legendary toxins considered almost accidental miracles of alchemy, pinnacles achieved throughout the clan’s long history.

These seven ultimate poisons were: Eight-Color Powder Ecstasy Poison, Soul Shaking Water, Immortal Lung, Soul Stealing Bewitching Powder, Seven-Treasure Severing Soul Powder, Five-Poison Divine Fog, and Soul Extinguishing Pill).

The ingredients the Grand Clan Lord had ‘personally fiddled with’ to create those vials for Qing were derived from these very top-tier Tang Clan poisons.

Furthermore, the Grand Clan Lord himself was arguably the number one Poison Master currently existing under Heaven.

The results Qing had witnessed were the product of the world's most deadly poisons being personally modified and enhanced by the world's greatest poison artisan.

Even a master far beyond the Unrestrained Realm—perhaps even Profound Realm or higher—would likely suffer a miserable end if they failed to quickly detect and suppress or purge the poison in its initial stages.

Added to that, Commander Cho Gwak had already lost his reason to rage, preventing him from noticing the poison’s subtle initial effects, and his meridians had likely already sustained significant internal damage from Qing’s White Hand attacks, further compounding the poison’s efficacy.

“Perhaps…” Qing asked hopefully, remembering the Soul Stealing powder specifically, “…do you happen to have any more of that last one? I seem to have used all three pills already…”

“Ho ho,” the Grand Clan Lord chuckled, looking genuinely regretful. “That particular concoction was purely a product of chance experimentation; those three pills were all that resulted, unfortunately. Truthfully, I myself was hoping there might be some remaining, and was planning to ask—apologies—if you might perhaps spare one back for me to analyze further. But alas,” he sighed, “it cannot be helped.”

He seemed genuinely disappointed.

Creating poisons was largely a hobby for him these days, meaning his various unique creations numbered quite a few, but weren't typically produced in large batches.

Since he rarely had suitable targets to test them on, he often didn’t bother meticulously recording the precise recipes or manufacturing processes for these experimental side projects.

However, having now witnessed the astonishingly potent effects of his modified Soul Stealing Bewitching Powder firsthand, he had been planning to properly name the concoction and formally add it to the clan’s official list of ultimate poisons… but alas, Qing had apparently already used up the entire limited supply.

“Ah well. So be it,” the elder sighed again, changing the subject. “But tell me, child… how exactly did you manage to detoxify yourself afterwards? Have you perhaps learned some separate detoxification art that I am unaware of?”

“Ah! That!”

Qing exclaimed, suddenly remembering. She held out her hand expectantly towards Choi Leeong, who was standing nearby. Choi just stared back blankly, clearly confused.

Qing rolled her eyes, then puckered her lips and let out a sharp, distinct whistle. Only then did Choi Leeong seem to understand, quickly producing the Bokshinjeok flute and handing it over.

Accepting the flute, Qing mimed popping one of the poison pills into the mouthpiece hole, then gave the flute one sharp, decisive shake with expert flair.

If something were actually inside, she explained mentally, the centrifugal force would naturally cause it to pop right back out!

The Bokshinjeok: capable of withstanding direct hits from Energy Auras, producing deafening sonic attacks, and acting as a discrete poison pill ejector! Truly, an amazing multi-functional blunt weapon!

“Ooh!” the Grand Clan Lord exclaimed, his eyes widening in genuine admiration. “The child’s ingenuity is truly, truly admirable! Excellent!”

He praised her unreservedly.