Chapter 93: Heavenly Demon Tomb

"Junior sister, how’d it go?"

"Hm? What did?"

"That guy. You know, the one with ‘toilet’ stamped on his forehead."

"Oh! That guest? He said he wouldn’t sleep with Bliss Palace disciples. ‘Even if I were desperate, I’d rather die than lie beneath a temptress. Ah, forgive me if that sounded harsh. I just value my life too much.’ Something like that."

Qing blinked in shock.

Gyeon Pohee had nailed Seol Ganom’s voice so perfectly that, if she hadn’t been looking at her face, even Qing might’ve been fooled.

What the hell?

When did Crutch get this good at impressions?

And how did she end up with a talent so utterly, cosmically useless?

Qing could only admire the worthlessness of it all.

"I meant the Central Plains. Are you still going?"

"Eh? Didn’t I already say I was?"

She looked at Qing like she was asking whether water was wet.

Qing slapped her own forehead.

"You’re just gonna trust Seol Ganom like that? Doesn’t that seem a little suspicious? Since when do we just follow strangers around?"

"Didn’t you say he was your friend? I mean, how many guys out there have ‘toilet’ tattooed on their forehead?"

"...Okay, fair point."

Seol Ganom said he was relocating to Yunnan.

On the map, Yunnan looked like a region tucked just below Sichuan, edging into the Central Plains.

But a map didn’t tell the whole story.

Yunnan sat on one of the highest mountain ranges in the world. A place so steep and jagged, even breathing was a workout.

There was a saying: take one step and the season changes.

And it was true—walk off a sheer cliff and winter turns to spring; another ledge down and you’re in summer.

"Oh! He said to tell you, ‘Though brief, it was a truly enjoyable time. Should fate allow it, let’s share a drink someday.’"

"Tell him I said thanks too."

"Got it!"

Since Seol Ganom was in the middle of escaping the cult, he couldn’t meet with Qing directly—especially not while she was still one of their “guests of honor.”

But that was life, wasn’t it?

Take care, Seol Ganom.

Life in the Central Plains would be harder without you.

Then again, I did just fine before you showed up.

Farewell, neighborhood-level genius.

You were my first and last tactician.

You may be gone from this side, but I hope you get to live as a real man on the other.

Okay. End of farewell scene.

You’re smart. You’ll manage.

Strategists are replaceable, anyway.

It was just… nice having one around.

Qing turned to look at Crutch.

Another two weeks, and they’d be parting ways too.

"He told me to pick a new name. For Sichuan."

Seol Ganom had promised to drop her off somewhere in Sichuan.

By Qing’s logic, once she made her escape, no one was going to waste time chasing down one runaway disciple. If she changed her name and forged a new identity, who’d know she was from the cult?

He’d even picked out a fake profession for her, and said he’d leave the details at the fifth-largest brothel in the province.

The kind of follow-up only a true local genius would think to include.

“A new name, huh. Got anything in mind?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“…Hee.”

Gyeon Pohee answered, all shy and sheepish.

“So, Gyeon Hee then?”

“No, the name’s just Hee. The last name… I wanna use the same one as my junior sister.”

Qing raised an eyebrow.

You’ve gotta be shitting me. This dumbass still doesn’t know how surnames work?

Then again… had I ever actually told her?

With a rare flash of guilt, Qing finally decided to set the record straight.

“Senior Sister. It’s not Seo Mun Qing, it’s Ximen Qing.”

“Wait, what!? It wasn’t Munching!?”

“Could you maybe not butcher it like that? Coming from you, it sounds kinda humiliating.”

“Then… can I be Hee Ximen? Is that… okay?”

Gyeon Pohee glanced at her like a puppy waiting for approval.

It’s not like Ximen is my private surname. If she thinks it looks pretty on her, who the hell am I to say no?

And let’s be real—if we’re going by bloodlines, I’m a stray mutt and she’s a stray pup.

“If that’s what you want, go for it.”

“Really!? Thank you! That means we’re really family now!”

“…Huh?”

“This whole sworn sisters thing… it’s kinda embarrassing to say out loud, you know?”

Qing blinked.

Sworn sisters?

She was about to ask what the hell kind of deranged fantasy Pohee had cooked up this time, but then she saw that radiant, sunbeam-bright smile on the girl’s face... and swallowed the words down.

Whatever. If it makes you happy, fine.

Qing spent her time passing down Maiden’s Blissful Art and Thousand-Li Flight to Gyeon Pohee.

Since the Maiden’s Blissful Art was originally a secret technique from the Bliss Palace, Gyeon Pohee had every right to inherit it.

As for the Thousand-Li Flight—well, that was a little emergency gift for her not-so-bright and overly sweet crutch. So she’d at least have a way to run like hell if things went sideways.

It was a golden-colored footwork technique built for stamina, long-range movement, and high-speed bursts.

Naturally, that meant her training in the Lustful Fairy Disrobing Dance had to be put on hold.

Qing was devastated.

Just kidding. She saw that coming a mile away and felt absolutely zero regret.

Time went by like that, and before she knew it, she’d completed Heavenly Heart Harmony.

It happened the night she calmly told her crutch they’d meet again soon.

She figured it was time to organize her Martial Arts Window.

Those nightly walks had racked up a ton of free training points.

She dumped them all into her footwork techniques—pushing Thousand-Li Flight and Duststorm Step to full mastery at 12 Stars. Even Black Shadow Silent Step, which had been stupidly useful, hit max level.

She pulled up all the miscellaneous white and blue-tier footwork skills to their cap at 10 Stars, and right then, a strange tingling crept over her—like something inside her body was shifting.

Huh. Come to think of it, she still hadn’t touched that Supreme Yin Jade Maiden Art she got from that bastard Seol Ganom’s belongings.

Gold-bordered, no less. Might as well give it 3 Stars for now.

Couldn’t afford to go full throttle on that one inside the Heavenly Demon Tomb.

Qing took a deep breath.

“Huuuuu…”

Okay. Mental prep.

I have no thoughts.
Because there is nothing in my head.

“Ugh… ngh… gghhhhuuughh…”

Some invisible hand was kneading her brain like it was bread dough.

Her mood plummeted straight past zero, busted through the floor of Purgatory, and looked ready to settle in the basement.

Just as she was about to mentally combust, a wave of Buddhist serenity surged through her skull, bringing that annoyingly gentle smile back with it.

Great Zen Supreme Cultivation… it’s you again, isn’t it…

Actually, now that she thought about it—wasn’t her Dao stat kinda trash?

She had two goddamn purple-tier techniques and they’d done jack shit so far.

Should’ve named her character Bodhidharma[^A legendary Buddhist monk and martial arts figure said to have founded Shaolin martial arts. In cultivation-based games or stories, naming your character “Bodhidharma” is a common trick to start with high-tier Buddhist techniques. It’s a tongue-in-cheek reference to powergaming character creation.] instead of Aqing.

That one supposedly started with all the top-tier Buddhist shit…

Fucking strategy guides. Why the hell did they recommend Aqing over Bodhidharma?

If I ever go back… forget the beef.

You’re getting kimchi stew. That’s it.

…Wait.

Ahh…

I really want some kimchi stew…

With a shot of soju on the side…

A single tear rolled down Qing’s cheek.

In the Central Plains, “rice” was called ban.

Here, ban didn’t just mean rice—it referred to the staple, the main carb.
If you ordered food at a fancy restaurant, they’d always ask: What kind of ban would you like with that?

Southerners usually picked miban—actual rice.

People from the East would go for dumplings or boiled dumplings.
Northerners ordered noodles or porridge.
As for the West… well, other than Sichuan, most folks from there were too dirt-poor to even enter a high-end restaurant, so their local carbs weren’t even on the damn menu.

Of course, nothing was absolute.
People lived in ethnic clusters, so even in the same capital city, you’d find a mix of carbs depending on who had moved in from where.

Anyway, under that system, miban was used as a catch-all phrase to describe “rice and a side dish.”

And when the Central Plains people said side dish, what they meant was something pickled or mixed—stuff you could eat without a flame and without cooking.

Everything else? That was called cai—cuisine.

The most famous ones were the Four Great Cuisines of the Central Plains:

Tian Cuisine – Sichuan.
Lu Cuisine – Shandong.
Huaiyang Cuisine – Jiangsu.
Yue Cuisine – Guangdong.

Of course, the Central Plains was massive. Wherever you walked, a new cuisine was blooming from the land.
The place wasn’t just a food culture leader—it was straight-up the culinary Garden of Eden.

Which is why, to people from the Central Plains, food was serious goddamn business.

Hell, one of their common greetings was literally “Have you eaten yet?”

But there was one other nation that took food just as seriously.

A people so majestic, even the mere sound of their name conjured images of flapping banners and golden light.
A nation whose ancestors built a great empire during the pre-K–T extinction, when dinosaurs still ruled the Earth, back in the Pangaea era.
(That, by the way, is 100% documented in the ancient texts carved into the skin of the holy watermelon scroll.)

That nation… was none other than the Korean people.

But the Korean people carried a particular curse.

If they went too long without Korean food, they suffered a severe illness known as homesickness.

This was no joke.

Without Korean food, they would collapse from an overwhelming longing for their homeland.
Their bodies would go limp. Their minds fogged up. They couldn’t even stand straight.
Motivation? Willpower? Gone. Just fucking gone.

This… was Qing’s current condition.

She’d been scraping by on passable knockoff Korean food so far, but now—now she’d made the fatal mistake of remembering something long-buried beyond the veil of mental suppression.

Kimchi stew…

That blood-red broth, spicy as hell. The tofu, pale and soft like brain matter.
And the kimchi—just one slab, perfectly simmered, held in both hands and ripped apart with raw savagery—

“You don’t look well. Are you alright?”

“I’m not alright… I wanna go home…”

“Do not worry. Once the Heavenly Demon Soul is recovered, we will return you safely. This old one swears it on his life.”

“Oh, you know where my home is now? You could stack your old ass and thousands more like you, and it still wouldn’t be enough to get me back.”

Honestly, if it really took thousands of lives to go home… she felt like she might actually be down for that right now.

Hm…?

Wouldn’t there be a Korea in this world too?

Joseon? Goryeo? Something’s gotta have Korean food, right?

But… would those countries even be my countries?

This was a world where people shot fucking laser beams out of swords.

Where folks could outrun galloping carriages.

Hell, maybe beyond the Central Plains there was just endless ocean and a big ol’ “Here Be Dragons” sign.

Maybe this was just some discount Earth. A bootleg Earth knockoff.

I don’t know.
And I don’t fucking care.

Qing slumped limply into Choi Leeong’s arms.

If she’d been one of those diehard webnovel readers, maybe she’d be flipping out right now.

Oh wow! I got isekai’d! Just like they always say happens at least once in your life!

She’d be dreaming of slicing through enemies, then returning home to milk Twitch for money and becoming a landlord with passive income.

But Qing?

Qing had been a wage-slave.
A factory rat with barely enough time to sleep, let alone game.

The only reason she knew anything about this shit was from skimming memes while looking for a decent game to play.

She was clueless about this whole genre.

And this, kids, is why everyone should read webnovels.

Studies from experts across all academic fields—science, philosophy, the humanities, even sociology—have not proven that reading webnovels is more useful than learning Spanish!

But whatever.
I just wanna go home.

That was the only thought drifting through Qing’s mind as she lay there, utterly drained.

If Ximen Surin had been there and struck up a conversation, she might’ve realized that her chaotic little disciple had just slipped into a full-blown mental deviation.

Not the usual kind.

Mental deviation didn’t always mean becoming cruel or losing your humanity.

This kind—this one, born from a deep, aching longing—was something even the greatest teachings of orthodox masters couldn’t stop.

Because the kind of deviation that came from letting go of yourself…
was basically the Buddhist and Daoist concept of egolessness.

Still, a deviation caused by homesickness?
It was one of the most common types, and also the stupidly easiest to fix.

All it usually took was one good meal—eaten with people you like, people who cared about you, a bit of warmth, laughter, food…

But even that simple solution was out of reach for some people.

They’d been marching toward the Heavenly Demon Tomb for ten days now.

And for Qing, it was just one more empty, meaningless day slipping by.