Chapter 244

With my chest still aching from the bruises, I couldn’t help but shriek. The pain was worse this time, still healing from last time.

Mo Yong Joo-hee growled in a voice that sounded like she was drowning.

“Thanks for saving me. But thinking about what you did, I can never, ever forgive you. You’re a terrible woman, a monster, a real monster!”

“Ack, your… hand!”

Qing struggled, trying to pry Mo Yong Joo-hee’s hand off her chest.

Pulling harder didn’t work, and as I tried to loosen her fingers one by one, her other hand helped to squeeze even tighter.

“It hurts! It really hurts!”

“So you know what pain is?”

“Let go! Please, it’s too painful!”

At this point, Qing was getting pretty mad.

This girl was seriously using her inner strength just to punish me; she was really set on making me explode.

So, I had to resort to my last resort.

Qing gripped Mo Yong Joo-hee’s wrist tightly.

With strength like steel, Qing twisted.

Crack!! A high-pitched scream erupted as Mo Yong Joo-hee’s hand fell helplessly away.

Holding onto her wrist, Mo Yong Joo-hee screeched.

“Am I a joke now!? Did you think I’d tremble and act like a fool if you bared your teeth at me!? What’s wrong? Yeah! I’m just a fool who got caught and lost my baby teeth! Do you want me to put them in a box for you! I nearly forgot about it!”

Oops. Qing’s grip slipped away.

That was just a gift I thoughtlessly prepared out of goodwill.

But it turned out I had poked into a well-engraved wound in her psyche, digging it up and rubbing salt in it.

“Uh, I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention at all. I just wanted to comfort you.”

“Comfort? How is that comforting!? You’re just weird! The things you made me do still haunt me every time I close my eyes! Ugh.”

Mo Yong Joo-hee covered her mouth, unable to continue, as nauseating memories surged back up.

The vivid recollection still lingered when she closed her eyes.

The feeling of cutting through living flesh and severing muscle. Being forced to pull the strings with clumsy power, hearing the desperate scream of the one I squeezed to death; the horrible sounds caught between sobs and shrieks.

Finally, the sensation of death enveloped me, as if a fragile string had snapped, sending everything tumbling away.

“Why? Why did it have to be like this? No matter how evil they are, I can’t—I can’t! Ugh, that’s just wrong! What do you think the worst part is?!”

Pain twists a person’s mind.

Mo Yong Joo-hee was deeply tangled in her own pain.

Qing’s remedy was revenge.

Of course, it could have been incredibly helpful if it weren’t so extreme.

But Qing was under the influence of Heaven’s Kill.

Even the teachings of the Buddha couldn’t stop Heaven’s Kill when confronting a villain, since martial arts that harm others were meant to encompass the worldly slaughter and rescind the world itself.

But Qing only tilted her head in confusion.

“What? What’s so wrong? Torturing the Blood Sect bastards until they die? What’s the issue? Why should I hold back?!”

They deserved to suffer so much.

“Mo Yong Young Lady. They deserved to be punished. Unlike you, who has done nothing wrong.”

“What do you mean? Why should it be that way?”

“If I simply cut their breath off to force them to pay for their sins in the flames of Hell, that would have been one thing. But that isn’t the case. Death is just an irresponsible end.”

Mo Yong Joo-hee trembled.

For her, it was simply a horrific event.

“You enjoyed it! Just because there were bad guys, you sliced them up with joy, right!? Stop making excuses for their sins!”

Qing scratched her cheek.

“Hmm. I don’t understand what’s wrong here. So if I had inflicted pain on them while crying, that would have been acceptable? But in the end, the result is the same; they suffered as they should, and I just indulged in the process a bit. Is that wrong?”

Mo Yong Joo-hee looked at Qing as if she were the most horrible creature in the world.

“You! You’re a monster! A bloodthirsty killer!”

“I won’t deny being called a killer. But monster? Isn’t that a bit much? I never did anything I wasn’t proud of!”

Qing sighed heavily.

She seemed like a person in pain.

A rational conversation could never happen here.

This was like a kidnapping victim siding with their captor, or maybe someone too hurt, projecting their pain onto others.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t expect Mo Yong Young Lady to be this hurt. I didn’t mean to make things hard for you or give you teeth as a gift, seriously, I didn’t mean it, I’m really sorry. Um. Just take it easy.”

Qing said this and got up to leave.

If she didn’t want me there, there’s nothing I could do.

It was fine; Qing had nothing to lose except for her aching heart. And she wasn’t completely oblivious to Jun and the Lady, so I figured things would settle down.

Just then,

“Hey, wait!”

Mo Yong Joo-hee called out urgently.

“What’s the matter?”

“Where are you going?”

“It seemed like my presence was making it harder for you. I won’t be back, so just relax and rest—”

“Wait! No, wait!”

“Do you have something to say…?”

“Not exactly, but—”

“If I’m leaving, I’ll just go without waiting. It seems like I’m making you even more uneasy.”

“Wait! That’s not it.”

Mo Yong Joo-hee grabbed Qing’s wrist tightly.

Qing looked down, wondering what she was up to now; was she trying to twist my wrist too? Looking at Mo Yong Joo-hee with her head bowed, I could barely hear her soft voice.

“…Stay for a moment.”

“Huh?”

“Because of you! That’s why! Because of you! All the horrible memories came flooding back, and if you’re not here, I can’t be alone right now. It’s your fault, you’re responsible, right? You have to stay by my side.”

From her grip, Qing could feel the trembling spreading through Mo Yong Joo-hee’s wrist.

Qing responded with a frown.

“If I stay, won’t those thoughts keep coming back? Um, I could call Tang Nan-ah if you want—”

“But I said it’s because of you! That’s why you have to be here. No one else, just you! Stay by me until I fall asleep!”

“But if I’m here, it’s bound to come back to you. And didn’t you hate me?”

“No!”

Mo Yong Joo-hee’s expression changed as she pleaded.

“I don’t hate you! It’s just a little horrible, that’s all! You know that I could never hate you. It’s just when I see you that the memories keep surfacing. I’m so sorry! It’s not your fault! But you did that to me! You! You!”

“Mo Yong Young Lady?”

“No, no, no. I’m fine! I’m so sorry! Was I too harsh? I didn’t mean it. Please don’t leave me alone. I’m begging you…”

Oh. She was having a breakdown.

Qing held back yet another sigh as she sat down on Mo Yong Joo-hee’s bed.

As she did, the tremors traveling through Mo Yong Joo-hee’s wrist gradually calmed down. Soon after, the heavy breaths began to descend deeper.

In the huge bed of the top room, the space occupied by Mo Yong Joo-hee was just a small curled-up spot.

Qing looked down at Mo Yong Joo-hee, who still seemed trapped in a box, and thought.

This seems like I’ve become her breakdown button. I think I maybe introduced anatomy way too early for a beginner.

Honestly, comforting a person with pain is one thing, but at this rate, it was going to become really, really troublesome.

So, I decided to just stay away from her face.

-And just when I thought that,

“What’s up with her? Why is she acting like that?”

Tang Nan-ah raised an eyebrow. Peering behind her, I saw Mo Yong Joo-hee curled up and hiding her face.

She limped all the way to the competition arena, refusing to greet anyone even when they said hello. Yet here she was, all alone, hunched over, like a sad puppy.

“I don’t know. She must have had a tough time with the Blood Sect. Sounds like her mind’s really frazzled.”

“No. It’s not a good look. It makes it seem like we’re bullying and ostracizing her.”

“I don’t know. How would I know what’s going on in her head…”

Since that day after my visit, she had been acting like this for three days now.

Hiding her face in a corner of the arena, during meal times, I would awkwardly ask her to join, only to be told not to act friendly.

It felt weird to ignore her since she looked so pitiful, but honestly, why was she acting like this?

And so, the awkward observer continued to show up at the martial arts training grounds, and as time passed, the date for the semifinals was tomorrow.

Cheon Yu-hak’s return was scheduled for that very night.

“Goodness, my disciple is such a wreck that the master is the one enduring the pain. Hey, you, give it a good massage. Ah, how stiff!”

“Why are you suddenly back? What’s going on?”

Qing grumbled but complied and started massaging her shoulders.

“Oh, what a skilled hand! Must be the joy of raising disciples!”

“So, what’s with the extra charges? I should pay five coins just to send a message with ten characters?”

“Listen, if you pay in advance, you think they’d be diligent with the message? I have to tell them to bring it straight to me after they finish the delivery so they won’t have a chance to wander off. Moreover, five coins should have their eyes wide open, making sure they hurry.”

“Hmm.”

Thinking about it, she had a point.

It was a message sent to assure I was fine, so asking for five coins felt a little too much.

So Qing changed the topic.

“So, what were you doing while you were gone for ten days?”

“Hehe, I might have brought back a human head in that box. It belongs to the Great Demon Lord of the Blood Sect.”

“What! Why is he there?”

“You dense one. After all that ruckus, you’re telling me you didn’t notice him sneaking away through the roof? I don’t know much about solitude, but when capturing a rider, you have to do it from a distance. So I tracked him down in Henan Province and killed him.”

“Wow, you really traveled far.”

“Now, I can go back and remove that loner. After all, a real Merchant Shintu popped up and took the head!”

“Well, Master, the loneliness issue has been resolved already. Sorry for being late.”

“What? I caught the Great Demon Lord, didn’t I?”

“I handled the rest. That loneliness thing is over and done with.”

Qing shared what had happened while Cheon Yu-hak was out.

“What? So this was all a waste of effort? All my running around…?”

“Come on, it was still impressive. Didn’t they say that Great Demon Lord was a master in the Realm of Transformation? Yet you fought him one-on-one!?”

“Now, listen to this…!”

Cheon Yu-hak started to boast, and although it felt like he was tooting his own horn, it also put an end to things neatly.

Meanwhile, at the same time, Seomun Sulin was once again experiencing the feeling of losing her mind.

“These idiots… Last time they played dumb, so now they think…”

The ronins who had returned to the county office once again offered to serve Seomun Sulin.

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