Chapter 396

Well, I banged loudly, but you know…

Qing felt a bit awkward.

Qing learned carpentry in Nanyang.

And in Nanyang, they build houses with wood.

But when he tried to fix the Jin Gajang, oh no, all he could see were bricks…

Of course, they probably didn’t build everything out of bricks.

The framework must be made of wood and filled with bricks for sure.

Did they just stack bricks? What did they use to hold them together?

Is there a wooden wall inside?

I’ll have to tear one down to find out…

If he was to build it in the Henan style, Qing had already participated in tearing down several houses that had been flooded and the entire process of rebuilding from the foundation.

“Master, can I tear one down?”

“Sure, um, go check the western side building. It’s probably the most damaged.”

Jin Gaju Jin Jagang gladly accepted.

In fact, there were questions about Qing’s carpentry skills.

He was just a young genius who had broken the record for the youngest Supreme Martial Artist by a huge margin.

He must have been sleep-deprived, hastily eating while dedicated to martial arts day and night.

(In reality, he just slept a lot and stuffed his face with food while slacking off in martial arts.)

So, it was only reasonable to think that he could only manage the skills he picked up as a kid while watching someone else work.

That was only natural.

At twenty-one, how could he have enough time in life to master other skills?

Maybe a seasoned master in their sixties or seventies could swing a hammer around when bored, but…

Therefore, he didn’t have high hopes for the reconstruction work.

More than that, he was simply fond of the idea of taking revenge using the same methods to break this curse.

A curse is not a curse for nothing.

It was triggered by the Sapa’s tricks, but now it was a real curse.

If the Cheonhwa-geom could serve as a little trigger to grasp that swamp, he’d be grateful.

Qing wandered around the Jin Gajang.

It must have been quite the sight for an honored guest to be wandering around the manor by themselves, but Jin Gaju had lowered his head to ask for understanding, being short on manpower, and with a distant junior (even if he was technically a senior) so it wouldn’t have been that big of a breach of etiquette.

Still, anyone would cluck their tongues seeing such a sight.

But Qing wasn’t a person to care about that kind of formal etiquette, and it would be more embarrassing for a guest to be stuck there when the family was busy.

So he was really traversing the manor physically to check out the western building.

This was the cursed manor, a place where not even proper servants could assist due to the bad luck.

There were no signs of life, the place was eerily quiet, and a musty rotten stench brushed unpleasantly at his nose, making it a truly gloomy scene.

Even though the day was clear and bright, it felt misty like a pale, shadowy picture.

Now he understood why they turned down the support from the Martial Alliance, feeling embarrassed to welcome guests in such a dismal state.

But appearances are appearances; shouldn’t they have somehow received aid in this situation?

Right now, with the current manpower, they were barely keeping the business running, all having gone out, and Qing was left to wander the manor alone.

It was only fortunate he had heard rumors of Qing’s hardships; otherwise, who knows how long he would have remained to shrivel in this cursed manor.

The lord seemed like a gentle good person, but perhaps wasn’t too capable.

Even if closed, the smelly buildings were already ruined, so he might as well just tear them down at least.

While Qing was having such undocumented thoughts…

Suddenly, a strange sound reached his superhuman hearing.

Cough, cough, *sob*. It sounded like someone weeping quietly.

“Oh wow.”

Qing brushed his arm.

What was that? A ghost? Are they really real?

In a world with Taoist temples and Qi, did ghosts actually not exist?

Could the Buddha’s Physical Body with its divine energy even catch ghosts?

Cautiously, Qing approached the sound.

Why, when watching terrifying tales on screen, do you shiver and swallow hard, yet now you’re considering stepping into some ghostly place?

When actually faced with that situation, he understood…

It’s way scarier to run without confirming if it’s real or not.

So, following the sound, he gently opened the door to the particularly smelly building—

Creeeak.

The unsettling sound of the door opening in a silent room grated on his nerves.

And in the dark building, there sat a boy all alone, slumped over.

Hmm. It was a person. Well, I guess that’s that.

“Who’s there?”

“Oh, Young Lady Seomun. Sniff, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, it’s you. Hwachun, right?”

Jin Hwachun. He heard he was the Jin family’s third son, but in a big family of fourteen or fifteen kids, it was hard to remember.

“What are you doing here? Why are you crying?”

“I’m not crying.”

Jin Hwachun said with his puffy, red eyes.

“Your eyes are all red.”

“That’s, you saw wrong.”

He wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

“Okay, if you say so.”

“I’m not crying.”

“Sure, sure. I didn’t see anything.”

The boy’s youthful face wrinkled.

But Qing merely raised the corners of his mouth.

What can you do by wriggling like that?

“What are you doing here?”

“Me? I was looking for the Haan Building. Everything looks so similar, I have no idea where it is. If you have nothing to do, could you guide me?”

Jin Hwachun wore a ridiculous expression.

“But this is the Haan Building.”

“Oh. Is it here? I found it right? Why am I so good at finding paths? My path is always the way. Hehe.”

Jin Hwachun’s face turned serious.

Qing realized a person can shift from an expression of disbelief to one of utter perplexity.

“So, what brings you here?”

“Oh, I plan to reconstruct it, but I don’t know what a Gwangdong style is, so I thought I’d slowly examine it while tearing one down.”

“Tearing it down? You mean dismantling the house…?”

“Yup.”

At that, Jin Hwachun’s expression darkened.

“You can’t do that.”

“Huh? Why not?”

“You can’t. It can’t be allowed.”

“Eh? But I got the lord’s permission?”

“But…”

“Give it up, boy. No one can stop my destruction. I will smash it all down and rebuild. Destruction is the mother of creation. Have you ever seen a phoenix arising from the ashes?”

Qing threw out any random words.

It was said in disbelief.

“You can’t do it!”

Jin Hwachun shouted.

“If you destroy the house… it will— *sniff*, it will.”

And then tears started flowing, nostrils flaring, he took a deep breath.

Oh, he’s going to cry.

Qing thought, but it was already too late.

Kahh, the boy burst into tears.

It took a considerable time for the boy to calm down.

“This is Hye-won’s house, and if you wreck it, I won’t remember again. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

Listening to his story, it seemed it was his best friend’s house.

Children from prominent families don’t just play with strangers outside; they usually grow up playing and frolicking together with their relatives.

And they’re family.

It probably took two months to leisurely travel from Henan to Gwangdong, so if they discovered this tragedy after returning mid-August, it would not have been long since the funeral rites.

Too short of time to forget the loss of family.

And it wasn’t a farewell that was prepared for slowly due to illness or old age, but an unjust disaster perpetrated by the Blood Sect’s surprise attack.

Even when the Jin family found the bodies, they must have been in a deplorable state, left out in the humid, hot weather of Gwangdong’s summer.

And even while their corpses decayed, weren’t they happily enjoying the Martial World Tournament?

Tearing it down instead.

For the Jin family, each house would have been a memorial.

That’s a speculation at best, but Qing had no way of knowing what they truly felt.

So, the current state of the Jin family wasn’t merely about the Sapa’s interference or lack of manpower.

It was something closer to powerlessness or sadness.

But, is it fine just to keep getting hit?

There are those wretched individuals out there in the city who’d like to take advantage of a family already drowned in disaster.

Scoundrels who’d resort to any means necessary, cruelly harming innocent workers.

—-

Qing dressed in an outfit suitable for a Civil Engineering Fairy and set out into Gwangju city.

It was truly the appearance of a talented individual drawing the attention of the entire city.

Draped in colorful fabrics and adorned with dozens of shells hanging at his waist to twinkle in the rainbow hues, each step produced a clattering sound.

Meanwhile, the hat he wore was plastered with talismans inscribed with incantations, hanging long down over his shoulders and back.

With a thick cloth veiling his face in front, he appeared to be a miraculous medium stepping into the marketplace.

But then again, if he’s a medium, what has he to do with carpentry?

Actually, that was why he dressed like this.

He needed to carry some tool that looked carpentry-related, so people would immediately recognize, “Oh, the Civil Engineering Fairy has arrived!”

A saw? Just use the Sword Aura. A plane? Just use the Sword Aura. A chisel? The Sword Aura is unbeatable.

But a hammer—he needed that.

The Moonlight Sword may weigh five kilograms, but it’s tricky to use as a hammer due to the well-balanced design.

So Qing stepped out onto the steel street in that getup.

The sound of metal striking metal was cheerful, and the smell of burning coal was thick in the air as he started to wander around, pretending to inspect the iron goods laid out on the stalls.

In fact, he hadn’t done any ironworking before, so he was clueless even while observing them.

This was all an act to engrain the image of a Civil Engineering Fairy in people’s minds.

Then, Qing approached the stall with the largest iron hammer and bluntly asked without any respect.

It was his attempt at playing the part of a shaman.

“Hey, can I see my big hammer?”

“How much are you looking for?”

“Fifteen ken.”

“Oh come on, you think we have that?”

“That’s weird. They do in Henan.”

Of course, there was none.

Swinging a fifteen ken hammer would definitely leave a person unable to handle it.

Besides, a hammer doesn’t need to just be heavy; swinging such a heavy hammer wouldn’t be hammering— it’s more likely to smash stuff.

Even trying to drive a stake into the ground, it wouldn’t go in but would just crack and split apart.

“Then what’s the biggest hammer around here?”

“Eight ken. No, do Henan folks really make fifteen ken hammers? Where on earth would you even use that?”

“Why, I use it for building houses. What else?”

“Are you trying to smash some poor sap’s head instead?”

“Ha. Even using eight ken, it’s hard to lift it at an angle before you’re exhausted; you’d be lucky to find eight of them in the whole street, let alone one hefty hammer.”

“Our shaman reveres the legendary warrior Han Yu. A fifteen ken hammer would feel light in my hands, and the real issue was my original twenty ken iron hammer breaking.”

“Twenty ken? Ha. If it’s eight ken, you could use it like a twig. You wanna show me your legendary hammer technique?”

“Sure, that’s fine. But since you doubted me, you’re going to pay the price. Are you okay with that?”

“Hmph. You shamans have a knack for misleading people. Get lost, you quack in a quack outfit—”

The iron worker who was scoffing at him suddenly fell silent.

A long, slender, seemingly weak hand lifted the eight ken hammer effortlessly.

And then, like swinging a twig, he tossed it up and down.

“And it feels way lighter.”

Then as if tossing a pebble, he casually flung the iron rod beside him and kept tapping it with the hammer head, sending it airborne in a dance.

The hammer’s weight is determined only by the weight of the head, so for hammers, the eight ken only counted the weight of the hammer’s head.

Qing was swinging the length of the hammer’s handle with one hand, continuing the rhythm of hitting and catching the heavy iron piece, just like that.

The iron worker’s mouth hung wide open, following the iron piece as it soared.

With everyone’s eyes already fixated on Qing, his so-called miraculous medium attire and the feats of the thundering hammer dance captivated the blacksmiths and onlookers on the street.

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