I Am This Murim's Crazy Bitch-Chapter 289: Transcendent Qing (26)

For the past few days, the rain hadn’t let up—not just a drizzle, but a torrential downpour—so it wasn’t surprising that a section of the mountain, with its softened ground, had collapsed.

Thankfully, the sound came from far away, but even so, it was hard not to feel uneasy.

Will it be okay here?

This place isn’t going to collapse too, right?

But there wasn’t much to be done about it.

The primitive darkness of ancient nights meant that if there wasn’t moonlight, there was no light at all.

And for personal lighting, it was either a torch or a lantern at best—and on a night like this, with sheets of rain falling, even those were practically useless.

So they couldn’t go down the mountain in the middle of the night, and even if they did, there was no guarantee it would be any safer.

In fact, the peak might be the safest place.

They wouldn’t have built a stronghold somewhere that could collapse, would they? Even if they were ignorant mountain bandits?

With that decision made, Qing headed back inside the stronghold.

You’d call it a roof, maybe a huge one.

Beneath the roof, built without walls, a large fire blazed on one side, and the entrance to the building was plainly visible.

Of course, even mountain bandits wouldn’t just sleep on the ground under a bare shelter. That would make them savages, not bandits.

Huh. Wait. Maybe “savages” is actually right.

Anyway, the method for finding the best room was obvious—just follow the corridor and look for the most gaudy door.

The more a man lacks real authority, the more he clings to symbols of it. So naturally, at the end of the hallway stood a huge door, lavishly decorated in gold and red, a lantern hanging neatly beside it as if to declare, “I’m right here, the boss sleeps in this room.”

Not her house, and not a guest either, so with both hands sealed thanks to Seol Iri, Qing gave the door a decisive kick.

Her foot slammed dead center and the door crashed down like a drawbridge, revealing the interior.

And inside—

“Ugh. Smells like a damn bachelor.”

Contempt warped Qing’s famously unmatched face.

The moment the door hit the floor, the stench surged out, so strong her nose felt like it might fall off.

The bed, at least, looked decent.

It was wide, tall, and obviously plush—luxury-grade without a doubt—but the silk sheets on top... hmm.

They might’ve once been high-quality to match the bed, but now they’d yellowed from the center out. And getting closer, she immediately knew: the source of the stench was the pile of linens carelessly thrown on the bed.

Qing picked up the blanket and shook it out, releasing another foul wave—something like night-blooming flowers, but worse: rancid, sticky, humid.

God, it’s disgusting. Filthy.

Is this even a blanket, or a wad of rags?

Carefully, Qing set down Seol Iri, then wrapped her in the blanket anyway.

She was already half a rag herself, soaked to the bone. They needed to preserve body heat, at least.

Seol Iri struggled, turning her head toward Qing with those huge eyes.

“...Smells...”

“What’s a little stink, huh? I mean, no matter how gross it is, it’s still a blanket. It’s not like someone pissed on it. At worst, it’s just drenched in the boss’s sweat and spit. Yeah. That’s probably it. Just... heavily soaked.”

But Qing’s face twisted as she said it.

Ugh. Saying it out loud made it even more revolting.

Seol Iri, eyes like saucers, jerked in surprise, tried to move, and immediately winced with a painful grunt.

“See? You're in no shape to move. Just wait here. I’ll bring you a change of clothes. I’ll go get them, okay?”

She wanted out of this stinking room so badly she was tripping over her own words.

As she stepped outside and headed toward the carriage, she glanced up at the sky.

“This damn rain just won’t stop.”

Five years in Murim, and she’d never seen it pour like this—relentless, unending.

Well, five years in, it was about time she experienced a monsoon.

...Is that Young Master still alive?

Either way, Qing stepped out toward the muddy pit where she’d thrown him along with her soaked clothes.

With a sharp splash and a roar of rain, thick drops slapped her face like open palms.

Three dismembered corpses, and in between them, the Young Master gurgling in bloody foam.

More than three hundred sins gleamed off him.

Damn. Still alive?

Maybe being such a bastard gave him a longer life.

But even if a divine physician were here right now, there was no saving him.

She wouldn’t have thrown him there if there was even a chance. It wasn’t mercy—just laziness. Live or die, it was up to him.

Pathetic.

Qing lost all interest and turned away.

She gathered clothes from the carriage and returned to the stronghold, kicking open every door she passed.

No matter how luxurious the bed, that stink—specifically bachelor stink—felt like it would taint her internal organs. There was no way she could sleep there.

But if the boss's room was that bad, what hope was there for the others?

If anything, it might’ve been cleaner. Rooms shared by a bunch of unwashed men were even worse—ugh.

Then she found the kitchen, took a peek at the supplies. At least breakfast would be solid. Hmm? What’s this?

Inside the storage room, there was a side door.

It was tightly locked, so Qing, going full savage again, kicked it in—

“Ack!”

Thing is, the more something breaks when you kick it, the less impact your body feels.

If it doesn’t break? That impact comes right back into your bones.

Qing grimaced, her ankle throbbing.

What the hell? Feels like a block of iron.

Then she spotted the massive padlock, the size of two fists, and her eyes gleamed.

Come on. Something good in there? Treasure stash?

The lock was sturdy, but the iron loop it hung from wasn’t. Qing twisted the lock, and with a metallic crunch, the loop gave way.

Stairs descended into darkness.

Grabbing a lantern, Qing went down—and holy shit.

The small cellar gleamed in dull yellow, gold bars glinting in the light.

She picked one up—the kind called a gold ingot, or a geumja.

Gold was deceptively heavy for its size. That precious weight settled deep in her palm.

Ah. So that’s why there were two Transcendents here.

A quick count showed more than forty ingots.

No wonder it took two peak-level warriors to guard it—this was serious wealth.

You bastards...

You hoarded this much gold from banditry?

How much did you have to pillage to collect all this?

Qing regretted it then.

She shouldn’t have given them clean deaths.

She’d thought they were just robbing to scrape by, living hand-to-mouth.

But this? This was a full-blown criminal enterprise. Absolute fucking scum.

Anyway, there was no sleeping for her tonight.

Qing could sleep anywhere, even on the roadside—but on that filthy bed? Reeking of man-sweat, spit, and god knows what else? Disgusting.

Seol Sojeo needed the bed more than she did. Qing would just ransack the place instead.

Back in the stink-room, Seol Iri was making soft little snoring noises.

Turns out it wasn’t just the cold—she naturally snored a bit. Cute.

“Seol Sojeo. Change into dry clothes and sleep, or you’ll catch another cold.”

“...Okay...”

Guess she was the type to answer even while half-asleep, her reply muffled through snores.

Qing unwrapped the foul blanket. Ugh, the smell...

Her clothes were soaked through and hard to get off. The girl was limp, completely out of it, murmuring “Okay...” when told to raise her arms, but otherwise a soggy corpse.

With the stink choking her lungs, Qing undressed her, wiped her down with rough cotton, and dressed her in clean clothes.

And in the back of her mind:

What the hell am I doing in the middle of the night?

She’s not even a kid. Totally useless little thing.

****

After ransacking the stronghold all night, Qing found more than just gold bars.

There was a decent stash of coin, a pile of weapons that might fetch a price as scrap, and several martial manuals.

But of those, only two reacted to the Martial Manual Spear—both blue-ranked.

The rest? Techniques like Dae-ryeok Paehyeol Bu Technique, Gwangryong Blade Technique, Eight-Fold Celestial Staff Technique—grand names, sure, but no response when touched, flipped, or scanned.

Which meant they were fakes.

I mean, what kind of mountain bandit would willingly teach real techniques to his underlings?

They’d probably stripped the core mantras or tampered with the internal flow, leaving them deliberately broken.

Qing moved all the gold into the carriage’s cargo hold, stacking scrap-bound weaponry on top as camouflage.

It was still deep in the night, so she spent some time lying under a blanket inside the carriage.

Half asleep? Half awake? Hard to tell.

And then it was morning.

By then, the rain had softened into a drizzle.

The black clouds that had sealed off the sky all night began to thin, and even if it was still overcast, it finally felt like morning.

Ah. Wasn’t there a landslide last night?

Qing, wearing her rain hat, leapt up to the watchtower she hadn’t noticed before.

From there, she looked down the mountain.

Ah. So it wasn’t a landslide after all.

Seemed someone had made a strategic decision—trees were cleared to give the tower a wide view downhill.

From up top, the mountain path below was completely visible, and through the morning mist, the devastation revealed itself.

It wasn’t a landslide.

It was a flood.

A tributary of the Yellow River had overflowed south of Gam Mountain.

The entire valley had been ripped apart.

From the eastern edge all the way to the western ridgeline, thick yellow mud and fallen trees stretched in a wide belt.

If they’d been down there...

That’s when she realized—if the coachman hadn’t dragged them into the stronghold, they would’ve been swept away.

The road ran right alongside the tributary beneath Gam Mountain.

And now, no matter how hard she looked, there wasn’t a single trace of the road left—not even a pebble.

Coachman sir. So you really had that in mind.

And here I was... judging you.

You did one good thing before you died. Maybe the King of Hell’ll shave an hour or two off your sentence.

****

Qing wasn’t exactly a great cook, but she wasn’t useless either.

In truth, she wasn’t picky.

More accurate to say she had a tongue like a dog—everything tasted good to her, and she’d scarf down anything edible without complaint.

People like that usually make poor cooks.

But Qing had a freakish memory for flavor.

She could remember the exact taste of anything she’d eaten, which meant that even when she just tossed ingredients into an iron pot with oil, the results were at least edible.

She tossed dried meat into the cauldron, threw in some herbs to kill the gamey smell, added rice and barley, dumped in water, and boiled it all down into a big pot of thick porridge.

“Seol Sojeo? Time to wake up and eat. We need to get moving soon. I made some porridge.”

“Porridge.”

At the [N O V E L I G H T] word porridge, Seol Iri snapped her eyes open and tried to sit up—only to collapse back down with a groan.

“Seol Sojeo? Are you okay?”

“Yes...”

She kept saying she was fine.

But Qing had seen her last night while cleaning her.

Her whole body was covered in bruises—her back, shoulders, outer arms, and legs were nearly skinless in color.

Only her torso and inner limbs were untouched—still pale and smooth.

Which meant she hadn’t fought back at all.

Just curled into a ball and took the beating.

Of course she was wrecked inside and out.

Come on, you’re a martial artist. Fight back.

What do you think happens when you curl up like a pill bug? You just get beaten until you die. No wonder you got dragged around by your hair.

Low skill and trash attitude. Great.

All you’ve got going for you is that damn pretty face...

“Can’t stand? Want me to carry you?”

“No.”

With that, Seol Iri forced herself upright—painfully slow, like an old woman on her deathbed—clinging to anything she could just to get to her feet.

Then she plastered herself to the wall and followed Qing one step at a time, hand pressed against the surface for balance.

Qing didn’t bother offering help again. If she said no, she said no.

They ate a solid breakfast.

And then it was time to leave.

“Can you drive the carriage?”

“I’ll do it.”

“No, I mean—if you screw it up, we’ll both die in a ditch. It’s not about willingness. Can you do it or not?”

Seol Iri bit her lip.

Brave words, sure—but her hands were shaking so hard she could barely hold a spoon.

Qing narrowed her eyes.

Then Seol changed her answer.

“I’ll teach you.”

“What? Drive the carriage?”

“Yes.”

“You think one quick lesson is enough?”

“It’s easy.”

Qing liked evil people alive—not their leftover flesh and bones.

And there was no way she was staying in a stronghold full of corpses.

And so—Qing’s first time as a coachwoman!

Turned out, it was easy.

Of course it was. Horses have eyes too.

And they’re extremely skittish.

Animals with eyes and nerves are good at avoiding obstacles.

If they sense danger, they stop. No matter what.

That’s why warhorses are expensive—it takes hellish training to make such timid creatures charge into combat.

Shit. Coach-driving’s basically a free lunch.

No wonder it’s considered one of the five lowest jobs in the world—anyone can do it.

Sure, controlling speed and giving a smooth ride takes skill.

But if all you need is forward movement, just holding the reins is enough. The horse does the rest.

And horses prefer clean, hard roads over brush and trees.

The road was slippery, and it sloped down.

But the stronghold had a proper path carved out for carriages, twisting gently down the slope.

It was bumpy, but doable.

The wheels kept getting stuck in the mud.

But Qing, ultra-level transcendental badass, woman-powered pulley system Ximen Qing, was on the job.

When the carriage sank, she pushed it out.

Then she’d climb back up, stare at the horse’s twitching butt, and—bam, stuck again.

The horse really was clever.

Whenever the wheels sank, it would stop, turn its head, and look at her like:

What the hell are you doing? Fix it already.

Which made her want to scream.

Seriously, why am I doing this?

That useless flower girl’s only good trait was that she could drive this thing—now I’m doing that too!