Chapter 30 :

Chapter 30

Act 4: The Bamboo-Tube Beauty (11)

“If there is anything you wish to say before you depart, say it now.”

“Thank you... honored elders...”

Yise replied brusquely.

“Enough with this ‘honored elders’ business. We’re sixteen. We’ve lived less than one-fifth as long as you.”

Geuma sniffled for a long time before forcing the corners of her mouth upward.

She had realized that he was joking to cheer her up.

“...What a kind person.”

Seol Ryeong gently embraced Geuma and patted her soothingly for quite some time.

“It’s warm. It has been so long since I was held by a human.”

“Geuma.”

“I will not depart with regrets.”

“I am merely an insignificant being in the Energy Refinement Realm, yet I encountered precious bonds and received more kindness than I deserved. Therefore, I am not sad. A human gave me a name and taught me love. He taught me separation and longing and gave me hope. And in the end, humans offered me comfort.”

Geuma prostrated herself deeply before the two of them.

“Thank you. Humans truly are lovable beings. Thanks to you, I depart after living a short but happy life.”

She smiled in a way that might have been laughter or tears.

“May both of you remain healthy and peaceful. I will pray for you even after death.”

After shedding one final tear, she slowly closed her eyes.

There was no need to exterminate her.

As though determined not to force the two of them to commit an unnecessary killing, she ended her own life.

Yise rubbed his constricted chest and turned toward Seol Ryeong.

“......”

Seol Ryeong was crying even more sorrowfully than Geuma had, shedding enormous tears.

“...Why are you— No, never mind.”

Yise sighed softly and patted her back.

All the while, he thought that he truly could not stand demons.

***

After performing a spirit-consoling rite for Geuma’s soul, they placed the Bamboo-Container Maiden’s body inside the Demon-Sealing Album.

Yise then approached Seol Ryeong, who sat nearby with a face swollen from crying.

“Are you finished crying?”

“...Yeah.”

She wiped her eyes and addressed Yise with a determined expression.

“Then let’s begin.”

“Begin what?”

“Collecting the spoils.”

According to the Basic Handbook of the Grand Martial Path:

If one party died in a life-and-death battle between cultivators, all remaining spoils belonged to the victor in principle.

The deceased’s family and acquaintances could not assert ownership over those spoils.

In other words, every possession belonging to Cultivator Kim Siwon was now theirs.

They had suffered immensely and expended far too many resources on a mission that rewarded only two spirit stones and three contribution points, which they would have to divide between them.

Kim Siwon had accumulated wealth for seventy years, so it was only reasonable that they take everything until they had recovered their investment.

Yise had intended to do that even without Seol Ryeong mentioning it, but...

“Are you sure this is allowed? You’re not trying to stop me with talk of righteousness this time. I was already planning to take everything myself and accept whatever Heavenly Tribulation came afterward.”

“...The victor taking everything is part of the natural order.”

“It only feels as though you invoke righteousness whenever it suits you, right?”

“Of course that’s only your imagination. Let’s go, Fellow Daoist Yi. It’s unfortunate that the corpse is already inside the Demon-Sealing Album, but there must be seventy years’ worth of wealth hidden in the cultivation cave.”

“I already stripped everything from the corpse. Who do you take me for?”

“...When did you do that?”

“While you were busy crying.”

Yise shook the bundle filled with items and showed it to her.

Seol Ryeong looked dumbfounded.

Honestly, she had been genuinely astonished during the battle.

His remarkable courage, nerve, and decisiveness were things she could not hope to imitate.

The sight of him attaining enlightenment and breaking through a wall during a life-and-death battle had displayed such dazzling talent that she could hardly believe it.

She found herself wondering whether the mischievous boy before her was truly the same cultivator she had seen earlier.

“The more I see of you, the more surprising you become.”

“There wasn’t a storage implement. I heard cultivators usually carry at least a small one.”

“Independent cultivators are extremely poor. We might find little of value even if we empty the cultivation cave.”

“That would be a real problem.”

Yise frowned as though genuinely troubled.

It was because his body smelled like roasting squid.

Perhaps he should have kept the fact that he had already looted the corpse a secret.

Yise belatedly swallowed his regret.

Still, they had to search the cave.

Park Gangseo, his senior in the Energy Refinement Realm at the Grand Martial Path, had once told him something.

Honestly, killing cultivators and emptying their pockets was far more profitable than hunting demons.

At the time, Yise had thought it sounded like something a fraudulent Daoist would say. But now that it concerned him personally, his perspective had changed.

Until now, he had believed that he possessed no material greed.

However, after risking his life in battle, Yise had no desire to return empty-handed without any spoils.

Now that he knew what spirit stones could purchase and understood their true value—and now that he had experienced the brutal world where the weak were devoured—the frugal Yise was dead.

He would be reborn as a miser and an incarnation of greed.

“There are an incredible number of consumable items.”

They gathered every possession inside the cultivation cave and poured them onto the table.

They had initially believed there was nothing there, but Kim Siwon had cowardly dug beneath the cultivation cave and hidden his valuables underground.

There were approximately fifty spirit stones.

Several demonic cultivation manuals.

More than twenty consumable ritual implements.

And one unidentified ritual implement.

“Choose first. If you select a ritual implement, I’ll take an equivalent value in spirit stones. I need spirit stones more urgently than ritual implements.”

With a determined expression, Yise immediately scraped all the spirit stones and ritual implements together and pulled them toward himself.

“Have you completely forgotten that I only came here to help you...?”

Wearing a regretful expression, Yise pointed to the only ritual implement with an unusual shape.

Disposable ritual implements usually came in the form of pellets activated by breaking them, projectiles activated by throwing them, or talismans activated by infusing them with spiritual energy.

Strictly speaking, talismans and pellets were more accurately described as ritual objects rather than ritual implements. However, for convenience, many people grouped them together and called them ritual implements.

Among the disposable ritual objects they had obtained, this was the only implement made of metal and shaped like a sickle.

“I’ll choose this first.”

He did not know what it was, but if it was a reusable ritual implement, its value would begin at a minimum of thirty spirit stones.

As expected, Seol Ryeong took thirty spirit stones.

When Yise infused spiritual energy into the implement, it gradually enlarged and transformed into something resembling a saber.

It was indeed a saber, but one with an unusually broad blade.

It looked rather like a kitchen knife from the Jeong Empire.

He could not determine any other function.

He would have to ask the magical-artifact merchant in Azure Mountain Capital later.

Seeing Yise infuse spiritual energy into the ritual implement, Seol Ryeong tilted her head.

“Did your cultivation realm rise?”

“Yeah. During the battle earlier.”

“...Goodness. The fact that you can answer so casually makes it even more infuriating.”

A monster who had reached the Third Star of the Energy Refinement Realm only two weeks after becoming a cultivator had killed a man who remained at the Fifth Star after cultivating for seventy years and was now emptying his cultivation cave.

Could anything in the world be more unreasonable?

Seol Ryeong could not bring herself to say it aloud.

Whether or not he understood how she felt, Yise took ten spirit stones and several consumable ritual implements.

They decided to surrender the demonic cultivation manuals to the Grand Martial Path before heading toward Namsangol.

Yise naturally promised to award the highest possible score.

He also thanked Chong Sadeuk for all his material and practical assistance and gave him several of Seol Ryeong’s talismans as gifts before leaving Namsangol.

After running without rest to Azure Mountain, the two headed toward the street frequented by Daoists.

They intended to visit the magical-artifact merchant, Hyeon Unja, sell their unwanted ritual implements for spirit stones, and have the strange implement they had obtained appraised.

“Old Hyeon! We’re here.”

Despite Seol Ryeong’s cheerful greeting, the old man ignored her and continued smoking his long pipe.

“I keep telling you to smoke outside.”

“If you came here to nag me, get out of my shop.”

Hyeon Unja waved his hand dismissively.

Apparently accustomed to his response, Seol Ryeong placed the ritual implements they intended to sell before him.

Yise placed the implement he wanted appraised beside them.

“We only want this one appraised.”

“The appraisal fee is one spirit stone.”

“Old Hyeon, do you really have to charge us for that? Considering my charming face, you could at least appraise it for free.”

“Does looking at your face produce spirit stones or ritual implements? If you don’t like my price, go to some amateur and let him rob you blind.”

***

Chong Sadeuk had emptied the outpost’s entire inventory to treat Yise’s burns.

He had then asked them to give him a favorable evaluation as an outer-sect representative and provided them with plenty of money and food.

Yise intervened and held out one spirit stone.

“You refuse to let anyone haggle over your divination fee, yet you’re perfectly happy to drive down someone else’s service fee. Please forgive her, Elder.”

Hyeon Unja chuckled at Yise’s words and took out a magnifying glass.

“Elder, did you already know Seol Ryeong?”

“Don’t call me Elder. I’m merely an old man who doesn’t act his age. Call me Old Hyeon.”

Seol Ryeong answered instead.

“I didn’t know him personally. He knows my mother.”

“I saw this brat a few times when she was still running around and defecating on the floor.”

“What are you talking about...?”

Yise clutched his stomach and burst into laughter.

A short while later, Old Hyeon returned carrying the appraised ritual implement.

When he held it and infused it with spiritual energy, its blade changed into a triangular shape, then a rectangular one. It also split into two blades like a pair of scissors.

“Old Hyeon, what is it used for?”

“It’s just a kitchen knife.”

“...What?”

“It’s a multipurpose kitchen knife made from the claws and bones of a spirit beast. Infuse it with spiritual energy, and it transforms into whatever shape you need, making it ideal for cooking.”

“Wait, Old Hyeon. Why would anyone use valuable spirit-beast materials to make a kitchen knife?”

“When preparing immortal cuisine—food for cultivators that contains no turbid energy—using ordinary utensils diminishes its benefits. Do you not even know something so basic? If you don’t need it, sell it to me. I’ll give you five spirit stones.”

In other words...

Yise had taken a kitchen knife worth only five spirit stones and lost thirty spirit stones for it.

He hurriedly looked at Seol Ryeong, but she was struggling to suppress a wicked smile.

“I genuinely didn’t know. What can we do? You’ll have to accept that this was fate too.”

The sages had not been wrong when they said there was no one in the world one could trust.