WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 28: Episode 4: Bamboo-Tube Beauty (9)
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“It won't harm you in any way, Senior. No, I think it may even be a fortuitous encounter that will help you.”
Ise delivered the decisive phrase.
A fortuitous encounter. It was the word that had sustained Kim Siwon's life, so he was sure the man would respond.
“Did you come empty-handed?”
At that, Ise signaled to Seolryeong with his eyes.
She quickly stepped forward.
“It isn't a spiritual herb, but it's tea renowned for clearing the mind and body. It will help with your cultivation.”
“A meager offering.”
Kim Siwon let out a faint laugh.
Though they belonged to the Great Exorcist Order, they were little more than chicks who had only just reached the second star.
They clearly could not possess much wealth.
“Come in with your hands together before your chest where I can see them.”
The two slowly entered the cave abode.
It was simply furnished, with one bed and one table.
Yet the moment they stepped inside, the heaven-and-earth spiritual energy of the blessed grotto quietly wrapped around their bodies. It made clear just what a great fortuitous encounter had come to an untalented independent cultivator.
Spiritual energy flowed into them simply by being there. If they could remain in this place a little longer, it felt as though they might break through the wall blocking their progress.
Kim Siwon sat alone before the table, his arms crossed and one leg over the other.
“So. What wind brought juniors of the Great Exorcist Order all the way into this mountain backwater?”
“Senior, did you perhaps encounter Bamboo-Tube Beauty on an Immortal Mountain in the Southern Sea around fifty years ago?”
Kim Siwon flinched.
His body was so honest that he could not conceal his expression at all.
“...How do you know that?”
“That is why we came looking for you. Bamboo-Tube Beauty asked us to find you.”
“She is alive? That spiritual material?”
“Yes. Though she has undergone corruption and is on the verge of becoming a demon...”
“Corruption? You mean she's becoming a demon?”
Kim Siwon's expression changed from moment to moment.
Without showing it, Ise picked apart each expression and interpreted it.
“Yes. That is why we hope you will come with us, Senior, and show her enough consideration to stop her corruption and let her rest in peace.”
“The Great Exorcist Order... Right. The Great Exorcist Order reveres spiritual materials.”
As though he had finished sorting through his thoughts, Kim Siwon slowly opened his mouth.
“...I did not abandon her on purpose.”
Ise had been about to ask him to lie if necessary, yet Kim Siwon denied abandoning her of his own accord.
“The life of an independent cultivator is hardship itself. We do not have a secure roof or a warm greenhouse like you.”
“I heard you had endured many hardships.”
“At the time, I fought another independent cultivator of the same realm who had settled nearby. I found it first, so I stored the spiritual material in a remote place in case my cave abode was discovered. But... during the fight, the map marking the spiritual material's location was destroyed in a fire. I was badly injured, and while I recuperated, I lost the memory as well.”
“So that was what happened.”
“Yes. That is why I could no longer find her.”
“Then will you come with us?”
“Of course. Lead the way.”
Independent cultivator Kim Siwon rose briskly to his feet.
* * *
Ise and Seolryeong returned to the Namsangol pass with Kim Siwon.
The bamboo grove was even more shrouded in mist than before.
Just as the mist had thickened, the demonic qi was far denser than it had been seven days ago.
Bamboo-Tube Beauty had confidently said she could last about a month, but it seemed she had less time remaining than that.
As the thickening smoke began to obscure their vision, Ise kept an eye on Kim Siwon, who was following a short distance behind them, then took something from his pocket and tossed it into his mouth.
“You really had to bring food even in a situation like this? Ugh, that smell. What did you eat?”
“It's rude to tell someone their breath smells.”
At that sharp rebuke, Seolryeong immediately shut her mouth and pouted.
“Try one too. It's salty, and it's good for you.”
Ise tossed a pill to Seolryeong.
“I won't eat it. It smells like cow dung.”
“Suit yourself.”
The suspicious gaze that had briefly rested on Ise soon disappeared.
As they moved, Ise tried to sharpen his five senses as much as possible.
Instinctively, he expected a battle.
“Bamboo-Tube, come out. I brought your master.”
Bamboo-Tube Beauty, buried in the demonic qi, cautiously poked out her head.
The moment her eyes met Kim Siwon's, they grew as wide as lamps.
“Scholar!”
Her shrill voice rang through the grove.
Bamboo-Tube Beauty looked ready to rush toward him at once, but she hesitated and watched Ise and Seolryeong.
Kim Siwon moved first.
But a cold blade touched the point of his chin.
It was Ise's hatchet.
“What are you doing?”
“Do not get too close. Confirm her identity from a distance. She is a spiritual material undergoing corruption. You could get caught up in it as well, Senior.”
“Do you think corruption is some contagious cold? Move it aside, you insolent brat. Point a weapon at me once more, and I will kill you.”
Kim Siwon began approaching Bamboo-Tube Beauty, one step at a time.
When he reached her, Kim Siwon smiled at the spiritual material that had become a monster, his eyes gleaming.
“You, you... Yes, it is you.”
“Yes, Scholar. It is me.”
“Yes. Yes... You truly have undergone corruption. You are becoming a demon.”
“Sniff... Scholar, I am sorry.”
“It is all right.”
“Even so, I am happy that I can see you before I go. Please call my name for me one last time.”
“...”
“Scholar?”
“My name, you say.”
“Yes. Please.”
“Are you not Bamboo-Tube?”
In an instant, Bamboo-Tube Beauty's face turned pale. The demonic qi within her violently churned.
“Scholar, what do you mean? Have you forgotten my name? The name you gave me... No, more than that, what is that state you are in...?”
Ise gripped his hatchet and shield.
“Get ready to fight.”
“Now?”
“He is not a cultivator. He is a demonic cultivator.”
“...What?”
“It means he is undergoing corruption too.”
Seolryeong could only see the remaining spiritual energy, but Ise had seen it from the start.
That sinister energy, steadily growing larger.
Like Ise, Kim Siwon had both spiritual energy and demonic qi within his body.
More precisely, his spiritual energy had lost its flowing power and become still, while the demonic qi writhed with greater and greater vitality.
‘He must have hit a wall and turned to demonic arts.’
It was almost laughable.
Two beings that had gained spirituality had met.
One was a cultivator who dreamed of immortality.
The other was a spiritual material that wanted to protect her kind and her home.
The spiritual material had been abandoned by the cultivator, resented him, lost her Dao, and underwent corruption.
The cultivator had taken the spiritual material's power, but his meager talent had ultimately caused him to lose his Dao and turn to corrupted power.
A fortuitous encounter that would have been better for them both if it had never existed.
“So it is true. You did abandon me, Scholar.”
“Hah. Do not speak so arrogantly. I will take your demonic power. Hand it over quietly.”
“How could you...?”
Kim Siwon, who had been reaching toward Bamboo-Tube Beauty, slowly turned to face the two.
He had sensed the fighting intent behind him.
The demonic qi he had kept neatly hidden now gave off such a vicious presence that even Seolryeong could feel it.
“Now that I have become a demonic cultivator, the Great Exorcist Order will not leave me alone.”
An extreme killing intent spread out.
“So the two of you must die here. Is it not your way to hunt before you are hunted?”
Ise only stepped forward silently.
A hatchet in one hand, a black iron shield in the other.
At the sight of his overflowing fighting spirit, Kim Siwon gave a vicious grin.
“How insolent. You are only second-star Qi Condensation Realm brats. You have barely learned to walk, yet you dare challenge me. Do you think the cultivation world is so easy? Though I have turned to demonic arts, I have crossed a minor realm boundary!”
Kim Siwon roared and began forming hand seals.
A fierce wind swirled around him, making his Daoist robe flutter.
“Tsk, tsk. What a pity for such young fools. If you had stayed quietly in your greenhouse instead of involving yourselves in this...?”
Then it happened.
Black blood gushed from Kim Siwon's mouth.
As though he had been waiting for that moment, Ise spoke to Seolryeong.
“The antidote I gave you earlier. Take it now.”
“What... Cough!”
At the same time, Seolryeong, who had been preparing a defensive spirit artifact beside him, made a strange sound and vomited black blood.
“Sorry I could not tell you beforehand.”
Ise immediately apologized and told Seolryeong to eat the cow-dung-smelling pill she was holding.
It was the pill he had chewed like a snack while they climbed the mountain earlier. The pill he had made in Cheongrim Village as an antidote.
Now that she focused, she could smell the stale scent hidden among the smoke of the bamboo grove. Acrid and pungent.
The scent of poison.
“You, you...”
“If I told you beforehand, your acting might have been terrible enough to give us away.”
Ise set a small gourd on the ground. Smoke the same color as the mist poured from it.
It was a single-use spirit artifact worth five Spiritual Stones, purchased from a spirit artifact shop in Cheongsan City.
A spirit artifact that released poisonous gas which would disrupt the qi and blood of cultivators within its range if inhaled for a certain amount of time.
“It will still be a difficult fight. Be careful.”
“Since when?!”
“Since the mist began.”
“No, when did you start suspecting him?!”
“From the moment we met. He had demonic qi inside him.”
It was not easy to poison a cultivator without their five senses noticing.
As Ise had said, he could completely deceive Kim Siwon only because Seolryeong, who knew nothing, had played along at his side.
Without another word, Seolryeong tossed the antidote into her mouth.
It tasted like cow dung after all.
“When this is over, you are apologizing to me properly!”
“All right. Join me when the poisonous qi clears.”
Ise charged toward Kim Siwon, who was retching dryly.
People often said that once cultivators reached the Foundation Establishment Realm, they became immune to all poisons.
But that meant poison worked on Qi Condensation Realm cultivators who had not reached the Foundation Establishment Realm.
One text even named poison as one of the five things Qi Condensation Realm cultivators had to fear most.
Of course, being poisoned would not erase the difference in their realms in an instant.
Especially when there was surely an overwhelming gap in both the amount and quality of the protective items Kim Siwon possessed.
He had, after all, accumulated them for more than seventy years.
Footnotes:
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