Chapter 1061: That Creature Is a Harmful Creature (16)

Qing woke in the morning, spat out yawn after yawn, and rolled around on top of the bedding.

She pointlessly lay with her head on Seol Iri’s stomach, then rolled and rolled again, tumbling over until she rested her head on Gongsun Yoye’s thigh.

As she was doing that, knock knock, servants came barging in, saying they would tidy the sleeping space, and took away the bedding.

Because the bedding had been confiscated, she lay on the bamboo mat and repeated the exact same thing. Then, knock knock, the servants set down breakfast trays.

A heaping mound of white rice. Two kinds of well-grilled fish she did not know the names of. Miso soup with fish cake in it. Some seasoned vegetables. Seaweed. Raw egg. Several kinds of pickled radish that, for some reason, absolutely refused to disappear.

Qing looked down at the table and tilted her head.

“What? I had a dream last night where I stormed the kitchen, you know? The meal was shabby, so I did that. But looking at this, I guess it really was a dream.”

“Me too. We had the same dream.”

At Seol Iri playing along, Qing’s eyes went round.

What was this? She was talking from the morning?

Their eyes met, and Seol Iri returned an outrageously seductive eye-smile. Qing cackled and lifted her palm.

Clap.

Their palms struck together.

Gongsun Yoye stared blankly at the sight, somehow looking both envious and regretful.

In any case, breakfast was not particularly tasty.

From what she had felt since yesterday, Japanese-style food simply did not suit her mouth.

In her homeland, Qing had eaten Japanese food perfectly well, but perhaps after living in the Central Plains for so long, food without oil had become too bland for her. Or perhaps it was simply that this was not Japanese food, but Japan-food, and therefore tasted bad.

But, well, still, this much passed.

It was not that she was trying to judge taste. What mattered was sincerity. Sincerity. No matter how she thought about it, a meal of barley rice and a few slices of pickled radish had crossed the line.

Still, seeing a fairly well-prepared meal, had they realized, through last night’s kitchen disturbance, that they had mistakenly provoked a madwoman they should not have touched?

However, the Japanese culture of covering lids was still proceeding to rave reviews.

They had merely changed strategy.

Because they had realized that if they visibly mistreated her for no reason, she was the kind of nightmare customer who absolutely would not endure it.

No, she was the kind of absolute nightmare customer who would not even pretend to endure it.

In a way, one could say they had learned a great lesson.

There existed strange people who responded to blatant cold treatment by blatantly causing chaos!

So what did one do?

Simply ignore her!

Despite the ruckus Qing had caused last night, they showed an astonishing lack of reaction to it.

For example: nothing had happened...!

And they did not summon her either.

They gave her breakfast, then lunch when the time came.

And since they would give her dinner when that time came too, they acted as if she should just sit quietly. No one called for her, no one came looking for her. Thus began unlimited neglect!

Not that Qing was someone who would be discouraged by that.

She was originally a master of killing time.

She sliced off part of a room pillar, made straight wooden blocks, stacked them like a tower, and enjoyed plagiarizing a certain game from her homeland where she and her friends took turns pulling out one block each, and the loser was the one who made the tower collapse.

Thanks to that, the pillar whose waist had been cut clean through could no longer fulfill its role as a pillar. The ceiling beam would slowly sag, and at some point, CRACK, it would break.

But that was fine.

Because it was not her house.

Or perhaps they should have told her in advance that in Ippen, cutting other people’s house pillars at random was against etiquette.

Since she was at it anyway, she cut up other pillars to make janggi pieces and played janggi, then wondered if she might carve Western-style pieces and play Western chess as well—

Only, since she had no knife and carving with aura was rather difficult, she kept failing and had to chop off pillar sections in chunks.

Like that, all the pillars positioned between the sliding paper doors slowly lost their original function, their middles hollowed out.

And so, before they knew it, evening was approaching.

Peng Daesan glared at the floor.

On the floor, he was lost in deep thought while glaring at a game board cut from a hexagonal bamboo mat, called tatami in Japanese.

Then he picked up a house-shaped piece and set it down between corners—

As if she had been waiting, Qing placed down a road-shaped piece.

“I’ll put a road here. You know your road gets cut off now, right? Long Road points confiscated.”

“No, why are you checking me? The one currently ahead in points is Miss Gongsun.”

“Because I feel like it? And you thought I didn’t notice you quietly gathering victory points?”

“Ahem.”

Once again, the group was arbitrarily plagiarizing and enjoying some game from Qing’s homeland.

Peng Daesan sighed deeply and inspected the state of the pieces—

“Wait. What is this? This is not the time for us to spend all day like this, is it?”

It seemed Peng Daesan had only now come to his senses.

After all, how could a person from the ever-bored Central Plains resist this future game that had appeared after leaping across hundreds of years?

He had wondered why she was ripping out perfectly good pillars, and then the game she suddenly suggested turned out to be unusually entertaining.

Since even Peng Daesan had lost his mind and fallen into a trance of play, perhaps it was impressive enough that he had come to his senses after playing all day.

At that, Qing clicked her tongue.

“Exactly. That prince bastard. Well, I guess a filthy bastard who steals patient meals wouldn’t bother looking after his own guests.”

She had thought the prince would at least show his face because they were his guests.

Moreover, a guest’s atrocities were tied to the face of the person who had invited that guest.

Even like this, he would not come? He was not going to come?

She had kept mentioning the prince, saying he should hurry and come, loudly insisting that she had come because the prince had summoned her.

Even then, that prince bastard did not come.

If the prince came, she had planned to shout all over the place, “Remember Nakamura,” “Down with Yeongsi,” “Traitor Yeongsi,” and make a scene.

If news like that leaked out, then no matter how loyal Yeongsi was as a subject through all ages, he would have no choice but to grow uneasy. If she scraped and scraped at him like that, she had thought he might try some kind of trick.

But what was this?

The prince himself refused to show his face. What a truly detestable bastard.

Then, well, it could not be helped.

Yesterday, while pretending to search for the kitchen, she had checked the paths, so perhaps tonight she should go out and stage a few mysterious murder cases—

It was just as Qing’s thoughts were turning ominous.

Knock knock knock knock.

A knock sounded at the door.

For reference, Qing was starting to feel hungry.

To an ordinary person, that meant it was not yet mealtime, and it also meant it was far too early for dinner.

Then?

“[Um, Physician, sir. Our prince is unwell. Might we ask for your help...]”

*****

If one intended to live merely as the king’s second son, one did not need power.

No, one must not have power.

The very fact that a second prince with succession rights possessed his own faction was a great threat to the first.

When subjects fought and split apart, political strife arose and the politics of officials became disorderly.

Furthermore, because each side had to govern its own power base, grant rewards, and make promises to the faction that followed it, the power of the royal family as a whole weakened.

But living that way was merely being alive.

It was not living as “the king’s second son.”

It was “living” as the king’s second son.

Originally, the second son had not known the difference between the two.

But after news spread that the eldest son had died, and all the officials lined up before him—after he tasted the true flavor of power—he understood the difference.

But his royal father’s will was firm.

Even though the eldest son’s disgrace had been exposed in full before every official during the banquet, the king had let it pass without a word.

That meant nothing had happened. The heir’s position was secure, and if anyone dared talk about it, they were welcome to wonder what the consequences would be.

Thus, the subjects who had tried to attach themselves to the second son immediately wiped their mouths clean as if they had never done so.

The result was the countless letters that flew to the second son. Someone’s daughter was ill, or as it turned out, she already had a lover.

Even in Japan, the surest method of attaching oneself to power was marriage. The subjects who had egged him on by saying this or that about their daughters changed their words in an instant and withdrew.

And at such a time, the news that reached the second son’s ears was this:

Goodness, that woman from the Central Plains is truly a dreadful bitch, isn’t she?

It seems she saved the heir, but just because she bestowed that favor, she is already acting with extraordinary tyranny.

Yesterday, she apparently stormed into the kitchen and forced the kitchen servants to keep making food until they were exhausted.

Thanks to that, all the ingredients have run out, so now they must requisition food from civilian homes. They say there is not a single fish left to eat tomorrow.

It was the moment the inside of the second son’s head lit up brightly.

To be this insolent already—she was the very image of someone mad with power.

And those who were mad with power were easy to handle.

Of course, looking at her bizarre behavior, at the atrocities that went beyond bizarre and reached madness, even the second son did not particularly want to take her in.

But what could he do?

The thirsty man had to dig the well—a saying even the Japanese pirates enjoyed using—and she was the only person he could reach out to right now.

But how should he make contact?

If the second son moved openly at a time like this, his intentions would be obvious, and his royal father would never sit by and watch it happen.

Then he had to pursue a natural meeting while disguising it as coincidence.

But since they were already ostracizing her, that would not work either.

Then, let’s see. That woman, that Central Plains physician, mm? Physician? Right! They called her a Divine Physician, didn’t they?

Thus, the second son took to his bed.

“Oh dear, oh dear, I’m dying,” he groaned, then thrust his fingers into his throat and retched, properly beginning his feigned illness.

At that, the Imperial Physician came and went, but that was all.

What use was a physician against a patient determined to feign illness?

The pulse seemed normal, but the patient said he was in pain and was suffering severely. And since there were many strange diseases in the world, the physician could not declare it was a feigned illness.

Moreover, the patient’s status was what it was. If he dismissed it as a feigned illness and, by chance, something went wrong with the prince, what then?

So the only thing the Imperial Physician could say was this:

“[It seems perhaps to be food accumulation or indigestion, but even those symptoms are not clear. For now, it seems we have no choice but to observe him further...]”

But the second son continued to be sick.

Although the king favored one child over the other, a child was still a child, so he could not leave him like this.

In the end, the king sighed deeply.

“[They say that Central Plains woman’s medical arts have reached divine arts. Call her and have her at least check his pulse. If her skill is real, haah, that would still be troublesome, but why must this fool fall ill at a time like this? Useless child. Surely he has not begun harboring other intentions...]”

And so, a servant came to invite Qing.

Yesterday they had openly treated her coldly, and today they had acted all day as though she did not exist. Yet as soon as someone became ill, they came running and asked for help. It was truly detestable.

Well, naturally, bastards with that much shame did not live by piracy, nor did they string together pieces of their victims’ bodies and flaunt them as proud trophies.

Demanding a human conscience from things on the edge of less than beasts was far too harsh. The only thing to demand from such degenerates was miserable suffering.

Qing followed the servant with vicious thoughts.

But somehow, the direction?

Qing’s eyes flashed.

They were heading toward the keep of the Main Ring, which stretched long to either side. As they climbed the stairs, even the paper pasted on the sliding doors was plainly of superior quality, and they were clearly heading deeper inside, where anyone could see it was the innermost area.

And at last, after opening one door, then another, then another, the patient finally revealed himself.

Only now was his identity revealed as well.

“[This person is our country’s second prince. Since morning, he has said his stomach feels blocked and pain is rising through his entire body, and he has repeatedly vomited. We judge it to be food stagnation, perhaps, but we heard that Physician Seomun possesses truly outstanding medical arts, so we have invited you.]”

Qing gave the old man who said that a once-over from head to toe.

Mm. He was probably the physician originally kept in the royal palace.

Mm. Pretending to be a physician in front of a real physician did not work.

Qing looked at the second prince on top of the bedding.

In truth, Qing’s medical arts were exactly at the level of a medical attendant, not quite reaching that of a physician. She did not have the ability to tell at a glance whether this was feigned illness or not.

So Qing had no idea whether the second prince, the second son, was ill or where he was ill.

However, if she first filled him with True Essence, he would immediately feel energized. And people who were originally sick believed they were recovering when that happened.

She did not intend to stay here for a long time anyway, and merely making him feel as if he were recovering would be enough to pretend to be a Divine Physician.

“[First, everyone other than the patient shall leave. This Fairy Clinic’s qi-medicine is a secret art not transmitted to outsiders, so it cannot be performed before strangers. Everyone, leave quickly.]”

At that, the Imperial Physician, his disciples, and the servants of the Main Ring looked at one another.

“[What are you doing! How dare you doubt my medical arts? In the Central Plains, those wishing to receive my pulse diagnosis line up in forty columns and circle the city gate three and a half times! If you truly care for the patient, then get out at once! Or do you bastards, by any chance, secretly hope something goes wrong with him!]”

A thunderous shout sharp as frost.

But more than the booming volume, the content struck like lightning. If they did not leave, they would be labeled as people who hoped something went wrong with the patient, so what could they do?

After driving the people out with simple lies and incitement, Qing approached the patient.

Then, without asking or considering anything, she placed her hand squarely on the crown of his head and raised her internal power to pour it in.

After that, depending on the patient’s reaction, she could make up whatever explanation somehow.

“[Oh, so this is Central Plains medicine? But when one checks a pulse, does one not usually hold the wrist?]”

“[The foremost of all acupuncture points is the crown point, and a foremost physician checks the pulse through the foremost point. How do you feel? Vitality should be spreading through your body at once.]”

“[It is. They said your medical arts had truly reached divine arts, and you are indeed a Divine Physician.]”

“[Naturally.]”

“[A Divine Physician such as you must have pierced through a feigned illness merely by looking. That must be why you forced everyone out so insistently. Therefore, I will go straight to the main point. Do you perhaps not find this country’s treatment of you deeply disappointing?]”

Eh?

What was this supposed to mean now?

Feigned illness?

Qing’s expression became that expression, but since she was covered by a layer anyway, she was not managing her face.

“[I will speak frankly. In this country, we say that if something stinks, one should cover it with a lid. But you flung the lid wide open. You should not have shouted like that at the banquet. You have fallen out of my royal father’s favor, and in Ippen, my royal father is law and command.]”

At that, Qing’s eyes narrowed.

“[I see. And your reason for telling me this is?]”

“[You are a kite whose string has been cut. The heir, my older brother, has always been a son obedient to my royal father. He will no longer protect you. Most likely, they will continue acting as though you do not exist, and if you tire of that and do not leave on your own, you may suffer an even uglier fate.]”

At that, Qing broke into a bright smile.

It was not something that called for a smile, but well, it was not as if her face could be seen anyway.

Look at this?

This is getting a little interesting.