Chapter 129: Bribes (3)
Sima Yuli. She was currently in Assistant Instructor Ximen Qing’s office on the thirty-third floor.
The inside of the office was bleak.
A single desk, a single lamp, two chairs, and a mountain of documents were all that made up the space.
Ximen Qing had called Sima Yuli and seated her in the chair opposite him.
“…”
“…”
A silence ensued between the two for a while.
Sima Yuli toyed with her teacup.
“…”
Disheveled hair, a face more than half covered by her bangs, and a depressed atmosphere.
Sima Yuli, who was well aware of her own situation, had been unable to raise her head for a while and was merely staring at her own face reflected in the tea.
‘It’s obvious why he called me. I would have called myself too…’
A beggar from whom not even a single bribe envelope could be expected.
A black hole dragging down the average grades of the cadets.
The assistant instructor who had originally been in charge of this class used to refer to her that way.
That was why Sima Yuli had been unable to raise her head.
Because it was certain that Assistant Instructor Ximen Qing, who newly assumed office this time, would also reprimand and despise her.
…However.
“The exam answer paper you submitted last was good.”
“…?”
The words that came out of Ximen Qing’s mouth were somewhat unexpected.
A few sheets of paper dropped with a toss in front of Sima Yuli.
She reached out her hand hesitantly while observing his reaction and picked them up.
“…!”
They were the answer sheets Sima Yuli had written and submitted in the last exam.
Ximen Qing spoke.
“Footwork is the very foundation of lightness arts. The character bo, meaning step, assumes traveling a long distance by using few foot steps. Since the character for foot itself is the shape of two feet crossing and taking steps alternately, drawing an inverted character eight, the concept of taking the starting point of lightness arts as the intersection of the two feet can be seen as very accurate.”
“…! …!”
The answer sheet she had submitted had received the Poor grade among Outstanding, Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor.
However, Ximen Qing corrected the evaluation on that answer sheet to an Outstanding grade.
“The assignment was to find an allusion containing the ‘step’ of footwork, turn it into a mnemonic, and create a new footwork of your own. When I translated phonetically and interpreted the mnemonic of the footwork you submitted, this form came out.”
“…! …! …!”
Sima Yuli’s two eyes grew even wider.
She did not know there would be someone who recognized the meaning she had hidden and submitted in the assignment.
Soon, Ximen Qing spoke.
Boiling beans while burning the beanstalks,
-Boiling beans by burning beanstalks,
The beans weep from deep within the cauldron.
-The beans weep inside the pot.
Originally born together of the same roots,
-Originally born of the same class,
Why torment each other with such burning haste?
-Why are we boiling each other with such haste?
Sima Yuli could not close her mouth.
So shocked was she that her two eyes, which had always been covered by her bangs, were wide open.
“…Cao Zijian’s Seven Steps Poem, indeed.”
Ximen Qing quietly closed the answer sheet.
Then he said to Sima Yuli.
“Are there those among those taking the same class who bully you?”
“…”
Sima Yuli remained silent with her head deeply bowed.
Ximen Qing waited a while longer, but she did not open her mouth until the very end.
In the end, Ximen Qing opened his mouth first.
“If you do not wish to speak, you do not have to. However.”
“…”
“As long as I am in charge of this class, at least the grading of assignments and exams will be conducted strictly. The credits received through terrible answer sheets or unsubmitted assignments will be confiscated, and conversely, excellent answer sheets and sincere assignments will have their evaluations adjusted upward.”
At those words, Sima Yuli’s slender shoulders trembled with a start.
Ximen Qing spoke once more.
“And. Since there are many textbooks or reference books in this room, come and take them at any time. Because if I request them for faculty use, they can be distributed for free.”
Then, finally, Sima Yuli’s mouth opened.
“Th-Thank you. But it is fine.”
Her voice trembled slightly as she continued.
“I-I… even if I receive this… because there is n-nothing I can g-give…”
But Ximen Qing rejected Sima Yuli’s refusal.
“A cadet only needs to study hard. What do you mean, give?”
“!”
Surprise spread over Sima Yuli’s face.
It was because there had not been a single instructor or assistant instructor who spoke such words to her until now.
The instructors and assistant instructors she met in every class always demanded bribes, and if she did not give them, they treated her coldly.
Even when she submitted assignments, they did not accept them, and without even reading her exam answer sheets, they gave her the lowest grade.
So she thought that was natural.
That those who gave bribes stood on top, and those who couldn’t give bribes were trampled below.
…But. But the person in front of her right now seemed somewhat different from those she had met so far.
He did not receive bribes and graded the exams fairly.
He distributed textbooks to disciples in difficult circumstances without any reward.
At that moment, Sima Yuli thought unconsciously.
Perhaps this person in front of her might be the only one she could rely on, even if just a little, during the short period she could remain at the Ascending Heaven Academy.
It was a truly vague, dependent emotion, almost close to taking refuge, that a slender beast cornered at the edge of a cliff might harbor in the final moment of its life.
* * *
The official residence for faculty.
In the backyard forest where dusk fell, a scops owl cried.
Chui was sitting alone in the center of the room.
Bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble…
Purple smoke was being emitted from the glass bottle placed on the table.
Within it, a sheet of white leather soaked and dried repeatedly, and it could be seen gradually being dyed a flesh color.
Chui took it out and cut it with delicate hand movements.
The leather was tailored roundly, and soon holes for the eyes, nose, and mouth were pierced.
“…”
Chui was currently crafting a human face.
A disguise mask crafted by mixing special chemicals and then soaking piglet skin.
This required much more elaborate skill than when he crafted Ximen Qing’s face.
What Chui was crafting right now was none other than Sima Yuli’s face.
Large eyes, half-closed eyelids, drooping outer corners of the eyes, a sharp nose, plump cheeks, and delicate lips.
Next, tools to disguise his body shape were prepared.
A large amount of prosthetics to put in the chest and buttocks, and an artificial wig to create the look of disheveled hair.
And the uniform of a first-class female cadet of the Vermilion Bird Hall.
With this, all preparations were finished.
“…It is fortunate that I have experience dressing as a woman.”
In the past, before infiltrating the Yangtze River Water Bandit Union, Chui had disguised himself as a courtesan alongside Jeok-hyang.
The experience from back then gave great help to Chui’s disguise as Sima Yuli now.
Slide—
Chui pulled out the powder compact he had asked Ying’er to buy and began his makeup, or rather, disguise.
Soon, the figure of a female cadet was reflected in the bronze mirror in the center of the living room.
The height was slightly shorter, but it was unmistakably Sima Yuli’s figure.
If faced at night, it would be almost impossible to tell the difference, no matter how great an expert one was.
Nonetheless, Chui meticulously inspected his appearance.
Flawless. Even after inspecting it several times with the sharp eyes of a former assassin, no loophole was visible.
Only then did Chui slowly nod his head.
“……By the way. To think this woman was affiliated with the Ascending Heaven Academy.”
What he was recalling from now on was an old memory from before returning in time.
In his past life, Chui had heard about Sima Yuli.
The time was during the Imperial Martial Arts Banquet, a story of when Hong Gong formally revealed himself to the world.
It was also an event when Chui was actively rolling as a low-ranking common soldier on the frontier battlefields.
At that time, Hong Gong used the jiangshi of Beigong Seol, who was equivalent to his left arm, to devastate the tournament arena.
Overwhelming military force.
Insurmountable terror.
Violence that was impossible to resist.
They said that the martial power the Blood Demon Hong Gong displayed back then was easily equivalent to that of an evil god in legends.
Although Chui stepped out into the jianghu only after all of this had ended, the fearsome rumors about Hong Gong were still continuously passed down even until then.
And, the reason why Hong Gong, who had already died and was no more when Chui emerged in the jianghu, could keep spreading his infamy was entirely due to one woman.
The Evil Brain.
A strategist who was also called by the nickname of the ‘Skull of the Evil God’.
She first revealed herself in the Imperial Martial Arts Banquet where the Martial Alliance and the Heterodox Alliance vied for supremacy.
Standing right on Hong Gong’s right side, that is.
Her martial arts were martial arts, but her demonic intellect was truly fearsome.
Her formations were worthy of being called the reincarnation of Master Sleeping Dragon Zhuge Liang; her troop deployments were that of the Unrivaled Scholar of the State Han Xin; and assisting her lord to pave the path of hegemony was more skillful than Li Si, who wrote the Petition Against Expelling Guest Scholars.
Even her beauty was an devastating allure comparable to Daji or Baosi, so they said that the number of orthodox heroes who lost their lives to her honey trap alone was countless.
Henceforth, she was called Hong Gong’s left and right arms along with Beigong Seol, terrorizing the entire Central Plains.
Even long after Hong Gong was decapitated and died on the distant frontier battlefield.
‘…Where Hong Gong had obtained such a capable subordinate was never known until the very end.’
That was not all.
The Evil Brain was a woman whose origin, hometown, and true name were all hidden behind a veil.
Later, Chui, who traveled around killing the remnants left behind by Hong Gong, had briefly confronted her.
Chui had asked the Evil Brain why she was still loyal to Hong Gong, who was already dead, and the Evil Brain had answered that question like this:
‘Only he treated me like a human.’
At that time, he had wondered what that meant.
But seeing Sima Yuli’s answer sheet today, he finally understood.
Boiling beans while burning the beanstalks,
-Boiling beans by burning beanstalks,
The beans weep from deep within the cauldron.
-The beans weep inside the pot.
Originally born together of the same roots,
-Originally born of the same class,
Why torment each other with such burning haste?
-Why are we boiling each other with such haste?
This was the poem the Evil Brain had recited while looking down at the cadets of the Ascending Heaven Academy dying at the hands of Beigong Seol when she appeared at the Imperial Martial Arts Banquet.
The moment he discovered this in the answer sheet of a first-class cadet, Chui could realize the identity of the strange familiarity he had felt all this time.
The Evil Brain. True name Sima Yuli.
She was from the Ascending Heaven Academy of the Orthodox path, not the Heterodox path or the Demonic Cult.
“Looking at it like this, I can recognize it a bit more clearly.”
Chui looked closely at the mask of Sima Yuli he had crafted.
Since there were no bangs covering the face, now it looked a bit similar.
A far more youthful appearance than the Evil Brain in his memory, not yet stained by Hong Gong’s demonic energy, such a pure and clear impression was recreated exactly on the mask.
“I struggled to sever Hong Gong’s left arm… but it might not be the case for his right arm.”
Chui confirmed that there was little difference between his appearance reflected in the bronze mirror and Sima Yuli’s appearance, and nodded his head.
Then he immediately opened the window of the residence and leaped outward.
Beyond the darkness where not even the moon rose, toward the direction of the first-class cadets’ dormitory.