“But it’s true,” asserted Bian Que, a professional physician at the Imperial Academy of Medicine. “You can, in fact, perform an appendectomy with a cheese grater.”
“Nonsense!” The dean of the Academy swore. “The very idea is ludicrous. Whoever heard of performing an appendectomy with only a cheese grater? I’d love to know which physician you saw do that.”
“But he wasn’t a physician,” Bian Que explained patiently, “he was someone called Hong Yu, of the Noodle Shop Repair Sect.”
The dean spluttered. “A repairman! Well, I never, to think-”
“Oh, it must be true then,” cut in a third physician, joining them as they walked about the Academy’s shaded glades some three months after the events of chapter thirteen. Bian Que had recently filed a report on the events he witnessed one night while travelling through the Xiaoxian region and their medical significance, and was presently defending his narration to the dean and some other physicians of the court.
“I’ve never met this ‘Hong Yu,’ but I was once in a noodle shop when a marauding cultivator unwisely observed to a member of the Noodle Shop Repair Sect that he had more important things to do than worry about destroying a mere restaurant, only to tragically learn that his ‘more important things’ might unexpectedly include a surprise kidney swap. I have no idea who leads the Noodle Shop Repair Sect - probably some ancient orthodox master - but whoever he is, he’s meticulous in teaching some rather cryptic methods of healthcare.”
“Precisely,” Bian Que declared, “that’s quite right. He was indeed a master of the surgical arts - you could tell by how he used the cheese grater.”
The dean sighed. He had his doubts about these stories, but his physicians were competent, and he considered it unlikely that they would lie straight to his face. He would just have to corroborate the details later, with an independent investigator.
“So, after he performed an appendectomy with a cheese grater, what did he do next?” The third physician asked, his eyes altogether too eager for the dean to think this a normal question about a medical practice.
“Well if you must know, he was just finishing sewing up the wound post-surgery - using a chopstick as a sewing needle - when a small child came downstairs, rubbing his eyes and asking what the noise was all about. Then the repairman quietly turned to one of the other demonic cultivators, and demonstrated what you can do with half a strudel and a bread roll.”
***
It was a dark and stormy night, and Xuan Yun raced down the road. The hideous cultivator was screaming in fear, eyes fixed desperately forward, flinching in terror every time he heard a noise behind him. A mixture of tears and snot poured down his pale face as he ran.
They were both dead. Bu Yun hadn’t survived his surprise surgery, and the child his screaming had brought down had caused Hong Yu to drag Yang Wei with him into the kitchen, along with… with… with pastries. Xuan had fled to the sound of his screams.
He raced down the street and to the road outside of town, panting, trying desperately not to think of the thing behind him, the thing that they had so unwisely chosen to combat. Another tear streamed down his eye as he thought of his comrades, and the tragic fates they had occasioned by courting death.
It couldn’t be human - couldn’t be any sort of normal cultivator, orthodox or demonic - it must be some sort of demon. He was sure of that. Its graceful movements as it swung the cheese grater were not those of mortal man. The look in its eyes had been totally dead, absent of even a flicker of emotion as it worked its dread arts. Xuan cursed Gan for sending them after such a powerful monster.
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The wind howled, dancing a mad cadence as it followed Xuan’s flight, the rain lashing down through the forest. The trees to either side of the road bent over him, their branches grabbing at Xuan’s hair with his passing and unsettling his steps. He shivered, for it seemed almost as if they were reaching out for him. In the far distance behind him he vaguely sensed movement, and sobbed thankfully, knowing that his greatly advanced qinggong was far above the level of any comparable cultivator, and his pursuer would fail to catch him.
All he had to do was make it to the next town, and he could lose any pursuit on the highways. Then, at last, he would be safe.
Now in the cultivating world, there are two sorts of laws: those which are merely particular, and those which are universal. Among the former may be grouped such rules as 'do not buy the half-off Purification Pills from Uncle Stinky, especially when he gives you one of his signature winks,' or, ‘never fight a wombat under the light of the full moon,’ which though important to remember are nonetheless limited in scope.
Among the latter, however, we encounter such critical rules as 'if one's qinggong is greatly above one's cultivation, then never, never travel at speed on a dark and stormy night.'
It was this law that Xuan Yun forgot when he made his unwise decision to escape Hong Yu by means of his greatly advanced qinggong.
It was a dark and stormy night, and Xuan Yun raced down the road. He spared no speed in his mad dash, for he knew - could feel it in his soul - that Hong Yu, noodle shop repairman, was hunting him. A slight slow, a picayune pause, and the poor demonic cultivator would be his.
The road was soft underfoot, the rain weakening the shifting gravel with which it had been packed. Subject to the heavy tread with which the cultivator moved it shifted, and our reader ought not be unduly surprised to learn that it was only a little time until Xuan Yun slipped.
A stray pebble was all it took. He slid forward in the mud, his arms pinwheeling, and then went sprawling onto his back. His head slammed onto the ground with a sickening thud.
This would not have troubled a cultivator, normally. But Xuan was moving precisely three times as fast as the speed of sound, and with a mass of some one hundred kilograms impacted into the ground with a force of approximately one hundred two thousand, nine hundred newtons.
His skull cracked on the ground and shattered, killing him on the spot.
(The reader need not be too distraught, however, for Xuan Yun never once forgot not to buy the half-off Purification Pills from Uncle Stinky, even when given one of his signature winks. Clearly even the most antinomian of demonic cultivators will still follow some laws.)
***
Hong Yu wiped the last of the blood off the floor, apologised once more to the unoffended inn proprietor for having disturbed his evening, and offered a second round of drinks to the vastly less than offended bar patrons. (Who could be upset with a disturbance when one had gotten two free drinks out of it?)
It had been a quick fight, and he had spent more time worrying about further disturbing the sleep of the random small child than he had actually combating the demonic cultivators. After cleaning up the proverbial mess, he made sure the child was back in bed, before cleaning up the more literal mess.
The noodle shop was undamaged, thanks to the Basic Noodle Shop Fighting Arts - a core aspect of which was taking preventative measures to avoid causing destruction - but there was a truly sickening amount of blood everywhere, and Hong wouldn’t allow the poor janitor to deal with his mess.
He had wasted another ten or twenty minutes cleaning up after himself, and then sat back down with the remnants of his bottle. It was not yet midnight; he still had some time yet before he had to go to bed, and he didn’t plan to let some demonic cultivators ruin his evening.
He had no clue where the last one had gone. Somebody had mentioned seeing him dash out the door, which likely happened, but then they’d mentioned he’d started using qinggong to escape, which was clearly implausible.
Sure, the group hadn’t seemed all that bright. But it didn’t matter how stupid a cultivator was - so far as Hong was concerned, nobody would ever be foolish enough to do qinggong in a thunderstorm.
***
Outside the inn and down the road lay the corpse of Xuan Yun, killed after doing qinggong in a thunderstorm. His body lay there, drenched by rain, his blood mixing with the water and the mud, his eyes staring blankly from a terror-struck face.
Mu Ba looked at what had been a man, and shook his head sadly. Some fools did not even need to court death, for it would find them well enough.
He adjusted his rain cloak and walked calmly down the road, striding towards the Lucky Rabbit Inn. The rain lashed his figure, but it caused him not the slightest inconvenience as he proceeded, bent on vengeance.