The Civil Engineering Fairy Departs
Word on the street was that the Civil Engineering Fairy was leaving. The Divine Maiden who had turned the Gwangju Evil Sect upside down had become the city’s very symbol, its specialty, its landmark. Every single move she made became a topic of hot discussion.
They said that yesterday the Divine Maiden had eaten baekunjeosu. She had picked the bones so clean that the leftover pig trotter bones were polished to a mirror shine—so shiny they reflected faces. A pile of those mirror-like bones supposedly reached as high as a person’s chest. With both forelegs and hind legs, she must have slaughtered at least a dozen pigs.
Normally, such a rumor would have been met with a snort and a laugh. What kind of bone-licking bastard was that? Forty-eight pig trotters from a dozen pigs—was that a human or a pig? Had the pig eaten another pig? It was the kind of thing people would cackle over as a joke.
But this was the Civil Engineering Fairy who had cursed the vicious loan sharks to death and smashed the brutal Gwangju Evil Sect with a hammer. The Divine Maiden, blessed with both miraculous powers and physical might, had used that power to clear the debts of most of Gwangju’s commoners. In winter, few commoners were free of debt to loan sharks, and the Gwangju Evil Sect had a habit of putting even the catch of a few fish on their tab.
That was why small shrines the size of a new house, complete with wooden statues of the Civil Engineering Fairy, had already sprung up in alleys all over Gwangju. So just how fervent was the people’s worship of the Divine Maiden?
Indeed. Would the miraculously powerful Divine Maiden have eaten baekunjeosu for no reason? There must have been some profound meaning behind it. Perhaps a diet aligned with the movements of heaven and earth? Miraculous cuisine? A meal chosen according to one’s fortune? In that case, they should eat baekunjeosu too.
In this way, Cheong’s dinner menu became an essential dish for the people of Gwangju the very next day. The Gwangju-style white pig trotter suyuk known as baekunjeosu flew off the shelves. Thanks to that, countless pigs supposedly shed tears.
Therefore, even the trivial chatter the Civil Engineering Fairy made at the dinner table was met with perked ears, everyone hoping to catch even a single thread of heavenly insight.
“Sworn Sister, what’s in Hwado? Anything worth seeing?”
“Hwado? What’s that?”
“Hmm. I suppose that makes sense…”
“I don’t know! Ah, this is delicious.”
“It’s delicious, so why are you giving it all to me?”
“Hehe. Eat plenty, Sworn Sister. But why do you ask about Hwado? Planning to go there?”
“I have to head back. The Guangdong construction work is finished too.”
“When? Are you leaving right now?”
“I was thinking of leaving after lunch tomorrow.”
It was shocking news. Of course, the commoners secretly eavesdropping had their ears perked like rabbits, yet their chopsticks waved through empty air and they couldn’t tell whether the food was entering their mouths or their noses as they mechanically brought it to their lips.
Hearing the commoners’ gasps of astonishment, Cheong finally relaxed and began eating properly. Naturally, at the sight of Cheong’s sincere feast the commoners once again let out successive “heok, heok” breaths, offering endless praise for that wonder.
And so the road Cheong would take on her departure was lined wall-to-wall with people from all across Gwangju. Had Cheong not known better, she might have asked if some festival was underway. The crowd was that enormous.
“What’s going on? Is there a festival?”
Of course Cheong asked, because she genuinely had no idea.
“They say the Divine Maiden is leaving!”
“What, did you all come out to see me off?”
Cheong looked at the people crowding both sides of the main road as if watching a parade. On one hand, her heart felt strangely full.
“Divine Maiden! Please don’t go!”
“Divine Maiden! Come again! Next time visit our chaejeom! I’ll treat you to a proper feast!”
“Thank you! I will never forget!”
“Thanks to you my son survived! I will pray for your lifelong health and longevity!”
Everyone threw in a word. Hmm, did I really do anything worthy of this much gratitude? She hadn’t expected clearing out a single Evil Sect to earn such fervent response. Then again, the commoners had suffered for so long. It also helped that the Civil Engineering Fairy herself was so down-to-earth and easy to approach.
In the middle of her departure, a group of ruffians blocked the path. The moment they saw Cheong they rushed to kneel, appealing with tears that might or might not have been genuine.
“Aigo, Divine Maiden, you cannot leave like this. The curse—please lift the curse before you go!”
Judging by their karma they were hardly decent fellows. What curse? Cheong tilted her head in confusion.
Yeom Hwi-yeong had investigated with extreme care so as not to earn Cheong’s displeasure, meticulously selecting only those who deserved death. These were the loan sharks his hand had not yet reached.
“If you would perform a ritual for us, we will offer you as much gold and silver as you desire…”
“Ha. You want me to hold a ritual praying for evil men? What use would I have for dirty, unclean gold and silver stained with blood and tears?”
“Divine Maiden! We were wrong, terribly wrong! If you could at least tell us what we must do to avoid the curse before you leave…”
It seemed the so-called curse was the handiwork of her son, the one making the appeal. In the end it was simply a plea to spare their lives. Begging for one’s life when it hangs by a thread is mere regret, never reflection. Regret and reflection are completely different things.
Cheong spoke in a ferocious voice.
“What if I don’t tell you? Shall we settle this the fun way?”
Cheong lifted her hammer. The gangsters lined up behind the loan sharks blocking the road flinched visibly, unable to hide their terror. They had come out following their boss, but how were they supposed to face the Civil Engineering Fairy who had single-handedly demolished the Gwangju Evil Sect?
“Resolve what you tied. The one who tied the knot should untie it. If you know why the grudge piled up, you should also know the reason it piled up. So sort it out among the parties involved! In all my days I’ve never seen such a spectacle.”
“Divine Maiden! Please, if you would just—”
The hammer descended.
For a moment everyone saw the illusion of a mushroom cloud rising. Deep wrinkles formed between every pair of eyes. Oof, that’s got to hurt.
Not knowing their place and crawling forward on their knees, the loan shark received Cheong’s stern punishment in the form of a super nuclear noogie. He clutched his head, unable to even scream properly as he rolled across the ground.
Even on her way out of town the Civil Engineering Fairy was still causing incidents. Look at that vicious loan shark writhing on the ground, not knowing what to do. It was truly refreshing—the very essence of refreshment. The Refreshing Divine Maiden herself.
And so the Divine Maiden departed.
……But?
……Was that right?
The people of Gwangju felt a strange sensation. From the guest at the Jin Family, the Heavenly Flower Sword, they somehow sensed something very, very familiar. Should they say they caught the scent of the Divine Maiden from that unfamiliar woman?
Of course, she was the Heavenly Flower Sword—renowned as a new star of the Kangho, a divine dragon of the Orthodox Path, and a female hero of the Murim. There seemed no reason for her to imitate the Civil Engineering Fairy.
At first no one had any thoughts. Or rather, thoughts were forcibly erased. Because the moment they saw her face, her ardent beauty made all rational thought vanish. Simply looking at her face caused feet to stop automatically. People would stare, entranced, never tiring no matter how long they looked, losing all track of time.
They said she competed for the title of the Central Plains’ greatest beauty, but who would dare make such a claim? She simply was the greatest beauty in the Central Plains. Standing next to her, didn’t Jin Soje look positively plain?
When she kept her mouth shut, Cheong was originally elegant. She belonged to the same category as the white lily—elegant traditional Central Plains beauty—but with a slightly smaller head and clearer eyes, nose, and mouth. In the terms of Cheong’s hometown, it was exactly an “upper compatibility” version of that beauty.
Of course, compared to the White Lily (famous throughout history for possessing the most perfect breasts, since she showed them off constantly), the overwhelmingly massive lump of flesh simply felt vulgar.
But that massive lump of flesh—hadn’t they seen it somewhere before? The height was also impressively tall, and the dramatic curve from waist to hips… Where had they seen such a royal backside with that kind of drop…?
The stunning figure that seemed somehow familiar was largely thanks to the fact that Jin Seol’s custom-made shaman outfit had been tailored to emphasize the body’s curves. Of course, to Jin Seol those curves were too beautiful to hide, so she had emphasized them. In Jin Seol’s aesthetic philosophy, a woman’s clothes must reveal her most outstanding features. That was why Jin Seol always walked around with half her chest, or deep cleavages either above, below, or in the middle, clearly visible.
Plus there was the fact that she went around with her sworn sister beside her.
The people of Gwangju called that woman—the sworn sister of the Heavenly Flower Sword—the Enchanting Flower. Why Enchanting Flower? Because the moment you saw her, that was exactly what she was. A face that bewitched men. Insanely seductive! The very essence of lewdness!
Since two people of completely different styles were traveling together, even the people of Gwangju—whose eyes had grown jaded from seeing Jin Seol’s beauty—flocked once more to admire the beauty, or so the story went.
And above all, the eating! How could two women in the world eat rice—devour it—like that? The way she ate not to taste the food but with the sole purpose of shoving it in and swallowing it—at first it was hidden by her beauty, so people thought, Wow, even when she eats like that it looks so blessed and beautiful. But then… Hmm. Somehow… It really is the Divine Maiden, isn’t it?
But since she was pretending otherwise, what could they do? They weren’t tactless enough to pry into something she was clearly trying to hide, and since they had received her grace, they simply pretended not to notice.
In fact, it was questionable whether she was even trying to hide it. After all, what kind of female hero of the Murim would roll up her sleeves and personally take part in restoration work, hammering away with the skill of a master carpenter?
Similar height. Similar demeanor. A ditzy sworn sister. Frequently seen with the Divine Maiden’s son. Skilled carpenter. Down-to-earth personality. Devours food like crazy.
Yeah. It was clearly the Divine Maiden.
So as the Jin Family’s restoration work progressed in detail—the buildings keeping their outer appearance while their interiors were completely remade—and as the sorrowful aura of the past gradually faded, the people of Gwangju moved from suspicion to conviction, and from conviction to certainty.
Thus, two weeks after the Divine Maiden’s return, the Jin Family restoration was finally completed.
----
While the Jin Family held a grand feast to celebrate the completion of construction, eating and drinking merrily, there was also a place steeped in an atmosphere as gloomy as a funeral home. It was none other than Salwolmun.
It was called the Gwangju Heroic Death—not Blood Death, but Heroic Death. The people of Gwangju referred to the bloody wind that had swept away those who deserved to die as a “Heroic Death.”
With this Heroic Death the Gwangju Evil Sect had been destroyed. Not merely destroyed—they had gone around locating every affiliated group and meticulously carried out a massacre. The Geumjeokbang had also been wiped out. The leaders of its affiliated Jeongeumdang were discovered dead in their own rooms day after day. Now the only ones left were those who had burned their debt documents, emptied their assets to distribute to the people, and become beggars.
The plan of the three Evil Sects to gather, dominate Gwangju, and suppress the Jin Family so thoroughly they could never rise again—the strategy of three against one—had turned to foam in an instant.
Far from becoming the masters of Gwangju, they were now in danger of having to take down their signboard and flee. The Jin Family had already sent out recruitment notices across all of Guangdong Province. Even if they couldn’t regain the old glory of being Guangdong’s greatest, reclaiming the position of Gwangju’s greatest would be only a matter of time.
Therefore the leader of Salwolmun, Lee Wang-chul, was extremely anxious.
“Strategist Bang, Sadoryeon—did Sadoryeon say they cannot provide support?”
“Do not worry. I have already sent a message, so an elite combat unit from Sadoryeon will arrive to assist before long.”
“Ooh, Strategist Bang! As expected, only you, Strategist Bang!”
The elite combat unit was Sadoryeon’s finest. Had Lee Wang-chul possessed even a shred of self-awareness, he would have realized there was no way such an elite unit would be formed merely to help a single Salwolmun. Selecting high-level experts from each faction and organizing an elite combat unit was a major decision that consumed not only vast sums of gold and silver but also significant influence, even from Sadoryeon’s perspective.
But hadn’t the support Sadoryeon had provided so far been extraordinary? They had sent the chief strategist of Nanggo-gak, hindered the Jin Family’s disciple recruitment, and even sent crates of medicinal herbs to help grow their forces.
Since they had invested that much, it only made sense that when the plan was in danger they would organize an elite combat unit to help.
“As expected, Strategist Bang is my Zhang Zifang!”
However, Lee Wang-chul was completely sincere. He must have been truly grateful—he had bought that expensive brush and sent it to Strategist Bang’s son who was preparing for the civil service exams. It wasn’t a gift that showed immediate results; it was a late gift that would only be appreciated after the strategist returned to Sadoryeon. That alone revealed the depth of Lee Wang-chul’s gratitude.
Of course, the greater part was his desire to look good to Bang Jeom-myeong, the chief strategist. A strategist with enough influence to procure crates of medicinal herbs was someone worth bribing in advance through his son, so that even after returning to Sadoryeon he would not forget this Lee Wang-chul and Salwolmun.
“If not for Strategist Bang, how could I have risen this far? Truly, um, that is to say, you are Zhang Zifang, the reincarnation of Zhang Liang!”
Lee Wang-chul praised the strategist with a deadly serious expression. By now the strategist was growing calluses on his ears from hearing that endless “Zhang Zifang” chant. No—did this bastard only know one strategist, Zhang Liang?