The Jade Qilin Descends on Luoyang
The standards of beauty in the Central Plains were not all that different from modern times. Baeksu Punggung: a fair face and a bountiful chest. Seyeo Gyeongsin: a slender waist and a light, graceful body. Obal Seonbin: long, glossy black hair. Myeongmo Yuban: clear eyes with distinct black and white contrast. Gancheong Hochi: red lips and white teeth.
Among these, there was a clear hierarchy of priorities. The most important factor was a slim, petite frame and the aura that came with it. In modern terms, it was an obsessive preference for slenderness. And not just any slenderness—specifically, a preference for short and slender. That said, a complete lack of breasts was unacceptable. They had to be bountiful. There was, of course, an appropriate size for that as well. Roughly the size of two adult male fists. Anything larger was considered vulgar. These were the standards expected of concubines, not main wives. That was why men often ended up living with their concubines rather than their legal wives. It was a society that could not openly call good things good.
In the end, the ideal beauty of the Central Plains was the same as modern beauty standards. Or, to be more precise, modern beauty standards contained the beauty standards of the Central Plains within them.
And the greatest handsome man under the heavens, the Jade Qilin, had arrived in Luoyang.
People who had witnessed his merciful jade-like face, just as the rumors described, quickly spread the news, boasting to others, “Have you seen him? I have!”
The greatest marriage prospect in the Central Plains had descended upon them!
The beauties of Luoyang gathered in one place. And what those beauties witnessed was—
A half-baked, cheap-looking courtesan shamelessly clinging to the noble Jade Qilin and wagging her tail at him.
Aqing had created her character exactly as the recommendation post suggested.
In Murim Life and Death, stats increased by learning martial arts, and every technique in the game could be acquired. Therefore, starting stats meant nothing in the late game.
She had dumped every single point from the Appearance stat into Stamina and Strength. It was a build designed to easily coast through the early stages.
That was why when Aqing first appeared in Murim, she had been the epitome of an ugly woman.
Martial arts belonging to the minor category of Fairy Art raised the Appearance stat according to one’s proficiency in them. The three Moon Maiden techniques (True Body Edition) belonged to Fairy Art, and being purple-grade techniques, they provided a massive boost.
Therefore, the current Aqing was not ugly. That said, she was not particularly beautiful either. She was simply average-looking for now.
And yet here she was, sticking right next to the Jade Qilin.
It was truly a sight that ruined the view. The relative squid theory in action. The cheap, low-cost travel clothes she had bought purely for value completed the disastrous look.
In an instant, hostile gazes poured in like rain.
But Aqing’s true self was a single, production-job gamer. She had no particular complaints about that lifestyle. At most, she might have wished for all the silver-spoon kids to drop dead. A single, production-job gamer. Romance was already nothing more than annoying emotional labor. Even if beautifully adorned young ladies glared at her with venomous eyes, she had the shamelessness to simply smile lazily and brush it off.
She had ample wealth to live alone and hobbies that let her enjoy herself without company, so marriage had never once crossed her mind. As a result, Aqing paid no attention to the hostile stares unfolding before the great gate. She simply whistled at the sight of the sudden Luoyang Beauty Pageant that had opened up before her.
Since Luoyang was not the nation of the Amazons, she could roughly understand why all these women had gathered in one place.
Aqing jabbed Paeng Daesan in the side with her elbow.
“Ooooh. San. You really do live up to your face value, huh?”
“It’s just annoying.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Ohhh, our San is so cool! What a fine man! A cold-hearted guy! But he’ll probably be warm to his woman, right? Kyaa—!”
Aqing’s words caused an extremely ambiguous level of contact with Paeng Daesan’s reverse scale. It was at the level of “It’s fine, I brushed it off.” Normally he would have turned serious, but strangely, he didn’t feel offended. Why?
Paeng Daesan pondered the phenomenon for a moment. It was because Aqing’s words and actions were based on the kind of teasing that came from male camaraderie. In truth, men also liked handsome men. They might think That bastard’s face is insanely good-looking, but fundamentally, there was a strong sense of goodwill. The kind of people men truly disliked were not the handsome ones. They hated the early-twenties guys driving Benz sedans, or the silver-spoon CEOs who bragged about their businesses.
“Just now……”
“So! Now that we’re in Luoyang, where should we go? What kind of places are there? We can’t eat dinner when the sun is still this high, right?”
Paeng Daesan had been about to ask something, but Aqing’s perfectly timed interruption made him forget it instantly. It didn’t seem like a particularly important question anyway, so he let it slide.
“……White Horse Temple. Or the Longmen Grottoes.”
“A temple and a cave? Then wouldn’t the cave be better?”
Paeng Daesan didn’t even bother hiding his pitying expression.
“What? Why?”
“You’re probably the only person in the world who would call the White Horse Temple and the Longmen Grottoes simply ‘a temple and a cave.’”
“So? Isn’t it a temple? Isn’t it a cave?”
“Don’t say that in Luoyang. The people here are absolutely insane about their city’s pride. You’ll end up in a knife fight.”
Surprisingly, it was the truth.
“Then there’s no helping it. Shall we go to the Longmen Grottoes?”
“……The Longmen Grottoes are far.”
“How far?”
“Quite a distance past the South Gate.”
Aqing also thought that was too far.
“But the temple doesn’t seem like there’ll be much to see……”
“If there’s nothing to see, we’ll just leave.”
“Are you serious? Buddy, can’t you show a little enthusiasm?”
“I never had any to begin with.”
“Let’s go. White Horse Temple. You ready, San?”
“……”
“You really don’t know how to match the mood. Moolneuneuzeu. Cheung.”
Aqing lowered her voice, imitating someone. Paeng Daesan let out a deep sigh.
Individual tourism tendencies varied wildly, but they could be divided into several types.
First, there were the Planners. They systematized every schedule and moved according to a pre-made plan. A Planner with a somewhat relaxed nature was the best travel companion. They overwhelmingly raised the satisfaction level of any trip. However, one had to be careful of superhuman Planners who divided plans down to ten-minute increments. You might see and hear and eat a lot, but after the trip, almost no memories remained.
Then there were the Hermits. To Hermits, travel was simply the act of not working and staying somewhere away from home for several days. Their satisfaction came from not going to work and not being at home. Delicious food, novel sights, and famous places were secondary. Hermits cared about comfort. They had a habit of holing up if they got even slightly tired. There was a high chance of conflict with Wanderer-type friends. Then why did you even come?I came to rest, not to suffer.
There were also the Wanderers. These were people who simply enjoyed wandering around. They got along perfectly with Planners, but with Hermits, it was better to travel separately if you wanted to preserve the friendship. They ate everything deliciously and found everything interesting. However, once they lost interest, they quickly lost focus and motivation and wanted to leave immediately. They were the type who understood tourism as a form of ascetic training.
Besides them, there were the Golden Spoons—the best travel companions. As an aside, there was the “Should you pursue meetings during travel?” type, but since they only hung out among themselves, there was little overlap with other types.
Aqing belonged to the Wanderer category. More precisely, among the Wanderer subtypes, she was the Foodie variant. The moment food entered the picture, her eyes would shoot toward Paeng Daesan. She was making him pay his friend tax in full. From Paeng Daesan’s perspective, it was a trivial amount of money that didn’t even qualify as pocket change, and since she ate everything with such genuine delight, it was surprisingly enjoyable to treat her.
Her impressions of the White Horse Temple itself, however, were rather ambiguous. From Aqing’s perspective, it was just “a somewhat red version of Gyeongbokgung Palace?” It felt vaguely familiar. A huge red Bulguksa Temple, minus the Seokguram Grotto. She had neither the eye nor the interest for the essence of Tang dynasty Buddhist art, so the only thing worth seeing was the Jieyun Pagoda. She did look at the Jieyun Pagoda properly. Then, true to her Wanderer nature, she quickly lost interest.
When they came back outside, the timing was awkward. Paeng Daesan grabbed the restless Aqing and sat her down at a teahouse. One characteristic of the Golden Spoon type was that they solved everything with money while extremely avoiding any hassle. Paeng Daesan had already grown tired after walking around for about one shichen. So he figured that if he sat Aqing down and kept feeding her, it would be easier on him.
And it worked. After ordering a mountain of snacks and seating her in an outer spot with a good view of the street, Aqing grew quiet as she ate and watched the scenery. Paeng Daesan smiled in satisfaction and quietly fell into thought.
The escort mission continued all the way to Yongcheng, and Mount Hua was about five days away from there. That was Paeng Daesan’s destination. The Sword-Carving Cliff of Mount Hua had opened.
The reason the previous generation’s greatest under heaven, Mucheon Daeje, was respected was because he truly loved Murim. Even his attack on the imperial palace had been a warning to the imperial family that had tried to manipulate Murim for a northern conquest. His affection for the Nine Great Schools in particular had been exceptional. Thus, he had personally bestowed teachings upon them. However, as always, Mucheon Daeje’s methods had been rather extreme. With a single sword strike, he had split the cliff and carved six sword scars into it. It was a kind of insight left behind by Mucheon Daeje.
The sects that had received his teachings were precisely the Nine Great Schools. The Five Great Clans and the One Faction had not. Mucheon Daeje’s hatred for the Beggars’ Sect was famous. He had evaluated them as “wretches who don’t even qualify as beggars.” Toward the Five Great Clans, he had simply shown no interest. He had left only one remark: that prioritizing family over the greater cause was not necessarily wrong.
Mucheon Daeje’s insights had been shared only among the Nine Great Schools in their cozy little circle. Being the straightforward man who never held back his words, if he had wanted his insights made public to everyone, he would have simply said so. Since he hadn’t, it meant “Do whatever you want.”
In such a situation, letters had flown to the great clans. They were filled with vague talk about the greater cause, harmony, and opening the Sword-Carving Cliff to the next generation of pillars who would lead the future of the Jianghu.
From this, two things could be inferred. First, no matter how much a mere Peak realm martial artist stared at the insights of the Sword-Carving Cliff, they would gain little from it. This could be deduced from the fact that the number of known experts from Mount Hua had not changed much from the past to the present.
The second was that Mount Hua must have encountered some major problem that required help. There was no such thing as a free lunch in this world. One had to pay the price for viewing Mucheon Daeje’s insights. But what could that price be? And if it was something so serious that they had to borrow the help of the Murim clans instead of the Nine Great Schools…
Paeng Daesan was still turning the matter over in his head when—
“San. Look at this for a second.”
Aqing only called him “San” when she wanted something. He was gradually beginning to understand the pattern.
Aqing tapped the completely empty porcelain plate with her finger.
“What?”
“Someone told me that leaving a dish empty is rude, you know?”
Aqing tapped the plate again, urging him on. Paeng Daesan was reminded of the black hound his clan raised. It was a massive lion dog that reached all the way to his waist. Whenever it was hungry, it would drag its food bowl over and paw at it. Even though someone else was in charge of feeding it, the clever thing always came to Paeng Daesan.
“You really are bold.”
“Friend tax.”
Aqing puffed out her unnecessarily impressive chest with a confident attitude. The brazen demeanor was exactly like the black hound. The attitude that said, Of course you have to give me food.
“By the way, is illegal dumping of trash the latest trend in Luoyang?”
“That can’t be.”
“Then why are they throwing it around like that?”
Before the teahouse, on the main street, a scene of countless illegal trash dumps was unfolding. Colorful handkerchiefs, scented pouches, the occasional shoe, and even underwear decorated the stone pavement in a rainbow of colors. They were truly beautiful pieces of garbage.
Aqing let out a sigh of admiration. Was trash-throwing truly a traditional culture unique to the Chinese people?