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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Shrine
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The streets were bustling with countless people:
There were people full of anticipation, workers carrying goods and transporting them, and martial artists mixed in among them, heading somewhere.
William wondered if those martial artists were heading to where the treasure was going to be sold. He advised Hye-ryeong, who was walking while tightly holding his hand:
“Be careful. There might be pickpockets around.”
“Shouldn’t you be the one being careful, Uncle? You’re the one carrying the money.”
“There are more threats around other than pickpockets. There are thugs too.”
In truth, more than pickpockets… there could be those who would try to take advantage of the chaos.
Even in the 21st century where such crimes were strictly punished, there were still some who did such things. In this medieval era, it could be quite common. With so many people around, it wouldn’t be easy to catch them either.
The biggest concern was that Hye-ryeong was so…
…Anyway, it was a knight’s duty to protect a lady, so William needed to protect Hye-ryeong from them.
Specifically, protecting her by cutting off their hands and stuffing them in their mouths would do.
“So stay close to me.”
“Okay.”
…Though he didn’t mean for her to stick this close.
William tried to ignore the sensation on his arm as he made his way through the noisy streets. Many merchants were calling out to attract customers, but no one was calling out to them.
…Probably because he was a foreigner.
To be frank, he didn’t look like someone who would speak Chinese well. They couldn’t call out to someone they couldn’t communicate with.
It’s not like William would communicate with the merchants through body language. And there was no need to lower oneself to do such things in a night market with so many people around. As a result, they were able to look around the night market without much interference.
“Uncle! Look at this!”
“A hairpin?”
A hairpin that seemed to be made of pure silver gleamed in the light of the lanterns. At a glance, it looked like an ornament made of high-purity silver.
Hye-ryeong crouched in front of the stall and began examining the numerous hairpins. William stood beside Hye-ryeong, watching as she fiddled with and examined the hairpins.
However, there wasn’t much to see besides hairpins with various decorations.
“Can I try this on?”
“Haha, of course you can, miss.”
“Uncle, could you…”
William watched as Hye-ryeong suddenly let her hair down and handed him the tie she used to tie her hair. He took the tie and watched as Hye-ryeong twisted her hair up.
Her hand movements were very skillful as if she had put on hairpins many times before. William marveled at the sight of Hye-ryeong’s waist-length hair being quickly rolled up and bundled on top of her head.
“You’re quite skilled.”
“My mother taught me long ago! I practice sometimes!”
Finally, the hairpin was inserted into Hye-ryeong’s rolled-up hair. Hye-ryeong removed her hand from the hairpin and turned to William, saying:
“How does it look?”
“It’s pretty.”
“Hehe.”
A smile as bright as the full moon in the sky appeared on Hye-ryeong’s face. William could only stare blankly at that sight. The sight of a beautiful woman smiling at him was impossible to look away from.
He came to his senses when Hye-ryeong removed the hairpin and held out her hand to him. William placed the tie in Hye-ryeong’s hand and asked:
“Are you going to buy it?”
“Are you buying it for me?”
“A hairpin is fine. I can buy it for you”
“Thank you!”
William took out the required money from his pouch, bought the hairpin, and handed it to Hye-ryeong. She looked at the hairpin for a moment, then tucked it between her breasts and took William’s hand.
“Let’s go look at other places!”
“You’re not going to wear it now?”
“Uncle, don’t you know? Only married women wear hairpins.”
Was that so?
Hearing this fact for the first time, William looked at the shop owner, who smiled and nodded. So it was true. Well, then it was essentially for her to wear privately.
She looked quite charming wearing it, completely different from how she usually looks with her somewhat modern-styled twin braids.
How should he put it, it was like she was turning from a child to an adult in front of him.
Feeling again how a hairstyle changes a person’s impression, William absentmindedly touched the hair covering his nape.
Maybe he should trim his too.
When he was active on the battlefield, he kept his hair short because of the helmet he was wearing.
“Shall we continue to walk on then?”
“Yes!”
They held hands and moved to the next area.
They still hadn’t achieved their goal, after all.
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“It seems they don’t sell secret manuals here.”
After thoroughly exploring the night market for quite some time, they couldn’t find any merchants selling qinggong secret manuals. It appeared that this market didn’t deal in secret manuals.
“I thought we’d be able to find at least one qinggong manual in a market this big…”
“How come they have everything else but no qinggong manuals?”
“I know, right?”
They couldn’t help but feel perplexed as to why there were no qinggong manuals when there were clearly manuals for fist techniques, sword techniques, and spear techniques openly available.
Of course, since qinggong was often tailored to specific internal energy cultivation methods, it wasn’t entirely strange… but it was odd that there wasn’t even a single decent third-rate qinggong manual available.
It was as if someone had swept up all the qinggong manuals.
“Hey, are there really no qinggong manuals? Not even one?”
“I’m afraid not. They’re probably not easy to come by. There weren’t many qinggong manuals in circulation to begin with, and what little there were have all been sold by now.”
“To whom?”
“To Master Zhang. I heard it has something to do with the treasure that’s being unveiled… I don’t know the details, but you might want to go check it out. They should be about to reveal the treasure at the square in the center of the city.”
It had a relation with the treasure, huh.
So it seems they’d have to see it after all.
“Hye-ryeong, let’s go see the treasure.”
“Okay!”
“Thank you for the information.”
“It’s nothing… I just felt bad seeing you wasting your time.”
To think he’d kindly tell us even though we were just going to look and leave. Is this his way of showing compassion to us even though we weren’t planning to buy anything? William left with a strange sense of admiration, turning away with Hye-ryeong.
Since they were quite far from the central square, they needed to start moving quickly. They didn’t know if the treasure would be on display for long or if it would only be shown briefly.
“What do you think the treasure is?”
“Maybe… it’s a qinggong manual.”
“If it’s a qinggong worthy of being called a treasure… could it be the Cloud-Walking Steps? Or the Wave-Treading Secret art?”
I don’t know any techniques with those names.
It would be strange if I did know them, actually.
“We’ll find out when we get there.”
“I wonder why this Master Zhang bought up all the qinggong manuals?”
“Who knows…”
There must be some reason, but for now, there were no clues they could use to guess.
They had no clues at all. They continued walking towards the central square, talking about the treasure. At the central square, a large crowd had gathered, looking at a stage set up in the center.
“Ugh, I can’t see anything…”
“It might be better to climb up on a roof or something to watch.”
“But Uncle, you can’t climb up, can you?”
“…I really need to learn qinggong soon.”
If only he learned qinggong, he too could leap onto the roofs like that black-clad figure, almost as if he were flying.
He really wanted to learn quickly…
Hm?
Black-clad figure?
William immediately shifted his gaze to follow the black-clad figure he had caught at the edge of his vision. The figure was leaping from roof to roof around the stage and then sat down in a position suitable for jumping onto the stage, looking down at it.
He was clearly someone planning to cause trouble.
If left alone, it seemed he would cause an incident. Should he alert someone?
“Uncle, what are you looking at?”
“Can you see that black-clad figure over there?”
“Oh, you’re right! I’ve never seen a black-clad figure like that before!”
“The demon cult members were wearing black too, weren’t they?”
“But he seems more like… a martial artist that just happens to be clad in such a color”
Well, since the figure didn’t completely cover his face, it was a bit ambiguous to call him a demon cult member.
“Anyway, shouldn’t we tell someone?”
“I suppose we should.”
William took a deep breath and looked at the black-clad figure. The figure, still unaware of William’s gaze, had his hand on his chest as if about to do something to the stage.
William shouted, pointing, trying to prevent the figure from causing trouble:
“There’s a suspicious person on the roof!”
“Uncle, it’s too noisy around here, I don’t think anyone heard properly!”
Ah, this is frustrating.
He couldn’t shout with aura here either. He might cause weak-hearted people to have heart attacks if he did.
Still, quite a few people had heard his voice, so they should notice soon…
Oh, the figure is running away.
No, he’s leaping from his position towards the stage.
“There’s a suspicious person!”
“Protect the treasure!”
The square, which had been full of laughter and chatter, suddenly fell into chaos.
And William spotted the black-clad figure that had leaped onto the roof like an agile cat.
The figure was holding a book.
That…
“That must be the treasure.”
William instinctively knew that the object the black-clad figure had stolen was the treasure.
“Quickly, chase after him!”
“Hurry and catch him! Do you know how much trouble I went through to obtain that?!”
“Looks like we missed out on seeing the treasure.”
“Well, at least we’ve got a story to tell over drinks now.”
“That’s true.”
They turned away without regret.
Somehow, it felt like they’d get caught up in troublesome affairs if they stayed still.
—————
“you all can’t leave now!”
What now?
William opened his eyes to the thunderous shout that woke him from his sleep.
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Looks like William might end up owning a manual better than originaly planned. Lets hope this figure that stole it is not unreasonable enough to blame William for alerting others.
Thank for the chapter
Too late when the flag(side quest) has been planted…