Baker Street: The Breakpoint Of Gift Shower (3)

A Perfect Knock-Out means a gift given that does not expect a Counter in return.
-Confucius-

After examining the Cold Stone Creamery Bed for a while, I realized that in my current condition, it would be difficult to sleep on this bed.

What I needed right now was a large amount of Yang Qi and warmth.

But the aura clinging to this stone bed was tilted toward Extreme Yin.

“I thought I might be able to sleep coolly in summer, but for the time being, it’ll be difficult.”

Whereas the Qi Deviation an orthodox Kung-Fu practitioner experiences generally has its roots in heart fire, the Qi Deviation I suffered this time was due to the gloomy Intent of the Pseudo Persona lodged in my head.

So to lie on this bed and sleep right now could be called an act of suicide.

“I understand why it’s treated as a precious treasure, but still.”

Just as the Unicorn Salamander’s horn or Ancient Vicuna Wool turns any kind of aura that passes through it into Yang Qi, the Cold Stone Creamery Bed was endlessly converting the surrounding aura into Yin Qi and drawing it in.

If what lay inside this truly was a Fantastic Beast, then it was certainly a life-form of higher rank than the Unicorn Salamander and the Ancient Vicuna.

However, considering that the stronger a Fantastic Beast is, the more it tends to grow to a colossal size after maturation, what was sleeping inside here would be a young specimen.

“It’s no wonder the Ancient Tomb Clan didn’t notice anything. It would be harder to think there’s a living creature inside jade this hard. They must have simply regarded it as a mystical stone bed that draws in Natural Qi without limit and turns it into Yin Qi.”

Having heard that the ancients made it, they likely sanctified the tale and never doubted the tradition at all.

If, as I deduced, this bed was not made for someone to sleep coolly, but was something like a cradle with an unknown Fantastic Beast sleeping inside, then it meant the Westminster Ancient Tomb Clan had completely misunderstood how to use the Cold Stone Creamery Bed.

“To think they were using something this precious to make food. It’s absurd.”

There were two documents enclosed with the Cold Stone Creamery Bed.

When I checked the contents written in the booklet labeled “Secret User Manual,” I could not restrain my astonishment.

[…omitted…]
[The Cold Stone Creamery Bed is generally recommended for cultivation, but in summer when heart fire burns, one may use the bed’s function in another way to steady the mind.]
[First. Release the Cold Stone Creamery Bed’s seal, then wait until the bed has drawn in sufficient Natural Qi.]
[Second. Disinfect the bed’s surface with high-proof liquor. At this time, sprinkle water on the bed; if a thin frost forms, proceed to the next step.]
[Third. Mix egg yolks and heavy cream, a little salt and sugar, and milk, and prepare it in a bowl.]
[Fourth. Pour the well-whisked mixture little by little onto the Cold Stone Creamery Bed, turning it with a metal spatula and letting it firm evenly.]
[Fifth. Add nuts, fruit, chocolate, and the like to taste, and consume. Adding an elixir that contains Yin Qi will greatly help in managing heart fire.]

That’s right.

The Westminster Ancient Tomb Clan was using the Cold Stone Creamery Bed mainly to make ice cream.

According to what was written in the secret user manual, ice cream, Bing-Chilling, made atop the Cold Stone Creamery Bed had a texture twice as chewy as ice cream made by putting the contents in an ice-chilled container and whisking it, and it melted away in an instant on the tip of the tongue.

If that was true, then the Cold Stone Creamery Bed truly was a precious treasure that helped Murim people, who must train Kung-Fu without rest even in the sweltering summer, to avoid Qi Deviation.

“…….”

Thinking it over, I wondered whether there was any need to adhere strictly to the ‘proper usage’ the ancients had assumed.

I imagined the cooking process in detail, and it sounded delicious.
Next time, I should ask Mrs. Hudson to make some.

“No, that’s not it.”

In truth, separate from the Cold Stone Creamery Bed’s identity, I had been paying close attention to the fact that the Ancient Tomb Clan had used the bed for Kung-Fu training all this time.

Surely it was true that the Cold Stone Creamery Bed helped when training Kung-Fu that possessed strong Yang functions.

It was true that I needed a large amount of Yang Qi right now to suppress the Pseudo Persona’s strength, but letting the nature of the Essence circulating within my body tilt sharply to one side was a shortcut to Qi Deviation.

Even if I safely brought back the kidnapped Beppo and succeeded in carving the Unicorn Salamander’s horn into the shape of a pipe, if Yang Qi ran wild, it would all be for nothing. Amen, Lord Jesus. [TL/N: Author combined the Buddhist-phrase 도로 아미타불, which means it was all for nothing, and 아멘주예수, Amen, Lord Jesus, into 도로아멘주예수徒勞阿們主耶蘇]

In that sense, after the pipe was completed, the Cold Stone Creamery Bed could become the ultimate safety device, one that prevented Qi Deviation and restrained the runaway of Yang Qi.

This was all because I had learned demonic Kung-Fu.

Since I had to worry about safety twice as much as an orthodox Kung-Fu practitioners, it was no small headache.

Separately from that, from a long-term perspective, awakening the Fantastic Beast, presumed to be sleeping within the opaque space inside the Cold Stone Creamery Bed, also seemed an appealing option.

A life-form that remained alive for a long time inside a hard lump of stone without eating or drinking would surely provide a clue for founding a new Kung-Fu.

No. if it failed to provide enlightenment, at the very least it would become a supreme elixir that raised one’s realm.

Either way, keeping the Cold Stone Creamery Bed at 221B Baker Street was a good choice.

Once again thanking Her Majesty, I picked up the second booklet that had been enclosed.

Unlike the Cold Stone Creamery Bed’s secret user manual, this one had no writing at all on its cover.

It seemed that the Ancient Tomb Clan’s secret manual Her Majesty had promised was recorded here.

“It seems I won’t be sleeping tonight.”

A secret manual of a mystic clan.
If anyone told me to sleep and read it in the morning, I had the confidence to smash their head in with all my might.

This had to be read at once.

Her Majesty had promised.
That if I learned this martial art in one month, she would tell me Prince Albert’s secret and the Ancient Tomb Clan’s secret.

Gaining access to the Ancient Tomb Clan would bring me great benefit.

Most of all, it meant I could gain the opportunity to build ties not only with the royal family, but also with the British Empire’s great Kung-Fuists.

Earlier, I confirmed that Moriarty was an outlier among outliers.

At this point, the idea of bringing him down with my strength alone was nothing but rash bravado and arrogance.

Since I had resolved to dispose of James Moriarty by any means necessary, exchange with other strong ones was indispensable.

More than anything, in the course of exchanging with them, I could become strong to a degree incomparable to now.

“For that sake as well, I must master this secret manual as soon as possible, if only a day sooner.”

-Gulp

Without thinking, I swallowed dryly.

My hands trembled with tension, but somehow I opened the booklet’s first page—

“……Huh?”

What was written there was something I never expected at all.

The next morning, when Jane Watson awoke from an uneasy dream, she found that her condition felt far fresher than usual.

But Watson soon realized that something was wrong.

The fake moustache still stuck to her philtrum.
For some reason, the thing she always removed before sleeping had remained on her face.

“……Ah.”

Only then did Watson recall what happened last night.

While Holmes was out, a visitor arrived, and not long after, Mrs. Hudson’s scream rang out.
When she hurried down to the first floor, the landlady had fainted, and beside her was Poppins, a palace maid from Buckingham.

When Watson asked why, the palace maid reacted in flustered fashion, and then showed Watson the very thing she had shown Mrs. Hudson.

“Ah! That gold! Gold!”

As she groped for the memory, Watson began to scream in terror.

Inside the box were certainly seven or eight enormous gold ingots, each the size of Holmes’s forearm.
It was gold weighing as much as a sturdy grown man.

“Aieeeee!!”

Once again, a shriek bordering on a fit burst out.

As the memory of herself having fainted in Value Reality Shock after witnessing with her own eyes an object of far too high a value had returned, Watson began to flop atop the bed like a live fish that had leapt onto the Thames embankment.

“A country house with a garden on all eight sides! A garden house with all eight sides in the countryside! Carve each trigram into topiary—tae-jin-son-gan-geon-gon-gam-ri!”

With bloodshot eyes, Watson sprang up from the bed.

“Holmes! We’re gonna be rich!”

And then she realized it.

“Huh. When did I get into bed…….”

That she, who had fainted on the first-floor floor, had somehow been sleeping in the second-floor bedroom.

“…….”

Who carried her up?

It wouldn’t be Mrs. Hudson, who had fainted first.

Could it be the palace maid, who witnessed her faint?

“Don’t tell me.”

The one who carried her to the bedroom had to be Palace Maid Poppins.

If not, it meant the returned Holmes had carried her fainted body.

“Eek…….”

Because of the aftereffects of meridian blockage disorder, Watson’s snow-pale face flushed pink in an instant.

An unmarried woman who, save for exceptional cases like attending a ball or performing a palpation as a doctor, has never even held a man’s hand, entrusting her body to the arms of a handsome, strong Kung-Fu gentleman with whom she has no relationship?

-Pong

From Watson’s Hundred Meetings acupoint, a haze of internal energy began to waft up in wisps.

“No……way……!”

-Thud

Watson sank onto the floor as she was and, for five minutes, sat in Lotus Position and began Breath Control.

Only after completing a rotation and calming her Inner Demon did she stand again and lightly pat both cheeks.

“That’s right. It isn’t like me to fret over something I don’t even know happened.”

Thinking it over, Holmes couldn’t use his left arm right now.

Moreover, though his temperament was a bit eccentric, he was an exemplary Kung-Fu gentleman.

He was not a man who would lay hands carelessly on a woman, unless it was in the course of a Duel.

Indeed, when dealing with the Mistress of Green Willow, no, the Afternoon Tea Party leader Irene Adler, had he not, rather than subdue her himself, handed her over to Headmaster Louise, who was a woman as well (though, to be honest, she wasn’t entirely sure)?

There was a time before when, fleeing a Dead Men controlled by a Black Worm, she couldn’t use lightness skills due to a leg injury and had to cling to Holmes ‘with no choice,’ but that was an extreme situation where there truly had been no other way to survive.

It was hard to imagine Holmes directly lifting and carrying a woman simply because she had fainted on a cold floor and might end up with her mouth skewed.

By the time her thoughts reached that point, her mind had calmed a little.

Watson carefully opened the bedroom door and peered into the sitting room.

The first thing she saw was Holmes sitting in a chair, glaring at a thin booklet.

“……Huh?”

Even though she had just made that commotion in the bedroom, Holmes showed not the slightest disturbance and was sunk deep in thought.

His stiff expression and the beads of sweat running down his nape showed just how focused he was.

-Gooooh!!

Around the detective, pure Qi Frequency was swirling without cease.

That momentum, eyes wide, not moving an inch, resembled the Immovable Wisdom King she had encountered in a London Combat Society history class.

“Holmes……?”

It almost made her think that he had gone somewhere alone last night and taken on some new case.

Whatever the reason, Watson did not want to break her housemate’s immersion, so she closed the door for a moment and took a deep breath.

“Judging by the flow of Qi Frequency, he must be circulating his energy. But his eyes are open, so it can’t be ordinary Breath Control……. Don’t tell me—”

Holmes was standing with both feet in the realm of selflessness, eyes open.

A sign said to appear before Kung-Fuists gained a great awakening.

If Holmes had truly grasped a meditation topic for advancing to the next realm through some trigger, then any act that disturbed his concentration could have a grave adverse effect on his Eight Extraordinary Meridians and Twelve Primary Meridians.

Fortunately, thanks to Holmes’s superhuman focus, the strange shriek Watson had made earlier didn’t break his immersion, but if noise occurred close by again, or physical contact happened, she had no idea what might occur.

As the assistant to London Murim’s one and only Kung-Fu consulting detective, Watson could not allow herself to commit such a mistake.

“It would be best if Mrs. Hudson didn’t know about this…….”

Watson checked the time and broke into a cold sweat.

The current time was 11:49 in the morning.

As usual, there were less than forty seconds left until Mrs. Hudson prepared lunch and came up to call the two lodgers on the second floor.

If she had awoken from her faint first, she would come up to the second floor as usual.

“I can’t let her disturb Holmes’s training……!”

Watson quickly sent a Direct Message to Mrs. Hudson, explaining what was happening on the second floor.

<Ah, if it’s that, don’t worry, Miss Watson. At dawn Mr. Holmes said he’d be skipping lunch. Oh. He said his arm was uncomfortable, so I’m keeping the gift from Buckingham on the first floor; come fetch it later.>

Thankfully, it seemed Holmes had asked Mrs. Hudson in advance not to come up to the second floor.

Watson let out a sigh of relief.

<Thank you, ma’am. I’ll go check on Holmes’s condition again.>

Watson quietly came out into the sitting room, closed the window, and approached Holmes, who was rigid as stone, then began to stand guard.

If Holmes fell into Qi Deviation, she meant to begin the Umbilicus Point technique at once and minimize the damage.

“…….”

Even when Watson came right up close, Holmes still showed no reaction at all.

Relieved by that, Watson still couldn’t help but feel curious.

‘Just what is written in that book, to make Holmes immerse himself like this?’

Unable to endure her curiosity, Watson suppressed her presence as much as possible, went behind Holmes, and examined the contents of the booklet in his hand.

‘This is……?’

After seeing what was in the booklet, Watson was greatly flustered.

Because what filled the pages of the booklet, where she had expected a secret Kung-Fu manual, was none other than a Sword Debate Chess game record.