The Childish Princess’s Unauthorized Outing (2)

Je So-yeon’s treatment was not that difficult. The biggest problem was that Neung Je-gang had never once treated a destroyed dantian before, but with Je Yeong-hak, the era’s greatest divine doctor, right beside him, he managed it without much trouble.

Using the Ice Essence Crystal to purge the poison that had entered Je So-yeon’s body was a process he could not see. For some reason, Je Yeong-hak insisted that that part of the treatment was absolutely secret and refused to show him.

On top of that, he could not see Je So-yeon at all after that day. He heard that the poison was so vicious that completing all of the treatment would take at least half a year, and feeling guilty, he could not bring himself to pry further. In the end, he would not be able to see Je So-yeon for the next half-year.

Not many days later, Nam Yeong came to the Shinsu Medical House. He hit it off with Je Yeong-hak and made the place lively for quite some time.

And at last, the long-awaited Cheong Yeon and Majil returned.

“Did you find a suitable place?”

“There was a very good spot.”

At Cheong Yeon’s answer, Majil nodded.

“Boss! It’s really great. It’s an amazing place.”

Why did it make him uneasy the moment Majil stepped up like that?

“If it’s that good, all the better. I was already feeling a bit uncomfortable staying here too long anyway, so let’s leave right away.”

“Why? Did they make you walk on eggshells here or something? What’s with that? Can your future in-laws treat their son-in-law like this?”

Majil just babbled whatever came to mind. Cheong Yeon’s eyes went wide. He had absolutely no idea the Shinsu Medical House might become Neung Je-gang’s in-laws’ house.

“Is that true?”

“Phewww! It kind of feels like it might become true… honestly, I don’t really know. Just wait. I’m going to go tell Master that we’ve found a good place on Antang Mountain.”

Neung Je-gang slipped out of the room as if he were fleeing and went to the quarters where Je Yeong-hak and Nam Yeong were staying.

“Cheong Yeon and Majil have returned.”

“Oh? Good!”

“They say they’ve found a very good place. So I’d like us to leave right away.”

“Yes, that wouldn’t be a bad idea. But how should we do it? Are you going to take everyone with you immediately?”

“I think that would be best. But moving everyone at once would be too much. I think a few of the older ladies should go first to prepare living space, and the rest can come later.”

“We have to avoid the Necromancer Cult’s eyes as well, right?”

“That’s right.”

“In that case, I should probably go to the Zhejiang Provincial Regional Military Command. You take care of building the residence on Antang Mountain. Using the post you got me, I’ll begin mobilizing the troops of the two provinces to suppress the Japanese raiders.”

“Understood. Please be careful. The Necromancer Cult may very well target you, Master.”

“Don’t worry about me. From now on I’ll be moving together with the state’s soldiers, so they won’t dare make any rash moves.”

After finishing his talk with Nam Yeong and saying his farewells to Je Yeong-hak, Neung Je-gang left the Shinsu Medical House with several of the women.

On the way to Antang Mountain, he checked to see if anyone was following them, but thankfully he did not sense any such gaze. It seemed changing everyone’s faces in advance before leaving the Shinsu Medical House had paid off.

Antang Mountain was the most famous mountain in southern Zhejiang Province. Its height was just over three hundred jang, but its reputation for mystery came from its fantastically shaped rocky peaks, strangely shaped waterfalls that scattered like mist, and countless caves, along with lakes high above and bottomless pools below.

But it was also a mountain with many problems. It was close to the sea, so the winds were fierce; there were hardly any proper paths up the mountain; and the heavy damp made it unsuitable for people to live.

Only by finding a place that could solve all those problems could they say the people of Kuaiji Mountain Fortress had truly found a new home.

After arriving at Antang Mountain, Neung Je-gang’s group took a short rest and then began climbing. The scenery was splendid. Seeing the occasional strange peaks and the waterfalls scattering like mist, it felt as if they had stepped into an immortal’s realm.

“Are we there yet?”

The men were fine, but the path was hard on the women.

“We’re almost there. Just a bit farther.”

From a while ago, Cheong Yeon kept saying they were almost there. For him, it really was just a short way, but from the women’s perspective, they could not help resenting him for repeating the same words.

“Let’s rest for a moment before we go on.”

At Neung Je-gang’s words, the women plopped down where they were. Fortunately, there was water flowing nearby, so once they had recovered a little strength, they went down to the water to cool their sweat.

After a short break, they set out again with Cheong Yeon in the lead. And truly, in less than the time it took for an incense stick to burn, Cheong Yeon led them to the mouth of a cave.

The cave was cleverly tucked between crisscrossing rocks so that, unless one deliberately tried to find it, it would be difficult to discover. It was not so small either; a person could stand inside and move around.

“This is the place.”

“But it’s just a cave, isn’t it?”

The women sounded disappointed.

“If you go inside, you’ll see something completely different.”

At Cheong Yeon’s words, the women carefully stepped into the cave.

Neung Je-gang followed right behind them.

The cave was not deep. It was only about three jang deep, and the end seemed to be blocked.

“Huh? There’s another tunnel here.”

He heard the women’s voices, and the figures in front of him disappeared.

When Neung Je-gang went to look, he saw that the tunnel was not blocked but bent to the side. After they went a little farther, a brilliant world of light suddenly spread out before his eyes.

“I can’t believe a place like this exists.”

The women were stunned. Beyond the cave lay a wide basin. It was not as broad as the plateau he had seen at the summit of Aenoe Mountain, but it was much larger than the site where the Kuaiji Mountain fortress had stood.

What was more, inside the basin there was a small but clear pond, and trees bearing unknown fruits hung heavy on their branches, forming a small grove. If those fruits were edible, they would never need to worry about starving.

Walking slowly, Neung Je-gang surveyed the surroundings. The water forming the pond in the basin flowed out from a gap at the base of a cliff wall. The cliff was about fifteen jang high, and it was so smooth that an ordinary person would not find a single foothold, as if someone had deliberately polished it that way.

“How did you find a place like this?”

He was genuinely curious. This was not a spot one could discover just by searching on purpose.

So how had they found such a hidden place in such a short time?

When he asked and turned around, Cheong Yeon’s face had gone red, and Majil was grinning as he watched him.

“How did you find it?”

Neung Je-gang turned and asked Majil instead.

“Ask the one who found it, Boss.”

Majil turned his head away.

Neung Je-gang started to smack the back of Majil’s head and then stopped, turning back to Cheong Yeon.

“I just… came across it by accident. Truly.”

“Hehehehehe! He says he ‘just happened’ to find it, hehehe!”

Majil burst into loud laughter at Cheong Yeon’s answer.

Cheong Yeon’s face turned even redder.

“The truth is… I slipped…”

“Hm? Don’t tell me from up there?”

Neung Je-gang pointed to the cliff, roughly fifteen jang high.

Cheong Yeon nodded.

“So you fell down into that pond?”

“Yes.”

“Cheong Yeon, were you always bad at lightness skill? That’s not the case, is it?”

“In fact… I was… doing my business…”

“You were doing your business up there?”

Neung Je-gang looked dumbfounded. Why would anyone climb that high just to relieve himself?

“From here it just looks like a high spot, but if you climb up from outside, there’s a forest of trees. So I never imagined there would be a hole you could fall through into a place like this. And it was night, so I couldn’t see well, either…”

At Cheong Yeon’s explanation, Neung Je-gang nodded.

It was perfectly plausible. If you woke up at night and went looking for a secluded place, you could misstep and fall down.

But there was still one thing he could not understand.

“Then why are you laughing, Majil?”

“Hehehehe! Boss, he pooped. Hehehe!”

Cheong Yeon glared at Majil as if he were going to kill him.

“Ah, so that’s why. Hahaha! It’s nothing, really… Thanks to that, we discovered this amazing place, so I promise I’ll never tell anyone. Majil, you got that too, right?”

“Tch! If it were me, you’d tease me for life…”

Smack.

“Quiet! Keep it down so the ladies don’t hear.”

Neung Je-gang finally smacked the back of Majil’s head once and then walked off in another direction.

“Anyway, did you find a place here where we can hide?”

“Boss, who do you think I am? You think I wouldn’t solve at least that much?”

Majil led Neung Je-gang to the northern cliff of the basin.

“But this is just a cliff.”

“Boss, it’s not all rock. This part here is soil.”

The ground where Majil pointed was, of course, dirt. If it had been bedrock all the way down, they could not have made a hideout here.

Majil gently brushed the dirt aside with his hands. A broad, flat stone appeared beneath the soil.

He lifted the stone, and a tunnel mouth they had previously dug open was revealed.

“You already made this?”

“Go on in, Boss. You’ll be surprised.”

“Yeah?”

Neung Je-gang was no stranger to crawling through tunnels, so he slipped down inside with practiced ease. After moving forward a little more than ten jang, he saw light ahead. Walking toward the light, he emerged from a gaping tunnel into open sky.

“What is this? Did you just make a passage leading outside?”

Curious, he stepped out to look.

“Ah, it’s another basin.”

It was. Unlike the broad basin in front, this one was smaller, but it was still a basin.

“So the water from the front basin flows through here.”

A stream also flowed through the smaller basin. It emerged from within the cliff and then disappeared back into the cliff, to flow on toward the wider basin.

Though the small basin was not that large, there was a spot that would stay dry even in rain, so as long as they had food, it would not be uncomfortable to live there.

“This would make a good cultivation room. No one would disturb us here.”

Neung Je-gang liked this place as well.

He went back through the tunnel into the front basin.

“Hehehe! Boss, how is it?”

“It’s very good. I like it.”

“Hehehe! I knew you would.”

“How did you find that one, then?”

“I went looking for this guy when he didn’t come back, and I happened to discover it.”

“In any case, it’s good. You both did well.”

Neung Je-gang was very satisfied. They were in the mountains, so there was plenty of wood, and with all the strange rocks scattered around, stones would be easy to find whenever they needed them.

A satisfied smile appeared on his face.

If they were going to build a decent village here, they first needed at least one hut they could stay in. Neung Je-gang knelt and roughly sketched the overall layout on the ground.

Within the bounds of leaving the fruit trees untouched as much as possible, he drew the buildings where Nam Yeong and he would live at the northernmost end, and on either side of those he drew the houses where Majil and Cheong Yeon would stay. In front of those three buildings, he planned a square where everyone could gather and a training ground, and he placed the women’s and children’s quarters near the fruit-tree grove.

“If we build the privy in the fruit grove, the fragrance of the fruit will mask the smell of poop. Hehehe!”

Per Majil’s suggestion, they decided to build the communal privy inside the fruit grove. That way, they could also prevent the pond’s water from being contaminated.

Once they had marked off the building sites here and there, a sizeable village took shape. It would be a large settlement where at least three hundred people could live.

“Boss, aren’t you making it too big?”

“It’s fine. We’re not planning to build everything at once. We’ll start with what we need, then add more buildings one by one if the number of people increases later.”

At Neung Je-gang’s words, Majil nodded, then grinned as if something had occurred to him.

“Why?”

“Hehehe! We should tell my old geezer of a master to come live here, too.”

At that, Neung Je-gang nodded.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea. That way Master won’t be bored, either.”

“Hehe, right? Right? Then I’ll build our master’s house with my own hands and make it really fancy.”

Majil sounded fired up.

“First, let’s get some timber and build a temporary building for the women to stay in. And Cheong Yeon, I’m sorry, but I’d like you to go back to the Shinsu Medical House tomorrow and bring more people. It looks like we’ll need more hands.”

“Understood.”

“No, hold on! Actually, we’ll probably need more men than women. I should go down and bring the warriors.”

It was clear that, when it came to building structures, men would be more useful than women.

The next day, Neung Je-gang went down the mountain and returned a few days later.

Following him, a dozen warriors who had family among the women of the fortress came up the mountain. They, too, were first impressed by the scenery of Antang Mountain and then amazed by the basin that would become their new home.

Since Neung Je-gang had also brought enough food for everyone to eat for a while, they did not need to worry about provisions. And because Majil could not resist his curiosity and ate some of the mysterious fruit and turned out perfectly fine, they actually ended up with more food than they needed.

“We need stone. Buildings made of stone will be sturdier and last longer than ones made of wood.”

Finding stones suitable for construction was work in itself.

“Got it. I’ll go look for some.”

Neung Je-gang left the basin and moved some distance away. He had already decided they would not gather stone or wood too close to the basin whenever possible.

He went down the mountain again. Avoiding the route they had used to climb, he went up from another side and saw two huge boulders.

“With these two, we’ll have more than enough stone for all the buildings.”

He drew the Heartless Sword and, following the formulas of the Seven Saber Principles of Empty Spirit, raised his qi. It consumed far less energy that way.

Saaaak.

The rock was cleanly cut into neat sections. Neung Je-gang sliced the boulders into pieces small enough to carry through the cave that served as the basin’s entrance, then carried them in one by one.

With virtually inexhaustible internal energy at his disposal, using it for construction like this made building go much more smoothly. Since the stones were cut to similar sizes with straight edges, all they had to do was stack them neatly on top of the foundation they had laid.

Whenever a portion jutted out a little, Cheong Yeon would mark it, and later, when Neung Je-gang returned, he would smooth it with a single stroke of his blade.

Majil and the other men went elsewhere to cut down trees, then planed and trimmed the timber as they gradually increased the number of buildings.

Since it would be hard to make every structure out of stone right away, they were first building cabins sturdy enough for just the women and children brought from the Shinsu Medical House to live in.

Once all those cabins were finished, Cheong Yeon went down and brought people up in groups. Out of concern for the Necromancer Cult’s eyes, he moved only five or six people at a time, and because of that, it took more than a month for all the fortress folk to relocate.

With more people around, working felt more enjoyable.

“Boss, we’re done.”

At Majil’s shout, Neung Je-gang stopped what he was doing.

They had almost finished creating their new home in the basin. The buildings where Nam Yeong and Neung Je-gang would live together, the ones for Majil and his master’s family, and the one for Cheong Yeon had all been built of straight, neatly cut stone.

His stone-cutting skill was so precise that, even though they had merely stacked the blocks, not a single gap remained for the wind to slip through; the masonry was perfect.

Finally, they laid stone paving from the center of the fruit grove and built a communal privy at its center, also of stone. They uprooted the trees, dug deep into the ground, had Majil tamp the soil so it would not cave in, and then raised stone walls, so from the outside it did not look like a toilet at all.

The fragrant scent of fruit wafted from all directions. They did not know if the transplanted fruit trees would live again, but they replanted them elsewhere in hopes they would.

And so, for now, a new village where everyone could live comfortably was complete.