Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Gaze at Plums to Quench Thirst

The air sat awkwardly still for three breaths.

Finally, Qi Shan said, “Martial Gall condenses qi within the body. Literary Heart controls it outside.”

Shen Tang wanted to pretend she understood. She really did. But if she lied and got exposed, she’d look even dumber.

So she admitted it. “I… don’t really get it, Sir Qi. Can you explain more?”

Qi Shan didn’t look surprised. He stirred the fire with a stick, then spoke in plain terms.

“Martial Gall—’martial’ is the core.

A warrior advances with weapon in hand. Conquest. Intimidation. Battle to end battle.

So most Martial Gall word-spirit work on the self. They temper the body until it’s monstrous—one against a thousand. Lone-hero stuff.”

Shen Tang nodded slowly. “You said most. So some don’t?”

“Yes.” Qi Shan’s tone sharpened slightly, as if pleased she’d caught that. “Take ‘one call, a hundred answers.’ If a feudal lord or a strategist uses it, it can rally a hundred soldiers. If a commander uses it, it can drive a hundred soldiers to armor up and mount, their momentum forged into something like a blade—elite troops.

If everyone’s will aligns, those elite troops become terrifying.”

He paused, then added before she could ask, “Some word-spirit can be used by both Literary Heart and Martial Gall. Don’t get stuck on that.”

Shen Tang swallowed the impulse to argue.

Qi Shan continued, “Literary Heart is different. Its essence is strategy and calculation.

So word-spirit leans toward control and planning—using word-spirit to keep hold of a complex, shifting situation.”

He tapped his temple with two fingers. “People think higher grade means stronger. That’s a mistake. Literary Heart is a contest of this.”

Even if someone had second-grade upper-middle Literary Heart, if they were careless, they could still die to a ninth-grade lower-lower with a sharper mind.

Shen Tang mulled it over, then tried to translate it into something that made sense to her.

“So Martial Gall is when you jump in and fight. If you’re stronger, you bring a brother and fight as a group. And Literary Heart is more like… staying off the field, playing boss, hiring thugs to fight for you?

One shows muscles. One shows brains.”

Qi Shan went silent, likely stuck on her phrasing.

In the end, he said flatly, “If that’s how you understand it, fine.”

“But isn’t that passive?” Shen Tang asked, frowning. “Brains don’t matter if the other guy has more fists.”

If Literary Heart was mostly support and command, and most damage relied on Martial Gall… then getting caught alone meant death.

She looked up. “As an adult, can’t you train both Literary Heart and Martial Gall? Get both?”

Qi Shan’s face didn’t change, but his voice cooled. “There have been cases in the records. They either died young, went mad, or ended up mediocre—no different from ordinary people.”

Shen Tang’s shoulders sank.

So that cheat was off the table.

She hugged the scroll and read until her eyes blurred. She recognized every character. She could memorize Qi Shan’s notes easily. But the actual use—the actual cultivation—was like trying to grab smoke.

Even Qi Shan’s explanations had that maddening, mind-over-matter haze to them.

Fine. Free lessons came with limits.

Time passed, and her stomach started banging gongs again.

Shen Tang rubbed her belly and stared at “gaze at plums to quench thirst.” In her mind, a crisp green plum appeared—sour, cool, real.

“Didn’t you say Literary Heart can ‘make something from nothing’…” she muttered. “Using ‘gaze at plums to quench thirst’ to give me a few green plums shouldn’t be too much, right?”

If there were enough, she could even stash some for later.

Qi Shan heard her perfectly and poured cold water on it.

“Of course it’s too much,” he said. “Word-spirit can’t give people food. If it could, there wouldn’t be so many commoners starving to death.”

His gaze went distant for a moment. He stared into the fire as if watching something else. “A few months ago, when I was traveling… I saw a whole city of commoners…”

He stopped, jaw tightening, and didn’t finish.

Shen Tang didn’t need him to. She could imagine it.

But it didn’t answer her question.

“Why can’t it?” she demanded. “Word-spirit can conjure blades, warhorses, armor. It can let one person fight an army. Why can’t it make a handful of plums?

It’s all making something from nothing. Why discriminate?

Even if it truly can’t make food, it could help farming, right?”

Her voice went rough with frustration. “I’m penniless. I’m a fugitive prisoner. I’m just a shut-in artist who got thrown into a nightmare. If I can’t find a way to survive, what am I supposed to do—beg someone to commission me for portraits?”

Qi Shan didn’t give her a straight answer. He only said, “I can’t answer the earlier question. As for the last—when you’ve seen more, you’ll understand.”

His expression darkened. “In a world like this, who melts swords into plowshares?”

People who tried got crushed.

He closed his eyes, clearly done with the topic.

Shen Tang kept muttering “gaze at plums to quench thirst” under her breath, like she was trying to bully reality into changing.

After a while, Qi Shan spoke without opening his eyes. “Learning word-spirit needs fate. There are countless word-spirit in the world. If one path doesn’t work, don’t waste time drilling into a dead end—switch.

And don’t try to learn everything. Bite off too much and you’ll choke. Mastery matters more than quantity.”

“Yeah,” Shen Tang said. “I get it.”

Then came a crisp crack.

And chewing.

Qi Shan’s eyes snapped open.

He still had the rations. He still had the waterskin.

So what the hell was she eating?

A clean, sharp fragrance drifted through the firelight—green plum, unmistakable.

Qi Shan stared.

Shen Tang sat cross-legged, a pile of round, jade-green plums stacked on her legs. Ten of them at least. Each looked fresh enough to drip.

She chewed, face scrunched tight from the sourness. Brows knotted, cheeks wrinkled—yet she kept swallowing, too hungry to stop.

Qi Shan’s voice came out strained. “Those plums… where did you get them?”

Shen Tang blinked hard, fighting back tears from the sour bite. “Plums?”

She looked down like she’d forgotten they existed. “Oh. I kept trying ‘gaze at plums to quench thirst.’ I pushed my Literary Heart like your notes said, but nothing happened.

Then I tried a few more times, and suddenly there was a plum out of nowhere. Like this—”

She lifted her hand.

“Gaze at plums to quench thirst!”

The word-spirit fell.

And, right under Qi Shan’s staring eyes, a green plum appeared out of thin air in Shen Tang’s palm.