Ch.137: Upon Barren Hills; Rioting the Black Hearted Inn
The store owner was taken aback, “Huh? That one? Daozhang are you sure you’re not mistaken?”
Xie Lian confirmed, “Yes, that one!”
Then he just rushed up himself to grab for that robe, picked Hua Cheng up and dashed to the back of the store, slipping behind a set of curtains. This clothing store was a daring one and an innovative one at that. There was a small stall inside for changing, so those who came to purchase clothes could try them on on the spot. The crowd was taken aback. A moment later, a luxuriously dressed cultivator walked past the clothing store, grumbling as he rubbed his forehead, and behind him followed a mob of malicious looking, strange monks and cultivators. When they saw the clothing store had a large gathering, he barked, displeased, “What are you lookin’ at?!”
“Sigh, forget it, let’s hurry. I need to go to the toilet again!”
“Wait, Heaven’s Eye-xiong, there’s plenty of people here, why not ask them if they saw?”
“My lady donors, have you all seen a white clad cultivator with a small child covered in bandages pass by?”
The crowd was silent but there were some who unconsciously glimpsed to the back of the store. The mob grew cautious, and made the hand gesture of ‘go over and see’.
Heaven’s Eye strode inside, held his breath, and slowly approached those curtains. A moment later, he yanked it open. Instantly there was a shriek.
Behind the curtains sat a woman, her long raven hair hung a loose bun, her neck slender and white with a black choker and a thin silver chain circled around. Her robe was half stripped, revealing her snow white shoulder and a small bit of her back, looking to drape and fall, making one’s face burn and heart race.
When the curtains were pulled, the figure of that woman trembled, covering her face with her sleeves, and whimpered softly, as if she was shocked and terrified by such a sudden and brutish act. Heaven’s Eye instantly dropped the curtains, “I-I-I-I-I-I’M SORRY!!!”
The band of monks and cultivators who followed after Heaven’s Eye all screamed too, “WHAT A SIN, WHAT A SIN!” And they all covered their own eyes. Using this chance, that ‘woman’ whipped around – who else could it be but Xie Lian? Hua Cheng was sitting in his arms and was only blocked from view by Xie Lian’s body. Although Xie Lian was a man and his shoulders were wider than the average woman, but he only pulled down half of his robe to expose the best angle, creating the perfect effect.
With one arm full of Hua Cheng, Xie Lian lifted the skirt with his other hand and dashed past those screaming monks and cultivators with their eyes covered, fleeing away like the wind. The store owner and the ladies were all dumbfounded, and seeing him flee, the store owner had wanted to stop him, but opening and closing his mouth, he looked down at that gold foil that could easily buy two sets of clothing and more, he shrugged and stopped caring.
Xie Lian dashed madly the entire way with Hua Cheng in his arms, leaving nothing but clouds of dust. The passersby on the streets only saw the blurry shadows of a ‘woman’ holding a child fly by, as lithe and ferocious like a jaguar, creating clouds of suffocating dust, and they choked and coughed, their eyes unbelieving. A small food stall on the side of the road was covered and the owner started cussing, “WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU!”
Xie Lian spared the time to turn his head and shouted loudly, “EVERYTHING’S WRONG! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY!” Just then, he heard wild hollering from behind him, “STOP RIGHT THERE—!!!”
He looked back, and it was that mob who had charged out of the clothing store. ‘I really wonder what’s on the minds of people who yell ‘stop right there’. It’s obvious the one they’re yelling to won’t stop. Instead they would just hold their breath and run faster!’ Xie Lian thought, and he immediately put his mind to it, dashing away faster.
This large fanfare of a crowd running down the streets, dust flew and covered the air, and now the food stall owner couldn’t even curse anymore, flipping his own pot from anger, “WHY THE FUCK DO I EVEN BOTHER!”
After chasing for four hours, sure enough, the monks and cultivators who were yelling as they ran were finally losing their breaths, their steps slowing. As for Xie Lian who was experienced in the art of escape soundlessly persevered to the very end. Once they’ve lost their tail completely, Xie Lian put Hua Cheng down and stood on the side of the road gasping for breath. Hua Cheng held his shoulders and said in a low voice, “Don’t breathe too harshly, you’ll hurt yourself.”
Xie Lian looked up and saw Hua Chen’s small frown but still with the face of a child, he couldn’t help but laugh out loud, “HAHA, HAHAHA… Ah!”
He laughed too abruptly; a sharp pain shot up from his ribs so he held his sides. Seeing that Hua Cheng was looking dismayed, he waved his hand, “It’s nothing… eh? Is that an inn over there?”
Sure enough, not far in the distance within the steadfast blues of the evening was an inn peeping with warm yellow glow as if beckoning travelers to go. Xie Lian straightened up and said, “Let’s go in and rest.”
“Alright,” Hua Cheng said.
Xie Lian clutched his hand and the two strolled towards the small building. When they came before the entrance, Xie Lian realized that this inn had two levels, much more lavish than it appeared from afar. The doors were closed, and Xie Lian raised his hand, knocking lightly, “Anyone there? We’re here to stay the night.”
Soon enough, someone called from the inside, “Coming, coming!”
A moment later, the door opened, and several attendants came forward to greet, their faces full of smiles, “Good si…”
They had wanted to say ’good sir’, but seeing the person before them was wearing women’s robes, they changed, “Mis…”
Before the word left their lips, Xie Lian emerged fully from the darkness with Hua Cheng in hand. If there’s a child, then it wasn’t an unmarried lady, so they changed again, “Mada…”
‘Madam’ was still half on their lips and Xie Lian’s face was fully illuminated by the light within the inn. Although this person was dressed in women’s robes and had a gentle countenance, if they must be honest, no matter how they looked it was the face of a man. The attendants all became mute, and it was a good moment before they went back to their original greeting, “Good sir, please come inside.”
Xie Lian smiled as he nodded. The him now was very practiced wearing anything, and there was not a drop of mental or physical discomfort. With Hua Cheng in hand, he crossed the extremely low threshold, and sat down at a table in the corner of the lobby.
Other than those attendants in the inn, there was no one else. The moment they entered, the attendants immediately closed the door and gathered around, piling smiles on their faces. It was more those smiles that were making Xie Lian uncomfortable.
He took the menu card and said, “It’s not easy to find an inn in the wild like this, I’m amazed!”
The attendants responded, “It’s not easy to have customers in the wild like this either!”
For some reason, although they were smiling, those smiles looked like they were painted on, quite fake. Xie Lian didn’t move a muscle or change his expression. He flipped the menu card, ordered a few dishes, before the attendants merrily left to bring their orders to the kitchen.
Hua Cheng was playing with his chopsticks, “Gege, we’ve entered a shady establishment run by ghosts.”
“En.” Xie Lian acknowledged.
If it wasn’t anything weird, then a small inn with one level and a couple of attendants in the wild like this was already quite amazing; why was there such a lavish establishment with so many attendants?
Of course, this wasn’t any strong evidence. The main reason was because the moment Xie Lian entered the inn, he could smell the thick, fresh, stench of blood.
Normal people probably wouldn’t notice this stench of blood, but for someone as experienced and senses as sharp as Xie Lian, the heaviness had reached the point where he couldn’t ignore it. Xie Lian said, “There’s more people on the second level, I hear their footsteps. I wonder if they’re travelers who are also here staying the night.”
If they were, then they must be rescued. The two sat across from each other and put their faces together, talking in whispers for a long while when the attendants finally brought their dishes. “Coming!”
Xie Lian was about to speak but caught a slight movement from the outside. He immediately rose to his feet, “We’re going to go rest in our rooms, can I trouble you to bring our food upstairs?”
“No problem, no problem!”
Xie Lian held Hua Cheng’s hand and lifted his skirt with his other hand with practiced ease and they went upstairs. He looked back, “Oh, by the way, if anyone asks about us, please tell them you’ve never seen us.”
“No problem, no problem!”
Xie Lian hurried up the stairs. It wasn’t long before the brash sound of someone knocking the doors came and a gruff voice called, “Open up, open up!”
The attendants opened the door with smiles on their faces. The crowd who poured in was Heaven’s Eye and that mob of relentless monks and cultivators!
Xie Lian and Hua Cheng had already entered their room on the second level by then.
As they shut the doors behind them, they could hear people who had just entered the inn yelling “TOILET TOILET TOILET!” and running for the stalls while others demanded, “BOSS! DO YOU GOT WATER?!”
Seeing so many people come in all at the same time, the attendants were overjoyed, “There is, there is, please wait, it’s coming!”
“Sigh, I’m so stuffed!” Heaven’s Eye complained, “Unbelievable. That whatchamacallit ‘Incorruptible Chastity Pellets’ really is some tenacious poison. I’ve only drunken some twenty cups, how long will it take before I reach eighty-one?”
“…”
Xie Lian hadn’t imagined that those monks and cultivators were actually so honest. He told them to drink eighty-one cups of water and so they really planned on drinking exactly eighty-one cups of water. One of the monks replied, “Amitabha Buddha. This monk has already drunken twenty-five cups of water, and I have to say, it’s been very effective as an antidote. This monk is feeling much better already.”
Hearing this, Xie Lian didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and he fumbled around looking to see if there might be any cracks he could peek through. He saw Hua Cheng half crouched on the ground by the side calling him, “Gege, look over here.”
Xie Lian crouched down too and looked to where he was pointing on the ground but there wasn’t anything wrong with it. “What’s over here?”
Suddenly, Hua Cheng poked, and a small hole instantly appeared on the solid floor, a thin ray of light coming through. “Here. Now we can see.”
“…”
Xie Lian leaned down and peeked down through that hole. The mob was gathered at a long table in the middle of the lobby, and Heaven’s Eye slapped the table, “HMPH! We were too careless this time. Next time if we see that evil cultivator, we won’t give him any chance to take advantage of us! We must take down Hua, Hua, Hua Chengzhu, and eradicate evil in the name of heaven!”
Xie Lian whispered, “San Lang, just how have you offended them?”
Hua Cheng didn’t answer, but someone had already asked for Xie Lian, “That’s right, I never asked, but how come you’re all here to catch that ghost king? What’s the story?”
Thus, the mob began a meeting to exchange condemnation.
“Just talking about it brings anger to my heart! Twenty years ago, there was a village where a pig monster went mad, and overthrew the master’s house. The house collapsed, the whole family’s dead. That pig fled to the Ghost City. I’d only just entered the trade at the time so I went after it, but was beaten to a pulp by a bunch of ghosts and had no choice but to escape. What humiliation! He also sent a lackey to tell me that there was no reason why you can eat a whole family of pigs but a pig can’t slaughter a whole family in revenge. If the pig didn’t seek revenge then it’s your lucky day, if it did then you deserved it. Now tell me, what is that rotten logic!”
“What a coincidence! Our sect experienced something similar, but it was over a rooster spirit!”
“Our story’s simple. Because the god we worshipped in our sect was one of the one’s he listed for that challenge, so no matter how many temples we build he’d burn them down. What an outrage! Absolutely unreasonable!”
“Me too, me too. You all know of my shixiong, right? Talented with infinite future! He only had one small vice: he loved playing women. Decades ago, a little prostitute ghost seduced my shixiong and sucked him dry into a human jerky, and that Hua, Hua, Hua, that ghost king dared shelter her.”
The criticisms were flaming down below, but above them, Hua Cheng looked bored, not even bothering to give a taunting smirk. Heaven’s Eye said, “I think I’ve heard of your shixiong before. Wasn’t he that guy who under the pretense of conducting rituals and ceremonies would confound and force himself on married women? The one who was locked up for three months?”
“Ahem ahem ahem!”
It just so happened that at that moment the attendants brought their food over, and crowd hurriedly diverted attention, “Food’s here, food’s here, come come come, let’s say no more, Heaven’s Eye-xiong, let’s eat.”
Xie Lian straightened up, glanced at the dishes the inn attendants brought over, and Hua Cheng said, “No need to keep looking, they’ll keel over the moment they eat that stuff.”
Xie Lian said in a low voice, “This is going to be troublesome.”
Although that mob of monks and cultivators were relentless and extremely annoying, still they couldn’t just let them croak in this peculiar, shady establishment. Yet it wasn’t a good idea to raise alarm either. Just then, Heaven’s Eye spoke up, “Stop!”
He stared at those dishes and blocked the others, his eyes sharp and flashing. Xie Lian praised mentally, ‘He does have some skill!”
The others wondered, “Heaven’s Eye-xiong, what’s wrong?”
Heaven’s Eye reached out with one finger and wiped around the edges of a plate, then he raised that finger high in the air, yelling in rage, “SO MUCH GREASE FROM JUST ONE WIPE OF A FINGER! The plates aren’t washed clean, what kind of business are you guys running around here?!”
“…”
Xie Lian had thought he noticed something off, but he hadn’t imagined it was a different kind of off. Although he was a little speechless, but the results were all the same. The moment Heaven’s Eye complained, the others began to gripe too, “My gosh, it’s true! What is this, it’s all sticky like spit… wait! THERE’S HAIR IN THIS DISH!”
Someone reached out with their chopsticks to stir around, and sure enough a few strands of black hair were stirred out, “HOLY SHIT WHAT’S GOING ON WITH YOUR KITCHEN? WHO THE HELL’S IN THE BACK?”
The attendants rubbed their hands and smiled, “Um… we recently butchered a few pigs, so those are probably pig hairs!”
Yet, when the chopsticks picked at those hairs, the more they pulled the longer the hairs became, longer and longer, “WHAT KIND OF PIGS HAVE HAIRS THIS LONG? IS YOUR BOSS LADY WASHING HER HAIR IN THE KITCHEN?!”
“Take this all away and redo them!”
“Yessir yessir!” The attendants hurriedly acquiesced, “We’ll redo everything, immediately! My Lords please drink water, drink water.”
‘Drinking water won’t be good either,’ Xie Lian thought, ‘There must be something in the water too!’
Before the attendants walked away, when water had just about reached the lips of the mob, Heaven’s Eye called out again, “Get back here!”
The attendant returned, smiling apologetically, “Does My Lord daozhang need anything else?”
“Let me ask you, have you seen a very bizarre woman with a small child come by?” Heaven’s Eye asked.
So he did inquire after all. ‘Thank goodness I’ve instructed for them not to tell him.’ Xie Lian thought. Yet who knew, just as he was thinking this, that attendant responded without pause, “Oh, I have!”
Xie Lian: “???”
The mob was shocked, and they put down their waters, lowering their voice, “Where are they?”
That attendant also lowered his voice, “Upstairs!”
The mob were instantly on high alert, their gazes whipping upwards. Xie Lian swiftly blocked that hole Hua Cheng poked out with his finger. A moment later, there were creeping sounds of a group of people who were coming upstairs. Xie Lian skulked to the door, listening to the footsteps, and it seemed that attendant had lead that mob up, sneaking towards them. His left arm held Hua Cheng, his sword clutched in his right hand, Ruoye next to his person shielding them, all weapons at the ready, he was tense and on guard. However, those footsteps passed right by their door and continued deep into the long hallway. Puzzled, Xie Lian pressed against the door and looked out through the cracks. That mob passed by this room and was surrounding the entrance to another room.
Inside that room seemed to be a person; faint light filtered through the papered windows and reflected the silhouette of a woman sitting by the tableside.
———
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