Chapter 46 The Job "You must be very hungry. Do you want some food?"...
Xiao Jiang paused, turning his back to the black-armored soldiers.
The black-armored soldier wanted to grab her, but then seemed to find her dirty and simply poked her back with his scabbard.
"Don't you know refugees aren't allowed into the city? Get out!" The black-armored soldier raised his chin, pointed to the city gate, and gestured for her to leave immediately.
Xiao Jiang gritted his teeth and waited a long time before lifting his foot.
The black-armored soldier's blow landed squarely on the wound on her back, reopening the wound that was still healing, causing her to be in so much pain that she couldn't speak for a moment.
"I won't punish you this time, but if you dare to come in again, you'll be in for a beating."
The black-armored soldier, however, thought the beggar was too slow and kicked him, almost hitting him.
Fortunately, the beggar was sensible this time and ran away before his leg could even kick him.
Standing by the outer city wall, Xiao Jiang watched the black-armored soldier from afar through a city gate opening. One of his hands was digging into the cracks in the city bricks, and she pressed down on her trembling hand.
His armor, his weapons, even his demeanor... were exactly the same as the soldiers who stormed into Liyue Village that day.
She almost couldn't control the urge to knock him to the ground, but she couldn't; she was just an ordinary person suffering from hunger and cold.
Outside the city were refugees like her, driven out of the city, huddled in twos and threes in makeshift shacks against the walls. Most of them were emaciated, ragged, and stared blankly at everyone who passed by.
Xiao Jiang was so hungry she was dizzy. She squatted down against a wall, sheltered from the wind, and wrapped her cloak tightly around herself. The weather was getting colder and colder, and her clothes were becoming less and less effective at keeping her warm.
A pair of black canvas shoes came into her view and stopped in front of her.
"You must be very hungry. Do you want some food?"
Xiao Jiang looked up and saw a smiling young man. He leaned closer to her, grinning, "I have some work here, do you want to do it? I guarantee you'll have food and drink."
Xiao Jiang asked him what kind of work he did, and the young man waved his hand, his eyes lazily saying, "If you're willing, just follow me. Don't ask any more questions."
"You'll see when you get there; it's not a difficult job."
"You can give it a try. I can hear your stomach growling. You must be starving. If it's really too much, at least you can have a meal with us before you leave."
"Don't worry, there are lots of people over there. Look, there's a little girl over there who wants to go with us."
Seeing that the little beggar still looked hesitant, the young man continued to offer temptations.
"How about it? Let's go together."
Xiao Jiang looked in the direction he pointed, and there stood a thin, pale girl standing in the corner of the wall not far away. She looked to be only a few years older than her, about the same age as Qingdai.
Unable to bear the hunger, and having no experience traveling far from home and no knowledge of the Dayong people, she simply thought she could go and see since she wasn't alone.
The beggars by the city wall watched indifferently as two more children followed someone away; they were used to it. Even though they knew perfectly well that those who followed this person never returned.
*
The young man led the way, crossing the main road outside the city and walking along several small roads. After many twists and turns, they finally arrived at a secluded manor, where the houses looked quite old.
Inside the house sat a middle-aged man with a very noticeable scar above his eyebrow. He had a fierce appearance but looked rather listless, with droopy eyelids.
The scarred middle-aged man first glanced at the older girl, then looked the dirty young man up and down, clearly not very satisfied with Xiao Jiang.
He yawned and asked the young man with dissatisfaction, "Where did you pick this up from? How come you're so filthy?"
The young man didn't mind, he just raised his chin and forced a smile, "These are the only two for today."
While they were sizing up Xiao Jiang, Xiao Jiang was also sizing up the place.
The house looks very old from the outside, and the interior decorations haven't been repaired in a long time.
The limestone walls are mottled and crumbling, and on the white background, one can still vaguely see patterns of the Four Symbols and immortals painted with various colored pigments, though the colors are now quite faded. Cloud patterns swirl around the statues of the gods, and some immortal herbs and auspicious grains are painted on them, but are no longer recognizable. Below the murals of the Four Symbols, there is a halberd stand, and the bronze halberds on it are covered with a thick layer of dust.
On one wall, one could vaguely see words once written in cinnabar, but the writing had been deliberately crossed out and was no longer legible. However, even if the writing were intact, Xiao Jiang couldn't guarantee that he could recognize it.
It looked like some long-abandoned temple, Xiao Jiang guessed to himself.
A medicine pot was bubbling on a stove beside the middle-aged man, filling the air with the bitter smell of herbs. Behind him was a row of multi-compartment cabinets that reached almost to the ceiling, each one locked, its contents unknown.
"Enough talk, let him eat first," the young man urged.
The middle-aged man with the scar understood, said nothing more, and got up to go to the kitchen.
The young man arranged for Xiao Jiang and the girl to sit at a table. He smiled at them and said, "The food will be here soon. Eat first, so you'll have the energy to work."
Seeing that the two sat down obediently to wait for their meal, the young man stopped paying attention to them and followed them to the kitchen.
A slight tremor came from the table. Xiao Jiang looked over the table and saw that the girl was trembling slightly.
Xiao Jiang reached out a hand and pressed it on hers, saying, "Don't be afraid."
But the girl seemed startled and abruptly pulled her hand away, turning her back to ignore her.
Xiao Jiang then realized that she also regarded him as a man, which was more of a frivolous act than a comfort to her.
Both of them were so hungry they were almost too weak to move. Xiao Jiang explained softly, "I just wanted to comfort you."
The girl turned around, secretly glancing at the little beggar who was even more distressed than herself. She realized that he wouldn't do anything to her and was a kind-hearted person, so she started talking.
"My father wanted to marry me off to an old man, but I didn't want to, so I ran away. Why are you all alone out there?"
"My family has suffered a disaster."
"Then can you still go back?"
"...I have no home."
"I want to go home. Actually, marrying an older man isn't so bad; at least I'd have food to eat. Unfortunately, I've run out of money..."
"..."
"My name is Jinzhi. What's your name?"
"Xiao Jiang".
Two people who shared similar experiences began to pour out their past during the brief wait for their food.
In the kitchen, a similar conversation was taking place, but the content was completely different.
The young man lowered his voice and complained to the middle-aged man, "It's good enough that you brought people here. You know that two tough cultivators have come to town these days. You have to be careful."
The scarred middle-aged man wasn't buying it. "You can't keep doing this, can you? Our regular customers are waiting. The two you brought yesterday weren't much better."
"Oh well, there's nothing we can do about it."
...
After a while, the young man brought out the food: a simple dish of pickled vegetables and two bowls of millet porridge, which he placed in front of the two of them.
These are ordinary people's meals, but to the two of them at this moment, they are simply delicacies.
He didn't leave; he just sat opposite them, watching the two of them with a smile.
"Eat up, aren't you hungry?"
Xiao Jiang took a few bites and felt that the taste was a bit strange, but she couldn't be sure if the people here had different tastes than those in Liyue Village.
Especially when she saw Jinzhi wolfing down her food.
Jinzhi thought that Xiaojiang disliked the tasteless millet porridge, so she thoughtfully left all the pickled vegetables for her.
Xiao Jiang's appetite was affected by the strange taste in the food, and once the burning pain of hunger in his stomach was slightly relieved, he didn't want to eat much.
She suddenly remembered something.
The young man just kept urging them to eat. He watched as the boy opposite him was about to put a piece of pickled vegetable into his mouth, but suddenly stopped.
"By the way, how far is it from here to the Kunlun Mountains?"
"Kunlun?" The young man looked surprised and somewhat puzzled by her question.
The little beggar nodded earnestly.
The young man burst out laughing, a genuine laugh from the bottom of his heart. "You think you can enter Kunlun to become a disciple and cultivate immortality?"
"I don't want to become an apprentice. I just want to know how far it is from Kunlun?" Xiao Jiang repeated.
The young man seemed to have heard something funny and laughed even harder. "You've come to the wrong place if you're going to Kunlun. This is Pinghai County, the southwestern border of Dayong. Kunlun is in the northwest, at least a thousand miles away."
The guy across from me fell silent and stopped eating.
Realizing he had gone too far in mocking her, the young man immediately stopped and continued to urge her to eat.
Xiao Jiang put down his chopsticks.
She originally thought that after the crane's flight overnight, she would be almost at Kunlun Mountain.
Unexpectedly, the crane's claim of traveling a thousand miles a day was not a lie; however, this thousand miles was not a thousand miles to the northwest, but a thousand miles to the southwest.
Yu Ling'er only knew that Kunlun was in the west, but she didn't know that the west was divided into southwest and northwest. She herself was completely ignorant, and knew very little about the world outside of Liyue Village.
But in any case, she will try again on the next full moon night.
In the brief moment that Xiao Jiang was distracted, Jin Zhi had already finished her bowl of porridge. She had been hungry for so long that she was satisfied with just having something to eat and didn't care whether it tasted right or not.
But people tend to get sleepy after eating, and Jinzhi felt sleepy almost immediately after finishing her meal. She vaguely sensed that something was wrong, but it was too late.
"Eat quickly, the porridge is getting cold." The young man urged again after seeing that Jinzhi had finished eating, but Xiaojiang was still not moving, and his face turned ugly.
Xiao Jiang glanced at Jinzhi, whose eyes were half-closed and whose head was swaying as if she was about to fall asleep.
Something's wrong; there really is something wrong with the food.
Xiao Jiang hadn't eaten much, and the medicine hadn't taken effect yet, but if she ran away now, Jinzhi didn't know what kind of danger she would face alone. She pinched her palm with her nails to try and clear her head.
Jinzhi was already slumped over the table.
Seeing this, Xiao Jiang also slowly collapsed.
...
"Brother, isn't this little bit of money a bit too much?" The young man shook the few gold coins in his hand, clearly dissatisfied with the weight of the reward.
"How much of this kind of stuff do you want? If you want more, then work hard to bring me a few top-quality ones. I'll pay you according to quality, understand?" The scarred middle-aged man clicked his tongue and shook his head. "Don't think that just bringing in any guy will feed those guys. The inferior stuff won't even be enough to fill their teeth."
The young man was dissatisfied with his argument and snorted, "What quality? Isn't it all up to you, Manager Wu, to decide? If you say it's inferior, then it's inferior. Who really knows?"
"Heh, don't you believe me? Although I, Old Wu, am not as good as those cultivators, I am not a blind mortal. I have never misjudged someone's spiritual root." The scarred middle-aged man snorted heavily through his nose. "If you don't believe me, come and see for yourself whether I, Old Wu, am lying to you."
The middle-aged man walked up to the cabinet that occupied an entire wall and unlocked several cabinets one by one.
Soon, the cabinet slowly moved away, revealing a gap about half a person's height in the wall.
Xiao Jiang squinted and saw a secret passage revealed behind the gap.
"Come and lend a hand," the middle-aged man called out to the young man.
Xiao Jiang felt herself being lifted onto a wooden board, and then Jin Zhi was lifted up next. She secretly pinched Jin Zhi's arm, but the other woman didn't react at all. Jin Zhi had taken more Chinese medicine and was more resistant to it than Xiao Jiang.
The next moment, the wooden plank beneath them was pulled, and the two wheels rolled into the secret passage with a gurgling sound.
A straight passageway appeared before Xiao Jiang's eyes.
As soon as Xiao Jiang entered the passageway, he felt a chill creep up his spine, carrying a faint smell of blood. There were some candles burning on both sides of the passageway, but the light was dim and could not illuminate very far; the area ahead was still completely dark.
Xiao Jiang felt himself being pulled down, deeper and deeper underground.
The deeper you go, the stronger the stench of blood becomes in the tunnel...
They didn't know how deep they had gone, but the cart carrying her and Jinzhi finally came to a stop.
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