Twenty-four Backyard Underground
Lu Yinche was lost in thought when he suddenly paused and heard a cat's meow.
He looked in the direction of the sound, and Xie Juncun walked to the window and sent them away.
The cat meowed again.
The "Drunken Life, Dreaming Death Pavilion" the madam had brought them was, if nothing else, incredibly expensive, though thankfully the Cheng Xiao Sect could still afford it. On the way here, they'd been in this house, crossing a bridge and climbing a ladder, and finally going around to the corner building, which was indeed much quieter.
The window faces the wall, and from a side angle you can see the backyard. There are several low houses with closed doors and windows. It seems that this is where the "girls" and "gentlemen" rest.
The horizontal eaves of the main building were tied with a decorative red silk, made of unknown material. A cat that didn't look very smart got its claws stuck in it and couldn't get free no matter what it did.
Just as Xie Juncun was about to move, Lu Yinche came over and warned him in a low voice, "Someone's here."
A girl, about thirteen or fourteen, with an awkward bun and a slightly dirty face, stood in the yard. She hadn't noticed yet that the guest in the room above had spotted her and was whispering, "Cat, cat! Come back!"
There's something wrong with this kid.
Only then did Lu Yinche see the cat's true form, a ginger-yellow striped cat with an ordinary appearance and a round head. So it was called a cat?
He loosened his grip and released a thin stream of sword energy, easily cutting through the silk that trapped the kitten. The little creature, now free, didn't even think about who had saved it. With a meow, it rushed down and jumped into the girl's arms.
The girl saw the two men by the window. She widened her eyes, which were very obvious on her fleshless face. She bowed hastily and turned around and ran away.
Maybe someone doesn't allow them to entertain guests as they please.
Lu Yinche's mind moved, and without time to explain, he released his spiritual sense and followed.
Xie Juncun felt something was wrong and frowned: "Senior..."
Lu Yinche waved his hand and looked in the direction of the girl. She ran into the bungalow in the backyard with the cat in her arms. The shabby doors and windows were closed, and she could hear suppressed coughs and whispers from inside with her spiritual sense.
"Are you going to class?" a female voice asked.
What class? This isn't a college.
The tired voice replied, "I've started to break out in the rash again and can't go to class. Do you have any more medicine? Give me some. Am I going to die?"
“It’s better to die…”
He wanted to use his spiritual sense to enter the house again, but suddenly he felt a twitch, as if he was pushed by something thorny.
The pain sense of the mind is ten times more acute than that of the physical body. Lu Yinche's pain was incomplete, just like using the pink tender flesh on the wound to touch a branding iron. He instinctively retracted his pain, and even became a little unsteady on his feet.
Fortunately, Xie Juncun was right beside him and helped him up, so he didn't fall to the ground.
Lu Yinche refused to be supported and sat on the stool. He realized that in just a short while, his hand holding the cup was shaking and he almost drank the water on himself.
I have to apologize to Mother Wei and beg him to save me.
There was no way Lu Yinche would allow the younger generation to feed him water.
After a pause, he said, "That little girl doesn't have a soul, yet she looks like a living person. There's something wrong with the bungalow in the yard. It must have been locked with a soul-locking stone, so spiritual consciousness can't enter."
Xie Juncun had a worried look on his face.
Lu Yinche saw this and still wanted to joke with him: "Have I ever told you that I don't know why you look a bit like Yan Yanshu. But with this expression, you don't look like him anymore."
Xie Juncun just stared at him.
Lu Yinche thought about it and felt like he had seen these words somewhere before.
It's a bit embarrassing.
Fortunately, there was something important to attend to. Lu Yinche said, "It's easier to deal with someone with a departed soul up there, but I'm afraid it would cause chaos if someone died easily. It's a mess down here, so why are they still keeping a little girl like this? Do you think she's a medicine man?"
He added, "There's a strange smell near the house, it's so sweet that it makes me want to vomit when my spiritual consciousness touches my body."
When the words were on the tip of his tongue, Lu Yinche remembered something. He stood up and reached into Xie Juncun's arms.
The latter's body tensed up instantly, as if facing a formidable enemy. He was stunned for a few breaths before realizing that he was looking for the porcelain bottle that contained the elixir. He still held his breath and dared not move his limbs at all, as if he was being tortured.
Lu Yinche smiled: "Why are you so nervous? Are you afraid that I will rape you?"
After saying this, he recalled the previous moment, and the unyielding Naruto Sword Master decided to immediately make up for it. He simply patted him on the chest twice with his backhand and made a serious comment.
"As expected of a sword cultivator, you have a nice figure. Are you also taking the path of hard training? You always pour ice water on your head—oh, I forgot, that's a physical cultivator. When it comes to physique, you have to look at theirs. They're really strong."
He didn't see the change in Xie Juncun's expression.
Touching the porcelain bottle, Lu Yinche poured out a pill. The pill was dark black, and it was a golden pill. It must be a stone!
This is not good. It is recommended to eat more vegetables.
Lu Yinche shook his head.
Rub it with your hands, the aroma of malt sugar floats in the air, and when you smell it close to your nose, it has that sweet smell!
Lu Yinche handed it to Xie Juncun: "Would you like to smell it?"
He didn't react to the obvious smell and just shook his head.
"It seems they can't make any money from you." Lu Yinche sighed and glanced at the closed door. "Let's go to the back and take a look. However, we have been in here for so long, if we leave too cleanly, it might arouse suspicion. After all, in the eyes of others, we are..."
He paused, the last word rolling on his tongue, he was too embarrassed to say it directly, "That kind of relationship."
"That kind of relationship." Xie Juncun repeated calmly, but his tone was completely different, with another flavor.
Lu Yinche regained his composure: "Yes! So, we have to leave some traces."
This isn't something a child should be doing. He's at least five hundred years older than Xie Juncun, and he's still a child, so he should just take on some responsibilities.
With a swipe of his luck, he messed up the bed, poured half a pot of tea onto the bed, and knocked a few fruits off the fruit plate on the table.
Seeing that he had an idea, Xie Juncun did not interfere, but his eyes were full of interest, which made Lu Yinche's movements become more and more stiff.
This kid, why is he so serious as if he is in school? What is there to learn?
"Alright, alright!" Lu Yinche finished quickly and withdrew.
"Is that all right?" Xie Juncun glanced at the chaos in the room and pointed out bluntly, "You might have misunderstood something. This can only be called a fight. Not a fight in bed."
Lu Yinche was dissatisfied with his sarcasm: "You sword cultivators are very quiet, don't you know that? Besides, what do you mean by fighting on the bed? Are we really going to the extent of fighting on the bed?"
The hermit has his own clever plan.
He took a deep breath, tried to get into the role, and suddenly opened the door. There were one or two people in the corridor looking over here. He didn't know if they were guests, and Lu Yinche didn't care.
Anger instantly settled on his face, and his voice rose: "Humph! You're so tall for nothing! You can't even use your height, and you're trying to imitate someone else and take them to a brothel. What a spoiler!"
He deliberately emphasized the word "spoil the fun" and rushed out with a flick of his sleeves.
Xie Juncun choked, but reacted quickly, following immediately with urgent steps and a voice neither too loud nor too low, just enough for any nearby ears to hear: "Stay! Let me explain!"
The two of them, one in front and one behind, chased each other and ran through the corridor in a panic. Before anyone stopped them, they took advantage of the corner to throw out two vivid paper figures, ran out of the door, and walked to the backyard to avoid people.
While Lu Yinche was practicing the spell, he complained, "Why did you forget the Invisibility Technique just now? Doesn't your sect teach this?"
Xie Juncun also looked a little embarrassed.
Lu Yinche was a kindhearted man: "I forgot, sorry, you are all sword cultivators, you will chop down any injustice you see."
The backyard was even more messy, and the air was filled with a mixture of cheap powder, sweat and fatigue.
They approached the bungalow and took advantage of the moment when someone opened the door and came out to slip in.
There was a strong fragrance in the room, suppressed by a foul smell. There were many bunk beds on the floor. This is what happens in a place with too many people and no ventilation.
This may not be the place where those goods are welcome to live.
Lu Yinche immediately spotted the little girl holding the cat. She was sitting by the door, staring at the bowl of porridge, which was so thick that it was almost reflective of her, her fingers tightly gripping the rough edge of the bowl. He didn't know where the cat had gone.
Next to her was a woman who was nervously grabbing her hair and muttering to herself. Her face was haggard and she looked like she had gone mad.
Lu Yinche wanted to test whether her soul was normal, but Xie Juncun grabbed his hand and said with a prophetic look: "No."
This has the Soul Locking Stone. That's definitely not possible.
The girl was still holding her bowl of porridge, looking dazed, not knowing what she was thinking. Suddenly, she stood up, picked up the bowl and walked to the innermost corner of the room.
There was a rusty handle hidden there. Before Lu Yinche noticed it, he saw her effortlessly pull open a secret door on the ground. Judging from its thickness and the sound of the hinges, it was not light.
Even more worrying was the sudden, indescribable, sickening odor that washed over him: the stench of rotting flesh. Someone had cut a piece of rotten meat, mixed it with star anise, cinnamon, and a lethal dose of maltose.
Lu Yinche felt as if someone had punched him hard on the nose.
The girl, carrying the bowl, walked steadily into the cellar. Lu Yinche and the other man followed her, descending the steep and slippery dirt steps.
Soon, I felt a strange sensation under my feet. It was no longer soil, but a kind of rough red sand with a strange sticky feeling.
The porridge in the bowl of the girl in front of me swayed with her slightly trembling hands, but miraculously not a drop spilled.
The dimmer the light, the stronger the smell.
Lu Yinche soon discovered that if those people living in the dormitory upstairs looked more like a forgotten garbage dump than the glamorous celebrities in the front building, but compared to those things living in the cellar, they could at least be considered human beings.
Here below is another form of prison.
With the help of a few scattered lights on the wall, you can see huge, black barrel-shaped containers, like upright coffins, half buried in the red sand.
In each barrel, a twisted, indescribable thing was soaked, its mouth open and howling silently. Some were humanoid, wriggling and making noises; others were like dead objects, revealing half-melted bones.
Lu Yinche took a quick look and saw about seventeen or eighteen buckets, arranged in no particular pattern. The girl wasn't afraid of them; at least she didn't seem to be stopping, walking forward without stopping, even getting faster and faster.
A few steps led to the deep end of the cellar, which was more spacious. Many barrels were empty, but the walls of the barrels were still covered with black mucus, and the stench was still as strong as ever.
Lu Yinche tugged at Xie Juncun's sleeve and followed the girl into an even narrower passage at the end of the cellar. The red sand under his feet finally became less, revealing the cold bluestone tiles.
The iron fence appeared before my eyes, glowing coldly in the dim light.
The girl walked straight to the deepest cell: "Are you... awake?"
There also stood a huge black barrel, but in the single room there was also a bed covered with thin straw, on which lay a motionless figure.
Lu Yinche stopped and saw someone there.
He was a cultivator, presumably at the level of a perfected Nascent Soul. If Xie Juncun had performed the Invisibility Technique, he would have been discovered long ago. Why would someone who looked so impressive in public stay in a place like this?
Being a guard? What a unique hobby.
The Yuanying cultivator only saw the girl serving the porridge, glanced at her, and let her stuff the bowl of porridge through the gap in the cold iron fence and gently place it on the ground near the straw bed.
He did say, "She's going to die."
The girl said nothing. She seemed to have lost her reaction.
The monk added, "Not everyone is as lucky as you. Even those from wealthy families are useless and can't make it. No matter how much you give her, it will be in vain."
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