Simple folk customs
The two were completely oblivious to the fear of the demons around them and continued to stroll around the snack stand.
Xu Shulou looked at a stall with two wooden barrels and asked, "What kind of food is sold here?"
The vendor looked at her and said, "Salty and sweet tofu pudding."
Is this normal? Xu Shulou and his junior sister looked at each other and were cautious: "What are the toppings?"
"The sweet ones are blood dumplings, the salty ones are bile brains."
"...Aren't you fishy and bitter?"
"Who knows? Anyway, that's what people call it in the mortal world," the vendor shrugged. "You don't understand. They have a story behind it."
"What allusion?"
"I heard that every year during the Dragon Boat Festival, ordinary people will randomly select a child, drink their bile and eat their brains. They even wrote a poem about it called 'Whose son and daughter are celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival?'" the vendor sighed. "They are so cruel. At least we use pig brains here."
“…”
"And the blood-brewed dumplings. I heard that every year on the Qixi Festival, mortals offer sacrifices to their ancestors with blood."
"What? Qixi Festival?" Every word in this sentence seems to have nothing to do with each other. Even if you say it is Qingming Festival... Bai Roushuang didn't dare to say more, for fear that the vendor would say "There was a poem that said, during the Qingming Festival, there was blood rain and all the pedestrians on the road were heartbroken."
The vendor shook his head sadly, as if he couldn't bear to talk about those bloody things any more: "Would you like something sweet or salty?"
Bai Roushuang said with difficulty: "We are not hungry yet, let's go shopping."
She struggled to find an excuse, fearing that they would be found out that they were not local demons. The people around her were trembling with fear, fearing that the compatriot at the stall who was still unaware of the situation would not be convinced by this excuse.
On the street, a demon passed by with a giant octopus. Perhaps the octopus felt the stagnant atmosphere nearby, and suddenly sneezed as it passed by. Xu Shulou, who was standing by the road, was the first to be hit, and was splashed with ink spots all over his body.
The octopus looked at her, shyly stretched out one paw to cover its face, as if to express apology. Xu Shulou could see some cuteness in its twisting body, and did not intend to argue with it. However, the owner of the octopus looked at her carefully, trembling slightly, and took out his wallet and said, "Girl, here are 100 magic coins. Go to the clothing store at the corner of the street to change clothes."
"No..." Xu Shulou wanted to say that there was no need to do so, as she had plenty of clothes anyway.
The octopus master misunderstood her meaning: "Not enough? Then... five hundred is OK?"
Xu Shulou looked at the five fingers he carefully stretched out, as if eagerly expecting him to accept the magic coins, so he hesitated and said, "One hundred is enough."
The man immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
Bai Roushuang couldn't help but sigh in a low voice: "I was once splashed with mud by a passing carriage in the mortal world, and they refused to compensate me for my clothes. I didn't expect the customs of the people in the demon world to be so simple and honest."
Xu Shulou also agreed: "That's quite polite."
She didn't know that she had accidentally become the most arrogant undercover agent in history. It was not until they saw their backs going away that the people on the street returned to normal.
A demon who was standing next to Xu Shulou and witnessed the whole process stepped forward and said, "I was standing next to her just now, and was also splashed by your octopus. You can compensate her with 500, right... Wait, you... Ah!"
The octopus master rubbed his hands and looked at the man, smiling sinisterly: "Are you looking for a fight? You dare to blackmail me? Your last name is Xu Shulou too?"
Xu Shulou and the other man were unaware of what was happening behind them and continued to wander the street, preparing to find an inn to wash off the ink stains and freshen up before going out, just in time to experience the unique charm of the Demon World inn.
Occasionally, when passing through a wilderness, you can see dozens of giant birds with strange appearances standing under the dim sky, and many demons are standing under the giant birds to squeeze the pus off their bodies.
"This is probably equivalent to the hard-working farmers in the mortal world." Bai Roushuang tried her best not to think about what the squeezed pus would be used for, whether to eat, drink or use it for bathing.
The two of them quickly found an inn. Bai Roushuang looked around with lingering fear, but felt relieved when she found that the inn did not look unusual from the outside.
She stood at the door and just as she looked away, she saw the senior sister who had paid the gold being swallowed by a huge translucent milk cake-like thing. She pointed at the thing with a trembling hand and asked, "What is that?"
"The room in the store," the shop owner asked in confusion, "is the most expensive No. 1 room. Don't you like it, girl?"
“……”It’s not a question of like or not.
Not long after, before Bai Roushuang could figure out what was going on, Xu Shulou had already poked his head out from the thing's belly: "It's safe, come in."
Bai Roushuang moved closer with her eyes closed, and was soon swallowed by the translucent thing.
As soon as she entered, she felt like she was wrapped in a cloud, soft and elastic, making her want to sink into it and rest in peace. Bai Roushuang sighed comfortably, after all, in terms of the meaning of the word "comfortable", the demon world was not too far away from the cultivation world.
She found herself unable to move forward, so she turned to look at her senior sister and discovered that Xu Shulou was crawling forward in a swimming posture.
“…”
Xu Shulou turned around and smiled at her: "Obviously this place can only be used for sleeping, so choose a posture you like and rest."
Bai Roushuang imagined the scene. Two people were floating in a translucent sphere, facing each other and sleeping with their eyes closed. Passersby outside could see this slightly scary scene...
She thought for a moment, then lay down with her hands folded, looking very peaceful.
After resting for a while, the two set out to look for a clothing store in the demon world. Although there was no shortage of clothes, they couldn't help but feel a little curious since they had heard about it.
Having just experienced the baptism of large intestine theater and bile brain flower, Bai Roushuang was very worried: "Their clothes are not made of mouse skin or earthworm skin, right?"
"That shouldn't be the case," Xu Shulou thought, "How many earthworms would that waste?"
"…What if there are giant earthworms like that in the demon world?"
"Then I'd like to see it for myself."
The two quickly found the store at the corner of the street, thus ending this somewhat childish conversation.
Looking at the four big characters "One-Eyed Clothing" on the plaque, Bai Roushuang complained in her heart, the name "large intestine" was taken from the "sorrowful intestine" in the human world, so could this "one-eyed" come from "tearful eyes"?
When I entered the store, I found that the owner was a one-eyed demon, and then I understood the meaning. In this way, the name of the store seemed surprisingly normal.
The one-eyed boss didn't have a damaged eye. He just had an eye on his forehead that was about half the size of his face, making his small cherry lips and beautiful nose look particularly disproportionate to it.
The two began to choose clothes. Bai Roushuang noticed that the material of a piece of clothing was very special. She raised her hand to touch it but was startled by the sudden movement of the clothing: "Is this clothing alive?"
The one-eyed boss looked at her and said, "Yes, it's easy to put on and take off. When you get up, just shout 'put on' to it, and it will automatically put on. If you shout 'take off' again, it will automatically take off and fold itself up. If you shout 'wash', it will jump into the basin and give itself a bath. It's very worry-free. Do you want one?"
Bai Roushuang fell into a contradictory state of being both excited and frightened. She struggled for a long time, but ultimately could not overcome the weird feeling of wearing a living creature on her body, and walked away from the dress regretfully.
Seeing that she didn't know the value of the clothes, the man actually spat at her.
Bai Roushuang: “…”
The boss pointed at her as if he had expected it: "There's a clean towel hanging next to it, please wipe it."
“…”
Bai Roushuang resisted the urge to spit back, wiped her saliva, continued to walk around the store, and felt the texture of the clothes with her fingertips. Inadvertently, she touched something soft and slightly dry, just like touching some kind of skin. She looked down and was immediately frightened. It was a pair of lips. If it was on a woman's face, it would be described as a cherry mouth or lips like red clouds, but it happened to be on a piece of clothing.
"Are the clothes made of human skin?" Bai Roushuang spoke incoherently.
The boss looked at her with disdain: "Where did you get the human skin? Can you tell me where to get it? It's just made into a lip shape and then sewn on."
"Why is there a lip sewn on your clothes?!"
"To talk to you," the one-eyed boss explained as a matter of course, "It's boring to be alone on weekdays, so I chat with clothes."
“…”
Xu Shulou asked with great interest: "What will it say?"
"It can speak a lot. I even taught it to recite the Three Character Classic," the boss said sadly. "It can swear well now. I feel a little reluctant to let it go."
The clothes acted out a show at the right moment: "Bitch! Old fool! Filthy bastard!"
Bai Roushuang felt that one of the boss and the clothes dealer must have some misunderstanding about the Three Character Classic of the human world.
A gentleman does not take away what others like. Seeing that the boss was reluctant to let go, Xu Shulou did not continue to ask the price.
Bai Roushuang pulled her senior sister aside and said, "This thing is too scary."
"Is it scary?" Xu Shulou thought for a moment, "It's actually about the same as raising a parrot, right?"
"...If you want to talk, I'll accompany you anytime, anywhere," Bai Roushuang was about to cry, "Please don't bring this thing back to the cultivation world, okay?"
Xu Shulou was already notorious in the cultivation world on his own, and she could already imagine how ridiculous her sister's reputation would become if she went out wearing an outfit that automatically humiliated people.
Xu Shulou smiled and shook his head: "I didn't say I wanted to buy it."
She turned around and picked out a black skirt. There was thick black mist lingering at the hem of the skirt, and there was also a black mist covering her face without blocking her vision. It was very suitable for going out to commit crimes in the dark and windy night. It also came with a set of black detachable long nails, which seemed to be very consistent with her image of a demon in the world of cultivation. If she wore it outside, she might really scare a few children to tears.
When Xu Shulou saw it, he remembered that he still needed a nightgown, so he asked the boss, "How many magic coins?"
The one-eyed boss had already seen that they knew nothing, and he looked at her with ill intent. Just as he was about to ask for a sky-high price, a waiter suddenly rushed in from the door and said something in his ear in a panic.
When the boss looked at Xu Shulou again, his expression had changed: "How much... do you want to give?"
Xu Shulou's eyes sharpened, and it was obvious that he had misunderstood something: "Why do you ask? Are you a robber?"
"No, no, no, we don't charge money here."
"Why?" Bai Roushuang was puzzled. If it was the custom of the demon world... that didn't seem like it. The man before said that he would give the senior sister 100 demon coins to buy clothes, which showed that payment was still required here on weekdays.
"The girl doesn't look like... a local demon. This is a manifestation of our hospitality. We have preferential treatment for outsiders, yes, demons from other places." For some reason, the boss's sentences were not very fluent.
"Thank you very much, but we are not demons from other places. Please accept these one hundred demon coins." Xu Shulou was an honest cultivator and refused to take advantage of him.
"Okay, okay." The boss's one eye rolled wildly in his eye socket.
Xu Shulou paid the magic coins, carried the clothes and walked out the door, he couldn't help but sighed: "It seems that the cultivation world has many misunderstandings about the demons."
"Yes, it's really unexpected," Bai Roushuang agreed. "Although they look scary, they are quite harmonious and friendly. They even know how to give way to the foreign demons."
"It's a pleasant stay here," Xu Shulou commented. "I'll come here to travel when I have time."
The demon who was walking cautiously nearby almost cried out in grievance when he heard this. Why? What on earth did you like about our demon world?
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