It was already midnight when she knocked on the door of the last inn in Yueyuan Town. The innkeeper who opened the door was holding a hand warmer, his eyes narrowed, not even looking at the person in front of him. Before Xiao Nan could reply, he said, "I'm sorry, young man, our inn is full. You'll have to find a table inside for the night. You'll have to find another place to stay."
He shrank back after saying that. Shrike quickly stepped forward and blocked the door with his foot. He rolled his eyes and saw the last key hanging on the broken wooden shelf inside the house. He lowered his voice and said, "Brother, isn't there an empty room? I saw it all."
The shopkeeper waved his hand: "No, no, you are seeing things."
"It's freezing cold, please help me, brother."
The shrike's footing was as steady as a rock. The shopkeeper couldn't close the door and said angrily, "I told you we were full, why are you still fussing? Are you taking advantage of my small shop? I'm telling you, that room has already been reserved by a distinguished guest named Zhong. He paid me a year's salary for it. How can I just turn around and give it to someone else?"
Xiao Nanhui and Shrike exchanged a glance, both well aware of the ruse, so they put on a sincere expression: "The shopkeeper is truly an honest man. It's so late now, and Mr. Zhong probably won't come. We'll just stay for one night. We won't cause any trouble for the shopkeeper."
The shopkeeper was indeed embarrassed and stretched out his five short, fat fingers.
"Fifty taels."
She smiled painfully: "Deal."
After pocketing the five cute round gold ingots, the shopkeeper's narrowed eyes seemed to open a lot: "The stable is across the street. We are not responsible for any theft caused by mistake."
Xiao Nanhui was too lazy to pay attention to him. He signaled Shrike to go into the house first to see the situation, and then he took Jixiang and Huaqiu and walked towards the stable.
The stable was very simple. There was only some stale grass left in the trough, and not even the residue of beans and oats. Jixiang dug the ground twice in dissatisfaction. She took out some dried mushrooms prepared early in the morning and mixed them into the grass, and it was barely calmed down.
The rain was getting heavier, so she turned around and walked quickly back to the inn.
The inn was truly pitifully small, looking little better than the auspicious stables. Entering, there were only five or six shabby tables, all packed with people. Some had paid for drinks and simply wanted a place to rest, so they sat on the floor. Shrike was huddled in a corner, shouting at her, "Hey, over here!"
She carefully squeezed through in her straw raincoat, and she didn't know how the shrike had snatched the seat and even spared her a broken wooden stool. As soon as she sat down, the shrike pulled her so that her buttocks completely covered the stool.
"Sit tight, be careful someone might snatch it away."
Xiao Nanhui was a little amused and asked for two bowls of hot noodle soup. He ate while observing the people in the room.
Three or four steps to her left was a businessman with his family. The six of them occupied a large area. The way he and his wife dressed suggested a well-off family. However, the children were all half-grown girls. Although they sat properly, they still had to endure their father's whispered scolding from time to time. It seemed that this was a family that had been unable to find a son. They ordered a lot of luxurious food. When the man saw that the soup on the table was almost finished, he kept looking down at the account book, leaving his wife and daughter afraid to eat any more.
Many of the casual patrons sitting in the corner were also observing the restaurant, but most were focused solely on the delicious food on the table. Only one person's gaze shifted discreetly to the head of the household, slung around his waist and the bulging bag beside him. He was a middle-aged man wearing a forehead band. While he carried no obvious weapons, his hands, with their protruding knuckles, showed he was a martial artist. He seemed to have traveled a long way in the rain; his coarse cloth clothes were soaked, dripping water pooling on the floor and spreading under a nearby table. Beneath the table, a pair of white-booted feet shuffled aside with a hint of disdain.
The owner of the boots was a young man dressed in white. He was quite handsome, but his face seemed to be too powdered, making it frighteningly pale. He held a porcelain cup with his little finger raised in one hand and sipped wine. It was obviously a fine porcelain cup he had brought with him, and it looked much more exquisite than the ones in the shop. On either side of him sat two young women. Although not as stunning as the women in Wangchen Tower, they were also charming and pretty. They looked at him with seductive eyes and giggled softly from time to time, as if they had heard something interesting from the young man.
After two rounds of drinks, the two women's laughter grew increasingly exaggerated, practically falling over. The scent of cosmetics wafted to the next table, but the three burly men at that table remained unfazed, their eyes fixed on the women's noses and their hearts focused on their hearts. Even the brush of a woman's skirt against her back remained unmoved. A closer look revealed that while the three men were dressed differently, the weapons on the table were all small, horizontal swords with halberds. They exuded a sense of officialdom, yet it was unclear why they were hiding their identities to stay here.
Xiao Nanhui lowered his eyes and ate the entire bowl of noodles and soup before it got cold. Shrike was obviously used to Dujuan's cooking skills and was a bit pretentious to leave some food for later.
She had hurried out this time and didn't bring much money with her. She had just been ripped off by the black-hearted shopkeeper and had no money left to improve her meals. When she was about to persuade him to eat more, the broken wooden door of the inn was pushed open again.
A gust of cold wind wrapped in rain blew into the house, and the person at the door complained a little, but the person who entered the house did not say a word of apology.
The man in front of her was wearing a sky-blue gown and had a square face that made people forget it at first sight. She had already turned her gaze away, but her peripheral vision caught sight of the scabbard he was wearing and stopped abruptly.
This knife looks somewhat familiar.
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