Stranger Danger

“Oh? What naughty schemes are you plotting now?” Feng Qingyou smiled.

“Naughty schemes? Come now. It’s just conventional wisdom.” Ye Qing curled his lips.

“So, what is the plan?” Feng Qingyou asked.

“The entire jianghu are looking for me right now, aren’t they? In that case, let’s put these meatshields to good use.”

“Ah. that would certainly keep them busy for a while.”

Feng Qingyou beamed. “You’re getting better and better at this, Ye Qing.”

“Sigh. What can I do? My strength isn’t enough, so I can only make do with schemes.”

Ye Qing shrugged. “If my strength was sufficient, I wouldn’t bother wasting my brain cells now, would I? I’ll just kill anyone who showed their ugly mugs in front of me.”

“Indeed. That is why power is the only thing that matters in this world,” remarked Feng Qingyou as if trying to hint at something. Before Ye Qing could react though, she added, “We’re done here. Let’s go.”

Ye Qing waved his sleeve, and the yellow soil that was Yue Wanjun scattered into nothing.

……

“Have these people gone insane? Why do they keep chasing us?”

On a deserted island, Yue Songhe and his men were catching a breather. They were all covered in blood and looked sorry to say the least.

“They think we’re the ones who killed Chu Wangsun,” Yue Songhe answered darkly.

“We already told them we’re not! Why don’t they believe us?” One man growled in frustration.

You said it yourself. They’re insane. They won’t listen no matter what you tell them.”

Yue Songhe’s face was ugly to say the least. For the past three days, they had been struck by what must be one of the worst luck of their lives. First, their quarry had tricked them and sicced the North Duke Office on them. Then, rumors claiming that the murderers the North Duke Office were hunting could very well be Chu Wangsun’s murderer and his cohort.

Had their pursuers been anyone else, the jianghu warriors would have laughed and forgotten about it in the next second. The problem was that the one pursuing them was the North Duke Office.

For one, the North Duke Office had fought against Chu Wangsun’s murderers and so was familiar with them. Two, everyone knew that the North Duke Office was busy searching for Chu Wangsun’s murderer right now. It was at this time they plunged head first into their quarry’s trap and accidentally kicked the hornet’s nest that was the North Duke Office. Pissed off that someone had massacred their elites right in their territory, the North Duke Office spared no effort in hunting them down.

Yue Songhe and his men knew that they hadn’t killed Chu Wangsun as a matter of course, but from the perspective of the outsiders, it looked as if the North Duke Office had finally caught up to Chu Wangsun’s murderers and were doing everything in their power to capture them, dead or alive. Although some rumors claimed that the North Duke Office was just pursuing Yue Songhe and his men because they had slain some of their elites, most people believed that it was just a lie concocted by the North Duke Office. The goal was obviously to fool the masses and monopolize the reward for capturing or killing Chu Wangsun’s murderers.

As a result, the news spread like wildfire practically the minute it broke. Soon, the entire jianghu was pursuing Yue Song’s group.

No matter how many times Yue Songhe made their identities clear and argued their innocence, no one listened to them. The crazy bastards just kept coming no matter how many they killed.

Although they were all Trueman, and the large majority of the warriors attacking them were below the Trueman stage, not even the fiercest tiger could withstand a pack of wolves for long. Because of this, a slip of concentration had cost them a companion, and they were all carrying varying degrees of injuries. Even Yue Songhe, a Half-Sage, was exhausted both physically and mentally.

Long story short, it had been a miserable three days.

“It must be him! He must have done this!” One man screamed furiously with bloodshot eyes.

He was talking about Ye Qing, of course. From the beginning, it was clear that a hidden hand was manipulating all the misfortune that had beset them. And who would benefit from their misery? It could only be the man they were searching for; the one who possessed the Earthly Sovereign Bell, of course. 𝐫Ἀ𐌽Ọ𐌱Ę𝓢

“What should we do now, hallmaster?” Someone looked to Yue Songhe for instructions.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“We head back to the Earthly Sovereign Hall!” Yue Songhe answered after a careful deliberation.

“We’re going home? But what about the Earthly Sovereign Bell?” Another man asked hesitatingly.

“Without the Earthly Sovereign Chime, we cannot track down that bastard. Even if we do have the Earthly Sovereign Chime, those pesky little flies are hounding us every hour of the day! So how the fuck are we going to find the Earthly Sovereign bell in this situation? Huh? How?” Yue Songhe snarled at the one who asked the stupid question.

From the moment he sensed Yue Wanjun’s death, he knew that his fellow seeker had been killed by the possessor of the Earthly Sovereign Bell. This meant that they had lost the Earthly Sovereign Chime as well. Without the Earthly Sovereign Chime, it was impossible to lock onto the Earthly Sovereign Bell. He knew then that they had failed their mission. A complete and utter failure.

Yue Songhe’s face looked so terrifying that for a moment, no one dared to say a thing.

“Hah… hah… hah…”

After taking a few deep breaths, and the blood vessels sticking out of his eyeballs slowly subsided, he said, “We’ve lost the Earthly Sovereign Chime, and that man is ready for us. It would have been impossibly difficult for us to find him even if we weren’t harassed by these god forsaken jianghu warriors. Besides, you and I are all exhausted in body and mind. If we do not return to the Earthly Sovereign Hall soon, we are all going to die, understand?”

“So, we will return to the Earthly Sovereign Hall. We can discuss how to retrieve the Earthly Sovereign Bell after that.”

Yue Songhe would be lying if he said he was okay with this outcome. When he received his mission at the beginning, he thought for sure that it wouldn’t be too risky a mission. When he realized that Ye Qing, a young’un who was wet behind his ears, was the possessor of the Earthly Sovereign Bell, he grew even more certain that completing their mission was just a matter of time.

Reality was a harsh mistress, however. They had already suffered a double loss after falling into their quarry’s trap. If they insisted on staying the course, then they were all going to die. Returning to the Earthly Sovereign Hall was their only option.

He was well aware what kind of treatment they were going to receive when they returned. He and his companions would be ridiculed endlessly and even punished severely for their failure. Even so, running home with their tails between their legs was still a better outcome than dying.

“Go catch some rest, all of you. We will return to the Earthly Sovereign Hall in a moment.”

“As you command.”

His men saluted him and left.

“Just you wait. I, Yue Songhe, swear that I will hunt you down.”

Yue Songhe’s face slowly became distorted and violent. “I will hunt you down.”

……

Yue Songhe had no idea that the man he only wished he could slice and dice into a million cubes was currently lounging in an inn of Fu Tuo.

Located at an intersection point between Nanjiang and Chu, Fu Tuo was a commandery under a prefecture of Chu named Jian Nan. But unlike Nan Tian, Jin Wei, An Nan, Wu Ling and other commanderies, Fu Tuo was a desolate backwater that few people desired to visit. Its population was tiny because it was neither a strategic location nor a fertile land.

Besides that, Fu Tuo was close to the One Hundred Thousand Mountains of Nanjiang and was frequently visited by the progenies of Nanjiang. As a result of this, its populace were quite vicious and lived in a fairly chaotic society. It was quite similar to the Bei You of Northern Xinjiang.

Fu Tuo was barren and relatively unknown, but they boasted one thing that was famed throughout Jian Nan: the Moon Brushing Inn.

The people of Jian Nan might not know Fu Tuo, but only a handful of them had never heard of the Brushing Moon Inn. Fu Tuo’s only notable place was the Brushing Moon Inn, and the Brushing Moon Inn was famous for their dance and wine.

It was even said that the Brushing Moon Inn was the height of Jian Nan.

The Brushing Moon Inn boasted thirty-three floors and a height of three hundred meters. Every floor specialized in a different business. For example, the first floor was dining, the second floor was song and dance, the third floor was gambling, the fourth floor was accommodation, so on and so forth. Be it clothing, food, housing and transport; to eat, drink or make merry, the Brushing Moon Inn had everything. One could even say that the Brushing Moon Inn was a mini version of the red dust.

The Brushing Moon Inn gained its name because the building felt tall enough to touch the moon, and because each floor represented a slice of humanity.