Chapter 49: All the Inns on This Street Are Mine
Chapter 49: Chapter 49: All the Inns on This Street Are Mine
Ignoring the shop assistant’s gestures,
Wu Chen and Xue Hongling entered the inn, one after the other.
As they stepped onto the second floor, Wu Chen heard Xue Hongling’s stomach GROWL behind him.
It seemed she was famished after a long night of travel and killing.
’So even pretty girls’ stomachs growl when they’re hungry!’
’No, what kind of nonsense is that?!’
Wu Chen grumbled to himself, then stopped and looked over at the shop assistant in the distance. The man was peeking out from behind a pillar, his eyes burning with the fires of gossip.
In the assistant’s mind, Wu Chen had clearly put Xue Hongling through a terrible ordeal.
Of course, Wu Chen wasn’t about to clarify anything. The more you tried to explain such things, the messier they became.
He waved the shop assistant over and asked, "Do you have any seasonings in the kitchen?"
"So you’d like to eat, sir!"
The shop assistant immediately started walking toward the kitchen. "You go about your business, sir, and I’ll go about mine!"
He gave Wu Chen a look that said ’a man knows what a man needs,’ but Wu Chen stopped him with a wave of his hand.
"The seasonings are enough. Also, let me use the empty space in the inn’s backyard. I need to start a fire."
Wu Chen planned to cook something himself—something with meat to get some grease in his stomach.
The reason he dared to use their seasonings this time without worrying about any tricks was that he’d figured it out: an inn this large ultimately had to prioritize doing business.
Scamming, cheating, and murdering guests to make meat buns—that was the sort of thing that happened at inns in the middle of nowhere.
The shop assistant agreed at once. "Yes, whatever you say."
With that, he trotted off to the kitchen to prepare the necessary firewood and supplies.
"Go to the backyard and wait for me."
Wu Chen looked at the slightly embarrassed girl, who was clutching her stomach. "After we eat, we’ll, er... you can go rest."
"Mm," Xue Hongling nodded in agreement.
She had fled thousands of miles from the Blood Slaughter Sect with little money on her, eating one meal and starving the next.
At times, she had to survive on nothing but wind and dew. It was utterly miserable.
If it weren’t for her Martial Arts cultivation, she probably would have collapsed long ago.
...
Wu Chen turned and walked out of the inn, heading for the Black Stone City market.
The morning mist had not yet dissipated, but some people were already up early doing business.
There was a decent selection of goods at the market, with twenty or thirty stalls scattered about, but customers were few and far between.
Wu Chen stopped at a butcher’s stall.
A black boar, just hunted from the mountains, lay on the block. Its bristle-like black hair had recently been scraped off, and its body, scalded with hot water, was still steaming.
Wu Chen looked at the stall owner, a haggard man who seemed listless.
He asked, "How much for a hundred pounds of boar meat?"
"Fifteen taels of silver." Despite the large order, the stall owner seemed completely uninterested, as if he had no interest in money.
But Wu Chen knew the man’s reaction wasn’t because he was uninterested in silver.
It was because the money wouldn’t belong to him anyway, which was why he was so indifferent.
He nodded, not finding the price of fifteen taels of silver for a hundred pounds of pork to be that outrageous for Black Stone City.
He quietly took fifteen taels of broken silver from his robes and placed it on the stall.
"Which part of the meat does the young master want?" the stall owner asked, his tone still cold.
"The hind leg."
Wu Chen gestured to the spot, and the stall owner began to hack it apart with a heavy bone cleaver, using his brawny arms.
At the market entrance, a few idle lackeys were gathered.
They watched Wu Chen casually pull out the silver. He looked like he had money to spare, and his face was unfamiliar—he clearly wasn’t a local.
One of them immediately stood up, ready to go and extort him.
But another lackey pulled him back and hissed angrily:
"Are you fucking crazy? The guy can afford meat and drops fifteen taels of silver without a thought. He’s obviously some young master from out of town. Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"I was just thinkin’ of scaring him a bit, get some spending money."
"We just collect the regular fee from the stall owners. You don’t need to get involved in anything else. If you don’t want the boss to deal with you, you’d better keep your ass in line!"
...
After Wu Chen left, the lackeys swaggered over to the butcher’s stall. In a flash, the fifteen taels of silver on the counter became a single tael of broken silver.
The remaining broken silver was just enough to cover the cost of the goods. The cut they took was terrifyingly high.
Wu Chen, who was only a dozen or so steps away from the market, saw this happen and simply shook his head.
It was exactly as he had expected.
And because he had expected it, he hadn’t complained about the high price of the pork or tried to haggle with the owner.
The money he spent was just being held by the gang’s lackeys for a day.
He carried nearly half the boar back to the inn.
When he got to the backyard, he found it to be very clean. Everything was tidied away neatly, with no clutter piled on the ground.
It was clear the inn’s Shopkeeper was a meticulous person.
Anyone else, seeing how sparsely populated Black Stone City was, would have probably let the inn fall into disrepair long ago.
DRIP!
SIZZLE!
The pork was roasting on a rack over the fire. Fat rendered out and dripped down, hissing as it hit the flames.
Wu Chen busied himself basting it with fragrant oil and spices.
As the flames licked at the meat, the savory aroma gradually seeped out, filling the entire backyard.
GROWL!
Smelling the rich aroma, Xue Hongling, who had been on the move all night, felt her stomach rumble even louder.
A faint blush appeared on her ice-cold face, a look of embarrassment.
Knowing it wasn’t fully cooked yet, she could only wait patiently.
"That smells amazing!"
Just as both of them were focused on the roasting meat, an unfamiliar voice called out from inside the inn.
Then, a figure pushed aside the curtain and walked into the backyard.
Wu Chen, who had been concentrating on the roast, looked up toward the sound.
He saw a young man in his early twenties.
He was dressed in green robes, with a Jade Pendant at his waist and a folding fan in his hand. He wasn’t bad-looking.
Xue Hongling seemed not to have heard the voice, nor did she care who had arrived.
Her full attention was on the roasting meat, a faint, glistening trail of drool at the corner of her mouth. The aroma had clearly gotten the better of her.
The newcomer sat down in front of the fire on his own accord, not standing on ceremony at all.
"Jiang Fang. The Shopkeeper of this inn."
Jiang Fang introduced himself simply, then folded his fan and cupped his fist.
"Young Master Wu, Miss Xue, I trust you’ve been well."
His words seemed polite, but they were like a thunderclap in the silence.
Xue Hongling was from the Blood Slaughter Sect. After defecting, she certainly wouldn’t have been spreading her name around.
As for Wu Chen, he had only been in Black Stone City for two days and had kept a low profile, his whereabouts unknown to anyone.
Now, someone had suddenly appeared who could accurately state both of their surnames. He had clearly come prepared.
In other words, the man before them was a fiend from the Blood Slaughter Sect!
This inn was an enterprise of the Blood Slaughter Sect!
Wu Chen’s eyes narrowed, and the Qi and Blood in his body began to surge.
Xue Hongling also sensed that something was wrong. She reluctantly tore her gaze away from the roasting meat and looked at the newcomer, her hand already resting on the hilt of her blade.
"Are you from the Blood Slaughter Sect?"
Wu Chen watched Jiang Fang’s fan. The moment the man made a move, he would kick over the fire without hesitation.
Jiang Fang shook his head. He pulled two folded pieces of Xuan paper from his sleeve and handed one to each of them.
"Take a look at these first."
Wu Chen warily took the paper from Jiang Fang’s hand. Unfolding it, he saw a simple sketch of a person’s face.
It was a decent likeness of him.
Beneath the portrait was his name.
It was a wanted poster. Besides the portrait and name, there was a bounty of one hundred taels of silver.
Xue Hongling’s was the same.
It wasn’t a huge sum, but it certainly wasn’t cheap. Combined, the two bounties could buy at least five boars in Black Stone City.
"So?"
Wu Chen looked at Jiang Fang, not understanding what he was getting at.
After all, if you were going to attack someone, you’d just do it. Did you need the person on the wanted poster to admit who they were before you made your move?
If they didn’t admit it, would you just call it off?
"When I saw you two on the wanted posters, I figured that Young Master Wu and Miss Xue must be quite skilled."
Jiang Fang explained his purpose. "So, I would like to ask for your help with a certain matter."
’You’re an innkeeper. Just run your inn. Why would you need to hire two wanted martial artists?’
’What were he and Xue Hongling good at? Besides killing, not much else came to mind!’
After a few moments of thought, Wu Chen had his answer.
He asked tentatively, "You’re here to hire us to kill someone?"
Jiang Fang nodded. "That’s right."
"Who?"
"The sixteen gangs in Black Stone City."
"You’re an innkeeper. Why would you want to kill them?"
Wu Chen was a bit puzzled, just barely stopping himself from saying, ’I’m already in the middle of killing them!’
"Yes, I’m an innkeeper. Why would I want to kill them?"
Jiang Fang gave a bitter smile and said,
"But what if all the inns on this street are mine?"
"Then would you say I have a reason to kill them?"