44 A Side Dish
Huyang Town, a remote small town ruled by Qizhou City, was the farthest town from Qizhou City, but it was only seven- or eight-days walking distance from the East Mountain Sword Clan.
This day, four people entered the town, two men and two women, all in the uniforms of the East Mountain Sword Clan.
The men were Liu Xingfei and Wei Gaoyuan; one of the women looked older than the other three, and the other was about the same age as Liu Xingfei.
The four came to a tavern in the market of the town, which was not big but quite full and lively. An bold official notice was posted beside the door. They skimmed it quickly and entered the tavern with doubts.
In Jianghu, such a place as a tavern might be the best to get all kinds of information, tips, scandals and gossip, worthless or priceless.
The waiter immediately came and greeted them as Liu Xingfei sat down and asked him, "This brother, could you please tell me what that notice is about?"
The waiter glanced over the two comely girls of the four, revealing a little anxiety, and asked, "Warriors and fairies, are you disciples of some clan?"
"Exactly," Liu Xingfei said. "We're all from the East Mountain Sword Clan."
The concern on the waiter's face faded. He whispered, "You might not know… recently… our town is not peaceful, people missed! Frequently missed…weird! They are all girls!! All unmarried girls…"
He stopped and turned laughing, "but I suppose the evil stuff never dare disturb you warriors and fairies~"
"Oh?" Liu Xingfei showed surprise and continued, "I saw a curfew of 6 p.m. on the notice. Does it mean something… Err…unusual…will happen in the town after sunset?"
The waiter looked around, and replied in a lower voice after making sure nobody had noticed their conversation, "About ten days ago, a girl went missing in the town! After receiving the report, the Defensive Officer sent out Captors to investigate around the town for more than ten days but got nothing finally…" the waiter sighed. "And later, several more girls vanished! No one knows who did it and why…"
Liu Xingfei and Wei Gaoyuan exchanged glances: wasn't it similar to the case in Chu Village? Wasn't the bandit head in white the only Unorthodoxer that cultivated in an evil way? It was an organized gang or just a coincidence?
The oldest sister of them, Qiu Mengqin, was one of the disciples of Blue-Feather Peak, the same Peak as Liu Xingfei's. She'd planned to start a journey for gaining experience, and helped junior brother Liu with the mission by the way. None of them expected to encounter such a blip before getting any information useful to the mission.
The whole Qizhou City was sheltered by the four major sects, so they just couldn't ignore what the people in Huyang Town had suffered. Qiu Mengqin said, "Well, we eat first, then go to the local government to inquire, and…do them a favor?"
"Sure, that's we should do~ Just follow sister Qiu," Liu Xingfei nodded. The other two nodded too.
...
When silence fell and covered Huyang Town with the dark night, a stooping Watchman, carrying a little yellow paper lantern, walked slowly on the street, like an aimless ghost wandering alone on the earth.
(Watchman: refers to the person whose job was to knock bamboo sticks or gongs every night to remind people what time is it now.)
After having walked through three streets, he knocked on the door of a house in a corner.
"Who's there?!" a man's squawk came from inside the room.
"Me… Old Qiao of the Watchman… I'm tired…wanna a drink of water…" said the Watchman outside the house.
The door clattered open after a while, and a middle-aged man in a coarse cloth said by the door, "Hey~Old Qiao! Come in please~"
Old Qiao looked very old. He stumbled into the room and sat on a bench in front of a square table.
The house was only a dozen square meters where a few simple and outdated furniture was scattered. Old Qiao glanced at the bedroom with a portiere and said, "Thanks a lot…Your daughter slept?"
"Yes, little Cao and her mother have fallen asleep," the middle-aged man put a chipped bowl, full of clear water, on the table in front of Old Qiao.
"Er…" Old Qiao grinned, showing the rest of his yellow teeth, "little Cao… a good girl… She should be 15 years old..."
"Just fifteen a month ago, I was thinking about… marrying her off," the middle-aged man nodded with a silly smile.
"15 years old…15… the most beautiful age…" Old Qiao murmured, " my lord's favorite… Liang Third, thank you…"
"Eh??" The middle-aged man didn't hear it clearly, staring at Old Qiao and waiting him to repeat.
The smile on Old Qiao's face suddenly turned weird as his empty eyes burst into light. With his hand raising up, a jet of tiny dark stuff was shooting at the middle-aged man!
The middle-aged man's throat was penetrated by it before he understood what was happening; his eyes widened desperately; his jaw kept trembling, without any words coming out, though.
With the figure of familiar Old Qiao gradually blurred and stranger in the eyes, the middle-aged man's body became limp, sliding from the seat to the ground, and soon motionless.
Old Qiao glanced at the body lying on the ground while drinking the clear water in the bowl unhurriedly, and then stood up and walked to the bedroom.
A woman's voice came from the bedroom, "What's the noise? Liang Third, you fell?"
Old Qiao straightened his hunchback abruptly and pulled off the portiere. In the dark, the woman failed to get a good look at the face of the man standing outside the bedroom. She said, "It's good, you didn't fall~ What did you bump into? I've said those big stuff…shouldn't occupy the yard, you just ... "
"Ah!!" she gave a harsh scream suddenly while found the person by her bed was a stranger, "Old…Who are you?! How did you get in?!!"
There was a girl sleeping in the bed next to hers, waking up from the woman's scream, rubbing her eyes and asking in a sweet tone, "Mom… what's up…at midnight…"
"Cao, he ...Err…"
The woman had just spoken two words as Old Qiao raised his hand again and another dark stuff flashed before the woman's voice stopped abruptly.
A moment later, some noise of collision in the bedroom came; the woman fell from the bed and never moved anymore.
The young girl called little Cao, on the other bed, was clearer in the head after the noise. She was sitting up and said, "What happened? Dad? Mu…"
Old Qiao grabbed her neck before she could exclaim, and meanwhile hit the back neck of the girl, who passed out immediately.
Seeing the 15-year-old girl in his arms, whose white chest was covered only by a red bellyband, Old Qiao licked his lips, pulled up the sheets from the bed to wrap the girl around and put her on his shoulder.
...
A new moon hung in the inky sky.
Most people in Huyang Town had blew out the candles to go to bed. No one noticed the faint rattling noise on the roofs.
Old Qiao carried the girl on his shoulder, and hared and leapt fast over the houses, from one roof to another. It didn't take him long to come near the entrance of the town. A smile revealed on the corner of his mouth: so long as he went out of the town wall, the girl on his shoulder was going to vanish into the darkness forever; and then return for the next target…who could have thought that such an ordinary enough stooping Watchman was the one who'd committed the cardinal sin in the small town?
Just as he was enjoying himself, a figure appeared in front of him.
He got startled, a dark poisonous Four Point Star (one kind of the Concealed Weapon) secretly sliding into his hand from inside of his sleeve. But when he got a good look at the person in the front, he was relieved and couldn't help laughing in his heart.
It turned out to be a young lady, who looked pretty shy with her head down; the long hair like smooth black silk covered a half of her face; from the dress, she should be unmarried.
What a wonderful night of good harvests!
The street was so dim that Old Qiao could not see the age of the lady, but as long as she was a virgin, he wouldn't mind adding a side dish for his lord.
Changing into a kind face, Old Qiao bent his back and walked over her step by step," Oh, Little girl, why still walking in the street alone, it's late now…don't you know Huyang Town has got a strict curfew recently?"
Shaking her head, the lady didn't speak and just sobbed into her handkerchief.
"Oh, dear… poor girl, someone must push you around," Old Qiao looked like a kind elder, and said gently, "if you don't mind, let me take you home…Believe me, everything's gonna be fine…"
