SS CH28

Gu Xiao’s kitchen knife had barely left his hand, spinning through the air to pierce the window paper and bury itself deep into the wooden post outside—landing less than an inch from the attendant. Had the man shifted even slightly, that trembling blade would have sliced into his flesh, leaving him like a hog bled for slaughter.

The proprietress, following close behind, lost all color in her face. The three workers stood frozen, their clubs and blades clattering to the ground; they didn’t even dare to cry out in pain when the weapons struck their toes.

Chu Yao was so stunned by this display that he forgot to cry, his hiccups subsiding out of sheer instinct.

“A dog never changes its habit of eating excrement; naturally, thieves never leave empty-handed.” Gu Xiao turned to face the five people outside, pulling out the silver ingot. “Birds die for food, men die for wealth. The world has never lacked idiots who think their lack of brainpower can be compensated by sheer nerve.”

He hadn’t intended to provoke trouble earlier, and the denizens of this black inn certainly wouldn’t have bothered him if he had kept to himself. By all rights, Gu Xiao could have slept soundly, eaten his fill, and continued his journey the next morning.

But a “meatball” as cute as a New Year painting doll—if he really left the boy in the hands of these criminals, his fate would likely be ending up as dog food.

Gu Xiao had weighed “avoiding trouble” against “having one more mess on his hands” and finally decided to do one more good deed. After all, a child who couldn’t even stand as high as a stool couldn’t exactly offer “to marry himself to his savior.” The worst case was that he’d just toss the boy back to his family and walk away—perhaps even scoring a good meal out of the deal.

That twenty taels of silver wasn’t meant to buy “human meat”—it was bait. If the innkeepers were sensible, he would have just left the money and taken the child, keeping the peace. But since they grew greedy at the sight of wealth, he had no qualms about using force.

The proprietress’s heavily painted face twisted hideously. She gasped for air, wrenched the knife from the post, and shrieked, “What are you afraid of?! It’s just one person! Can he really turn the world upside down? Get him!”

Gu Xiao smiled. Suddenly, a strange sound erupted.

The noise came from the wooden post where the knife had been embedded. The inn was incredibly crude; the wood and stone were long since rotted. The lean-to structure outside was held up by four decaying wooden pillars supporting nothing but broken bricks and thatch. By burying his blade three inches deep with internal energy, Gu Xiao had effectively severed the structural integrity of the pillar. When the proprietress yanked the knife out, the rotted wood simply gave way.

The lean-to collapsed instantly, burying all five of them under a cloud of dust, mud, and debris.

“What a pity, looks like I’ll be sleeping in the wild,” Gu Xiao shrugged. He grabbed Chu Yao by the collar, vaulted out of the kitchen before the five could climb out, and whistled. A familiar neigh rang out from behind the mud wall.

Dragging Chu Yao over the wall, he found the old horse tied to a stump. He cut the rope, hopped on, and dumped the child onto the saddle. “Hold on tight. If you fall off and land face-first, don’t blame me if you can’t find a wife when you grow up.”

Chu Yao: “…”

He was seven and a half. Despite his youth, he had seen plenty of the world, but this was the first time he’d encountered such an unscrupulous adult. It was truly an eye-opening experience.

But when one is on a crazed horse, one must humble oneself. The horse, though old, had a massive temper; it had been tethered for too long and was impatient. Now that it was free, it kicked the ground like a mad beast, let out a cry, and charged into the vast, rainy night. It ran with such wild abandon that Chu Yao nearly fell off several times, forcing him to turn into a “four-legged lizard,” clinging for dear life to the horse’s neck.

Gu Xiao laughed heartlessly. Even though wind and rain filled his mouth, he didn’t stop. Fortunately, the guy had a shred of conscience. After Chu Yao sneezed three times in a row, Gu Xiao finally took off his outer robe, wrung it out, and draped it over the boy.

“There are no doctors in this desolate wilderness. Keep it together, you little brat!” Gu Xiao shielded him from the rain while sizing up the environment. “If you catch a cold, I’ll have to go dig up some bones in a graveyard to make you medicine.”

Chu Yao: “…”

They galloped through the rainy night for a long time until Gu Xiao finally found a mountain cave. He dismounted to scout it; the entrance was overgrown, but the ground wasn’t slippery, meaning there likely weren’t any snakes. He went inside to fumble around, then finally brought the child in.

Chu Yao was shivering, his face turning blue from the cold. With the rain falling and Gu Xiao’s fire-starter wet, he gathered some dry grass to lay on the ground, used their outer robes to block the wind at the entrance, and wrapped Chu Yao in a dry layer from his pack, turning him into a “spring roll.” He pulled the boy into his arms, warning him, “If you dare run around while I’m asleep, be careful of being snatched by a wolf!”

He made a grotesque face as he said it, but luckily the cave was too dark for Chu Yao to see it, preventing a second round of tears.

After huddling in Gu Xiao’s arms for a while, feeling the only source of warmth in the cold, rainy night, Chu Yao finally spoke. “Thank you.”

It was pitch black, but Gu Xiao’s hands were unerring. He pinched the boy’s chubby cheek. “Of course you should thank me. If not for you, I’d still be enjoying a romantic night with the daughter of Old Man Zhou Gong.”

Chu Yao: “…”

Gu Xiao asked, “Looking at you, you don’t seem like a poor kid. What are you doing out here in the middle of the night? Were you kidnapped from the town?”

Chu Yao hesitated before whispering, “N-no… I ran here myself.”

Gu Xiao was curious. “Learned how to hunt for beauties in the mountains at such a young age?”

Chu Yao: “…” As an upright and pure little fatty, he simply couldn’t communicate with this person whose heart was so filthy.

Gu Xiao scratched his chin, teasing him like a cat. “Fine, I’m too lazy to ask. I’ll send you home tomorrow. By the way, where is your home?”

“My home is in… No!” The “meatball” who had been quietly nesting in his arms suddenly jolted, nearly rolling out of Gu Xiao’s hold.

Gu Xiao was startled by the reaction. The child grabbed him with both hands, too anxious to even speak a complete sentence. “Y-you… I… I…”

Gu Xiao shook his head and sat up. “It’s just you and me here, no one else. You might be a brat, but you have to learn to speak like a human. There, there, straighten out your tongue and try again.”

It took several shivers for Chu Yao to calm down. If there had been light, Gu Xiao would have seen the boy’s face was deathly pale. Unfortunately, there wasn’t; he could only tell from the trembling body in his arms that the child had been severely traumatized and still hadn’t recovered.

He didn’t rush him, only stroking Chu Yao’s back with a warm hand. After a while, Chu Yao spoke, his voice still filled with lingering terror. “My home is very far away. This time… I snuck out to play with my older brother…”

Gu Xiao raised an eyebrow. “And then?”

“We ran into bad people. We were captured…” Chu Yao tried to piece together his chaotic memories. “We met those people in Mianfeng City. They killed all the servants protecting us… they stuffed my brother and me into a carriage. Two days ago, my brother waited for a chance and brought me with him as we ran out, but we were quickly caught up to. He told me to run, and I…”

“So you ran here like a headless fly, saw an inn, thought you could get some food, and crawled right in, only to almost become a dish yourself?” Gu Xiao understood. He commented kindly, “Stupid.”

Chu Yao felt that it was fortunate this guy wasn’t someone from his own family, otherwise he would have been dragged out and beaten to death long ago. However, he had no one else to turn to, so the child instinctively mastered the art of “a gentleman takes his revenge in ten years” and continued. “I… I want to ask you to save my brother… I won’t let you do it for free! My family has money—really, a lot of money! You can have anything you want!”

Gu Xiao patted his head, feeling the child was truly too honest—he was terrified that others wouldn’t treat him like a fat sheep for the slaughter.

Considering himself a righteous man of integrity, he thought for a moment and shook his head decisively. “I’ll save your brother for you, but I don’t want money.”

The child was still shocked by this sudden shift to virtue when he heard the next sentence: “I want a person. Since your family has money, give me a person. One that is incredibly good-looking.”

Even in the darkness of the cave, the look Chu Yao gave him was the same look one would give a beast.

Gu Xiao was too lazy to guess what was going on in the brat’s head. He had his own plan. How could one wander the Jianghu alone? If he had someone beautiful by his side, even if they couldn’t fight together, it would be pleasant just to look at them.

Maybe, in the end, he could even bring home a wife to make his master and shiniang happy.

The more he thought about it, the happier he felt. Gu Xiao asked casually, “Do you know who those people are?”

Chu Yao couldn’t bother to grumble anymore and quickly said, “I don’t know, but when I eavesdropped on their conversation, they mentioned… well, they mentioned the Zanhun Palace (Soul-Burial Palace).”

Gu Xiao’s smoothed-out brows instantly knit together.