Faraway Wanderers Novel (English Translation)

War

Coming to this day… Lao Meng believed that he had since made proper preparations.

Everything was ready, except for one little thing.

Inside the Valley’s unrest, while the Ghost Master had wandered outside without return, Lao Meng had not remained idle. Now, he grasped control over seventy-percent of the Valley’s personnel. Even if this man truly did have three heads and six arms, even if he truly did have divine, peerless arts…

Zhao Jing was nothing to be worried about, as once he caught Xue Fang and got the key in his hand, he would have his goal. Thus, Lao Meng settled himself, then raised his head to meet Wen Kexing’s gaze. “Please give enlightenment, Valley Master,” he said, unworried.

The news of Zhao Jing’s group fighting beneath Fengya Mountain had not only reached Green Bamboo ridge, but had quickly been delivered to the Scorpion’s ears in that small town. In the middle of listening to a sixteen-year-old girl singing in a teahouse, he frowned upon hearing this, feeling that this was an unexpectedly thorny issue.

The praying mantis hunted the cricket, only for a siskin to be behind it. But if the mantis shrank back at the approach of battle, quitting and putting down its claws, that would be a bother, too.

He pondered for a short moment, then spoke into the arrival’s ear for a spell, who withdrew with their order.

Grabbing a handful of melon seeds, he ate them quite merrily while he kicked a nearby Poisonous Scorpion with his toes. “She sang well, so reward her… hm, the old guy playing the qin wasn’t bad, either. Reward them both.”

The girl thanked him for the money, helped up her grandpa that was shakily holding a huqin,[1] and slowly left.

They went all the way to the outside of the door, after which the elder took out the majority of the money he had just been given and passed it to her. Once he opened his mouth, the voice that came out was extremely slow, hoarse, and aged. “Good child, take this and buy some snacks. Rest your throat well.”

She refused it. “That won’t do, mister. You’ve constantly been giving money to me these days, but what are you going to do, yourself?”

As it turned out, these two were not an actual grandparent-grandchild pair. “Cough, just take it, take it,” the old man said, waving his hand. “I am an old one that has a today, but no tomorrow. Why should I demand payment? I can just scrape by with what I need. Your father is still sick, and can only come out to perform with you if he’s cured quickly, yes? Furthermore, if it wasn’t for your good singing, who would watch a decrepit elder like me play?”

Her face went red, as she really was pressed for cash. She stood there at a loss, not sure what she ought to do.

The elder didn’t give her an opportunity to refuse it, turning to slowly leave with his huqin. As soon as he was somewhere that no one else was, the old man that looked to have a foot in the grave suddenly became invigorated. His muddied, slack gaze focused, brightening unusually, and his back straightened out — where was even a bit of that hobbling look at?

He was the Scorpion-tailing Zhou Zishu. When the Scorpion had lowered his voice to speak, bystanders couldn’t have heard, but Zhou Zishu’s strong hearing had caught it clearly. He was a tiny bit surprised; he hadn’t expected that Zhao Jing’s group would fight amongst themselves before even getting on the Mountain, which made the situation even more complicated. It signified that the minds of those inside that formation weren’t uniform, and that there might be many that each harbored their own motives, getting ready to do something rotten.

For the sake of compelling them to be on the same page, the Scorpion was sending his Scorpions to sneak-attack while pretending to be Ghost Valley’s people. Zhou Zishu lightly furrowed his brow. He thought about Wen Kexing’s circumstances in the Ridge right now, as recently, there had seemed to be an atypical calm in the Valley. That Wen trash hadn’t… had anything happen to him, right?