Ku Chan spent two leisurely days in the Heart's Desire Hall.
The six fourth-stage skeletons standing by the entrance had an outstanding effect. Not to mention ordinary commoners, even the gang thugs who usually swaggered through the outer city district had to walk around, holding their breath as they passed.
Let alone the skeletons' fourth-stage rank. Just the chilling death aura, perceptible from afar, was enough to deter anyone from daring to enter.
Some busybodies even reported it to the Blackwater Guard, claiming evil cultivators had arrived in the outer city district, using skeletons as doorkeepers, surely with ill intentions.
The Blackwater Guard came and took a distant glance. The leading squad captain recoiled, not saying a word before taking his men and slipping away. Without clear orders from above, what were these small fry supposed to do? Become easy prey for those skeleton lords? All of them combined wouldn't be enough to fill a single skeleton lord's tooth gap. They could only turn a blind eye, pretending not to see anything.
By the dawn of the third day, Shitou was diligently practicing his Tiangang Blade Technique in the backyard, the blade winds fierce. Plague Rat, clutching the eight-treasure spirit duck Ku Chan monk had bought, was squatting on a roof beam, gnawing away with grease dripping from its mouth.
“Tsk, this duck is a bit undercooked, and not enough spices. Tsk, you bald ass, it's far from as good as you boasted.”
Outside the Heart's Desire Hall, however, a small crowd had uncharacteristically gathered. They weren't cultivators or merchants, but a group of children, seven or eight years old.
Each was thin and sallow, clad in rags, barefoot, and filthy.
In Lantao City, there were almost no pure mortals. Even in the lowest outer city district, those who survived generally possessed first-stage cultivation. They could carry burdens, run, and barely find odd jobs.
But these children showed not even the faintest spiritual energy fluctuations; they were true mortal children. Their origins were simple: mostly children of the city's lowest laborers, dock porters, left unsupervised. Their parents either died tragic deaths or couldn't even protect themselves. Or they had fled from more remote villages, their homes destroyed by demons, becoming orphans.
Without cultivation, no one wanted them, not even as the lowest servants for those families, finding them useless and a waste of food. They could only fend for themselves like weeds in the outer city district, surviving by begging, scavenging, or secretly engaging in petty thievery.
On one hand, they had to evade the Blackwater Guard patrols; if caught, they would be forcibly escorted out of the city and left to die in the wilderness. On the other hand, strange occurrences had been happening in the city for the past few nights, leaving Lantao City's residents in a state of panic.
At this moment, a few older children were strenuously carrying an unconscious boy. The boy, around eight or nine years old, had a waxy yellow complexion, cracked lips, faint breathing, and a terrifyingly hot forehead.
A girl with two crooked pigtails said tearfully, “What do we do, Gouer Ge? Jiu'er Ge has been asleep for two days now, if this continues...sob...sob...”
The boy named Gouer had dark skin and was the tallest. He gritted his teeth, steadying Jiu'er. “Don't cry. What good is crying? We have to find a way to save Jiu'er Ge.”
The girl bit her lip, rummaging in her tattered pocket for a long time, only producing two shiny copper coins. “With just these two coins, we can't even buy a single grey flour bun. That Doctor Wang in the east of the city charges at least one low-grade spirit stone for a house call... how could we afford that...”
Gouer continued, “We can't abandon Jiu'er Ge! If he hadn't always shared the food he begged with us, we would have starved long ago! Now he's sick, we can't just leave him!”
But how could they help? They had no money and nowhere to turn for help. The children fell silent.
They weren't very literate, but yesterday they had overheard a passing merchant mention that a new Heart's Desire Hall had opened, supposedly able to grant wishes. But everyone around them said it was a shady establishment run by evil cultivators, with eerie skeletons standing at the entrance. How could it be a good place?
Gouer clenched his fists, a determined glint appearing on his dirty little face. “I don't care anymore! Evil cultivators or not! As long as they can save Jiu'er Ge, we'll give them whatever they want!”
The girl shivered, retracting her neck in fear. “But I heard evil cultivators eat children's livers and hearts.”
Gouer glared at her, his voice trembling slightly. “That... that's still better than watching Jiu'er Ge die. At worst... at worst, I'll trade mine.”
The girl cried again, “Gouer Ge, you can't die either. Let them use mine instead; I'm the most useless one, let them eat my liver and heart.”
The children exchanged glances, ultimately saying nothing. Living at the very bottom, they knew better than anyone that there was no such thing as a free lunch in this world. To gain something, one had to pay a price, even their life. As for the rumors of evil cultivators harming people in the city, they no longer cared.
The gathering of little beggars also attracted some passing pedestrians to stop.
“Hey, look at those little beggars. What are they doing gathered outside the Heart's Desire Hall?”
“What else? They must have nowhere else to go.”
“Tsk tsk, they're really courting death, daring to knock on an evil cultivator's door?”
“What a shame. I guess they're newborn calves unafraid of tigers. A few little kids, if they go in, I doubt even their bones will be left.”
“Evil cultivators' methods, hehe, maybe they'll just use them for cultivation practice!”
Passersby discussed animatedly, some indifferent, some curious, and even some gloating. But without exception, no one believed these children would come to a good end.
A few informants from other scattered families also quietly blended into the crowd. Lantao City was currently in a troubled period, where even the slightest disturbance was enough to put people on edge. Especially a Heart's Desire Hall with unknown origins but clearly deep backing. The City Lord's Mansion and the Blackwater Guard remained silent, their relationship ambiguous. So they could only dispatch more personnel to probe the truth themselves.
Finally, Gouer, the bravest of them all, took a deep breath and, under the hopeful yet fearful gaze of the other children, walked step by step towards the tightly shut wooden door. His heart pounded like a drum, and his legs felt weak. As he passed the two rows of skeletons at the entrance, the icy death aura almost suffocated him. He tightly closed his eyes, terrified of being impaled by a bone spike in the next second.
However, the anticipated attack did not come. They merely stared at him with empty eye sockets, neither blocking nor attacking.
Gouer mustered the greatest courage of his life, extended his dirty little hand, and knocked firmly on the wooden door. The wooden door let out a heavy sound, as if it separated two worlds.
“Thump... thump... thump...”
The knocking echoed particularly clearly on the silent street. Plague Rat paused its duck-gnawing, its scarlet little eyes darting towards the front hall. “Hey, got some business? A bunch of little bean sprouts?”
Ku Chan monk slowly opened his eyes, the feigned smile on his face becoming a bit more genuine. “Oh? So, a fated person has finally arrived?”
With a creak, the front hall door was pulled open from the inside, revealing a crack.
Rate on N.U.
