Chapter 143 - Ghosts and Drunks

  Hao planned to go straight to the butcher. There were bad memories in the food hall, and no good ones; last time he walked in, his ears rang with rumors of Grandpa He being brutalized, and that rumor became true when he found the old man’s corpse and swore revenge. He had already failed at that once.

  It was never a place he ate at either, the place was heavy with the stink of despair; Old, cheap wines and blood. The wine spilled down faces, soaking clothes, and mucked up the floor, as the scent of corpses permeated from the back of the place. Not just from the wounds or death of missions carried by disciples, but from Tuzai working; it was a pit of death, yet everyone sat, ate, and laughed.

  Hao could hear them already.

  Rowdy disciples who were usually silent as an oiled hinge, spilled out words they would never speak aloud in the Sect with a clear mind. “NO ONE, not a single person, would notice… IF we stole a few materials, we could just cut the tail off the nicest-looking one.”

  They were talking about the Demonic Beasts lined up along the side of the food hall. The drunk was getting closer, louder, headed this way, towards the main door of the building.

  “Come on, let’s go and be quiet. You didn’t even go into the Secret Realm, yelling about stealing from the freaks that did.”

  Hao wanted to turn around. He could head to the old servants’ hall; it sounded so pleasant compared to the mess of a food hall. Just one excuse, and he would turn.

  Meiqi would look for something to cook as soon as they were done cleaning up their home in the old Servants’ Quarters. That was an assumption, but he knew her well enough. They would have to seal everything up for winter too, which was less of a task than patching things up for the intensity of summer.

  Hao didn’t mind missing the cleaning. It was the company. Annoyingly, he had to visit Tuzai eventually. The monstrously cold wrinkle of a man was Hao’s boss in a way; he worked at the food hall for a while and still did, according to the Sect’s paperwork.

  More than Tuzai and obligations, with the number of beasts he had, and a few of them he didn’t fully trust himself to take care of, it was best he got ahead of the line he knew was already long and growing.

  For a lesser reason, he wanted the core blood of the Demonic Beasts; As far as Hao knew, that was something only Li Tuzai could do, with his odd techniques.

  The drunkest man Hao had ever seen came stumbling from the front door of the food hall. Four people at his back, helping each other stumble along the way. They left the door open, which made all the sounds of rumor, gossip, and mission stories all the louder, steam billowing from the building into the chilled afternoon air.

  Hao let them walk by. All of them glanced at him for just a breath, then down the side of the buildings stretched, “He is thinking the same thing, stealing, aye?”

  The drunk’s group helped stuff in his mouth and sealed his lips. Another voice replaced his. Slurred words echo a similar sentiment: steal without shame, even if it’s just for a trophy born from a lie.

  It made the idea of him placing his beast out, waiting in a line, even more impossible. He took their lives and gathered scars to bring the beasts from that place; he wouldn’t let a single hair go to waste, especially if these potential thieves planned to pin a tail to the wall and smile at it.

  Hao walked to the spot where the group stood when they glanced down the side of the building.

  The scent was the first thing that hit him, before he was around the corner. A steaming rot even in this cold. The line he expected to see was there, not one of people, but bodies, monstrous beast bodies with strange horns and delicate patterns on furs and scales. Some look plainer than others.

  A few people other than him walked up a holding a bag in their hands, leaving a beast behind. Some stayed behind with the bodies. Sitting to Cultivate in front of their bounty, rather than drink and make up a tale of glory, their glory was at their back.

  Hao knew Senior Li Tuzai was a quick worker. The leader of the Hall, it seemed an unimportant position to be the leader of the Food Hall and the butcher of the Sect, but Hao would rather let Senior Brother Guan punch him than stand in front of the cold, lifeless blade of Li Tuzai.

  Even then, this seemed like a lot for him. Eventually, flesh would rot, including the flesh of Demonic Beasts that had World Energy and Cultivation pumping through their veins, leaving them in a holding bag would have prolonged their freshness, but few were so patient as to wait to be the last.

  Hao went forward, passing those waiting in the cold. Each Demonic Beast corpse was more pungent than the one behind it until the one in front of the giant door that opened just a hair was blocked by a beast.

  He was going to push it out of the way. A glance told him just a scratch was a disaster waiting to happen; the creature had giant, uneven horns sprouting from the top of its head and a silver-gray skin that was more leathery than fur-ridden. The little hair it had was crawling with small bugs. Its stomach was bloated like a tender soap bubble ready to burst.

  “Junior Brother,” Hao heard a voice behind him. He turned away from the back door and the bloated corpse to look at a group of three lurking in the shadows. “Even if you are in a rush, you must start at the back of the line.”

  Hao felt his blood rush to his head, a river of chills on his ears. The air around them was thick, and beyond their normal robes, they had veils over their noses and mouths. Not people from the Lower Peak. Perhaps not from the Sect at all, they had that jarring cold presence that permeated around Tuzai, and the way they lurked in shadow, just like the Hall Leader did.

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  They seemed surprised that Hao could see all over them. Their eyes went wide when he looked at the two beyond the first one.

  “What if the Hall Leader is expecting me?” Hao asked, but the one in front raised his hand.

  “Hall Leader expects a lot, waits for a lot, for the disciplinary hall, but they never came, just a group led by a man with a mole, soft and scarless, so we sent him away. How can a pride of groomed dogs maintain control over man-eating tigers coated with wounds?”

  They looked over Hao, and down the line of people waiting with the beast they hunted.

  Another stepped forward from the shadow of the mission hall at their back, neighboring the food hall. He or she moved like a puppet.

  “But even the fiercest beast fears death; that is why the tiger hides when trees fall.”

  “Or the forest burns,” the third added, still in the back.

  Hao felt that giant eye linger on him like it had when he first entered the food hall, all those months ago. Li Tuzai, with his spiritual sense or something else stronger.

  The three suddenly jolted, their heads rising, “Expecting, he is.” They nodded together, “Through the front, please.” They said together.

  Hao watched them try to fade in the dark. “Through the front,” he muttered, nearly sighing. Not that there was much complaining to do. Going through the front door was a much better option than provoking the corpse primed to explode behind him.

  The walk was eerie; that feeling of being watched didn’t quite fade until he was on the main path that led in routes around the sect.

  It took a second longer to shake the feeling.

  He made it quick, taking a step into the food hall; the door followed the wind at his back, slamming closed, the sound of laughter echoing as food sailed across a table, half chewed and slick with spit.

  Hao found having such good vision at moments like that was a curse. He could see every detail in the crimps that man’s teeth made before he spat up the meat, the smell he didn’t need to think about again. As for sound, it was a wall of voices that pounded against his ears all at once.

  “I don’t know why they are stacking the bodies out there in the first place. You can just sell the beast whole to the sect and forget about it, no waiting.” A short man with black eyes and graying hair, a bowl of thick soup in front of him.

  The one that responded, hair nearly red like rust, a shade darker, “I would want to keep the core for myself at least. The rest, I don’t care. But a core, a core now that has some value, use it for yourself, all kinds of mysterious things can happen.”

  “Or sell it for thousands of spirit stones.” Another pointed at Rust in agreement, and they nodded to each other.

  Hao went forward as if the room were silent. But his ears were even sharper than the last time he was in this echo chamber of a hall. He was in the middle layers of reclamation then; now he was approaching the peak of the Eighth Layer.

  All he had to do was make it to the small door in the back, guarded by a woman who was always lingering there like a ghost.

  “I would cling to the beast’s too, did you see what it cost them?”

  “Yeah, I saw a few when I bought some amethysts.” One laughed, knocking back a spoonful of red soup that reeked of celery, sour pickled radishes, and bloody meat. “No one asked them to go in and come back so tattered, but I got what I wanted; I just had to get lucky with picking the right herb at the right time.”

  Another, younger, with a scar on his cheek and a sword on his back, kicked the Rust’s chair. “At least they went out of the Sect.”

  The one who wanted to keep a core smacked the table. His hand blurred as it launched a small cube of beef, which hit the sword in the shoulder. “Went out? They embarrassed us.”

  Sword stood, “And someone like you says they want a Demonic Beast Core, what would you do with it, visit a brothel! Buy some candied fruit?”

  Rust stood as well, “If nothing else, sell it.”

  Sword smirked, swiping the beef juice from his robe, and sitting down with a triumphant smirk.

  “I would find more use for it than that group that came back in tatters…” Core-wanter said, sitting down too, trying to reclaim some pride.

  Hao was almost at the door. The ghostly woman stared at him as he came over, ready to open the door for him.

  “Careful, Senior Brother, I heard that group, the one you are talking about, that lost all but three of its members was the group that moved with the First Elder’s Disciple.”

  Hao stopped still, turning sideways to look at the group talking.

  The man with graying hair ate another spoonful of soup. “I only ever heard nice things about the Secret Realm, stretching fields of pink flowers, rivers like glass, and endless sunshine. But I don’t want to find out what they went through, the eyes of the older one of their group, he was barking at us when people asked about what happened…”

  He shivered, the soup on his spoon spilling in his lap.

  Rust nodded, “Yeah, it was like he was bragging. We killed, we killed, we killed, he was practically stuck between tears and bragging until he said he would reform their hunting group, people went wild, it practically turned into a recruitment drive.”

  Sword smirked, “Who wouldn’t want to join a hunting group with an Elder’s disciple?”

  “More like who would want to? Did you see the Seventh Elder come hurtling out of the sky, screaming like someone got too close to the great-granddaughter?”

  The entire table laughed up a storm, except for Soup; his spoon was still hovering over his bowl, losing its steam.

  “What kind of trouble do you think they caused?” He asked, dropping his spoon down, making a small red splash that gave off an aromatic pop.

  Rust chuckled, “More than they could handle, clearly. I just hope it doesn’t affect the whole sect.” It seemed like he was going to laugh, but it died in the hollow of his throat as a croak.

  “The First Elder had an announcement to make. It was posted in the mission hall this morning; That might have something to do with it. It smells like trouble. Trouble might be a few easy missions.” Sword said with a wilted smile.

  Soup looked down, shaking his head. He turned just for a second, making eye contact with Hao. He flinched, pulled his head back, and his profile turned to Hao.

  “Should we talk about something else? The Sect has enough troubles. How about those cores again? The hardest part about getting one is luck, but you also have to pay a butcher if you are outside of the Sect. But if it’s a core that a lot of people want…”

  The group reengaged with the same enthusiasm on the topic. The old man they are talking about must be the Nightwatcher; Mo Bangcai is just a figurehead for that group, and that man is their real leader. So he is already eager to rebuild his group. More obstacles to climb over, I hope you pick well, old man, Bangcai.

  Hao turned around, looking at the lady standing at the doorway. In her mouth, a thin tube of white paper, her eyes were dead, emotionless black circles until she took a big breath in, dead again when she breathed out, never breaking eye contact with him as smoke started to billow from her mouth on the exhale.

  She said nothing, opened the door, and stepped aside, letting Hao go by as she stared.