After Death, I Became My Shijie’s Palm-Sized Birdie – Chapter 69
by Little PandaDoubts Arise
No telling where they stole this child from—we’ll look after her for now.
The innkeeper, who’d hurried over at the commotion, wore a smile of pure menace as she worked her abacus beads—clatter clatter clatter—with such fury that the poor things seemed ready to shatter.
Fine, just fine. The Immortal Venerable herself hadn’t blown up her kitchen, yet in the time it took to turn around, these two Core Formation demons had dared to wreck her establishment! All these years, even Golden Immortal cultivators who came here with grudges took their disputes outside—who’d ever dared act with such reckless audacity!
“My apologies for the fright, honored guests. Leave these two to me—I promise you a proper accounting.” The innkeeper settled on a final figure with one last flick of the beads, though she privately doubted these two demons could pay anything close to it. Her expression was nearly twisting out of shape; she looked less like she meant to give Yun Heng an accounting, and more like she meant to make these two account for themselves right here, permanently.
Yun Heng walked to Wen Qiwu’s side and handed the two demons over to the innkeeper.
The innkeeper apologized to Yun Heng once more, then set the abacus down in front of the two demons and addressed them in what could generously be called a cordial tone. “Honored guests, this is the sum in immortal stones you owe our inn. You may also tender the equivalent in spirit stones—we can handle the exchange for you.”
But the two demons said nothing, only staring at her with eyes bulging nearly out of their sockets.
“So the two of you don’t intend to pay.” The innkeeper’s voice went abruptly cold. Abacus in her left hand, her right slipped toward whatever she kept in her sleeve.
The cook hurried forward. “Innkeeper, they can’t talk.”
He pried the two demons’ mouths open—sure enough, both were frozen solid inside. And since the cook had just used a bit too much force, everyone in the kitchen heard a distinct crack from their jawbones.
Probably broken. No matter—the inn could charitably spare them two ordinary injury pills. But the ice… if Yun Heng didn’t undo it herself, likely no one here could.
Yun Heng didn’t torment them further; she thawed their tongues for the time being. The instant their mouths came back to them—before they could manage a single word—shrill screams echoed through the kitchen. Wen Qiwu couldn’t help a slight frown, yet she noticed the child in her arms didn’t react at all.
A child who couldn’t see should be all the more sensitive to sound. Unless… she wasn’t only blind, but deaf as well.
Wen Qiwu tapped lightly on the table beside her. The child didn’t react in the slightest, confirming her guess, and the look she turned on the little girl filled with pity.
The innkeeper, finding them too noisy, simply fed them each a pill of domineering potency—effective for treating wounds and dulling pain, if rather heavy on the side effects. Failed experiments out of the City Master’s own pharmacy.
They worked fast, though. Soon enough the two demons could speak, trembling. Having witnessed the gulf between themselves and Yun Heng, they no longer dared let anything filthy past their lips.
“I—I don’t have that kind of money…” A thousand immortal stones! Why didn’t this innkeeper just rob them?!
“No money?” The innkeeper’s face darkened instantly, and the demon who’d seemed to have a shred of backbone a moment ago began to shake uncontrollably.
“I thought as much. Your true forms are Giant Stone Fish, aren’t they? I hear the hide’s quite thick—one Core Formation demon’s hide, skinned and sold, fetches a hundred immortal stones. A pity the rest of you isn’t worth anything; sold off whole, it still wouldn’t cover my losses.” The innkeeper had anticipated this long ago. Her mouth curved faintly, her voice glacial. “Two fish, two hides—that’s two hundred immortal stones. Which leaves eight hundred outstanding. As it happens, our City Master recently opened a mine. You’ll work off your debt there. When you’ve repaid eight hundred immortal stones, you may leave.”
Digging in a mine to earn eight hundred immortal stones? They’d be lucky to manage it in a thousand years! One of the demons wanted to argue, but his companion tugged his sleeve, warning him off with a look—too rash.
The one who’d been pulled back calmed himself and shut his mouth. Instead, the other fish demon, silent until now, spoke up.
“P-please, Innkeeper, give us a l-little time. We’ll b-borrow from friends—we can pay back what we owe soon, very soon.” Their tongues, only just thawed, were still clumsy; both of them stammered.
The innkeeper’s expression eased somewhat. As long as they could pay, all was well—as long as they could pay, they were still good customers.
“But—but we need to take her—take her with us!” The fish demon pointed at the child in Wen Qiwu’s arms.
“Absolutely not.” Before Wen Qiwu could speak, the innkeeper blocked the fish demon’s view of the child with her abacus. “Jiaoyue City does not tolerate child trafficking. So why don’t you two first explain what business a pair of demon cultivators has with this human child?”
“And if you can’t explain, yet still want to take her… I’m afraid you’ll simply have to make a trip to the City Master Manor with me.”
The two demons exchanged a glance; both saw the guilt in the other’s eyes.
“She—this vile little… this kid bit into my leg! Look, it’s still bloody!” One fish demon yanked up his trouser leg. Sure enough, there was a small, bloody ring of teeth marks—clearly a child’s bite, and a deep one. With a little more strength behind it, she might have torn the flesh clean off.
The fish demon thought the wound would earn him some sympathy. He failed to notice the expressions around him turning colder still. He gave a shiver—perhaps sensing the atmosphere had gone wrong.
“We planned to… to find her family’s adults and demand, demand compensation!” The fish demon’s tongue tangled worse under nerves.
“We—we broke your inn, so we owe you. She bit us, so naturally she owes us too. That’s only fair, isn’t it?”
“You two dodge the heart of the matter and quibble over trifles—how laughable. Tell me, how did a child who can neither see nor hear manage to find the two of you and bite you? Unless you approached her first, grabbed her, and left her no choice but to bite, I doubt this child could have laid teeth on a pair of Core Formation demon cultivators.” Wen Qiwu looked coldly at the two demons, pressing the words Core Formation with extra weight.
“We…” Dark as their faces were, a flush of red crept through. Their story indeed couldn’t withstand scrutiny. Fine—call it their bad luck. Whether it was these two meddlesome female cultivators or the City Master standing behind this inn, none of it was anything they could afford to provoke.
“Forget it. We won’t—won’t ask for compensation. We’ll deliver the immortal stones once we’ve gathered them. We’ll take our leave.” One fish demon hauled his companion up, trying to flee the place as quickly as possible—only for the innkeeper to bar their way.
“Hold on. Who said you could leave?”
“We—we already said we’d pay!” the fish demon cried, all bluster over a coward’s trembling.
“No, no, no. What I want to discuss now isn’t compensation—it’s the matter of your abducting, or trafficking in, a child. The two of you had best come along to the City Master Manor with me.”
“Xiao Tong, look after this child. Help her wash up and get her into clean clothes—she came to harm under our roof. When I return, I’ll see about finding her family.” Wherever these two had stolen the child from, whatever their purpose, once she delivered these fish to the Interrogation Bureau at the City Master Manor, the people there had ways of making the pair sing.
The two fish demons tried to bolt, but the instant they lifted their feet, their legs froze, and they toppled stiff as boards to the floor.
“Many thanks, Immortal Venerable.” The innkeeper thanked Yun Heng, then—with a hard glint rising in her eyes—looped a rope-shaped artifact around the two fish demons’ necks and cinched it until their eyes rolled back. These vermin that crawled out of the woodwork the moment the City Master was wounded deserved nothing less than the harshest punishment!
And so the two fish demons were dragged off. The cook and the attendant named Xiao Tong both let out long breaths; one of them even wiped the cold sweat from his brow.
“That scared me half to death. Those two demons sure knew how to pick their moment. The innkeeper was already in a foul mood over the City Master’s injuries—they’re done for.”
“Serves them right. Who knows what they wanted with a stolen child. The City Master’s barely been in seclusion any time at all, and already the city feels… off.” Xiao Tong sighed. Working at the inn, she’d lately sensed a strange undertone in the crowds of guests passing through.
“Let me take her, ma’am. I’ll get her washed up.” Xiao Tong reached for the child.
“All right. But she can’t see or hear—she may get nervous.” Wen Qiwu passed the little girl over.
Sure enough, the child struggled when Xiao Tong first took her; only after Wen Qiwu soothed her did she settle.
The kitchen was left a shambles—pots, pans, bowls, and ladles all casualties—except for one pristine corner: the steamer of chestnut cakes, untouched. Yun Heng lifted them out. The timing was perfect.
She took one chestnut cake, let it cool a moment, and fed it to her shimei.
Sweet fragrance bloomed across the tongue. Wen Qiwu’s brows curved gently. Her shijie’s chestnut cakes were still her favorite, after all—thank goodness the two fish hadn’t ruined them.
Behind them, the head cook had been toying with the idea of asking for the recipe. But the innkeeper’s one “Immortal Venerable” had shaken the cooks who didn’t know Yun Heng’s identity, and not one of them dared come forward and intrude until the two women had gone.
When Wen Qiwu saw the child again, Xiao Tong had washed her and changed her into fresh clothes. Sallow and emaciated though she was, the delicate features beneath were plain to see—a child of five or six, by the look of her. Xiao Tong said her legs seemed to be a problem too; she couldn’t stand, and needed to be carried.
One look at that freshly scrubbed face and Wen Qiwu sensed something wrong with the child’s coloring. She took her back from Xiao Tong to examine her—and the examination turned Wen Qiwu’s own face to stone. The child showed signs of poisoning. She had likely swallowed demon blood when she bit the fish demon, and that blood carried venom. The child had given no reaction earlier, so even Xiao Tong hadn’t noticed.
Xiao Tong flew into a panic and rushed off to fetch a medical cultivator. After a frantic scramble, they barely managed to pull the child back from the brink.
By the time the dust settled, it was the dinner hour. Guests were pouring in, the innkeeper still hadn’t returned, and Xiao Tong was run off her feet—yet the child couldn’t be left unattended. So Wen Qiwu took her back and looked after her herself.
The child’s stomach was too fragile for anything else after the demon blood. Wen Qiwu had the kitchen send up a bowl of congee, and the child held the bowl herself and ate. She must have been starving—her stomach had been rumbling the whole while—yet she didn’t gobble her food down. Her table manners were impeccable, like a child of some great family fallen on hard times.
Yun Heng had been studying the little girl for a long while. From the moment the fish demon bared the wound on his leg, something in her expression had shifted. “Ah Que, she’s no ordinary child.”
“Giant Stone Fish hide commands its price precisely because their tribe’s skin is extraordinarily tough—it can be refined into defensive artifacts. Even a Nascent Soul cultivator might not bite through it in one go.” Yet this child had bitten a wound that deep.
Wen Qiwu nodded gently. She’d realized it too. The strange part was that she’d found no trace of spiritual energy in the child’s body. “Could she be a child the two of them stole from some prominent family?”
“Perhaps.” Yun Heng watched the child, her darkened eyes unreadable, her thoughts impossible to guess.
If she were the daughter of a great clan, she should have learned her letters by this age. Blind and deaf though she was, a cultivation family would always have means to teach her to read.
Wen Qiwu tried tracing characters into the child’s palm to see if they could communicate. The child only gazed blankly in her direction, offering no response at all.
Not literate yet, then. Wen Qiwu stroked the little girl’s head. The child stiffened briefly, then relaxed and let herself be petted, docile as anything.
0 Comments