"Zi Liu!"
Zhao Cha held a large bowl of chilled sour plum soup, sauntering to Yang Ge’s back, watching him scratch his head while fiddling with his Mahjong tiles.
The fellow players at the table, Xiao Baoqi, the rogue, and Dog Shit, all stared at him unblinkingly, eyes glinting with predatory eagerness, sharpening their knives!
"Play the Nine of Bamboo, up next is the vile sect, slice them up big time!"
Zhao Cha said confidently.
"Go on, get lost... play somewhere else..."
Yang Ge, with a head as big as a fight, turned and pushed her away: "All three families want the Bamboos, and you want to play the Nine of Bamboo? You want your second brother to give them money!"
After speaking, he turned back around, confidently picked up a tile, the One of Dots, and declared as he played it: "Charging Chicken!"
Xiao Baoqi, sitting opposite Yang Ge, smiled and reached for the tile on the table: "You’re talking about yourself, right? If you had played the Nine of Bamboo, wouldn’t all have been well? No One of Dots has appeared yet, and you dare to play it!"
The rogue sitting to Yang Ge’s left slapped his hand away with a smile: "What league are you in to deserve Second Master’s One of Dots... Sorry, Second Master, I’ve got a pair of Two Dragons!"
"Just a small matter of a Double Pung!"
Yang Ge responded coolly, drawing a tile with a flick of his thumb, then, after a glance at Dog Shit who was sitting to his right, cautiously played: "You wouldn’t need this Seven of Characters, right?"
Dog Shit looked innocently at Yang Ge: "What about you, if you listened to Second Shopkeeper and played the Nine of Bamboo, wouldn’t it be nice to draw your own winning piece? Instead, you choose to play the One of Dots, letting these two mongrels off the hook, and they don’t even appreciate it..."
He pushed his tiles forward: "Pure Suit with a Seven of Characters and a Kong."
"Pair of Dragons and One of Dots."
"Don’t look at me, I’ve just got a Small Pure Suit... winning on the edge with One of Dots."
The three brutes rubbed their hands together with a sleazy smile, reveling in all kinds of joy, indescribable by mere words!
Yang Ge’s face darkened as he picked up the small cash box filled with copper coins and pulled out a string of them, counting them one by one to settle his debt. Then, standing up, he bellowed, "No more, no more, from today onwards, I am through with gambling!"
After he spoke, he clutched his cash box and turned to leave.
A chorus of muffled snickers instantly burst forth from the main hall.
Yang Ge couldn’t bear the embarrassment and turned his head with a huff: "Hmph!"
The muffled laughter in the main hall grew even louder, everyone turning their heads away, not daring to look at Yang Ge, fearful of bursting out laughing.
As soon as Yang Ge moved away, Zhao Cha sat down with her chilled sour plum soup in his place: "Sslurp... my turn, my turn!"
The three strong men eyed her bowl of chilled sour plum soup and swallowed hard, whispering, "Second Shopkeeper, can you get us three a bowl of that sour plum soup too?"
"We’ll pay for it!"
"And we’ll take you to the temple fair!"
Zhao Cha glanced at Yang Ge sneakily over by the counter, clearly tempted.
Yang Ge furiously gave the trio the middle finger: "Dream on, the lot of you!"
"Ha..."
Someone couldn’t hold back and let out a laugh. The muffled laughter in the main hall suddenly turned into a riot of hearty laughter; the players slapped the table and rocked back and forth as the air filled with the spirit of mirth.
Yang Ge turned his face away and looked outside the door.
Just then, a familiar figure wearing a traveling hat and holding a Green Sword walked into the upper-class inn, removing his hat with a smile and assessing the main hall: "What’s going on here, why the happiness?"
Zhao Cha, spotting the newcomer, waved her pale little hand from a distance: "Li is back!"
"Is that ’Quanzhen Sword Immortal’ Li Qing himself?"
"Fresh news indeed, when Li used to drink tea at the doorstep, you guys didn’t even know where Lu Ting was..."
"Greetings, Li!"
"Li, have you eaten..."
The regulars in the main hall, whether they were acquainted with Li Qing or seeing him for the first time, all greeted him with various levels of familiarity... Before Yang Tiansheng had made a name for himself, Li Qing had long held the position just beneath Grandmaster in Wei’s martial world, with popularity surpassing that of the four recluses who hardly appeared in public.
Li Qing held his sword in salute, offering a humble bow all around and, after finishing his polite greetings, approached the counter and smiled: "Brother Yang, is there still money left for my room?"
Yang Ge smiled back and nodded: "Of course there is. This isn’t a crooked inn."
He pulled out the ledger, flipped to Li Qing’s page, and lifted his pen to ask, "How long are you staying?"
Li Qing: "One night."
Yang Ge was about to write it down but paused, looking at him in surprise: "Just one night?"
Li Qing nodded with a cheerful smile: "This time I’m just passing through Lu Ting, stopping by to visit Brother Yang and old friends. Tomorrow morning, I have to get going again."
Yang Ge: "Heading North?"
Li Qing: "Heading South."
Yang Ge put down the brush, closed the ledger: "The martial artists in the south are racking their brains out. What business does a salted fish like you have joining in the commotion?"
Li Qing honestly replied: "My master said I’ve been too lazy and whimsical which hinders my cultivation. He has ordered me to head south to challenge others in swordsmanship to purify my Daoist heart."
"You, this..."
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Yang Ge scratched his head, not sure how to respond, before finally saying: "Your master does indeed mean well. So for this trip south, do you have a plan? How are you going to challenge others? Who will you start with?"
"Wait a moment, Brother Yang; let me check..."
Li Qing excused himself hurriedly, fumbling in his robe for a small book, which he opened and started to read, line by line: "First, I’ll head to Xiangxi to look for the old black-hearted man of the Five Poisons Cult’s Poisonous Snake Hall, then to Guangxi to seek ’Thousand-Hand Guanyin’ Gong Nantian from the White Lotus Sect..."
Yang Ge, curious, leaned over the counter to peek at the little book in his hand, then gasped in shock... My goodness, densely packed with twenty or thirty names, not only were names like Tang, Yang Potian, and Zhou Yin on it, his own name was there too, and at the very bottom!