He paused for a moment before adding, "I’ll give you a booklet later on. When you deal with those Western devils in the future, keep an eye out. It’ll do you good!"
Upon hearing him speak of serious matters, Wang Cheng also restrained his smile, holding his bowl of wine earnestly as he said, "When you, Second Master, say something, it’s absolutely reliable. Let’s not talk about advantages anymore. If it wasn’t for you pulling me out, Old Wang might have drowned in that gutter already, how would there be today?"
"Those words are music to my ears!"
Xiang Wudi lifted his wine bowl and loudly proclaimed, "I’ll match you a bowl!"
Yang Ge tipped back his head and emptied his bowl in one gulp, leisurely exhaling the alcohol fumes as he chuckled, "The road lies at your feet, as long as you’re willing to take it, what’s yours will be yours, and no one can take it away, I guarantee it!"
Wang Cheng felt a mysterious surge of excitement upon hearing this, but he didn’t say anything more on the face of it.
Yang Ge refilled his bowl, turned his head to Li Qing at the other table, and with a grin said, "What about you, mighty Sword Immortal? Are you waiting here to have the final fight with me?"
Li Qing wasn’t very good at drinking. After being egged on by Xiao Baoqi and the others to drink several bowls, his face had turned as red as a monkey’s butt. Hearing this, he wobbled his head like a rattle-drum and slurred, "No more fighting, no more. I used to think the difference between Yang Tiansheng and me was just one inside the door, one outside, until I stepped through that threshold, only to realize the gap between us is like the foot of the mountain to the summit..."
He looked at Yang Tiansheng with a sort of plaintive expression, "Brother Yang, you’ve kept me in the dark for quite a while!"
The people in the room couldn’t help but lower their heads and stifle their laughter at his wifely complaint.
Yang Tiansheng almost lost it but managed to hold back his laughter with the professional training he had, no matter how funny the situation.
Li Qing gaped in astonishment, seemingly unable to comprehend why he would even need to ask such a straightforward question, "To look after the inn for you, to guard Lu Ting..."
As soon as he said this, the smothered laughter in the room died down and quickly faded away.
Yang Tiansheng’s mouth stopped twitching upward as if by reflex, he raised his bowl and nodded earnestly, "You, as a friend, have not been made in vain!"
Seeing the wine bowl in his hand, Li Qing’s head shook so hard that afterimages appeared, "No, can’t drink anymore, any more and I’ll truly be drunk..."
Yang Ge feigned anger, "What, you look down on me?"
Those who were sharing the table with him, like Xiao Baoqi and the others, all stood up in unison, some picking out dishes, some pouring wine, attentively putting the wine bowl into his hands.
"Taoist priest, wine is the essence of grain, the more you drink, the younger you become!"
"You’ve drunk so much already, this one or half a bowl more won’t matter..."
"Priest, you wouldn’t want people outside to mistakenly think the Quanzhen Sect looks down on Second Master, would you?"
A bunch of scoundrels cajoled and tricked him into downing another bowl of wine, after which Li Qing’s gaze began to look straight ahead.
As Li Qing’s head thudded onto the table, Shen Fa, sitting at their table in his assumed identity of the fifth bear, turned back and casually asked, "By the way, Yang Ge, you haven’t told us yet, who did you deal with on this trip out?"
The other people in the room also set aside their bowls and chopsticks and all turned their gaze towards Yang Ge.
Yang Ge had caused such a stir on his outing this time...
The only one in the room likely uninterested in who he killed was probably Zhao Miao alone.
Yang Ge gave Shen Fa a glance, thought for a moment, and then said, "I encountered two monks on Bright Summit; this much you should all know."
Everyone in the room nodded in agreement.
"Those two monks, one was from Jiangzhe, the other a lama from beyond the borders. They were very strong, extremely strong!"
"The two of them together, and it was very difficult for me to even get close to them."
"The good news is I managed to slaughter those two old monks!"
"The bad news, I encountered someone even more ruthless up north..."
No sooner had his words dropped than Shen Fa quickly inquired, "Who was it?"
Yang Ge replied indifferently, "I don’t know."
Shen Fa: "You don’t know?"
Yang Ge: "You’re asking me?"
After a moment’s contemplation, Shen Fa emphatically stated, "I will do my best to have people investigate this matter. Should there be any result, I will promptly give you an answer."
Yang Ge drooped his eyelids and didn’t strike up another conversation.
Seeing this, Yang Tiansheng waved at Yang Ge, "Enough chit-chat, let’s play finger-guessing game!"
Yang Ge stood up, stepping on a stool and said, "Isn’t it my turn to be the dealer? Here I come... Brother, nice!"
Happy times are always so brief.
No matter how good the drink, it eventually comes to an end...
It was only when the distant call of "the third watch" from the night watchman drifted into the tavern’s main hall that the staggering drunks managed to stand and bid each other farewell, wobbling.
Many among them would rush off to all corners of the land at the crack of dawn.
Whether they could ever come together again in this lifetime and have such a grand drinking session,
nobody knew...
Yang Ge left Huang in the tavern to keep Zhao Miao company and shouldered his Cold Moon Blade alone, emerging into the bright moonlight. He staggered toward home, and halfway down the street, he suddenly stopped, looked up at the bright moon encircled by a halo of silvery-grey as if surrounded by planetary rings, and muttered to himself, "Well, it’s as good as a full belly and a stroll..."
With those words, he leapt into the air, swung up a shining arc of his blade, trailing a long tail of flames as he sped towards the south.
At dawn, Yang Ge "successfully" arrived near Dragon Tiger Mountain in Jiujiang.
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He found a large rock in the forest that was destroyed by the aftershocks of his battle with Zhang Xuansu and sat cross-legged on it. He leisurely released his qi, gradually intensifying it... He had originally planned to return home and rest well for ten days to half a month before searching for that old Taoist with the esteemed nose.
But the grand drinking session had replenished his strength.
In less than the time it took to drink a cup of tea, Zhang Xuansu appeared before Yang Ge, with a head of messy hair, still with sleep in his eyes, and angrily said, "Do you have any idea how important sleep is for a centenarian?"
Yang Ge propped his chin with one hand, tilting his head as he looked at him, "How about, I think of a solution for you, old man?"
"Forget it!"
Zhang Xuansu said irritably, "Speak if you have something to say, fart if you have to fart; this old man needs to go back for more sleep!"
Yang Ge could tell that the old Taoist was in a bad mood.
"Then let’s be straightforward, and don’t go about it in a roundabout way!"
Yang Ge lowered his hand, sat up straight, and spoke seriously, "Those two bald monks that day on Bright Summit, who were they?"
Zhang Xuansu furrowed his brows at him, "Don’t you already know? Why ask something so obvious?"
Yang Ge, "If I knew, why would I need to come and ask you?"
Zhang Xuansu, "You don’t know who they are, yet you fought them to the death at first sight?"
Yang Ge, "They were clearly luring me into an ambush; did I need to know who they were before I could fight back?"
After a moment’s thought, Zhang Xuansu nodded, "That’s true... The bald monk that you dismembered on the spot at Bright Summit was the State Preceptor of the Tartars, his Dharma name Nan Jia, and the one you’ve chased and hacked for over a month was the one you asked about before from Treasure Temple, his Dharma name Dao Dan."
Upon hearing this, Yang Ge thought to himself, as expected.
He had indeed guessed the identity of these two individuals, but he wasn’t entirely certain.
"It’s one thing for the old Lama Tartar to scheme against me..."
Yang Ge asked, puzzled, "Why would that trouble-making bald monk want to scheme against me? I don’t believe I’ve done anything to incur such deep hatred from him, have I?"
By this time, Zhang Xuansu wasn’t as annoyed anymore. He casually strolled forward, sat down on the rock, and said earnestly, "If you want the specifics, I can’t say for sure, as I’m not that bald monk and don’t know what he was thinking..."
"But if you’re just asking for a rough idea, I can give you an answer."
"Dao Dan the monk schemed against you, firstly because you disrupted his plans in Jiangzhe. You know what you’ve done there. It’s clear in your own mind."
"Of course, those little disruptions weren’t enough for him to seek the help of Nan Jia to scheme against you."
"What really made him decide to take action was your proximity with the Zhao Family and your excessively domineering behavior!"
"He wanted a change of dynasties, and you were an imposing gate deity he couldn’t bypass..."