Chapter 12 – Ingot’s Seven Stars (1/2)
Chapter 12 – Ingot’s Seven Stars
Part 1
April 18th, dusk.
Ingot had no idea what time it was, nor where he was, nor had he any clue what had occurred after the lights went out at As You Wish Gambling Hall.
He wanted to ask about all these things, but he didn’t. The girl who had bathed him started asking questions first.
“I know people call you Ingot, but what is your surname? What’s your given name? Where is your family? What family members do you have… are you married?”
Her succession of five questions made it seem like she was sizing him up as a prospective mate.
“I’m called Ingot, and I’m just a beggar,” he said. “How could a stinky beggar have a family, much less a wife?”
“You’re lying,” said the girl. “You are definitely not a beggar. I could tell that when I bathed you just now.”
“How could you tell?”
“Your skin is delicate and you have fair complexion. Your feet are as delicate as a woman’s. How could you be a beggar?” She chuckled. “If you think a woman wouldn’t want to marry you, you’re wrong. I’ll marry you any time. Just now when you lay sleeping in the bathtub, I realized that I really like you.”
How could such words come out of the mouth of such a young girl? Ingot laughed bitterly.
“Did I hear incorrectly? What you said just now, I think you didn’t actually say. My ears must have a defect.”
“You ears don’t have any defect. In fact, I can guarantee that your entire body is without defect. You’re as robust as a bull.” The girl was still laughing. “I could also tell that you are definitely a boy, and definitely able to marry a wife. Even if you married three wives, or five, you would be fine.”
She did not blush, nor did she seem embarrassed in the slightest.
She sat there next to the bed, looking like she was ready to jump in at any moment.
Ingot wasn’t the type of boy to get embarrassed easily. He was gutsy, and thick-skinned. But currently, the only thing he could do was shrink deeper into the bed and change the conversation topic on this girl who seemed to have much thicker skin than him. “Is it starting to get light outside?” A tiny bit of lit seemed to seep in from the window. It looked somewhat like dawn light.
“Yes, it will be light soon,” said the girl. “At the most, twelve or fourteen hours from now.”
“Twelve or fourteen hours?” cried Ingot in shock. “Don’t tell me it just got dark? I slept a whole day?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know?” said the girl, laughing again. “I had to bathe you for two hours before I could get you clean.”
She brought up the bathing matter again, but Ingot changed topics again just as quickly.
“How did I get here?” he asked her. “Who brought me here?”
“A very scary person. Even I am scared of him.” She really did appear to be frightened.
Upon mention of him, her laughter ceased completely.
“What’s his name?”
“I can’t say, even if you beat me.”
“Why?”
“Because he told me not to. He said that if I spoke his name, he would slice off my nose, mix it with rice, and feet it to the cats.”
Ingot could sense that she spoke the truth, given that her face had grown pale white.
He had personally experienced that person’s fearsomeness already.
Just thinking about those ice-cold hands, and that stench of death, he felt goosebumps all over his body.
“He grabbed me in one move, threw me across the room, then caught me himself. Who wouldn’t be frightened of someone like that.” Ingot sighed. “I just can’t figure out why he would bring me here. Why not just dump me in the gutter?”
“Because he likes you, too,” laughed the girl. “And at the least, this place smells better than the gutter.”
“What is this place? How far is it away from As You Wish Gambling Hall.”
“Not far.”
“How far is ‘not far?’”
“Why do you want to such a detailed answer?”
“Right now, I can barely even take a single step,” said Ingot. “I want you go go there for me and ask around.”
“Ask around about what?”
“I want to know what happened after the lanterns were extinguished last night.”
“I just know that some people got killed,” said the girl. “I don’t want to know anything more.”
She suddenly laughed happily again. “Anyway, this place can’t be considered very far from As You Wish Gambling hall, because this place is As You Wish.”
Ingot gaped.
“This room is in the courtyard behind the main room you were in. It’s Big Boss Tang’s house, and I’m Big Boss Tang’s adopted daughter. I’m surnamed Cai; people call me Little Cai.” [1]
Ingot laughed.
“Little Cai? An appetizer? What kind of appetizer? Meat or vegetarian? Stir-fried lamb kidney or cold, shredded radish?”
He laughed heartily. “Just hearing your name makes me hungry. I could eat any kind of appetizer whatsoever. I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”
Little Cai didn’t laugh. She stared at him for a while, then suddenly placed her soft, white face in front of his and said, “Okay. Eat. I’ll feed you.”
Again, Ingot was incapable of laughing.
But this time, the reason he didn’t laugh was not because of this audacious girl.
This time, he didn’t laugh because he had just thought of something extremely serious.
“You just bathed me, right?” he asked her. “And you were the one who took my clothes off?”
“Of course,” said Little Cai, with a purposefully coquettish expression. “”How could I let anyone else take your clothes off?”
“Where are they?”
“Burned,” she said, “along with all the toys and junk that were inside.”
“What?” cried Ingot. “How could you burn my things?”
“Why not? They were making the whole room stink. Don’t tell me you wanted me to save them like they were treasure or something?”
Ingot was struck speechless, his expression like that of a person who had just swallowed eight or nine stinking duck eggs. “You’ve killed me,” he said. “You’ve really killed me.”
“Sadly, I haven’t killed you,” she said with a sigh. With a flourish, she pulled out an embroidered bag from within her garment. “See? What’s this?”
Ingot sprang to life, snatching the bag from her. She sneered and laughed coldly.
“You look like a very easy going person. Why would you treat a pouch like a great treasure?”
“You don’t know what’s inside.”
“How could I know, I never looked inside,” she said. “I’m not in the habit of secretly looking at other peoples’ things.”
“You’re a good girl,” said Ingot happily. “Of course you wouldn’t have a habit like that.”
“Although, if you decided to let me see, I wouldn’t refuse to look.”
“I might not necessarily let you look,” said Ingot quickly. “I’m not sure you even want to look. After all, how could a beggar have anything worth looking at.”
“What if I said you had to show me?”
“You wouldn’t,” said Ingot. “You’re not that type of person.”
“How do I know what kind of person I am?” she replied. “I’m just an idiot.” She sighed deliberately. “Even though I just couldn’t bring myself to burn your pouch, I could have hidden it away. Why did I have to return it to you? If I’m not an idiot, what am I?”
Ingot thought for a while, and then for a while longer. Then he suddenly said, “You’re right. Okay, I’ll show you.”
The pouch didn’t contain any treasures, just seven stars.
Nobody would regard these seven stars to be treasures, not even a three-year-old child.
They didn’t appear to be very interesting at all. Whichever way you looked at them, there wasn’t anything at all that made them look valuable. If someone offered them to you, you wouldn’t take them. If you randomly picked them up, you would throw them away immediately.
The seven stars were not made from any special material. Even though one appeared to be crafted from jade, the others weren’t. They were made from scraps of copper and iron and wood. One even appeared to but cut out of cardboard.
But each star had a character inscribed on it. Before Little Cai could look closely at the characters, Ingot asked, “So you had your look, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think they’re cool?”
“Not really.”
Given that they weren’t cool, Ingot gathered them back up. His dimples appeared. “I told you, beggars don’t carry anything interesting.”
Little Cai’s dimples also appeared.
“Then why don’t you give me one,” she said with a sweet laugh. “How about the one made from old wood?”
A star of blessing from heaven, with one tap, it can turn iron into gold. She knew about this star, so did she know about what happened that night after the lights went out?
Ingot wanted to ask, but didn’t.
His lips appeared to have been sealed as tight as if they had been sewn shut with thread. He didn’t say a single word. Because he suddenly realized that someone was standing at the end of the bed looking at him.