Chapter 63 (1/2)

Arriving at Forty Seventh Street in the deep night, the door of the Old Brush House was pushed open by someone, then quickly closed. Inside the dim light like stars flashed once and then was again extinguished.

Ning Que took off the heavy weapons from his back, ripping off the covering cloth of the big black umbrella, then removed the heavily drenched outer s.h.i.+rt, handing it over to Sang Sang standing in front of him, and normally he asked, “Hungry, are the noodles cooked yet?”

Sang Sang gave the dry towel in her hands to him, and heavily nodding her head, she happily said, “I’ll bring it over for you.”

A bowl of steaming hot noodle soup was carried over, still with four hot peppers, and chopped onions but a lot more than usual. Spread out on top of the noodles were two golden yellow white eggs that were even more rare. Cutting people down was indeed more tiring than hoeing fields – Ning Que this time was soaked all over, and within his stomach was even more hungry grumbling. How could he resist the temptation of extra green onions and eggs? Immediately in a glance, putting down the slightly wet towel, he picked up chopsticks, and rapidly he ate it in big bites, seemingly extremely sweetly.

Sang Sang happily watched him eating, on her little face’s dark cheeks was a happy expression. Picking up that slightly wet towel, standing behind him she began to wipe his hair; from time to time, reminding that if it’s too hot to not eat too fast.

At this time, inside of the dim shop echoed with the sounds of two coughs. All along no one paying him heed, it seemed that the usually invisible ChangAn City Boss, watched this pair of master and servant chatting as though they didn’t see him, and finally he couldn’t help but to speak up, “The noodles are very fragrant.”

A few hours ago, when Chao XiaoShu came to the Old Brush House the first thing he said were also these words.

Sang Sang continued to rub Ning Que’s hair, acting as though she hadn’t seen anyone, and hadn’t heard these words. But Ning Que’s reaction earlier was a bit different, with his head low eating noodle soup he indistinctly said, “Also give him a bowl.”

With a little work, a second bowl of soup noodles was brought over, and Chao XiaoShu glanced in the four directions, and discovered that besides a circular chair, there was nothing else to sit on. But he didn’t care, and just at Ning Que’s side he squatted down, holding chopsticks and eating several bites, but discovered that his own noodles seemed to be a bit unlike the noodles in Ning Que’s bowl.

The standard four peppers, thirty sliced green onions, but no fried eggs.

He couldn’t help but to use his chopsticks to lightly tap on Ning Que’s bowl’s rim as a reminder. Ning Que used his peripheral vision, and nearly laughing out loud, he turned his head to Sang Sang and persuasively said, “Don’t be so stingy, fry another egg.”

The fried egg finally came, and Ning Que and Chao XiaoShu grasping the “sea” bowls like little pots happily ate noodles. Sang Sang squatted not far from the two people, putting that s.h.i.+rt into a copper basin and roasting, and in the shop no one spoke.

Without knowing how much time had pa.s.sed, Ning Que put down the bowl of noodles in his hand, and comfortably looked backward, rubbing his small drum of a belly. He looked at Chao XiaoShu squatting next to him and said, “I killed over five people. Give me a new amount……don’t be stingy, I even had Sang Sang fry an egg for you.”

Chao XiaoShu carrying the noodle bowl looked at him and bitterly smiled, saying, “So here you’ve been waiting for me, two thousand two hundred.”

“Deal.” Ning Que seemed as though he did things as he pleased, but he was a little bit excited. As he was squatting next to Sang Sang roasting the s.h.i.+rt in the copper basin, he even more tightly held a little fist, secretly wondering just how big of a pile two thousand two hundred silver coins was.

Sang Sang was about to go wash dishes, and Chao XiaoShu reluctantly pa.s.sed over a little less than half of the bowl of remaining noodle soup, then his brow slightly scrunched. Slowly lifting up his sleeves to cover up his lips, when he put down the sleeves, there were already more stains of blood.

Ning Que saw his sleeves, and knew that in the repeated battles before, this extremely powerful middle-aged man had after all still suffered heavy injuries. After a period of silence he asked, “Are you okay?”

Chao XiaoShu received a bowl of coa.r.s.e tea that Sang Sang brought over. With a thanking slight smile, after drinking a gulp he calmly said, “No need to worry. Since I was young I grew up in East City’s poor streets. In this lifetime I don’t know how many battles I’ve fought, and taken how many injuries worse than this one, each time fighting and seeing my whole body covered in blood, when thinking that I would ever be able to get up again, I always could get up and give them a mortal blow.”

Ning Que mocking himself said, “A ruffian that only knows how to fight and brawl can unexpectedly cultivate, and so formidably. My heart is so fixed on the path of cultivation, but I can’t even touch the first boundary. Lord Hao Tian is truly blind.”

Chao XiaoShu smiled, and didn’t continue this topic. The gang leader, immersed his whole life in the underworld of ChangAn City’s JiangHu, in the end was able to become a Great Sword Master at the top level of the Mysterious Cavern realm. Within that, he had a few chances, but those chances weren’t worth mentioning.

“You said before, after tonight your cards will be flipped over.”

Ning Que’s gaze went through the wooden door of the shop, falling onto a distant corner of the palace, and said, “Right now I can roughly guess that your card is the Palace. With such deep backing, no wonder you don’t have to care about ChangAn’s government’s face.”

“After tonight roughly the whole Empire’s people will envy me, because behind me stands that kind of a person.” Chao XiaoShu calmly said, “But no one will know what price I paid.”

“Doing work in place of n.o.bles, what does that need you to pay?” Ning Que asked.

Chao XiaoShu shed a smile, saying, “If these years I wasn’t being bothered by vulgar things, if that person in the Palace occasionally gets an idea, I then have to handle countless trivial and small matters, or else I would’ve long already broken through Mysterious Cavern, and stepped into the Fateseeker realm.”

“Just that?” Ning Que continued to question.

Chao XiaoShu unknowingly thought of something, falling into a long period of silence, his smile becoming a bit thin, and slowly he said, “It also needs you to pay in blood. Doing things requires attention to the overall situation, so sometimes you can’t be happy. Because of needing to force out all of the opponent’s cards, it needed me to bear it for several months, so that I couldn’t even protect my own brothers.”

Hearing these words, Ning Que’s right hand slightly tightened, knowing that this was mentioning Xiao Hei, but he didn’t take it, and didn’t speak of the relations.h.i.+p between him and Xiao Hei. Lowering his head he asked, “How did your brother die?”