Chapter 157

When the Demon Chapter King was recounting his past, Lao Bai poked his head out and pushed open the door of the Wa Valley tavern, stepping into the noisy tavern.

A strong smell of alcohol and meat hit him, mixed with the aroma of simmering meat broth, mingling with human sweat, body odor, foot odor, and the leathery scent of the strange hides of ferocious giant pythons hanging on the tavern walls.

The almost tangible strange odor nearly made Lao Bai stumble.

Lao Bai, whose sense of smell was unusually sensitive, stood at the tavern entrance, his whole body stiffening for a while before he blinked back a tear that had been forced out and looked around.

The tavern was built from black boulders, with heavy walls and a heavy roof; metal cast beams and pillars were neatly arranged overhead, and beneath the blackened pillars hung large round lamp stands, each filled with oil lamps.

Metal square and long tables were neatly placed in the tavern; at a glance, the long tavern held at least two or three hundred large tables, each surrounded by burly men with sharp features.

Scantily clad women swayed their hips, smiling as they walked through the crowd.

Some carried wine barrels on their shoulders, others bore large trays laden with various roasted meats, stewed meats, sausages, and similar foods.

Whenever someone called out, they would fill the large empty wine cups raised by the burly men with liquor, and at the same time make two heavy marks on the animal hides hanging beside the tables.

Likewise, when summoned, the women holding trays would seize a sharp dagger, hack off several steaming chunks of meat, slam them heavily onto the trays before the burly men, and then make a simple notation on the animal hides hanging at the table edge.

In Wa Valley, those of great power and noble residence lived in stone towers near the Wa Palace, having their own social circles and never coming to such chaotic places.

Those who mingled in this tavern were either the bodyguards of important figures, mercenaries who had come from afar seeking fortune, or various other miscellaneous people.

The crowd was complex, of low standing, and brawls often broke out.

Lao Bai tightened his belt, felt the poisoned dagger tucked in his waistband, and carefully took small steps toward the long counter in the middle of the tavern.

A man over two meters tall, round and bulky like a meat mountain, stood behind the counter, vigorously polishing a stone wine cup as large as a ordinary person's head with a piece of sackcloth until it shone like a mirror.

When Lao Bai entered, the big man had already noticed him; after Lao Bai weaved past the jostling burly men to reach the counter, the man set his wine cup down, planted his left elbow on the counter, turned his body sideways, and glanced at Lao Bai with a sideways look.

"Your face is unfamiliar; just arrived? Wa Valley is a good place… as long as you're a capable man, you can make a fortune." The big man said in a deep, resonant voice: "Any good fellow can strike it rich… and if you're lucky enough to find a Wa woman, you'll want for nothing in this life."

Before Lao Bai could speak, the big man slapped the table and laughed loudly: "But Wa women will never take a rat‑person shorter than their thighs… hahaha, hahaha!"

The burly men at the long tables beside the counter, a few loose customers sitting at the counter edge, and the seven or eight fiery‑figured women nearby all burst out laughing.

They looked at Lao Bai's bewildered face, and their laughter grew even louder.

"A rat‑person… still just a rat‑person…"

"Hahaha, look at that skin‑and‑bones vigor…"

"Hey, old timer, your waist dagger is nice, but can you still kill someone?"

"Tsk, I see he was born with a face begging for a beating, that rat‑face…"

Several red‑faced, drunken burly men stood up, swaying their arms as they approached Lao Bai; one man went down on one knee with a thud, lowered his head, and brought his round, ruddy face to within less than three inches of Lao Bai's face.

"Hmm, what are you doing here, old man? This is where our young good fellows come; what are you doing here?"

Lao Bai stepped back one step.

As the chieftain of a pre‑rat‑person tribe who led his people to survive in the wilderness and kept the tribe continually growing, Lao Bai's first recourse when faced with trouble was not force but reason; his second was, if reason failed, to flee as quickly as possible…

Unless driven to an unavoidable desperate situation, Lao Bai would not readily choose violence.

Even though these several drunken men had their necks exposed before Lao Bai, a light slash of his dagger—coated with the deadly poison of rotted bone marrow—would kill them instantly even if it merely nicked the skin…

Lao Bai chose to reason.

"Gentlemen, I'm here to find someone…" Lao Bai gave a dry laugh, rubbed his hands together, and said, "I'm looking for a brother named Gold Coin."

Gold Coin had spread the word through special channels that someone was seeking Wu Tie in Wa Valley, and that person had been commissioned by Wu Jin to find Wu Tie.

Lao Bai thought that, having come to Wa Valley, it would be good to meet Gold Coin.

He certainly wasn't thinking about the bounty gold coins Gold Coin offered; he absolutely was not thinking about those rewards…

Well, perhaps he did have a little thought for those gold coins, but all rat‑people under heaven are one family; since he had come to Wa Valley, he should still connect with the rat‑people here—maybe someday they could all help each other.

The several drunken burly men stared, then the one kneeling on one knee before Lao Bai burst out laughing: "Hey… someone's looking for Gold Coin! Old Luo, someone's looking for Gold Coin… does he still owe you a lot of money?"

On one side of the counter, at the far end of the tavern, amid several dozen long tables lay a relatively spacious square area. There stood a long table several times larger than an ordinary one, around which nearly a hundred men and women were loudly clamoring.

The shouts of the drunken men caused those noisy men and women to shut their mouths simultaneously, each turning their heads to look this way.

The crowd suddenly parted left and right, revealing a burly, dark‑skinned man like an iron tower, with a black eye patch over one eye and his upper body covered in ferocious scars, playing with three dice the size of a baby's fist, as he stepped forward, parting the crowd step by step.

A few shirtless men with sly, rat‑like eyes yet a vicious aura—clearly no good sorts—followed behind the iron‑tower‑like man, wearing strange grins and stepping in unison as they approached.

"Oh, a rat‑person?" the iron‑tower‑like man, Old Luo, slapped the counter with a palm, looked at the mountain‑like burly man and laughed: "Old Wine, this is your tavern's second rat‑person, worth celebrating… hahaha, besides that Gold Coin fellow, your tavern actually got a second rat‑person…"

"Hehe," Old Wine chuckled a few times, shook his head, picked up the stone wine cup, and continued to polish it earnestly with the sackcloth.

Old Luo shook his head, lowered his gaze to Lao Bai, and said in a deep, resonant voice: "You're looking for Gold Coin? What's the matter?"

Before Lao Bai could speak, Old Luo cracked a grin: "I see, you're also a rat‑person, Gold Coin is a rat‑person… hm, are you his relative?"

Lao Bai blinked his eyes, gave a clever smile, and said: "Of course, I've never met him; I'm just here to ask him for some news… sorry, if he has a grudge with you, I don't know him."

Lao Bai stepped back two steps, about to leave the tavern.

He felt a twinge of regret; he should have listened to Wu Tie and not bothered coming to look for that fellow Gold Coin—after all, Wu Tie had already arrived in Wa Valley, found his mother, and learned Wu Jin's news, so why make an extra trip?

A large hand slammed down on Lao Bai's shoulder, then a second hand, a third hand…

Several drunken men reached out, clumsily pressing on Lao Bai's shoulders and neck, gripping him tightly.

"Hey, Old Luo is talking to you, you can't run!" The drunken men laughed gleefully: "Old timer… hehe… old timer…"

Old Luo stood over two meters tall, while Lao Bai was just under one meter high; basically, one of Old Luo's arms was sturdier than Lao Bai's entire body. Old Luo stepped forward, feeling the height gap too great to converse comfortably, and grunted "uh."

The drunken men hoisted Lao Bai up in one lift, raising him to the same height as Old Luo.

"You know Gold Coin… that's good." Old Luo reached out to slap Lao Bai's face: "He owes me… how many gold coins?"

The several men behind Old Luo laughed at once; one with a mouth full of rotten teeth and sores at the corners of his eyes, constantly oozing pus, cackled hoarsely: "Boss, that Gold Coin bastard owes us a gambling debt of twenty gold coins… plus interest, that's twenty… no, two hundred."

Lao Bai, being quite sharp, realized at once from the man's words that he was being maliciously extorted.

He shook his head and said bluntly: "Hey, listen up—I've never met Gold Coin, I have no connection with him, his gambling debt…"

Old Luo placed a hand on Lao Bai's shoulder and said seriously: "You're a rat‑person, he's a rat‑person, you came here looking for him… over the years no rat‑person has ever sought Gold Coin, so you must be connected… you're his relative?"

"If you're kin, that's perfect—you'll have to help him repay the two‑hundred‑gold‑coin gambling debt. Well, I know you rat‑people are poor, life is hard, not easy… so your soft armor is nice."

Old Luo's eyes lit up as he looked at Lao Bai's soft armor.

This is a fine set of python skin armor, made from python skin nearly transformed into a flood dragon, and furthermore it is soft armor specially tailored for Lao Bai by the Lu family's master craftsmen.

The black soft armor has a faint layer of fluorescence on its surface, a sign of the powerful runes added to it; it is a fine piece of primordial soldier armor.

"You guys, didn't you get it wrong?" Lao Bai stared in shock at Lao Luo: "You guys, you want to rob my equipment? But my armor, can you even wear it?"

Lao Bai could not understand the thinking of Lao Luo and his companions.

"That's true, our builds differ quite a bit. But good stuff can always be sold." Lao Luo smiled at Lao Bai: "Oh, no, I misspoke..."

Lao Luo lightly slapped himself, then looked solemnly at Lao Bai and said: "This soft armor of yours is probably worth just one gold coin? So you still owe us one hundred ninety-nine gold coins... Let's see what else you have that's valuable."

Lao Bai widened his eyes at Lao Luo.

One gold coin?

Although his soft armor uses less material due to his size, a piece of python skin nearly turned into a flood dragon has raw material worth nearly a thousand gold coins in the Cangyan Realm.

Even if the gold coins of the Cangyan Realm are slightly smaller and a bit less pure than the gold snake stones of Huagu, they are still worth hundreds of gold snake stones.

Moreover, this is a carefully forged primordial soldier soft armor, so its price is at least two or three times higher.

This is extortion, this is blackmail, Lao Bai knows it full well.

His body shuddered, and the bones near his shoulders made a few "crack" sounds; the several burly men gripping his shoulders felt their grasp go empty, and Lao Bai inexplicably slipped from their palms.

Afterwards Lao Bai bent at the waist and easily slipped out between the legs of a burly man, dashing straight for the tavern's door.

Several drunkards, dazed and slow-moving, Lao Bai had already fled far away before they could even turn around.

Lao Luo raised his eyebrows; the three dice he was playing with suddenly flashed a faint light, he clenched his fist, then opened it, and the three dice vanished with a "swish", then abruptly appeared above Lao Bai's head.

One die pressed down on his crown, one on each side pressed on his shoulders.

Like a small mountain pressing down from above, the thin, naturally weak Lao Bai let out a strange cry, the three dice slammed him with a "thud" onto the ground, his forehead striking the earth, nearly knocking him unconscious.

The three dice ruthlessly ground down, making Lao Bai's bones all over crackle continuously.

If it weren't for these days of Lao Bai painstakingly cultivating the Formless Bone Devil Classic, which has caused some subtle changes in his body, this blow would have already shattered all his bones.

Lao Bai let out a sharp cry, his body jerked, his bones turned like flowing water, his body became like a spiritual snake, instantly shedding all his clothes and armor and breaking free from the dice's confinement, darting away.

The few men behind Lao Luo had already taken a couple of steps to chase after him; as Lao Bai had just freed himself by shedding his clothes and armor, they all drew their waist-worn short swords, daggers, and knives, and flung them at Lao Bai.

These men are all cultivators of the Perceiving Mystery Realm, having already cultivated magical power.

Several short swords, daggers, and knives, each trailing a cold light about a foot long, sliced across Lao Bai's body; instantly bloody light sprayed, large patches of flesh mixed with white hair flying up.

Lao Bai screamed in pain with a "squeak", regretting ten thousand times why he had come to this damned tavern for a few gold coins.

His body shuddered, and his innate divine ability Shadow Avoidance unfolded, his body sinking into a wisp of shadow, and in the span of a breath he vanished without a trace.

"Oh? He got away?" Lao Luo laughed triumphantly, scooping up the clothes, armor, and dagger Lao Bai had left behind.

"Still, these things are still worth quite a bit... Old wine, I'll treat all my brothers to a drink!" Lao Luo laughed loudly, raising the equipment that originally belonged to Lao Bai.