Yuanhui suddenly raised his head and glanced at Juxi, who was sitting on a stone stump and dozing off. Then he looked into Yu Nai’s eyes.
“You actually know about me? Not bad. I’m the heir to the Capital’s number-one escort family.”
As he spoke, he shifted his gaze away and turned his head toward the stone wall. A moment later, he stopped paying attention to Yu Nai altogether. After all, that was simply how things were now. Even if the situation hadn’t reached its most critical point, he could no longer charge into the midst of thousands of soldiers like he used to.
“Wu Yuanhui, from the Capital’s number-one escort agency—the Wuxing Grand Escort Agency! Or, well, it used to be number one. These days, he’s the only one left in the entire agency. No matter how you look at it, he can’t exactly be called the best under heaven anymore… Tsk, tsk, tsk. The best good-for-nothing under heaven, maybe!”
“That’s right. People who understand mercy are always so easy to impeach.” Yuanhui immediately began arguing back with Juxi.
The girl, at least, was acting relatively normal. She quietly took off her coat, revealing the cross-front sweater underneath. Only Juxi and Yuanhui, both stubborn by nature, were still bickering back and forth.
“What are you looking at? Did you tell him the details?” Yu Nai asked, deliberately driving a wedge between the two while adding fuel to the fire.
Yuanhui was completely lost. Juxi hadn’t told him anything, had he?
Juxi knew Yu Nai was doing it on purpose, so he pretended to be angry as well. “Oh, really? Your merciful king didn’t change the situation at all? What an ironic story. Was it really that interesting to tell Yuanhui?”
He wasn’t particularly interested in the exorcist’s old-fashioned methods. People had known about this way of driving out spirits for a long time, but it was completely useless against corpse ghouls. Corpse ghouls were different from vampires.
“I knew about this method a long time ago. It’s just that Yuanhui’s family forbade anyone from revealing it, so it wasn’t worth much.”
Although Juxi had explained everything clearly, Yuanhui still seemed to feel that this was disrespectful to his friend.
Of course, Yuanhui wasn’t about to let things end so casually with Juxi. He had already adopted the posture of someone prepared to fight until dawn, ready to talk about the bond between their dear friendship.
“What method, Old Juxi—er, no, sir. Yes, I forgot that you have rules about that.”
“All right. It was just a small reminder. I’ll remember it.”
Juxi still wasn’t willing to reveal it. There were many people still trapped in their own resentment because they didn’t believe in the paradise beyond the world that the princess had spoken of. They had always thought the world was only this large. By now, more than half of Europe had already been occupied by the mutants.
“Several Tiandao masters have come to see me, but… they were all too weak. They couldn’t take a beating at all.”
The girl’s voice carried a hint of mockery. It wasn’t hard to imagine why, considering the yellow-haired men and the others she had brought along back then.
“All right, your name is Yu Nai, right? Yu Nai, as far as I know, what exorcists are best at is lifting curses, not hunting monsters, right?”
“This is different. If our princess loses even a single strand of hair, you can say goodbye to your gold coins. That’s all. Also… let’s get moving. We’ll tell you what you want to know. By the way, Tiandao masters always ask a whole mountain of questions. We’ll prepare some food and a room for you when the time comes, so stop wandering around the taverns all day.”
“…” Juxi and Yuanhui were both stunned. When had this started to feel like they had a wife waiting at home?
The heavy rain outside the cave still showed no sign of stopping. The water had soaked through the medicinal powder scattered outside, so Juxi had no choice but to sprinkle some more inside the cave before going to sleep. He also warned Yu Nai, “Don’t come near the ‘line’ marked by the corpse-driving powder. If you die, don’t blame me for not warning you.”
“Got it…”
“Hmph. Don’t bother with useless talk. By the way, are all exorcists as brainless as you?”
After mocking the girl, Juxi slowly sat down on a rock beside the campfire and opened the notebook he had brought with him. At last, he had some free time—and could finally put it to use himself.
Sure enough, notebooks were made for moments like this:
As of today, we have traveled a long way and finally arrived in the land of the Westerners.
After writing this much, Juxi deliberately paused. He looked at Yuanhui and Yu Nai, who were sleeping on the ground, then continued writing:
We haven’t found any traces of corpse ghouls here, but judging from the effect of the corpse powder just now, the mutants in this place may very well have something to do with them.
……
Early the next morning, Juxi got up, whistled toward the entrance, and swaggered over to the mouth of the cave.
The morning weather wasn’t very good, but it was cool, and the rain wasn’t too heavy. Juxi slowly pulled the wheat straw from his feet as he walked.
When he reached the entrance, he turned around and looked at Yuanhui, who was snoring away at the mouth of the cave, and Yu Nai, who was sleeping beside the fire. It seemed they had pushed themselves too hard on yesterday’s journey.
“Anyway… Tiandao master! Once the job’s done, the twenty-five thousand gold coins are yours. If you do a good job, I might even raise it to thirty thousand!”
“Is that so?” Juxi pursed his lips skeptically. “I don’t do losing businesses. If it weren’t for the princess…”
“Hahahahaha! Of course. Not a single word of what people said about marrying the princess was true.” Yu Nai burst out laughing. “You didn’t seriously think we’d just marry the princess off to some wandering vagrant who happened to pass by, did you?”
