Chapter 564: Chapter 177: Snow Cliff Pass
Golden Armor pulled the woman over, whispered a few words in her ear, and pointed at Chen Yan. The woman smiled, retrieved a key from behind the counter, and walked to Chen Yan, pressing it into his hand.
"This young man, follow me."
Golden Armor winked at Chen Yan: "Don’t worry, follow her, we’ll meet later."
Chen Yan didn’t ask much, followed the woman away, passed a cave, and entered deeper tunnels within the mountain’s belly, eventually arriving at another cave entrance.
This one was clearly a guest room, the entrance was quite small.
"This room is yours to use, that rascal has paid for three days." The woman gave Chen Yan a seductive glance, "Young master looks good and isn’t old, if you want some fun, just whisper to me. I can recommend the gentlest prostitutes with the best skills in Snow Cliff Pass."
Her blunt words surprised Chen Yan a little, but he just smiled: "I’ve been fighting rigorously for days, exhausted to the bone, no mood for that. I just want a good bath and a decent meal now."
The woman laughed: "Bathing is easy, walk deeper into the caves, less than fifty steps ahead at the entrance with a sign, that’s the bathhouse, there’s hot water and someone to scrub you.
As for food, later when you return to your room, there’s an array inside, activate it to call me, and I’ll bring you whatever you want to eat."
She paused, looking closely into Chen Yan’s eyes: "Is this your first time at Snow Cliff Pass? My place is the best here and guaranteed safe, no messy troubles. The Town General is my cousin, as long as you don’t cause trouble here, all issues can be kept outside! Visit often, and you’ll see it’s a great place."
Chen Yan joked easily, laughing: "Good! Thanks to the lady boss!"
"Pah, what lady boss, you’re making me sound old. Everyone here calls me Sister Ruyi."
"Alright, Sister Ruyi, please look after me in the future." Chen Yan smiled warmly.
Ruyi cast Chen Yan another deep glance before tossing a seductive look and swaggering away.
Chen Yan unlocked his cave room door with the key and stepped inside, then closed the door behind him.
The cave room wasn’t very big, around ten square meters.
It had a wooden window, a wooden cabinet, and a wooden chair.
Besides these, there was no other furniture.
But above the bedside, there was a brass Eight Trigrams disk hanging on the wall.
Chen Yan walked over for a closer look, and quickly determined it was a control switch for an array. After twisting it, the runes on the room’s walls suddenly illuminated, increasing the room’s brightness significantly.
Chen Yan adjusted the room’s brightness to his liking, and then examined a button on the Eight Trigrams disk, guessing it was something like a call button.
"Not bad, feels a bit like a hotel." Chen Yan sighed.
After twenty days of living in the wild, twenty days of frozen journeys through the snow and ice, he was truly exhausted to the extreme.
Though eager to collapse onto the bed and sleep for days, he felt a persistent itchiness and discomfort, so he tossed his now deflated backpack to the floor, dug out the last clean underwear and outerwear, and turned to find the "bathhouse" Sister Ruyi mentioned.
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The bathhouse Ruyi mentioned was much like the old-style public baths Chen Yan visited in his childhood town.
Only the size wasn’t very large.
Outside the bathhouse in a cave, there was a counter. Simply flash your room’s key, and you can enter.
Clothes that are taken off can be tossed into a bamboo basket — the person at the bathhouse counter said if you write the room’s key number on the bamboo basket, the clothes will be taken for cleaning and returned to the room — of course, this costs extra.
Inside the cave was a large stone platform pool, likely able to accommodate around ten people bathing.
When Chen Yan entered, steam was swirling, with just two people half-lying in the pool.
Nearby were two stone platforms with people lying down being scrubbed.
Chen Yan saw that the scrub workers were wearing only shorts, diligently scrubbing backs — it surprised him until he stepped closer and saw clearly that these workers were actually puppets!
"What are you staring at? Come down here and soak a bit."
One of the half-reclining fellows in the pool spoke up, removed the towel from his face — it was Golden Armor.
Chen Yan smiled: "You’ve arrived quickly, why didn’t you rent a room to stay in?"
Golden Armor laughed: "Why would I rent a guest room here, of course, I’m staying at Ruyi’s place."
Chen Yan was a bit surprised at his casualness.
Not minding it, he stripped and walked directly into the pool.
The hot water enveloped his body, and he couldn’t help releasing a comfortable sigh, feeling like the weariness from twenty long days of harsh living was finally being gently washed away.
"This place is great, isn’t it?" Golden Armor chuckled: "The water is mixed with muscle-relaxing medicines, soak for a while, and you’re guaranteed a good night’s sleep!"
Chen Yan breathed out, splashed water on his face, and looked around the pool.
The wall revealed several copper pipes submerged in the pool, likely the water supply system.
Golden Armor noticed Chen Yan’s gaze, laughed: "Ruyi runs quite a business, employs four or five puppet engineers. The water here is melted snow that’s filtered and heated before being piped in."
"Quite an impressive setup." Chen Yan nodded.
Chen Yan sighed again, before looking at Golden Armor: "I haven’t asked you all along... but seeing the lady boss runs such a big business, she’s your woman? Brother, you must have quite a background?"
Golden Armor chuckled twice, then sighed: "I wasn’t trying to hide it from you, brother. We weren’t familiar before, so I didn’t explain. Then we had that little conflict... but at least later on, we fought side by side, enduring hardships together, earning a bond. Not telling you now would make me seem like less of a friend."
With that, Golden Armor sat up in the water: "Brother, I haven’t been completely honest, previously I just told you my name was Golden Armor, but I was holding back some information."
"You’re not Golden Armor?"
"My name is Golden Armor, but it’s just my given name, I actually... carry the surname Gu, my full name is Gu Jinjia."
"......"
Chen Yan froze for two seconds, his expression becoming strange and layered. He forcefully swallowed.
"You... carry the Gu surname?" Chen Yan slowly asked: "Are you from... the Gu Family?"
"Indeed."
"From... ’that’ Gu Family?"
Gu Jinjia smiled: "Correct, from ’that’ Gu Family."
He bowed slightly to Chen Yan: "Gu Family, twentieth generation, eldest son, Gu Jinjia!"
Chen Yan: "..."
Damn... Chen Yan stared at Gu Jinjia in front of him, blinking repeatedly.
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