Chapter 14 Whispers Before Dawn

The exit Xiao Tan and Bei Ling found was in the mountains west of town. They had originally fallen into a cave while searching houses in the east of Cang Ling Town, and had now passed under the entire town.

If they had been walking on the surface, this distance wouldn't have taken half a day. But underground, the path was complex, winding, and undulating. From time to time, they encountered various obstacles, even backtracking. They were lucky to get out before dawn on the third day.

When the two returned to the Cang Ling Inn, it was the darkest hour before dawn, and the inn's main gate was still closed. Of course, there were many ways to get into the inn: the side door, the back door, the second-floor corridor window, the third-floor corridor window, and so on. If it were any other martial artist, with a little jianghu (martial world) experience or qinggong (light body skill) foundation, entering and exiting the inn would be easy. However, these two...

Bang, bang, bang...

At three or four in the morning, when people were fast asleep, they started knocking on the door so ostentatiously.

After a while, a shop assistant's voice came from inside the door: "Who is it?"

"From Room C, Heavenly Suite. Let us in," Xiao Tan replied.

After a few seconds, the shop assistant opened the door and said sleepily, "Say, esteemed guests, why are you outside in the middle of the night?"

"Hehe... sorry to trouble you," Xiao Tan naturally wouldn't answer the other party's question, he just said a few perfunctory words, and went upstairs with Bei Ling.

The shop assistant didn't really want to know what the two were doing outside in the middle of the night, he was just saying it casually. After the two went upstairs, the shop assistant re-bolted the door and went back behind the counter on the first floor to continue sleeping. There was a reason why this shop assistant slept in the lobby on the first floor. It wasn't because he was afraid that the silver in the counter would be stolen, but because he was afraid that someone would come to steal wine. To put it bluntly, he was guarding against Lu Shan...

Back in their room, the two pushed open the door and went in, only to see Atobe sitting alone on the only bed in the room. He sat cross-legged, his fingers intertwined, hanging naturally on his feet, meditating.

"Whoa, haven't seen you for a day, Brother Jin, are you entering the Dao (path)?" Bei Ling joked with a smile.

Atobe had already heard them come in. He knew that those who could open the door from the outside were definitely teammates, so he didn't get nervous. At this moment, he slowly opened his eyes and said, "I'm using a skill to recover stamina."

"Oh? You actually have an active skill that recovers stamina?" Xiao Tan asked, "Then what does this skill consume?"

"It doesn't consume anything," Atobe replied, "But I have to meditate like this."

Bei Ling seemed to have caught some information from these words, and immediately asked: "Did you learn some internal energy from the NPCs in this script?"

"You guessed it," Atobe smiled proudly, "Lin Chang and Su Shang came once this afternoon, naturally still for that matter. I said I don't know where the Liao Zhu (chief) and his wife went, and even you two haven't returned all night, but what I can be sure of is that none of you four are dead." He saw the change in Xiao Tan and Bei Ling's expressions, and added, "Don't worry, I can't tell them about the 'team bar' or anything like that. It's useless to say it, they won't believe it, and they can't understand it." He continued what he was saying, "Lin Chang and Su Shang were quite polite, saying that this matter is not urgent. After the duel, they invited our Broken Sword Teahouse group to the Ye Mansion as guests, and then we can talk about it. Then they bid farewell and were about to leave." He smirked, "At that time, this young master had a flash of inspiration, and said to Lin Chang..."

"You made him pass on to you first the crude internal energy that was originally going to be taught to the team leader?" Bei Ling interrupted.

"That's right," Atobe replied, "Seeing that the third day is almost here, I estimate that these guys will be very busy on the day of the duel, and we will be leaving the script after this day. So yesterday afternoon was the only chance. Since Lin Chang agreed to teach Feng Xiong (Crazy Brother) martial arts, and also made it clear that it was just a set of crude internal energy that could be taught to anyone... I went along with it, and told him that there's no time like the present, and to teach me that set of internal energy first, and then I can teach it to Feng Xiong, so he wouldn't have to make a special trip for this matter."

"Not bad, you actually managed to scam a skill," Bei Ling commented, "As Jin Fugui (Jin Rich), this is considered an above-average performance, right?"

"What do you mean 'as Jin Fugui'! Is Jin Fugui an animal?" Atobe said unhappily, "Besides, what's wrong with this name! Even if it's a little vulgar, it's also a piece of good intention, a kind of blessing from my parents!"

"Your parents have ulterior motives..." Xiao Tan interjected coldly from the side.

"You can't say that, I believe most parents are still good to their children, it's just a good intention that goes wrong," Bei Ling added.

"You two..." Atobe wanted to say son of a b*tch, but the system stopped him, and he couldn't spit out the second half of his sentence, so he had to hold it back and changed his words, "Forget it... this young master is also a professional player anyway, I won't bother with an organization like Hell Frontline that specializes in making snide remarks."

Xiao Tan patted Atobe on the shoulder: "Friendship between men depends on the level of toxic language when mocking each other. So we're saying you, it's a sign that we trust you."

Before he could finish speaking, with a *smack*, Xiao Tan was heavily slapped on the back of the head by Bei Ling.

"I'm not a man!" Bei Ling said.

"Hahaha..." Atobe laughed, "And how good the relationship between men and women is depends on the severity of the woman's attacks and the man's tolerance."

Xiao Tan rubbed the back of his head, awkwardly changing the subject: "By the way, the internal energy you learned... that is, the skill, what kind of effect is it?"

"The skill is called 【Xu Feng Yin Qi Jue】(Gentle Wind Qi Guiding Art), one of the basic internal energy skills of the Ye Mansion. As a skill, the effect is... as long as I meditate cross-legged and guide my breathing in a certain way, I can gain an extra 1% stamina recovery per minute, and it won't affect my own stamina recovery rate," Atobe replied.

"Not bad, even if your stamina drops to zero, you can get back to almost half by meditating for half an hour, and you can recover 70-80% in an hour," Bei Ling commented, "Good skill."

"In my opinion, this martial arts world script is simply a skill treasure trove," Atobe added, "My gains are not limited to this. In the evening, the Tang Clan's young master came to visit, saying that he wanted to thank me for my great kindness and virtue, and wanted to send me a large sum of gold and silver. I thought to myself, what's the use of that thing, I'm not going to live in this world for long.

So I said, why don't Brother Tang just teach me a set of simple skills to practice. He immediately agreed, and passed on to me a set of 【Xie Feng Lan Yue】(Seizing Wind Embracing the Moon), this is a skill specially for using folding fans. After it becomes a skill, it can passively increase the rate at which I use my big iron fan." He paused, and then continued, "I've been practicing and experimenting in the room before, and now I can use this fan more than twice as fast as before."

"Oh, no wonder you were recovering stamina," Xiao Tan responded.

"Hey, do you have any news about the team leader and the others?" Bei Ling asked.

"No, I was hoping you could bring me some news," Atobe said, "The main quest to eliminate the Ring Demon still exists, which means they should still be in the Ring Realm, fighting with some Boss, right?"

"Hmm..." Bei Ling nodded thoughtfully.

"By the way, what gains have you two made during this time?" Atobe asked.

Next, the three exchanged information with each other in the guest room. In addition to various intelligence about this jianghu, and gossip about Murong Ying and Tang Shize, the most important point was the secret of Lin Chang's possession of the Tai Xu Wu Xiang Da Fa (Great Formless Art of the Great Void)...