Chapter 1 Tongfu Inn in Goose City

Goose City, Tongfu Inn.

"Esteemed guest, we really don't have any rooms left."

The innkeeper said helplessly, "All the guest rooms are full. I had to use all my persuasion, and even paid some silver as compensation, just to get two guests to share a room, barely freeing up one room for your group.

"The only place left to sleep is the communal sleeping area in the main hall."

"Hiss."

Steward Xu glanced at Li Ang and the others behind him, gritted his teeth, took out a few pieces of silver from his sleeve, and placed them in the innkeeper's hand, "Old brother, please do me a favor and talk to the guests upstairs again."

"Old brother, please do me a favor too. If I go upstairs again, I'm afraid I'll get beaten down."

The innkeeper smiled wryly and put the silver back into Steward Xu's hand, "If it really doesn't work, I won't charge you for your travel expenses."

"This..."

Steward Xu scratched his head, also exasperated, "Damn it, there are only three inns in this city, and they're all full."

Li Ang interjected and asked, "Why are there so many people?"

"The esteemed guest doesn't know?"

The innkeeper spread his hands and said, "In a few days, Luzhou City will welcome auspicious omens. Many pious men and women are going to wait and see them."

"Auspicious omens?" Yang Er asked doubtfully, "What is that? It wouldn't be a pig with golden wings, would it?"

Before the innkeeper could answer, a merchant at the next table interjected, "Of course not.

"The last county magistrate who dared to use a golden pig as an auspicious omen to deceive the emperor was exiled to Yazhou to watch fish long ago.

"This time's auspicious omen is the real deal.

"It is said that the Annam Kingdom captured a rare and exotic beast that speaks human language, is proficient in mathematics, specializes in witchcraft and divination, knows Buddhist rituals, and understands yin and yang. They specially dispatched an envoy to send it to the capital, preparing to present it to His Majesty.

"The Annam envoy is passing through Luzhou City."

Yang Er was a little disbelieving, "Really?"

"Who cares if it's real or fake, where there are people, there are business opportunities."

The merchant shook his head and smiled bitterly, "It's a pity I came a few days late. Now I can't even book a room in an inn. Tonight, I can only squeeze into the communal sleeping area."

Steward Xu sucked his teeth when he heard this, turned around, and whispered to Li Ang, "Daozhang, why don't I send someone to inform the county magistrate?

"I heard that the Goose City magistrate likes to befriend accomplished people. If he knew that a cultivator like you was here, he would definitely..."

"No need."

Li Ang shook his head. He didn't have any ordination documents with him. Getting involved with the government before arriving in Luzhou City would only add trouble, "Let's just stay here tonight. Let the women and Hai'er lay Buddhist stay in the empty room."

The innkeeper nodded when he heard this, "Okay, I'll arrange it."

Steward Xu was still unwilling, but Li Ang had already agreed, so he couldn't say anything more. He could only mutter in a low voice, "We are a well-known and reputable merchant house..."

As dusk fell, the women accompanying the merchant group were resting in the rooms on the second floor.

The Tongfu Inn's bellboy stacked the benches in the main hall into the adjacent bedroom, piecing together a dozen tables and stacking them in the corner of the main hall.

Then, he spread mattresses on top of them, managing to create a communal sleeping area for the guests who didn't have rooms to squeeze into.

Li Ang, Wanli Fengdao, and Xing Hechou were all rough men who didn't care about living conditions. After all, there were more dire environments in the script missions. It was good enough to have a place to sleep.

As night fell, snores rose and fell in the inn's main hall.

The merchant who had spoken to Li Ang and the others during the day tossed and turned, feeling as if there was something sharp poking his back under the mattress, making him very uncomfortable.

Just as he was about to quietly get up and lift the mattress of the communal sleeping area to see if it was a nail poking his back,

A traveler sleeping next to him snored, turned over,

Afterward, the merchant vaguely smelled a strange fragrance.

The fragrance was faint, ethereal, and sweet, like sugar and honey.

The merchant felt as if he was floating in the clouds, his mind was dizzy, and his eyelids were constantly fighting, and he fell asleep drowsily.

When he woke up again, he was still curled up in his blanket,

But a pillow was already heavily pressed against his face.

?!?!

A sense of suffocation came over him, and the merchant was terrified and eager to struggle.

However, his hands and feet seemed to be firmly bound by ropes, and he couldn't break free no matter how hard he tried. He wanted to shout, but a pair of large hands under the thick pillow firmly covered his mouth, and he could only make a low and faint "woo woo" sound.

A black shop? Encountered a gangster?

Complex thoughts flooded the merchant's mind. As the suffocation became more and more intense, all his thoughts turned into unwillingness, confusion, and pain.

Parents, wives, and children... who will take care of them...

"Cough!"

A muffled cough sounded, and the pair of hands covering the merchant's lips instantly froze.

"This shop's bull's testicles are really awesome, very tasty..."

The young man's dazed voice rang out on one side of the communal sleeping area. The merchant immediately recalled that this seemed to be the voice of the short-haired, black-robed daoren from the day.

Daozhang, save me!

The merchant roared in his heart, struggling more and more violently,

However, the hall was Hei Deng Xia Huo, pitch black, and the "travelers" sleeping on both sides were doing their best to hold down his hands and feet, preventing him from breaking free.

"Grandpa, calm down, I'll pull out your oxygen tube first..."

The young daoren was still talking nonsense in his sleep, completely unaware that the merchant on the other side of the communal sleeping area was about to cry.

"Which contestant, what made you step onto the stage of The Voice? It's my leg..."

The young daoren seemed to be telling a cold joke in his dream, and he even amused himself as he spoke, laughing non-stop.

The gangsters on both sides of the merchant waited for a long time, and after confirming that the daoren had not woken up, they pressed the pillow hard against the merchant again.

"I said, can you leave me a way out? There's no need to kill me, right?"

The daoren's voice suddenly became low, and before the merchant could react to what was happening, he felt a burst of cracking and roaring in his ears.

The force suppressing his hands and feet instantly disappeared, and the bedding covering his body was also lifted.

Li Ang, wearing a white shirt, stepped on the floor of the hall with his bare feet, looked at the two gangsters who had been blasted away by [Shredded Object Scatter], and sighed quietly, "In the middle of the night, can't you just sleep properly?"

The roar of [Shredded Object Scatter] was quite loud, not only startling everyone sleeping in the communal sleeping area in the hall,

It also alarmed the innkeeper and the bellboy who were sleeping in the room next door on the first floor.

Three bellboys, carrying long sticks and candles, ran to the hall, looked at Li Ang and the others confronting each other in the hall, and were all dumbfounded.

Only Xing Hechou and Wanli Fengdao were still sleeping with their eyes closed.

"Daozhang, what happened?"

The guard Yang Er asked in a low voice.

Li Ang pointed his mouth at the two gangsters, "These guys probably took a fancy to the money carried by this merchant and planned to rob and kill him tonight."

"Murder?"

Yang Er frowned and looked at the two gloomy-faced travelers, "Are they crazy? This inn is in full view, and the doors and windows are sealed tightly.

"If they kill someone tonight, they will be wanted by the government tomorrow and brought to justice."

"They just used the method of breaking up the whole into parts."

Li Ang said calmly, "Several people pretended not to know each other and checked into the inn together.

"When choosing a bed, they surrounded the target together.

"They wait until night to use a strange fragrance to drug the other idlers on the communal sleeping area,

"Then they smother the merchant to death with a pillow.

"They use the cloth and lime they brought with them to wrap their hands and feet, cut them into pieces with a knife to cover up the bloodstains,

"Then they put the fragmented corpses into packages, and the next morning,

"Each of them leaves the inn with packages containing different corpses, pretending that nothing happened."