Chapter 73 - 73 70 Killing the Dog

73: Chapter 70: Killing the Dog 73: Chapter 70: Killing the Dog Zhou Xuan carried Zhu Tingsheng, whose leg was broken, and walked into the night with Yuan Buyu. He was not worried about someone stealing the treasure left by the yellow-skinned on the table, as his sister was there to clean up, who would dare to take it? “Xuanzi, release your perception. This boy with the broken leg must be wrapped in dog skin every day. No matter where he goes, he carries the stench of dog skin and blood, which is difficult for others to perceive, but you can sense it.” Zhou Xuan closed his eyes and released his perception; a faint stench was accurately captured by his nose. “Keep walking forward,” Zhou Xuan pointed out the road. The road was long. Zhou Xuan asked Yuan Buyu, “Is Dog King’s skill in raising dogs different from the dogs raised by Zhou Family’s Troupe?” “Very different!” Yuan Buyu said, “There are many dog owners in Ping Shui Prefecture, but they kept wandering souls and Evil Ghosts. Zhou Family’s Troupe has the Ancestor Tree. Although the tree is always asleep, it is the best habitat for the small ghosts, nourishing their souls so they do not disperse. But Dog King Liao Zhongsheng, this brat uses Evil Skill. In the hills outside Taiping Prefecture, there are many Chaotic Burial Grounds. Once people are buried, their bodies get eaten by wild dogs within a few days. After eating human flesh, these dogs develop a climate, full of evil aura, capable of turning into spectres. Liao Zhongsheng captures such dogs daily, grinds them up, mixes them with child’s blood, and adds Bone Powder and herbs. Each day he recites an Evil Spell, after about ten years, dark dog skin grows within the blood.” “What’s the use of this dog skin?” Zhou Xuan felt it was cruel to pay such a high price just to cultivate dog skin. “Don’t underestimate this dog skin. It has a sinister effect. If a person is gravely ill, beyond the help of medicine, by wearing the dog skin, they turn into an intelligent living dead, but… they must keep wearing the skin. If it is removed, within a day, their flesh will fall off and they will die quickly.” Yuan Buyu said, “Moreover, when someone wears the skin, they truly become a dog. How does Liao Zhongsheng manage the two dogs under his control? During the day, he peels off the dog skin and lets the dogs do tasks. At the end of the day, when the dogs return home without the dog skins to sustain their lives, most of their flesh falls off and they are on the brink of death. At that moment, Liao Zhongsheng puts the dog skin back on the dogs, and they are lively again in an instant. Being alive and dead, the cycle repeats. Those who raise such dogs, no matter how cunning they are, their spirit gets ground down. The diviner with three incense sticks, although his combat power is respectable and his methods at Great Hall shine, might not lose to Liao Zhongsheng, but what to do when he is caught by the Dog King’s trick? The spirit of the Mysterious Sect, after all, cannot compete with a piece of dog skin.” “Old Yuan, it’s time to turn left.” “OK!” … The master and disciple duo turned into Baihua Ridge Alley. Zhou Xuan brought up the matter of the yellow-skinned: “That yellow-skinned was quite generous.” “There are two types of spectres that love to enter the mundane world—one is the yellow-skinned, and the other is the Fox Immortal. The Fox Immortal craves affection and often leaves romantic stories with scholars, while the yellow-skinned love human grandiose, like becoming officials or businessmen. They have their ways of making money, but, the yellow-skinned listening to the storytelling today, neither holding official positions nor being businessmen, they turn into monks.” “Uh…” “The money you collected from the storytelling were from the nobles of Ping Shui Prefecture, offered to Lady Lianhua. In fact, these yellow-skinned really did a lot of good for the common people… There have been many famines in the past hundred years, many people died of starvation, but without them, even more would have starved.” “Are they actually good monks? This doesn’t fit my stereotype of spectres,” Zhou Xuan said. “There were originally some bad monks in Lotus Temple, and they were slaughtered by those yellow-skinned! Lady Lianhua has profound Buddha nature. By telling her stories, you can gain some Buddha nature.” At this point, Yuan Buyu sighed and said, “Such an opportunity, some storytellers may not encounter it once in half a lifetime, I am quite envious.” Zhou Xuan made up his mind, that this time for telling stories to Lady Lianhua, he must spend time preparing well, as it sounded like a not small opportunity. With both money and accumulating incense, as well as gaining Buddha nature, he had never handled such a lucrative transaction. … The deeper they walked into Baihua Ridge Alley, the stronger the stench became. seaʀᴄh thё NovelFire.net* website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. As the concentration reached a certain point, Zhou Xuan could even directly locate the source of the smell based on the scent alone. “That two-story house is where the dog skin is.” “Um,” Yuan Buyu glanced back at Zhu Tingsheng, who was nearly unconscious from blood loss, and said, “This person is of no use now.” “Alright.” Zhou Xuan put down Zhu Tingsheng and gave a chop at his neck, then dragged the corpse into the roadside bushes. “You sure have a ruthless hand.” After Yuan Buyu finished his exclamation, he said to Zhou Xuan, “Xuanzi, release your perception outside the door. As your master, I will demonstrate to you, so you understand how to deal with it when we face an enemy that can counter our sect.” “Firstly, the diviner’s Money Divination is extremely fast, but his divination is targeted. When he sees you, he will first cast a divination to figure out that you are a storyteller, Then he just needs to continuously use Money Divination, predicting when there will be a sound of the gavel, preparing in advance, and you’ll not be able to trouble him. Remember, he predicts the sound of the gavel, not when you will strike the gavel. These are different. Divination is not omnipotent; only divine beings can predict everything.” Upon hearing this, Zhou Xuan had a sudden realization: “Oh, if I use sound that is very similar to the gavel’s, I could disrupt his divination, like this…” He picked up a small stone and threw it against a nearby tree trunk, making a “snap” sound. If he were to face the diviner, first creating such false sounds would make the adversary think he had fallen into a dream, compelling him to cut his palm open and use the pain to fend off the dream. Then, taking advantage of this moment, actually striking the gavel, the adversary would be unprepared and pulled into the dream. “You were born for this job, getting it right away. The real method of a storyteller against enemies is timing! And by setting up the layout, all the timings in the battle against the enemy are ours, watch carefully.” Yuan Buyu took out a pair of sunglasses from his pocket, put them on, broke off a thick tree branch to use as a walking stick, and, like a blind man, angled the walking stick forward, sweeping in a fan shape slowly as he entered the kidnapper’s house. … “The dogs sent out should be coming back now?” Liao Zhongsheng and two kidnapper disciples were eating dog meat hotpot, and Yang Moxiang, on the floor, was using her front paws to gnaw on a bone. Squeak! The door opened, Liao Zhongsheng suddenly turned his head, only to find that it was not a dog that came in, but a blind man. Yuan Buyu put one hand in his pocket and the other held a cane, softly saying, “I hear the sound of mahjong, seems like I didn’t find the wrong place!” “Pop” His middle finger gently tapped the gavel, making an extremely fine sound. “Where did this old blind man come from? Who’s playing Mahjong here?” Liao Zhongsheng cursed, but he really did hear people playing Mahjong. “Eight bam!” “One dot!” Liao Zhongsheng felt like he had encountered a ghost. In his two-story building, standalone, not a single mahjong table, but people were playing mahjong!? “It’s the carpenter working on the cabinet, dong dong dong knocking, it’s in this area, I, the blind man, didn’t find the wrong place.” Yuan Buyu said with a smile, his middle finger tapped the gavel lightly again. “Pop,” another faint sound of the gavel. Liao Zhongsheng got annoyed, slammed the table, grabbed a bowl, and threw it at Yuan Buyu, commanding his underlings, “Dammit, where did this dead blind man come from babbling, cut him down for me!” But Yuan Buyu casually caught the flying bowl and threw it on the floor, elegantly removing his sunglasses, smiling, “I am not a blind man, I am a chef, I heard there are dogs here, came to slaughter a few!” “Kill dogs? If you can, try; if you can’t, leave.” Liao Zhongsheng yelled towards the direction of Yang Moxiang: “Release the dogs!” Yang Moxiang, with the dog skin flying off, slowly stood up, holding three copper coins in his hand. He tossed the coins, and when they landed back in his hands, he looked at the divination result and said with a smile, “It turns out to be a storyteller, may I ask, old man, what’s your relationship with Zhou Xuan?” The storyteller, being a Tangkou and with many storytellers in Taiping Prefecture, but suddenly coming to trouble a kidnapper, plus Zhou Xuan also being a storyteller. Yang Moxiang couldn’t help but suspect that this storyteller had some connection with Zhou Xuan. “Oh, he’s my disciple, I’ve come to vent some anger for him.” Yuan Buyu replied straightforwardly. “Are you a Divine Person from Zhou Family’s Troupe?” Yang Moxiang’s voice trembled a bit, he had long heard, Divine People from Zhou Family’s Troupe had a high Incense Fire Level. But he was not without a chance! Yang Moxiang had dealt with many storytellers, and as a Tangkou, a fortune-teller extremely restrained storytellers, even if the opponent had high Incense Fire Levels, as long as they could not generate dreams, subsequent trickeries almost had no place to use. His mind was shrewd, thinking quickly, he secretly pointed towards his ear to Liao Zhongsheng. Liao Zhongsheng understood his meaning, he first plugged his ears, not to listen to that gavel sound, waiting for Yang Moxiang to break the Dream Generation, either they make a quick escape directly… Now that their thought process was clear and understood, Liao Zhongsheng put two fingers into his ears, and the other kidnappers did the same. Yet, Yuan Buyu just casually pulled up a stool to sit down, not taking Yang Moxiang seriously, and said, “If you can predict when I will tap the gavel, I’ll consider it a loss!” “Hehe.” Yang Moxiang, circling around Yuan Buyu in steps, his right hand holding three copper coins. Whoosh! The copper coins changed, from a snake-shape into a “品” character shape. Yang Moxiang didn’t even think, he grabbed the coins, and slashed a blood mark on his palm. As the blood mark appeared, a “pop” sound reached Yang Moxiang’s ears, followed by a voice—”Six circles!” “Who’s playing Mahjong?” Yang Moxiang’s copper coins had predicted the sound of the gavel, but it turned out to be the sound of Mahjong tiles clashing. He was not discouraged, continuing with the coins, The coins changed again, from “品” character shape to a line shape, he grabbed the coins, and slashed his palm again. “Pop,” This sound was not the gavel, but the sound of making furniture, both sounds very similar. “Damn carpenter!” Yang Moxiang’s mentality was slowly fraying, this small two-story building, uninhabited, where were the Mahjong and carpenter coming from? He stared intently at the copper coins, The coins changed, a hand slash… “Red Dragon!” The coins changed again, a hand slash… “Kong!” The coins kept changing, consecutive slashes seven times… “Shuffle, shuffle”, the sound of shuffling cards incessant! Yang Moxiang, mentally tormented, broke into tears, “I can’t tell, can’t tell at all!” His hand had been slashed by himself with dozen of blood marks. His copper coins, predicting again and again, only identified the sounds of making furniture and Mahjong tile clashing and shuffling, While Yuan Buyu just quietly watched, his hands resting on his knees, not having moved at all…