115: Chapter 115 Sour Fish Soup from Laoyaling

Lin Ye slammed his foot on the brake.

The off-road vehicle came to a steady stop on the flat, rammed-earth ground in front of the stilted building.

He pulled out the car keys and pushed open the car door.

The cold wind in the mountains rushed over with dense moisture.

A woman was leaning against the wooden door frame of a fly restaurant, grabbing a handful of melon seeds and cracking them with great relish.

The woman was around thirty years old with a plump figure.

She wrapped a dark blue headscarf around her head and tied an apron stained with grease and black stains on her body.

She had half a lit cigarette dangling from her mouth, and amidst the swirling smoke, a pair of slender phoenix eyes revealed the shrewdness and boldness unique to a secular businessperson.

Seeing a car stop, the woman spat out the melon seed shells in her mouth and pinched out the half cigarette in the wooden crack of the door frame.

Speaking in fluent Yungui dialect, she swayed her waist and walked up to them.

"A few bosses, are you stopping for a meal or staying for the night?"

"Miasma has risen in these mountains, so you cannot walk the night road! There are landslides ten miles ahead, so tonight you can only rest your feet here at Laoya Ridge."

Lin Ye stuffed the car keys into his pocket and backhanded a pat on the hood of the off-road vehicle.

He replied in the most common and casual tone, completely without any airs of a profound master of the mystic arts.

"Two premium rooms, make a stir-fried cured meat with houttuynia, and get another pot of authentic red sour soup fish."

"Put in more litsea cubeba to drive away the dampness in these mountains."

The proprietress, Sister Hua, rolled her eyes around Lin Ye, and her gaze fell on Leng Yue, who stepped out of the car behind him.

Seeing Leng Yue's cold and peerless face, a hint of covert astonishment flashed across the depths of Sister Hua's eyes.

Then she immediately put on a smiling expression like a blooming flower, laughing so hard that her body trembled.

"Alright! The boss knows his stuff, and the litsea cubeba will be plenty! Please take a seat inside, everyone! It's windy outside!"

She sidestepped and warmly welcomed everyone into the house.

The fly restaurant on the first floor was not large.

The floor was unpolished concrete, exuding a year-round damp, moldy smell.

Four or five dilapidated eight-immortal tables with missing legs were placed in the lobby, their surfaces covered with a thick layer of grease.

An incandescent lamp of extremely low wattage hung overhead, casting a dim, yellowish light.

Lin Ye and his group of four walked into the lobby.

In the most remote corner near the stove, a table of diners was already seated.

They were four scrawny, gloomy-looking men.

The four of them wore green Liberation shoes stained with yellow mud on their feet.

Their palms rested on the table, their finger joints thick and large, and the gaps in their fingernails filled with unwashable black mud.

They wore windbreakers, and a strong earthy smell exuded from the fibers of their clothes, mixed with the pungent odor of antiseptic potion.

Ordinary people could not smell this scent, but Lin Ye was more than familiar with it.

Genuine Mojin Captains, commonly known as earth-diggers.

This bunch of people had just crawled out from underground not long ago, and they still carried the muddy stench of dead people on them.

Lin Ye led everyone to sit down at an empty table in the middle.

Ayugu pulled out a few sheets of inferior napkins, vigorously wiping the grease on the table, muttering softly under her breath that this place was too dirty.

The moment Lin Ye entered the door, the four Mojin Captains stopped the chopsticks in their hands.

Four pairs of fierce eyes swept over with vigilance.

The leader of the Mojin Captains sitting in the main seat was a one-eyed man.

His left eye was blind, and his right eye stared fixedly at the elongated canvas bag Lin Ye carried on his back.

He lowered his voice and muttered to his subordinates beside him using a very faint industry jargon.

"The mark is tricky; that man has a hint of blood-lightning scent on him."

"That bag is packed with hard stuff, and the woman beside her is even more weird, lacking any aura of the living."

The four men exchanged tacit glances, their bodies leaning forward slightly, and their right hands quietly groped toward their lower backs.

There, bulging, were homemade short-barreled earth-guns.

Lin Ye sat on the chair, picked up the thick ceramic teapot on the table, and poured himself a cup of murky low-grade tea.

He brought the tea to his mouth with a calm expression, acting completely as if he hadn't heard the undercurrents surging in the corner.

Leng Yue sat on Lin Ye's left side.

She didn't take off the wide-brimmed hat on her head.

Her eyes lowered, looking at the chipped teacup in front of her, without saying a word.

"Sizzle."

The sound of hot oil stir-frying cured meat came from the back kitchen, and the pungent aroma of chili peppers and houttuynia instantly filled the entire lobby, covering up the antiseptic water smell on the Mojin Captains.

Right at this moment, a crisp metallic collision sound suddenly came from the tactical backpack Lin Ye placed beside him.

"Click."

The sound was extremely faint, yet it appeared exceptionally abrupt amidst the noisy cooking sounds of the back kitchen.

It was the bronze box inside the lead-sealed iron chest vibrating. The severed finger inside had sensed the deathly aura on the four Mojin Captains who dug graves year-round, and was restlessly scraping the inner metal wall.

The expressions of the four Mojin Captains in the corner changed drastically.

Fierce light flared greatly in the one-eyed boss's single eye.

He patted his thigh and quickly stood up, half-drawing the earth-gun from his lower back.

Encountering peers carrying weird items in a shady inn deep in the desolate mountains, striking first was their only rule for self-preservation.

Leng Yue still didn't look back.

She picked up the thick ceramic teacup filled with hot tea, her knuckles slender and fair.

She held the teacup in mid-air and lightly flicked her index finger against the rough cup wall.

"Click."

A faint, crisp sound.

On the surface of the hard thick ceramic teacup, a deep fissure split open out of thin air.

Accompanied by the appearance of this fissure, an overbearing and bone-chilling aura swept horizontally along the pitted concrete floor toward that eight-immortal table in the corner.

The four Mojin Captains only felt a chill on their necks, as if an invisible ice knife was placed against the major arteries of their throats.

Cold sweat instantly soaked the inner lining of their windbreakers, flowing frantically down their spines.

That gloomy and cold aura firmly locked onto their vital breath; as long as they dared to make any extra movement, that blade of wind would definitely cut off their necks.

The one-eyed boss froze in place, swallowing his saliva as his Adam's apple rolled with difficulty.

He immediately pressed down on the arms of his three subordinates beside him, forcefully shoving the half-drawn earth-gun back into his lower back.

"Head down, eat. Don't look for death."

The one-eyed boss's voice trembled beyond recognition.

He plopped back down onto the long bench, picked up his rice bowl and chopsticks, and frantically shoveled white rice into his mouth.

All four desperate criminals buried their heads deeply into the large thick ceramic bowls, their bodies trembling slightly out of control, not daring to glance at Lin Ye's table ever again.

The murderous intent dissipated invisibly.

Sister Hua walked out of the back kitchen carrying a massive iron pot.

Crimson sour soup rolled inside the iron pot, where a grass carp weighing a full three catties loomed vaguely at the bottom, strewn all over with verdant litsea cubeba and dried chili peppers.

"Dishes are here! Authentic red sour soup fish, please enjoy slowly, bosses!"

Sister Hua heavily placed the iron pot in the center of the table amidst rising steam.

She wiped her hands with her apron, smilingly looking at Lin Ye, completely unaware of the tense, life-or-death standoff in the lobby just moments ago.

Lin Ye picked up his chopsticks, picked up a piece of fish meat soaked in sour soup, and stuffed it into his mouth.

The fish meat was tender and fresh, the sour and spicy flavors exploded on the tip of his tongue, and the unique exotic aroma of litsea cubeba rushed straight into his nasal cavity.

"The taste is not bad."

Lin Ye made a brief comment and greeted Ayugu and Frost Star to eat.

Ayugu had been starving for a long time, so she picked up her bowl and feasted with gusto.

Frost Star was not interested in this sour and spicy fish meat; she hugged her portable mini-fridge and scooped out the ice cream inside, eating it all over her face.

An empty bowl was placed in front of Leng Yue.

She didn't touch her chopsticks, but just sat quietly there, filling Lin Ye's cup with tea.

The meal was eaten in complete silence.

After finishing their meal, the four Mojin Captains in the corner didn't even pay the bill; they directly dropped a hundred-yuan bill on the table and scurried back to the guest rooms on the second floor along the wooden stairs as if fleeing for their lives.

Having eaten and drunk to their fill, Lin Ye got the keys to two guest rooms from Sister Hua.

The guest rooms of Laoya Ridge were on the second floor.

Walking up the dilapidated wooden stairs, the wooden boards emitted a harsh "creak" sound.

Pushing open the wooden door of the guest room, the furnishings inside were simple.

Two single wooden plank beds spread with yellowed bedsheets, a paint-peeling table, and a swaying pendant lamp hanging overhead.

The window was an old-fashioned wooden lattice window, with the wind leaking through the glass gaps.

Ayugu and Frost Star moved into the room next door.

Lin Ye and Leng Yue stayed in this guest room closest to the stairway.

Lin Ye placed the tactical backpack on the table.

He pulled the zipper, took out the heavy lead-sealed iron chest, and tucked it tightly underneath the pillow of the wooden plank bed against the wall.

Then, he took off his dusty jacket and held the soul-suppressing copper coin sword in his arms.

Leng Yue walked to the window and reached out to close the drafty wooden lattice window tightly.

Immediately afterward, she turned around, walked to the side of the other wooden plank bed, and sat down quietly.

The night was already deep.

The mountain wind outside the window began to howl.

The wind passed through the deep valley of Laoya Ridge, echoing under the eaves of the stilted building, making a sound similar to a woman crying shrilly in the deep night.

Heavy fog shrouded the entire mountain range, completely locking down this desolate mountain inn.

Lin Ye lay on the wooden plank bed fully clothed.

The bed board was very hard, emitting a faint sound.

He closed his eyes and mobilized the Pure Yang True Qi in his body to slowly circulate through his meridians.

The lead-sealed iron chest under the pillow no longer made any movement.