Chapter 3
Chapter 3
I tied the donkey to the locust tree and told Jiang Haoyan and the others to carry their luggage inside.
Liu Xiong walked in first, scratching his head in confusion as he went.
“This house is weird. There’s only half a front gate.”
“This is a Corpse-driving Inn. In the old days, it was specifically for Corpse Herders to stay in. These inns never close their doors. The right half of the gate is kept open toward the inside, and the corpses are lined up right behind it.”
After hearing my explanation, Liu Xiong froze mid-step and sucked in a cold breath, instinctively terrified.
Right then, a figure suddenly appeared in front of him. The man was about 1.7 meters tall. He squinted his eyes, looked up, and gave Liu Xiong a smile.
His teeth were yellow and crooked, his mouth was flat and wide, his nose was collapsed, and his eyes were set exceptionally far apart. He looked like some kind of strange, grotesque fish.
“Ghost!”
Liu Xiong jumped back, grabbed President Xu, and started screaming. President Xu also hurriedly let out a maidenly shriek. While screaming, he pulled a Peach Wood Sword from his robes and lunged forward, stabbing the man in the chest.
“What are you doing?!”
I rushed over to stop them, pulling President Xu away.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Boss Hou. I apologize on their behalf.”
As it turned out, the man before us was surnamed Hou. He was the owner of this Corpse-driving Inn and also a Corpse-Driver. There were three requirements for those in this profession: they had to be brave, physically fit, and ugly.
By being ugly, other people would be unwilling to interact with you and would avoid you from a distance, saving a lot of trouble on the road.
Boss Hou was in his early sixties. When he was young, he had followed his master to practice corpse herding for several years. Later, he injured a leg and could no longer work in the trade, so he switched to running this Corpse-driving Inn.
“Your surname is Qiao? My master mentioned you to me before.”
Boss Hou reached out to rub his chest, then turned around to pour us some tea.
The inn wasn’t large. Two Eight Immortals tables were set out on the first floor, and a wobbly light bulb hung from the ceiling by a wire, emitting a pale, weak glow.
We sat in a circle around one of the Eight Immortals tables. Liu Xiong looked at the worn ceramic bowl in front of him with disdain and pulled a bottle of mineral water from his backpack.
“No thanks, we brought our own water.”
Boss Hou’s hand holding the teapot suddenly stiffened. The veins on the back of his hand bulged, and his emotions suddenly flared.
“You think it’s dirty? You looking down on me?”
He was already ugly to begin with, but now his face was contorted in rage. Under that pale white light, he truly looked twice as terrifying as a ghost. Liu Xiong was so scared he wanted to scream again, but I shot him a glare.
“Boss Hou is offering you a drink, so drink it.”