Chapter 3
Chapter 3
After night fell, I saw Father nodding off again and again, so I told him to go home. But he only shook his head. “Blame it on your meager dowry. That’s why the Qu Family looks down on you. If I keep this shop open a little longer, we can earn a little more money…”
I refused to listen to his nagging and forced Ah Er to take him home, leaving only one shophand, Ah Da, with me to mind the store.
The night gradually deepened.
I went to the stove and boiled a pot of noodle soup. I had just brought a bowl to the table and started eating when I saw a tall, thin figure hobbling down the long street across from me.
The person was very strange. A filthy cloth was wrapped over his head, and he dragged one leg behind him, standing unevenly. He said nothing, only stared fixedly at the rippling broth in my bowl.
Father and I ran this kind of shop, so we had seen no shortage of destitute people. Seeing him stare at the noodle soup without speaking, I went to the stove, ladled out a large, thick bowl, and held it right under his nose. “Take it.”
“There’s only this one bowl. Finish it and leave.”
A pair of cold, shadowed eyes stared silently at me, staring until a chill crept up my spine.
Still, in the end, he accepted it.
Without even a word of thanks, he took the bowl and began eating with soft, rustling sounds.
After I finished my soup, I was just about to call Ah Da to close the shop when someone else appeared at the doorway.
It was the same person I had seen on the street not long ago.
Dressed in black, he stood beneath the eaves as if he had melted into the darkness. He looked me over for a long while, then suddenly his lips moved, and a thin, shrill voice emerged.
“Such a beauty. What a pity.”
A pity? What was a pity?
Seeing how strangely he was behaving, Ah Da gave me a look, then stepped forward of his own accord to greet him. “Sir, would you like to buy some bean cakes?”
The moment Ah Da stood in his way, the man suddenly drew a short dagger and stabbed him straight in the chest!
With a single scream, Ah Da collapsed where he stood.
It happened so suddenly that I cried out in terror, “You-who are you?!”
“The one sending you on your way.”
As he spoke, he pulled a length of white silk from his sleeve. “Blame your own bad luck. Who told you to stay alive and upset the Young Lady?”
Watching him approach with the silk in hand, the wound on my neck flared with agony once more. I could only clutch my neck and retreat. “Don’t… don’t come any closer…”
I uselessly threw whatever I had at hand-the soup ladle, a clay bowl, chopsticks-but all I got in return was his careless mockery. “Don’t worry. This servant will leave your corpse intact…”
Before he could finish, a tall black shadow suddenly appeared behind him.
A flash of white light.
Almost at the same instant, a spreading red line appeared across the man’s throat.
One stroke, and his head was severed.
Because the force was too fierce, the head even flew straight into the pot on the stove.
Having witnessed the entire thing, I was so frightened that I had already fallen to the floor.
At that moment, I watched with my own eyes as the strange man whose head and face were wrapped in tattered cloth put away his broad blade. His deep, dark eyes were hidden in the gloom, like the cold pupils of some bloodless beast.
“The debt of a meal,” he said, “has now been repaid.”