Chapter 166
Chapter 166
At the time, I really wanted to shoot back: Hui Moqiong, did the monkeys send you here just to make me laugh?
I’d have to be out of my mind to tattoo the word ‘Slave’ on my cheek.
The refrigerator door opened, then closed.
Hui Moqiong had gone to get some water.
Bottle in hand, he suddenly retraced his steps and came back over to me. Tilting his head, he studied my cheek for a long moment.
Then he blurted out, “Holy shit! That’s not a tattoo!”
I raised an eyebrow and muttered inwardly that his reaction hadn’t been too delayed after all.
“If you’d gotten it tattooed this morning, your face would be swollen like a pig’s head by now,” Hui Moqiong reasoned. “So… Xiao Jiu’er, is that some kind of sticker?”
As he spoke, he reached out to rub my cheek. I immediately slapped his hand away.
Smack!
All right. I finally understood why Li Qingying found it so satisfying to pinch and hit him all the time.
Sometimes this guy really was asking for it!
Hui Moqiong looked utterly aggrieved. “Xiao Jiu’er, Yingyingzi has corrupted you! You’ve started hitting people now! Boo-hoo, why am I always the one who gets hurt?”
“You’d be fine if you kept your mouth shut once in a while,” I couldn’t resist retorting.
Hui Moqiong unscrewed the cap and gulped down several mouthfuls of ice water.
I frowned. It was the middle of winter. Wasn’t he cold?
After a few gulps, his head seemed to clear. He looked at my cheek again.
This time, his expression changed. “Xiao Jiu’er, what’s going on? That word looks like it’s showing through from beneath your skin. Does Seventh Master know?”
“He does,” I said. “It’s always been there, but it used to be very faint, so I covered it with concealer.”
Hui Moqiong finally grew anxious. “So it only got worse in the last couple of days? This doesn’t look like anything good!”
I nodded. “I can guess what’s causing it, but there’s nothing I can do about it for now. We’ll talk when Liu Junyan gets back.”
Hui Moqiong scratched his head and said he would help me look into it.
He had plenty of disciples and granddisciples under him, and gathering information was a Gray Immortal’s specialty. With his help, we might actually uncover something.
With that thought, I said, “Then help me investigate the recent changes in Tafeng Village.”
Hui Moqiong asked, “Does it have something to do with the word on your face?”
“Yes,” I said. “Almost certainly.”
Hui Moqiong agreed without hesitation. “You got it. I’ll send out the order right away.”
“Wait.” I stopped him. “There’s something else I want to ask you. I hope you’ll tell me everything you know.”
Hui Moqiong laughed. “Come on, Xiao Jiu’er. Why are you making things so tense? You’re making my heart pound.”
He was always good at lightening the mood.
But this time, I remained solemn. “I want to know if you’ve ever heard of Chan Master Dahui.”
Hui Moqiong searched his memory, then shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Then let me ask another way.” I pointed toward the West Room. “That Copper-Coin Figure used to be a monk, didn’t he? What was his Dharma name?”
Hui Moqiong shook his head again. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” I stared at him in astonishment. “Didn’t you follow him for years? Didn’t he promise to help you ascend to immortality? How could you not know his Dharma name?”
“He never told us,” Hui Moqiong replied with a perfectly serious expression. “Xiao Bai and I originally cultivated in the Qinling Mountains. When we’d only just learned to take human form, those bastards in the mountains bullied us mercilessly. We met him when we were at our lowest.
“He may have been bald, but he was quite the dashing gentleman back then. He had Xiao Bai completely dazzled. He asked if we wanted to become immortals and said he could take us away from that troubled place, so we followed him to Wufu Town.”
“He said his name was Liu Xingyi.”
The Copper-Coin Figure was called Liu Xingyi.
And Mount Song was indeed part of the Qinling Mountains.
The location matched, but his identity… didn’t seem to line up.
After thinking for a moment, I asked, “Then do you know of the Great Dharma King Temple? Did Liu Xingyi come from there?”
“The Great Dharma King Temple is famous. How could I not know of it?” Hui Moqiong replied. “But Liu Xingyi wasn’t a monk from the Great Dharma King Temple. You never lived with him, so you probably imagine him as some eminent monk, right?
“You’d think he must have been refined and exceedingly kindhearted.”
“Wasn’t he?”
“He was. And he wasn’t.”
Hui Moqiong sounded conflicted. “He devoted himself wholeheartedly to the common people. It was indeed he who personally forged the five of us into the renowned Five Blessing Immortals. But only we knew just how ruthless his methods could be. So much so that, in the end… when that great Calamity descended…”
By the time Hui Moqiong reached this point, his eyes had reddened.
He was usually all jokes and mischief, always getting on people’s nerves. Seeing him like this all of a sudden made me worry.
Hui Moqiong lowered his head and pressed hard between his brows. It was a long while before he continued. “In just a few short centuries, he went from an eminent monk revered by all to a man even the five of us could no longer say for certain hadn’t succumbed to cultivation deviation and become the Evil Monk of his age. Xiao Jiu’er, I can’t help feeling that we failed him…”
The Evil Monk…
This wasn’t the first time I had heard that term.
Back at the Dou Family Ancestral Tomb, the words Bai Xian’er had relayed were proof that this same question remained unresolved.
Then, not long ago, the Fake Ascetic Monk at the Temple on Niuhu Mountain had also spoken of the “Evil Monk.”
Just what kind of man was Liu Xingyi?
And what exactly was his relationship with Liu Junyan?
After a long silence, I asked one final question. “Then why were you so certain about Liu Junyan the first time you saw him? He’s clearly not Liu Xingyi.”
The question seemed to stump Hui Moqiong as well.
He struggled to put his thoughts into words. “Xiao Jiu’er, would you believe me if I said it was instinct?”
“I would,” I replied without hesitation. “But I’d rather not.”
I trusted Hui Moqiong’s instincts because I had the same feeling myself.
Liu Junyan really had changed.
But I would rather not believe it. I didn’t want Liu Junyan to become Liu Xingyi one day.
I didn’t want him to follow in Liu Xingyi’s footsteps and be shackled by the title of Evil Monk.
For the next two days, Hui Moqiong remained outside gathering information.
Li Qingying and I stayed at the Pawnshop to rest and recuperate.
Then, around noon on the third day, Jin Wuya brought someone into the Pawnshop.
In the past, Li Qingying was always delighted whenever Jin Wuya visited and would bustle around attending to him.
This time, however, he hadn’t even made it through the door when Li Qingying spotted the woman beside him, bundled up like a mummy, and immediately tried to drive them away. “Boss Jin, aren’t you going a bit too far? You only just brought Guo Zaimin here and put us through hell. We haven’t even recovered yet, and now you’re bringing someone else to the Pawnshop? What, does the Pawnshop work for you now?”
Jin Wuya looked thoroughly embarrassed. He rubbed his nose and offered her an awkward smile. “Qingying, you’ve got it all wrong. This time, I’m only showing her the way. She came looking for Shopkeeper Xiao Jiu because of her reputation…”