I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords-Chapter 70 - 069. Are you a devil_1
Chapter 70: 069. Are you a devil?_1
Chapter 70: 069. Are you a devil?_1
The layout of Dried Water Town during the day is no different from other small towns.
Lu Ban, dressed in a windbreaker that stood out from his surroundings, came down to the ground floor of the inn and laid out his coins in a line.
“Innkeeper, a warm two liang of liquor and a bowl of aniseed beans,”
he said casually.
The innkeeper, who had been numb last night, now had a smile on his face as he responded to Lu Ban.
“We have no beans, only liquor and some dried small fish to accompany the drink—would that be okay?”
“Sure.”
Lu Ban handed over the coins in his hand to the innkeeper. These were the local currency, which he had gotten in the morning when he had gotten breakfast and had gone into town to gather information.
No one was harmed in the entire process.
A pot of liquor and a stack of dried small fish were placed on the table. Lu Ban watched as the innkeeper’s cat rubbed against his pant leg. He picked up a small dried fish, held it in front of the cat to sniff, which got the cat very excited and it started to meow loudly.
Then it watched as Lu Ban took the dried fish back and ate it in a single bite.
The cat instantly looked stunned, with tears seemingly welling up in its eyes, meowing chaotically.
“Are you a devil?”
Cui Siter tossed a piece of dried fish in front of the cat and, watching it eat happily, he muttered a complaint.
“Innkeeper, do you know about the Hai Family’s matters? I heard they can bring good catches to the fishermen?”
While eating his dried fish, Lu Ban asked.
The inn was empty and very quiet. One hardly saw pedestrians on the town streets, as most men headed out to the sea to fish early, while the women, elderly, and children stayed at home—a typical condition of an agricultural village.
“The Hai Family? The Hai Family are the benefactors of Dried Water Town.”
The innkeeper’s eyes brightened.
“Dried Water Town originally suffered from floods, with the high tides from the sea often sweeping into the village and ruining the fields. Later, a Mage from Gray Tower happened to pass by. He subdued the sea monster, and it finally became a bit more peaceful.”
“But afterward, perhaps the Seal loosened, and that sea monster escaped again. To take revenge on the townspeople, it controlled the ocean, and since then, there have been no more tides, no fish schools, and the people here could only fish in far-off and much deeper areas, which often led to accidents.”
“In those days, people tried offering sacrifices to the sea, from livestock to live humans. Sometimes it calmed the waters, but other times it was completely useless. Dried Water Town was once much larger, but it gradually declined and thus got its current name.”
“However, later on, the people from the Hai Family came here. They brought back tides, and with them, the fish. When the schools of fish are most abundant, you could simply pick them up from the shore. Heh, those were the best times.”
“Do you all know? The Hai Family People possess a special dance called the Qi Lang Dance. It prays for tides and guides the fish schools. Every year during the fish tide season, they hold a ceremony, and those are bustling times.”
“But twenty years ago, for an unknown reason, the Hai Family didn’t hold the ceremony on time. Everyone panicked and surrounded the Hai Family’s mansion, but they only heard strange noises from within, with no one responding.”
“Seven days later, the Hai Family People emerged and resumed the ceremony, and everything returned to normal.”
The innkeeper didn’t seem to be hiding anything, speaking continuously as if this part of history was well known and familiar to all.
“There were strange noises from the Hai Family?”
Cui Siter picked up his pipe and lit the tobacco.
“I don’t know about that. I heard it from others back then,”
the innkeeper said with a smile while wiping down the table.
“Why was the ceremony interrupted at that time, and have there been any unusual occurrences in town since then?”
Cui Siter continued to press.
“Not sure, nothing unusual.”
The innkeeper didn’t seem very willing to go into detail about what happened twenty years ago.
“Do you know about the Black Queen Mother?”
Suddenly, Lu Ban spoke up, causing Cui Siter to break out in a cold sweat.
The shopkeeper’s expression became strange, and he stared straight at Lu Ban with a look in his eyes that reminded Cui Siter of the numb villagers from the night before, and of the eerie human-shaped monster behind that statue.
In but a moment, the previously lively atmosphere in the shop was gone without a trace.
The shopkeeper fell silent for a moment, then issued a low, eerie, inhuman sound that was difficult to comprehend.
“Garrulous…”
The sound was like bubbles bursting in water, carrying a kind of turbid texture.
Cui Siter felt his scalp tingle. The shopkeeper, who had just been introducing the situation in Dried Water Town, had turned into some kind of monster in the blink of an eye, and was alarmingly close.
He pulled out his revolver, aimed at the shopkeeper, and was ready to pull the trigger at any moment.
“Wait.”
Lu Ban stopped Cui Siter, whose eyes had already begun to turn bloodshot. He stepped between the two men.
“Do you know about the Black Queen Mother? She is a kind of common belief in this region, isn’t she?”
“Don’t, mention, that, name.”
The shopkeeper squeezed out a few difficult words from deep in his throat, as if someone had choked him.
Cui Siter noticed that the shopkeeper’s eyes bulged out like those of a fish, the blue veins at his neck and wrists swelling under the skin, spreading, his whole body in a state of extreme tension.
“I understand, let’s continue discussing the Hai Family People then.”
Lu Ban raised his hand in a gesture intended to pacify the other.
The shopkeeper still retained that tense look, but the fear in his eyes had subsided considerably. After a few minutes, he reverted back to looking like the man he had been before, only he appeared very tired. He slumped back behind the counter, and regardless of how Lu Ban and Cui Siter shouted after him, he no longer paid them any attention.
“‘Black Queen Mother’ seems to be a taboo word for the inhabitants here, but this also confirms that the belief in the Black Queen Mother really exists in this region, and even common people are aware of it.”
Lu Ban came to a conclusion through reverse thinking.
“The connection between the Hai Family and the Black Queen Mother doesn’t seem to be simple because if the Black Queen Mother and the Hai Family were related, the shopkeeper wouldn’t have so easily disclosed the affairs of the Hai Family.”
“…Indeed, if the Hai Family intended to conceal something, they would have the capability to make the town’s people stop mentioning the incident from twenty years ago.”
Cui Siter was still unsettled. He glanced at the shopkeeper curled up in the corner, then turned to look at Lu Ban.
At that moment, Lu Ban bent down and snatched away the dried fish that a cat was nibbling on and even huffed at the feline.
“Cats can’t eat salty foods, their kidneys can’t process the salt.”
He popped the dried fish into his mouth.
This chapt𝓮r is updat𝒆d by ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom.
“…”
Cui Siter didn’t know whether the suddenly transformed shopkeeper was more frightening, or this travelling companion who stole dried fish from a cat was more noteworthy.
“How about we ask that person?”
Lu Ban seriously placed the remaining dried fish into his pocket, then pointed behind Cui Siter.
Standing there was a man in short clothes, his skin tanned and his build strong, clearly someone accustomed to going out to sea for fishing.
“He has been standing there since just now.”
Cui Siter eyed the man with suspicion.
The man then spoke, using the local dialect. Even with the translation from Silence, it sounded a bit difficult to understand.
“You are guests of the Hai Family, aren’t you? I have something to discuss with you.”
“My sister is the new bride of the Hai Family.”
*
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