That Fair-Faced 'Sage' {Completed}

71. The Wrecked Inn

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An advantage to going round Camellia City as a child willing to do any work, was that she had set foot almost everywhere.

"Sometimes, I gathered wood around here, as a child." She told Shuǐ ChénLín as they ran, and was surprised that she could discuss her childhood without flinching.

She wouldn't normally be talking at a time like this, but she wanted Shuǐ ChénLín to remain awake.

She held one of his arms over her shoulder, and her fingers held his wrist, monitoring his qi and blood flow.

He was getting weaker and weaker, and she struggled to remain calm.

"I- I didn't know anything back then, and Madam Zhou was actually nice to me and my mother. When my mother was sick, she instructed me to come and work for Madam Zhou sometimes."

They had come to an even denser region of the forest, darker than where they were coming from, but LanFen didn't hesitate to press forward.

"The Zhou manor already had numerous servants that could fill their wood shed, but Madam Zhou let me do it, since she knew my mother and I wouldn't just accept charity."

"What happened to Madam Zhou?" Shuǐ ChénLín weakly asked.

LanFen sighed. "Perhaps it was designed by the heavens, but she passed away a few months before my mother did, so she likely never knew her husband might have been up to anything bad."

Shuǐ ChénLín smiled in the darkness. "No wonder you didn't feel anything, when I punished you to carry wood. Turns out you were long immune to such things."

"Tch! Did you just notice?" They had come to a small clearing, and surprisingly, there was a large building with three floors, standing there.

It looked completely wrecked from the outside.

LanFen was about to head into the building, but Shuǐ ChénLín held her back.

"What exactly is this place? It looks too dangerous." Shuǐ ChénLín observed, but LanFen shook her head.

"Would I bring you somewhere dangerous, after you saved my life again?"

She glanced down at the region of his side, and noted that nearly the entire front of his robes were covered in blood. "We need somewhere to treat your wound, and I know no one else will come here looking for us."

Her arm went around his own waist and pulled him forward.

"This used to be an inn, several hundred years ago, but the owner was discovered to be a Demon cultivator, so people stopped coming to the inn.

"Back then, Camellia City was little more than a village, and the villagers began to vandalize the place, burning and looting.

"No one was willing to sell anything to him, or buy anything from him. His wife fell ill, and no one agreed to treat her, or even sell them medicine.

"She eventually died and he hung himself in this hall." They had entered the front hall of the inn. Several plants, small shrubs and vines had begun to grow freely inside.

But apart from the dirt, the cobwebs, the obvious disrepair and the plant life, the inn's stone structure still seemed impressively strong and sturdy.

"People consider this place to be bad luck," LanFen continued. "...but me and my mother came in here for years, and nothing happened to us."

"You talk too much." Shuǐ ChénLín was breathing too hard now, and he looked too pale in the moonlight filtering through.

"This way." She helped him through a set of corridors to a fairly decent room she had discovered long ago.