WangXian Forever Book 9: The Flower Demon

Chapter 103 Baling

Baling city was a residence for around thirty thousand people, an up and coming fashionable place that artists and writers flocked to all the time. It was culturally rich, with an abundance for nourishing creativity, and the Ouyang Sect was known to be generous benefactors to the talented in need.

They were able to support the city due to their ability to produce the best quality cotton, selling it at a higher than average price because of its superiority. They quickly made a name for themselves as entrepreneurs, as they used all the parts of the plant.

Wei Ying had asked Ouyang Zizhen about the best place to land, and he told them about a meadow which was usually empty of people, and that they could be fairly discreet in their coming and goings.

But not today, it wasn't.

Today, this meadow was teeming with excited folk milling around and talking, stalls of hot food being sold cooked on site, carnival performers demonstrating their skills, tightrope walkers, jugglers, and acrobats. There were people performing tricks, scamming innocent passers-by with tales of glory and jealousy, bravery and sneaky attacks. There was a flea circus, a man with his pet monkey that he had trained to pickpocket, and finally, a lady sitting in the middle of all this chaos playing her erhu.

It was a miracle that they managed to avoid crushing anyone by accident.

"Hey, I thought you said this place would be empty!" Jiang Cheng hissed at the young adult whose Sect supervised and looked after this merry place.

"It was a genuine mistake!" Ouyang Zizhen protests, looking around. "What's the date?" He suddenly asks, blushing.

They tell him, though the other ducklings show him no mercy in roasting him.

"Omg, then it's today!" He gasps, ignoring their teasing.

"What is?" SiZhui asks him, ever the sweetest boy.

"The Tree Climbing festival. Look!" He points at the tallest tree in the field, cordoned off for today's event.

"What are you supposed to do?" Jin Ling asks.

"Climb it, Duh!" JingYi laughs at him openly. "Think you'll be able to do it, Mistress?"

"Absolutely, and don't call me that!" A bit of pushing and shoving happens until Jiang Cheng intervenes.

"He's not wrong," Ouyang Zizhen says, beaming. "And it's about to start. My family will be attending as well. Let's go and find them!"

They begin to make their way through the crowds.

"Hui Gai, it might be hard to keep a track of the Babies here, with so many people around. We don't want anyone to get lost, even by accident," Wei Ying whispers.

"Oh, right, hang on." Hui Gai stops them moving. "Lor has been teaching me things about the flora and fauna of the Nether World. Watch this." He produces a huge black flower out of thin air and crushes it in the centre of his palm. It dries immediately, turning into a black, fine dust. With a single blow, he manages to contaminate every single child on the now bigger carpet.

"Wow, that's impressive," Wei Ying says, confusion evident in his beautiful silver eyes. "Is there a reason for that? Other than getting them dirty?"

Hui Gai laughs kindly.

"Indeed. It's like your binding spell. Think of each speck of dust as able to connect with the others. I am able to cast a Web over all that have even faintest traces of this powder and pull them together. No one is getting lost on my watch, PengYou."

They look at the children who were only a few seconds ago, covered in the black micro dust of the dried flower, but now it's as if their clothes have absorbed the powder to leave no traces of its presence at all!