HEAVEN SWORD DRAGON SABRE Book 2 of 2

Sabre And Sword Lost, People Perish Part 3

Zhou Zhiruo was so ashamed that her face turned completely red. In all her life, Zhang Wuji had never spoken to her like that.

"If it were me," Xie Xun said, "I'd kill those ginseng pickers. But since Jiaozhu is unwilling to shed too many blood, we must quickly find a way to change our clothes, to remove any trace of our identities."

They immediately quickened their pace. After walking briskly for two days, they finally left the forest. But it was not after walking another day did they finally see a peasant family's home. Zhang Wuji took out some silver coins to buy clothes from the peasant, but the family was so poor that they did not have any extra clothes to sell. After going to seven, eight different homes, finally they were able to collect three sets of totally filthy clothes. Zhou Zhiruo was used to cleanness; smelling the stench accumulated over several years, she almost threw up. But Xie Xun was delighted; he instructed his two companions to smear their faces with mud. When Zhang Wuji looked at his reflection in the water, he saw a Liaodong's beggar. Zhao Min might not necessarily recognize him even if she was standing right in front of him.

As they continued walking southward, they entered the Great Wall. One day they arrived at the suburb of a big town. Three people went straight to a big restaurant.

Zhang Wuji took three 'liang's worth of silver from his pocket and gave it to the innkeeper; he said, "You can settle the bill after we are done eating." He was afraid that the innkeeper would not give them any food because of the way they dressed in ragged clothes.

Who would have thought that the innkeeper stood up respectfully and returned the silver with both hands, saying, "We thank Masters for patronizing our humble establishment; what is some insipid wine and crude rice? Please accept it compliment of our small inn."

Zhang Wuji was very surprised. As they were seated, he said in low voice to Zhou Zhiruo, "Has our masquerade been exposed? Why did the innkeeper refuse our money?"

Zhou Zhiruo examined their clothes and appearance carefully, they did look like three beggars; which movement or expression of theirs had given them away?

"From the way that innkeeper speaks, I can tell that he is afraid of something," Xie Xun said, "We must be careful."

They heard some footsteps on the stairway as seven men walked in. As chance had it, these men also dressed as beggars. These seven men went to sit on the table by the window; their manners were haughty. The waiter appeared and respectfully greeted them, calling them 'Master this' and 'Master that', as if they were people of nobility or some high-ranking officials.

Zhang Wuji noticed that some of these beggars carried five pouches on their backs, while some others carried six pouches. Apparently, they were some high-ranking disciples of the Beggar Clan.

The waiter took their order and went downstairs. Before he even returned with their wine and dishes, there were six, seven more Beggar Clan's disciples going up the stairs. In a short period of time, the restaurant upstairs were full with more than thirty Beggar Clan disciples; among whom there were three seven-pouch disciples.

Suddenly it dawned on Zhang Wuji that the Beggar Clan was having their assembly today, and the innkeeper misunderstood them as members of the Beggar Clan. With a low voice he said to better get out of here to avoid trouble. The Beggar Clan people in here are not a few."

But right at that moment the waiter came back to serve them a large dish of beef and another dish of roasted whole chicken, plus five catties [1 catty is approximately equal to 1 lb or 0.5kg] of white wine. Xie Xun was very hungry; he had gone through the last few months without any decent meals. Smelling the roasted chicken, his index finger twitched and he said, "We are just quietly eating and drinking; we are not on their way, are we?" While saying that he took the bowl and with 'glug, glug' noise he drank half bowl of the white wine, while saying in his heart, "Heaven have mercy on me. Xie Xun has wandered overseas for more than twenty years, and today is the first time I can taste wine again."