“Hello mister,” said the innkeeper. “Is there anything else you may need?”
“Yes,” Yin Na said, while taking another silver tael out of the folds of the basket and with a dramatic flick of his robe- placed it into the hand of the elderly man. Yin Na looked into the innkeeper’s eyes as he took the man’s hands and folded them over the heavy tael.
“This is for my companion’s appetite. May it cover all the seconds that he asks for.”
“Oh…yes, yes!” The innkeeper was in shock, and was momentarily caught stunned, at a loss for words. “Thank you, kind sir! Yes, anything the young master wants!”
Yin Na interrupted with a whisper: “One question. Over the past few weeks, have you ever witnessed any supernatural phenomena?”
“‘Supernatural?’” The innkeeper’s eyes widened. “Would sir be referring to… Yao Guai?”
“Precisely,” Yin Na said.
The innkeeper’s face became anxious. “Sir implies the existence of Yao Guai… would honored sir and young master happen to be… of the Jiang Hu?”
Yin Na leaned in close to the innkeeper, shrouding their faces with his robe as if to whisper a secret. He slowly pulled down his face mask.
“Of course we are.”
Feeling Yin Na’s breath and witnessing his ugly smashed-in face, the innkeeper could only shudder.
“This man!” The innkeeper thought. “He’s a demonic martial artist!”
“I am a Daoist,” Yin Na smiled, pulling back from the innkeeper. “My name is Wayseeker Crow. This here is Song Ying Jie, cruel misfortune befell his village and since then he and I are on a journey to avenge the murderers of his Grandmother, which we believe may have passed through this village.”
Yin Na did not bother explaining that the “murderers” that they were looking for were human bandits, which Song Ying Jie did not fail to notice. However, the young martial artist kept his mouth shut.
The innkeeper was a little relieved by the implication of Yao Guai, since it would free any of his neighbors or fellow villagers from being guilty for these two travelers’ manhunt.
“Alas,” said the innkeeper. “I have not seen any Yao Guai in all the seven decades of my life. However, I will ask around, I know a lot of people. Perhaps my own family members may have seen something.”
“Very good,” said Yin Na. Then he took out another silver tael and put it in the innkeeper’s hands.
The innkeeper was delighted, and immediately rushed into the kitchen.
First, he demanded that his nephews and grand-nieces actually attempt to clean and cook all the vegetables and meats as best as they could. He then asked if any of them happened to see anything strange in the past week, until he finally relented to a curious grand-niece's questioning and admitted that it was a search for Yao Guai.
“Yao Guai!” his family members exclaimed. “What crazy guest do we have now? Is it a martial artist?”
The innkeeper clicked his tongue, as he brandished the two heavy taels he had within the pockets of his robe.
“However crazy he may be, it was from his hands that I was given these treasures!” said the innkeeper.
Who cares if he was demonic or a dangerous man? He was a walking source of benefits!
The message was clear, and the family members began making their best home dishes- food that they’d actually eat themselves, as well as rushing to kill fresh chicken and duck in the backyard.
Yin Na found it quite amusing that he commanded more respect as a mere Qi Refinement Martial Artist than when he had been in the same village and inn as a cultivator. When he and Deng Peng sworn Dao Brotherhood, it was done within this very small inn in Spring Wind Village. Deng Peng was impulsive and also really quick to like him, and even though they were both Foundation Establishment level cultivators, they were both low-key enough to not warrant any attention as it was merely a rest stop before their journey straight to the Yellow Fox Sect.
While Yin Na and Song Ying Jie enjoyed the dishes of meat buns and cold vegetables, the older sons and daughters were tasked to ask around. Word spread through the village, as the more resourceful individuals were able to discern rumors from fact, and actually inquired after the most observant people in the village.
Yin Na already knew that when he and his companion get up from the table, their bellies full of sustenance, that they would be greeted by a handful of the most reliable people in the village who had seen anything resembling a flying Boar Spirit Beast or a Cat-eared Yao Guai demoness.
“This way, mister,” the innkeeper said, taking them upstairs to one of the rooms.
In the hallway, Song Ying Jie tensed up as he sensed the presence of multiple people awaiting them in the next corner.
There were six mortals, standing by the sides of the hallway like statues as if they were servants awaiting their liege. But the reason that Song Ying Jie felt tense was because he sensed the breath of a fellow martial artist among these six!
How could Yin Na not know this as well?
“Relax, Ying Jie,” Yin Na chuckled. “Well, what have we here?”
“Honored Daoist Wayseer Crow sir,” the innkeeper smiled. “Here are four people in the village who have the information you need, as some have even encountered Yao Guai personally! Their word is reliable and confirmed, or my name isn’t-”
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“Good,” Yin Na said. “Let’s start. Who are you?”
“Hello, sir Daoist,” bowed a bearded farmer. He was tall, muscular, and seemed to be well-liked among the company in the room as he exuded a general aura of self-confidence and amiability. “I have heard from many of my neighbors about sightings or evidence of Yao Guai over the years. I myself have recently observed livestock missing, tracks outside the village which may have not been from ordinary animals…”
“But you didn’t see anything with your own eyes?” Yin Na interrupted.
“Eh? Maybe. No, I did not.”
“Then why are you wasting my time?” Yin Na’s voice quickly turned cold. Before the man could say anything else, Yin Na left him, skipping the woman who was next in line and walked over to the third individual.
“Hello Daoist,” said this second man on the right side of the hall, eager to cut small-talk and not repeat the mistakes of his predecessor. He was dressed in loose-fitting clothes, and had a bodybuilder’s physique as opposed to the rugged muscles of a farmer.
“If it’s Yao Guai you’re looking for, for decades the living legend has been plaguing our village. As part of the local militia here, I’ve heard many stories about human disappearances, but I’ve actually seen two times the glimpse of a rather large burly shadow at night raiding one of the chickens or ducks in one of our villager’s farms, as well as a potential kidnapping two years ago.”
Yin Na was intrigued, but his eyes were stone cold above his face mask. He knew he had little hope of hearing actual evidence about the Spicy Oil Boar as Mao Shiqi would definitely be prudent and more cautious upon arriving at their destination. However, the rumors about the Bear Yao Guai were almost just as important, maybe even priority over reuniting with his companion as it was tantamount to rebuilding his lost wealth.
“Very quickly,” Yin Na interrupted. “Have any of you seen a woman enter your village recently? About this tall, might call herself ‘Lin Jiao Jiao?’”
“Eh? No,” said the guard, who was caught off-guard by the abrupt change in subject.
“Nevermind. Describe this ‘burly shadow’ as best as you can,” said Yin Na. “How are you sure that it wasn’t just some large robber, perhaps masquerading as this figure of superstition that’s prevailed in Spring Wind village for decades?”
“In the darkness, I could still see the hair on its body, which was humanoid but clearly not human. I trust my eyes, and my gut. I knew that if I rushed out to confront it with my spear then I’d lose my life for certain those two nights. Watching the monster in action, at that very moment all those rumors of children, women and the occasional guard disappearing over the years came back to me and I wasn’t eager to add my name to the growing list of tragedies. In addition, I saw that the footprints left behind in the mud after both incidents were bear-like, but not quite.”
“Yes, I can confirm the footprint story!” The first bearded farmer from before tried to add on to his story.
“Okay,” Yin Na nodded, then moved back to the woman.
“Hello, sir Daoist,” bowed an aging mother, her hair drawn into a tight permafrost bun. “Many people like to dismiss rumors of Yao Guai in our village, but you stand before a woman whose own daughter was personally victimized by the Bear Yao Guai.”
Yin Na clasped his hands and made an obligatory gesture of sorrow. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“This scourge which has lived near our village since ancient times has always been dismissed as a figure with which the villagers equate misfortune or coincidences towards. Our village is large enough to lose more men to conscription in war than from bandit raids or a hunting accident. The occasional victim missing isn’t heavily investigated, especially when it’s a poor insignificant peasant’s family. However, my daughter was beautiful! She had beauty that rivaled the moon’s, with a smile like an infant’s, it’s no wonder the Bear Yao Guai attacked her!”
The mother rambled on about the girl’s past, up until how she wandered around the outskirts of the village, which the previous guard confirmed witnessing the same burly shadow take her along hearing her shrill scream that fateful night two years ago.
Yin Na listened without judgment, while Song Ying Jie was tearing up; empathizing heavily with the mother about losing her beloved daughter. It reminded him too much of Wang Jin Lian, whose death was still too fresh in his mind.
“The legends say Yao Guai, especially male beasts, love to eat and do terrible things to beautiful human girls!” The mother was growing hysterical. “The summer I lost her, Xiao Wen was only fourteen! She would be sixteen by now.”
She wiped her eyes, which then took on a mist of slight madness upon drying.
“Now Heaven has sent me two heroes to avenge her death!”
Song Ying Jie’s lips were trembling as he nodded enthusiastically— clearly on board with the mother’s call for action.
Yin Na chose to not rebuke her by simply clasping his hands and bowing again.
“Yes, nevermind the fact that we’re dismissing any other possible reasons your daughter disappeared. Are there any clues or reliable descriptions of the Bear Yao Guai that my companion and I can memorize?”
“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” said the first farmer again. “Multiple reports of the Bear Yao Guai always vary, but after generations of oral repetition plus a little of my own private detective work, we can conclude that-”
“How can we rely on generations of oral hearsay?” Yin Na snapped. “Tell me: does Spring Wind Village have any of its history archived?”
Yin Na could care less about mortal speculation on Yao Guai form. If a Yao Guai let themselves be noticed by mortals, usually it is almost certain that they don’t intend for them to survive. As a former cultivator, he had personally dealt with Yao Guai and knew the various forms they would take, from the slightly primal pre-awakened form that still resembled their animal origins to the bipedal, humanoid beasts at Qi Condensing stage, and then those that fully resembled humans at the Qi Foundation stage.
The most useful intel he required to face the Yao Guai was pinpointing which stage of cultivation it was at. If the words of the second man were to be believed regarding its bear-like footprints, then the Bear Yao Guai was likely still in its pre-awakened form as a monstrous bear, there was hope that both he and Song Ying Jie could easily slay it at their current power.
If it was at the beast humanoid Qi Condensing stage then it would be like fighting Liao Ya Shu- not possessing the 9-Yin Treasure Jade Brick, which was made of one of the hardest material under Heaven would make fighting a Bear Yao Guai harder, but not impossible. If Yin Na learned that the Bear Yao Guai was only at the Qi Condensing stage, he would hastily allocate meridian points and other preparations before embarking to kill the bear.
The farmer and the innkeeper were both shocked, at a loss for words. They looked at each other for a moment, not sure who was to answer the question first.
“W-well,” began the innkeeper. “Any and all written records would be kept by the mayor.”
“And have you spoken with him? Did he bring any words of contribution here today?” Yin Na demanded. “Why is he not here?”
“That’s enough,” said the fourth figure that Yin Na had not yet spoken to.
“Oh?” Yin Na said in amusement
This was clearly the man that set Song Ying Jie’s muscles on the edge from the beginning. This man was waiting patiently at the back of the hall, yet had the aloofness to interrupt a domineering martial artist, and evidently had the balls to back it up.
“I don’t care if you’re a Daoist or not,” said the man, who was in his late forties; bald and with graying, frizzled whiskers for a beard. “Daoists must observe propriety, even as the guests of mortal common folk.”
Yong Fei was an averaged-height man wearing peasant clothing, but under the inn’s dim lighting the veins of his muscles could almost be seen through his shirt!
“This man is a true martial artist!” Yin Na thought.