CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

After the meal, Lam Bai pays 140 coins for everything, and she leaves with Li Feng. They walk a few minutes to arrive back at the hotel, returning to their room, together.

Li Feng and Lam Bai fetch their night clothes from their room, then walk back to the first floor. Instead of more rooms on the first floor of the hotel, there is a shared bathing area. A wooden partition separates the men from the women, and Li Feng goes alone to the men’s side. After undressing, Li Feng places his clothes in a cubby storage box labeled with his room number, and enters the bath.

The bath is warm and spacious, much larger than the bath at the estate, but it’s shared by two other men. Both are hairy and in their lower twenties, heavily muscular and relaxing at the edge of the water. Steam gently rises from the surface of the water, and a mild soap helps clean Li Feng’s body. Compared to at the estate, where Li Feng can use water magic to give himself a shower, the shared bath is less effective at cleaning.

A few minutes later, Li Feng exits the bath and returns to his room. The two men already in the bath are probably miners, Li Feng thinks, and he abandons the hope that they’ll leave soon. Most likely, they haven’t gotten a hot bath in weeks.

Not entirely clean, Li Feng lets himself drip dry before patting himself dry with his tunic and putting on his night clothes. He is still a little wet, but he’s as dry as he can get without a dedicated towel and another ten minutes. Now carrying dirty clothes, Li Feng returns to his room.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

In the women’s bath, Lam Bai enjoys being the only one there. Females are not common as quests in Quanchang, and the women’s side of the bath is less than a third the size of the men’s side. However, this not entirely a bad thing. The soap is more concentrated and the water is cleaner on the women’s side of the bath.

After a long bath, Lam Bai returns to the room to find Li Feng already asleep in his bed. Lam Bai reflects on the events of that day, and finally, her mind settles on what Li Feng said to the man trying to woo her. ‘Leave our table, vagrant,’ Li Feng had spoken, not needing even a full second to think of what to say.

Lam Bai didn’t think Li Feng could be so cold to someone. Usually, Li Feng would say something to help the offender figure out what it was that they did wrong, but, this time, Li Feng directly told the man to leave, and added an insult at the end! Li Feng’s actions were just too out of character!

“You need to act faster next time,” Li Feng opens his eyes and says. “The next time you want someone to leave, tell them, immediately.”

“Yes, young master Feng!” Lam Bai dutifully says.

“Just Feng is fine…” Li Feng mumbles and closes his eyes again.

“Good night, young master Feng,” Lam Bai says and walks to her own bed. She gets in, her head pointing to Li Feng, and falls asleep after a few minutes.