The sound resembled that of a mouse scurrying about. Beisi grew vigilant instantly, his hand already gripping the hilt of his sword.
As a figure leaped out, Beisi’s blade was already resting against the other person’s throat, missing a mere fraction of an inch from cutting through.
The storyteller felt the chilling bite of the blade at his neck. Realizing how razor-sharp it was, he took a step backward.
Upon recognizing the face of the newcomer, Beisi withdrew his sword. The storyteller’s countenance was far from pleasant; compared to their meeting yesterday, his face was adorned with fresh red and purple bruises. It seemed he had endured a rough time over the past few hours.
The scarred man was still hiding away to recover from his injuries.
The storyteller reached out his hand as if to stroke his beard, but finding nothing there, he remembered he had shaved it off. He hurriedly coughed and said, “The He residence has posted wanted posters featuring the faces of the four of us. The general gist is that we four bandits have been burning, killing, and looting, and anyone who captures us will be rewarded with a hundred gold coins. Seeing the great commotion over here, I guessed it might be you.”
Comparing the three of them, the storyteller looked the most disheveled. Signaling for the two to follow, he led them not far away until they saw a large public notice board erected at the entrance of the main street. Emblazoned on it were three large characters: Wanted Poster, below which were the portraits of four people lined up in a row.
The storyteller let out a bitter laugh. “Now we’re truly figures despised by everyone.”
Seeing Beisi frown, he added, “It’s fine, there’s still a way to resolve this…”
“They drew him ugly…”
The storyteller was slightly stunned, instinctively uttering an “ah.”
“They drew Qiqi ugly,” Beisi stated once more.
The storyteller looked again at Chi Qiqi, who was carefully examining the portrait, and deeply felt that he could simply facepalm and collapse backward right now. Is that really the point? These two lovebirds aren’t worried in the slightest about their ruined reputations.
Fortunately, Beisi remained quite serious as he asked, “What is the solution?”
“Tell me, why do you think the commoners of this city trust the He clan so much?” Having disguised himself as a storyteller for several days, the storyteller had absorbed the flavor of the trade and instinctively exercised his talent yet not a single person gave a reaction.
The two stared at him with absolute emotional detachment, keeping their mouths shut and simply waiting for him to speak.
With no other choice, the storyteller reined in his flair and said, “Because anyone who commits bad deeds will receive their due punishment.”
At first hearing, that sounded rather decent.
“But in reality, these so-called evildoers are merely scapegoats. If anyone refuses to do the bidding of the clan head and elders, the bad deeds committed by others will be pinned on them. Meanwhile, the true culprits remain at large. Anyone who discovers the truth cannot leave the He residence alive; they are hunted down relentlessly. The commoners only believe what they see,” the storyteller continued, his tone dropping despondently.
“Aren’t you also an elder?” Chi Qiqi asked upon hearing him, recalling that the others had previously called him the Second Elder.
The storyteller was left speechless for a moment before finally saying, “I… have indeed done such things. I simply didn’t want to die.”
“Then shouldn’t you be going to do things for those people this time?” Chi Qiqi’s words were neither sarcastic nor ironic; he simply and purely did not understand why someone who had done many such things in the past was choosing not to continue now.
The storyteller choked momentarily. Chi Qiqi’s words were far too blunt. He explained, “I faked my death to break away from the He clan, yet among the common people, I heard them praising the true villains…”
Chi Qiqi still could not understand why someone who had committed so many wicked deeds would suddenly change their nature over a trivial matter.
“To prevent things from getting out of hand, there is a ledger recording the true culprits. It must still be inside the He residence.” The storyteller did not dwell further on his previous remarks.
By the way, Beisi informed the storyteller that He Ru had already died.
Sure enough, the storyteller’s eyes widened in shock. “He Ru has been paralyzed for a whole year. Wave after wave of medicine was sent inside, only to come out empty. Every miraculous elixir was prioritized for him.”
“Then there might be something fishy in that room,” Beisi said.
“Ever since his paralysis, He Ru hasn’t been willing to come out,” the storyteller pondered for a few moments before adding, “The last time I saw him should have been in March. After his birthday passed, it seemed he was never seen again.”
Relying solely on verbal speculation would not yield answers; the only way was to visit the He residence once more.
“Acting during the day is inconvenient. What about at night?”
“No, we’ll go during the day,” Beisi countered by choosing daytime instead. “The longer the time passes, the greater the variables. They certainly won’t guess that we’ll return on the very next day.”
They had already eliminated a vast amount of combat strength yesterday, so the enemy would never expect them to strike again so soon. This element of surprise was what you called catching them off guard.
Beisi certainly wasn’t willing to leave Chi Qiqi behind. What if he ran into any of the local commoners here and suffered a loss?
The three of them quickly reached a consensus.
Being thoroughly familiar with the layout of the He residence, the storyteller used a tree branch to draw a rough schematic of the room orientations on the ground, circling to indicate which ones belonged to the clan head and He Ru.
With their exceptionally sharp memories, Beisi and Chi Qiqi committed the layout to mind after just a single look.
The storyteller led them along a detour through the most secluded paths.
Observing the rotation of the patrols inside the He residence, Beisi quickly grasped the pattern: today’s guards were significantly fewer than last night’s.
Beisi scooped up Chi Qiqi and vaulted into the estate. Left behind, the storyteller could only watch as the two of them abandoned him and went straight in.
They split up, with the storyteller heading to the clan head’s room to search for the ledger.
Possessing a strong sense of direction, Beisi avoided the guards and, without spending much effort, successfully located He Ru’s room.
As the clan head’s son, He Ru enjoyed a social status and position such that his living quarters were bound to be exceptionally lavish, even featuring gold-inlaid pillars on the exterior.
A barrier was set up at the entrance. Beisi hadn’t seen this particular barrier before, but that didn’t prevent him from dismantling it.
Chi Qiqi, however, frowned as he looked at the barrier. This barrier is the handiwork of that person. Has that person been here?
Accompanied by a creaking sound as the door opened, Chi Qiqi snapped out of his thoughts and stepped inside alongside Beisi.
The room was spacious, and the air was remarkably fresh, completely devoid of any strange odors. It was resplendent and magnificent, featuring a bed made of millennia-old precious wood, neatly arranged tables and chairs, and gorgeous, exquisite ornamental flowers that pleased the eye upon sight.
It was properly the residence of a wealthy young master. Yet, while this was normal for any other young master of means, it struck one as rather bizarre when applied to He Ru.
There was no scent of herbal medicine, no wheelchair, and no design features whatsoever to accommodate someone paralyzed.
They said the clan head doted immensely on this son, presenting him with delicacies and miraculous elixirs alike, and sparing no expense to cure his legs that much went without saying.
Yet how could such obvious details be neglected? It was simply impossible.
The two searched separately. As Chi Qiqi observed the surrounding environment, he uncontrollably found himself thinking of that person. If that person was still here and exercised control once more… no, the curse had already been lifted.
“Over here,” Beisi called out from across the room, causing Chi Qiqi to realize he had lingered in one spot for too long as he turned his head to look.
Hanging there was an enormous landscape painting, majestic and grandiose, created by a master artist. An illusionary spell had been cast over the location; in reality, this wasn’t a painting at all, but a door. It was well concealed, but Beisi had already located the focal point of the array, channeled his spiritual energy into it, and watched as the painting gradually faded from view.
A modest door was revealed. When Beisi pushed it open, the lights within rapidly flickered on, casting a golden glow that illuminated a small secret chamber—a very long corridor.
Unexpectedly, there were no offensive arrays along the entire path. As they ventured deeper, Beisi noticed something.
“The secret chamber I went to last time was accessed from the clan head’s room. The secret rooms in this place seem to be interconnected with it,” Beisi remarked, sensing a chilling aura.
The air was damp and sticky, and the cramped surroundings were genuinely uncomfortable. Fortunately, they reached their destination quickly.
The view opened up to reveal a large, flat, circular platform in the center, while the surroundings were monotonously stark.
Atop this grand flat circular platform lay a deep rectangular indentation, pitch-black in the shape of a rectangular block. Viewed in isolation, one might mistake it for some heavy object pressing down upon it, never guessing that it was actually an ice bed encasing a person inside.
“The chilling aura you mentioned is because the cold air cannot dissipate here,” Chi Qiqi deduced upon a moment’s reflection.
The basement temperature was low to begin with, and coupled with the placement of an ice “coffin,” the cold air remained trapped within the four walls, unable to escape. It was truly killing two birds with one stone: deceiving the storyteller and the others while preserving the ice bed.
Other than the grand flat circular platform, the place was completely empty.
Footsteps echoed from above. Having already prepared themselves, the two anticipated the arrival of the storyteller, who had indeed headed to the clan head’s room and, following his search downward, spotted them both.
He came over holding a book, flipped to a certain page, and showed it to them. “This beast wanted to use his blood relatives to break through his cultivation realm! His cultivation had already reached its peak, and his lifespan was running short, so he actually resorted to such a method! No wonder he entered the demonic path!”
Clearly inscribed upon the page was the method of offering a blood relative as a sacrifice, supplemented by a protector, to break through to the innate realm of cultivation.
As for the protector—who would he seek? Evidently, He Dao lacked the strength to protect the clan head, and someone so obsessed with self-preservation would never entrust such a task to someone weaker than himself.
Within the entire He clan, there was likely no one with sufficient strength, let alone someone willing to commit such heinous crimes. Even tigers do not eat their own cubs.
Thus, the only possibility was the person living in He Ru’s room. Yet that individual was extremely cautious, leaving behind not even a shred of evidence.
The clan head had likely offered up all those priceless treasures in cultivation circles precisely to curry favor with this person.
Beisi looked at the jade token in his hand; one of its corners bore the mark of having been shattered.
Gazing at the jade token, the storyteller fell into a brief silence before speaking: “It was his father who broke his legs.”
He had tracked the individual’s movements, crippled his legs as a result, and outwardly scoured the world for famous medicines for his son, while in reality feeding them to the protection master and himself.
Having hollowed out the family fortune, he sent people to steal the Ai You grass, murdered his own blood relatives, and ultimately met a violent end with lingering grievances.
As for the protection master, his tracks had vanished from the very beginning.
“The ledger recording the wrongdoings wasn’t found in the clan head’s room,” the storyteller apologized.
Such vital items naturally wouldn’t be found easily. Since the ledger was bound to be in frequent use, yet its placement and retrieval could not draw attention—after all, losing it would mean disaster it had to be kept somewhere the clan head frequently opened, and not far away.
Beisi swept his gaze around the perimeter of the circular platform. The stones on the wall were all pieced together from small rectangles. Scanning carefully across them, he noticed one block that was unusually smooth and reflective—a clear sign that it was frequently touched, wearing away its texture.
Though subtle, it was more than enough for Beisi.
Caution is the parent of safety.
Beisi caught hold of Chi Qiqi’s hand. Seeing that the hands of these two had linked back up mere moments after separating, the storyteller learned to avert his gaze and look elsewhere.
Beisi pressed down on that stone block, and sure enough, it gave way.
The mechanism slowly began to turn…
Erl John F. Turnos
Purok 2, Mulig Toril Davao City, Davao del Sur, 8000
+639531639310
[email protected]
July 20,2025
Dear Hiring Manager,
I am writing to express my interest in the Kitchen Crew position at Chowking. Although I do not have prior experience in fast food or kitchen work, I am eager to learn and develop new skills in a dynamic environment. I am enthusiastic, hardworking, and committed to contributing positively to your team. I am confident that my strong work ethic and willingness to learn will make me a valuable addition to your kitchen staff.
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I am excited about the opportunity to join Chowking and to be part of a team that values quality and customer satisfaction. I am ready to start immediately and am eager to contribute my energy and enthusiasm to support your kitchen team. Thank you for considering my application; I look forward to the possibility of discussing how I can be a helpful member of your staff.