Afterward, we thought about going to the best restaurant in the city for lunch. We asked the academy head for directions and learned that the finest restaurant in the city was called Depths of a Hundred Flowers, and that it wasn’t too far from where we were. We slowly walked over. The street where the academy sat was very quiet, but once we stepped out of it, a bustling and lively scene greeted us.
Spring Night City was famous for its abundance of beauties and its open-minded social customs. As soon as we hit the street, Lin Mo’s smile never faded, making it seem like he was going to start drooling the next second.
Yao Shuang had walked alongside me and Lin Mo at first, but she was quickly drawn to all sorts of stalls and shops. Every time I looked away for a moment, she had wandered off somewhere else again. Still, there was no need to worry about her running into bad people or anything; she was, after all, a disciple of the Starry Sky Sect.
Before long, she suddenly appeared in front of me wearing a tiger mask and asked, “Senior Brother, guess who I am?”
She was already calling me Senior Brother, yet still telling me to guess who she was. I smiled and shook my head, and in a flash, she had run off out of sight again.
Shortly after, we arrived at Depths of a Hundred Flowers, the best restaurant in the city as recommended by the academy head. The waiter served us a jar of the house’s signature begonia flower wine.
We took a small sip, and the fragrance lingered on our teeth and lips.
“I have never tasted wine so mellow and fragrant,” Lin Mo praised.
Before long, Yao Shuang returned, sat down, and reached out to pour herself a cup of wine. Lin Mo and I blocked her with our hands at the exact same time, then pointed toward a pot of tea nearby.
She had no choice but to put the wine down and pour herself some tea instead.
“Why were you gone for so long?” I asked.
“I ran into a pitiful young master,” Yao Shuang replied.
“Junior Sister, where is the jade hairpin from your head?” Lin Mo asked.
Only then did I notice that Yao Shuang’s emerald jade hairpin was missing.
“I gave it to Young Master Bai,” Yao Shuang answered quite casually.
Seeing Lin Mo and me staring at her with stern expressions, she recounted the whole sequence of events. It turned out that she had seen a crowd of maidens gathered tightly around a spot, so she curiously squeezed her way in to take a look. She saw a refined young master sitting in the middle of the crowd with a sorrowful expression on his face. Beside him, his attendant was vividly and emotionally recounting how this young master had been sickly since childhood and how a physician had said he wouldn’t live past the age of twenty-five. At this point, to verify the attendant’s words, the young master burst into a series of continuous coughs, looking utterly pitiful and endearing. The attendant squeezed out two drops of tears, gently patted the young master’s back to comfort him, and continued. Our Young Master Bai is now twenty-four years old, and he wishes to spend this final year traveling across the lands so his trip to the mortal world won’t be in vain. It’s just that along the way, we ran into thieves, and all our traveling funds were gone.
By this point, Lin Mo and I completely understood what had happened.
“Didn’t you have ten taels of silver on you?” Lin Mo asked.
“I gave that to him too,” Yao Shuang replied. “I hadn’t even remembered I still had a jade hairpin, but the young master praised me for being pretty and said the hairpin suited me very well.”
At this moment, the dishes were served, and Yao Shuang spoke while eating big mouthfuls of rice, sounding rather muddled.
Lin Mo and I exchanged a glance, mutually and silently agreeing that this girl had been scammed. We had only considered that she wouldn’t get abducted by bad guys, never imagining she would so easily get conned out of her money by someone so shameless.
“What does Senior Brother think?” Lin Mo asked me.
“Since we have nothing to do this afternoon, we might as well go take a look at this pitiful Young Master Bai,” I said.
Hearing me say that, Yao Shuang raised her head to look at me.
“Senior Brother Yu means that if Young Master Bai is genuinely in a difficult spot, he can lend a hand. After all, our senior brother is a wealthy household from Luo City,” Lin Mo explained.
There were plenty of rich people in Luo City; the Prince Rong Manor could only be considered not poor, while being truly wealthy was definitely out of the question. Still, I was too lazy to nitpick words with him.
“That’s great!” Yao Shuang said with her mouth stuffed full of rice, her words coming out unclear.
After we finished eating, paid the bill, and headed toward the exit, Yao Shuang caught sight of the two people sitting at the table by the window and called out, “Young Master Bai!” The person didn’t hear her, so Yao Shuang prepared to lead us right over.
This Young Master Bai was the very person who had taken Yao Shuang’s hairpin. Lin Mo motioned for Yao Shuang to stay quiet, and we sat down at a table right next to theirs, ordering a pot of hawthorn tea to aid digestion.
“Why aren’t we going over to greet them?” Yao Shuang asked.
“It’s bad manners to disturb other people while they’re eating.” I took a sip of tea and listened to the movement over at the neighboring table.
“Young Master Bai, did I perform well enough today?” That question came from the person dressed as an attendant.
The young master let out a cold laugh, pulled out a pouch of silver, and tossed it onto the table. “Take it and get lost.”
Despite his harsh attitude, the man didn’t get angry at all. He picked up the silver pouch, weighed it in his hand as if quite satisfied, and tucked it into his waistband.
“If Young Master Bai has any more need of me, just look for me,” the man said with fawning flattery.
Yet that Young Master Bai didn’t even spare him a single glance.
Finding himself rebuffed, the man had no choice but to leave.
“I’ll go follow him,” Lin Mo said, and immediately dashed off after him.
Meanwhile, that Young Master Bai leisurely sipped his begonia flower wine and ordered a whole table of dishes, far more than the three of us combined had ordered.
“I’m going to go have a word with this Young Master Bai. Wait for me here,” I said as I stood up and took a seat directly across from him.
“For a young master to order so many dishes all by himself is a bit too wasteful,” I remarked calmly.
He glanced at me.
Seeing that he chose to ignore me, I continued, “I heard that the young master’s health is poor. You really should drink less of this wine.”
“You look a bit familiar to me. Have we met somewhere before?” He answered my question with another question, clearly wanting to change the subject.
“Never. It’s just that the hairpin my younger sister gave you, that hairpin wasn’t worth much to begin with, but it was left behind by my late mother.” I spun a complete fabrication.
He was a smart person who caught on immediately; his expression shifted, though he still insisted on saying, “I don’t understand what the young master is talking about.” With that, he stood up and started to leave.
“Young Master Bai! The hairpin I gave you this morning, don’t you remember? The cyan-green one!” Yao Shuang caught up and said after taking two steps.
Not only did that Young Master Bai refuse to stop, but he actually sped up his pace. I reached out and pulled Yao Shuang back.
I originally wanted to resort to some tricks, but I spotted a Wind and Snow Hall token hanging on him. Heh, the monk may run, but the temple can’t run away.
Lin Mo returned shortly after, reporting that the attendant was nothing more than a petty street scoundrel who was usually idle and lazy. Today, he had taken money from Young Master Bai, dressed up in disguise, and acted out a scam to swindle people out of their money.
“That whole story about only having twenty-five years to live and running into bandits was completely made up on the spot by him.”
Only then did Yao Shuang realize she had been tricked.
“Outrageous!” she exclaimed, preparing to give chase.
I stopped her. “We’ll be able to see that Young Master Bai again tomorrow.”
We didn’t even have to wait until tomorrow; that very evening right outside the entrance of our lodging, we bumped straight into him.
“Well, well. Isn’t this the Young Master Bai who has less than twenty-five years to live? How is it that you’ve ended up attending the academy?” Lin Mo sneered sarcastically.
Realizing he couldn’t dodge them, the man dropped the act entirely, pulled out the hairpin, and tossed it over.
“What about the ten taels of silver?” Lin Mo demanded.
The man chuckled and tossed the ten taels of silver away as if throwing charity before walking off.
“That con artist has no idea how many kind-hearted girls he has swindled. Somebody really ought to teach him a lesson,” Lin Mo gritted his teeth and spoke.
“As long as we got it back, that’s enough. Avoiding trouble is better than looking for it. Let’s go back and sleep,” I said.
The next day, we found out that this Young Master Bai didn’t even have the surname Bai; his surname was Shangguan, with the single given name Xian, and his home was located in Ma’an Town. Anyone who managed to enter this Wind and Snow Hall was either wealthy or noble, so how on earth did a jianghu con artist like him manage to get in?