CHAPTER 16 THE TOWN

Scene 1:

It took us no much time when we found the town. Qiushui was right about the waterflow. But we didn’t expect to see a grand lake instead of a creek. And unfortunately, we were on the side of nothing while the whole town was set on the other side of the lake.

I shot the robber a piercing look and questioned: “You said it was two les away.”

The robber was frightened to talk. It did take him some guts to come up with a terrible excuse.

“I…I…forgot about…” He muttered.

But Aezo stopped him in mid-sentence: “Yeah, maybe he just counted the distance between two points in a straight forward way, like a straight line directed from us across to the town. But apparently we must take a turn since there’s no any boat we can use or we can all go swimming across the lake.”

The robber quickly nodded as an approval of Aezo’s guess and then he even more quickly changed his mind to shake head when he heard the word “swimming”.

“What? You don’t like the idea of swimming or you don’t know how to swim?” Aezo puzzled.

I looked around. It seemed that the only way we could get to the other side of the lake was to walk along its curved edge which had a crescent-like bank overall.

“What you say, Missy Qiu?” I asked for her advice, since she had a good sense of anything about water.

Qiushui took a step forward, getting closer to the lake, and she gazed at the surface as if she would see it through. We all waited for like a minute, and then I heard her say:

“No swim. The lake is far deep in the center, and even if we walk along the bank, we need to be very careful.”

“What’s in the water?” I questioned.

But Qiushui simply gave me a glance and said: “Just keep away from the water, let’s go.”

Then I looked at the robber, without saying a word, and he totally knew his job to be the first to move. So, he moved forward, ahead of us, and was aware of keeping himself away from the water.

“Are there crocodiles or something lurking in the water?” Aezo sounded timid and he just could not stop talking.

“Well, that’s so sad. I was thinking about having a naked swim. You know, it’s just too hot and I’m totally sweaty. I wanna go topless!” He groaned and looked very upset.

“You will have a shower when we get to the town. Don’t worry.” I said.

Scene 2:

It was not nightfall yet when we finally arrived at the town. I was kind of surprised that it took us another two les to pass the lake along its bank.

“Where do we stay for night?” Pinks asked as we walked in the entrance of the town, a gate which was made of wood columns.

“Somewhere you can have a shower and I have a drink.” I said and poked the robber on his backbone with the tip of my sword.

“Ouch!” He was startled and quickly turned his face to look.

“Where’s the tavern you talked about? And my friends need to have a rest.” I demanded.

“Oh, yeah, yeah…I’ll show you the way.” He turned left to a different street where a lot merchants were hanging around like a fair.

Because Rouland was quite a large state, probably the largest one of the nine, so the landscapes and views looked a lot different from west to east, north to south in the state. Where we were standing now was far west, among the rocks and hills, sands and wilderness.

Eleville was the only place where you could find human activities within 50 miles around, so here always a lot travel came through. People who passed by would like to have a stop in the town and pick up some supply, mainly for water, which made the town so popular and crowded because of the cumulated travel.

As we made our way to the tavern by travelling through the crowd in the fair, Aezo and Pinks seemed very impressed with the stuff sold by merchants. But I was not interested at all, so I asked them to hurry up before we were flooded by the crowd.

The tavern we were looking for was at the end of street. It was called Long Men, which meant dragon’s gate, and I truly hoped it was the best of town.

I reserved four single rooms for two nights and the robber prepaid them all, after which he started to beg: “Please, can I go now? You know my men are still out there. I need to catch up with them. We have a business to do, and it must be done in time. Please!”

I nodded and waved my hand to send him away without a word. Nor would he like to stay for another second, so he quickly fled away with my permission.

After checking in, I got the keys and went upstairs where the kids and Qiushui were already waiting.

“Okay, now you can have a power nap before I knock the door. We’ll have dinner in the tavern after sunset. Here you go.” I gave them the keys as I passed by.

Aezo and Pinks quickly walked into their rooms with the doors locked again. They didn’t even say something like “See you later” or “Thank you”.

“Maybe they are just too tired after the long day.” Qiushui said as she read my thoughts.

I took a deep breath and replied: “Yeah, it has been a long day.”

Then I moved to my room and tried to open the door, while Qiushui watched me the whole time. I stopped the key in its halfway into the keyhole and turned my face at her, wondering: “What the hell you’re looking at? You know I’m tired too.”

“Why don’t you ask?” She questioned in a calm voice.

“About what?” I wondered.

“About who I am, why I attacked you in your shop and tried to catch the little girl.” She said, while looking straight in my eyes.

“Don’t you always have the answer in my mind?” I kind of joked and smirked.

“No, it’s not on your mind. You don’t even bother to think about it. I just don’t get it. Why you trust me?” She seemed so confused.

For a second I thought she had a crush on me, otherwise why would she suddenly become so interested in the way how I thought of her?

I looked at her while my mind totally went blank. She looked not bad, though she was very different from the girls I met in my junior years. I meant she was pretty in a mysterious way, especially those starry night eyes, not like the girls with whom when I first met the eyes, I knew there was no more behind. But she was something different. It seemed that she didn’t really care about how she visually looked like, or if she appealed to others. She never bothered to make herself look better. In the opposite, she always tried to hide herself behind those mysterious eyes.

The longer I looked in the eyes, the more I became so involved.

I was kind of involved way too much when she found out what was on my mind and started to question:

“What do you even think about? Oh God, so you’re just trying to convince yourself about whether I am hot or not?”

I was startled and quickly changed my mind. “No, no, of course not. I…”

“Save your words!” But she didn’t listen anymore. She slammed the door behind as she walked into the room.

Now I was the only one left, standing out there like a dumb. “Shi…” I muttered and entered the room.

Leaving the door locked up behind, I moved straight forward to the bed, and quickly got myself to lie down.

I did not really care if Qiushui was mad at me. In fact, she was wrong. I never bothered to think about her purposes of attacking my shop or chasing Pinks, not because I thought she was trustworthy, but in the opposite, I didn’t trust her at all. So, I would not ask for the answers that I didn’t even believe, either from her or from Pinks. I was going to find Jia Gu. He was the only one that could solve my puzzles.

But as of right now, I was truly tired after such a long day, which was all about fight and chase. Then I closed my eyes and quickly fell asleep.

(To be continued…)