RIIDMDR chapter 78

 

[Inn Upgrade Completed: 2 Bedrooms (6 Total), 1 Lounge, 1 Cellar; Current Cabin Level: Level 4, Prosperity +50.]

[Identified Furniture: 2 Desks, 2 Wooden Chairs, 2 Wardrobes; Prosperity +12]

Although this upgrade took a month, the results were very pleasing. Nan Xu noticed that some text was a different color than the rest and tried clicking on it.

[Cellar: First-rate preservation technology in a second-rate location storing third-rate fruits and vegetables. The quality of the fruits and vegetables needs improvement! 】

Nan Xu: …Why does this advertisement sound like a personal attack!

He read the system message over and over again, eager to see what the inn looked like now.

He lay in bed for a long time, suppressing his curiosity. Finally, unable to fall asleep, he got up, quietly opened the door, and walked out.

The moment he opened the door, he noticed the changes to the inn’s structure. His room was still in the southeast corner, but it was noticeably larger.

Across from the main hall were the kitchen, dining room, and Zhixing’s room. Nan Xu walked out and opened the heavy main hall door. With the help of the light from the luminous bead in the courtyard, he could see the northern area adjacent to his bedroom. It was completely bare and unfurnished. This must be the leisure area the system had mentioned. The warehouse and staircase were close together behind the north wall of the main hall.

Nan Xu walked around the first floor, even checking the warehouse, but he couldn’t find the cellar entrance. So, he looked outside. The front yard remained unchanged. However, shortly after opening the door to the back, he spotted a protruding stone slab. He walked over and pulled it open, revealing a spiral stone staircase leading down. It was pitch black, and the bottom was invisible.

He finally found it. Nan Xu squatted by the opening for a while before deciding to put the stone slab back. The cellar wasn’t going anywhere, so he decided to take a proper look in the morning.

Back inside, the wooden staircase made quite a noise. Not wanting to wake Zhixing, Nan Xu tiptoed into the bedroom.

The next morning, Nan Xu was awakened by footsteps. Still half asleep, he heard the clatter of shoes on the stairs. Zhixing had tried to be quiet, but he couldn’t calm down completely because he was afraid.

How could this house have changed so much overnight? He was a demon and hadn’t heard a single sound during the night.

Zhixing was completely baffled. He had never seen such a spell before. It seemed capable of controlling changes in an area, especially one with weak spiritual energy. He wondered which great demon had wrought such precision.

Zhixing glanced at the two newly added rooms upstairs, pondering this matter. He stepped more heavily as he descended the stairs. He quickly lowered his voice, but he could still hear noises coming from Nanxu’s room.

The owner had woken up.

Zhixing hurried over and gently knocked twice on the door.

“Wait a moment,” Nanxu said.

He changed his clothes and left the room. Seeing that Zhixing looked unwell, Nanxu suddenly became nervous. “What’s wrong? Are you feeling unwell?”

Zhixing shook her head, glanced outside a few times, pursed his lips, and whispered, “I’m fine. Owner, a great demon has arrived from the mountains.”

Nanxu was stunned. “Where is it?”

There are only a few great demons in this demon world, most of whom are of the same generation as Tingchuan. If one were to visit his inn, he would have to offer them two small dishes.

Zhixing’s brow furrowed deeper upon hearing this. “I don’t know.”

Nan Xu: “Huh?”

The two stared at each other in silence for a few seconds. Nan Xu couldn’t help but ask, “How did you know?”

Zhixing replied, “I woke up early this morning and noticed the changes in the house. If it wasn’t a powerful demon, how could this have happened without my noticing?”

As he spoke, he turned to allow Nan Xu to see outside the room.

Nan Xu: …

Nan Xu: “You mean to say that a demon came in the night and secretly renovated our house?”

Zhixing also sensed that something was amiss, but nodded. “Perhaps there’s a conspiracy yet to be exposed.”

Nan Xu couldn’t help but burst out laughing. He patted Zhixing on the head and said, “You’ve been reading too much Romance of the Three Kingdoms[mfn]“Romance of the Three Kingdoms” is a classic Chinese historical novel written by Luo Guanzhong in the 14th century. It tells the story of the collapse of the Han Empire and the struggle for power among three rival states.[/mfn]. You’re such a pure kid, everything out of your mouth is conspiracy talk.”

He walked out of the room with a smile, heading toward the well in the yard. Zhixing was left standing there in a daze.

While Nan Xu brushed his teeth, he saw Zhixing squatting on the ground, tidying up the vegetables he had just picked from the field. He threw the unwanted leaves aside to take to the chicken coop behind the house for the chickens to eat later.

“Don’t you think it’s strange, owner? How much spiritual energy must that consume overnight?” Zhixing asked.

Nan Xu had already made Zhixing laugh that morning, and now being questioned was a headache. The child’s curiosity was a bit too strong.

“You said he’s a great demon. Maybe infrastructure construction is a hobby of great demons!” Nanxu spat out foam and mumbled.

Zhixing frowned, unable to understand, but he could only accept it. After a while, he sighed and said, “The demon world is vast and contains all kinds of strange things.”

Nanxu: “That’s right.”

Zhixing’s gaze fell on the roof again. The green tiles looked very familiar—almost the same as the ones the owner had burned a few days ago.

Suspicion flickered in his eyes. Nan Xu quickly slipped back inside, afraid that Zhixing would ask another question and he wouldn’t be able to make up an excuse.

He really missed Ting Chuan at that moment. A demon who had lived for thousands of years was truly different.

Two days later, a visitor from the north arrived on the mountain. He wore a white-green robe and carried a folding fan. His skin was fair, and his hair flowed naturally. He bore a striking resemblance to the handsome, distinguished scholar from the Wei Jin dynasty[mfn]Wei–Jin Dynasty (魏晋时期, Wèi Jìn shíqī) refers to the era between the fall of the Han dynasty and before the rise of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, known for both political change and cultural brilliance.[/mfn] that Nan Xu had imagined.

As he stepped through the courtyard in his long boots, Nan Xu couldn’t help but stare at him for a moment. The man smiled and pulled a folding fan from his waist. With a swish, he fanned himself. His flowing hair swayed gently in the breeze, making him look elegant and charming. “Innkeeper, are there any rooms available?”

Nan Xu was still dazed when Zhixing tugged on his sleeve. “Owner, stop staring at the handsome man.”

Look at the owner—completely bewitched! It’s a good thing Senior Ting Chuan isn’t here, or he’d be heartbroken.

Nan Xu snapped out of it and blurted, “It’s so hot. Aren’t those boots suffocating?”

Zhixing: …

All right, he’d misjudged the owner.

The visitor’s fanning hand paused at these words. He looked down at his long cloth boots and was speechless for a moment.

Nan Xu’s intelligence had finally returned to normal. He had let slip what he had been thinking. He really shouldn’t have. He really shouldn’t have.

Nan Xu stood up with a smile plastered across his face. “There’s a room available. Do you have any companions?”

The young man wore an awkward yet polite smile, too. “No, it’s just me.”

Nan Xu nodded and led the young man upstairs. With the addition of two new rooms, the space previously occupied by the guest rooms was reduced. Each room had ample light from its windows, providing excellent ventilation and a beautiful view. In this respect, the systematic renovation plans were professional.

After the man chose and paid for a room for seven days, Nan Xu went downstairs alone. He pulled Zhixing over and whispered, “What kind of demon is this?”

A gleam flashed in Zhixing’s eyes, followed by regret. “A two-thousand-year-old mountain ginseng, top quality…”

Zhixing realized the error in his words and quickly swallowed the remaining two words.

Nan Xu: “Top-quality what?”

Zhixing gave Nan Xu a shy smile but didn’t answer. He mentally added the unfinished word, “herbal medicine.” He truly felt it was a shame. How could a thousand-year-old ginseng become a spirit and a demon? Otherwise, it would require a lot of nutrients to be used as a medicinal herb.

Seeing that he hadn’t said anything more, Nan Xu stopped asking. It turned out to be a ginseng demon. All the other demons he had seen were originally animals, but this was the first one he had seen that had transformed from a plant. No wonder he’d been able to smell a faint, pleasant fragrance while walking with it earlier.

The ginseng demon’s name was Danyin, and he favored vegetarian food. That evening, while Nan Xu and Zhixing were dining, Nan Xu saw Danyin from an upstairs window. Danyin was about to take the plate of wild mushrooms from their table. He then sat on the second-floor windowsill with a ceramic plate, eating the mushrooms with relish.

It was the first time Nan Xu had seen guests dining there, and he felt that something was amiss. Fortunately, the ginseng demon wasn’t a busybody. Besides foraging on Nan Xu’s table, it didn’t do anything strange. Every day, it left at dawn, treading through the dew, and returned to the inn at dusk, when the sky was thick with sunset glow.

Nanxu asked the system about Danyin’s purpose, but the system only said that he was in the mountains absorbing the spiritual energy of the trees. Nanxu ignored that.

That day, after Danyin left, Nanxu was carrying the cut grass home when he suddenly heard a notification from the system in his head. He opened it to check.

[The day after tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn Festival. Mid-Autumn Festival events are underway. Some items will be available for a limited time at a discount.]

Nan Xu was startled at first. Living in the mountains, he rarely counted the days. He knew only that the Dragon Boat Festival had passed, and he hadn’t expected the Mid-Autumn Festival to arrive so soon.

Another perfect time to get freebies! How could he miss that? While feeding the sheep, he sat in the courtyard and opened the shopping mall.

In addition to the many discounts on items, the Mid-Autumn Festival featured a special sale. Nan Xu immediately perked up, pondering the details. Before long, he had made numerous charcoal notes on the slate in front of him.

Of course, people eat mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival! With enough funds and discounts, Nan Xu bought ingredients for all the styles—Cantonese, Beijing, Suzhou, and Hong Kong—to try making them himself.

When it came time to pay and he saw that the bill was nearly six hundred silver coins, Nan Xu felt a pang of regret. However, when he looked at his shopping list again, he realized he had already saved four or five hundred silver coins, practically halving the price. He couldn’t bear to cancel.

With such a conflicted mindset, Nan Xu made the payment with steely determination. Then, feeling hollow, he leaned back against the loquat tree.

Indeed, the words “discount” and “full-price discount” are hard to resist.

For the next two days, Nan Xu was busy making mooncakes. Zhixing, who was deeply interested in this culinary endeavor, assisted him. Nan Xu relied on his memory to make the mooncakes, but later bought two recipes to follow. By the time the mooncakes had finished baking, the Mid-Autumn Festival full moon had arrived.

Nan Xu had Zhuang Wu deliver some mooncakes to the canine tribe at the foot of the mountain and gave some to the two brothers. Then, he waited for nightfall.

Today, the weather was perfect. After dusk, the moon hung high in the sky. Nan Xu put away his Night Pearl and took out the plum wine he had purchased two days earlier.

He and Zhixing sat in the courtyard with wine glasses and a table covered with mooncakes. They quietly admired the moon. At some point, Danyin came downstairs, sniffed the air, and walked toward Nan Xu.

After spending time together for four or five days, Danyin knew Nanxu well enough to not hesitate. He sat down on the stone bench, reached for a mooncake on the table, and popped it into his mouth.

Nan Xu glanced at him but didn’t try to stop him. There were always more mooncakes than he could finish. Danyin’s seven-day room had already earned him a good sum, so he could afford to eat a few.

The sweet aroma of coconut flakes filled his mouth, and Danyin’s eyes widened in disbelief at the texture of the food. He took several more, each with a different flavor. The more he ate, the more he enjoyed it.

He had eaten Nanxu’s food for so many days, but it was all just rice. While delicious, the novelty had worn off two days earlier. Today was different, though; it was his first time enjoying a snack.

After sampling all the mooncakes, he still wasn’t satisfied, so he set his sights on Nanxu’s wine glass.

Nanxu: …

There was only one jar of wine, so he was naturally reluctant to part with it. He clutched the jar tightly with a sense of urgency.

The more he did so, the more curious Danyin became. He could smell the wine and felt drunk just from the scent. He couldn’t wait to take a sip.

“Fifty coins?” Danyin said. “Just give me half the bottle.”

Nanxu shook his head. Even with the discount, the bottle of wine would cost over a hundred coins.

“Eighty?”

“One hundred?”

“Two hundred?”

Nan Xu hesitated, but then he remembered that the Mid-Autumn Festival sale at the mall had ended, and the plum wine was no longer on the shelves. He clutched the jar tightly and refused.

Dan Yin noticed his hesitation and reached for his wallet, ready to offer money to shake his resolve. However, his purse was empty except for 250 silver coins, mocking Dan Yin’s presumptuousness.

Dan Yin hesitated for a few seconds, then withdrew his wallet. “I’ll trade you a strand of hair.”

Nan Xu was about to refuse when Zhixing, who was sitting across from him, suddenly nodded excitedly.

The hair of a thousand-year-old ginseng is a truly rare treasure!

Nan Xu: …

He reluctantly accepted the black hair Dan Yin had plucked from his head. The hair immediately turned white.

The three of them drank and admired the moon. After a few glasses of wine, Zhixing and Dan Yin were already sprawled out on the table before Nan Xu could process what was happening.

He was truly drunk.

The moonlight shimmered, but no one toasted him. Nan Xu drank alone, unsure of how much he had consumed. Dizziness washed over him, and, in a blur, he seemed to see a familiar figure walking into the courtyard.

Shrouded in moonlight, the figure walked toward him beneath the starlight.