On the rotten wooden table, the lotus leaves were peeled back layer by layer.
Crispy-skinned roast goose browned to perfection and dripping with oil, piping-hot beggar's chicken, and plump, soft, white meat buns.
And that squished longevity peach bun.
The whole ruined temple was filled with the rich, savory aroma of rendered fat.
Aniu grabbed the large roast goose with both hands and tore off a whole goose leg with a clean, sharp rip.
"Here! For the birthday boy!"
Swallowing his spittle, he thrust the dripping leg right under Yang Guo's nose.
Yang Guo accepted it and was just about to take a bite.
Glancing over, he saw Aniu's eyes glued straight to the goose leg, following every single drop of oil that fell.
Yang Guo smiled and said:
"What are you staring at? Eat together!"
Aniu shook his head like a rattle-drum:
"No way. It's your birthday, so you have to take the first bite."
Gurgle!
Before the words had even faded, a loud rumble burst from Aniu's stomach.
Right after, Little Shitou's stomach beside him gave a long, echoing growl as well.
Yang Guo looked at the two of them.
One was staring at the goose leg.
The other was staring at the beggar's chicken.
Yet their mouths were still claiming they weren't hungry.
Yang Guo laughed in spite of himself:
"It's my birthday."
"It's not like you two are keeping a funeral vigil for me. Why can't we eat together?"
"Eat, both of you! We eat together!"
Hearing this, how could Little Shitou hold back any longer?
He reached out with a rip and tore off a leg from the beggar's chicken, stuffing it into his mouth:
"Then I won't stand on ceremony!"
Yang Guo's face darkened.
"Hey?"
Little Shitou had already taken a bite:
"Mmm, so delicious!"
Yang Guo stood up and said:
"You little brat! I told you to eat,"
"not to snatch the first bite!"
Clenching the chicken leg in his mouth, Little Shitou took off at full speed:
"You said eat together yourself!"
Yang Guo shouted:
"I'm the birthday boy today!"
"Shouldn't the first bite be mine?"
"I was just being polite, and you threw all manners out the window!"
"Spit it out for Laozi!!"
Little Shitou's mouth was stuffed full.
Yang Guo gave chase right behind him, with Aniu joining the pursuit.
The three of them sprinted in wild circles around the ruined temple's dilapidated earthen pillars.
Little Shitou was nimble, and he had been practicing the side-steps for the past few days.
Dodging left, veering right.
He was truly as slippery as an eel.
Having just spent two shichen channeling his energy to force out poison, Yang Guo was drenched in sweat and naturally felt weak.
After chasing for two rounds, he couldn't catch him at all. Instead, he was thoroughly exhausted, leaning against a pillar and panting heavily:
"Little Shitou... if you have the guts... if you have the guts, don't run around the pillar!"
"Are you running around the pillar like the King of Qin with me?!"
Aniu called out anxiously from behind:
"Stop running! Yang Guo, you're still poisoned!!"
Holding his waist, Yang Guo took a ferocious bite out of the roast goose leg:
"Before I die of poison..."
"...I'm definitely going to beat this little bastard's ass to a pulp!!"
Little Shitou hugged his chicken leg and hid behind the pillar, showing only half his face:
"Catch me first, then we'll talk."
Yang Guo laughed:
"Fine then, guess teaching you the Carefree Stroll wasn't in vain."
"You used it on me first."
...
South of Jiaxing City, beside the official road, stood a small tea shed.
A few rough wooden tables were arranged by the roadside, and a faded tavern flag hung from the roof of the tea shed.
Guo Jing, Huang Rong, and the others had been searching the nearby outskirts since early morning for Huang Yaoshi's whereabouts. After half a day of fruitless searching, they stopped here to rest.
Ke Zhen'e sat under the shed, sipping idly from a coarse ceramic teacup.
Huang Rong stood before a peddler carrying shoulder poles, carefully selecting freshly baked sesame crackers.
Guo Jing held oil paper in his hands, dutifully following beside his wife as her assistant.
Guo Fu, her hair tied with two red ribbons, picked through the bamboo basket with her small hands and grumbled:
"Mother, this piece is burnt! It's pitch-black like a lump of charcoal!"
"And the sesame seeds on that cracker are so sparse! Way too few!"
Da Wu and Xiao Wu sat obediently on a long bench, munching on their sesame crackers.
Their eyes timidly drifted toward Guo Fu from time to time, not even daring to make much noise as they chewed.
Just then.
The dust at the end of the official road suddenly exploded like boiling water.
A wild wind rose out of nowhere.
A bizarre figure with white-streaked hair and clothes tattered into shreds shot forward out of the yellow sand like lightning.
The person was not running on two legs at all.
Instead, head down and feet in the air, two palms slapped violently against the hard earthen road.
The arms moved like furiously spinning carriage wheels; wherever the palm wind swept, dirt, sand, and gravel on the ground scattered wildly.
As the eccentric rushed headlong upside down, a low growl escaped his mouth:
"Who am I?"
"Who on earth am I?!"
The eccentric moved with immense speed. The fierce wind he whipped up howled past the tea shed, causing the cloth roof to flap violently.
Guo Jing and Huang Rong had their backs turned to the official road, focused on helping Guo Fu pick out pastries. They only felt a gust of fierce wind sweep past the napes of their necks and paid it no mind, not even turning around to look.
However, Ke Zhen'e, sitting beside the table, twitched both ears violently.
The old blind man's hairs stood on end, the weathered flesh across his face instantly twisting into a knot.
Bang!
Ke Zhen'e slammed a palm hard against the table:
"Old Venom!!"
Guo Jing whipped around and asked:
"First Master! What is it?!"
Ke Zhen'e stood up, pointing his iron staff at the cloud of dust far down the official road, grit his teeth and said:
"The one who just ran past was Ouyang Feng!"
Huang Rong walked briskly back under the shed, gazing at the end of the empty road, her brows knitting slightly:
"First Master, in these deserted outskirts, could you have misheard?"
Ke Zhen'e sharply interrupted:
"I may be blind,"
"but my ears are not deaf!"
"Even if another ten, twenty, or fifty years pass, I will never forget this voice!"
Ke Zhen'e crushed the teacup in his hand to pieces:
"That Old Venom's voice is carved into my very bones."
"I could never mistake it!"
Back then on Peach Blossom Island,
five of the Seven Freaks of Jiangnan—Zhu Cong, Han Baoju, Nan Xiren, Quan Jinfa, and Han Xiaoying—had died tragic deaths inside the tomb chamber of Huang Yaoshi's wife, Feng Heng.
Ke Zhen'e was the sole survivor.
Later, he learned that the masterminds behind it were Ouyang Feng and Yang Kang.
Yang Kang died by Huang Rong's Soft Hedgehog Armor, leaving only one enemy remaining.
From that point on, Ke Zhen'e engraved Ouyang Feng's voice firmly into his memory.
Hoping only that one day he could exact vengeance for his sworn brothers and sisters.
This debt...
...he had held onto it all these years, never daring to forget.
Now, Ke Zhen'e slammed his iron staff hard against the ground, shattering the cobblestone.
The old man did not even give Guo Jing a chance to dissuade him before his body soared into the air.
Turning into a black blur, he charged straight into the sandstorm far down the official road, fueled by towering rage!
Guo Jing shouted in desperation, "First Master!!"
Huang Rong knew full well how formidable Ouyang Feng was; she feared that Ouyang Feng could take Ke Zhen'e's life in a single strike.
She immediately said:
"Jing-ge, go after him quickly!"
"If that really is Ouyang Feng, First Master is in grave danger."
Guo Jing knew the danger all too well.
The tragic scene of his five masters' violent deaths flashed across his mind.
That was a knot in Ke Zhen'e's heart that had remained unresolved for over a decade.
And even if Ouyang Feng had gone mad...
...he was still Ouyang Feng.
Let alone one Ke Zhen'e,
even Guo Jing himself today would not dare underestimate him in the slightest.
Guo Jing hurriedly said:
"Rong'er! Take good care of Fu'er, Da Wu, and Xiao Wu!"
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Guo Jing shot out like an arrow released from a bow.
Executing the Quanzhen Sect's Golden Goose Art, he dragged up what looked like a dragon of dust, covering several zhang in the blink of an eye.
Rate on N.U.
