Miss Fairy, Please Hear Me Out

Outside the Drunken Immortal Tower, the crowd surged without pause. Night had not yet fallen. It was only dusk, yet the entrance of the pleasure house was already packed with a steady stream of guests.

A carriage parked by the roadside kept drawing the eyes of passersby. The steed pulling it was black from head to hoof, with a single horn jutting from its brow. Faint flames flickered around its hooves. Behind it, the carriage itself was lavish to the point of excess, draped in splendor, with a great bold Xu emblazoned on its side. A black coiling dragon wound around the carriage body, vivid as if alive, especially those dragon eyes.

Surrounded by a cluster of guards as they emerged from the Drunken Immortal Tower, a handsome young man in embroidered robes stepped out and pulled a slender woman in a veiled hat into the carriage with him. Their appearance immediately turned heads all around them, and the street buzzed with whispers.

Among the crowd stood two striking men, both watching that carriage from afar. One wore black fitted clothes, his features firm and handsome. The other was dressed in an elegant white robe and, despite the biting winter wind, still held a folding fan in hand.

Watching the imposing Xu Changtian in the distance, the man in black asked the white-robed man beside him with open curiosity,

“Brother Li, why are all these people talking about that young master?”

Li Muchen glanced at the carriage, lightly fanning himself as he smiled. “Brother Qin, you’ve only just arrived here, so you wouldn’t know. That man is the Xu family’s third young master, Xu Changtian.”

Qin Mo murmured under his breath, “The Xu family... which Xu family?”

Li Muchen shook his head with a faint smile. “Naturally, the biggest one.”

Qin Mo froze for a moment, then muttered, “The Chancellor’s Manor?”

The Xu family and Chancellor’s Manor, of course he knew of them. What he did not know was whether this Xu family had any connection to that gentle and refined Miss Xu he had encountered earlier on his journey. Her identity had seemed rather mysterious.

“Let’s go.” After a brief silence, Li Muchen patted Qin Mo on the shoulder with easy familiarity, flashing him the sort of grin every man understood. “If Brother Qin wants an introduction, I can arrange one for you when the chance comes. But tonight, you saved me on this trading trip, so first let’s drink ourselves senseless!”

Qin Mo nodded lightly and smiled. That offer of an introduction was obviously just something Li Muchen said to sound good.

If Li Muchen really were close to the Xu family’s third young master, then he would not be standing here merely watching. He would already have gone over to greet him.

Li Muchen came from a wealthy merchant family, but compared with the family Xu Yuan belonged to, his family was far beneath them.

Still, Qin Mo was considerate enough not to expose him. He followed along, and as he walked, he unconsciously touched the spot over his chest.

Seeing that little movement, Li Muchen assumed Qin Mo was worried about the cost and laughed. “Tonight is on me. Consider it a welcome feast for my brother.”

“Ah, no, not that.” Qin Mo smiled and shook his head. “I came to the Drunken Immortal Tower to find someone.”

“Looking for someone?” Li Muchen paused, then smiled faintly. “A girl you’ve taken a liking to, perhaps?”

“Though the girls in Drunken Immortal Tower...” Qin Mo said softly, “I came to find Miss Jinxuan.”

“Miss Jinxuan?” Understanding dawned on Li Muchen’s face, but then, as if something had occurred to him, his expression turned a little strange.

Qin Mo explained, “We once made a wager.”

Li Muchen’s look grew even stranger. “A wager?”

Qin Mo pulled a demon core from his robe and smiled lightly. “If I could bring back the demonic beast core of one of the demonic beasts in Wind Crow Forest within this month, then she would play a tune for me alone.”

The moment Li Muchen saw the demon core, his pupils contracted slightly. Born into a merchant family, he had handled no small number of demon cores in his life. With a single glance, he could tell that the quality of demonic power contained within this one was roughly at the seventh rank.

The world was in turmoil now. Demonic beasts and ghosts ran rampant, the various divisions under the Directorate of Celestial Oversight no longer had the strength to keep order everywhere, and the local sects and great clans cared only for sweeping the snow from their own doorstep. Whenever a demonic beast appeared, it often meant an entire village’s worth of blood debt.

Qin Mo’s breathing was steady and deep, but he seemed to be only an eighth rank martial artist. For an eighth rank fighter to kill a seventh rank demonic beast was no simple feat. A talent like that was indeed worth befriending.

But then Li Muchen thought of Su Jinxuan again. He gave a slight shake of the head, carefully choosing his words before speaking in a low voice. “Brother Qin, I’m afraid you may not be able to see Miss Jinxuan today. No, perhaps not ever again..”

In the end, Li Muchen chose to tell him the truth.

Qin Mo’s gaze froze. He frowned. “Brother Li, what do you mean by that?”

Li Muchen glanced at the black dragon carriage and stopped there, saying no more than necessary. “Because of Xu Changtian.”

At those words, Qin Mo felt his heart sink and sway at once. Quietly, he asked, “Miss Jinxuan holds a special status in the Drunken Immortal Tower. If she refuses, then she does not have to receive guests, does she?”

Li Muchen looked around, then leaned in and lowered his voice. “That is true. The Drunken Immortal Tower would never force one of its courtesans to sell her body, but...”

He let out a quiet sigh. “But Brother Qin, Xu Changtian is the third young master of the Chancellor’s Manor. A few days ago, the day Miss Jinxuan had already set for her debut, invitations had been sent out and everything, and he still forced it to be canceled.”

Through a few chance encounters, Qin Mo knew a little about the power backing the Drunken Immortal Tower. But it was obvious they would never fall out with the Chancellor’s Manor over a single woman.

Li Muchen hesitated slightly, then pointed at the few guards jogging alongside the black carriage that had just started moving. “Brother Qin, look at the guards beside that carriage.”

Qin Mo narrowed his eyes and looked over. “What about them?”

“Every one of them is at least seventh rank. A few are even sixth rank.”

“Seventh rank and above?” At last, a flicker of real shock passed through Qin Mo’s eyes. “The oldest of those guards look only around 30 years at most. Cultivators that young at the sixth rank, and they’re only ordinary attendants...”

Li Muchen bared his teeth in a smile, though there was a bitter note hidden in it. “I’d guess these are just the bodyguards out in the open. There are definitely patron-level experts hidden in the shadows as well.”

“Fifth rank, Soul Condensation Realm?” Qin Mo frowned tightly, thinking of the strength of the experts employed by Li Muchen’s family.

Almost instinctively, Qin Mo focused his gaze and looked again. But aside from those ordinary guards, the only other person he could see was a rough-looking man with stubble driving the carriage up front.

The bearded man wore an easygoing smile. A longsword was strapped to his back, and he held the reins with a loose, almost lazy air.

Before Qin Mo could even show his confusion, the very next moment, that man’s gaze swept over toward him. It was a mild gaze, even smiling. And yet, it still made every hair on his body stand on end.

That single look made him realize the man had heard every word of the conversation between him and Li Muchen just now.

But the bearded man showed no intention of making a move. Instead, he grinned at Qin Mo and, with a trace of nasty amusement, pointed behind him at the carriage.

Qin Mo froze for a moment, then his eyes widened. The image from earlier flashed through his mind. That veiled woman Xu Changtian had led into the carriage... was that Jinxuan? His fist slowly clenched.

The bearded man only chuckled, then turned his head away and ignored him. To him, teasing Qin Mo seemed no different from idly toying with an ant when bored.

After withdrawing his gaze, Zhou Chen flicked the reins, and the black one-horned steed began to move. The carriage slowly rolled forward.

As though he had heard the laughter outside, a warm, refined voice drifted out from within. “What are you laughing at?”

Zhou Chen shrugged casually. “Nothing much. I heard two men talking about Miss Su and the Third Young Master. One of them is probably one of Miss Su’s admirers. I found it amusing, so I teased him a little.”

“Is that so? Jinxuan really is quite popular.” Xu Yuan did not seem to care. Instead, he gently instructed, “If you have nothing to do, have someone buy me a few copies of the latest court bulletins.”