Monster Tavern.
A nine-foot-tall bear demon hacked meat in the back kitchen with thunderous whacks, and every fall of its heavy cleaver shook dust from the roof.
When the terrifying chopping finally stopped, the burly bear demon emerged from the kitchen.
With a bang, a wooden tray piled with chunks of meat slammed onto the dining table. The bloodstains on its apron had blackened, and the breeze stirred up by its stride carried a reek of blood. Its furry bear paw scratched its lower back before it turned and went straight back to the kitchen, without so much as a smile expected of the service industry.
The crudely made seats of hard raw wood were sturdy. A pile of beast meat sat on the wooden tray, decorated with several green medicinal leaves in some trick it had learned somewhere. It somehow lost a little vulgarity and gained a touch of elegance.
Feng Ying and Yu calmly picked up the raw meat, dipped it in fine salt, and found that ordinary beef was unexpectedly delicious.
The two had long since grown accustomed to mingling among demons.
Human inns and shops were filled with spies from every faction. Making money was secondary; gathering intelligence was their greater concern.
The flaw of demons was that their temperaments were strange and difficult to fathom. A thousand demons had a thousand personalities, and one especially had to beware of those demons down and out on their luck.
Halfway through their meal, several unpleasant bird cries sounded outside.
The bear demon swayed over to open the door.
"The intelligence seller is here. It likes to name prices at random, but in any case, its most expensive intelligence won't cost more than a Thousand-Year Spirit Medicine."
Having said that, it pulled open the heavy wooden door, and