The snow on the main street had been trampled by passing pedestrians and long since turned into soft, icy slush. The man thrown out of the inn, along with a bundle of ragged bedding, landed straight in the muck, utterly bedraggled. Pedestrians along the street hurriedly avoided him, while Zhang Tie stood with several others nearby and watched.
Several broad-shouldered, burly attendants stood at the inn entrance, along with a cook in chef's clothes holding a whistle. All of them glared viciously at the man who had been thrown out. One particularly eloquent attendant clasped his hands in a circuit toward the crowd and declared loudly, "Neighbors, friends, passersby, Pleasant Peace Inn is throwing this man out today not because we are a big establishment bullying our guests or acting like tyrants. It is because this man has been freeloading in our inn for over a week and cannot produce even a single copper coin. Our proprietor was softhearted and, seeing how cold it was outside, let him stay a few extra days after he ran out of money. Who would have thought that not only was he penniless, he intended to keep freeloading indefinitely—eating and lodging here for nothing, treating us as easy targets? There is no such logic anywhere under heaven! Today, we have endured enough and are driving him out of Pleasant Peace Inn. We ask you all to bear witness: whatever becomes of this man from now on has nothing to do with us!"
The man who had been thrown out of the inn trembled with rage. Covered in mud, he rose from the ground and pointed at the young men inside the inn, saying furiously, "You... you... have gone too far... The room and meal fees I paid at the inn... were... were paid through