The Old Oak Inn stood halfway down East Street in Luoweida City. A half-dead old oak stood outside, its trunk so thick that it took two adults to reach around it, yet only a few sparse leaves remained in its crown. The storm had snapped several more thick branches, leaving them dangling crookedly, like an old man leaning on a cane.
Nuoyaji stood outside the inn and looked up at the wooden sign, its lettering blurred by wind and rain. Only after confirming that he had the right place did he push open the door and walk inside.
The inn's common room was somewhat more spacious than he had imagined from outside. Seven or eight wooden tables stood scattered about. Their surfaces were reasonably clean, but the wear and scratches along their edges revealed that they had been in service for many years.
A brick fireplace stood against the wall, with a few split logs burning inside. The small flames barely drove away the dampness in the room. The floor was packed earth covered with a layer of straw, soft underfoot, but the musty smell in the air simply would not go away.
A middle-aged man stood behind the counter, somewhere in his forties, with broad shoulders and thick arms. An old scar ran from the tip of his eyebrow to his cheekbone, giving him a somewhat fierce appearance, yet his eyes were surprisingly gentle.
He wore an oil-stained coarse-cloth apron and was wiping an earthenware jar. At the sound of the door, he looked up and swept his gaze over Nuoyaji.
"Looking for a room?" The innkeeper's voice was hoarse, roughened by years of smoking.
Nuoyaji nodded, walked up to the counter, and took the cloth bundle off his back, setting it beside his feet. He was already too exhausted to want to say another word, but he still managed to maintain a calm expression.
"How much for one night?"
"Ten copper coins." The innkeeper put the jar on a shelf beneath the counter and dusted off his hands. "That's cheap, given the situation. Want dinner? Another eight copper."
Nuoyaji took two silver coins from his pocket, placed them on the counter, and pushed them over. Ten copper for a day's lodging, eight for dinner, and the rest as a tip-at a time like this, leaving the innkeeper with a good impression could do no harm.
The innkeeper glanced at the two silver coins without saying anything else, put them in the cashbox beneath the counter, and took an iron key off the wall, jerking his chin toward the stairs.
"Third room on the left upstairs. I'll bring your dinner up in a bit."
Nuoyaji took the key, shouldered his bundle, and climbed the creaking wooden stairs to the second floor.
The staircase was narrow, with only enough room for one person to pass. Most of the lime plaster had peeled off the walls, exposing the mottled brick and stone beneath. To the touch, it felt damp and cold, as though water was seeping through the walls. Nuoyaji dragged his fingers across the surface, leaving a faint mark and coating his fingertips with white lime dust.
In Luoweida after the storm, even the walls were weeping.
The third room on the left upstairs had a blurred "3" carved into its door plaque. Nuoyaji worked the key into the brass lock and pushed the door open. A stale smell of mildew and wood hit him in the face.
The room was small, with a single wooden bed against the wall. A coarse-cloth sheet washed pale covered it, with a thin cotton quilt folded on top.
A bedside cabinet with peeling paint stood at the head of the bed, holding an earthenware pitcher and an upturned cup.
Nuoyaji placed his bundle at the head of the bed, sat on the edge, and tested the firmness of the bed boards.
Hard.
But he did not care. In his previous life, he had slept on rocks in the wilderness, on rubble in ruins, and beside the bodies of comrades on the battlefield. A hard bed already counted as a luxury.
He leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes, his mind racing.
Downstairs, in the kitchen.
The innkeeper came in carrying the dishes Nuoyaji had used. He set the plates, bowls, and chopsticks beside the sink, then turned and walked over to a large wooden barrel in a corner of the kitchen. The barrel stood half a person tall, its sides bound by several rusty iron hoops and its lid fitted tightly. He bent down, gripped the edges of the lid with both hands, and heaved it open.
Several large cuts of meat were curing inside the barrel, their dark brown surfaces coated with coarse salt and spices. The grain of the meat was clearly visible. It was wild boar. The innkeeper reached in and turned the pieces over, frowning slightly.
"Huh? I remember there being another piece here..." he muttered, taking the cuts out one by one to inspect them before putting them back. The count was off. He scratched his head, then turned to search the shelf beside him, wondering whether he had casually hung it somewhere else earlier.
He did not notice that, in the few breaths when his back was turned, several gold coins had silently appeared on the chopping board beside him, among its pile of vegetable leaves and scraps of meat.
The coins gleamed faintly in the dim kitchen, lying quietly among the leaves as though they had appeared out of thin air.
On the other side of the city, atop a three-story stone building.
The night wind blew harder and colder here than at ground level. The floodwater had not reached this high. Although the storm had stripped away some roof tiles, those that remained could still be walked on. From here, most of Luoweida City lay in view-black roofs, gray-white walls, and a scattering of dim yellow lights, like ruins abandoned in the darkness.
Fuyila sat cross-legged on the roof ridge, holding a large piece of cooked meat in both hands and gnawing at it, grease all around her mouth.
The meat was hot, still giving off faint wisps of steam. Its surface had been roasted crisp and crunched when she bit into it, while the meat inside was so tender it seemed ready to melt in her mouth. She could not remember how long it had been since she last had a proper hot meal. When had the last one been? Three days ago? Five? All she remembered was running and hiding, picking wild fruit by the roadside when she was hungry and drinking from streams and ditches when she was thirsty. When the hunger became unbearable, she would curl up in some corner and endure it, waiting for that piercing pain to pass on its own.
Now she had meat.
A very big piece of meat.
Fuyila took a huge bite, her cheeks bulging as she chewed several times before swallowing. Grease shone at the corners of her mouth, and she had smeared several streaks of soot across her face. She looked bedraggled and content.
"Is it good?"
Black Owl sat beside her, his legs dangling over the eaves, his black armor gleaming coldly in the moonlight. He was not eating-this avatar did not need food. He simply sat quietly with his faceplate turned toward Fuyila, like a silent guardian.
"It's good!" Fuyila answered indistinctly, her mouth still stuffed with meat. Her voice squeezed out from deep in her throat in muffled little sounds, like a kitten guarding its food.
Black Owl turned back to look at the pitch-black outline of the distant city and said nothing more.
He glanced down at Fuyila, a trace of something complicated flickering through his golden slit pupils.
Of course the meat was not stolen.
He had paid for it.
As for where the money had come from...
King Ghidorah looked away.
Not important.
"Let me ask you something," Black Owl said.
Fuyila was stuffing the last piece of meat into her mouth. At his voice, she looked up, her red eyes full of confusion. Her cheeks bulged like a hamster's. She chewed hard several times before swallowing, then wiped her mouth haphazardly with the back of her hand.
"Mm-hmm?" Her voice was still muffled.
Black Owl raised an arm, a black armored finger pointing toward a building diagonally across the street. It was a two-story timber-and-stone house, with an "Old Oak Inn" sign on the ground floor and faint candlelight shining through the upstairs windows.
"Do you know the person who just went inside?"
Fuyila followed the direction of his finger. A blurred figure moved behind an upstairs window of the inn. She could not make out the face, only that it was a thin young man wearing dark clothes.
She shook her head.
"No."
Black Owl did not respond immediately. In the valley, King Ghidorah's true body narrowed his golden slit pupils slightly, staring at the shadow moving behind that window as he rapidly weighed things in his mind.
She doesn't know him?
The information he had sensed could not be wrong. That boy carried a special aura-not mana, not battle qi, but something more fundamental.
He had seen descriptions of this aura in the information Apekus had provided-a world node, a regressor, the center of fate.
And this little girl also carried a certain special aura. Not special in the grand-narrative sense of a "world node," but something... even more special.
If this followed the conventions of a novel, some connection should exist between these two. Or some connection was about to form.
But Fuyila said she did not know him.
Had he arrived too early? Or had he already disrupted the plot?
This feeling of not having complete control struck him as... rather interesting.
It was like playing an open-world game before the main quest had been triggered, with the NPCs still idling in their own corners. He could explore freely, wander around, enjoy the scenery, and pick up a few side quests along the way.
"All right." Black Owl did not press further, his tone as flat as ever. "Let me see that stone."
Fuyila froze for a moment, her hand unconsciously reaching inside her cloak. After hesitating for a few breaths, she took out the dark red stone. It glowed faintly in her palm, like a miniature heart, pulsing gently in time with her heartbeat.
Black Owl reached out and took the stone from her palm.
The stone was somewhat heavier than it looked, its surface smooth and warm like a pebble washed by seawater for countless years. But its color was wrong-not the gray or brown a stone should have, but a rich, dark red like congealed blood. Through Black Owl's senses, King Ghidorah slowly probed inside the stone with his psionic energy.
A dormant energy lay inside the stone, warm and chaotic, bearing a frequency he had never sensed on this planet before. It was not mana. Something enveloped this energy, like a larva sleeping inside a cocoon that had yet to break free.
King Ghidorah examined it for a few seconds and could make nothing of it.
He handed the stone back to Fuyila.
"Have you ever tried dripping blood on this stone?"
Fuyila took the stone and carefully tucked it back inside her cloak. At his question, she tilted her head, her red eyes filled with bewilderment.
"Dripping blood? Why would I drip blood on it?"
"..."
King Ghidorah fell silent for a moment.
He could hardly say, "That's how it works in lots of novels. Bind it with blood and unlock hidden abilities," could he?
"Just asking." Black Owl waved a hand, his tone as flat as ever. "Never mind. Maybe it isn't your time yet."
Fuyila blinked, clearly not understanding what he meant. But she did not ask-she was too young, too tired, and too hungry.
A hot meal had already occupied most of her attention. The little energy she had left was only enough to keep her breathing and her heart beating. She truly had no brain cells to spare puzzling over this strange black figure's baffling remarks.
She lowered her head and continued gnawing on the nearly finished piece of meat in her hands.
The last bite.
She bit the last shred of meat off the bone, chewed, swallowed, then let out a satisfied breath.
He gave me food.
He probably isn't a bad person.
That was what Fuyila thought to herself.