Copper Coins

Chapter 3: Paper Man (3)

 

Xue Xian, who could tear through the sky and shake the Earth in his early life, was shoveled up by a monk who only had his looks to his advantage. And that too only using a broken piece of copper…

 

After being shoveled up by the monk, the two pieces of moss reverted to their original forms and became two small human-shaped pieces of paper. The monk glanced at the paper face indifferently, then folded the paper and put it inside the pocket tied at his waist.

 

Xue Xian hadn’t even got to spit the blood boiling inside him on the Baldy's face before he was forced to stick to his waist. Tightly, without even a millimetre of space.

 

If someone could be dead by oppression alone, Xue Xian would have died over 200 times in the time he was shoveled up and put inside the pocket. He was a naturally proud person and could only provoke others, never the other way round, like a shameless and unreasonable Ancient One. But this time, he hit the nail carelessly and fell into the gutter. 

 

No matter what the initial reason was, this grudge between him and this Baldy had started just now.

 

Xue Xian was an unruly person. He might yield to a soft approach but would never be cowed by force. 

 

If he had a blade in his hand he would have stabbed it in the monk’s lumbar eye without hesitation, but, unfortunately, he didn’t have the habit of carrying a sword or a blade with him.

 

The monk looked like an ice pillar, not responding to anyone, and didn't have much of an expression but his body was warm. Through the thin white linen, the mild body heat seeped little by little into his paper.

 

Very quickly, paper man Xue was surrounded by his warmth completely. “...”

 

Irritating! 

 

It was truly irritating. For people carrying an illness, a little warmth in the freezing winter could be the key to break their will, especially for those like Xue Xian who had been paralysed for half a year. His veins were obstructed and the blood flow was impeded. The body he was using now couldn’t gather much heat anyway and he spent most of the winter months freezing. Having received such a sudden warmth now, his body slacked off faster than his head and didn’t feel like moving.

 

Xue Xian, who had been folded twice over, lay down angrily for a moment. Finally, overcoming his laziness, he started secretly exploring the things in the monk’s pocket.

 

About this young monk, Xue Xian still didn’t know the depths of his abilities.

 

If he really had the skills…How does tearing a piece of white linen and shoveling a piece of moss count as a skill? Even a naked assed toddler that pees and plays with mud would know this! Besides, people with real skills could flip a patch of ground with a mere flick of their finger. The entire backyard could be turned over, let alone a small patch. Why did he have to use a broken piece of copper and shovel them himself?

 

But, if he didn’t have real skills, how did he see through the layers of camouflage with just a glance?

 

Xue Xian was wary of movements at first, flipping through the things in the pocket lightly and carefully while taking advantage of his thin paper body. What he was doing was really unnoticeable.

 

However, after a while, he gradually lost his wariness and forgot to restrain himself. This was because he found that the Baldy didn't seem to pay attention to this part. Through the two layers of white linen wrapped around the pocket, he could vaguely hear the noise of many people outside the yard. It seemed that a group of people had gathered here for some reason.

 

“Hey…Why did you hit my face?!” Jiang Shining lowered his voice and a few words sprang out of his teeth. It sounded as if his patience for Xue Xian was close to the limit. 

 

Xue Xian quickened his movements and patted the wrong place by accident. He did not have the time nor the mood to explain to the bookworm and only made a low “hush” sound, signalling him to behave and be quiet. 

 

In the past half year, Xue Xian was inconvenienced and had to borrow strength from others whenever he wanted to do something or move somewhere. This time, he had finally met this Baldy. Even if he was a charlatan and relied on scheming and lying, he more or less had to have some talismans on him to fool people. Xue Xian planned to grab some useful stuff and escape when there would be some confusion. 

 

Just when Xue Xian was still busying himself, the young monk who had shoveled him up had reached the gate of the Jiangs’ medicine hall.

 

The door that had been quite thick originally was now incomplete and the copper hoop had bent out of shape. When the two doors came together, they wouldn’t close properly no matter what, leaving a rather big gap in between. The monk stopped before the door and raised his eyelids. 

 

Through the gaping seam, he could clearly see a dark sea of humans gathered right outside the door. The Jiangs’ medicine hall had been abandoned for a long while now, so there would naturally be no lanterns hanging above the door. Even if there were, there was nobody to light them up. But right now, the group of people outside each carried a paper lantern. The swinging white balls of light cast on the people’s faces made them seem overbearing and especially serious as if they were here with bad intentions. 

 

Looking at them, it was clear that if they weren’t here to capture some ghosts, then it was to get someone. 

 

As the saying goes, “there is no need to fear ghosts knocking at your door if you did not do anything wrong.” But anyone would feel nervous when facing such a huge crowd, especially so suddenly. However, this young monk swept across the crowd once and retracted his gaze. He opened the doors of the yard and without sparing the others a single glance, lifted his feet and started to move outside, pretending as if these people carrying the lanterns did not exist. 

 

The people gathered around the Jiangs’ medicine hall were not just some random people. They were dressed in grayish blue robes issued in the county with two foot long blades at their waists. They were around ten in number. As soon as they saw the monk leaving, they held onto the handles of the blades at their waists and moved closer, blocking the monk’s path. 

 

The monk halted, looking at the people in front of him with a creased brow as if he didn’t know what they wanted with him. 

 

“Is he the one you were talking about?” an older voice asked abruptly. 

 

The monk looked to where the sound came from—it was a middle-aged man with short stature, an adviser’s hat, and a goatee. He looked thin enough except for a slightly protruding stomach. If one were a local of Ningyang, they would immediately recognise that this middle-aged man was Liu Xu, adviser of Ningyang County. 

 

But the monk was not a local. With his temperament, even if he were a local, he might not have noticed what the adviser looked like, be it the number of eyes or the number of mouths.

 

But the one Adviser Liu was asking, the monk did recognise—he was none other than the little waiter of the Nine Taste Restaurant. 

 

The waiter had thought long and hard about the notice next to the Nine Taste Restaurant and had finally decided to go to the county office. Since the bounty was so high, he must be a wanted criminal. Who knows if he had even committed a string of murders.

 

Therefore, the waiter reported the young monk promptly. The county officers didn’t question anything and immediately came to arrest the man.

 

The monk’s gaze landed on the waiter. The latter looked a little guilty and shrunk back a little, stammering: “Mas-master, I—”

 

Before he could finish speaking, the monk had already retracted his gaze. With a slight lift of his finger, a black, moldy thing flew in an arc and landed straight into the waiter’s arms. Thinking that it was dangerous, the waiter was startled and tightly shut his eyes. When all he heard was the clinking of copper, he slowly opened his eyes.

 

A money pouch!

 

What the monk threw into his hands was exactly the thing that he had shoved into the former’s. 

 

As if he had finally thrown what he should have thrown earlier, the monk relaxed and stepped forward again. This time, as if impatient to leave, he said, “Move.”

 

“Sir, this...” While blocking the way, the county officers threw a questioning look at the adviser. 

 

“Hold on.” The adviser withdrew a thin piece of paper from the pocket inside his clothes and shook it out, saying, “Master, where are you from? Of which temple? Do you have a monastic title?”

 

The young monk frowned at him as if he didn’t want to be bothered to answer and as if he were thinking about something.

 

Seeing as he didn’t know what he was getting himself into, the adviser’s tone grew stern. “Master, someone came to us and reported that you looked similar to a wanted criminal of the court listed in all the four seas. If you continue to resist cooperating, we will have to bring you in for further investigation!”

 

The monk looked at him coldly and opened his mouth a moment later. “Monastic title, Xuan Min. A wandering monk. No family or temple.”

 

Proper monks would never have become like this. So if they referred to themselves as no family or temple, there was a nine in ten chance that they survived on donations. In other words, a charlatan.

 

The adviser looked him up and down with a slightly mocking look in his eyes. Then, he purposely shook out the poster in his hands and ordered someone to bring the lanterns forward and started comparing it to Xuan Min. 

 

Xue Xian, who had been busying himself in the pocket, took in this entire exchange and gloated, “Who told you to ransack other people’s lair? See? Now you’re the one getting arrested! Ha!”

 

There was nothing of use to him in this pocket. Except for a peach branch and two flints, there was only a cloth bag left. He felt the interior of the bag carefully. There seemed to be needles of varying lengths inside. All in all, not what he wanted. Xue Xian instantly got sick of waiting and planned to sneak out once the monk wasn’t paying attention. 

 

About this, he was more or less confident. As long as he didn’t want to be noticed, no ordinary person could detect his movements. Xue Xian picked the instant the adviser was opening his mouth to speak again to stretch himself out into an extremely thin piece and inched slowly towards the opening of the pocket.

 

But just as his head slid out, darkness loomed before his eyes—

 

That damned Baldy actually raised his hand in time and pressed his exposed head back into the pocket with just a finger!

 

Xue Xian, “…”

 

This naturally delinquent Ancient One raged from the press and rolled around the pocket irritably. Then, he picked a random needle from the bag and jammed it towards the Baldy’s lumbar eye.

 

Xuan Min, “…”

 

When Xue Xian was about to turn over the sky in the dark, the adviser who had stopped Xuan Min finished comparing him to the complete poster and frowned, shaking his head. “Something’s not right…”

 

"Not right?" The county officers behind him all turned to look at the poster. 

 

“The age doesn’t match, it’s too different,” the adviser said. “You don’t look like him either…There’s some resemblance from afar, but upon closer inspection under the lantern, he is still too young. Besides, the one we are after is said to be an extremely powerful and eminent monk. This monk…”

 

The adviser instinctively scanned the waist area of Xuan Min and glanced over the battered string of copper coins. Although he didn’t say it directly, his expression was clear enough— the one in front of him was obviously a rookie with the copper coins still not developing an oily coating…An eminent monk? What a joke!

 

No one will have any respect for charlatans who can be seen through at just a glance.

 

When the adviser finished looking at that string of copper coins, his expression had a hint of contempt. He waved his hand at Xuan Min and said, “All right, there is nothing wrong with you. You can go.”

 

Xuan Min lifted his feet again as if whatever happened just now were simply like a leaf that had landed on his body and which was gone with a flick of a finger with no correlation to him.

 

However, just after two steps, he glanced blandly at the adviser’s face and said, “You don’t have long to live.”

 

Xue Xian, who had been brewing a new idea inside the pocket, stopped squirming as he slipped and almost tore himself in half. “…” Awesome. Without even him doing anything, the Baldy was already hurrying off to die!

But as he slipped, he accidentally stuck to the area near the end of Xuan Min’s waist bone. Somehow, he suddenly felt as if something in his mind reverberated as if someone had struck a bell right next to his head.
 

Chapter 3: Paper Man (3)

 

Xue Xian, who could tear through the sky and shake the Earth in his early life, was shoveled up by a monk who only had his looks to his advantage. And that too only using a broken piece of copper…

 

After being shoveled up by the monk, the two pieces of moss reverted to their original forms and became two small human-shaped pieces of paper. The monk glanced at the paper face indifferently, then folded the paper and put it inside the pocket tied at his waist.

 

Xue Xian hadn’t even got to spit the blood boiling inside him on the Baldy's face before he was forced to stick to his waist. Tightly, without even a millimetre of space.

 

If someone could be dead by oppression alone, Xue Xian would have died over 200 times in the time he was shoveled up and put inside the pocket. He was a naturally proud person and could only provoke others, never the other way round, like a shameless and unreasonable Ancient One. But this time, he hit the nail carelessly and fell into the gutter. 

 

No matter what the initial reason was, this grudge between him and this Baldy had started just now.

 

Xue Xian was an unruly person. He might yield to a soft approach but would never be cowed by force. 

 

If he had a blade in his hand he would have stabbed it in the monk’s lumbar eye without hesitation, but, unfortunately, he didn’t have the habit of carrying a sword or a blade with him.

 

The monk looked like an ice pillar, not responding to anyone, and didn't have much of an expression but his body was warm. Through the thin white linen, the mild body heat seeped little by little into his paper.

 

Very quickly, paper man Xue was surrounded by his warmth completely. “...”

 

Irritating! 

 

It was truly irritating. For people carrying an illness, a little warmth in the freezing winter could be the key to break their will, especially for those like Xue Xian who had been paralysed for half a year. His veins were obstructed and the blood flow was impeded. The body he was using now couldn’t gather much heat anyway and he spent most of the winter months freezing. Having received such a sudden warmth now, his body slacked off faster than his head and didn’t feel like moving.

 

Xue Xian, who had been folded twice over, lay down angrily for a moment. Finally, overcoming his laziness, he started secretly exploring the things in the monk’s pocket.

 

About this young monk, Xue Xian still didn’t know the depths of his abilities.

 

If he really had the skills…How does tearing a piece of white linen and shoveling a piece of moss count as a skill? Even a naked assed toddler that pees and plays with mud would know this! Besides, people with real skills could flip a patch of ground with a mere flick of their finger. The entire backyard could be turned over, let alone a small patch. Why did he have to use a broken piece of copper and shovel them himself?

 

But, if he didn’t have real skills, how did he see through the layers of camouflage with just a glance?

 

Xue Xian was wary of movements at first, flipping through the things in the pocket lightly and carefully while taking advantage of his thin paper body. What he was doing was really unnoticeable.

 

However, after a while, he gradually lost his wariness and forgot to restrain himself. This was because he found that the Baldy didn't seem to pay attention to this part. Through the two layers of white linen wrapped around the pocket, he could vaguely hear the noise of many people outside the yard. It seemed that a group of people had gathered here for some reason.

 

“Hey…Why did you hit my face?!” Jiang Shining lowered his voice and a few words sprang out of his teeth. It sounded as if his patience for Xue Xian was close to the limit. 

 

Xue Xian quickened his movements and patted the wrong place by accident. He did not have the time nor the mood to explain to the bookworm and only made a low “hush” sound, signalling him to behave and be quiet. 

 

In the past half year, Xue Xian was inconvenienced and had to borrow strength from others whenever he wanted to do something or move somewhere. This time, he had finally met this Baldy. Even if he was a charlatan and relied on scheming and lying, he more or less had to have some talismans on him to fool people. Xue Xian planned to grab some useful stuff and escape when there would be some confusion. 

 

Just when Xue Xian was still busying himself, the young monk who had shoveled him up had reached the gate of the Jiangs’ medicine hall.

 

The door that had been quite thick originally was now incomplete and the copper hoop had bent out of shape. When the two doors came together, they wouldn’t close properly no matter what, leaving a rather big gap in between. The monk stopped before the door and raised his eyelids. 

 

Through the gaping seam, he could clearly see a dark sea of humans gathered right outside the door. The Jiangs’ medicine hall had been abandoned for a long while now, so there would naturally be no lanterns hanging above the door. Even if there were, there was nobody to light them up. But right now, the group of people outside each carried a paper lantern. The swinging white balls of light cast on the people’s faces made them seem overbearing and especially serious as if they were here with bad intentions. 

 

Looking at them, it was clear that if they weren’t here to capture some ghosts, then it was to get someone. 

 

As the saying goes, “there is no need to fear ghosts knocking at your door if you did not do anything wrong.” But anyone would feel nervous when facing such a huge crowd, especially so suddenly. However, this young monk swept across the crowd once and retracted his gaze. He opened the doors of the yard and without sparing the others a single glance, lifted his feet and started to move outside, pretending as if these people carrying the lanterns did not exist. 

 

The people gathered around the Jiangs’ medicine hall were not just some random people. They were dressed in grayish blue robes issued in the county with two foot long blades at their waists. They were around ten in number. As soon as they saw the monk leaving, they held onto the handles of the blades at their waists and moved closer, blocking the monk’s path. 

 

The monk halted, looking at the people in front of him with a creased brow as if he didn’t know what they wanted with him. 

 

“Is he the one you were talking about?” an older voice asked abruptly. 

 

The monk looked to where the sound came from—it was a middle-aged man with short stature, an adviser’s hat, and a goatee. He looked thin enough except for a slightly protruding stomach. If one were a local of Ningyang, they would immediately recognise that this middle-aged man was Liu Xu, adviser of Ningyang County. 

 

But the monk was not a local. With his temperament, even if he were a local, he might not have noticed what the adviser looked like, be it the number of eyes or the number of mouths.

 

But the one Adviser Liu was asking, the monk did recognise—he was none other than the little waiter of the Nine Taste Restaurant. 

 

The waiter had thought long and hard about the notice next to the Nine Taste Restaurant and had finally decided to go to the county office. Since the bounty was so high, he must be a wanted criminal. Who knows if he had even committed a string of murders.

 

Therefore, the waiter reported the young monk promptly. The county officers didn’t question anything and immediately came to arrest the man.

 

The monk’s gaze landed on the waiter. The latter looked a little guilty and shrunk back a little, stammering: “Mas-master, I—”

 

Before he could finish speaking, the monk had already retracted his gaze. With a slight lift of his finger, a black, moldy thing flew in an arc and landed straight into the waiter’s arms. Thinking that it was dangerous, the waiter was startled and tightly shut his eyes. When all he heard was the clinking of copper, he slowly opened his eyes.

 

A money pouch!

 

What the monk threw into his hands was exactly the thing that he had shoved into the former’s. 

 

As if he had finally thrown what he should have thrown earlier, the monk relaxed and stepped forward again. This time, as if impatient to leave, he said, “Move.”

 

“Sir, this...” While blocking the way, the county officers threw a questioning look at the adviser. 

 

“Hold on.” The adviser withdrew a thin piece of paper from the pocket inside his clothes and shook it out, saying, “Master, where are you from? Of which temple? Do you have a monastic title?”

 

The young monk frowned at him as if he didn’t want to be bothered to answer and as if he were thinking about something.

 

Seeing as he didn’t know what he was getting himself into, the adviser’s tone grew stern. “Master, someone came to us and reported that you looked similar to a wanted criminal of the court listed in all the four seas. If you continue to resist cooperating, we will have to bring you in for further investigation!”

 

The monk looked at him coldly and opened his mouth a moment later. “Monastic title, Xuan Min. A wandering monk. No family or temple.”

 

Proper monks would never have become like this. So if they referred to themselves as no family or temple, there was a nine in ten chance that they survived on donations. In other words, a charlatan.

 

The adviser looked him up and down with a slightly mocking look in his eyes. Then, he purposely shook out the poster in his hands and ordered someone to bring the lanterns forward and started comparing it to Xuan Min. 

 

Xue Xian, who had been busying himself in the pocket, took in this entire exchange and gloated, “Who told you to ransack other people’s lair? See? Now you’re the one getting arrested! Ha!”

 

There was nothing of use to him in this pocket. Except for a peach branch and two flints, there was only a cloth bag left. He felt the interior of the bag carefully. There seemed to be needles of varying lengths inside. All in all, not what he wanted. Xue Xian instantly got sick of waiting and planned to sneak out once the monk wasn’t paying attention. 

 

About this, he was more or less confident. As long as he didn’t want to be noticed, no ordinary person could detect his movements. Xue Xian picked the instant the adviser was opening his mouth to speak again to stretch himself out into an extremely thin piece and inched slowly towards the opening of the pocket.

 

But just as his head slid out, darkness loomed before his eyes—

 

That damned Baldy actually raised his hand in time and pressed his exposed head back into the pocket with just a finger!

 

Xue Xian, “…”

 

This naturally delinquent Ancient One raged from the press and rolled around the pocket irritably. Then, he picked a random needle from the bag and jammed it towards the Baldy’s lumbar eye.

 

Xuan Min, “…”

 

When Xue Xian was about to turn over the sky in the dark, the adviser who had stopped Xuan Min finished comparing him to the complete poster and frowned, shaking his head. “Something’s not right…”

 

"Not right?" The county officers behind him all turned to look at the poster. 

 

“The age doesn’t match, it’s too different,” the adviser said. “You don’t look like him either…There’s some resemblance from afar, but upon closer inspection under the lantern, he is still too young. Besides, the one we are after is said to be an extremely powerful and eminent monk. This monk…”

 

The adviser instinctively scanned the waist area of Xuan Min and glanced over the battered string of copper coins. Although he didn’t say it directly, his expression was clear enough— the one in front of him was obviously a rookie with the copper coins still not developing an oily coating…An eminent monk? What a joke!

 

No one will have any respect for charlatans who can be seen through at just a glance.

 

When the adviser finished looking at that string of copper coins, his expression had a hint of contempt. He waved his hand at Xuan Min and said, “All right, there is nothing wrong with you. You can go.”

 

Xuan Min lifted his feet again as if whatever happened just now were simply like a leaf that had landed on his body and which was gone with a flick of a finger with no correlation to him.

 

However, just after two steps, he glanced blandly at the adviser’s face and said, “You don’t have long to live.”

 

Xue Xian, who had been brewing a new idea inside the pocket, stopped squirming as he slipped and almost tore himself in half. “…” Awesome. Without even him doing anything, the Baldy was already hurrying off to die!

But as he slipped, he accidentally stuck to the area near the end of Xuan Min’s waist bone. Somehow, he suddenly felt as if something in his mind reverberated as if someone had struck a bell right next to his head.