Chapter 693: Vacancy Inn
“Hey, it really is a ‘vacant inn’! What a strange name, but there’s soul cultivators inside, let’s take a look then.” Zheng Kai laughed curiously before striding on over to the large gates to the place.
This inn was piquing the interest of everyone in the group. As one, they walked towards the inn. Before long, Huangfu Rui suddenly pointed out to the side in excitement, “Ah!! Look!! There’s a giant butterfly there! It’s so colorful!! I want to go capture it!”
Off to the flower gardens to the right was a butterfly about the size of a palm was resting on top of a flower. Its strangely colorful wings were changing color as it fluttered on the butterfly’s back.
Just like she said, Huangfu Rui immediately bounded over to the butterfly, leaving Tang Xinyun to call out helplessly behind her, “Ah, little Rui! Don’t run about like that….”
“Haha, don’t worry about it, Xinyun. Let her have her fun. She’s so close by anyways, let’s go in and ask the innkeeper about our rooms.” Bai Yunfei smiled.
He turned over to Long Lan, “Long Lan, look after Doraemon, alright?”
“Got it.” Long Lan nodded.
Leaving him to look after Huangfu Rui, Bai Yunfei and the others headed for the entrance of the inn.
Before they even got in, Bai Yunfei felt the aura of at least ten people inside, and each of them were decently strong—the weakest of them all was only a Soul Sprite.
They were all scattered about in the room, with some of them in their own rooms while five or six people were inside the lobby.
Crossing the gates, Bai Yunfei pushed open the gates and strode into the lobby.
A gust of wind brushed into his face as he walked into the room along with the gaze of everyone in there.
The lobby was rather ordinarily decorated. There was a giant countertop and over a dozen tables, some of them already having people seated next to them. The moment when Bai Yunfei first entered the room, everyone in the lobby immediately looked up at him and scanned him with their soulsenses.
Scanning another soul cultivator with soulsense was a rather impolite thing to do in this world. So to have so many people do so at once in the same room already meant these people weren’t very kind to begin with.
But their soulsense was only strong enough to tell them that Bai Yunfei and his group were all ‘Soul Exalts’ and nothing more. Not even the specifics of just how strong of a Soul Exalt they were could be found.
Xiao Qi for example, couldn’t even be measured. Most of the people here probably thought he was nothing more but a class two or three ‘pet soulbeast’ at most.
Still, a group of four Soul Exalts wasn’t exactly a group anyone in the inn would want to make trouble with. The people all gave Bai Yunfei and his group a quick look after that, but no reaction showed on their face other than their eyes lingering on the two women for just a moment longer than when they looked at the men.
After they walked into the lobby, Bai Yunfei strode up to the counter at the front of the lobby.
“Honored guests, welcome to this inn, how might I serve you all today?”
A man with a small smile on his face nodded at everyone from his spot behind the counter. He was a Soul Sprite in strength, but his demeanor was hardly any different from from the waiter or receptionist in a regular inn.
If not for the fact that there shouldn’t be any commoners here, Bai Yunfei really would’ve thought this was just an ordinary inn of some kind. “We’d like to rest here for tonight, four rooms, please.”
One room for each of the males and Long Lan, and then a room for the three women.
The small man-servant smiled, “Four rooms? No problem at all! A single night here will cost five mid-grade primal stones. Four rooms will cost twenty stones in total, please pay up front.”
“Damn! Twenty mid-grade primal stones, are you trying to rob us here?!” Zheng Kai cried out in alarm at what the man-servant was quoting.
But the man-servant continued to smile as if accustomed to such a reaction, “The rules of this inn is to provide those weary travelers a place to rest their legs for the night. This inn is in a special place, as you all can see, but that makes for hard business. Please understand, dear guests.”
“Hm….” Zheng Kai suddenly hummed. No longer caring for the price of the room, he asked, “Then why did you open an inn here? Your boss has a great sense doesn’t he, does this place even have guests usually?”
“The master enjoys living away from the mundane world, and this inn is merely just one of his whims and something for him to use to receive his friends in. As for guests….we are usually lacking those, in truth. Today is a rather special day, hence why we are almost at full capacity.”
“What an interesting boss you have,” Zheng Kai smiled. “Is he here? I’d like to see just what kind of person he is.”
“I….the master is currently out and won’t return until later tonight perhaps.”
“That’s fine then, you can book us our room for now.” Zheng Kai nodded and handed twenty mid-grade primal stones over the counter. “We’d like dinner as well, will the food cost extra?”
“Haha, it will be free of charge. Please sit down, honored guests, we will bring out the food in a moment.”
The group of four took up a table on the right side of the lobby and sat down. As they sat, Zheng Kai whirled around to glare at the late-stage Soul Ancestor staring at Kou Tingting two tables down. Starting in his surprise, the man looked down at his table. He looked a little indignant at Zheng Kai’s action and seemed to mutter to himself.
Since no one was really paying attention to him, none of them heard him say, “Hm, two absolutely stunning women. What a shame they chose today of all days to come. They won’t die a good death if they meet the ‘Rapist Bees’….what a shame…”
……
It was with a curious heart that Zheng Kai spoke to the others as they got comfortable, “Well, I really want to see just what kind of person would open an inn like this. It’s a creative idea, I’ll give him that. You can really find all sorts of things in this world….”
“Haha, people have their ambitions,” Bai Yunfei laughed. “Everyone has their own way of living their life. Plenty of older people like to live a life away from others, this place might be relatively ‘hidden’, but to open an inn for soul cultivators is an interesting idea. I’d like to meet him too and see just what kind of person he is….”
This ‘Vacancy Inn’ was a bit like Dan Teng’s ‘Soothing Heart’, but this was a whole new level of creativity.
Eyes lighting up suddenly, Zheng Kai whispered to Bai Yunfei, “I just thought of something, do you guys think this is a ‘black inn’….?”
TL Note: A black inn is an inn that kills/robs the guests that stay in it.
“Er….” Bai Yunfei blinked. “You’ve a rich imagination, Zheng Kai. Everyone here is a Soul Exalt, and there’s still at least ten other people in this inn. Do you really think even a ‘black’ inn would be able to take down this many people? Or are all these people in on the scheme to trap us?”
Somewhat embarrassed by his own thoughts, Zheng Kai chuckled, “I hope it’s not the latter. But if there really are people stupid enough to try and seek trouble with us, then we can just fight back and end this ‘black inn’. It’d be doing the world a favor.”
“Why must you always think about wishing harm on others?” Bai Yunfei asked helplessly.
“Why must you be always so trusting? Yunfei….your ‘gullible’ ways won’t do. Be wary of others. To live in our world is to always be thinking about the worst case scenario. This is the only way you’d be able to prepare yourself for the unexpected when it comes.”
Bai Yunfei shrugged, “Well….I just thought that the person back then was pretty honest. Doubting someone for no reason isn’t a good thing.”
“Ugh…” Zheng Kai shook his head in disappointment, “People as ‘naive’ as you aren’t very many in this world….”
Bai Yunfei laughed. Though he himself knew that such a personality trait wasn’t very suitable in the dangerous world of soul cultivators, or even the commoner world, Bai Yunfei couldn’t help it. It was in his nature. If he were to change that, he wouldn’t be him anymore. He didn’t want to change.
Changing the topic, Bai Yunfei and the others soon began to talk about their plans for the future of their trip. Before long, platters after platters of food was brought out. “Xiao Qi,” Bai Yunfei nudged the bird on his shoulder, “can you call Doraemon and Long Lan in to eat?”
“Alright, I’ll go….” Xiao Qi took off towards the door.
But Xiao Qi wasn’t even fully out the door when Bai Yunfei and the others suddenly perk up towards the outside!
“Ahhh!!!!”
There had been a loud scream coming from the outside of the inn—the owner of the voice was Huangfu Rui!
Several powerful auras blazed up a split-second after, followed by a loud explosion!
“Whoosh!”
Bai Yunfei was the first to disappear from his spot to charge outside with Zheng Kai and the others catching up shortly afterwards. The disturbance happening outside was already catching the attention of the others inside, some of them already rising up to make their way outside to see what was happening themselves.
There was a total of five soulforces flaring up outside, one of them being Xiao Rourou, but its soulforce wasn’t yet in complete battle mode. There was also Long Lan who hadn’t fully revealed his own strength either. The other unfamiliar auras however, were all Soul Exalts.
By the time Bai Yunfei was outside, the battle was already coming to an end. The very first thing he saw was an alarmed Huangfu Rui standing behind Long Lan who had only just knocked out three people in front of him.
Long Lan was only just bringing his right leg up at that time to give a mighty stomp onto the head of the most injured scrawny person on the ground!!
