Chapter 43: Outsiders part 1
“Or else,” Shen Bingsi took a step back, “let’s go back.”
“Go back? Aren’t we here to eat?” Rong Xie was surprised.
“I think the vegetarian meal at the temple is also quite good. Nutritious and refreshing, nothing bad about it except the lack of meat,” Shen Bingsi said quickly.
Rong Xie grabbed the corner of his clothes to prevent him from running away immediately.
“We’ve walked this far already. Let’s go look around the town,” Rong Xie said gently.
…
Lotus Town was very small, with only one main street. However, there were quite a few restaurants in town, likely due to the frequent visitors touring the outskirts of the capital, bringing plenty of business.
Rong Xie picked a place that looked reasonably hygienic. The stove was visible at a glance, and the cook was a stout woman wearing a clean, neat short cloth shirt with a purple floral apron over it.
The two sat at a table facing the street, waiting for the woman to chop the minced meat topping and cook the noodle soup.
The food in small towns was good because it was fresh, picked right from the fields. They cooked exactly how they ate at home, full of authentic Shengjing flavor.
“Mm-hm, this topping tastes authentic!” Shen Bingsi nodded with great approval while burying his head in the bowl.
For someone who had tasted delicacies from land and sea to nod like this, it must have been exceptionally excellent.
Rong Xie smiled.
Although he didn’t know why the town was as lively as a festival, staying to eat was truly the right choice.
“Drying clothes—”
A loud shout came from the street. Soon, people came pulling long clotheslines, on which colorful clothes were drying. Like heavy curtains, the clothes quickly blocked the view of the street, leaving only shadows shuttling behind the fabric and sheets.
Rong Xie and Shen Bingsi had been sitting at a street-side table, intending to leave after eating. Unexpectedly, when they looked up, they were already surrounded by colorful curtains.
“I know,” Shen Bingsi suddenly slammed the table.
“What?”
“Today is the Clothes Drying Festival.” Shen Bingsi looked as if he had realized something. “The seventh month brings the Fire Star; summer is ending. They have to seize this opportunity to dry clothes.”
“Mn… makes sense.” Rong Xie nodded. “Then what do we do now? Wait for them to disperse, or just go out?”
“No harm in taking a look,” Shen Bingsi said. Compared to looking at Gongche notation in the Scripture Library, he preferred basking in the sun outside.
While the two sat waiting for the curtains to disperse, noisy voices came from one side of the street, as if a large group of people were surging this way.
Suddenly, amidst the clamor, a loud-voiced girl shouted:
“Fellow villagers, townspeople, lads and lasses! Don’t be shy. Today is our Lotus Town’s annual Flower King Hegemony Competition!”
“The winner will receive a Flower King picked personally by the town mayor from the lotus pond! And two lotus-patterned handkerchiefs embroidered personally by the former palace weaver, Granny Huang!”
“Opportunity knocks but once; time waits for no one. Two people to a team, come sign up quickly!”
This girl’s voice was particularly penetrating. Even through layers of curtains, it could be heard clearly.
Rong Xie nudged Shen Bingsi’s arm and said, “Why don’t we leave now? Once that… Hegemony Competition starts, it’ll probably be too noisy and chaotic to get out easily.”
Shen Bingsi agreed. He had little interest in such competitions between mortals.
The two stood up from the table and walked along the wall. A corner of the colorful clothes curtain fluttered open, revealing the main road ahead.
Just as they were about to walk through, a group of young people in bright clothes crossed the street, blocking their path.
At the call of the loud-voiced girl, the group of young people swarmed around them like bees seeing fresh flowers.
“The young master is so handsome; you must be from out of town, right? Coming to Shengjing without participating in our Lotus Town Flower King Hegemony Competition is a wasted trip!”
“It just so happens Seventh Sister doesn’t have a partner yet. Why don’t you partner with her, Young Master, and participate in the Flower King Hegemony Competition together?”
“If the Young Master doesn’t mind, could you introduce me to the young hero beside you… does he have a teammate?”
Quite a few people gathered around, but most were talking to Rong Xie. Only one or two bold ones tried to approach Shen Bingsi, but they stammered in fright at his terrifying expression before they could finish their sentences.
“Apologies, we are just passing through…”
“Please make way, we are in a hurry…”
Rong Xie tried his best to refuse the local villagers, wanting to squeeze a path through them.
However, beside him, Shen Bingsi remained motionless, seemingly deep in thought.
“Bingsi, let’s go quickly. We won’t be able to leave later,” Rong Xie urged Shen Bingsi.
Shen Bingsi finally moved. He reached out and grabbed Rong Xie’s arm.
Rong Xie: “?”
Rong Xie initially thought Shen Bingsi was grabbing him to run away. But in the next moment, he heard him say:
“Where do we sign up?”
Rong Xie: !
The crowd quieted for a moment, then instantly boiled over.
It seemed that of the two handsome young men from out of town, the one with the gentle and elegant temperament looked more likely to succumb to hospitality and join the competition. Unexpectedly, it was the cold-faced one who took the first step.
The young lads and lasses exploded with excitement, rushing forward to team up with Shen Bingsi.
But Shen Bingsi took Rong Xie’s hand, raised it in the air, and signaled to the people around: “Sorry, I have a teammate.”
“Ah…”
The crowd let out sounds of disappointment. Losing two targets at once was unexpected, but since they had already teamed up, they couldn’t break them apart, so they dispersed one after another.
Someone pointed out the registration place to Shen Bingsi, and he dragged Rong Xie toward it.
“Us? Participate in a town competition?” Rong Xie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Do you really want to compete with these ordinary commoners?”
“Why not? We just won’t use magic. Listen to them; it’s a two-person team. It’s definitely not an ordinary competition. Aren’t you curious?” Shen Bingsi was eager to try.
“But…”
“We finally came out; of course, we must participate in the most local program. We missed the Water-Land Dharma Assembly, but we can’t miss the Flower King Hegemony Competition. The prizes are quite good too. I want them; let’s get them!”
Rong Xie thought, One prize is a freshly picked large lotus flower, and the other is two handkerchiefs. Which one exactly has piqued the interest of Shen Bingsi, whose home is piled high with heavenly treasures? It’s really hard to guess.
While speaking, Shen Bingsi had already brought Rong Xie to the registration table and submitted both their names.
Rong Xie couldn’t stop him, so he had to walk into the crowd of contestants with him.
“Why use real names?” Rong Xie couldn’t help whispering.
“What’s wrong with that? No one in the village knows us anyway. For a competition that witnesses strength like this, of course we use real names!” Shen Bingsi always had endless skewed logic.
Rong Xie didn’t know how a village competition witnessed strength—even the Sect Grand Competition hadn’t received such high praise from Shen Bingsi. But he didn’t want to ask, knowing he would just get a new round of skewed logic.
“You know,” Rong Xie stopped talking, but Shen Bingsi leaned over again, lowering his voice to say to Rong Xie, “When I walked into this town just now, I felt an aura of demonic evil. The men and women here are extremely weird, sticking together in pairs as if possessed.”
Rong Xie had noticed this too, but he didn’t call it being possessed.
“Fortunately, I didn’t rush to judgment. I’m relieved now. Turns out they were just preparing for the Flower King Hegemony Competition. After all, it’s a two-person team; they need to cultivate chemistry,” Shen Bingsi added.
Rong Xie looked around. He felt these people weren’t being lovey-dovey just to build team chemistry.
Wait, could this competition be…
Registration ended, and the competition officially began.
The loud-voiced girl brought a smiling old man and a meticulously dressed old woman to the open ground in the middle of the street. Facing the crowd of contestants, she announced the content of the competition.
The competition had three rounds. The first round was rowing a lotus boat.
The paths in the lotus pond on White Dragon River Bend were complex, and the lotus leaves grew tall. It was easy to lose direction rowing inside. The competing pairs had to row a lotus boat together, starting from one side of the bank and reaching the other.
“This won’t be easy for our guests from out of town,” the loud-voiced girl looked at Rong Xie and Shen Bingsi with a smile. “If you two haven’t changed your minds, it’s not too late to switch to a local teammate now.”
Shen Bingsi scoffed, completely ignoring the loud-voiced girl’s provocation. He reached out to hold Rong Xie’s hand, scanning the entire venue with a faint smile.
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