Star Trace Gate

Chapter 860: A storytelling session, a dangerous exchange

In the prison corridor, Ren Ye pondered for a moment, and neither responded to the words of the death row prisoner No. 79 nor stayed for long. He just picked up the broom and left.

"Oh, this won't work. They don't even say a word. The locals are so rude..." No. 79 sighed, shook his unruly hair, and continued to lie down in the sun, looking at the sky, without moving a muscle.

Ren left the area and continued to do his dirty work while making some mental calculations.

Damn, there's something wrong with Number 79's attitude! I only said three or five words to him, and he already gave in? And judging by the tone of his words, he seemed to know exactly what I was up to.

Then how did he know that I wanted to ask him about Xuwang Village?

Just a hard guess?

Damn, is it really that magical?

Could it be that he is a special remnant soul evolved by the Heavenly Dao in this link, just waiting to give me tasks and clues, and it is not difficult to trigger it?

Or maybe, the other party's perspective is too high and he really knows everything about Xuhuang Village, so he knows who I am and can probably guess why I came here.

Well, these are the only two explanations that make sense at this point.

Ren Ye was sweeping the floor while thinking about countermeasures.

In the end, he decided to give it a try and prepare a sumptuous meal for the other party. This was not too difficult for him, and if something unexpected happened, he had already thought of an excuse and would never put himself in a desperate situation.

……

Ren was busy working for the whole morning, and his activities covered a wide range. Many colleagues saw his hardworking figure in different places.

Near the noon break, he found a chance when no one was paying attention and quietly slipped out of the prison.

The rules of the Tianlao were that if the jailer didn't have any midday duties, he could go out. And if he was fast enough, then going to the brothel for a couple of shots wasn't impossible, as long as he returned on time.

The reason why Ren Ye worked everywhere was to leave the impression of "I am very busy" to other prison guards, and then secretly take a lunch break early, so that others would think that he had been busy in the prison area.

This "skill" of focusing solely on the task at hand was something Little Bad Wang mastered during his internship at university. Back then, the senior members of the team would often assign interns to tasks like preparing the venue for meetings, but everyone preferred to work on tasks involving more people, as the atmosphere was more relaxed when young people, both men and women, worked together.

But Little Bad Wang only picked jobs that only required one person, and he always did them in front of a senior employee. When someone asked him to make a place card, he'd ask a dozen questions about the card's background color, the size of the person's name, whether the position should be marked, and so on. Until the senior employee, annoyed, waved him off and said, "It's just a place card. You want to pursue a career in science? Go away, decide for yourself."

As soon as he said this, he disappeared completely, hiding in the printing office, enjoying the air conditioning, eating ice cream, and flirting with his senior sister, and spent the whole morning very comfortably.

However, because of his "rigorous and serious" work attitude and extremely high work completion rate during his tenure, he was always included in every internal selection.

There's no other way. This is for training people at the grassroots level. He is too familiar with this business.

The Bad Little King still felt that he would only have the opportunity to have a longer conversation with No. 79 during the lunch break. In this case, he would have to leave a little earlier and go to the downtown area of ​​Xuwang Village to buy good wine and food.

Actually, the food in the prison wasn't bad, and if he showed his face, the kitchen would even cook him a couple of extra dishes. However, this behavior was too strange, and he couldn't eat in front of the other party. So, considering all this, it was safer to go out and buy food.

At the beginning of the lunch break, Ren went to the restaurant and bought some braised pork elbow, lotus leaf chicken, a few side dishes, and two pots of good wine.

He certainly couldn't possibly prepare a full banquet as No. 79 had requested. Not only would it be difficult to bring in, but it would also take too long to cook. Most importantly, with his poverty, he couldn't afford such luxurious dishes.

After returning to the Sky Prison, most of the jailers had gone to eat, leaving only five on duty. Ren Ye deliberately bypassed the errand room and walked in from another fork in the road. He boldly and carefully returned to the door of cell No. 79 again.

Inside the cell, the storyteller suddenly sat up, his eyes bright, and he sniffed wildly, "You really came?! Hey, this food doesn't smell right...!"

"You're going to die soon, but I still want to live a few more days." Ren Ye squatted beside the first iron gate, sensing the movements in the surrounding corridors, and whispered back, "It's good to have something to eat. Don't be picky."

"Okay, lotus leaf chicken is still chicken... bring it here quickly so I can taste it."

As soon as he finished speaking, No. 79 stood up from the straw mat, shook his sleeves impatiently, faced the prison corridor, and slowly walked to the cell door.

For some unknown reason, when he walked to the prison door, his personal appearance suddenly became clear in Ren Ye's perception.

This was the first time that the Little Bad King actually met the "Storyteller".

He looked to be around twenty-six or twenty-seven, with a head of grimy hair covering his temples and the sides of his face. His cheeks were covered in red pustules, like malignant tumors the size of fingernails, faintly oozing oil and pus from the cortex. It was a terrifying and disgusting sight.

This appearance is really not as good as the poop that Lao Liu pooped!

The storyteller was tall and slender, and walked barefoot. His feet were covered with pus-filled sores, which smelled extremely bad.

His wrists and ankles were also locked with four black iron chains engraved with complex array patterns, making it quite inconvenient for him to move.

He grabbed the cell bars with both hands, shook his blanket-like hair, and said urgently, "Blind man, give me the chicken quickly...!"

Ren Ye suppressed the discomfort in his stomach and used the long rope he had prepared in advance to tie up the dishes wrapped in oil paper one by one. He then threw the end of the rope into the prison and said softly, "You drag it over and eat it. Don't leave the stolen goods in the prison after eating, and don't leave any traces of grease. I will then pull it out and throw it away secretly."

“Okay, okay…!”

The storyteller swallowed his saliva as he used the rope to pull the dish into the cell. He then sat down and picked up the delicious dish with trembling hands. Before the oil paper was completely peeled off, he couldn't help but bite into it, including the meat and the paper.

As you take a bite, the gravy flows and your mouth is filled with fragrance.

"Delicious... Really delicious." The storyteller sat in the dark cell, mumbling, "Why don't you use some magic to bring the food and wine in? It's so troublesome to just use a rope, pulling it all over the place."

Ren just looked at him coldly without explaining.

"He's a cautious man." The storyteller nodded with his teeth bared, and a hint of admiration appeared in his scarlet eyes.

Ren still didn't reply, just watched him eat heartily.

"Hiccup~!"

When someone mentioned that he was eating too fast and choking, he immediately looked up and called out, "Where's the wine?"

Ren also silently took out a small cup, opened the seal again, poured half a cup of wine into it, and tied it to the rope: "Pull slowly, it will spill if you pull too fast, don't leave any traces...!"

"brush!"

Before he could finish, No. 79 hooked the hemp rope with one finger, and then gently twisted it with just an inch of strength. The wine glass was thrown into the air by the shaking force of the hemp rope and steadily slid across the prison door railing.

"Snapped!"

He caught it with his hand, lay back, and drank it all in one gulp.

Not a single drop of wine was spilled in the air, and the entire process was silent.

Ren was also surprised to see this move. Because the opponent's star energy was sealed and imprisoned, unable to use divine power, his previous actions were all a manifestation of the perfect control of his physical body over power.

“Good wine, good wine…!”

The storyteller put down the wine glass, shook the rope, and handed it back to Ren Ye: "Another glass."

Ren Ye pulled the wine glass back but didn't pour it again. He just looked at him quietly and said abruptly, "Once upon a time, there was a child, a worthless waste whose opportunity had been taken away. He was called a stray dog. Yet, he was appreciated by four great men. These four great men... even broke the rules for him and gave him a good job."

"Tell me, why is this?"

He held the wine glass and asked the question in a steady tone.

The storyteller, gnawing on a braised pork elbow, paused for a moment before replying with a smile, "Storytellers need tips. How about I say a word and you have a glass of wine?"

"Row!"

Ren was also very excited when he heard this response, because the other party seemed to really know many secrets of Xuwang Village.

"It's said that either eight or nine years ago... in an ancient village that has gone through countless years, a major event occurred."

The storyteller was a little tactless and stopped after only saying half a sentence.

Ren Ye poured the wine and "passed" it to the other party again: "You need to be clear, was it eight years ago or nine years ago? If you keep being vague, I will pee in the glass and give it to you."

"Whoosh!"

The storyteller grabbed the wine glass and drank from it again. "Yes, that's right. It was nine years ago... Nine years ago, a great event occurred in the ancient village. A child who had been sleeping for a long time... woke up. Suddenly, strange phenomena appeared in the heavens and the earth, and they continued for thirty days."

After hearing this, Ren Ye poured his wine while thinking, "I am fifteen this year. Nine years ago... I was six years old, the same age as when I returned to the Delusion Village in my memory. He shouldn't be lying."

The storyteller took the wine cup again and drank deeply. Then he said, "This child's origins are unusual. Who knows how long he has been sleeping in the 'False God's Tomb'. In short, he is destined to wake up in this life, but the time is a little early."

"Today, Xuhuang Village has fallen into decline, its glory is gone. The road to leave the village opens less and less frequently, and the opportunities of the Heavenly Dao are gradually disappearing. This place is like a dead place surrounded by gods."

"But the inheritance that child carries is extremely special. If he can grow up in the future, he will definitely be extraordinary and have the ability to change the current situation here."

"So, everyone here is actually looking forward to the day he wakes up."

"The four great figures had already made sufficient preparations before the False God's Tomb was completely opened, and they all hoped to gain the child's favor and have him taught and raised by them."

"Not long after, the long-sealed gate of the False God's Tomb slowly opened, and only those four great figures were qualified to enter the tomb first and awaken the child."

"It was a grand celebration. Outside the Tomb of the False God, countless people waited excitedly, wanting to witness with their own eyes the pearl they had placed their hopes on awaken in this life... and become the variable that would change everything."

"But no one expected that the person these four big men would eventually pick up would be just a blind man."

"That child's eyes symbolize the existence of his inherited source power, and they are extremely special. If he becomes blind, it is equivalent to losing his source power, and all possibility of achieving the Great Dao is cut off."

"That child failed everyone's expectations. Everyone was convinced he was cursed by fate, his destiny too weak to bring the inheritance that could change everything from countless years into this life."

"The four great men, unwilling to accept this, joined forces to investigate his spirit and body, but ultimately had to accept reality... His pupils, symbolizing the source of his inheritance, may have long since been completely extinguished in his endless slumber. The hope they held in their hearts may have never existed in the first place."