Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 219: Humans Are More Vicious Than Monsters

Yin Qing vaguely understood that this letter could boost his state of mind, provided that his state of mind remained steady. It would not work if he were in a situation where the majority of the people around him were afraid, like they had been just now.

But Yin Qing was still rather anxious, because the song would eventually end. Although the traveling merchants had a strong momentum now, and the three monsters were a little scared, what would happen later?

“Hoooo…”

“Hiss…”

At this stage, the three women no longer tried to disguise themselves. Each of them bared their teeth and made threatening sounds, like wild beasts. With the help of the letter’s spiritual aura, everyone could even vaguely see fur on their faces.

Although this situation was frightening, it also made the merchants strike the ground with their hatchets even more frequently.

At the end of the song, all that could be heard was the dense “clang, clang clang…” sounds of the axes.

Yin Qing felt that something was wrong. He was about to say something, when he found that all the merchants had stood up.

“Pfft…”

“Pft…”

“Pft…”

“Pft…”

…

The other traveling merchants all spat on their hands as well, then rubbed them together, and tightly gripped the handles of their axes and machetes.

“Afraid of shit, huh?!”¹

“F**k you!”

“Who’s the bandit now, huh?!”²

“That’s right!”

…

The mob of merchants cursed with all kinds of dirty language and stalked forwards, blades in hand. It turned out that they were not bluffing. Yin Qing and his three classmates were all stunned.

There was a saying among this generation of traveling merchants in Lishun Prefecture: “Sing the Blade Song for strength, then pick up your blade when you’re done.”³

This was a group of people who traveled all over the poor mountains and muddy rivers with their goods on their backs just to scrounge for food. There could be as few as a dozen individuals in a group, or as many as several dozens or even a hundred. When cornered or provoked, they truly did dare to fight against bandits and criminals with just their hatchets.

Moreover, most of the traveling merchants had family inheritances of skills, shortcuts, or some knowledge. Some might even have some basic martial arts skills or some folk methods to ward off evil spirits, all passed down from the elders to the younger generation.

Under normal circumstances, even there were strong men blocking the road, many of the latter would choose to retreat upon seeing the traveling merchants pounding at the rocks on the ground and singing the Blade Song.

To be honest, if the merchants chose not to do business, they could definitely just become bandits anywhere they wanted, which was definitely better than ordinary farmers, who could not survive in that life.

Yin Qing discovered that the spiritual light continued to flow out of the letter in his hand, and the fierce aura of the traveling merchants became more and more intense. By the light of the campfire, the merchants’ shadows even seemed to be emitting a faint smoke-like substance.

“These three women⁴ don’t look human!”

“But they don’t look like ghosts either!”

“You’ll know what it is once you chop it up!”

“Hah!”

“Go!”

“Kill them!”

Having just seen these three women with green eyes and hair on their faces, no one still believed that they were human whatsoever. At this moment, all of the merchants were extremely enthusiastic, and their earlier fear was pushed to the back of their minds.

With a fierce murderous aura, they rushed towards the three women.

Not only were Yin Qing and others stunned to see this scene, but it was also apparently the first time that these three fox spirits had encountered such a situation. They were so frightened by the murderous aura that they dodged to the sides.

As soon as they showed weakness, the merchants became even more aggressive.

“They’re afraid of us!”

“Hahahaha, they’re afraid of us!”

Three or four men mercilessly swung their blades together at a woman in a green silk skirt, going straight for her head and torso.

“Aaaah…”

The woman screamed and dodged. The situation was the same for the other two; they were forced to flee. Under this powerful and ferocious aura, even their seductive techniques had no effect.

These fox spirits were mainly proficient in illusion and charm techniques. If these methods failed, the fox spirits would be in a state of panic. This group of men had no other ideas; they just wanted to chop and kill the monsters.

At that moment, Yin Qing couldn’t help but be reminded of Hu Yun acting cowardly in the face of dogs. He shouted out a warning.

“Those three are fox spirits, I just saw their tails!”

“So it’s a vixen, no wonder it was so flirty!”

“She also stinks like a fox!”

“Hahaha! It’s just the right time of year to kill a fox and skin it for merchandise.”

“Come and die!”

The last exclamation was from a big man wielding both a hatchet and an axe with murderous intent, forcing the three women into a corner without any extra words. It wasn’t sophisticated martial arts, just haphazard strikes. He couldn’t reach the nimble women, but it looked scary.

Often, when one of the traveling merchants was kicked or hit, feeling the pain and being pushed back, someone else would step in and strike them with their blade. Some didn’t even care and would even let themselves be hit, because their opponents looked weak either way, with thin arms and legs.

“Riiip…”

Someone slashed one of the thin skirts with a knife and saw a big tail.

“It’s a tail, the fox’s tail is out!”

With this kind of random slashing, just as someone was about to hit the woman, he found that her clothes had suddenly deflated, and a fox leapt out from her skirt. The other two women also revealed their true forms.

“It’s a fox!”

“Catch them!”

The three foxes jumped around with extreme dexterity, scratching several people with their claws and biting them with their fangs.

One of them ran to Old Lu and opened its mouth wide to bite his neck, but Elder Lu grabbed it by the tail and slammed it to the ground.

“Bang!”

“Wuwuwuwu…”

The fox stood up and grabbed Old Lu’s wrist, but despite the pain he didn’t let go, and became even more ferocious.

“If you dare to grab me, then you will die by my hand!”

Old Lu had a glare on his face, but he didn’t even have time to swing his knife.

“Pffrrt…”

“Pffrrt…”

The foxes all farted, and a stench filled the air.⁵

“Whoooo, whooo, whoooo……”

“Whoooo, whooo, whoooo……”

After farting, the three foxes hurriedly rushed to the corner of the outer wall of the deserted waystation in a hurry, crawling through rotting gap in the ground.

“Cough cough… It smells so bad!”

“It stinks…”

“Cough cough…”

“Blarrrrggg…”⁶

“The fumes hurt my eyes! Blarrrrggg…”

“Open the door, open the door… Blarrrrggg…”

“Ugh, cough, cough…”

This stinky fart was so pungent that it made people dizzy.

A group of frustrated merchants covered their noses and chased each other to the door, opened it, and looked outside.

“Boom…”

There was thunder and lightning outside, along with strong wind and heavy rain.

“Bah…”

“Let them run away.”

“Haah…haah…haaah…”

“Damn, it smells so f***ing bad!”

“Hiss… I was bitten just now, it hurts so much. Hooh… hooh… I almost died from the stench.”

“I was also scratched several times, and these wounds aren’t shallow…”

“Let me get some fresh air to breathe.”

“Damn, it stinks!”

“Pah…”

A group of men spat and cursed at the door for a while. After a while, the stench dissipated, and they finally closed the door, moving a table over to block the small hole in it

When everyone returned to the campfire, the excitement they had felt just now still had not yet subsided.

“Damn, we almost killed the monsters.”

“Exactly, I almost caught one.”

“Hahaha, they were nothing compared to bandits!”

“Uncle Lu even caught one, but it ran away before he could kill it.”

“Wouldn’t a monster’s pelt be even more valuable?”

“It’s a pity that we didn’t kill any!”

“Exactly.”

“Alright, alright, let’s take care of the wounds.”

“This damn beast! It smells so foul, and its bite hurts so much.”

The merchants were in high spirits. They chatted enthusiastically, mixing in cries of pain and curses as they rummaged through their packs for herbs, liquor, and other items.

Yin Qing and his three companions huddled in the corner like four quails. They did their best to speak as little as possible, and tried not to interfere with the merchants’ actions. They didn’t even dare to run from the stench just now. The ferocity of this group of people was truly terrifying. They even felt that they were no less vicious than the monsters.

“Young man, thank you for what you did just now!”

The leader of the team, the man surnamed Lu, bandaged the wound on his hand, then came over to thank Yin Qing. He looked at the letter in his hand; there was no longer any light on it, and it looked like an ordinary letter from home.

Yin Qing hurriedly stood up and bowed with cupped hands.

“We should be the ones thanking you. If you hadn’t taken up your swords and stood up, we would have been in great danger tonight.”

“Yes, yes, thank you to all of you heroes!”

Hearing that Lei Yusheng even called them “heroes,” the men nearby were quite happy.

“Hahahaha, we must have scared the scholars.”

“Scholar Yin, you were great, too!”

“Not bad, not bad. Scholars are different, after all. The cleverness he showed just now is incomparable to ours.”

“Come on, we have wine and broth here, come have a drink!”

“That’s right, you’re welcome here. I’m not stupid: I know that the talisman in Scholar Yin’s hand was of great help just now.”

“What do you know? That’s a letter.”

Because of this incident, the merchants changed their previous indifferent attitude towards the scholars and became extremely enthusiastic. After having being afraid for some time, the group of scholars also changed their impression of the merchants in turn. The distance between the two groups in the deserted waystation was quickly eliminated, and the atmosphere became warm.

Some were chatting about the fox spirits they had just defeated, some asked if Yin Qing’s letter had been blessed, some gossiped about family matters, and some even discussed the fox spirits’ figures and said some obscene words.

However, in the midst of the stormy night, on a hill a little further away, three foxes drenched in the heavy rain stared in the direction of the deserted waystation with ferocious looks on their faces.

T/n: to the lovely commenter who asked how on Earth people live in this world/era with all these crazy demons around, I give you the answer: STAB IT WITH A KNIFE 😀

1. 怕个鸟啊 Lit. “afraid of a bird, huh!” with “bird” as a euphemism — like, “I ain’t afraid of shit”
2. 比 (bǐ): to compare, 山贼 (shānzéi): brigand, 又 (yòu): once again/and yet, 怎么样 (zěnmeyàng): how about it? 嘛 (ma): indicates that the speaker thinks something is obvious/pause for emphasis — literally “how do we compare to brigands, huh?”
3. 刀子歌鼓劲，唱完提刀上
4. The exact words used are 个 (gè): classifier for individual, 娘 (niáng): effeminate/lady, 们 (men): marker for nouns referring to individuals. Essentially means “this female-looking thing”
5. T/n: *documentary voice* And on that day, thousands of fox girl fanatics all died a little inside…
6. Vomit