Free Web NovelChapter 98: Chapter 97: Beauty’s Hide
Once Cao Tian was ready, Fu Juemin led the two of them out the door. A horse-drawn carriage was already waiting, and it carried them swaying out of the Concession.
After more than an hour on the road, they followed the address Cao Tian had been given and finally stopped.
Fu Juemin waved his hand to dismiss the carriage, then turned to survey the old, time-worn building before him.
It was impossible to tell when it had been built. The four large, gilded characters reading "Xinglong Department Store" were peeling and mottled, but the building still stood imposingly at the street corner.
The bustling city center was not far off. A tram rattled past on the street with a CLANG CLANG. Below the building were two fish stalls and some vegetable vendors, and filthy water ran everywhere. freēwebnovel.com
The six-story facade was inundated with all sorts of signs: "Hualin Detective Agency," "Tianyi Fortune-Telling Shop," "De Yi Tea House," "Kuaili" Typewriter Repair, "Renji Tuina"...
There was even a dance hall called "Moon Palace" on the third floor, its sign made of colorful neon lights.
"Fifth floor."
Cao Tian led the way with his head down. The two of them skirted the fish and vegetable stalls below and entered the building through one of its entrances, heading straight up the stairs.
They soon reached the fifth floor. To the left of the landing was the glass sign for "Da Chang Trading Company," its name printed in red decal letters. A man in a wrinkled suit stood at the doorway smoking, eyeing the two of them curiously.
To the right were stacks of old newspapers piled as high as mountains.
A small, dilapidated door was hidden behind the mountain of old newspapers. A sign with black characters on a white background hung in front of it: "Midnight Stories, Worldly Flames."
"Wenjin Newspaper Office."
Fu Juemin glanced at the sign on the door, waved a hand to brush away the dust motes dancing in the light, and gestured for Cao Tian to knock.
Cao Tian went up and pushed the door straight open. With a dull THUD, a woman’s slightly shrill voice called from inside in a thick Shenghai accent, "Who’re you looking for?"
Before Fu Juemin even stepped inside, a strange, heavy odor of ink mixed with cheap tobacco rushed out to greet him.
His eyes fell upon a small room, roughly thirty square meters, containing four or five desks. Old newspapers and ink stains littered the floor. In a corner, an aluminum kettle hissed on a small coal stove. Next to it was an altar with incense smoke curling before it, though it was unclear which deity was being worshiped.
There were only three people in the room. A young, freckle-faced woman wearing thick-lensed glasses was glaring at Cao Tian.
A bald old man in his fifties, wearing work clothes and sleeve protectors, glanced at the two of them before turning back to fiddle with the paper cutter in front of him.
There was also a man hunched over a makeshift desk—two old beechwood tables pushed together—scribbling furiously. He seemed to be writing a manuscript and didn’t even lift an eyelid at the sound of them entering.
"We’re looking for a man who came into your newspaper office yesterday afternoon carrying a leather suitcase..."
Cao Tian briefly described the man Fu Juemin had told him to follow at the docks yesterday.
After listening to Cao Tian, the woman’s face filled with vigilance. Instead of answering, she shot back, "And who are you two?"
Cao Tian’s face was cold as he snapped back, "It’s none of your business who we are..."
Listening from behind, Fu Juemin found the exchange tiresome. He shook his head, pulled a fountain pen and a checkbook from his pocket, scribbled a few lines, then tore out the page and placed it gently on the desk.
"We just have a few questions. We’ll leave as soon as we’re done."
Fu Juemin capped the pen, tucked it back into the inner pocket of his suit, and spoke in an even tone.
’Putting on the airs of a rich man...’
The woman muttered under her breath as she picked up the check, but her expression froze the very next second.
As if in disbelief, she rubbed her eyes hard with her hands, then scurried over to the man writing at the desk.
A rapid-fire stream of Shenghai dialect echoed through the small office.
Soon, the man hunched over the desk abruptly stopped writing. In the corner, the bald old man fiddling with the paper cutter also froze.
The middle-aged man, who was wearing a shirt and a sweater vest, shot to his feet. Sporting a head of hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in ages, he strode toward Fu Juemin and Cao Tian, his face already wreathed in an enthusiastic smile.
"I am Chen Weidong, editor-in-chief and lead writer for the Wenjin Newspaper Office. And you two are?"
Cao Tian took a step to stand in front of Fu Juemin and replied expressionlessly, "My Young Master’s surname is Fu."
"So it is Young Master Fu who graces us with his presence."
The middle-aged man laughed heartily. He personally brought over two chairs and set them before his guests, then shouted to the woman at the side, "Miss Zhou, hurry up and make some tea for Young Master Fu!"
"Oh, oh."
The woman scurried to the coal stove in the corner, letting out a yelp as she burned herself on the scorching hot aluminum kettle.
No one paid her any mind. The middle-aged man, who called himself the editor-in-chief, sat back down in his original spot. He surreptitiously used his sweater sleeve to wipe away the residual ink and sesame-cake crumbs from the tabletop, then smiled and said, "From what Young Master Fu said just now, I take it you’re looking for Mr. Lin?"
"Mr. Lin?"
A flicker went through Fu Juemin’s eyes. Before he could say anything, the freckled woman, who was now carrying two enamel mugs, cut in, "You don’t know his name?
"Mr. Lin is Miss Liu’s husband! I thought you two were fans of Miss Liu, and that’s why you came to our newspaper office."
The woman rattled on, earning a series of displeased coughs from the middle-aged man.
"What are you looking at me for? The man paid! Anyone can say what they want."
The freckled woman’s retort made the middle-aged man roll his eyes.
Fu Juemin, however, found this amusing. He glanced at the enamel mug placed before him, stained with years of old tea, then politely refused the cigarette the middle-aged man eagerly offered. "Please," he said, "tell me everything about this Mr. Lin and Miss Liu."
The middle-aged man nodded. Perhaps worried that the freckled woman would beat him to it again, he spoke much faster this time.
"Miss Liu is a special contributing cartoonist for our newspaper. Her work is very popular with our readers.
"Mr. Lin is Miss Liu’s husband. He comes by every month to drop off her art and pick up her payment..."
"Your Wenjin Newspaper Office also publishes comics?"
"Yes, but the sales figures certainly can’t compare to the text-based papers. The printing costs are high, after all."
The middle-aged man spat some tea leaves into his mug, then quickly called out, "Miss Zhou, bring me the last issue of the comics section... oh no, bring all the papers with Miss Liu’s work."
This time, before the freckled woman could move, the bald old man in the corner, who had been busy with typesetting and cutting, silently took the initiative and brought over a stack of newspapers.
Fu Juemin picked one up casually.
It was a black-and-white paper titled *Illustrated Strange Tales*. The name was clearly a spiritual successor to *Records of Strange Affairs in the Republic*.
The comics of this era were vastly different from those of his past life. Though they were called comics, the pictures were still filled with large blocks of text. "Illustrated text" would have been a more accurate description.
"Miss Liu’s work is published right here!"
The middle-aged man reached out and, unprompted, turned to the second page of the newspaper for Fu Juemin.
Fu Juemin lowered his gaze. On this page, the title was printed in two large words, deliberately distorted with a blood-dripping effect—
"*Beauty’s Hide*."
A flicker went through Fu Juemin’s eyes as he slowly began to read.
The small office fell silent. The only sounds were the rustling of newspaper pages and the sizzling of the aluminum kettle on the coal stove.
Fifteen minutes later, Fu Juemin stopped and casually tossed the comic paper aside.
He had more or less finished the story of this so-called *Beauty’s Hide*.
The story began in a previous dynasty. It told of a brothel maid named "Ugly Moth," who, due to her ugly appearance and dull-witted nature, was bullied by everyone. After clumsily offending a client, she was beaten to death and thrown into a well.
Seven days later, however, she was "resurrected," crawling out of the well as a monstrous creature, half-human and half-ghost.
She first took revenge by killing everyone who had bullied her in life. Then, she flayed the brothel’s star courtesan—the one she had always envied most—and wore her skin, taking her place.
Later, using the star’s beautiful skin, she had a chance encounter with the son of a high official. They fell in love, only for him to cruelly abandon her.
So she skinned the official’s son as well, and by the same method, took on a new identity to continue wandering the mortal world...
The whole story was essentially about this prostitute named "Ugly Moth" who, after becoming a ghostly creature, used other people’s skins to have love affairs with one handsome man and beautiful woman after another.
The story was a collection of suspense, horror, gore, and eroticism. It was certainly eye-catching, so it was no wonder it was so popular with readers.
