Free Web NovelChapter 447: Chapter 383: Cloth Tiger
"Hawking trinkets and games, bowls add to the family, songs of fortune, wealth comes from all directions, ladies and gentlemen, don’t miss out as you pass by, your patronage brings joy and fortune!"
With a drawn-out hawking cry, the fog before their eyes cleared, revealing a bustling street, and under the archway 10 meters away, a crowd was gathered, forming a circle and pushing forward as if to see a commotion—the hawking was coming from inside the circle.
"It’s starting, let’s head over," Cheng Cha lifted his leg to walk, reminding in a lowered voice, "Leave everything to me, and be wary of these villagers."
Arriving at the hub of activity, Cheng Cha unapologetically shoved his way through the villagers on the periphery and soon forcefully cleared a path, allowing the group of five to squeeze through and see that at the center was a juggler. The performer was clad in thick clothing, hands and feet all wrapped up, with a traditional folk-style giant doll helmet on his head, looking as bizarre as one could imagine.
Crouched on the ground, the juggler held a very long chopstick, and in front of him were six big bowls, three on each side, all coarse porcelain with ragged rims, turned upside down with unknown contents hidden beneath.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please feast your eyes~~"
With the performer’s call, the chopstick flipped over the three bowls on the right, revealing underneath a copper coin, a piece of silver, and a dazzling, golden ingot.
For a common street juggler to possess a gold ingot was a rare occurrence. Yang Xiao immediately sensed something was amiss and upon closer inspection, he discovered an even more important clue—there were no holes in the doll helmet the busker was wearing, meaning the wearer couldn’t possibly see their surroundings. Since he couldn’t see, how was he performing?
Moreover, upon the appearance of the gold ingot, the surrounding crowd sighed in disappointment, as if uninterested—didn’t they care about gold ingots?
These people craned their necks, eyes glued to the remaining three bowls, looking as if they wanted to leap into them. Yang Xiao too was curious as to what treasures could possibly be hidden under these bowls that were even more valuable than gold ingots and warranted such anticipation.
However, the juggler simply kept tapping on the bowls with the long chopstick, producing a crisp sound and whetting the onlookers’ appetites, without revealing the secret.
"Achoo!"
Out of nowhere came the sound of a sneeze beside Mi Shu. She turned to see a young and rather well-dressed woman standing beside her wearing a pearl-studded hairpin. What was discomforting, however, was the yellow mucus hanging from the woman’s right nostril.
Her left nostril wasn’t empty either, but its mucus was now smeared on Mi Shu’s clothing. "Hehehe," the woman grinned foolishly, with a filthy hand she rubbed her palm on Mi Shu’s clothes as if to wipe it off, but in reality only spread the mucus more evenly, almost causing Mi Shu to collapse.
What was more disturbing was that after showing a toothy grin, the woman skilfully rolled her tongue and sucked the mucus from her right nostril into her mouth.
"Hehehe," with one eye larger than the other, the woman cocked her head and stammered to the now completely distraught Mi Shu, "There’s... there’s more, for you, all... all for you!"
Stretching out an arm, she pulled Mi Shu beside her, Cheng Cha took Mi Shu’s place, and with a shoulder nudge, sent the crazy woman tumbling to the other side. Yet one bizarre event after another occurred, as Yang Xiao, who was carefully observing the three large bowls, suddenly felt his pants go wet with warmth—it was as though hot water was being poured on them. He turned sharply to see an elderly man with a square face holding his pants with one hand and handling his "treasure" with the other, peeing towards him.
Seeing Yang Xiao’s intent to dodge, the old man quickly redirected his aim. Yang Xiao played dirty, tripping the old man with a well-placed foot, but unexpectedly, the man showed no anger nor embarrassment; instead, he crawled with his pants down, bare bottom in the air, making sounds like he was riding a horse and circling on the ground.
Onlookers crowded forward at the sight, and soon a man and a woman aggressively took the spot, mounting the elder first. The woman behind harshly smacked the elderly man’s buttocks, uttering "yoohoo" sounds as she did, prompting the man to crawl more energetically, quickly disappearing into the crowd.
Even someone with Yang Xiao’s experience was taken aback by such a scene—the people in this town were very off, as if bewitched.
Yang Xiao signaled to Cheng Cha, urging him to leave quickly, as more strange events might unfold. But Cheng Cha’s attention was entirely focused on the three unopened bowls.
As the atmosphere seemed ripe, the juggler flipped open the three bowls one by one, disappointing Yang Xiao and the others. Inside were not treasures but three ordinary items, in fact, children’s toys—a cloth tiger, a wooden spinning top, and a pellet drum.
However, upon seeing these three toys, the spectators boiled over. Pairs of eyes fixated on the playthings, mouths agape as saliva and tears flowed freely. Some were so excited they wet themselves on the spot, creating an overpowering stench of urine.
"Newcomers are guests, you all look unfamiliar. Choose one out of these six as a welcoming gift," the juggler directed with the long chopstick at Yang Xiao and the others.
Cheng Cha seized the moment, pointing at the cloth tiger. The juggler, skilled with the chopsticks, flicked it into Cheng Cha’s arms, and the next second Cheng Cha turned and strode out, with Yang Xiao and the others quickly following.
No sooner had they left than the crowd surged, scrambling for the remaining two treasures, while no one cared for the gold ingots and silver pieces.
Yang Xiao thought he had it bad enough with urine-soaked trousers, but he found solace in the sight of stains on Tong Han’s shoes. Tong Han’s complexion was exceedingly gloomy, tinted with a faint trace of blue—something Yang Xiao had never seen before.
Everyone wanted to ask what was really going on with these villagers, whether they were possessed or not human at all, but as they walked through the streets and the villagers bustled by, Cheng Cha seemed to be wary and reminded them in a low voice to be careful not to get into a conflict with these villagers.
Suddenly, several people blocked their path, and one of them cried, "Kind sirs, please be generous. My grandfather just passed away, and we have no money for his burial. Please give whatever you can."
This scene left the group speechless because, although the person in front of them was dressed in children’s clothes, his face was very old, looking at least over 70. A man of such an age’s grandfather was likely long gone, reduced to nothing but bone dust. What infuriated them most was that this man was someone they knew, the same old wretch who had urinated on Yang Xiao’s pants, thinking Yang Xiao wouldn’t recognize him just because he changed his clothes.
"We don’t have any," said Cheng Cha, his tone indifferent.
"You have, I just saw it, you have a Cloth Tiger," said a woman standing behind them, hands on her hips. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
"Cloth Tiger! Cloth Tiger! Cloth Tiger!" shouted the people blocking the road in unison, as if they wouldn’t let them pass without giving one up.
"Alright, let’s play a game then. Whoever wins gets the Cloth Tiger," said Cheng Cha as he pulled the Cloth Tiger out from his bosom and waved it in front of everyone.
As soon as they heard there would be a game, the people in front of them perked up and immediately agreed, "Good, let’s see who can pee farther!"
"We’re not comparing that," Cheng Cha shook his head.
"Then how about we compare defecations, see who can release more?" As he spoke, a middle-aged man pulled down his pants, squatted down, and with a great effort, began defecating in the street.
"We’re not comparing that either," Cheng Cha said, shaking his head again.
"Then let’s see who can slap each other more, first one to beg for mercy loses?" a person with a face as swollen as a pig’s head suggested eagerly.
"No, we’ll compare counting, from 1 to 100. Whoever finishes first wins, how about that?" Cheng Cha suggested.
The people in front of them were silent for a moment before the smartest-looking among them shouted, "100 is too many; you count to 100, we’ll count to 99."
"That’s fine, but to be fair, you guys need to count ten times, I only need to count once," Cheng Cha replied calmly without skipping a beat.
"It’s a deal!"
After that, each group selected a person to start counting in the street. Without a doubt, Cheng Cha won easily, and as agreed, they were allowed to leave with the Cloth Tiger.
Taking advantage of a quiet street, Yang Xiao asked in a low voice, "What on earth is going on here?"
"I will explain these things to you later. They are very taboo about being discussed. For now, we’re heading to the gambling house," answered Cheng Cha.
"To gamble with this?" Yang Xiao asked.
"Yes, in this town, toys are the most valuable things. You can think of them as a kind of hard currency. The exchange rate is roughly one Cloth Tiger for two wooden spinning tops, one wooden spinning top for five pellet drums, but these toys can’t be exchanged directly for money. They have to pass through the gambling house, and you can exchange the gambling house’s notes for money at the money house," Cheng Cha tried to explain. "In this town, only four places are unchanging: the first is the juggling stall, the other three are the gambling house, money house, and cloth store. What we need to do is to use the rules of this world to find the loopholes between these four places."
"The town we’re in now is a fake world, you can understand it as being constructed by a ghost from its resentment. But because it’s not human, this world has many potential loopholes. If we can find one and cause conflicts among them, we can overthrow this world."
"What loophole did you find last time?" Ordinary loopholes were certainly not enough to overthrow this world, and Yang Xiao curiously inquired.
"The rule here is that stores aren’t allowed to refuse the reasonable requests of customers. This applies to all three stores. Last time at the gambling house, we tied the game, took the toys to the money house and exchanged them for a lot of money, then used that money to buy out all the clothes at the cloth store. But we still had money left and wanted to buy more. The matron of the cloth store collapsed, calling the manager of the money house to complain about why they gave us so much money. They argued more and more fiercely, first cursing and spitting at each other, then urinating on each other, and finally stabbing each other with knives. The world collapsed because of that."
"But you must be careful; every time you walk down this street, the world must be reset. During the reset, it’s very dangerous as we will be forced into the logic of this world, and we’ll be hunted by those ghostly creatures. If they catch us, we have to play games by their rules. To end it all, we must find the Source Ghost within a certain time frame"
Pausing for a moment, Cheng Cha solemnly repeated, "That is the man-eating Ginseng Puppet. It’s what turned this place into what it is now. That Ginseng Puppet could turn into all sorts of bizarre things. It can’t move or attack us, we just need to tie it up with the Red String and shout ’Mallet,’ and we can reset the cycle."
