Chapter 76: Insincere Words!

  In the blink of an eye, Xiao Yun took out an object from Xiong Fu's belly and put it in front of him. Upon seeing it, a smile appeared on his face. This bear gall was as big as half a fist, absolutely a great tonic!

  He retracted the bear's gallbladder, and Xiao Yun cut off the bear's paw again. Soon, he extracted four leg tendons, his movements so swift that even Xiao Yun himself wondered if he had worked in a slaughterhouse before.

  Each one is nearly three meters long, four fourth-order beast tendons. If taken to the market for sale, it will definitely sell for a good price. And those four bear paws, this thing in his previous world was a high-quality ingredient, an excellent delicacy. Such large bear paws, Xiao Yun knows he has good fortune.

  Other than that, the only thing that caught Xiao Yun's eye was a piece of pure black fur, but skinning it required skill and time, so Xiao Yun didn't even think about it and abandoned the idea, jumping out of the pit and quickly leaving the mountain top with Hong Ke Xin, who had been waiting impatiently.

  ——

  The sky had darkened, and it was very dangerous to travel at night. The two of them found a small cave in a little valley and rested there for the night.

  "How can you even want this thing? Don't you find it disgusting?"

  In the cave, a bonfire was lit. Next to the fire, Hong Kexin was eating dry rations when he saw Xiao Yun take out a huge, bloody bear paw, and suddenly lost his appetite.

  "This thing is a rare delicacy in our place, just wait and see, I'll be done soon, don't drool." Xiao Yun smiled with his mouth open, the bear paw was too big, he cut off a piece with a knife, and put the rest away.

  Outside the cave, there was a small stream, which made it convenient to clean up. Xiao Yun left the cave and came to the riverbank, washed the bear's paw clean, and then searched for some simple spices in the valley.

  Returned to the cave, because there were no tools, Xiao Yun directly used branches to pierce them, sprinkled spices on top and roasted them over a fire.

  Before long, the aroma of roasted meat mixed with the fragrance of spices wafted through the cave, and Hong Ke Xin, who had initially looked disdainful, quickly changed her expression. She put away the tasteless dry rations and squatted down beside Xiao Yun, staring intently at the roasted meat on the grill, her mouth watering in anticipation.

  ——

  "How is it? Is it fragrant?"

  Looking at Hong Ke Xin with a mouthful of oil, Xiao Yun smiled.

  Hong Ke Xin nodded her head and sincerely praised, "I didn't expect you to have this skill, it was worth saving your life!"

  Looking at Hong Kexin's wolf-like devouring appearance, Xiao Yun burst out laughing and reminded her, "Slow down a bit, look at you, you've gotten so fat, don't you know to control your appetite!"

  Hong Ke Xin heard this and gave Xiao Yun a big white eye, "What do you know, my dad said that women are more attractive the fatter they get!"

  "It's indeed attractive! With you looking like this, it's hard not to be attracted even if you don't want to!" Xiao Yun smiled wryly and shook his head, saying "Looks like your dad has been fooling you quite a bit!"

  "My dad wouldn't cheat me!" Hong Keyin said.

  Xiao Yun leaned in close to Hong Ke Xin and asked, "Hey, was your mom as fat as you are?"

  Hong Kexin was stunned for a moment, then shook her head.

  "That's it!" Xiao Yun shrugged his shoulders, "If your dad says that women look better when they're a bit chubby, then why doesn't he go find himself a fat wife?"

  Hong Ke Xin seemed to be stunned by Xiao Yun's question, and after a moment of silence, she said, "You don't understand at all. We in the Zhong Wang Palace cultivate the Way of the Bell. Do you think it's easy to cultivate? Our cultivation requires a huge amount of energy. For us low-level cultivators, the most direct way to obtain energy is by eating. So, nine out of ten disciples in our palace are fat, and I'm considered slender!"

  "Huh?"

  Xiao Yun's face twitched slightly, her eyes swept over Hong Ke Xin's body, this girl was too optimistic, optimistically cute!

  "You didn't answer me, why doesn't your dad find a fat wife to be his daughter-in-law?" asked Xiao Yun.

  At once a white eye was given, and Hong Ke Xin said displeased, "Why are you talking so much? I'm not my dad, how would I know? If you want to know, go ask my dad yourself!"

  Xiao Yun sweated, letting him ask Hong Jiutong. For Xiao Yun, it was indeed a bit difficult. That old man was crazy and silly, what if he grabbed himself and wanted to make himself his son-in-law? That would be terrible.

  Her eyes fell on Hong Kexin's body, and Xiao Yun couldn't help but shiver.

  After a moment of silence, Hong Kexin looked at Xiao Yun and hesitated for half a day before speaking up, "Do all you men like women with slender figures and beautiful looks?"

  This question made Xiao Yun somewhat embarrassed, if he said something wrong and hurt the girl's self-esteem, it wouldn't be good. Xiao Yun scratched his head and smiled awkwardly, "Miss Hong, actually, no matter how beautiful a person looks on the outside, if they have a heart full of malice, they can only be considered a poisonous woman, not truly beautiful... In this world, only inner beauty is true beauty..."

  "Halt!"

  Xiao Yun's words were very reasonable, but Hong Ke Xin still interrupted her despite finding them pleasant to listen to.

  Xiao Yun looked at Hong Kexin with a puzzled face, "What? You think I'm wrong?"

  Hong Ke Xin rolled her eyes and said, "You didn't look into my eyes when you spoke, did you think I wouldn't know you were lying?"

  Xiao Yun was sweating, unable to retort, and after a long time, he said, "Heavenly conscience, what I said is all from the heart, 20,000 years ago, the demon queen Daji caused the downfall of the Great Shang Dynasty. 10,000 years ago, the Great Jin Dynasty was destroyed because of Xi Shi. The Great Zhou Dynasty almost perished due to the demon queen Bao Si. Our own Great Xia also suffered chaos and calamity due to the demon girl Mei Xi, until we re-established our nation 8,000 years ago. You should have heard of these four demon girls? Now that I bring it up, which one doesn't make you gnash your teeth?"

  "How can it be the same?" Hong Kexin said with a pout.

  "How is it different?" asked Xiao Yun.

  Hong Kexin's eyes rolled, and she said, "These four great demon girls, three were sent by the demon tribe, one was sent by the Quanrong, they are not even of our human race, how can they be the same."

  "The four great beauties are not of our kind, however, they all have a calamitous fate that brings disaster to the country and its people. Since ancient times, beautiful women have been a source of trouble, in short, being good-looking is not necessarily a good thing!" said Xiao Yun Dao.

  "Insincere words!"

  Hong Ke Xin said in a low voice that Xiao Yun's words were almost exactly the same as what her old father often instilled in her, which made her feel somewhat strange.

  Xiao Yun didn't say much anymore and started eating the bear paws by himself. He had already said all the good things he could think of, and if he continued, he wouldn't be able to find anything else to say.

  ——

  "What are you doing?"

  After eating a big meal, Hong Ke Xin took out a blanket and lay down beside the bonfire, preparing to take a nice nap. However, she saw Xiao Yun taking out the Jiuxiao Qin and fiddling with it for some unknown reason.

  "Nothing, you go back to sleep."

  Xiao Yun didn't even lift his head, took out a large pile of tools, and fiddled with them by himself.

  Hong Kexin rubbed her eyes, walked over with a puzzled expression. The encounter during the day still left her with lingering fear. In the middle of the night, Xiao Yun was still practicing his tune, didn't he want to live?

  As she walked closer, Xiao Yun didn't seem to be tuning the zither, but instead had taken it apart. Hong Ke Xin asked in confusion, "Are you out of your mind? This is such a good zither, why did you take it apart?"

  As a disciple of the Dà Mén Pài, Hong Kexin understood that the things he knew were far more numerous than those of Xiao Yun. At a glance, he could see that Jiǔ Xiāo was extraordinary. A musical instrument is the lifeblood of a musician, and it can be said that every musician cherishes their own instrument extremely, let alone deliberately destroying it.

  Without responding to Hong Kexin's words, Xiao Yun's attention was completely focused on the Jiu Xiangqin, carefully disassembling all the accessories on the body of the qin.

  Replace the bridge plate, guitar bridge, add strings...

  Every step was orderly and extremely skilled. When the nine heavens were added to the two strings, Hong Kexin gradually understood Xiao Yun's intentions and looked at Xiao Yun with some surprise, "The lost seven-stringed zither?"

  Although Hong Kexin studied under Zhong Zidao, she had also heard of the legend of Wenwu Dingxian. After all, Wenwu Dingxian was not just about the art of qin, but more about the change in music theory. However, that was only a legend, and the seven-stringed zither had long been lost. Even today, no one dares to confirm whether or not the seven-stringed zither really existed.