Chapter 165: Dog Eat Dog

Liu Ling'er naturally remained silent. Hearing no movement whatsoever from inside the room after calling out twice, the innkeeper pushed the door open and walked in. From the sound of it, Liu Ling'er knew that it wasn't just the innkeeper who had entered; the innkeeper's wife had followed him inside as well.

The innkeeper chuckled, "Look, they're completely knocked out. I told you we'd definitely make a profit today. To make sure nothing went wrong, I used enough sleeping powder for three people. Forget about these two punks, even three oxen would be completely poisoned by this."

The innkeeper's wife laughed and said, "Ha! I knew you had it in you. Damn it, why don't you go grab their bundles? Or are you expecting me to do it myself?"

She gave the innkeeper a shove, sending him staggering almost like a monkey about to fall over. However, long accustomed to his wife's overbearing tyranny, the innkeeper seemed quite used to it. "What's the rush! Afraid they'll wake up? Don't you worry, this cooked duck isn't flying away."

As this black-hearted couple unrolled Baili Xian's bundle, their eyes popped wide open. The innkeeper gasped, "So much money! Look at all this—gold, silver, jewelry, and bank notes. It adds up to nearly two thousand taels. These two are definitely not ordinary folk. If we take all this, won't we be bringing disaster upon ourselves?"

The innkeeper's wife slapped him across the head. "You hopeless fool, no wonder following you has only ever meant scraping by. Look at how gutless you are! With all this money, we can live in luxury anywhere we please. Why overthink it? Let's just murder these two and bury them. Then who's going to know? Only Heaven, the earth, you, and I."

The innkeeper stammered cautiously, "Ah? We have to kill them too? Isn't that a bit much? Whenever we've fleeced fat sheep in the past, didn't we usually just send them off to Wutuo Mountain? Why kill them this time?"

The burly wife poked the innkeeper's head with her finger. "Calling you stupid is an understatement! Times have changed, you see? How could those small amounts from before ever compare to this? The bold starve the timid to death—get it?"

Clap, clap, clap. A round of applause rang out as Baili Xian said, "Well said indeed!"

Before the innkeeper's wife could even react, she smugly replied, "Naturally! With my eloquence, marrying you was a waste—wait, why aren't you passed out?"

Her previous smugness was entirely replaced by sheer terror. She pointed a trembling finger at Baili Xian, her ghost-like expression showing she clearly couldn't accept the reality before her.

Liu Ling'er also raised her head and said helplessly, "We didn't want to wake up either, but who told you two to start plotting our murder? If we hadn't woken up, wouldn't we have been buried to fertilize the soil by now?"

The innkeeper was equally incredulous, though unlike his wife, what he found hardest to believe was that Liu Ling'er and Baili Xian had eaten his food and remained completely unharmed. It defied all logic. He knew he had used more than enough sleeping powder in the dishes, and his methods had never failed him before.

Muttering under his breath, he said, "Impossible! You ate my food, you shouldn't be fine. This must be an illusion!"

"There's nothing impossible about it. Your drug is potent indeed, but as long as we simply didn't eat the food you poisoned, naturally nothing would happen!" Liu Ling'er cleared up his confusion so he could die with a clear understanding.

"No, that's not right! If you didn't eat the poisoned food, what about the meat soup and green beans? They couldn't have just vanished into thin air, could they?" The innkeeper refused to give up until he saw the coffin, determined to get to the bottom of it.

Liu Ling'er pointed toward the window. "I poured all the poisoned food outside. If you don't believe me, go look for yourself. There might still be some leftovers out there."

The innkeeper rushed to the window and looked out, only to find nothing on the ground below; the food Liu Ling'er had poured out had been completely devoured by birds and stray town dogs. Though the tainted food was gone, several birds lay motionless on the ground, along with two dead dogs that seemed to be silently testifying to their unfortunate encounter with the poison.

Seeing her husband falling apart in panic, the innkeeper's wife sneered contemptuously. "Hmph! So what if you saw through it? Once you've stepped into my inn, I never intended to let you leave."

With that, she reached behind her back, and a gleaming, snow-white butcher's knife appeared in her hand. Combined with her fierce, fleshy face, she truly bore the air of a seasoned butcher—a ferocious look fierce enough to scare timid souls into fainting.

Liu Ling'er smacked her lips. "Tsk tsk tsk, couldn't hold back anymore? Since ambushing us failed, you're resorting to outright robbery. Are you really that confident you can beat both of us? Let me tell you, the two of us are extremely formidable."

"With those scrawny little arms and legs of yours, you won't even last two chops of my butcher's knife! Take this!" With a swoosh, the blade came slashing directly toward Liu Ling'er's neck.

Liu Ling'er sidestepped, easily dodging the knife, and pressed a palm against the woman's chest, sending her stumbling backward. The blow must have carried quite a force, eliciting a sharp cry of pain from the innkeeper's wife.

Taking advantage of the moment the woman's mouth was agape, Liu Ling'er flicked her finger, sending a white pill-like object straight into the innkeeper's wife's mouth.

By the time the woman regained her footing and raised her butcher's knife to strike again, Liu Ling'er blinked playfully. "Hey, you clumsy oaf, stop right there if you value your life! If you move again and drop dead, don't blame me!"

The innkeeper's wife assumed Liu Ling'er was bluffing and ignored the warning, charging forward with the knife. But before she had taken two steps, a wave of sour numbness rippled through her body, and her knife-wielding hand grew instantly weak. With a clatter, the weapon dropped to the floor.

Only then did she realize something was terribly wrong. In a panic, she demanded, "What did you do to me? Why am I feeling like this? Ah! My body is itching all over!"

It felt as though ants were crawling over her entire body. The innkeeper's wife scratched frantically, wishing she could grow two extra hands just to relieve the torment.

Liu Ling'er giggled for a moment. "I told you not to move, but you wouldn't listen. Now karma has caught up with you! I simply fed you a little something—a wonderful concoction that will make you wish you were dead. Stop scratching; the more you scratch, the itchier it gets. Soon enough, you'll want to take a knife and carve the flesh right off your body."

The innkeeper dropped to his knees before Liu Ling'er without a shred of pride. "Spare my life, heroes! It was this humble one who was blind and offended two great masters. Please forgive our transgression and let us go! This lowly one will never dare do it again!"

The fierce wife also abandoned her bravado, collapsing to her knees as well. "Good sir, spare my life! As long as you let us live, I'll do whatever you ask!"

"Is that so?" Liu Ling'er said playfully. "It's not entirely out of the question to spare you. Pay up to buy your lives. Whether you survive depends entirely on how much you can cough up!"

Baili Xian, sitting to the side, felt a twitch of dark lines across his forehead. How was it that Liu Ling'er performed extortion and blackmail so smoothly? Was she a bandit in her past life? Originally, they were the ones being held up by a shady inn, but in the blink of an eye, it had turned into robbing the shady inn itself. This scenario of thieves robbing thieves felt quite novel to Baili Xian.

Hearing that money could buy their lives, the innkeeper's wife glared fiercely at her husband. "Go get the money right now! If I don't make it out alive, I'll carve you up first before I die!"