A smile can topple a city

Chapter 9

Everyone was in a good mood after finishing work that day.

Besides arranging several dishes, Ye Xiao also specially prepared some wine.

"Boss! Shall we have a good drink today?" Xiao Xun asked happily.

"Dream on! The audience gets tired of just the two traditional acts, so I've taken the liberty of adding a new one: fire-breathing! This is the wine I've prepared for your fire-breathing performance tomorrow! I need to test it beforehand to make sure it burns! You can try it out later!"

Xiao Xun said with a bitter face, "Boss, why do I always have to do such dangerous stunts?"

Ye Xiao patted his shoulder: "It's alright. I'll teach you. Hold some strong liquor in your mouth and spit it out at the torch. The key is to spit it out quickly! You've practiced martial arts, so you have plenty of internal energy and strong breath. Plus, you're quick-witted, so the flame will shoot out very long and beautifully. It should be safe!"

Xiao Xun felt inexplicably relieved.

After sitting down to eat, Luo Qingcheng was in a good mood and didn't kick him off the table.

Ye Xiao continued working diligently on the experiment.

The wine was lit one moment and then put out the next.

After a while, she took the liquor and a tinderbox to the table to demonstrate the flammability of the liquor to the two of them.

As if by accident, a few drops of wine were spilled onto Luo Qingcheng's human skin mask.

Luo Qingcheng didn't pay any attention at the time and continued eating.

Then she signaled to light the fire, but the tinderbox "accidentally" touched Luo Qingcheng's mask and ignited the few drops of wine that had been spilled earlier. Although she noticed in time and quickly extinguished the small flame, unfortunately, Luo Qingcheng's human skin mask was burned with several small holes, ridiculously revealing the skin underneath.

Very strange.

"What's going on?" Luo Qingcheng asked coldly, his eyes also unusually icy.

"This...it was my carelessness...I've been stupid since I was little..." Ye Xiao trembled, looking nervous and on the verge of tears.

"If you're stupid, then there's no one smart in the world... The fact that you call yourself a slave means your master is in deep trouble..." Luo Qingcheng sneered.

Ye Xiao kept her head down, putting on a pitiful look, which made Xiao Xun's heart ache. He immediately turned around and glared at Luo Qingcheng, wishing he could devour him.

Luo Qingcheng didn't say anything, and finished his meal with the hole-covered mask still on, before returning to his room in a sullen mood.

"That guy is weird! He must be incredibly ugly! Otherwise, why would he refuse to take off his mask even when it's broken? He made me waste all my efforts!" Ye Xiao was furious as he watched his disappearing figure.

"Boss, did you do that on purpose?" Xiao Xun scratched his head.

"Of course! Do you think I'm like you? Clumsy and clumsy! I have a plan for everything I do!" With a bang, Ye Xiao tapped him on the head.

"That would... hurt the master..."

"What do you know! I know exactly what I'm doing! I'll burn the mask just enough so it won't hurt him in the slightest..."

"Oh...it's always better to be careful..."

"I refuse to believe this nonsense! I want to see his true colors!" Ye Xiao vowed angrily.

Luo Qingcheng entered the room dejectedly.

He could guess Ye Xiao's wicked thoughts.

I wouldn't have bothered with her otherwise, but the mask is broken and it will take quite a while to get it repaired.

I'm afraid I'll miss the marriage proposal event at Langjing Manor.

That matter was still extremely important to me...

I took the mask off my face and looked at the few small holes on my cheeks; they were too conspicuous and obvious.

Am I supposed to keep wearing this tattered mask all the way to Langjing Manor?

That kind of animal would attract a lot of attention...

After thinking for a long time but not being able to come up with a good solution, he finally threw away the mask in frustration and went to bed.

In the middle of the night, Luo Qingcheng woke up with a start.

There's someone on the roof!

With a flick of the index finger, a wisp of wind drifted gently towards the person on the beam.

The man cried out and fell from above, but strangely, he didn't hit the ground straight down. Instead, with a thud, he flew diagonally and landed on the bed, hitting Luo Qingcheng squarely in a vital spot.

Luo Qingcheng forced himself to endure the pain without crying out. He angrily reached out to push, but suddenly felt something unusually soft to his touch. He froze for a moment, then smelled a fresh, girlish scent. Startled, he immediately stretched out his hands and placed them on the bed, no longer daring to move.

"who?"

The man chuckled, flicked open a tinderbox, and in the firelight, Ye Xiao's sly smile appeared: "I've finally seen your true colors... Ah..."

Suddenly, he cried out, covered his mouth, and froze on the spot.

Luo Qingcheng said in a muffled voice, "I told you I'm stunningly beautiful! Stunned, aren't you? Just like everyone else! Women are so stupid... they only care about looks! They just stare at handsome men and drool..."

Ye Xiao exclaimed, "You... why do you have so many bumps on your face! You look like a toad!"

Um?

Luo Qingcheng indeed felt an unbearable numbness and itching on his face. He reached out and touched his face in surprise, and found that the uneven surface was indeed covered with bumps.

Startled, she rolled out of bed and grabbed a mirror.

The face inside really did look like toad skin; it was a horrible sight.

My heart skipped a beat. What happened?

Ye Xiao had already turned over and left the house.

A moment later, Luo Qingcheng looked up warily again. Someone else was coming from the beam!

With a flick of his index finger, he heard the person above say, "It's me again!"

He wanted to sweep her away angrily, but he was afraid she would strangely fly into his arms again, so he finally held back.

Ye Xiao took out a small porcelain bottle containing some greenish-blue ointment.

"This medicine, when applied to the skin, can quickly eliminate all kinds of unexplained swelling and pain... It's very effective... Let me apply it to you and let you try it..."

He endured the pain and itching on his face, letting Ye Xiao apply a thick layer of ointment to him.

Finally, sadly, I saw a person with a completely green face in the mirror, looking like a monster.

"Don't scratch! You'll get a scar if you scratch it..." Ye Xiao warned before quickly leaving.

The next morning, Xiao Xun got up and saw a blue-faced demon in the dining room, dressed in Luo Qingcheng's clothes.

A chill ran through him: "What...what did you do to my master?"

The blue-faced demon raised its head, opened its mouth, and grinned maliciously, uttering in a low voice: "I've already eaten him! I crawled into his clothes!"

"You...you...really? Should I be happy that I'm free, or should I be sad for my master?" Xiao Xun raised his hand to cover his face.

"Hmph! You heartless lackey!" The blue-faced demon reverted to Luo Qingcheng's voice.

"Huh? You've entered my master's body? Should we find a Taoist priest from Maoshan to exorcise this demon?"

"Alright, alright! Stop fooling around!" Ye Xiao brought in a large bowl of porridge and a few steamed buns.

Xiao Xun chuckled: "Is this what they call being as handsome as Pan An? I think he looks better with that mask on!"

"He had some bumps on his face, but after applying ointment, they cleared up quickly!"

"Pimples!" Xiao Xun jumped three feet away. "Will it turn into pox? Measles? A wise man doesn't stand under a crumbling wall! I'd better stay away to avoid getting infected..."

"No! It's too hot. I'm stuck in the mask all day, and my face is covered in prickly heat..." Ye Xiao explained.

The blue-faced demon lowered his head in frustration and slurped down his porridge, venting his anger...

On the way to Langjing Manor

Although he always appeared as a blue-faced demon, the prickly heat disappeared quickly.

When Luo Qingcheng woke up in the morning, he was surprised to find a thin mask on the table.

It was similar to my original mask, but thinner and lighter. I slowly slipped it onto my face. The size wasn't quite right, but it wasn't as strange as that perforated mask.

It's more breathable and much more comfortable.

"Did you do this? Where did it come from?" Luo Qingcheng asked Ye Xiao.

The latter was indeed having Xiao Xun practice fire-breathing, and Xiao Xun didn't seem as clumsy as he usually appeared; he was now breathing fire quite skillfully.

"You bought your mask from Su Jiang, the Peach Blossom Man-Faced Man, in Tiangong Valley, right? Su Jiang always sets clear prices and is honest with everyone. Your mask must have cost twenty-five taels of silver." Ye Xiao didn't look at him.

"That's right. You know Su Jiang?"

Ye Xiao smiled and turned around, her long braid swaying gently behind her.

"I know him. He's just a customer. Your mask is the cheapest kind, so it causes heat rash. I bought one too, the kind that costs fifty taels of silver. Consider it compensation..."

“Fifty taels of silver for a mask. You’re very rich.” Luo Qingcheng was clear-headed.

Ye Xiao curled her lip indifferently.

"If you're just pretending to be high and mighty, then you don't have to."

"Why not? You are my slave, what's yours is mine."

Ye Xiao shrugged nonchalantly again: "That depends on whether I'm willing. If I'm not willing, you absolutely cannot take mine."

"We'll see." Luo Qingcheng glanced at Ye Xiao and said, "I've heard that Peach Blossom Face can make very exquisite masks based on portraits or the person themselves, so that they can impersonate others so well that even the people around them can't tell them apart."

Ye Xiao snorted: "Absolutely impossible. I asked Su Jiang himself about this, and he said that due to technical limitations, it can only be a little similar at most, enough to fool outsiders. It is impossible for it to be so realistic that it can be mistaken for the real thing."

"Oh?" Luo Qingcheng was taken aback, his eyes flickering.

Fire-breathing is quite popular.

The three of them were finally able to gradually accumulate the silver they earned.

Over time, Xiao Ye and his companion realized that although Luo Qingcheng was a bit eccentric, he wasn't arrogant at all, despite being the host.

The three of them got along much better than before.

"I can't understand why you would listen to a little girl so obediently, bowing your head and calling her 'boss.' You're not acting like a man at all," Luo Qingcheng mocked Xiao Xun from the start.

“I have a different view from yours. A true man should be able to bend and stretch, to be both soft and hard, to be both big and small, to stand tall and proud, and to be willing to compromise… to be able to…”

"Just like our little brother?" Luo Qingcheng said something surprising.