Little Cooking Saint – 0132 – Octopus Balls (e)

Chapter 132 Octopus Balls (e)

Translated by Gumihou

Edited by Gumihou

 

The intruder stiffened. Suddenly, he slashed backwards, but before his knife could hit its target, there was a sudden sting of pain at his neck and his head jerked back with a twitch. [1] Shiyu waved her other hand and fire engulfed the person, turning him into pale grey ash in an instant.

While stealing might not be an offence punishable by death, this guy actually took out his knife to kill her. There was no need to restrain herself when it came to this kind of people. Shiyu studied the bed that had been neatly sliced in half as she absently cleaned her dagger with a piece of cloth.

Since the bed is now damaged, Shiyu sat in a nearby chair. The showy flower was placed on the bedside table and she settled down to wait. Not long after that, two people leapt silently into the room, aiming to kill Shiyu in one stroke before snatching her treasure. However, the ones who would die in this room would not be her.

 

The various thumps and crashes in the room soon attracted the attention of the innkeeper and waiter. The waiter looked up apprehensively, “Sir, do you think something has might have happened to the girl?”

The innkeeper hissed, “Ignore it. We can’t afford to stick our noses into these matters. If you value your life, pretend you didn’t hear anything. We’ll deal with whatever is left of the room tomorrow. Just report it to the officials later when it’s all over.”

Still, it’s such a pity, ah. That little girl is still so young… however, just thinking about the cost of having to fix up the room where such noisy shenanigans were happening made his heart ached too, ah…

In a way, it’s the girl own fault for carrying around such an eye-catching treasure, but he could not bring himself to condemn her too much. To think that the price of ignorance and thoughtlessness would be her life… that’s just too pitiful, ah.

 

The next day, both Innkeeper and Waiter sighed at the thought of having to go upstairs and maybe clean up the body of a little girl.

However, before either could muster the courage to brave the den, the supposedly dead little girl casually appeared at the top of the steps. [2] Both stared as the girl came trotting down, still hugging her ridiculous pot of flowers with her.

“Innkeeper, I want to check out,” said Shiyu.

The Innkeeper remained stuck in place, [2] unable to do anything other than gaped. The Waiter nudged him. When no response came forth, the Waiter nudged him harder. Finally, the Innkeeper blinked and stammered, “Y-yes, yes, check out. Yes. You stayed one night with us, that’s 1 silver tael per night. [3] You’ve already paid a deposit of 2 taels. The inn will reimburse 1 tael to you…”

“Just 1 tael?” Shiyu took out 20 taels and placed them on the counter. “I broke a few things in the room last night. So, please take this as compensation.”

“Yes, yes,” the Innkeeper was more than happy to take this customer’s money. With this amount of silver, he could replace everything in the room twice over. What did he care about anything else? If only more customers are as responsible as this little girl, ah.

The Waiter also beamed at her.[4] He was happy to not have to carry her corpse out. “Dear valued guest, please take care on your way.”

Shiyu nodded, “Thank you, I shall trouble brother waiter to clean up after me.” With that, she picked up her ostentatious little pot of flower and left.

When the bobbing purple flowers final disappeared from sight, the Waiter went upstairs to clean up. [4] It wasn’t until he was about to open the door that he halted. The noises from last night had not been imagined by him. If the girl came out intact… could it be possible that she had left corpses behind this door?

[4] What should he do, ah?!

[4] Would he have to drag out several corpses out instead of one?!

[4] Steeling himself, he turned the handle and peeped into the room. It was… chaos. The bed was broken, the chair in pieces, the cheap decorative vase shattered to bits, bedding and bits of cloth littered the floor. However, there was no sign of corpses, not even a single hint of blood in the air.

Nervously, he stepped in, his feet making cracking sounds over the debris of broken wood, porcelain and goodness knows what else. After poking about and finding no hidden corpses, he finally sighed with relief and began the arduous, but ultimately preferable, task of cleaning up the room.

Hmm, there is quite a lot of grey dust here. Perhaps it’s just as well they’re going to have to this room now…

 

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Shiyu trotted out of town with her very valuable flower on show all the way. Now and then, various people would come over to ambush or kill her for the flowers. Nearly all of the attackers were Cultivators. This resulted in Shiyu becoming wary of every person with even an ounce of Cultivation ability.

In fact, with so many attacking her, Shiyu had actually developed a system for dealing with these annoyances. First, a sweep to check their Cultivation level. If they’re weaker than her, suppress them with her power first before getting rid of them. If she encountered someone stronger… well, thus far, she hasn’t encountered anyone stronger yet.

After having dispatched quite a few attackers with deceptive ease, Shiyu finally understood what Fat Cat was trying to make her learn. Despite having equal or higher Cultivation than pretty much all of her opponents, Shiyu often suffered a loss trying to protect her life. There were injuries all over her body and she had one close call where one of the thieves nearly stabbed her in the heart.

These series of little ambushes and battles forced Shiyu to understand that though her Cultivation was similar or higher than her opponent’s, her win was not guaranteed. Having the secret space had made her complacent, confident that she would always have a convenient escape route no matter what. This exercise, however, forced her to acknowledge something terrible.

What if her opponent is strong enough to kill her off in one blow?

Isn’t that like being sent to the grave in one swift shot?

Never look down on the enemy, not even the weakest.

As her awareness grows, so did Shiyu’s battle awareness and strength.

Interestingly enough, the better at fighting she became, the more aware she is about her own weaknesses. This spurred her to study the scrolls and valuable books that Qing Chen had gifted her. She would study the techniques in the evening, run during the day using Chasing Clouds & Moon technique and lure people into battle whenever she could.

For half a month, Shiyu lived on the run like this.

It wasn’t until she reached a small hamlet and saw colourful lanterns and red banners hung at these modest houses, and read the auspicious couplets bracketing doorways that Shiyu finally realised that it was New Year’s Eve. That’s right, this was the second New Year’s Even that she had seen in this world. Both were spent alone, outside and far away from friends and family.

Well, not completely alone since she has Fat Cat, Cloud Beast and San Pang. She actually had San Pang with her last New Year’s Eve and that noisy radish made life less lonely. Unfortunately, with San Pang still dead to the world and a taciturn Fat Cat, life felt lonelier than usual. Shiyu patted her inner coat pocket where she had tucked San Pang, “I don’t know when you’ll wake up, but wake up soon, alright?”

It would be nice to have someone to talk to.

Perhaps she had been standing too long in one place. Someone noticed her presence and soon, curious villagers with inquisitive eyes came out to see what was wrong. When little children began pointing at her, Shiyu was finally aware of her dusty face, torn clothing and tangled hair. [5] She wanted to laugh, she must look like a beggar now!

[5] One of the villagers stepped forward, “Hello, little girl? Are you lost?”

[5] When Shiyu continued to stare blankly at them, one of the women said, “The poor dear must be in shock. Look at her condition. On New Year’s Even too!”

[5] Somehow, Shiyu was ushered into one of the village houses. The hamlet was tiny and the houses were made of mud. The floor was basically compacted dirt.

The house belonged to the woman who had spoken just now. She fussed over Shiyu, “Aiya, how could you wear so little on such a cold day. Second girl, go and fetch your padded jacket.” After wrapping Shiyu’s dirty form in the jacket, she noticed that Shiyu was holding a radish. “Oh my, if you’re hungry a single radish won’t do. Come, stay and have New Year’s Eve dinner here.”

Shiyu silently put San Pang back into her inner coat pocket. Then, she opened her mouth and said, “Ah, ah,” a few times.

“The poor dear is a mute, how pitiful,” all the kind folks within the hut immediately pitied this dirty mute girl with nothing but a radish in her possession.

That evening, the dinner table groaned with food. Though the feast could not be considered delicacies by any stretch of the imagination. There were plenty of meat and vegetable dishes which contributed to the festive atmosphere that was unique to New Year’s Eve. Shiyu sat with them, silently soaking in the air of excitement. It was rather cute, actually. It’s been a long time since she had been excited over something like New Year’s Eve dinner.

After dinner, Shiyu was invited to stay the night by the hostess. She did not refuse the invitation. She was put in bed with the second daughter and wore her cleaned heavy cotton coat. The hostess was worried that she’d be cold, but Shiyu barely felt the changing weather.

There was nothing much to do in a mountain village. Once the sky darkened everyone would go to bed and rest. Shiyu laid on the bed, listening to the excited girl next to her chatting endlessly until the voice on the other side fell silent. Shiyu continued to stare at the ceiling until light began to dawn from the window.

 

[Gumihou: Well, at least she encountered some nice people]

 

Gumihou is keeping track so that you don’t have to ~

Condensation Stage	Stage 1
Core Transformation	Stage 2
Core Condensation	Stage 3
Divine Transformation	Stage 4

 

 

[1] Additional Details for Logistic Purpose: Beheading is very bloody, unless the person is already dead for some time. Arterial blood spray etc, plus the fact that he’s probably a strong Cultivator with a powerful heart. In the original, the only blood here was on Shiyu’s dagger, which she wiped off with a cloth. Uh, Shiyu, are you hunting undead or live people? Live people have a pulse, pulse means blood pressure. The severing of many veins that connected the heart to the head means blood spray. Your face would have been very bloody.

Alternatively, Shiyu could stab someone in the back of the neck and up into the brain, severing the brain stem with a twist. This could also kill someone instantly and resulted in minimal blood spray.

Patched with a more realistic bloodless kill via stab in the back of the neck under the right ear.

[2] Additional Details for Dramatic Purpose: Shiyu just ‘coming back from the dead’ as seen from these two side character’s POV

[3] Changed Details for Consistency (and Better Business Practice): I didn’t read ahead made Shiyu place silver taels on the counter before checking in at chapter 131. Personally, I’d think an inn that charges rooms at silver taels per night would want a deposit, especially when Shiyu turned up looking like something the cat had chewed up and spat out before dragging in. So, change the details to ‘returning a deposit’ instead of ‘paying’.

[4] Extra Scenes for Side Character: Poor waiter-san… Gumihou will give you a little more scenes to make readers more sympathetic towards you

[5] Additional Details for Dramatic Purpose: It’s one of those side scenes, so I guess author-san did not bother to flesh it out. I added a few more dialogues and descriptive terms to make it flow better and appear more alive.

 

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