[Buy him a cloak?]
Wu Huan froze in confusion but because he felt the dagger-shooting eyes, he moved to the shop with extreme difficulty.
Is he too shy to admit that he wanted to buy him one for himself?
A part of his heart warm up but when he looked at the money in his palm, it nearly jumped out instead!
[This much money! For a cloak!]
Wu Huan nearly threw some gold back.
Then an idea suddenly sprouted in his head.
He came back outside not long after. An easy smile on the lips as he carried back a beautiful black high-quality cloak. It looked even more high-quality then Shi Lihua's. He had restrained himself from wearing it immediately. His face was still thin and maybe he was a little bit shy too.
Shi Lihua, without a word, he stripped out of his own. "Give me," he curtly said, dumping his white one into the other person's chest and wrapping the black one around himself. He sighed to himself then walked off.
[What?]
Wu Huan swore he saw a small fleeting smile on the other person's face. He must have thought he won a lottery. This other pitiful person could only stare at the white cloak and slowly wrapped it around himself. His chest swelled with defeat. He had let his guard down.
Look where it led him...the reality...
Nonetheless, a mild scent of peach blossom seemed to emit out of the fluffy fur. He also felt adequate warmth from the cloak so he didn't complain any further.
[At least...at least...Shi Lihua...]
He didn't dare to finish the sentence.
When he looked up to find the other person, he was also already gone. Feeling somewhat renewed by a weird sense of hope, his feet led him around the city, eyes roaming for a particular figure.
Wu Huan found him by a small shop.
"This cloud pattern doesn't suit you," he murmured in apprehension as if him talking civilly with Shi Lihua was a thing. He made an effort to rummage through the piles of folding fans. When he finally saw one with a beautiful landscape of peach blossom trees, he raised it happily to his senior brother's face. "Look at this! It suits you!"
Shi Lihua stood still for a good half a teacup. But then he slowly reached out, examined it quietly then put it back down. "Looks ugly. Very common." He left for the next store.
Wu Huan: "..."
Seller: "..."
[Spoiled. Spoiled. Spoiled.]
This young master was indeed very spoiled. He jumped from one big store to another even for the smallest thing like buying a paper lamp. He just couldn't settle down for items of the ordinary people. Everything he touched, saw, bought had to be of good quality and unique! Wu Huan felt nauseous trailing along to their tenth destination. The only reason he followed him was that he didn't have any money.
He only was planning to humbly mooch off the spoiled kid for the rest of the trip.
Who knew this little...his senior brother was so hard to please and annoying? Every time he suggested something wholeheartedly, he either got cold shoulder or a rude 'ugly' slammed into his face without much of a back glance.
This Shi Lihua's pleasing person was truly tired-he couldn't do this anymore...
Later they stumbled upon a small alley and was faced with an uncommon scene. An old uncle was sobbing and sitting idly on the dirty stairs of a house. Wu Huan saw that the door was open and the interior inside bothered him greatly. He decided to squat down to the crying person not minding his white coat scrubbing the dirt. "Uncle, may we ask what happened here? Why are you so upset?"
The uncle released his other batch of sob as if he didn't hear the youth. But, then he slowly raised his head up anyway when he realized they weren't going to leave him alone. His wide eyes were covered in red rims, nose red like cherry candy and saliva dripping down his pouty lips.
"Who are you?" He squeezed the words pitifully.
Wu Huan pulled out his black handkerchief, "Use this first, uncle." The uncle was reluctant but he accepted anyway. "We are disciples from Taohua Sect. Did something happen to your household? Did someone hurt you?"
The man turned to look at the mess inside. Furniture was trashed and some were lopsided. Plants got picked out of their roots and pots. A pile of something muddy orange scattered the floor and footprints dotted around messily. When he turned back to wipe his nose, the two youths stared waiting for his answer.
"...it was me." He cast his gaze down at his boots. "I mean the mess. It was me. But..." Wu Huan thought he was going to cry again but he didn't-not yet, "My pregnant wife is missing. And that isn't..."
He lost it at the end of his sentence. The two waited patiently for him to release his sorrow but it was already starting to get dark. So, Shi Lihua took the uncle for dinner. (It was Wu Huan's idea but he wasn't the one who paid so...)
"My wife is a very ordinary person. What's important is that she loves me and always wants to take care of me after I come home late working at the inn. We don't have any families on both our sides so she was always left alone at home. And she also always insisted on making me dinner so she occasionally went out despite being pregnant to buy fresh ingredients every day. Sometimes, I did warn her that it was dangerous to go out without her husband but she never listened. Five days ago, I came home to her missing. I ran out to the city guards immediately. I couldn't even put on my boots properly. Today, there's still no news from her and a sane person sure does know what that means."
While the uncle retold what happened, Wu Huan noticed that he barely touched his bowl and it itched him to encourage him to eat more. But he understood the situation so he just let it go.
Shi Lihua, "Have you heard any other cases like yours?"
"Yes! Yes! There are some people in the city who also lost their wives. We suspected that it must have been the same culprit but the guards didn't take it seriously and scorned at us saying they must have been sick of us, husbands, and plotted running away from home." He scowled before drowning away his teacup.
"There are other cases? And they all are women? Are those missing people pregnant too?" Wu Huan felt chill behind his back. This screamed suspicious on a level that he didn't dare touch.
"There are currently five cases," Shi Lihua suddenly answered for him. "Including the uncle. Three of the missing women are pregnant. Including the uncle as well."
"Hold on...you know about this?"
As per usual, his face was composed in such mocking calmness. "I'm the young master of Taohua sect. Nothing goes past me."
"Then do you know what goes pass you?" Wu Huan smirked.
"What?"
"You just paid for my dinner."
"I only paid for mine. You ate my food shamelessly."
"..."