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Chapter 148 The Charlatan
It seemed that our challenger had made quite a fanfare in his preparations, for he had attracted quite a crowd of people watching from the edges of the field. Man and women, elders and children, all huddled by the fields to see what we were up to, murmuring among themselves excitedly.
I stepped into the fields which would serve as the arena for our duel and raised an arm, motioning to the crowd for silence, "Enough with the theatrics. Get him out!" I barked at the man. He turned to a helper who was near a little cabin, "Have the Elder out please!" A man emerged almost immediately and his appearance almost made me burst with laughter! Of all my experiences in dealing with charlatans and fraudsters, this must be my first! The man was dressed up in a set of old Taoist frock, holding a hossu in his hand, while cradling a fish drum in another!
The fish drum was exactly identical to the ones we usually see in the illustrations of Zhang Guolao, one of the Eight
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The gnarly old man who was an ancient weasel demon heard me. It scoffed. "Humph. Why should I answer you? Your cat has caused enough damage to countless of my kin. Come at me if that's you want. Here I am!" I chuckled. "I always try to be just and forthright in everything I do. I will not blindly listen to his story only because he's of my kin. Rest easy." But my endeavor to make truce hit a brick wall; the old weasel raised a suspicious eyebrow and sneered. "We've come all the way from Yizhou City, doing nothing but good and helpful to everyone we've encountered. It was the boy's mother who came to me for help. She told me that her boy was sick. As a master of healing myself, I decided to help. But when I came, I saw this fox wrecking the boy's life. Here I am, trying to help. Am I to be blamed?" "You? Good and helpful? Seriously? What about the farmer and his chickens?" I shook my head, exasperated. "Leave the boy and his family out of you
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Zheng Shuang had barely settled in but he immediately dove right into business. "The online ID you asked for my help has been found, Brother!" I nodded. I poured him a glass of beer as I asked, "Relax. Take your time." He took the glass of beer from me and took a sip. "The owner of the online ID is a smart one. He has not done any verification with his true name, and every login IP we've traced came from Internet cafes. Safe to say, it's merely a burner account, so there's not much value I can give you, I'm afraid." Chongxi slapped the table. "Heavens! All the trouble for nothing!" But I chuckled through the smoke of my cigarette and hushed him down. "Relax. Let Zheng Shuang finish." Zheng Shuang gave me a quick nod and smiled. "Well, it's not completely nothing, though. We were not able to find the identity of the ID's user, but we know where is he from! The IP addresses every time he logs into the ID shows that he is from Yizhou City!" "I
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