Wen Kexing nodded with a dull face, like Zhang Yusen’s name to him was no more than a fleck of dust. He spoke again a while after, “I heard that the Zhang family was so poor that they had nothing but money, how did a son of Zhang Yusen end up like this? Did he run off without bringing enough silvers or was he lost?”

Gu Xiang lowered her voice, “From what he told us, someone murdered all the Zhangs. The news must have shaken up the whole city by now, but I guess you didn’t hear about it while fooling around somewhere.”

Wen Kexing thought for a bit, nodding, “No wonder there were so many corpses.”

He turned to assess Zhou Zishu. “Then what’s he doing here?” He asked Gu Xiang.

The girl scoffed. “That beggar called himself Zhou Xu. He sold himself to a dead man for two silvers, so now he had to escort the boy to Tai Hu.”

Wen Kexing’s eyes widened, internally evaluating something with a completely serious face. He told Gu Xiang afterwards, “Now I’m even more certain that he’s a beauty, only beautiful people can be that dumb.”

Gu Xiang resorted to ignorance, too used to her master’s antics; Zhou Zishu followed suit since he had yet to fully gauge this man’s ability.

He turned to look at a teary Zhang Chengling, feeling somewhat annoyed and wishing that the younger would stop already. He poked him with the tip of his toes, coughing, “Young Master Zhang, get yourself together if you’ve done resting. We shouldn’t stay at this place for long, there must be more people after you to finish off their job. This Uncle Zhou is entrusted, so the least he will do is taking you to Tai Hu safe and sound.”

Zhang Chengling’s eyes shifted to look around. The moment they stopped, he covered his face with his hands and curled up into a ball, wailing. Zhou Zishu felt a headache coming with the boy’s cries; he told himself that a scolding was necessary but didn’t have the heart to do it. Comforting children was not his forte either, so silence was the best option. Then suddenly he sat up, walking toward the door.

He was just intending to check out the state of the Buddha statue and maybe restore it to the original place, reasoning that his previous action seemed quite offensive and wouldn’t help if he wanted to gather more merits. Zhou Zishu didn’t expect Zhang Chengling — who at that moment assumed the elder wanted to abandon him — to scramble forward, rushing to grip at his ankles, shouting, “Uncle Zhou, Uncle Zhou, please don’t… please don’t leave me, I… I…”