Grabbing a handful of melon seeds, he ate them quite merrily while he kicked a nearby Poisonous Scorpion with his toes. “She sang well, so reward her… hm, the old guy playing the qin wasn’t bad, either. Reward them both.”

The girl thanked him for the money, helped up her grandpa that was shakily holding a huqin, and slowly left.

They went all the way to the outside of the door, after which the elder took out the majority of the money he had just been given and passed it to her. Once he opened his mouth, the voice that came out was extremely slow, hoarse, and aged. “Good child, take this and buy some snacks. Rest your throat well.”

She refused it. “That won’t do, mister. You’ve constantly been giving money to me these days, but what are you going to do, yourself?”

As it turned out, these two were not an actual grandparent-grandchild pair. “Cough, just take it, take it,” the old man said, waving his hand. “I am an old one that has a today, but no tomorrow. Why should I demand payment? I can just scrape by with what I need. Your father is still sick, and can only come out to perform with you if he’s cured quickly, yes? Furthermore, if it wasn’t for your good singing, who would watch a decrepit elder like me play?”

Her face went red, as she really was pressed for cash. She stood there at a loss, not sure what she ought to do.

The elder didn’t give her an opportunity to refuse it, turning to slowly leave with his huqin. As soon as he was somewhere that no one else was, the old man that looked to have a foot in the grave suddenly became invigorated. His muddied, slack gaze focused, brightening unusually, and his back straightened out — where was even a bit of that hobbling look at?

He was the Scorpion-tailing Zhou Zishu. When the Scorpion had lowered his voice to speak, bystanders couldn’t have heard, but Zhou Zishu’s strong hearing had caught it clearly. He was a tiny bit surprised; he hadn’t expected that Zhao Jing’s group would fight amongst themselves before even getting on the Mountain, which made the situation even more complicated. It signified that the minds of those inside that formation weren’t uniform, and that there might be many that each harbored their own motives, getting ready to do something rotten.

For the sake of compelling them to be on the same page, the Scorpion was sending his Scorpions to sneak-attack while pretending to be Ghost Valley’s people. Zhou Zishu lightly furrowed his brow. He thought about Wen Kexing’s circumstances in the Ridge right now, as recently, there had seemed to be an atypical calm in the Valley. That Wen trash hadn’t… had anything happen to him, right?