"Knock, knock, knock."
Outside the No.1 Sky Room, the two carved wooden doors were rapped gently.
From beyond the door came the obsequious voice of the inn waiter, "Two honored guests, the Longjing tea you ordered has just been brewed. This little one is bringing it in for you."
Su Zhen shot Su Yaoyao a look, and she understood his signal instantly.
This Little Dumpling, with her fair, chubby face and two braided buns on her head, wore a bright, naive and spoiled grin on her plump little face.
"Come in!"
Su Yaoyao called out in a milky, childish voice, deliberately jiggling the three-pound solid gold necklace around her neck.
The door swung open, and a waiter with a face full of fleshy jowls stepped in carrying a mahogany tray, his eyes glinting with greedy, sneaky light.
"Sir, young miss, take your time enjoying this tea. The proprietress herself specially arranged this top-grade brew for you two."
The waiter set the two steaming cups of tea on the table with great feigned deference.
The tea was pale emerald in color, with a rich, drifting aroma, showing no sign of anything amiss at all.
Su Zhen huffed coldly, perfectly striking the overbearing pose of a newly rich brute.
He reached out boldly to grab his teacup, not even glancing at it, before tilting his head back and taking a huge gulp.
"What lousy tea! It doesn't even have a drop of oil in it. This is worse than the ginseng soup I normally use to rinse my mouth!"
For all his grumbling, his Adam's apple bobbed clearly, and he swallowed the tea down completely.
Next to him, Su Yaoyao curled her chubby little hands around her own cup, huffing coolly at the rising steam just like a grown-up would.
"Daddy's right, this tea is so bitter, baby doesn't like it, but baby's so thirsty!"
After saying that, she tipped the cup back and glugged down several big mouthfuls in a row.
When she finished, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and let out a full burp.
The waiter stared at the two of them, watching their throats bob to confirm they had swallowed every last drop of the doctored tea. The weight that had been sitting on his chest finally lifted.
He ducked his head, and the corners of his mouth stretched so wide they nearly reached his ears.
"If the two of you find it to your taste, that's all that matters. This little one won't disturb your rest any longer. Just call for me whenever you need anything."
The waiter bowed and scraped his way out, and very carefully pulled the two doors shut tight behind him.
The footsteps outside were deliberately softened, gradually moving farther and farther away until they vanished completely.
Back inside the room, the overbearing father and daughter both dropped their act completely.
Su Zhen spun around sharply, facing the blue and white porcelain spittoon in the corner, and spat "Pfft!"
He spat out several more mouthfuls in a row, his face wrinkled with unmasked disgust.
"Pfft, pfft, pfft, what a load of crummy tea dust! It's bitter and astringent, and they dare call this Early Spring Longjing?"
"This stale, rotten old leaf garbage wouldn't even be good enough for the eunuchs stoking the fires in the Dayuan royal kitchen!"
While Su Zhen ranted, he grabbed the cup of plain water on the table and gargled wildly.
He was a peak-level martial arts master, after all. Any trivial poison would be instantly neutralized the moment he circulated his internal energy.
On top of that, he had his precious daughter, who was a full-level master of toxicology transmigrated from the interstellar era.
Su Yaoyao sat perched on the tall grand master's chair, her short little legs swinging back and forth in midair.
The second her tiny body came into contact with the trace of poison, the detoxification mechanism in her personal spatial pocket had automatically purified it.
She did not take this lousy poison seriously at all, and only felt nothing but disdain for the laughably unprofessional skills of the people of Great Yan.
Then, the booming sound of her inner thoughts exploded in her Tyrant Dad's mind right on cue:
[That's it? That's all they've got? This is supposed to be a knockout drops?]
[The powder is ground so roughly, there were even un-dissolved crumbs in there that almost got stuck in my throat!]
[This level of purity is a straight-up insult to the very name "poison".]
This stuff is even less effective than the expired sleeping pills I had stashed in my spatial pocket that went bad three years ago.
Even a random pill I cobble together from leftover scraps in my interstellar lab is a hundred times better than this garbage.
Is this all a roadside inn in the Great Yan Kingdom is capable of? What a total letdown!
Su Zhen listened to the vivid, unhinged rant and helplessly rubbed his temples.
Yet even as his daughter tore the inn's tricks to absolute shreds, a flicker of pride swelled in Tyrant Dad's chest.
Of course, that's my daughter. How could some common low-grade poison ever work on her?
"Girl, if this drug is that useless, what are we waiting around for?" Su Zhen asked in a low whisper.
"Just waiting," Su Yaoyao said, pushing off with her little short legs to hop down from the chair.
The Little Dumpling deftly pulled a huge bag of original flavor sunflower seeds out of her personal pocket dimension, and boldly dumped the entire pile onto the table.
"Even robbing robbers follows a proper process. We have to let them break in and try to rob us first, so we can justifiably rob them right back."
"Come over and have some seeds, Dad. These are giant sunflower seeds I grew with interstellar nutrient solution, they taste amazing!"
Su Zhen's eyes lit up when he saw the pile of seeds on the table, each bigger than his thumb.
The father and daughter dragged over two small round stools and sat face to face at the table.
Crack, crack.
The crisp, rhythmic sound of cracking sunflower seeds filled the quiet guest room.
If the inn's lackey outside the door heard this, he'd probably be driven completely speechless on the spot.
What kind of fat target drugged with the Ten Fragrance Soft Muscles Powder can sit perfectly upright, happily cracking sunflower seeds like this?
Time ticked by slowly.
The moon hung high outside the window, and the night grew darker.
The entire border town had fallen dead silent, not even a single dog bark could be heard.
Just then, Su Zhen paused mid-crack of his sunflower seed.
A sharp, icy glint flashed across his deep eyes.
With the hearing of a top-tier master, he clearly caught the faint noises coming from the inn's backyard.
Scrape, scrape, scrape.
It was the sound of rough metal grinding hard against stone.
They were sharpening knives.
In the dead of the quiet night, the harsh sound cut through the air, reeking of thick, bloodthirsty intent.
Su Yaoyao also stopped moving, a delighted, "this is going to be good" grin spreading across her eight-year-old face.
She patted the crumbs of sunflower seed husks off her hands and cheered inwardly:
Whoa, it's finally starting? I'm already parched from all this seed cracking, these bandits are so slow at their job.
The sharpening sound went on for about the time it takes to burn one incense stick, then stopped abruptly.
Right after that, a series of deliberately muffled footsteps echoed down the hallway.
A full dozen people were tiptoeing toward the number one sky-class room, moving like a pack of bloodthirsty wolves closing in on their prey.
Soon, the hallway outside the door was packed with dark figures.
Moonlight seeped through the paper-covered wooden window, stretching the shadows long across the wall, making them look like a crowd of eerie, looming ghosts.
Several streaks of cold glint flashed past the window paper, the reflection of the cold moonlight on their butcher knives.
The father and daughter sat in the shadows, their breathing perfectly steady.
Outside the door, the voice of the warm, friendly landlady they'd met earlier rang out.
But this time, there was no hiding the wild, triumphant arrogance in her tone.
"Alright, stop dawdling all of you," the landlady's voice carried through the paper window.
"The time's right. I put a double dose of Ten Fragrance Soft Muscles Powder in their food."
"Even an elephant would be collapsed and foaming at the mouth by now."
The landlady commanded unbridledly from outside the door, her tone incredibly insolent.
"Those two stupid fat sheep were so cocky during the day, daring to put on airs in front of me?"
"They must be sprawled out on the bed like useless mud right now, not even strong enough to lift a single finger!"
"Grab that gilded carriage, and yank the gold chain right off that chubby little girl's neck—every last bit of it is mine!"
The lackeys outside burst into crude, leering snickers.
"Don't worry, Madam Proprietress, we're quick as can be. We'll make sure to strip them down to their very undershorts."
"As for the man? Slit his throat straight, toss his body down the backyard well."
"That little girl's all soft and fair, we can sell her to the brothels in the city. The nobles and wealthy patrons go crazy for fresh young virgins like her, we'll fetch an absolute fortune!"
The proprietress chuckled in satisfaction. "You've got a sharp head on your shoulders. Get to work, boys—time to get rich!"
Inside the room, the second Su Zhen heard the line about selling his little girl to a city brothel, killing intent flared in his eyes in an instant.
A dragon has its reverse scales, and those who dare touch them die.
These scum dared to set their sights on his precious daughter. Tonight, every last one of them would die a horrific, gruesome death.
But the show had to be played out to the end.
Tyrant Dad caught the sound of the men outside readying to break down the door, and reacted faster than lightning.
He quickly tossed the sunflower seed shells in his hand under the table.
Then he leaned back, and with a heavy thud, went straight stiff and flopped down flat onto the hard wooden floor.
Just a moment ago, he had been the bloodthirsty, menacing Tyrant of Dayuan—now he was putting on a perfect act of a terrified, helpless sheep waiting to be fleeced.
His muscles trembled in steady, rhythmic waves, pulling off a masterful performance of shaking like a leaf.
Su Yaoyao quickly followed her dad's lead, kicking her little short legs out to slip off the chair, and flopped limply down right beside him.
The Little Dumpling squeezed her eyes shut, pretending to be completely unconscious.
Just then.
"Squeak."
A thin, sharp blade poked through the gap in the door from outside.
The blade tilted upward, and the heavy wooden latch that had been slotted firmly inside the door was slowly pried open...
