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Page 167
Previously, Dou Tang thought that the harmful nature of Bao Yu's sugar pills was something that Jiu Yin valued above all else, but now... perhaps causing people to fall into a coma is also one of the purposes.
While Taira no Masakado profited from this, so did the exorcists, because only they could cure that kind of coma.
Dou Tang had just arrived at Nurarihyon's doorstep when he suddenly froze.
A target holding a crown has appeared nearby! Go and play with it and fight for the crown! Seize the final victory!
In my perception, the crown target is clearly at Nurarihyon's house.
Catwoman Yi Zi opened the door for Dou Tang and said with a smile, "Mr. Ren, what brings you here tonight?"
Dou Tang greeted him and then said, "I've come to discuss some urgent matters with Nurarihyon. Where is he? I need to see him immediately."
Yi Zi looked embarrassed and said, "Uh, the master is entertaining guests. I wonder if you could wait a moment?"
Dou Tang narrowed his eyes, a cold glint in them, and said, "A monster? Or an evil spirit? In any case, an outsider, right?"
Yi Zi stood awkwardly in place. Of course, she couldn't reveal the family head's private affairs, but she also couldn't resist the pressure from Dou Tang. She could only awkwardly say, "This...this is not something I can know."
Dou Tang, on the contrary, seemed to understand and nodded: "I understand, it's Taira no Masakado's people, right?"
"It would be wonderful if you could understand." Yi Zi bowed slightly.
Dou Tang nodded and continued, "If I kill that guy here, it will be very troublesome, right? The originally neutral Nurarihyon will have no choice but to take sides."
"Please, please don't do that!" Yi Zi said in a panic, quickly stopping him. "Master really just wants to enjoy his old age in peace. Please, have mercy..."
If Taira no Masakado's subordinate monsters are killed by Toudou here, and if the news is kept secret, Taira no Masakado will think that Nurarihyon killed his subordinates. If the secret is not kept secret... Nurarihyon, who condoned Mr. Im's killing of Taira no Masakado's subordinates in the mansion... will have no choice but to completely side with Toudou.
"Don't worry, I'm not interested." Dou Tang waved his hand. "Take me to another room and prepare some food. I need to rest for a while until Nurarihyon finishes talking."
Yi Zi quickly agreed, "Thank you for your understanding."
Dou Tang followed Yi Zi to a spacious annex room. This annex room also had a corridor facing the courtyard. After closing the paper door, you could see the thin twilight shining through the paper door.
Dou Tang sat down on the tatami mat, and Yi Zi respectfully brought out a teapot and an armrest. Dou Tang half-reclined and slowly sipped the tea.
The sounds of birds chirping and fish stirring the water created a rippling effect. Dou Tang looked at a candle on the table and felt as if he had traveled back in time to ancient Japan.
Perhaps beneath Nurarihyon's seemingly modern words and actions, he still harbors a heart that yearns for the old days, which can be seen in the architectural style of Nurarihyon's house and the interior design concept that doesn't even have electric lights.
Despite the Crown target being nearby, Dou Tang showed no intention of making a move, knowing that a long-term strategy was necessary to catch a big fish.
After a while, Yizi opened the paper door and walked in, carrying a dark red lunchbox. Dressed in a kimono, she bowed slightly and took small steps to the tofu noodle shop.
He knelt down and took the still-warm food out of the lunchbox.
As she arranged the small dishes, she said, "This is the most famous kaiseki cuisine in the area, called Kyofan. I wonder if it suits your taste?"
Kaiseki cuisine... Dou Tang suddenly remembered that Huaiyin seemed to have mentioned this kind of high-class cuisine before. He heard that the dishes were served in a strict order. Its predecessor was a dish tasted during tea tasting. In the most popular cultural packaging wave in Japan at the end of the last century, kaiseki cuisine successfully became a symbol of high-end dining.
At that time, Japan had already tasted the benefits of packaging its cultural products for export on the international stage. Bushido, ninjas, cherry blossoms, kimonos, sushi... all kinds of culture were labeled and packaged into a highly valuable form for export to the world. In the end, even Japan itself took pride in these cultural labels.
Kaiseki cuisine is one of them.
Dou Tang wasn't fond of this kind of behavior that used high-end packaging to highlight the user's status, but with food in front of him, he certainly wouldn't let himself go hungry.
So he picked up his chopsticks and started eating casually. Although it wasn't exactly tasteless, his lack of interest still disappointed Yi Zi.
The cat-eared maid's ears twitched. She knelt beside Dou Tang, poured him tea, and asked, "I wonder what Mr. Ren wishes to tell you today?"
Dou Tang chewed on the fish in his mouth, took another sip of tea, and thought for a moment before saying, "The events that happened were somewhat convoluted, but in the end, it should boil down to one issue."
"Oh?" Yizi's cat ears twitched again, and her cat-like eyes seemed to glow slightly in the dim light. "So what is the problem? Can you tell Yizi?"
"I want to know... if there are any exorcists who have joined forces with Taira no Masakado."
Yi Zi understood the implication in Dou Tang's words, took a breath, and asked in surprise, "Are there exorcists cooperating with Taira no Masakado?"
"It's just a possibility." Dou Tang took another sip of tea.
Just then, he suddenly sensed that the crown target not far away had started to move. It seemed that Nurarihyon had finished talking with that guy.
A moment later, Nurarihyon, carrying his clone Sugar Bean, walked towards Dou Tang's direction, while Crown headed towards the back door of the mansion, seemingly about to leave.
"Da da da……"
The crisp sound of wooden clogs echoed from the courtyard corridor. The next moment, Nurarihyon opened the paper door with a genuine smile on his face. After opening the paper door, he put his hands in his wide sleeves, calmly walked up to Tou Tang, slowly sat down, and said, "Mr. Ren, I'm sorry to have kept you waiting."
"It's good that the conversation is over. Who is that guy?" Dou Tang asked casually.
"The monster under Taira no Masakado's command is named Gokujo... Hmph, a piece of trash who can't be helped."
Nurarihyon chuckled and beckoned, saying, "Yi-ko, open all the paper doors. It would be a shame not to enjoy the beautiful moonlight tonight."
Chapter 78 Suspicion of Lu Zizhen
Yi Zi bowed and walked to the courtyard corridor, pulling open all the paper doors to the sides. The cool, bright moonlight shone in, accompanied by the gentle breeze of the cold autumn night.
"Alright, Mr. Ren, let's talk about your matter. Is there any news you have for my sudden visit tonight?"
Dou Tang put a piece of Wagyu beef in his mouth and chewed it, saying, "Today, I met someone who fainted after eating Baoyu Sugar Pills."
Nurarihyon immediately became interested, of course he knew about the Jade Sugar Pill.
Dou Tang looked at him, who had suddenly perked up, and continued, "This person was corrupted by the resentment in the precious sugar pill, causing him to fall into a coma... In other words, his body is in a state of imbalance, with insufficient vital energy and excessive resentment. This is a situation that ordinary people cannot handle."
"At first I thought that the Baoyu Sugar Pill would at most just deplete a person's energy and physical strength, but now it seems that the resentment in it has a terrible far-reaching effect on people. Only someone who knows the medicine can cure this condition, otherwise, he may become a vegetable if it goes on for a long time."
Dou Tang put down his chopsticks and wiped his mouth.
“So, exorcists can profit from this,” Nurarihyon chimed in, stroking his chin and frowning. “If this wasn’t an unintentional act by Taira no Masakado, but rather something else entirely, then it means he wanted those people to be unconscious… so that the exorcists could heal them? How disgusting.”
Even Nurarihyon, a legendary cunning and unreasonable yokai, found such behavior utterly despicable.
Ultimately, if an exorcist were to join forces with Taira no Masakado for such a reason, it would be tantamount to the exorcist siding with the monster to harm their own people—a self-directed tragedy.
Disgusting.
Dou Tang nodded and said, "I agree that demons and humans can coexist. In fact, as long as demons don't do anything harmful to their surroundings, I don't care so much."
"The same applies to humans; if someone does something they shouldn't do, they should be punished."
Upon hearing this, Nurarihyon began to have doubts.
After spending time together exchanging information from time to time, Nurarihyon discovered that Do-Tang was a very strange person. Although he was approachable, he was actually very tough at heart and had an inescapable arrogance. That arrogance seemed to be his innate temperament, which gave him the right to stand on high and judge other beings.
Just like now, he made it very clear that he didn't mind becoming a judge, judging all harmful beings, whether human or demonic. His purpose was pure and transcended his human nature.
The identity of the class.
It's difficult to cultivate such confidence simply because one is powerful. A person who genuinely disregards everything is either a frog in a well who has never seen the world, or someone who has truly seen it all.
But he's too young...
This sense of disconnect confused Nurarihyon. Sometimes he felt that Toudou was like a character from a ukiyo-e book who had come into reality. No matter how much he changed his makeup and clothes, he could not change the unique temperament of that ancient painting. In other words... this person's style was locked.
Gathering his thoughts, Nurarihyon asked, "So, what does Mr. Ren want the old man to do?"
Dou Tang held up one finger: "Find out Ping Jiangmen's collaborators for me. If not, then forget it. If you do, give me all the information."
After some thought, another long-held doubt surfaced in his mind: perhaps using the slippery goblet at this moment would be a good opportunity to test his idea.
He held up another finger: "Help me look up Lu Zizhen's... life story."
Upon hearing this, Nurarihyon lowered his head as if deep in thought, but quickly raised it again: "Lu Zizhen... is that the Taoist priest who is skilled in controlling lightning... why are you investigating her?"
“You don’t need to worry about that. I want the most comprehensive biography of her life, and most importantly, I want to know what she did as an exorcist in Tokyo.”
Nurarihyon nodded and agreed.
"Oh, right." Dou Tang leaned forward slightly, "There's one more thing. What brought Gou Chang here today? Do you know what his abilities are?"
Speaking of Gouchang, Nurarihyon laughed and waved his hand, saying, "Speaking of this, Mr. Ren, you have no idea how... hilarious Gouchang is."
"How to say?"
"Tonight he went to attack the person who stole Taira no Masakado's limbs, but he was outmaneuvered and seriously injured. He was even sealed with a talisman by an exorcist, and he wants me to help him unseal it."
Dou Tang raised an eyebrow: "That sounds interesting. So, did you help him?"
"What's wrong with doing him a favor? I helped him remove the burnt talismans and also witnessed some of his abilities."
When it came to ability, Nurarihyon became serious and said, "Mr. Ren, Taira no Masakado might not be as easy to deal with as we think!"
What do you mean?
"Originally, Kaguya was just a yokai that licked up filth in the bathroom, but after being blessed by Taira no Masakado, he gained the ability to control mold and filth. To be honest, this ability is quite troublesome. Just this one skill is enough for him to be considered a great yokai."
Blessings...etc.
Dou Tang continued, "Did he come alone tonight?"
"Of course, the fewer people who know about his humiliating defeat, the better."
It's pretty much confirmed that the Yokai Goku is the Crown's target, but... Taira no Masakado's blessing granted him powerful abilities, which sounds somewhat similar to Kuroki Keisaki.
Taira no Masakado's blessing... could it have something to do with the crown?
Dou Tang felt as if he had grasped something.
Afterwards, Toudou talked with Nurarihyon for a while. The situation in Tokyo was turbulent. Although the conflict between demons and exorcists had been temporarily suppressed by the fighting in Sumida Ward, the tension between them was getting stronger and stronger, and there was a feeling that a storm was brewing.
Looking at the bright crescent moon in the sky, Nurarihyon sighed: "A storm is brewing, a storm is brewing, Mr. Ren. Now, you are the one stirring up this storm in Tokyo."
Dou Tang took another sip of tea: "I don't feel anything."
"Alright, old man, if you have nothing else to do, let's call it a night," Dou Tang said, putting down his cup.
Nurarihyon looked at Tou-Tang with a smile: "Oh? What did Mr. Ren just call me?"
Dou Tang's face, which was about to break into a smile, instantly fell: "If you think I'm being too respectful to you, I can call you 'Old Man' instead."
"Cough cough cough... No, this is a good way to address him! Hahahaha... At least it shows that Mr. Ren no longer considers this old man an outsider." Nurarihyon chuckled awkwardly.
“If others are good to me, I will be good to them in return,” Dou Tang replied.
After saying that, he stood up and was about to leave when he turned around and looked at Yizi beside him.
"...Could I have another serving of this kaiseki meal? I'd like to take it home and eat it."
Chapter 79 Huaiyin's Ambition
Dou Tang has seen the takeout of kaiseki cuisine.
When they got home late at night, Huaiyin was indeed playing games again. The two of them had a late-night snack together. Even Dou Tang felt a bit full after eating two meals in a row, and lay on the sofa, not wanting to move at all.
Huaiyin obediently made up her bedding on the floor, looking quite excited. After all, Doutang hadn't been home for the past few days, and she was feeling rather lonely sleeping alone. Sometimes she would even stay up all night until she couldn't take it anymore, almost completely reversing her day and night.
"Brother." Huaiyin tugged at Doutang's arm, "Alright, stop whining, go to sleep!"
Dou Tang rubbed his stomach, burped, and said, "You have no idea, I'm so tired of eating bento boxes every day at the hotel."
Huaiyin chuckled and moved closer to him, kneeling on the floor mat. She rested her chin on her hands, blew a breath into his face, and asked, "So, did you miss me?"
"Do I need to think about it when I talk to you on the phone for hours every day..." Dou Tang looked at Huai Yin with a very strange expression.
Huaiyin pouted, dissatisfied.
She said, "Oh, is that so? I thought my brother wouldn't be able to sleep well without me."
Dou Tang raised an eyebrow but did not answer.
Huaiyin leaned closer and whispered into Doutang's ear, her face flushed, "After all, I can't sleep well without my brother..."
Dou Tang suddenly felt a tingling sensation spread rapidly from his ears throughout his body. He shuddered violently and gritted his teeth, saying, "Where did you learn all these words from..."
He rolled over, grabbed Huaiyin's wrist, and pushed her down onto the floor mat. Then he rubbed his forehead against hers forcefully, muttering, "So annoying, so annoying, so annoying..."
Huaiyin, who was pinned to the ground, giggled and kicked Doutang's legs. The two struggled for a while before Doutang finally stopped.
The two crawled into bed, staring at the dark ceiling, and Dou Tang suddenly sighed.
With a blush still on her face, Huaiyin straightened her slightly disheveled pajamas and asked, "Why are you sighing, brother?"
"I feel like I'm becoming more and more like an ordinary person," Dou Tang said in a low voice.
Huaiyin silently stretched her hand out from under her blanket and slipped it into Doutang's blanket, covering his hand with it.
"Isn't this bad?"
“That’s good.” Dou Tang turned his hand over and held hers, their fingers intertwined. “But it’s far from time to time.”
"It's not time for you to tolerate my unrestrained enjoyment of life yet." His voice grew softer and softer, until it became a murmur to himself.
Huaiyin yawned, closed her eyes, and leaned her head towards Doutang, but did not choose to crawl into his bed. She muttered softly, "But that day will come."
"It will happen... Goodnight."