Chapter 556: Chapter 290: The Great River Mountain in the Capital Region, Shuten-doji_1

[You fly off with your sword, heading towards the ’Keiji Oeyama,’ located west of the Capital...]

[...]

[You leap across majestic mountains and finally reach your destination.]

[Despite not being very far from the Capital, there is an especially towering mountain standing out amidst the ranges.]

[’Keiji Oeyama’ pierces the sky, the ever-changing sea of clouds barely reach halfway up the mountain.]

[A small village is discernible at the foot of the mountain.]

[You descend to the ground and take out your ’Yokai-Seeking Compass’ at the base of the mountain.]

[The compass needle keeps spinning and doesn’t stop.]

[Perhaps ’Keiji Oeyama’ is so vast that the search range of the Yokai-Seeking Compass can only cover a small portion of the mountain.]

[Or maybe there aren’t any powerful Yokai in the vicinity of ’Keiji Oeyama,’ so the compass cannot direct towards it.]

[Do you want to continue your search by climbing the mountain or go to the nearby village to gather information first?]

After thinking a bit, Lin Xun chooses the latter.

[You approach the small village at the foot of the mountain...]

[The village is small, housing about a hundred households, giving you a complete view at one glance.]

[In the center of the village, a few farmhouses sell fruits and surprisingly, there are also seven or eight sake houses of various sizes.]

[After making some inquiries, you understand the reasoning...]

[As they say, ’grains make the meat of the sake, water makes the blood,’ there is an excellent spring on ’Keiji Oeyama.’ The spring water is pure, sweet, smooth, and refreshing.]

[The water source is perfect for brewing sake. The liquid is clear and bright, and it tastes sweet and delicious, leaving a lingering aftertaste.]

[Therefore, despite the small size of the village, there are seven or eight sake houses, frequented by nobles from the Capital who purchase their sake from here.]

[You casually find a sake house and inquire about the legend of the ’Shuten-doji’.]

[The owner of the sake house is a middle-aged woman who retains her charm. She lights up when you ask about it and starts regaling you with tales, completely ignoring the other patrons who came to buy sake.]

[Ten years ago, there was only one sake house, ’Tsukada Sake House,’ in the village. The owner was from a family of generations of sake brewers, who mastered the craft of brewing, and its ’Tsukada Daiginjo Sake’ was famous throughout the Sakura fall.]

[At that time, visitors would continuously flow into the village. They included not only guests from the Capital but also those from afar in Fugang, all coming for the sake.]

[Seeing the flourishing business of the sake house, other villagers attempted to open their own sake breweries. But, with the high-quality ’Tsukada Daiginjo Sake’ as a competitor, why would visitors seek out the poorer quality sake from other houses?]

[Hence, the other sake houses closed not long after opening, and only ’Tsukada Sake House’ remained.]

[The owner made a lot of money and even bought several estate properties in the Capital... Without any surprises, ’Tsukada Daiginjo Sake’ would have continued to thrive.]

[One day, a child alone came to the ’Tsukada Sake House’ to buy sake.]

[The village was small, with only a hundred-plus households, so when the owner didn’t recognize the child, he concluded him to be an outsider.]

[Upon entering, the child immediately threw a small nugget of gold, claiming to buy the best ’Tsukada Daiginjo Sake.’]

[In the eyes of the sake house owner, the child was handsome but had disheveled hair and was dressed in ragged clothes. He didn’t at all resemble those wealthy patrons’ children who usually came to buy sake. He seemed more like the offspring of a wanderer, and the gold nugget was probably stolen from some rich household.]

[Not wishing to bring trouble upon himself and also not willing to sell sake to such a young boy, the owner didn’t take the nugget. Instead, he made a joke saying, seeing the boy’s kind face, he felt a strong fate connection, so he decided to give a bottle of fine sake for free.]

[The boy gratefully accepted the ’fine sake’ and left joyfully...]

[However, the boy did not know that the bottle did not contain fine sake, but the sweet and delicious spring water.]

[The next day, the ’Tsukada Sake House’ unusually didn’t open for business, and there were also no signs indicating ’closed for the day.’]

[This went on for the second day, the third day, the fourth day until someone finally noticed the anomaly and broke into the sake house.]

[The sake house was empty except for a small nugget of gold left on the counter, and a lack of a jar of sake that should have been on the shelf.]

[After a long search, people finally discovered the owner of the sake house in the back yard, in the water vat filled with spring water.]

[All thirteen members of the sake house were drowned in the crystal clear water of the spring...]

[The middle-aged woman stops at this point, patting her chest, then tells you that people all say that the handsome boy was not human, but was the infamous ’Shuten-doji’ among the ’Evil Demonic Remnants.’]

[The disaster was brought about by the owner’s deception of water for sake, which infuriated the ’Shuten-doji’...]

[When the news reached the Capital, the Shogun dispatched elite soldiers to search around ’Keiji Oeyama,’ but the ’Shuten-doji’ was not found.]

[After that, the villagers who opened sake houses never dared to substitute water for sake again... However, the villagers have never seen that inhumanly handsome boy who bought sake, ever since.]

[You spend a thousand spirits to buy a bottle of fine sake from the woman.]

[You have obtained ’Daiginjo Sake’ (trash)!]

[’Daiginjo Sake’ (trash): A bottle of relatively newly brewed, low-quality sake. Although the water and raw materials used for brewing are excellent, the brewing skills are extremely poor, making the sake unsuitable for drinking.]

[You continue asking around in the other sake houses, but the information you gleaned was similar to what you already knew. After the massacre at ’Tsukada Sake House,’ the villagers never saw that handsome boy again.]