Chapter 258
Chapter 258
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 258
>Chapter Title: Lama
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The sky had turned completely dark. They took out the green fluorescent stones to light up their surroundings. Li Huowang didn’t call for a stop. Everyone’s faces were tense as they kept pressing on.
Gradually, a thin crescent moon with just a sliver of edge rose into the sky, its silver light spilling over the land.
Standing on top of the carriage, Li Huowang kept glancing back from time to time. He noticed that the black mass from before had vanished at some point.
“Gone? What the hell was that thing? What drew it here? Was it me? Or maybe that newborn kid?”
His expression flickered uncertainly as wild guesses raced through his mind.
Just then, Li Huowang suddenly felt the ox cart beneath him come to a halt. “Don’t stop! Keep going!”
But unusually, his order didn’t get the cart moving again.
When Li Huowang turned to look ahead, he finally understood why they’d stopped. That black mass from earlier was now blocking their path!
At this moment, Li Huowang finally got a clear look at what that black circle really was.
The blackness was actually a huge flock of black sheep. These sheep with their black wool stood silently in place, motionless like puppets.
And in the very center of the flock stood an old lama draped in black hide, equally silent.
A wax-yellow little drum hung at the lama’s waist, and around his neck and wrists were necklaces made of small bone discs.
Beneath the cockscomb-shaped lama hat were a pair of pitch-black pupils without a trace of white. He stared at Li Huowang with a gloomy expression.
The lama’s face looked strange—patches of yellow and black. Only when Li Huowang looked closely did he realize those were age spots.
Just from his appearance alone, Li Huowang knew this guy meant trouble.
Suddenly, the lama lightly raised his bony right hand, and an old vulture with barely any feathers left and sagging skin plummeted from the sky, landing on his arm.
For some reason, the moment Li Huowang saw that vulture, he flashed back to the woman’s mountain, when he and Bai Lingmiao had watched the sky burial and those man-eating vultures.
“Senior Brother Li, this lama...” Chun Xiaoman pulled out her bell, her expression hesitant.
“Don’t panic. You all go on ahead. Pretend he doesn’t exist.”
At Li Huowang’s command, everyone bowed their heads and slowly passed by the black sheep alongside the carriage.
Li Huowang stood on the carriage roof, focusing intently on the enemy before him.
As they drew closer, Li Huowang saw even more clearly—these black sheep were all old ones with their teeth fallen out.
Both the lama and the sheep gave Li Huowang an indescribably twisted, unnatural feeling.
In a daze, the scene before Li Huowang’s eyes suddenly shifted. There were no black sheep at all—just a group of senile old folks with white hair, draped in black sheepskins!
That sensation vanished in an instant, and soon everything was back to normal. Black sheep were still black sheep; nothing had changed.
Li Huowang couldn’t tell if that feeling had been real or just his hallucination.
“Baa~” The black sheep around the lama bleated in unison, and right after, the white sheep on Li Huowang’s side bleated back in response.
The two flocks kept bleating back and forth, the sounds overlapping chaotically, grating on the nerves.
“Enough!” With a furious roar from Li Huowang, his tongue pressing against the roof of his mouth, the bleating stopped.
What will be, will be. Li Huowang looked at the old lama amid the black sheep and decided to speak first.
“Senior, I am a cultivator of the Ao Jing Sect, Er Jiu. I happened to pass through your esteemed territory. If I’ve given any offense, I hope you’ll forgive me!”
Whether it worked or not, Li Huowang decided to test the fake identity first—betting that the other hadn’t yet realized he was heart elemental.
It was also a veiled threat: he belonged to the Ao Jing Sect, not some unaffiliated wild cultivator. Think twice before making a move.
Hearing Li Huowang’s confident words, the old lama stood there without any reaction.
Li Huowang’s expression shifted, and he waved to the others again. “Let’s go!”
He didn’t know what the lama was thinking. In a situation where the enemy’s strength was unknown, Li Huowang really didn’t want to clash with him.
The wheels started rolling again, slowly carrying the others away from the black lama. For a while after, no one spoke, all of them inching forward in tense fear.
Li Huowang felt like needles were pricking his back. His whole body was tense, his mind racing through possibilities.
Suddenly, that inexplicable aura appeared again. This time, it wasn’t far off—it was right behind Li Huowang!
Li Huowang planted his feet and whipped around, stunned to find the lama just two meters away.
Now he finally saw the age spots on the old man’s face clearly. He’d seen age spots before, but never ones that covered the entire face.
The lama’s mouth looked toothless, or nearly so, his lips shriveled inward like some decrepit elder’s. He looked like the very picture of extreme old age.
With such a terrifying face right in front of him, Li Huowang nearly swung his sword. But he held himself back with effort.
His gaze slowly drifted downward, and that was when Li Huowang realized the other’s legs, always hidden among the black sheep, were fleshless. His entire lower body was prosthetic, made of bone.
The unnatural sensation from the lama kept assaulting Li Huowang, trying to soothe him, to make him relax and close his eyes.
But Li Huowang couldn’t do it. His hand gripped the sword hilt, his expression grim to the point of ferocity. “Senior, I don’t think I’ve offended you. If you keep this up, don’t blame me for getting rude!”
As he drew the sword, a thick wave of killing intent instantly overwhelmed everything.
The old lama’s pitch-black pupils narrowed slightly, fixing on the cloth-wrapped hilt in Li Huowang’s hand.
The tension was suffocating, pressing down on everyone. Lv Xiucai had already pissed himself in fear.
Just as Li Huowang tensed to draw his sword fully and go down fighting, the stalemate shifted.
“Thump!” As the old lama tapped the wax-yellow drum at his waist, a drumbeat echoed from behind Li Huowang—the sound of the drum Bai Lingmiao used for her ritual dances.
“Thump thump thump~ Thump thump thump~”
The two drum rhythms rose together, like a bizarre duet, as if different entities were communicating through the beats.
After about the time it takes to burn one incense stick, the drumming gradually faded. The heavy, tangible tension in the air dissipated with it.
As the vulture on the lama’s arm took to the sky, the distant black sheep surged forward like a dark cloud, covering his horrifying lower body and slowly carrying him backward.
Li Huowang watched the lama retreat but didn’t dare relax. He led the others onward.
They traveled through the entire night. When the sun rose and Li Huowang finally called a halt, everyone collapsed to the ground in exhaustion, gasping for breath—half from fatigue, half from fear.
That lama from last night had been too creepy. If you called him a living person, his looks were scarier than any ghost.
Li Huowang scanned the surroundings—no sign of the lama anywhere. He turned to Bai Lingmiao, whose lips had gone pale. “Did that lama say something to you through the drum?”
Bai Lingmiao nodded. “He said... he’s from the Bureau of Celestial Surveillance. This time it’s fine, but no next time.”
(End of chapter)