Chapter 263
Chapter 263
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 263
>Chapter Title: Xiucai
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
"You use this one. Senior Brother Changming used it back in the day. This sword is good—it can cut through iron like mud—but I never got to use it."
Li Huowang said to Chun Xiaoman, who was holding his sword.
Chun Xiaoman looked in surprise at the long sword in her hand. Though it was a bit heavy for her, it was still far better than her previous weapon.
"Thanks, Senior Brother Li!"
"Practice with the sword more often. Although I gave you that bell, don't rely on the Wandering Lord for everything—after all, summoning him once costs three months of lifespan. How many three months does a person have in a lifetime?"
Chun Xiaoman nodded. She turned around and bumped right into Yang Kid, who had just come in.
The excited girl unfastened the sword at her waist and shoved it into his arms.
"This sword is yours from now on. Come on! Let's go practice outside!"
In the following days, they enjoyed a rare period of peace. No more rushing on the road in wind and rain. Aside from eating and watching plays, everyone's somewhat haggard faces had improved a lot.
However, after four days, they had to hit the road again. Li Huowang had wanted to stay longer, but the Qingqiu sheep were starting to lose weight from not eating their fill. If they lost any more, it would all be gone.
The bedding and iron pots were loaded back onto the ox carts, and they set off toward the bustling county town the reapers had mentioned.
"What happened to your face?" Li Huowang asked Lv Zhuangyuan, whose right eye was bruised and purple.
"N-nothing. I fell on the way to the outhouse at night." Lv Zhuangyuan gave an embarrassed smile.
"Hey, that's not from falling. He snuck into someone else's backstage to steal their tricks and got caught by their troupe leader, who beat him up."
Gouwa's words made Lv Zhuangyuan lose face, but he still quibbled. "I-I wasn't stealing tricks. I just went to take a look."
Clearly, even he didn't believe his own words.
To change the subject, Lv Zhuangyuan immediately threw his son under the bus.
"Little Daoist, I've heard about what that Xiucai kid did. I've already scolded him harshly. Please be the bigger man and don't hold it against him."
"What happened?" After a moment of confusion, Li Huowang immediately knew what he meant.
"Oh, you mean the apprenticeship thing? It's nothing. I'd already forgotten."
"My abilities with the supernatural truly can't be taught to others. If I could teach them, wouldn't I have taught my other junior brothers long ago? Then I'd have a few more helpers by my side."
"That's good, that's good." Lv Zhuangyuan hunched over, nodding repeatedly beside Li Huowang with a grin.
"Boss Lv, did those reapers say how long it takes from this village to the county town?"
"About four days' journey."
Li Huowang nodded and quickened his pace a bit, thinking to himself: "I hope this county town is big enough to have a map marked with Ox Heart Mountain."
Li Huowang wanted to get there immediately, but the road had to be traveled one step at a time—especially since they were using ox carts. Ox carts had great load capacity, but in terms of speed, they couldn't compare to horse carts, not even donkey carts.
As the sun set in the west, the ox carts and sheep formed a wall, and the others ate their meal inside it.
Today's meal was knife-shaved noodles made from cornmeal. Yang Kid, who had grown a bit taller, deftly kneaded the dough into a ball, knife in left hand, dough in right.
Cold gleams flashed as strips of knife-shaved noodles were sliced into the boiling pot. He hadn't made much progress with sword practice lately, but his knife skills were getting better and better.
When some tender bamboo shoots picked from the bamboo grove were sliced and thrown in, a bowl of bamboo shoot mutton fat knife-shaved noodles was ready.
"Junior Brother Yang, your skills are getting better and better. Soon you could be a chef." After Gouwa spoke, he and Hong'er beside him each ladled a bowl and headed toward the ox cart.
Before they even arrived, they were already feeding each other, eating happily.
With a large bump on his head from his father's pipe, Lv Xiucai came to the pot, ladling noodles indignantly. "What's so special about that? Wait till my dad buys a playhouse."
"Brother Xiucai, what are you saying?"
Lv Xiucai looked up at Yang Kid, who had spoken, and the round-faced woman standing behind him. With a cold face, he ladled his bowl and walked back.
After dinner, there was nothing to do, so everyone went to bed early. The first half of the night watch was Lv Xiucai and his older brother.
Li Huowang slept well during the first half of the night, but just before the third watch, he was jolted awake by a surge of killing intent.
He threw off the blanket, shoved Bai Lingmiao deeper inside, and rolled toward the weapons on the ox cart.
But of the two swords, he only found the copper coin sword—the purple-tasseled sword from the nun was gone!
"Yaowa! What are you doing?! Put down the sword!" Lv Zhuangyuan's shout woke everyone up.
Li Huowang whipped his head toward the bonfire and rushed over. Amid the encirclement of the Lv Family Troupe, he finally saw his weapon.
At that moment, Lv Xiucai was gripping the purple-tasseled sword. He clearly couldn't withstand the killing intent on it—his body kept leaning back involuntarily, and his face was contorted as he gasped for air.
The panicked Lv Zhuangyuan sidled up to Li Huowang and said fearfully, "Little Daoist, what's going on? How did Yaowa turn out like this?"
"Hahaha! I have supernatural powers now! I can kill whoever I want!" Lv Xiucai burst into mad laughter.
Seeing Li Huowang approaching, Lv Xiucai instinctively pointed the sword tip at him.
Li Huowang grabbed the blade with one hand. Then he raised his right foot and kicked the soft belly of the youth.
"Urp~!" Lv Xiucai knelt on the ground, clutching his stomach, and vomited up all the bamboo shoot knife-shaved noodles he'd eaten that night.
Li Huowang sheathed the sword again, glanced at his torn and bleeding palm, shook off the blood casually, and said to Lv Xiucai, "I'll say it again: I have no supernatural powers to teach you. This is the first time and the last. If it happens again, you all leave."
"Why won't you teach me?! Why can Gouwa do it but not me?! I want to be a master too! I don't want to be a nobody!"
"You wouldn't think that if you truly had them. If I had the choice, I'd want to be a normal person like you."
"Stop gawking. Go back to sleep. We still have to travel tomorrow."
After handling this minor incident, Li Huowang took his purple-tasseled sword and turned to leave.
Seeing everything was over, Lv Zhuangyuan and his eldest son, draped in clothes, hurried to Lv Xiucai's side.
"Look at the stupid thing you've done! What are you doing on the ground?! Get up!"
As he reached out to pull Lv Xiucai up from the ground, Lv Xiucai slapped him, stunning Lv Zhuangyuan.
"Old bag of bones, get lost! My business is none of yours!"
The events of that night didn’t end there. When Li Huowang rose the next morning, he saw Lv Xiucai hanging upside down from a tree, being whipped with a rattan cane by Lv Zhuangyuan.
Even with his face covered in raised bloody welts, Lv Xiucai refused to yield and cursed at his father and older brother.
"Aaah! Just you wait! You dare hit me! Kill me if you have the guts, or I'll kill you all!! Aaah!!"
(End of chapter)