Chapter 31
Chapter 31
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 31
>Chapter Title: Wandering Lord
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“Performing for ghosts?” Li Huowang’s heart sank instantly. Just from the name, he knew it wasn’t anything good.
“Actually, it’s nothing much. Just going to the ancestral hall to sing opera in front of those ancestor plaques.”
“If it’s nothing much, then why doesn’t Master Lv do this job himself?” Li Huowang immediately countered. He could tell at a glance that it wasn’t that simple.
“Hey now, this is my first time too, so I’m feeling a bit uneasy. That’s why I want to ask you, a true expert, to stand by our side and keep things steady. Then we can do this job with peace of mind.”
“Master Lv, I really can’t help with this.” Normally he’d avoid it like the plague—why would he go rushing toward trouble now?
Sure, it was possible nothing would happen, but he didn’t want to take that gamble.
He and Lv Zhuangyuan were just traveling companions at most. It wasn’t worth risking his life for the man.
If Lv Zhuangyuan really refused to continue as a guide over this, worst case they’d part ways. He could just ask around in the village. With so many people there, surely someone knew the way?
“Hey hey hey~ Daoist priest, don’t be hasty. I haven’t finished yet. For this opera gig, how about we split the liquor money fifty-fifty?”
As soon as money came up, Lv Zhuangyuan gesticulated wildly. “I didn’t want to take it at first either, but this ain’t small change! Master Hu is generous! He gave a full ten taels of silver!”
“One tael of silver is a thousand copper coins. Ten taels is ten thousand copper coins! My dear daoist priest! Ten taels of silver! Even if you want to cultivate immortality, you still gotta eat before you become an immortal.”
Li Huowang stopped in his tracks. He glanced at the two bags of dried sweet potatoes beside him. He did need silver right now.
And it wasn’t just for food. Once they reached Jianye Town, he could already foresee it’d cost a lot too. In any world made by people, no money meant you couldn’t take a single step.
“Daoist priest, please, I’m begging you! If that’s not enough, you take sixty percent, I take forty. It’s not easy to earn this much these days!” Lv Zhuangyuan wailed, circling Li Huowang and continuing to plead.
Without this expert, he truly didn’t dare take the job. No matter how much money, you had to be alive to spend it.
Li Huowang suddenly turned to Lv Zhuangyuan. “Is there a blacksmith in the village?”
“Huh?”
Under Lv Zhuangyuan’s guidance, Li Huowang was led to the only blacksmith shop in Five Mile Post.
“What do you want forged?” The big-bearded man, bare-chested, eyed the daoist robes on Li Huowang and asked gruffly.
“No iron tools. I need something repaired—no hammering, no melting. Can you restore this?” Li Huowang pulled out the copper bell and asked.
If it could be fixed, and he could summon the Wandering Lord again, then maybe he really could take the money. Otherwise, it’d burn his hands.
“No hammering, no melting? What kinda nonsense is that?” The blacksmith took the copper bell, shook it a few times, then grabbed two iron tongs. “Come on over and give me a hand.”
The tongs were huge, easily reaching into the bell’s two collapsed sides. The two men gritted their teeth and pulled hard, but the bell didn’t budge an inch. The result was as expected—and entirely reasonable.
“Huh~! That’s weird! What copper is this made of? So damn hard?” The curious blacksmith curled his knuckles to tap it, but Li Huowang stopped him.
Looking at the two tongs clamped onto the bell’s wall, Li Huowang thought for a moment, then tipped a pill from the palm-sized gourd at his waist into his mouth.
These were the pills Danyangzi had rewarded him with long ago. He’d used one to save Yang Na in the mental hospital, one to kill Danyangzi, and now this one—only two left.
“Buzz.” A burst of heat exploded from his dantian, surging through Li Huowang’s entire body.
He took a deep breath, grabbed one tong each, and yanked hard.
“Even two people couldn’t budge it, and you think you alone can—” The blacksmith’s words cut off halfway as a creaking sound rang out. The shriveled bell steadily propped itself open.
By the time the blacksmith’s mouth gaped widest, the bell had returned to its original shape.
“Hey, see? What’d I tell ya? Our daoist priest here has profound cultivation.” Lv Zhuangyuan boasted smugly to the blacksmith, as if in his mind Li Huowang could do anything without surprise.
Li Huowang left the village and returned alone to the woods outside.
He looked at the copper bell in his hand and shook it with a mix of anticipation.
As the bell rang, that heaven-darkening, brain-melting dizziness hit immediately. This time, Li Huowang didn’t stop. Instead, he gritted his teeth and shook harder.
He felt everything around him spinning. The lines of the surrounding branches twisted, detaching from their positions, gradually coalescing into form.
“It’s working!” Li Huowang’s heart raced.
Accompanied by the piercing bell tolls, the long-unseen Wandering Lord reappeared before him. Only this time, just one.
The Wandering Lord looked like a mass of twisted, spliced lines vibrating at high frequency, its body completely amorphous.
Li Huowang couldn’t stare too long. He felt if he did, he’d stare it into dissipation.
Just as he opened his mouth to speak, something occurred to him. He bent down, scooped some wet mud from the ground, and stuffed it in.
The taste of the rotten mud was awful, but he forced himself to speak anyway.
“Nang tho zhee rue maul evill?” He meant to ask if the Wandering Lord could understand him, but the words emerged as a bizarre, twisted melody under the distorted environment.
No matter what Li Huowang said, the Wandering Lord actually responded. “Dee jizz ee.”
Joy surged in Li Huowang’s heart. With the Wandering Lord’s help, his strength would soar!
“Rue neng way yin bee chee kee yaw?” Li Huowang leaned forward, asking the crucial question.
The Wandering Lord hovered motionless, neither hasty nor impatient, responding slowly but firmly: “Three months. Lifespan per summon. Yes.”
Li Huowang’s brows furrowed deeper. “No deal. Too much.”
“Three months. Lifespan per summon. Yes.”
Seeing the Wandering Lord repeat the same phrase, Li Huowang sighed softly in his heart. As expected, no free lunch from heaven. Controlling the Wandering Lord came at a cost.
And that cost wasn’t anything else—it was human lifespan. One summon cost three months of life.
When Li Huowang asked again if Danyangzi had made the same exchange back then, the Wandering Lord fell silent.
The bell’s tolls gradually faded. Li Huowang clutched his pounding, splitting head and recovered on the spot for a good while before returning to Five Mile Post.
“Daoist priest, you...” Lv Zhuangyuan trailed off, staring at the mud caked around his mouth.
“I’ll take the job you mentioned.” Li Huowang gripped the copper bell tight and said.
“Hey! That’s great! I’ll go tell Master Hu right now!” Lv Zhuangyuan beamed with delight.