Chapter 402
Chapter 402
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 402
>Chapter Title: Old Acquaintance
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“Of course it’s scammed from somewhere else! Isn’t the Sitting Oblivion Dao all about deceiving heaven and earth and the Si Mings?”
Zhuge Yuan smiled faintly, snapping his fan open with a smack and gently fanning himself.
“Who told you that? You’ve been tricked. That saying does circulate in the jianghu.”
“They just don’t want others to know, so they spread rumors claiming that the Sitting Oblivion Dao’s divine abilities are all obtained through scams.”
“But Brother Li, think about it—could a mere mortal really deceive another Si Ming into handing over their divine abilities?”
“The Sitting Oblivion Dao’s Si Ming? Wouldn’t that mean it commands all falsehoods?” The thought bubbled up in Li Huowang’s mind.
After pondering it carefully, Li Huowang spoke up again.
“Brother Zhuge, what’s the name of the Sitting Oblivion Dao’s Si Ming?”
“Doumu Taiyin.”
“Doumu Taiyin? This Si Ming controls all the falsehoods in this world?” Li Huowang couldn’t help but mull it over even more.
“Was it in Bai Yujing back then? Have I seen it?” Li Huowang clutched his head, straining to recall his memories from a year ago.
As if sensing something, Zhuge Yuan glanced up at the sun before snapping his fingers right in front of Li Huowang’s face. Li Huowang’s mind cleared in an instant, and suddenly he couldn’t remember what he’d just been thinking about.
“Brother Li, we mortals would do best to steer clear of matters from the outer heavens, lest we throw our own karma and fate into chaos.”
Li Huowang clutched his head and nodded, his voice weary as he asked,
“None of them work?”
“Best not to dwell on them at all.”
Li Huowang had plenty more questions about the Si Mings on his mind, but upon hearing this, he swallowed them back down and changed the subject.
“Brother Zhuge, could you teach me that method of yours? If I learn it, the Sitting Oblivion Dao would pose no threat at all.”
Zhuge Yuan fanned himself with his folded fan once more, but just as he was about to speak, a low mocking voice came from nearby.
“Hey, quick, look at that sour scholar fanning himself in this freezing cold weather. What a lunatic.”
Zhuge Yuan’s expression stiffened as he snapped his fan shut.
“This heart-binding technique is fated—you can’t learn it. But you can learn your own. So long as the Heart Elemental masters true cultivation techniques, the Sitting Oblivion Dao will flee faster than a rabbit at the sight of you.”
A wry smile crossed Li Huowang’s face. From the sound of it, he’d become the Sitting Oblivion Dao’s natural predator once he succeeded.
“I hope so. I just want to shake off that hallucination. I don’t care about anything else.”
“Heh heh heh, noodles are here! Three steaming bowls of fish soup noodles. Give my old man’s handiwork a try, you two.”
Li Huowang picked up his chopsticks and took a few strands from each bowl, tossing them onto the ground nearby. Mantou’s tongue darted in and out furiously as he licked up the noodles.
“Wait a moment, Brother Zhuge. Let Mantou eat first.”
Zhuge Yuan, who had just produced a silver needle, nodded in understanding.
“Good thinking—that’s a solid method. I was wondering why you’d keep a dog around for no reason. But what if someone uses a slow-acting sweat medicine? By the time you’ve eaten yours, the dog might already be dead.”
“No matter. If I see Mantou get poisoned, I can slice open his belly and yank out every bit of food in his stomach.”
Zhuge Yuan stared at Li Huowang in astonishment as he said this, looking like he wanted to say something but ultimately holding his tongue.
Once Mantou had scarfed it all down and was squatting nearby, wagging his tail nonstop at Li Huowang, he picked up his chopsticks again.
“No poison, Brother Zhuge. Let’s eat.”
The old woman hadn’t been exaggerating—this fish soup noodle was incredibly fresh and flavorful, dotted with rice-yellow fish roe amid the milky-white broth. Gulping it down in the depths of this twelfth lunar month was pure bliss.
Just as Li Huowang hesitated over whether to order another bowl, he jerked his head up, frowning tightly as he stared off toward the woods on the left.
Zhuge Yuan leisurely rolled up a mouthful of noodles and chewed it slowly before speaking again.
“What’s wrong, Brother Li?”
“There’s commotion to the south. Sounds like a fight.”
“Where’d you pick up that Heavenly Ear Penetration, Brother Li? You can hear it from this far away?” Zhuge Yuan shook out his long sleeves and stood, hurrying after Li Huowang toward the woods nearby.
Leaves rustled past them in a rush as they drew nearer and nearer to the source. They soon came to a halt, the thick stench of blood filling their nostrils as they stared at the chaotic scene in the distance.
The two warring factions had reached a critical juncture. Everyone was fighting with bloodshot eyes, unleashing killing blows through methods Li Huowang had never even heard of. People were dying every moment.
His eyes swept over the token hanging from a corpse’s waist as Li Huowang spoke to Zhuge Yuan.
“One side’s from the Surveillance Bureau. I don’t recognize the other. Do you, Brother Zhuge?”
Zhuge Yuan watched as one fighter produced a white maggot and smeared it across a bone-deep wound, immediately regaining full mobility to counterattack. He shook his head.
“I don’t know them either, but I suspect one side is Sitting Oblivion Dao.”
“Sitting Oblivion Dao? Who?!” Li Huowang reacted instinctively to the name now.
“That Miaojiang woman with the purple lips.”
At those words, Li Huowang fixed his gaze on the woman’s silver headdress glinting as it flipped about, his eyes growing steadily colder.
After a moment’s thought, though, Li Huowang didn’t step forward.
“Brother Zhuge, she’s clearly just a small-timer. If we blunder in, we’ll tip them off.”
Li Huowang’s goal hadn’t changed: capture Beifeng and wring the method to escape his hallucination from his mouth. He wanted no part in anything else.
“Let’s head back, Brother Zhuge, and avoid any side trouble.”
Zhuge Yuan nodded and turned to leave alongside Li Huowang.
But at that moment, someone spotted them. Amid the clash, a masked man shouted toward them.
“Lord Zhuge!”
The instant that familiar voice rang out, Zhuge Yuan snapped his fan open, kicked off a tree trunk with one foot, and charged without hesitation toward the black-clad man.
With Zhuge Yuan now clashing against them, Li Huowang couldn’t just stand by. He drew the Purple Tassel Sword and rushed in after him.
Li Huowang and Zhuge Yuan’s arrival turned what should have been a deadlock into a rout. The Surveillance Bureau’s foes fell back in short order.
Li Huowang wiped the blood from his face and approached Zhuge Yuan. The moment he arrived, he saw the survivors drop to one knee before him.
“Greetings, Lord Zhuge!”
The sight left Li Huowang stunned.
“Does Zhuge Yuan command such respect in the Surveillance Bureau? Then why did Ji Xiang treat him like the plague back then?”
“Hey, Brother Li, over here.” Zhuge Yuan helped a masked man to his feet from the ground, smiling as he introduced him to Li Huowang.
“This is a dear old friend of mine. Don’t let his Surveillance Bureau post fool you—he’s also a national Go master of Great Qi!”
“Great Qi national Go master?”
“Oh, ‘national master’ means he’s among the very best Go players in Great Qi territory. Go—you know, the game with those black-and-white pieces we played earlier.”
“Great Qi national Go master?!”
(End of this chapter)