Chapter 59
Chapter 59
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 59
>Chapter Title: Horse Disciples
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Before Li Huowang could answer, the slurping of noodles rang out once more.
“Even if you want to become one, you can’t. Horse disciples are chosen by the immortals themselves. It takes real opportunity to get into this line of work.” Li Zhi began to explain.
“Oh? If it’s not too much trouble, please elaborate.” Chatting with this guy for so long wasn’t for nothing—Li Huowang wanted to learn more about these things.
The more he understood about this strange world, the safer he’d be.
Li Zhi waved his chopsticks in the air a few times. “Want to become a horse disciple? You need to get seriously ill—best if you’re on the verge of death. If you’re lucky, the immortals will visit you in a dream. They heal you, and in return, you become their horse disciple.”
“What do the immortals look like?”
Li Zhi pondered for a moment, as if recalling something. “Hmm, how to put it... definitely not human, that’s for sure.”
As he finished speaking, he used his chopsticks to fish around in his bowl and realized the noodles were gone. Li Zhi eagerly headed back toward the pot.
“Not human...” Li Huowang murmured thoughtfully. From the sound of it, these immortals could communicate and make deals, so they must be the same kind of things as the Wandering Lord.
People in this place seemed to be actively or passively trading and interacting with those entities.
Li Huowang immediately recalled the writhing mass of flesh that passed for a “great Buddha” back at Zhengde Temple.
From men and women, to beasts, and finally to that “great Buddha”—the monks’ cultivation method followed a gradual progression.
Connecting it to the powers of those seven Buddhas from before—which could grant the Wandering Lord flesh and even sprout their own thousand arms of meat—it wasn’t hard to conclude that the monks of Zhengde Temple had gained their flesh-related abilities through that cultivation method.
“Trading and interacting with different entities grants different supernatural powers. Could that be the origin of their various sects?”
Li Huowang was starting to get a preliminary grasp on this world.
Just then, Li Zhi returned with his bowl of noodles. The noodles were piled high, without a drop of extra water.
As soon as he squatted down, he started eating and complaining nonstop. “Let me tell you, being a horse disciple is no picnic. If you can avoid it, don’t do it. It’s a mess of trouble, plus the three disasters and three calamities, and you don’t even make much money.”
After listening to his endless griping for a while, Li Huowang couldn’t help but interject. “So what can you horse disciples do by summoning the immortals?”
Li Zhi glanced at Li Huowang before answering. “Anything. Exorcisms and healing, luck-turning and wealth-summoning, weddings and funerals, fortune-telling and divining, graveyard feng shui.”
“That impressive? You can do anything?”
“Yeah, every immortal family has different abilities. If your own immortal can’t handle your problem, you can always call on someone else’s.”
Hearing this, Li Huowang’s expression grew serious. “What if someone’s got something clinging to them? Can they handle that too?”
“Clinging to them? That’s just getting hit by evil spirits, of course they can.”
“You’re sure? It’s not just any ordinary thing.” Li Huowang thought of Danyangzi as he eyed the man before him.
No matter how he looked at it, this guy didn’t seem all that reliable.
“Hey, you’ll find out if it works when you try it. Worst case, it’s just fifty coppers. What, you think I’ll take the money and run?”
“Fifty coppers—that’s your fee?” The cost was far lower than Li Huowang had expected.
“Mine’s mine, the immortals’ is the immortals’. They’re separate.” Li Zhi chewed and swallowed the noodles in his mouth before letting out a satisfied belch.
“My tea money’s fifty coppers—no haggling, it’s a three-hundred-year-old rule, hasn’t changed. Got to be new coins, too—no clipped or damaged ones to short me. As for the immortals’ fee...”
“I negotiate the immortals’ fee myself?”
“Nah, you can’t negotiate. You let the immortals pick whatever they want. Most of the time, they don’t care about money or other worldly possessions.”
“Pick whatever they want? And they don’t want money?” A faint unease stirred in Li Huowang’s heart. If he really made a deal with them, what would these immortals take?
“So in the past, what have the immortals taken from people?”
“Hey, who am I supposed to ask?” Li Zhi cradled his bowl with both hands and began licking it clean, meticulously.
“Anyone who’s had something taken by the immortals can’t go blabbing about it. That’s taboo—talk about it, and you’ll have bad luck.”
“Aren’t you a god-jumper? You don’t know?”
“To put it bluntly, I’m just the immortals’ hired hand. I summon them, that’s it—I don’t meddle in the rest. For this pittance, why would I bother with that crap?”
Compared to the monks of Zhengde Temple or Danyangzi, Li Zhi had a carefree detachment about him, as if none of it concerned him.
“What, you want to give it a shot? Who’s possessed?” Sated, Li Zhi picked at his teeth with his chopsticks while glancing toward the others in the distance.
The real deal was right in front of him, yet Li Huowang held back and continued patiently. “Brother Li Zhi, you’ve traveled far and wide handling all sorts of cases. That ‘evil’ you talk about in possessions—do you know where it comes from?”
Li Zhi shook his head with a hint of impatience. “I don’t bother remembering that stuff. Fifty coppers a job barely covers meals—why bust my ass? If they let me charge five hundred coppers a pop, I’d remember every detail crystal clear.”
“And they won’t let me raise prices or switch to something else. This gig is such a raw deal. Oh yeah, True One, you Daoists must make a killing with your rituals, right? How much does one ceremony net you?”
Li Huowang glanced once more at the motionless woman under the red veil behind him and stood up. “We’ve rested enough. Let’s keep moving.”
“You got it! So, uh, what time we eating dinner?”
Li Huowang’s group pressed on. The overly flighty Li Zhi kept trying to strike up conversations with them, but they didn’t respond with much enthusiasm.
The man spoke normally enough during their chats, and he didn’t seem malicious.
But good intentions weren’t written on faces, so Li Huowang kept his guard up.
He tilted his head slightly, eyes shifting to the pair on the other side of the road. While his attention had been fixed on Li Zhi, he’d grown increasingly uneasy about the silent second spirit beside him—the one under the red veil who neither ate nor spoke. The more he watched, the weirder she seemed.
Compared to Li Zhi, this woman was far more unnatural.
Every step she took covered exactly the same distance, making her look less like a living person and more like a corpse being puppeteered.
Even stranger, Li Zhi called this thing his wife.
“Senior Brother Li, maybe we should split off from them?” Bai Lingmiao whispered as she drew close.
“Not yet. Let’s wait and see.” Li Huowang needed to observe more closely.
If this guy wasn’t lying, then shaking Danyangzi might really depend on the immortals he mentioned.
(End of chapter)