Chapter 68
Chapter 68
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 68
>Chapter Title: Festival
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Lifespan, the problem that had plagued everyone, now lay in Li Huowang’s hand as its answer.
Never mind for now why something like allotted years could take physical form.
In this bizarre and motley world, after going through so much, Li Huowang had long stopped dwelling on such minor issues.
What he should really be thinking about now was what this thing in his hand meant for him.
Following the Wandering Lord’s instructions, Li Huowang held up the gourd toward the sun in the sky.
Soon, the mouth of the gourd split open like flower petals.
Six plump little balls, with faint golden characters for “longevity” drifting inside them, slowly rolled about in the viscous green liquid.
Li Huowang carefully reached into the water and took one out.
He pinched it tightly between his fingers. As the Wandering Lord had explained, lifespan like this would dissipate upon contact with any of the five elements—metal, wood, water, fire, or earth. If it fell to the ground, it would be gone.
This single ball represented one year of life for an ordinary person. It was incredibly precious.
Exposed to the sunlight, the solid lifespan began to gradually disperse, wafting out faint yellow smoke that made his entire body tingle.
With a gentle press from Li Huowang, it sank into his palm.
He immediately felt much lighter all over. He had gained a year of life.
“If I kept taking these things, wouldn’t I become immortal?”
Li Huowang quickly cast aside this unrealistic notion.
Recalling what Li Zhi had said before, it wasn’t hard to guess that these bits of lifespan were the “tea money” the immortals craved.
Heaven knew how many rituals Li Zhi had performed to scrape together this much. If it were really that easy, he wouldn’t have ended up so aged and worn.
The only real use for this lifespan was probably to feed it to the Wandering Lord.
Li Huowang moved to fish out the remaining five and absorb them right then and there.
Last night, to deal with Li Zhi, he had summoned six Wandering Lords—three sixes made eighteen. He had to make it up from here.
But just as his fingers touched the balls of lifespan, Li Huowang suddenly paused.
“Could this stuff be used as currency in this world?”
As the saying went, an inch of time was worth an inch of gold, and not even an inch of gold could buy an inch of time. But what if an inch of gold really could buy an inch of time?
“No matter if it’s with ordinary folk or those cultivators, this thing’s got to be worth a fortune. It’d be a real shame to just absorb it like this. I need to make good use of it.”
Li Huowang pulled his hand out of the gourd and watched as it retreated into the tree’s shade, its jagged maw slowly closing.
He picked up the gourd and walked back toward the carriage, tying it to his waist with a rope before rummaging through the bundle again.
But next, Li Huowang didn’t find anything else of value.
A half-worn set of clothes, two half-finished shoe soles, a thimble and some thread, and a few mud-sculpted household guardians.
This was everything Li Zhi had owned. All his worldly possessions.
Seeing this, Li Huowang couldn’t help but feel a pang of pity. The power of the immortals hadn’t given Li Zhi a better life at all. Instead, it had made him live even more frugally than ordinary folk.
Using the immortals’ abilities to earn money for Li Zhi would have been a simple matter, but those immortals might not have bothered.
All they wanted was an obedient slave to gather lifespan for them. They didn’t care how the slave lived.
Li Zhi had been right. Jumping the god wasn’t work for humans.
“Senior Brother Li, can you give these to me?” A Daoist boy with snot running down his face stared straight at the mud sculptures.
In the end, no matter how hardworking they were, these were still just kids. And all kids loved to play.
Li Huowang shook his head and set the human-shaped mud sculptures down by the roadside.
“These things aren’t clean.”
The creak of the donkey cart’s wheels kept rolling onward.
Li Zhi had lied to Li Huowang about a lot of things before, but not this—the road ahead really was terribly rough, with truly no other places to stop midway.
And so, after trudging along the muddy dirt road for over ten days, they finally spotted a smallish town.
Even with the fine drizzle falling from the sky, it couldn’t stop the joyful smiles breaking across their weary faces.
“Finally, a bed. This road has just about worn me to death.”
The complaint came from a one-armed man in the crowd.
He still had both arms—one normal, the other only the size of a baby’s.
Li Huowang looked up from the map in his hand.
“We’ll rest here for two days. We’ll leave once the rain stops.”
The donkey cart’s wheels began rolling toward the town entrance.
As Li Huowang and the others entered, they saw quite a few horse carts, ox carts, and wheelbarrows hurrying out from the town.
Those with carts were a minority. Most people were on foot.
These folk wore raincoats, carrying bamboo baskets with yellow paper and little bowls of eggs, meat, and fish. With mournful expressions, they hurried silently outward.
“What’s going on? Did something happen in town?” Li Huowang asked on instinct.
“Senior Brother Li, today’s Qingming. They’re off to sweep tombs.”
“Qingming already? So soon.”
Li Huowang murmured to himself.
Deeper into town, roadside stalls had popped up, selling yellow paper and gold ingots, along with paper figures and paper oxen. Business was booming.
Li Huowang didn’t want to break his promise to Li Zhi.
But holding the paper money and treasure candles, he froze in place for a moment. How was he supposed to burn these for the late Li Zhi?
“Senior Brother, leave this to me. I know how it’s done.”
Gouwa patted his sunken chest proudly.
Soon, they reached the crossroads in town, where plenty of others were burning paper money for far-off kin.
Gouwa pulled out his knife and drew a circle on the ground, leaving a gap in it pointed toward where Li Zhi was buried.
He lit the yellow paper inside the white circle, and it gradually burned to ash.
As he helped burn it, Gouwa shouted at the top of his lungs.
“This first batch is for Li Zhi! The next is for Li Zhi’s wife! Anyone who dares snatch it is a dog bastard! Guaranteed to be reborn as a beast next life!”
“Does yelling like that actually work?”
Li Huowang shoved a gold ingot into the fire.
“It works, definitely! My third uncle taught me this. Shout it like that, and no lonely ghosts or wild spirits will dare steal our hell money.”
Gouwa spoke with total confidence.
Li Huowang stared at the rising green smoke for a long while before slowly speaking again.
“Do you think people really turn into ghosts after they die?”
“Senior Brother Li, what nonsense is that? If people don’t turn into ghosts when they die, then what do they turn into?”
“Maybe when people die, there’s nothing left. No ghosts, nothing at all. That’s just how fragile and insignificant humans are.”
Li Huowang had seen all sorts of strange things in this world, but never a ghost.
His words instantly made the others around him uneasy. They exchanged uneasy glances.
Gouwa hugged his own shoulders, rubbing the goosebumps prickling his skin.
“Come on, Senior Brother Li, don’t say stuff like that—it’s too creepy, especially on Qingming. When people die, they definitely turn into ghosts. Then they absolutely go to the underworld to be reborn. It’s ironclad.”
“Why are you so sure? Have you seen it yourself?”
“Because... because my second great-aunt told me so. She lived to ninety-four. She knew everything.”