Chapter 70
Chapter 70
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 70
>Chapter Title: Lake
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
“When~~a piece of cracked jade, three taels~~”
“Three taels?! No deal!” Feeling extremely displeased, Li Huowang picked up the jade pendant and walked straight out of the pawnshop.
This jade pendant was worth at least four hundred thousand in the real world, yet here it was only valued at three taels. This pawnshop was far too unscrupulous.
Stepping out the door, Li Huowang turned his head to look once more at the pawnshop’s signboard.
“This place is so crooked; they must’ve swindled a fortune. Why not just come back tonight and rob them blind?”
The thought had barely formed when Li Huowang jolted in alarm. He clenched his fist and smashed it into his own face before irritably storming off toward the inn in big strides.
Back in his room at the inn, Li Huowang spread the map out across the bed and said to Bai Lingmiao, who was sitting nearby mending a drum skin with needle and thread,
“Go fetch Xiaoman.”
Li Huowang’s finger slowly slid southward along the map. Before dying, Li Zhi had mentioned a group of black-robed nuns down south who might be able to deal with the Danyangzi inside him.
Right now, Danyangzi was constantly influencing him. He had to find a way to get rid of Danyangzi as soon as possible. Nothing mattered more—not even Black Tai Sui. That could wait.
Li Zhi had called those nuns barely decent folk, but Li Huowang didn’t buy it. After everything that had happened, he trusted no one.
To get those nuns to help him with Danyangzi, he’d need to offer them something irresistible—while keeping himself safe, of course.
Li Huowang’s gaze shifted to the Heavenly Book on the bed beside the Yangshou Gourd. That was all the leverage he had right now.
But that was a problem for later. First and foremost, he needed to find those nuns Li Zhi had mentioned.
“Senior Brother Li, you wanted me?”
Xiaoman came panting into the room. Aside from a faint redness at the corners of her eyes, she showed no emotion whatsoever.
“Where were you just now?” Li Huowang asked.
“I went to a escort agency and gave them the note with my last words from Si Qi. Asked them to deliver it back home.”
“You should let someone else handle that sort of thing. Lay low for a while so the town constables don’t come sniffing around for you.”
Xiaoman’s eyes flickered slightly. She shook her head calmly.
“It’s fine.”
She paused, then added,
“Mom didn’t report it to the authorities.”
“Oh. Well, come here and take a look at this map. You’re local—you know the area, right?”
Xiaoman walked over and looked at the spot where Li Huowang’s finger was pointing on the map.
“Do you know of any nunneries around this area? Black-robed ones.”
“Nunneries? Black robes?”
Xiaoman thought for a moment, then pointed with her fuzzy finger to a mountain southwest.
“That’s probably it—Heng Hua Mountain. I heard the Sun Squire from town went there to worship the Golden Body Bodhisattva.”
“Golden Body Bodhisattva! How much do you know about this nunnery?”
Li Huowang tried to gather as much information about the place as he could.
“Not much. We’re poor—couldn’t afford to go that far to burn incense and pray. Just heard their temple has booming business.”
“Mm.”
Li Huowang shook his head inwardly. That was as good as nothing—Zhengde Temple had booming business too.
“Does this nunnery have anything special about it? Like, say, Zhengde Temple’s famous for granting children.”
Xiaoman thought long and hard before finally speaking.
“I only heard that the nuns there are all really fat.”
“Really fat? And that’s supposed to be special?”
Li Huowang thought it over, then tapped the spot on the map with his finger.
“Let’s head out. We’ll go check the place.”
Li Zhi’s half-tael of silver had been exchanged for dry rations, fine rice noodles, and a big jar of lard. Li Huowang’s group set off for their next destination.
They weren’t alone—plenty of others were heading the same way.
From their scattered remarks, Li Huowang gathered that these folks thought war was imminent. The border wasn’t safe anymore, so they were fleeing inland ahead of time.
They walked and stopped along the way. As they passed fork after fork in the road, the crowds gradually thinned.
Just when Li Huowang thought they’d soon be alone again, a vast expanse of water blocked their path.
A gentle breeze rippled the surface, swaying Li Huowang’s Daoist robes ever so slightly.
“Is this the sea Great-uncle talked about?” Gouwa said in surprise.
The broad water stretched like a mirror between heaven and earth, endless to the eye.
Li Huowang pulled out the map and checked again.
“No, it’s not the sea. Just a lake—a really big lake.”
Si Qi was a watery place to begin with. A lake this size was no surprise.
“Senior Brother, why’s the water so dark?”
The lake’s hue was deep. Even from the shore, no one could see the bottom, stirring an instinctive dread.
Li Huowang pocketed the map and eyed the other people standing by the water.
“Wait and see what they do.”
When a distant speck appeared—a wooden boat—the people on shore began to stir. Folks here crossed the lake by boat.
The boat looked old, but it was huge.
“Come on, come on! All aboard! Seventy coppers a head!”
The boatman stood on deck, hollering at the crowd onshore.
“Seventy now? It was forty-six last year!”
Someone aboard griped about the price.
But the barefoot boatman didn’t indulge him. He glared with both eyes.
“I’m asking if you’re getting on or not. If you’ve got the guts, swim across.”
Seeing the man pay up meekly, the smug boatman spat toward the lake.
“War’s coming any day now, and you’ve got all these rules? So what if I raised the price?”
“Let’s go—on the boat.”
Li Huowang stepped forward. In unfamiliar territory like this, he didn’t mind the cost. He just worried about foul play.
The boat, laden with dozens of passengers, slowly chugged toward the lake’s heart.
Those new to boats got seasick easily, but Li Huowang was fine.
He turned to the boatman.
“Master, how long to the other side?”
“Heh, two hours tops. Don’t worry—we’ll make it before dark.”
Li Huowang nodded and warily watched the dark lake water parting at the bow.
The inky blackness felt oppressive, as if something monstrous might burst from its depths.
“There’s nothing man-eating in this lake, right?”
After all he’d been through, Li Huowang was jumpy as a cat.
“What’re you on about? That’s just idle chatter from layabouts. I’ve lived on this lake going on twenty years—look at me, fit as a fiddle. Relax, you paid—I’ll get you across.”
Hearing this eased Li Huowang’s mind a touch.
As the boat crept forward, the sun wheeled westward.
When the clouds overhead turned red with sunset, the boat eased into a vast reed marsh.
“Almost there,” Li Huowang thought, eyeing the reeds all around.
Right then—“splash!”—a sound of someone hitting the water from behind.
Everyone turned instinctively and saw that the polemen—and even the boatman—had vanished!
“Mommy! The thing in the water ate them!!”
No one knew who shouted it, but panic instantly gripped the dozens aboard.
“Sit down! You want to capsize us?”
Li Huowang’s shout quieted the boat somewhat.
He turned to his own group.
“Who knows how to pole a boat?”
But they all shook their heads.
As Li Huowang pondered their next move, the reeds around them rustled.
Several small wooden boats emerged, carrying men, women, and children armed with blades. They closed in on the big boat.
On one of them, Li Huowang spotted the boatman from before.
He was shaving his face with a little dagger. Spotting Li Huowang looking, he grinned.
“Young fella, heh heh heh. Rolled noodle soup, or wonton noodles?”
(End of chapter)