The Wandering Lord

“Singing opera for ghosts?” Li Huowang’s heart gave a lurch. Just the name alone told him it was nothing good.

“It’s nothing, really. We just go to the ancestral hall and perform in front of the memorial tablets.”

“If it’s nothing, then why won’t you do it yourself, Headman Lü?” Li Huowang shot back immediately. There was obviously more to this.

“Oh, come on! This is my first time, see? I’m a bit nervous is all. That’s why I wanted you, a real master, to watch over us. We’d feel safe doing the job.”

“Headman Lü, I’m afraid I can’t help you with this.” He’d been avoiding trouble this whole time; he wasn’t about to go out of his way to court it.

Maybe nothing would happen. He didn’t want to gamble on that.

He and Lü Zhuangyuan were nothing more than traveling companions. He wasn’t about to risk his life for the man.

If Lü really refused to keep guiding them over this, then fine—they’d just part ways. He could ask around the village himself. How could a place this big not have someone who knew the road?

“Ah, ah! Little Daoist, don’t be so hasty! I haven’t finished yet. The pay for this gig—we split it fifty-fifty, what do you say?”

The moment money came up, Lü Zhuangyuan began gesturing wildly. “I didn’t want to take it at first either, but it’s no small sum! Master Hu is generous! A full ten taels of silver!”

“One tael of silver is a thousand copper coins! Ten taels is ten thousand coins! My dear little Daoist! Ten taels! Even if you want to cultivate immortality, you still need to eat before you become an immortal, right?”

Li Huowang stopped. He looked at the two bags of dried sweet potatoes beside him. He did need silver right now.

Not just for food, either. Once they reached Jianye Town, he would need plenty of money for that, too. In any world made of people, you couldn’t move an inch without coin.

“Little Daoist, I’m begging you, old me! If that’s no good, how about sixty-forty your way? It’s not easy making this much money these days!” Lü Zhuangyuan made a mournful face, circling Li Huowang and continuing to wheedle.

If the high master wouldn’t come, he really didn’t dare take this job. After all, what good was money if you weren’t alive to spend it?

Li Huowang suddenly turned to face him. “Does this village have a blacksmith?”

“Huh?”

Following Lü Zhuangyuan’s lead, Li Huowang was taken to the only blacksmith’s shop in Wuligang.

“What are you making?” The burly, bare-chested man with a thick beard sized up Li Huowang’s Daoist robe and asked roughly.

“I’m not forging any metal. I need something repaired. It can’t be hammered and it can’t be melted. Can you restore it the way it is?” Li Huowang took out the brass bell.

If it could be fixed, he could summon the Wandering Lord again. Then this money might actually be worth earning. Otherwise, it was too dangerous a deal.

“Can’t hammer it, can’t melt it? What kind of fussy rules are those?” The blacksmith took the bell, gave it a few shakes, then picked up two pairs of iron pliers. “Alright, give me a hand.”

The pliers’ jaws were long and easily slipped into the bell’s dented sides. The two men gritted their teeth and strained, but the bell didn’t budge. The result was unsurprising, yet still frustrating.

“Huh! That’s odd. What kind of copper is this thing made of? Why’s it so hard?” Curious, the blacksmith bent his knuckles to tap the bell, but Li Huowang stopped him.

Staring at the two pliers clamped to the bell’s walls, Li Huowang thought for a moment, then poured a single pill from the palm-sized gourd at his waist and shoved it into his mouth.

This was one of the pills Danyangzi had rewarded him with. He’d taken one before to save Yang Na in the psych ward, one when he killed Danyangzi, and now this one. Only two were left.

Woom. A surge of heat exploded from his dantian, flooding through his entire body.

He took a deep breath, grabbed one pair of pliers with each hand, and pulled.

“Two men couldn’t do it, and one man thinks he—” The blacksmith’s words died in his throat as a screech of metal rang out. The crushed bell was slowly, steadily forced open.

By the time the blacksmith’s jaw had dropped to its limit, the bell had been restored to its original shape.

“Hey! What’s so surprising about that? I told you, this little Daoist’s skills are profound!” Lü Zhuangyuan bragged smugly to the blacksmith, as if in his mind Li Huowang was capable of anything and nothing he did came as a surprise.

Li Huowang left the village and went alone back into the woods.

He looked at the bell in his hand, then shook it with a flicker of hope in his heart.

The moment the ringing began, the dizzying, world-darkening sensation returned. This time, Li Huowang didn’t stop. He gritted his teeth and kept shaking with all his might.

He felt everything around him spinning. The lines of the branches began to warp, detaching from their original positions and slowly coalescing into a shape.

“It’s working!” Li Huowang’s heart pounded.

Accompanied by the jarring chime, the long-absent Wandering Lord reappeared before him. Only one this time.

The Wandering Lord looked like a mass of twisted, stitched-together lines, a high-frequency tremor with no fixed form at all.

Li Huowang couldn’t stare at it for too long. He felt that if he did, he might stare it apart.

He was about to speak when a thought struck him. He bent down, scooped up a handful of wet mud, and stuffed it into his mouth.

The mud tasted foul, but he forced himself to swallow his disgust and spoke.

“Náng táo zhī ruí móu xié?” He meant to ask if the Wandering Lord could understand him, but the sound that came out, filtered through the twisted environment, emerged as a bizarre, melodic hum.

Whatever Li Huowang had said, the Wandering Lord answered. “Dié hú zhī.”

Li Huowang’s heart surged with wild joy. With the Wandering Lord’s help, his strength would increase enormously!

“Ruí néng lóng yín bì qì qí guá?” Li Huowang leaned forward and asked the most critical question.

The Wandering Lord didn’t stir, calm and unhurried, before responding slowly but firmly: “Miǎn yuè, jǐ shòu hù pǔ bang, jué.”

Li Huowang’s brow gradually furrowed. “Chì rǎng, niè.”

“Miǎn yuè, jǐ shòu hù pǔ bang, jué.”

When he heard the Wandering Lord repeat the exact same sentence, Li Huowang sighed inwardly. Of course, there was no such thing as a free lunch. Summoning the Wandering Lord had a price.

And that price was nothing other than a man’s lifespan. Each summoning cost three months of life.

When Li Huowang asked again if Danyangzi had traded the same way back then, the Wandering Lord fell silent.

The ringing gradually faded. Li Huowang clutched his splitting head and stayed where he was for a long while, recovering. Then he returned to Wuligang.

“Little Daoist, you…” Lü Zhuangyuan hesitated, seeing the mud all over his mouth.

“I’ll take that deal you mentioned,” Li Huowang said, gripping the bell in his hand.

“Ah! Wonderful! I’ll go speak with Master Hu right away!” Overjoyed, Lü Zhuangyuan hurried off.