The Wandering Lord

Chapter 54: The Wandering Lord

Crash!

The heavy wooden log slammed into the ground, kicking up a thick cloud of dust.

Immediately after, the thick log was lifted high again, then dropped with another heavy thud.

Li Huowang, supported by Bai Lingmiao, watched from the side as the Fool swung the club.

Though the wound on his neck hadn’t healed yet, after a few days of lying around recovering, he could barely stand now.

“Harder! Hit it harder!” Li Huowang called out.

Near the campfire, Lü Zhuangyuan walked over with a grin, holding two coarse grain steamed buns. “Little Daoist, what are you up to? Making quite a ruckus.”

With each swing of the club, the surrounding trees and brush were smashed into a chaotic mess.

“Heh, nothing much. It feels like a waste having a guy this big just carry people and luggage. I’m training him up.”

“Ah, good, good.” Lü Zhuangyuan nodded as he retreated back.

Li Huowang’s gaze returned to the Fool, who was now bare-chested, sweat flying with every movement.

The guy might be slow in the head, but his body’s pretty solid, Li Huowang thought to himself, watching the Fool’s broad back and powerful build.

“A frame like that—might not be good for much else, but it should be enough for ordinary bandits.”

That was Li Huowang’s plan: to strengthen his people. Relying solely on the Wandering Lord and Danyangzi—both methods with massive side effects—wasn’t sustainable. Even if he didn’t understand the mystical arts of this world, he still knew the most basic way.

It didn’t matter if it was crude or not. Something was better than nothing.

Even if they didn’t face an enemy head-on, the Fool could at least stand guard when Li Huowang had one of his episodes.

“Alright! That’s a hundred! Time to rest!”

Hearing this, the bald Fool tossed his club aside and, panting heavily, strode toward the campfire.

Without even taking a break, he picked up his oversized bowl and started slurping down noodles.

Within moments, half a kilo of noodles was gone. But the big guy, still clearly hungry after the workout, went back to the black pot to scoop out another bowl.

Watching him down another half kilo, Li Huowang felt a twinge of regret. Truly, poor men study, rich men practice martial arts. Thank goodness he still had some silver on him, or this guy alone would eat him out of house and home.

Suddenly, Li Huowang thought of something and pulled out his Daoist bell.

Staring at the bell in his hand, his mind flashed back to the Wandering Lord that had been smashed to a pulp.

“Can this thing still work?” A question mark silently formed in his mind.

In this grotesque, bizarre world, having or not having this tool was a big deal.

“Come on, help me over to those woods,” Li Huowang said to Bai Lingmiao.

He kept walking until the sounds of the campfire were inaudible, then stopped.

“Go back now.” But this time, Bai Lingmiao didn’t listen.

“Just go ahead and pee. I won’t look…”

Her words made Li Huowang laugh despite himself. “I don’t need to piss. Go back. Come find me in a quarter of an hour.”

Only when he was alone in the woods did Li Huowang, his back against a birch tree, press a hand to his forehead and begin to shake the Daoist bell.

As expected, everything around him began to distort. But the lines just scrambled chaotically, refusing to coalesce into the Wandering Lord.

A bit frustrated, Li Huowang shook it harder. “Is this thing really broken?”

The moment the thought crossed his mind, the twisting lines suddenly knitted back together, forming a new Wandering Lord. “Bèi tiān suì?”

But in response to Li Huowang’s puzzled query, there was no emotional fluctuation in the Wandering Lord’s strange, guttural language. It was as if it had never been swatted to pieces by that Buddha palm.

Fighting off his dizziness, Li Huowang quickly communicated with the Wandering Lord and learned some unexpected information.

First, the Wandering Lord had a name, but it was a name that couldn’t be produced by a human throat.

He wondered what the first person to encounter one had gone through, to give it the name “Wandering Lord.”

Second, the concept of “death” didn’t exist for the Wandering Lord. Or rather, it wasn’t a living thing in the first place.

Beyond lacking the concept of death, it also lacked the concept of quantity.

“No concept of quantity?” Something clicked. Li Huowang shook his head hard, and his already dizzy head grew even more so.

Everything was double vision now, including the Wandering Lord.

Staring at the two overlapping afterimages of the Wandering Lord, Li Huowang seemed to understand. He increased the intensity of his shaking.

The more he shook his head, the more Wandering Lords appeared. Finally, his head swimming, Li Huowang saw nearly twenty or thirty Wandering Lords before him.

“Urgh—” He couldn’t hold back the vertigo any longer. He doubled over and began to vomit violently.

The bell’s sound died away, and everything returned to normal. The Wandering Lords vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

After throwing up the lunch he’d just eaten, Li Huowang started heaving up just clear liquid.

He kept going until there was nothing left to bring up, until he felt he might vomit bile, before he finally stopped.

Straightening up, Li Huowang wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and panted heavily, holding the bell up in front of his eyes.

“If I’d known about this trick before, would I have had to mutilate myself to summon Danyangzi?”

He thought for a moment, then put the bell away. “No. Summoning the Wandering Lord costs lifespan. Three months per summon. If I deployed that many Wandering Lords at once, I’d probably be burning ten years of life in a single use.”

Leaning on a tree trunk, Li Huowang stumbled back the way he came.

Just as he reached the roadside, he saw his own group huddled together with Lü Zhuangyuan’s troupe.

“Folks, take a look! All top-quality goods! If anything’s broken or shoddy, may my name be mud, and may my ancestors for eighteen generations be cursed as beasts!”

Li Huowang walked over and saw a peddler with a mule cart, enthusiastically hawking his wares.

Bai Lingmiao and the hirsute woman were standing by the cart, hesitating over some needles and thread.

“The roads are this dangerous, and you still dare to come out selling? Aren’t you afraid of bandits?” Li Huowang asked.

The young peddler, who had a large, hairy mole at the corner of his mouth, just chuckled and didn’t explain.

“Daoist, you want some cinnabar? I’ve got it all here!”

Lü Zhuangyuan, who had been watching from the sidelines, sidled up to Li Huowang and explained in a low, contemptuous voice. “Why would bandits rob him? Peddlers like him are in bed with those murdering thieves. The bandits steal, and people like him buy the loot to sell!”

“I see…” Li Huowang nodded in understanding. It made sense. Even the bandit dens deep in the mountains needed supplies to circulate. These itinerant peddlers were the most discreet distribution channel.

“Daoist, if you don’t want cinnabar, take a look at my other stuff! I’ve got everything,” Zhu Dexi said, completely unbothered by the others’ stares, continuing his sales pitch.

Li Huowang thought for a moment, then asked, “You’ve got everything? Do you have anything… for killing?”

The moment the words left his mouth, everyone around turned to look at him.

Zhu Dexi’s face lit up. He clapped his hands together excitedly and started rummaging through his mule cart. “Yes! Yes, I do! Yes, I do!!”