The Village Fool

1,280 words

Since the chief escort had agreed, what followed was straightforward—opening the manifest, collecting the deposit, pressing their fingerprints.

Watching the items being loaded into his cart one by one, Li Huowang turned to look at the chief escort beside him.

“By the way, Chief Escort, if I may ask—wasn’t there a war going on recently? Did business suffer?”

“How could it not? In this line of work, the more chaotic the times, the more money you’d think there is to be made. But when the world truly falls apart, there’s no profit to be had at all.”

“You have to understand—soldiers pass through like a razor, stripping everything bare. Those army brats don’t care about rules. But thank the ancestors, the fighting’s stopped now.”

Hearing this, Li Huowang was surprised. “Chief Escort, do you know what happened? Why did they suddenly stop?”

He still remembered how many people had died in those battles. It couldn’t have been a simple skirmish.

By normal logic, whether one side won or lost, it shouldn’t have ended like this.

Something must have caused both sides to halt. No—it wasn’t just two sides. Far more than two nations had been involved.

Yet as if they had all agreed on it, they all stopped at once. That was very strange.

“How would I know? If I knew that, I’d be sitting on the throne of Siqi myself.”

“But I did hear from some conscripted men who came back say that at first everything was fine—then suddenly, the corpses on the battlefield stopped rotting. Even the flies wouldn’t touch them.”

Li Huowang’s expression tightened. No matter which way he turned, it always came back to the abbess. This sudden ceasefire was tied to the disappearance of decay.

“Is it because, in the eyes of those in power, the disappearance of decay is more important than taking cities and land? Is that why the emperors stopped fighting and united to solve this problem?”

“Could the disappearance of decay cause a great upheaval in the world?”

Li Huowang shook off his chaotic guesses and looked toward the other side of the street. The border town was lively—carts, oxcarts, and camels flowed back and forth, completely unaffected by the disappearance of decay.

Something very important seemed to be happening in this world, but it had nothing to do with him. Right now, he was just like these common folk—one of the ordinary masses.

If the sky falls, the tall ones will hold it up.

Perhaps the disappearance of decay mattered greatly in this world, but ever since the abbess died, it had nothing to do with Li Huowang anymore.

Before he knew it, the freight for Li Huowang’s escort was fully loaded. Two carts packed to the brim—there would be no room to sleep on top tonight; they’d have to sleep underneath.

“Young friend, you just need to deliver these goods to the Fengteng Escort Agency in Jicheng, Houshu. The reward is seventy taels.”

Seventy taels! Li Huowang couldn’t help but be stunned by the sum. Back when Lü’s troupe performed a ghost opera, they only got ten taels. It seemed the escort business really did pay well in chaotic times.

“Don’t think it’s too little—it’s your first time. If your skills hold up, our business will grow with time. This is the escort manifest. Keep it close to your body.”

Li Huowang took the manifest that served as proof of the assignment and offered a Daoist salute. “Chief Escort, until we meet again.”

“Take care. Safe travels.”

Walking out of the escort agency, he took one last look at the small town he had visited several times now. Li Huowang let out a melancholy sigh. He had no more ties in Siqi. This would be the last time he came to this place.

“The world is vast… Where is my home?”

Once everything was ready, the cart wheels began to roll again. He led everyone toward the increasingly barren lands of Houshu.

If there was any difference between being an escort and before, it was that they moved even slower. More goods meant the draft horses were more tired.

To avoid revenge from the families of those who had performed the Nuo exorcism, Li Huowang didn’t stop at the previous town. He deliberately took a long detour.

They traveled like this for nearly half a month. When they spotted another village ahead, Li Huowang and his travel-worn, chapped-lipped group had no choice but to stop and rest.

Going without water and being a little unkempt was one thing, but eating nothing but dry rations every day was really starting to make them sick.

At this moment, a glistening, translucent blister hung from the corner of Li Huowang’s mouth.

“Awooo—” Man Tou howled. Li Huowang patted the wolf’s smooth yellow head. “This is someone else’s place. Keep it down.”

Feeling Man Tou’s tongue on his hand, Li Huowang studied the small Gobi village before him.

As if to resist the desolate, barren wasteland outside, every house was painted a conspicuous red. Nothing else seemed particularly notable.

When he saw a man in patched sheepskin walking out of the village, Li Huowang immediately led his group forward.

“This—” Li Huowang barely got a word out before stopping. A long, thick strand of green mucus hung from the man’s face, trailing all the way down to his chest.

Judging by its thickness, it had clearly been accumulating through repeated cycles of drying.

“Eh? Outsiders?” The man stood pigeon-toed, tilting his head and grinning foolishly at Li Huowang.

Li Huowang tugged at the copper coin mask on his face, uncertain whether the man was genuinely simple-minded or just pretending. He stood there warily, watching him.

“Simpleton! Simpleton! The Wu family is having a happy event! Get over here and help! Do a good job, and there’ll be baked buns!”

Hearing an old man’s shout from deeper in the village, the man’s eyes lit up. He turned and ran in that direction.

“What kind of person is that?” Just as Li Huowang was feeling confused, Gao Zhijian spoke up from beside him. “Vuh… vuh… village fool!”

“What?” Li Huowang turned to look at him, and from his stammering explanation, he learned what the term meant.

In some villages, there was a simpleton. These people were called “village fools.” It was said they were born this way, their wits lost for a lifetime, in order to ward off misfortune for the village.

But that was just a nice way of putting it. Most village fools didn’t live well. They were hungry one meal and full the next, only kept alive enough not to starve.

Only when there was a happy occasion or a funeral in the village would they come forward to help, and the leftover food from the feast would let them finally eat their fill.

Li Huowang nodded in understanding. “So that’s how it is. I’ve never encountered one before. This is the first time I’ve learned about it.”

Just then, a thought struck him. Li Huowang lifted his head and stared at Gao Zhijian’s simple, honest face.

“You don’t know anything about anything else. But you know this kind of thing very clearly. Could it be… you used to be a village fool too?”

Gao Zhijian immediately shook his head like a rattle-drum. “No… no… no! I… I… I… I’m not!”

Seeing how flustered he was, Li Huowang nodded. “Alright. No need to explain. I know you’re not.”

Just as he finished speaking, Gouwa chimed in from the side. “That’s right, that’s right. You’re not, you’re not.”

“I’m really… really not!” Gao Zhijian’s face was bright red with anxiety.

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Reading Guide Decoding

A Ceasefire Built on Corpses That Won't Decay

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

The 守村人 (shǒu cūn rén / “village fool”) is a real figure in Chinese rural folk belief, not just a novel invention. In traditional village lore, a “fool” or simpleton was sometimes regarded as a scapegoat guardian—a person born mentally disabled in order to absorb all the local bad luck, natural disasters, and evil influences on behalf of the community. This belief ties into broader Chinese folk ideas about karmic exchange and sacrificial substitution: one person’s suffering (or lost wits) can magically offset a collective’s misfortune. In practice, however, most village fools lived marginalized lives—fed just enough to survive, relying on red (wedding) and white (funeral) feast leftovers for their rare full meals. The term “守村人” has a sympathetic aura in Chinese folklore, the implication being that the fool is a quiet, unwitting martyr. In the Dao-Twisted World, where every supernatural price has a body count, this belief takes on an even darker, more literal edge—and Gao Zhijian’s extreme reaction suggests he may know exactly what that price feels like.

Red-painted houses in Gobi villages

In some Chinese folk traditions, painting houses red was believed to ward off evil spirits and bad luck, especially in harsh, barren regions seen as spiritually vulnerable.

Chapter Overview

Peace, it turns out, is just as strange as war in the Dao-Twisted World. After navigating the bureaucratic maze of escort agency contracts—deposits, manifests, and all—Li Huowang learns that the abrupt ceasefire in the four-nation conflict has a deeply unsettling cause: corpses have stopped rotting. Every battlefield corpse is now a permanent, fly-repelling monument. The world’s systems are breaking down at a cosmological level, and even the emperors are too scared to keep fighting. But Li Huowang, true to form, files this under “Not My Problem” and presses on toward the barren lands of Houshu with his overloaded carts. The chapter closes with a small but sharp character beat: encountering a “village fool” (守村人) triggers an unexpected, flustered reaction from Gao Zhijian, hinting that this simple giant carries more personal history than he lets on.

Key Plot Points

Li Huowang completes the escort agency formalities: opening a manifest, collecting a deposit of seventy taels—a staggering sum compared to the ten taels for a ghost opera—and promising to deliver goods to Fengteng Escort Agency in Jicheng, Houshu.
The chief escort reveals that the sudden ceasefire across four nations was triggered by an unnatural phenomenon: corpses on the battlefield stopped decomposing. This is a direct continuation of the metaphysical decay left by Abbess Jingxin’s death.
Li Huowang’s internal calculation: though this “disappearance of decay” clearly signals world-shaking trouble, he consciously chooses not to engage. “If the sky falls, the tall ones will hold it up.”
The group takes a fortnight-long detour to avoid revenge from the families of the Nuo exorcism victims, arriving at a stark Gobi village where every house is painted red.
Li Huowang encounters a simple-minded man—a “village fool” (守村人)—who eagerly runs off to help with a local wedding feast in exchange for baked buns.
Gao Zhijian, who is normally silent and slow, correctly identifies the man as a “village fool.” When Li Huowang jokingly asks if Gao used to be one himself, Gao’s stammering denial and panicked flush suggest the question hit closer to home than he’d like.

Reading Guide

The Ceasefire That’s Too Quiet: The novel is doing something clever here—the “disappearance of decay” is an environmental horror that simultaneously raises and lowers stakes. On one hand, it’s a cosmological red flag (reality has a crack in it). On the other, it’s the perfect excuse for the plot to quietly sideline warring empires and let Li Huowang focus on his personal journey. The reader should feel unease at the narrative shrugging, not relief.

Gao Zhijian’s Flinch: This moment lands harder if you remember Gao Zhijian’s history as a “fool” himself (or at least someone who was treated like one). His stammered, panicked denial is the loudest he’s spoken in chapters. The text doesn’t confirm his past, but the subtext is screaming. Li Huowang’s decision to drop the question immediately (“I know you’re not”) shows both tact and a measured kindness—he sees the wound and chooses not to press.

Road-Trip Logic: The shift to mundane escort logistics (deposits, manifests, detour planning) is a deliberate pacing choice. It grounds the cosmic horror in practical, grimy survival. The novel trusts the reader to feel the dread between the lines—the rotting ceased, but no one knows why, and the tall ones holding up the sky might be just as scared as everyone else.