Making a Fortune

Chapter 340: Making a Fortune

Confronted by the Zuowandao’s rebuttal, Heart-Bewilderment seemed to be arguing something.

But Li Huowang wasn’t listening. Heart-Bewilderment’s petty revenge had backfired spectacularly, and he could already imagine how the Zuowandao would toy with them using his identity.

Still, watching the other side suffer wasn’t the priority right now. The most important thing was figuring out his own next move.

After careful deliberation, Li Huowang settled on a course of action.

“This mission is too dangerous. Both my own people and the enemy are after me. Under these circumstances, instead of staying tangled up in it, I might as well step aside for now.”

“Let them fight first, then I’ll swoop in like the oriole behind the mantis. In this godforsaken place, you can’t trust anyone! The only one I can trust is myself. At least I won’t lie to me.”

He glanced back at the four figures who had regrouped and were walking away. Still invisible, Li Huowang grabbed a roof tile, flipped down from the beam, and began trailing them at a careful distance.

The other three seemed to have stopped arguing with the Zuowandao who was disguised as him. Heart-Bewilderment had apparently swallowed his loss and been forced to accept that the Zuowandao was genuine. But from his wary movements, Li Huowang could tell he was staying on guard against the impostor.

With the identity dispute temporarily tabled, the four of them now appeared to be searching for something.

Li Huowang knew what they were looking for. They were hunting the Chief Recorder. Ever since the Buddha hall collapsed, the Chief Recorder with his gold abacus had vanished. That was very wrong.

“If what they’re looking for is gone, where would the Chief Recorder go now?” Watching the four head toward a side hall, Li Huowang quickened his pace.

But just as he was about to enter, a hand landed on his shoulder.

Cold sweat broke out instantly. He was invisible—how could anyone still see him!

Sword in hand, he spun around and found a man dressed like a scholar standing behind him.

“Whoosh—” The scholar’s folding fan opened, revealing four bold calligraphy characters: Tian Sheng Wo Cai—Heaven Gave Me Talent.

“You’re called Er Jiu, right? How strange. Your Five Phases—Fire and Metal are still there, but why are the other three gone?”

Li Huowang narrowed his eyes at this unknown person, his wariness reaching its peak. In this bizarre place, this man could be any number of things—most likely a Zuowandao playing tricks.

Or worse: this could be the very Zuowandao whose name he’d heard but never seen. He made up his mind: at the first suspicious move, he’d go all out.

“Doesn’t it hurt having those knives stuck in your face? Why not pull them out? And those are a Knife-Pawnbroker’s blades. If you borrow his blades, he’ll take your fortune.”

The scholar waved his fan, and the rusted blades embedded in Li Huowang’s face popped out one after another. Another wave, and the wounds on his face swiftly knitted together.

The moment the scholar moved, Li Huowang’s fire striker was already pressed against his own skin.

“Who the hell are you?” Li Huowang demanded, each word ground out.

Seeing the deep wariness in Li Huowang’s eyes, the scholar sighed and paused, as if thinking.

After a few breaths, he spoke again. “Forget it.”

“I have some business to attend to, so I’ll take my leave. Since you’ve joined the Supervisory Heavenly Office, take care of yourself. Sometimes ignorance is a kind of happiness.”

With that, the scholar bent down, took a black spindle from his robe, and placed it on the ground. “Let me leave you something. This will serve you better than that mask on your face.”

Having done that, he gave Li Huowang an approving nod, then turned and walked toward the exit of the Bone Buddha Temple.

“Until we meet again, Er Jiu. I am Zhuge Yuan. If you run into trouble you can’t solve, remember to come find me at Xing Island in the West Sea. Though my abilities are limited, I’ll help if I can.”

The scholar left. Li Huowang stood where he was, not moving. That scholar gave him an odd feeling. After thinking about it for a long time, he suddenly realized—it was a kind of goodwill, something extremely rare in this world.

This was the first time he had encountered such straightforward kindness. He had only ever felt it on the other side, in the hallucination.

Even Abbess Jingxin had never been like this—she always kept her goodwill buried in her heart.

After a brief moment of confusion, Li Huowang shook his head hard, his gaze hardening.

“No. That scholar has to be shady. I can’t let him reel me in. I’ve taken enough losses. I will not fall into the same trap again.”

He glanced at the black-threaded spindle on the ground, then turned and walked toward the side hall.

Everything about today’s mission—the events, the people he’d met—made Li Huowang deeply uncomfortable.

But he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what was wrong. It was like looking through fog—there was always a layer he couldn’t see through.

When he stepped into the side hall, he froze.

Where there had been four people, there were now six. A second Heart-Bewilderment monk had appeared, along with a second Hong Da.

Watching them argue heatedly, Li Huowang grinned. “Now this is getting interesting.”

He dusted off his clothes, straightened his Daoist robe, sheathed his sword, stepped over the threshold, and joined them.

As Li Huowang walked in, the other Li Huowang inside widened his eyes and smacked his forehead. “Great, another one!”

“This one is the real Er Jiu.”

“No, this one is fake. He’s a Zuowandao.”

The two Heart-Bewilderment monks each gave completely different answers using their Mind-Penetration ability.

Li Huowang sized up the two Heart-Bewilderment monks, unable to tell which was the real one and which was a Zuowandao impostor framing him.

In an instant, the hall erupted into chaos. With a second Heart-Bewilderment added to the mix, the method of identifying the real one had failed. No one could tell who was genuine and who was fake.

Several times they almost came to blows, but with others mediating, they managed to avoid a full fight.

Li Huowang, meanwhile, was the least concerned of all. He didn’t need to tell true from false—he was here to watch the show.

When they finally settled who was who, that would be his moment to act.

Watching the chaos before him, a faint smile curled at the corner of Li Huowang’s mouth. He could almost understand the Zuowandao way of thinking.

When you have no skin in the game, this is genuinely entertaining.

“Enough!” A furious eunuch’s voice brought everyone to a halt. They all turned toward the entrance.

It was the Chief Recorder. He was holding a shriveled head, shrunk to half its normal size, as he walked in.

His sparse eyebrows twitched with rage, his expression exceptionally ugly.

He stepped before the crowd, surveying the two identical Li Huowangs, the two identical Hong Das, and the two identical Heart-Bewilderment monks.

Fixing his gaze on them, the Chief Recorder raised the head and spoke slowly: “How much longer will you keep clowning around! This is Facai’s head! Facai has been dead for a long time!”

Those words plunged everyone present into an icy abyss. Facai—one of the Three Yuan—was dead. Just how powerful was the one who killed him?