Forest Path

"Clang~" The longsword struck the Heavenly Book with an ear-piercing screech of metal grinding against stone, making the others in the room instinctively cover their ears and retreat two steps.

"It didn't even leave a mark. Chang Ming's sword is no good. Wasn't he a sword cultivator? This sword shouldn't have been some ordinary weapon." After pondering for a few seconds with the sword raised, Li Huowang gripped the hilt with both hands, swung it in a full arc, and hacked down heavily again.

He gritted his teeth and hacked several more times in a row. At last, something changed—but the change did not come from the so-called Heavenly Book. It came from the longsword in Li Huowang's hands.

With a "clang~," the blade split in two at the point of impact, turning a perfectly good longsword into a broken sword.

Li Huowang stared at the broken sword in his hand, completely dumbfounded. The weapon he had only just acquired was gone just like that.

After glancing around, Li Huowang hurried over and snatched the sword from the dead Chang Ren's hand. "Good thing there's a spare."

"Swish—" The longsword slid into its sheath. Li Huowang circled the Heavenly Book, considering what to do next.

He had originally intended to destroy this so-called Heavenly Book, but now it seemed this thing truly had something to it. It was hard to say it was not some sort of treasure.

Since he had already resolved to stop throwing himself away, he naturally could not simply discard something so valuable. "No matter what, I'll take it with me first. At worst, I can pawn it for some money."

As for the impractical notion of becoming immortal through this thing, Li Huowang had completely abandoned it. He had already seen the fate of those who had tried before him. He did not want to become the next one.

Li Huowang laboriously picked it up and weighed it in his hands. The Stone Slab was even heavier than he had imagined, but still within what he could bear.

After wrapping the Stone Slab in cloth and slinging it onto his back, he said to the others waiting nearby, "Let's go. We're leaving this place."

Lamp oil was splashed into Danyangzi's foul-smelling Karst Cave. Tongues of flame spread along the oil over the ground, igniting everything in the room that could burn—including Chang Ming, Chang Ren, and Xuan Yuan on the floor.

The blaze was fierce. Only then did Li Huowang understand that human corpses were natural fuel.

As they retraced their steps, they gradually set every room ablaze. The scorching flames swayed and slowly joined together, burning everything in Qingfeng Temple that could burn and blackening everything that could not.

"Cough, cough~" The thick smoke made the others begin coughing, and everyone quickened their pace.

Three incense sticks' worth of time later, they stood beneath the sunlight, silently watching the entrance to Qingfeng Temple as thick smoke poured from within.

Billowing smoke swayed as it rose, wrapping up all the darkness and evil within Qingfeng Temple before vanishing into the bright sky.

Li Huowang raised his head and gave another soft chuckle. With the longsword and Stone Slab on his back, he turned toward the Forest Path in the distance. "Let's go."

The others carrying provisions followed one after another. Without anyone noticing, Li Huowang had already become their leader.

As he looked at the woodland path gradually drawing nearer, Li Huowang no longer felt so low-spirited.

"Ah, this place looks quite strange. I wonder what kind of people and what kind of things I'll encounter in the future. All of a sudden, I'm actually looking forward to it."

Sunlight fell across his face, and as he breathed in the fresh air, his mood began to turn for the better.

"Senior Brother Li, slow down. My eyes hurt."

Li Huowang turned his head and only then noticed Bai Lingmiao covering her eyes beneath the sunlight.

He walked over, cupped her face, and examined her carefully. To his surprise, he could see the blood vessels behind her eyeballs through the centers of her pupils. The pink color was the dark red vessels illuminated by the light.

"This... should be some kind of defect, right?" Li Huowang guessed inwardly.

He was not a physician and did not understand such things, but he could make some guesses. Li Huowang remembered that most of those elderly albino fortune-tellers and masseurs were blind.

It seemed Bai Lingmiao's illness had left her eyes impaired, far more fragile than ordinary people's.

That would not do. Li Huowang cut a strip of cloth from the hem of his Azure Daoist Robe and gently covered Bai Lingmiao's eyes. "Whenever the sun is out, keep this over your eyes."

"But... then I won't be able to see."

"It's fine. I'll lead you." Li Huowang grasped Bai Lingmiao's soft right hand and led the others in a broad stride into the woods.

After staggering a few times, Bai Lingmiao began jogging along behind Li Huowang.

"Tap, tap, tap~" Lu Zhuangyuan, his face covered in wrinkles, vigorously knocked his dry tobacco pipe against the prop chest.

After knocking out all the black tobacco strands stuck inside, he took fresh tobacco from his pouch, packed it in, and lit it with a Fire Box.

After taking a satisfying puff, he called toward the woods ahead of the horse, "Xi Wazi, are you done yet?"

"Almost, almost!" came a youth's reply from over there.

"A lazy donkey turning the millstone pisses and shits more than it works. You're taking this long just to shit? Anyone who didn't know better would think I'd mistreated you and made you eat Guanyin Clay." Lu Zhuangyuan puffed on his pipe as he grumbled about his youngest son.

His gaze shifted toward the rear of the cart, taking in his entire opera troupe on the Forest Path. Aside from the horse cart carrying trunks of costumes and musical instruments,

there was also his eldest son's family of three, along with two distant nephews brought from the village. The troupe might be small, but this was the family fortune he had painstakingly built up over the years.

It was precisely because of this little opera troupe that his whole family could eat their fill during such hard times.

"Dad, have some water and a bun." Lu Juren offered his father food and a water gourd.

"Eat what? It's not mealtime, so why are you eating? Do you think grain falls from the sky for free? Do you know what grain costs these days? Your daughter is already two years old, and you still act like a little child! Why are you so thoughtless?"

After being berated from head to toe, Lu Juren did not get angry. He gave a foolish smile, backed away, and had his wife put away what he was holding.

"How was it? Got scolded again, didn't you? You really are born with cheap bones, always looking to get cursed at." Luo Juanhua put the food back on the cart, then poked her treasured daughter sitting atop a trunk with her finger.

"Getting scolded a couple times won't make flesh fall off me. Let him scold me. Ever since Mom died, Dad's temper has been like this."

"Hey, dear, did you tell Dad what I said to you last night?"

"Let's talk about it after some time. We haven't reached a performance stop lately, and Dad's strapped for cash too." As soon as this subject came up, Lu Juren's expression turned bitter.

"Tch! He's strapped for cash to the point that he doesn't even have money to buy cloth for his granddaughter's clothes? What she's wearing now is all stage costume."

"Stage costumes... actually, they can—"

"Ahhh! A ghost!!!" A terrified scream interrupted the couple's conversation and instantly set the entire troupe on edge.

Before long, the others saw a bare-bottomed youth crying for his father and mother as he rushed out of the woods and threw himself into Lu Zhuangyuan's arms.

"What ghost? Where would a ghost come from in broad daylight? Hurry up and put your pants on!"

Though Lu Zhuangyuan was scolding his youngest son, he still shielded Lu Xiucai behind him, tightened his grip on his tobacco pipe, and warily stared toward the woods.

Figures moved within. It looked like someone was coming.