Mutated Tao

Li Huowang used his lone hand to stuff a piece of golden-brown bun into his mouth, chewing it slowly. He looked lifelessly at the bonfire before him as he mentally calculated where they should stop for a break after this.

Currently, they were on their way to the kingdom of Si Qi, and had purchased three more second-hand carriages. They were acquired by selling off a few camels and then exchanging the silver. The carriages were indispensable to their long journey ahead.

At that moment, a chopstick carried some cooked meat along with some piping-hot noodles toward Li Huowang’s mouth, waiting for him to open it.

Seeing this, Li Huowang frowned slightly and shook his head. “I can eat on my own; there’s no need to feed me.”

“Senior Li, how can you eat with just one hand? Let me feed you while you wait for your hand to grow back. Right, how much longer will it take?” asked Bai Lingmiao.

Hearing the worried tone of her voice, Li Huowang raised his right arm and looked at that empty sleeve. He smiled bitterly and mumbled, “Soon, very soon.”

“But it has already been three days, and yet there don’t seem to be any changes.” Bai Lingmiao reached out to roll up Li Huowang’s sleeve and examine the healed wound.

“It’s already been three days?” Li Huowang’s pupils contracted as though he had remembered something. He immediately stood up and looked around the barren dunes, as though looking for something.

He found his target quite quickly before heading toward a large rock in the distance.

“I’m going to pee, don’t follow me!”

Soon, he arrived at the large rock and walked toward the shadow it casted onto the ground.

There was only a patch of barren ground behind the rock—this was exactly what he wanted.

At that moment, he faced the rock and sat down cross-legged. He hesitated for a moment, but pulled out his sword and drew a human figure on the wall.

“Mom, it must have been hard for you in this period,” Li Huowang spoke gently to the human figure. “Mom, I’m finally awake. Can you pass me my phone? It’s her birthday today, and I want to give her a call. Don’t untie me, just help me dial her number. It’s on the second row of the contacts list.”

Then, he took out a small, sharp shovel and gently used it to carve on the human figure’s face. Not long after, a simple but rather familiar face appeared before him. Li Huowang did not know how to draw, causing it to be rather ugly. Even so, in his eyes, there was nothing more beautiful than what he saw on the wall.

“Happy birthday, Nana. Happy birthday to you~ Happy birthday to you~”

All alone, he sat there and smiled at the drawing he had made on the giant rock while gently singing aloud.

The sound didn’t travel too far; it was muffled by the unforgiving winds.

“Sorry, Nana. I can’t be with you for your birthday this year. The only thing I can do is send you my wishes like this. I’ll make it up to you when I have the chance,” said Li Huowang as he reached out with a smile before caressing the face of the wall drawing.

Then he leaned across and kissed it, before standing up by supporting himself with his single hand.

When he turned around, he was faced with a red-veiled person; it was Bai Lingmiao’s Second Deity, and she had witnessed the heartwarming yet eerie scene that had taken place.

“Keep your mouth shut,” said Li Huowang before leaving her behind, and turning toward the carriages in the distance.

By the time he returned, everyone had eaten their fill, and were chatting to pass time.

Li Huowang reached out to take his bowl of noodles from Bai Lingmiao’s arms. Then, he placed it on the ground, picked up his chopsticks and began to slurp them up with his one hand.

After devouring the noodles, a crisp, metallic sound caused his body to instinctively tense up. He seemed to have heard of this sound before.

Li Huowang looked toward the direction where the sound originated from and found that it came from Puppy; he was sitting on the ground, and using his knife as though he was trying to pry something out from the ground.

Li Huowang stood up and walked up to him. “What are you doing?”

Li Huowang’s words startled Puppy, causing him to sheepishly look toward Li Huowang. Then, he reached out and picked up the object on the ground.

“Nothing much. Since we’re spending so much money, I’m trying to help us save some,” said Puppy.

There were rows of blackened bronze coins in front of him—they seemed to have been burned recently. Li Huowang recognized that these were from the bronze-coin veils that the dwarfs performing the shadow play were using. He still remembered that Er Bing had taken it and even worn it on her face.

The burnt bronze coins had many scratches on them. Obviously, Puppy wanted to pry out these coins to put them to use.

“I feel that it’s such a waste to just leave them in the pile of ashes like that. There are at least a hundred coins here. I’m not planning to keep them for myself. Once I pry them out, I will pass these to Junior Bai for safekeeping. But who knew that even the thin chains passing through the coins would be so hardy, and couldn’t be pried out easily.”

Hearing this, Li Huowang took it and wiped away the black dust on the coins quite easily.

The flames hadn’t been able to harm this object in the slightest. There were thin, old chains that passed through each coin to form a strange coin veil.

These bronze coins seemed ordinary, and were all round with a square hole in the center. Each of them was imprinted with four large words which Li Huowang could not read.

“Dao… dao… dao guang… tong… Ah… tong… Tong bao!” Gao Zhijian translated for Li Huowang.

“Daoguang Tongbao[1]?” Li Huowang did not know which currency this country came from, nor did he care. What mattered was their actual value.

Li Huowang examined the coin veil carefully before calling Bun over, and placing the veil on its head to see if there were any hidden issues.

At that moment, a surprising scene happened—even though Bun was shaking its head and trying to use its front paws to scratch its head, Li Huowang felt like there was no dog in front of him.

Back then, the dwarf had worn this veil while sneak attacking him. If not for the Second Deity warning him in advance, he might have suffered from the sneak attack.

After that, when Er Bing wore this item and hid amongst the crowd, he hadn’t been able to locate her.

From these two points, it seemed that this item could help conceal one’s presence.

“This… might actually be useful for me.” Li Huowang looked at the item, his gaze gradually brightening, “It’s actually extremely useful!”

Although he did not understand why, it seemed like anyone in this world with some level of ability could easily tell that he was a Strayed One.

And this object might be able to prevent that from becoming a repeated occurrence—he would no longer be treated like a piece of highly sought after meat!

1. an inscription on the coin that describes itself ☜

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