Mutated Tao

As they traveled, Bai Lingmiao followed Li Huowang closely, occasionally taking out her handkerchief to wipe off his sweat.

The hottest days of the year were upon them, and the weather had become extremely harsh and hot. Even though they were traveling when the sun was still low in the morning, sweat continued to pour out from their bodies.

After wiping off Li Huowang’s sweat, Bai Lingmiao proposed, “Senior Li, it’s too hot to travel in the afternoon and evening. We should probably rest now and travel earlier tomorrow.”

Li Huowang nodded and took out the map from within the horse carriage before examining it carefully.

They were still within the borders of the kingdom of Si Qi. Thankfully, they had not thrown away this map.

“How about we skip lunch for today? There’s a village not too far from here. If we don’t stop and increase our pace, then we can reach there and stay for the night.”

Everyone perked up when they heard they might be able to sleep on a bed tonight.

After traveling for two whole hours, they finally saw some fields in the distance. By now, their throats were completely parched. Behind the fields were houses with black roof tiles. They had finally arrived at the village.

“Look, there’s even flowers beside the fields. Such a pretty red flower,” said Bai Lingmiao.

Just as she was about to pick some of them, Li Huowang stopped her. “Wait, those flowers don’t look right.”

Li Huowang carefully inspected the red flowers. The flowers had curled petals that splay outwards.

“These are spider lilies,” said Li Huowang.

Even though he no longer remembered who told him about them, he recalled that these flowers were ominous in nature.

Hearing his words, everyone was speechless. It was clear no one knew what Li Huowang was talking about.

“Haha, you are even worse than me at recognizing flowers.”

At that moment, a cheerful laughter came from the distance.

Everyone turned and saw a bare-footed young boy was walking around with a bamboo basket on his back. He looked roughly seven or eight years old.

“These aren’t spider lilies. These are crab flowers. My mother told me that we can’t feed these flowers to the pigs or they would end up getting diarrhea,” said the young boy. Then, he took out a sickle from his bamboo basket and cut away some of the crab flowers.

It was clear that the boy had seen the flowers many times. He was most likely someone staying at the village.

Li Huowang pondered his options and approached the boy. “Boy, what are you doing?”

“I’m harvesting some grass for our pigs. We have two pigs at our home, and I have to collect food for them everyday! How many pigs does your home have?” asked the boy.

When he heard that Li Huowang didn’t own any pigs, he laughed, “Haha! Your house is so poor! To think that you are even poorer than our family!”

“Yeah, my house is very poor. Are you staying in the village? Can you show us the way?” asked Li Huowang.

“Of course!” The young boy didn’t suspect them and brought them into the village.

“Are you guys still at war?” asked Li Huowang.

“War? There’s no war here. My third uncle was drafted but he recently came back.”

“Oh, that’s good. It’s good that there’s no war.” Li Huowang easily obtained the information he needed from the innocent young child.

This village was called Qianjia Village. There were barely over a hundred people living here. To survive, the villagers often tended to the fields during summer and went into the forest to forage during winter. There were plenty of such mountain villages in the kingdom of Si Qi, and so it was not a weird sight.

Villages like these often shunned outsiders, but under the ‘strength’ of money, Li Huowang and the rest managed to get a place to sleep within the child’s house.

Li Huowang placed his two heavy swords onto the table in the guest house, his body instantly feeling much lighter.

Just as he moved to remove Profound Records hanging from his waist, all he felt was empty space.

The Profound Records had been lost during the previous battle.

“Sigh.”

Li Huowang was somewhat sad about losing the Profound Records. Even though the price to use it was steep, it didn’t require him to cultivate or practice to be able to use supernatural powers. As long as he was willing to pay the necessary price, he would be able to obtain an equivalent amount of power.

Without it, he could only rely on the sword that the Abbess had gifted him.

“Oh, and this too.” Li Huowang took out the Fiery Scripture that was covered in white wax and slowly started studying his notes.

Now that he had lost the Profound Records, he needed to learn more methods to preserve his life. At the very least, the Fiery Scripture would allow him to heal his wounds.

Bai Lingmiao had just brought in a bowl of roasted sweet potatoes, but she tiptoed out of the room when she saw Li Huowang was studying seriously.

She thought about it for a moment and chuckled before walking to Xiaoman’s room. “Xiaoman, do you want to eat some roasted sweet potatoes?”

However, Bai Lingmiao had just entered Xiaoman’s room when she saw that the latter was vomiting profusely.

Seeing this, Bai Lingmiao was shocked. She placed down the bowl and quickly started patting Chun Xiaoman on the back.

After a while, Chun Xiaoman finally stopped vomiting and sat on the edge of her bed as she tried to catch her breath.

“Did you eat something spoiled? That can’t be right. Everyone ate from the same pot, so why are you the only one vomiting?” asked Bai Lingmiao.

Xiaoman shook her head. “It’s fine. I probably kicked off the blanket last night and just got sick.”

“But you don’t kick off your blankets when you sleep…”

Chun Xiaoman averted her gaze and made a request, “Could you just help me boil some ginger soup? It would help me a lot.”

“Then… Alright.”

After hesitating for a moment, Bai Lingmiao went out of the room.

When Chun Xiaoman saw Bai Lingmiao leave, she finally sighed in relief. She lifted her blanket, revealing a blood-red bamboo slip.

Back in the cave, Chun Xiaoman had found a copy of the Profound Records and hid it.

She had seen Senior Li use it a few times before and knew what the associated risks were. But she had overestimated her own tolerance. When she recalled the cruel sacrifices written on the Profound Records, she almost ended up vomiting once again.

She finally knew just how much Li Huowang had sacrificed for all of them, and just how painful all of it had been.

After she vomited once more, she steeled herself to read through the Profound Records once more.

Compared to her suffering, she was more concerned about just how indebted she was to someone else.

She hated how Senior Li was the one who fought for them every time something happened—she hated how weak she felt.

After she had killed her own father, she had sworn to herself that she would no longer continue to be a weakling.

“If Senior Li could withstand it, then I can withstand it too!” Chun Xiaoman gritted her teeth and read through the Profound Records once again.

Meanwhile, Bai Lingmiao was cooking some ginger tea in the kitchen. As she stared at the flames, she suddenly felt worried.

She was vomiting so much and her behavior seemed odd. Is she pregnant? Then… who’s the father? It’s impossible for Senior Li to be the father, since I sleep with him every night. Could it be Puppy? Gao Zhijian? Sun Baolu? But when did Xiaoman get so close…

When she thought up to this point, Bai Lingmiao blushed. Still, she was worried about Chun Xiaoman. The journey ahead was still long and it would be quite hard for her if she really had gotten pregnant.

Just as Bai Lingmiao was worrying about Xiaoman, she suddenly felt a presence behind her. Smelling the same scent as her own, Bai Lingmiao frowned. “What’s wrong?”

The Second Deity’s voice rang out from behind. “Bring the drum. There’s work in this village.”

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