Mutated Tao

“Senior Li, who’s Wang Wei?” Hearing his mumblings, Bai Lingmiao asked out of curiosity.

Li Huowang shook his head. “Hehe, Wang Wei is just a nobody. He doesn’t exist.”

Bai Lingmiao helped him up and they quickly retraced their steps. Compared to when they came in, the road back wasn't as bad.

Since none of them died and they even found the Black Taisui, everyone felt relieved. Still, they wanted to head out as soon as possible.

“Senior Li, once we get back out, can we rest at Sun Baolu’s place for a few days? I want to eat more roasted lambs before we leave. I feel like I’ve lost six months of my life,” Puppy pleaded with Li Huowang, his white patchy face revealing a tired expression.

Li Huowang looked at everyone else and noted their tiredness before agreeing, “Sure. It’s thanks to everyone that we succeeded this time. We should get some more rest.”

In the end everyone was a living human. He had to consider the limits of their physical capabilities as well.

Hearing Li Huowang’s agreement, Puppy clenched his fist in excitement. Just the thought of the lamb meat already caused him to start salivating. “Haha! The things I had heard about the roasted lamb meat of Qing Qiu was not exaggerated in the slightest! Other places simply can’t compete with it!”

“Wait, Puppy, what are you holding in your hands?” asked Li Huowang when he saw some white threads floating in Puppy’s fist.

Puppy opened his fist and showed Li Huowang. “Oh this? These are the white threads on the Lion Dance. I cut down quite a lot of it. Since it could turn Sun Baolu into what he is today, this must be quite a special item. I think that I can sell it once we reach someplace big, like the capital of Liang Kingdom. We should also consider our finances as well, right? After all, we’ve already used a lot of our money throughout our journey.”

Within Puppy’s fist was a pouch woven from thick cloth. Inside the pouch were bundles of white threads that looked like cotton.

Li Huowang shook his head. Puppy never failed to surprise him when it came to money. “The Lion Dances are already dead and so these might not even work anymore. And yet, you still took them with you?”

Puppy heard Li Huowang’s words and felt that it was indeed possible for them to no longer work. His heart started pounding as he gingerly extended his pinky finger and swiped it against one of the white threads.

At that moment, Puppy saw with his very eyes as his fingernail shifted to the other side, while his fingerprints shifted to where his fingernail was before.

“This… this …” Puppy checked his pinky fingernail and stared at Li Huowang helplessly. “Senior Li, it’s still working, but now… my pinky finger is upside down…”

“Why are you panicking? It should be fine, plus there’s no need to sell them for money. Why don’t you research how to use them to kill enemies? For example tying one of them to a needle and shooting the needle through a blow pipe or something,” suggested Li Huowang.

Li Huowang’s advice caused Puppy’s eyes to light up! “Hey! You are right! Senior Li is indeed a knowledgeable person! You are so much smarter than me!”

Puppy was excited! With these white tassels, he too could also be considered someone with supernatural powers!

It doesn’t matter if it's real or fake, but now, I will also be able to show off to the women and make them want to marry me! I will also be able to help Senior Li next time if there’s trouble!

As he thought about this, Puppy ignored his inverted pinky finger and quickly kept the pouch of white tassels securely inside his shirt.

While Puppy was busy considering the possibilities, everyone else started to slow down.

“Wait, this isn’t right. We’ve walked so far and yet we still haven’t even reached the cauldron?”

Li Huowang’s words were like a splash of cold water on all of their faces. Not only did it extinguish all of their happiness, it even made them feel somewhat scared.

All of them stared into the darkness, trying to find something familiar they could recognize.

But everything within the darkness looked the same to them.

“This place isn’t right! It could make us lose our way!” At this point, all of their relief was gone and they started panicking again!

“Don’t panic! Look at the foot prints! We just need to use them to retrace our steps!” said Li Huowang, causing all of them to lower their glowing rocks toward the ground.

Seeing the clearly visible footprints, they finally calmed down a little.

“Let’s slowly retrace our steps,” instructed Li Huowang.

Everyone followed Li Huowang’s orders and slowly retraced their steps, even if some of their footprints weren’t all that clear in certain places. There was also the trail of blood that Li Huowang had left from when they were walking just now.

An hour passed as they continued to retrace their steps, but they had yet to reach where the Lion Dance corpses were. They were certain they hadn’t walked so far away. Even so, the blood stains continued leading them into the darkness.

Sun Baolu was the first one to start despairing. “Senior Li, we can’t go out anymore. The cave has eaten us.”

Li Huowang wasn’t feeling good about being forced into the dead end either. However, at that moment, he heard something.

“Sh!” Li Huowang lowered his body and placed his ear onto the ground.

Li Huowang slowly crept forward. “Everyone, hide your glowing stones. Someone’s coming.”

Hearing his words, everyone kept away their glowing stones, allowing the darkness to engulf them. All of them were feeling afraid as they held onto each other to prevent themselves from getting separated.

“What do you mean you heard someone? I’m not hearing anything?” asked Puppy. However, just as he said this, Li Huowang silenced him by covering his mouth.

They continued walking slowly until Li Huowang suddenly stopped. Everyone tried their best to listen but heard nothing.

However, Li Huowang heard it clearly. It was an old man’s voice.

“Let me test you. We are born as humans, but what is a ‘human’?” asked the old man.

A child’s voice answered him, “Humans are made of flesh, so the flesh is human.”

Li Huowang frowned and stopped as he listened to their conversation.

“Wrong! The flesh is nothing but a vessel,” said the old man.

“But Master did not say that. He just told me to stop thinking too much and taught me that humans are made of flesh,” said the child.

“Shh! Don’t listen to Master. That old man is just making stuff up! Everything is a lie,” said the old man.

“Can you stop talking in circles? If you don’t want to tell me, then don’t! It’s so annoying!” snapped the child.

At this point, the old man’s voice became conceited as he started explaining, “Humans are One, and One is humans. Everyone has One, and One becomes Two. From there the cycle of life and death is born. Two becomes Three, and then it becomes the Three Corpses and Seven Emotions. The path to cultivating the Dao is to cultivate the One. In order to do so, we must first abandon the Seven Emotions and kill the Three Corpses to return back to One!”

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