Mutated Tao

Li Huowang was also enjoying the meal along with everyone else as he bit into a juicy lamb leg. However, he sat slightly further away from the others to think about his own matters and to get some peace and quiet.

Even though the Nascent Soul told me that it’s easy to join the Surveillance Bureau, I still need to find a way to enter. How should I contact them? I can’t just ask for them on the streets. I can’t even guarantee that the bronze coin veil can perfectly hide my status as a Strayed one. It might be able to fool someone like Han Fu, but it might not work on more powerful people.

I also don’t have any information on the Liang Kingdom. There’s no point in me thinking about this now. I should just adapt to the situation later on. The beginning is always the hardest part. As long as I take the first step, the rest will soon follow.

While Li Huowang was thinking about his next course of action, his sharp hearing managed to pick up the sound of a pair of shoes stepping onto the grass. He raised his head and saw Lu Zhuangyuan’s wrinkled face as well as his flattering smile.

“Young Daoist, are you free? I would like to discuss something with you,” asked Lu Zhuangyuan.

“Oh? Go ahead.” Li Huowang placed down the bone in his hand and looked at Troupe Leader Lu. With having to deal with the matter of the Black Taisui, he had almost forgotten that the Lu family was traveling with them.

“Young Daoist, as you know we had to abandon all our costumes and instruments in Hou Shu to escape the soldiers, but we are still performers! We cannot just eat your food without doing anything. So I was wondering… could I borrow some money from you to get our equipment back and start performing again?”

Li Huowang was fine with this. Sun Baolu’s mother gave them a lot of money so he wasn’t too concerned about it. “Sure, go ahead and get the money from Bai Lingmiao.”

“Haha, Young Daoist, I’m not done yet. You can keep this first.” Lu Zhuangyuan took out a wrinkled piece of paper with a handprint on it.

Li Huowang took the wrinkled piece of paper and saw the squiggles written on it. The words were difficult to read.

“What is this? A talisman?” asked Li Huowang.

Lu Zhuangyuan blushed from shame as he replied, “This is a loan paper. Please excuse me for being illiterate, but it’s still official because it has my handprint on it for authenticity! Young Daoist, we are eternally grateful to you and we don’t want you to loan us the money just like that. We even ate and drank from your coffers all this time. So I came up with this: As long as we have yet to pay back the money we owe you, you will become our employer! Everytime we perform, we will split the earnings in half. Half of it will be paid back to you, while we will keep the other half.”

“You are paying half of it to me? I’m afraid that you might not even be able to pay all of it back in your lifetime. You don’t need to worry about all this and should just take it,” said Li Huowang, wanting to return the piece of paper to Lu Zhuangyuan.

“Ai~!” Lu Zhuangyuan stopped him. “We can no longer accept your generosity for nothing. If you insist, then we dare not borrow any money from you.”

Seeing how adamant Lu Zhuangyuan was about this, Li Huowang didn’t insist any more and decided to keep the wrinkled piece of paper.

Lu Zhuangyuan was overjoyed when he saw that. He quickly called for his family and all of them stood in front of Li Huowang as they greeted him, “Good day to our employer!”

Li Huowang was too tired to care about Lu Zhuangyuan’s intentions. Staring at them, he suddenly had a funny thought; it was like he had just gotten himself a hen. Even though the hen was skinny and would lay eggs inconsistently, at the very least he would have a supply of eggs for himself in the future.

“Sure, go back and have your meal. Once we are done having our meal we can continue our journey. We need to leave Qing Qiu as soon as possible,” instructed Li Huowang.

“Understood, employer!” replied Lu Zhuangyuan.

Li Huowang shook his head when he saw how happy he looked as they walked away. Then, he picked up his warm bowl of soup and drank it.

“So many of the people we met used to talk about how glamorous the Liang Kingdom supposedly is. To think that I would get a chance to explore it in my lifetime,” said Lu Zhuangyuan as he happily led everyone back to the camp.

While he was happy, the rest of them were not. Lu Juren looked quite gloomy as he talked to his father, “Dad, you just sold us off. Why are you so happy?”

“Sigh, you brat.” Lu Zhuangyuan sighed at his own son before taking out his smoke pipe. He lit it up with the campfire and started smoking.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Lu Zhuangyuan.

“I want to go back. I don’t want to go to the Liang Kingdom. I don’t want to perform anymore,” said Lu Juren as he stared at the pregnant Luo Juanhua.

“You!” Lu Zhuangyuan wanted to hit his son with the smoke pipe, but seeing how Lu Juren did not hide from it, Lu Zhuangyuan slowly lowered his hand. “You are making it sound so easy. If you don’t want to perform, then what do you plan to do? We don’t have a field at home for you to go and farm on. Do you want to be a gigolo? And even if you want to go back, the soldiers are still at war with each other. If you go back now, you will just die!”

Lu Juren stood up, his eyes filled with longing. “Dad, what if they have stopped fighting? After all, we didn’t see any skirmishes after traveling for so long.”

“Hmph! You sure are idealistic. They don’t stop fighting once they start! That’s how soldiers are,” said Lu Zhuangyuan, leaving Lu Juren feeling conflicted.

Looking at how conflicted Lu Juren was, he sighed. “Son, please believe me. I’m not just some clueless old man. I’ve lived long enough and experienced a lot of things. Do you think everything would be over once the soldiers stop fighting? No! It’s one thing after another! After the soldiers stop fighting, there won’t be enough people to bury all the dead. What’s most likely going to happen in that situation is a plague. Once the plague is over, there won’t be enough living people to tend to the fields. By then, the food prices would soar sky high and people would be forced to sell their own children just to survive. By then, who would pay to see a performance? What would we eat if we don’t even earn any money? We can’t just eat dirt.”

Lu Zhuangyuan lowered his voice as he continued to console his son, “Son, don’t be ashamed of being a performer. If I didn’t do this, then I would have starved to death. I wouldn’t even have had children like you. We cannot forget what fed us.”

Lu Juren knew his father was right, but he still felt the decision his father made was a bit extreme. “But dad, no matter what, you can’t just sell us off to the Young Daoist. Now, we are just his slaves.”

Lu Zhuangyuan glared at his eldest son and looked at Li Huowang having his meal. Then, he pulled Lu Juren slightly further away. After he thought that they were far enough, Lu Zhuangyuan whispered to his son in a harsh voice, “Slave? What kind of slave has meat to eat everyday!?”

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