Mutated Tao

Li Huowang found it suspicious that someone had suddenly appeared in Cowheart Village.

“Li Sui, help me find out his background.”

“All right, Father.”

Li Sui’s tentacles flew out and quickly dragged the ragged man out of the kitchen.

The tentacles pierced the man's seven apertures and probed his innards thoroughly.

The moonlight rose just then, allowing Li Huowang to see the man's face. The man's face was unshaven, and he looked extremely emaciated. Every single one of his ribs was clearly visible under his tattered clothes; he was hugging a small pumpkin and two sweet potatoes.

“Bleck!” The man bent over and vomited as soon as Li Sui’s tentacles were outside of him

“Father, he's human. There’s nothing else but a lump inside his belly. I think he's just an ordinary person.”

Li Huowang stared at the miserable-looking man and finally dropped his guard. Still, he found it difficult to believe that someone would go to great lengths to sneak into Cowheart Village just to steal a few sweet potatoes.

“I-I’ve been running away! I’m starving. Master, please spare. I really am about to starve to death. I won’t dare to steal again,” the man said, trembling on the ground. He was so scared that he dared not lift his head.

Li Huowang saw that others were converging on his location. He took a few breaths and pointed at Puppy, saying, “You go ahead and handle this. Feed him and let him decide whether to stay or not.”

Without waiting for Puppy's reply, Li Huowang retracted the tentacles and returned to the Bai Family Estate.

Puppy’s courage grew, as Li Huowang had already confirmed that the man was no threat.

With his hands behind his back, he walked up to the man. The white and black patches on his face frightened the man.

“Fleeing, huh? You’ve suffered a lot on the road, right?” Puppy asked.

“Yes, yes!” The man nodded repeatedly. He took out a sweet potato from his arms and was about to put it into his mouth when Puppy snatched it away.

“Hmph, you obviously haven’t been hungry before. Are you trying to kill yourself by stuffing yourself like that? You can only eat porridge for now! After two days of porridge, you can then transition to eating dried food.”

Puppy pointed at the two village soldiers and said arrogantly, “You two, yes, you two. Go and cook him some porridge. Didn’t you hear what your godfather just said? This matter is under my jurisdiction.”

Everyone soon heard about a refugee's arrival in the village, so they curiously gathered around.

Under the gaze of the villagers, the man devoured three bowls of porridge. He wanted to eat more, but Puppy stopped him.

“Enough, you're going to die if you drink more,” Puppy said, forcibly taking away his bowl. Then, he sat down on a stool and asked, “Now that you're done eating, you better start talking. Where are you from?”

The man seemed afraid as he looked around, but he instinctively licked his lips when he saw the pork gel candy in the hands of Puppy’s daughter. “I... I’m from Xi County.”

“Xi County? Where is that? I’ve never heard of that place. What disaster has befallen your home? Why are you fleeing?”

The man’s expression suddenly twisted in fear, and his figure trembled violently as he exclaimed, “A Natural... Natural Disaster! The Heavenly Dog devoured the sun, so the demons and ghosts from the eighteen layers of hell came out. They... they kill people on sight! I hid in a temple and barely managed to escape with my life. However, I could barely find any survivors after the Natural Disaster, and there was a three-year drought prior to that, so there was no food left for the survivors to consume.

“I had no choice but to flee and look for a way to survive.”

Puppy nodded in understanding and said, “Oh~ So that’s how it is, a Natural Disaster, huh? I know that. We encountered one before, and it was really scary. Fortunately, it didn't last long.”

“'It didn't last long'?” The man’s voice changed, and his eyes became filled with indignation as he exclaimed, “Why did we have to suffer that Natural Disaster for dozens of days?! How come it didn't last long for you guys?!”

The people nearby sucked in a cold breath. A Natural Disaster lasting for dozens of days would indeed be extremely devastating. It was no wonder that the man had to flee.

“Are you not from the Great Liang? Natural Disasters in the Great Liang don't last long,” Zhao Wu said, frowning.

“What? Great Liang? Where’s Great Liang? I haven't been running for that long, so how come I'm already in a different territory?” the man muttered, looking bewildered.

“You’re not from Great Liang?”

“No, I’m from Great Qi.”

The crowd broke out in discussions.

“Great Qi? Where’s the Great Qi? Isn’t Qing Qiu to the left of Great Liang and the sea to the right? Where’s Great Qi?”

“Is it above or below?”

“I have no idea, but it’s impossible for him to be from the Great Qi. However, I heard that there was a dynasty called the Great Qi a thousand years ago.”

Li Sui in her human skin memorized their words. She lifted her skirt and went home.

“Father! Father!" Li Sui exclaimed as soon as she entered the house. She eventually found her father cutting open his scalp to check its healing progress. “Father, there’s a man from Great Qi here. Did we go there before?”

“What? A man from Great Qi? Are you sure you heard him right?” Li Huowang couldn't even wipe away the blood on his head. He jumped over the window and rushed toward the kitchen.

Under the coercion of the torture instruments that Li Huowang showcased to the man, the latter dared not conceal anything and told him everything he knew.

Li Huowang compared the man's words to what he knew about the Great Qi and confirmed that the man was indeed from the Great Qi. He hadn't lied to them at all!

Someone from the Great Qi suddenly found themselves in the Great Liang, Li Huowang thought for a while before saying, “How did you get here?! Are there any Twisted Ones around here?”

“What Twisted One? I... I-I just walked down the road,” said the man with a pale face.

“Take me to that road!” Li Huowang urged. He dragged the man away toward the dirt road at the village entrance.

Soon, Li Huowang found himself at a fork in the road at the foot of Cowheart Mountain.

“I-I walked down that road. I saw that the woods here were denser, so I followed the wheel tracks and found your village.”

“Come, let’s keep going,” Li Huowang said. He had no idea what was going on, but he felt that things weren't so simple.

They hadn’t walked far before they came to a halt. There was no road up ahead; it was just a dead end.

The man was so scared of Li Huowang’s torture instruments that he looked like he was about to cry as he frantically explained, “I-I-I swear to the mountain spirits! I didn’t lie to you at all. I really walked down this road.”

Just as the man was about to continue speaking, Li Huowang heard a slight movement from his left ear. He shoved the man away and rushed into the woods on his left.

Soon, he saw an old man with ragged clothes and an unusually large belly standing beneath a big tree. The ragged old man was holding a sharp stone and was swinging it at the bark of the tree before him.

A large piece of bark was peeled away, and the ragged old man carefully peeled off the soft and moist green inner layer of the bark.

Tears streamed down the ragged old man's face as his trembling fingers shoved the tender bark into his mouth, which only had a few teeth remaining.

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