Chapter 19: Superstition

Hearing Li Huowang’s words, Bai Lingmiao widened her eyes and said, “Yes, yes! My grandpa even told me not to run outside the village. People outside are terribly cruel. If they catch a child, they’ll skin them, put them in a dog’s hide, and train them like a dog. Because children are smart, they can use this dog that understands human speech to perform acrobatics in the streets. That child would be miserable because their body would be stuck to the dog skin and they’d never grow up.”

Li Huowang frowned slightly and shook his head. “No, I’m not talking about those stories old women tell to scare their grandchildren. I mean something like Master You.”

“Like Master You? Let me think…” Bai Lingmiao furrowed her brows and began to ponder. “My grandpa’s stories are usually quite jumbled, but most of them are about long worms in the mountains eating people. Something like Master You is really rare.”

“Then who told your grandpa the story of Master You?”

Bai Lingmiao innocently widened her eyes. “Well, of course, my grandpa’s grandpa told him, and then my grandpa told me. I’ll tell my grandchildren someday too.”

Li Huowang scratched his head. So this story was passed down through generations; it seemed he had miscalculated.

“Senior Brother Li, I know one.” A weak young man leaning against the wall, who had been listening, suddenly spoke.

His joints were deformed, with one shoulder higher than the other, and his whole body was contorted, making him quite “striking in appearance” even within the room.

“Senior Brother Li, my surname is Zhao, and I’m the fifth child in my family. You can just call me Zhao Wu.”

“Anyone can tell me,” Li Huowang said, walking up to him. “Alright, tell me.”

Zhao Wu looked around, then deliberately lowered his voice and said, “The kind of sinister thing you’re talking about, I’ve heard the older generation mention one. It’s called ‘Grand Nanny’.”

“Grand Nanny? What does it look like?” Li Huowang quickly searched his mind but found no related images. Guessing from the literal meaning offered no clues at all.

“Shh~ Senior Brother Li, not so loud. Lower your voice. This thing is very sinister. I’ve heard that Grand Nanny can hear you. If you talk about them often, they’ll come looking for you!”

“Oh?” Hearing this, Li Huowang became interested.

“My maternal uncle told me that it appears differently to everyone. Some see it as a long-eared spirit, others as their deceased elders. But the one consistent thing is that anyone who stays near them for a while will also turn into a Grand Nanny!”

Li Huowang stroked his chin thoughtfully. “This place is truly strange. There are all sorts of inexplicable things. Alright, anything else?”

“Yes, there’s also the ‘Husband and Wife Fish.’ That thing is also sinister…..”

From Zhao Wu, Li Huowang learned many strange and unusual terms, all of which he intended to use as ingredients for the elixir of immortality.

“You certainly know a lot. Thank you, this information is helpful to me.” If he only mentioned highly poisonous ingredients, Danyangzi might notice. But by adding things Danyangzi couldn’t even identify, the credibility would be much higher.

The goal was precisely for him not to understand. Anything that’s incomprehensible automatically seems profound.

Hearing Li Huowang say this, Zhao Wu smiled with joy. “I heard all this from my maternal uncle. He’s a peddler; he’s been everywhere, so he knows a lot.”

“Alright, it’s almost time. I’m heading back. You all wait quietly for my news.” Li Huowang took a deep breath, stood up, and walked out.

He had barely taken two steps when a tall figure, at least 1.9 meters tall, blocked his path. “I… I… I…”

Li Huowang recognized the bald man in front of him. Everyone in the materials room called him “the fool,” the kind with crossed eyes and drooling.

It wasn’t entirely accurate to call him a complete fool; he merely had a stutter, slow reactions, and intellectual disability. “I… I… I… know something too!”

Li Huowang sighed, reached out and patted the man’s bald head, then turned and walked towards the door.

Early the next morning, Danyangzi summoned Li Huowang to his dwelling. “I’ve almost finished practicing the internal and external major and minor circulation techniques you mentioned. Now, tell me about the elixirs to take with the cultivation method.”

“Yes, Master.” Li Huowang walked to the stone tablet and pretended to examine it again. “Hmm… two ‘Grand Nanny hearts,’ refine their essence? Master, what does this mean?”

Danyangzi, his expression shifting, paced back and forth inside the room, muttering to himself, “Is this truly the way? Does the path to immortality really require such dark and sinister things?”

“Master, what is Grand Nanny?”

“Never mind that, continue.”

“One ‘Husband and Wife Fish,’ take its gills, soak in two liang of arsenic…”

Combining the knowledge he gained from Zhao Wu with his own modern understanding, and fueled by a sleepless night, Li Huowang smoothly wove together a systematic method for achieving immortality.

After Li Huowang finished reciting everything he had fabricated, he saw Danyangzi appear highly agitated, muttering to himself.

However, when Li Huowang carefully distinguished what he was saying, he was immediately astonished.

“‘Yes, it can’t be wrong. Arsenic is cool in nature, so it must be neutralized by a hot substance like the Husband and Wife Fish. Brilliant! And to think, using Grand Nanny in the elixir – why didn’t I consider that before? If humans can be used in elixirs, why not these sinister things?’” This fellow actually started to imagine the medicinal balance of the elixir.

Li Huowang realized that Danyangzi was very clever when he was clever, but truly foolish when he was foolish. He trusted no one but the system he couldn’t formulate in his own mind.

If there was one word to describe it, it was superstition. In a world without gods or ghosts, superstitious belief in them represents ignorance. Yet, even in a world with gods and ghosts, superstition remains ignorance; it’s merely the object of the superstition that differs.

Just then, Danyangzi reached into his sleeve with his right hand and pulled out a bronze Taoist bell, chipped at one corner—the kind of bell Li Huowang had seen in zombie movies used to control zombies.

As he began to shake it forcefully, a piercing ringing instantly filled the air. Li Huowang immediately felt a splitting headache. He instinctively clutched his head and gritted his teeth.

The bizarre sound of the bronze bell affected not only his hearing but also his sight.

Everything around him began to twist and deform. The entire world seemed to shake violently, as if in an earthquake.

“What’s going on? Danyangzi, what is he doing? Did I make a mistake? Has he discovered something?”

As Li Huowang thought this, he saw the corners of the table, the edges of Danyangzi’s Taoist robe, and even a side of the heavenly scroll nearby—every edge and corner of every visible object in the room seemed to come alive, slowly twisting and converging in front of Danyangzi.

This mass formed from the edges and corners of objects was difficult to describe, but the only certainty was that it was alive.

Li Huowang thought he was mistaken. He vigorously shook his head, but it would have been better if he hadn’t; with that shake, the thing actually split into two, mimicking Li Huowang’s movement.