Chapter 400: Face

Standing in the chaotic bedroom, Lu Xiucai stared dumbfounded at everything in front of him. He never imagined that this blind man would simply kill Master Kui and the others, all of them.

"Isn't this person an enlightened master who punishes evil and promotes good? Why would he kill good people? How is this different from the stories the old man told?"

At this moment, Chen Bazi suddenly turned his head to look at Lu Xiucai. Although he was blind, this action instantly made Lu Xiucai break out in a cold sweat.

"Oh, how is there one left in the room?" Chen Bazi said, then raised a mirror towards Lu Xiucai.

Lu Xiucai was immediately terrified. Trembling, he held up the copper coins in his hand and shouted with all his might, "Don't... don't kill me! My master is Li Huowang!!"

Hearing this, Chen Bazi immediately stopped.

As if he had found a lifeline, Lu Xiucai quickly pleaded with Chen Bazi, "Master, you know my master, don't you? For my master's sake, please spare me this one time. I truly don't know those people outside!"

Chen Bazi walked over and took the copper coins from his hand, one by one. "Li Huowang, Dog Huowang, I don't know any of them," he said. "But these five copper coins are quite good, they have some spiritual energy. Consider them your life-saving money."

Chen Bazi weighed the old copper coins in his hand, then, carrying his white banner, he turned and left.

Long after Chen Bazi had left, a gentle breeze blew, and Lu Xiucai shivered, coming to his senses.

He looked as if he had just woken from a dream at the large pool of blood and flesh outside the window. Master Kui, who had seemed so powerful in his eyes before, had died so meaninglessly. In front of that blind man, he wasn't even worthy of being an ant.

The blind man's actions shattered Lu Xiucai's complacent mindset even more.

This was different from his master, Li Huowang. Although Li Huowang was aloof and a bit eccentric, he never killed people indiscriminately, just like the enlightened masters Old Bones spoke of. But that blind man was different; if he wanted to, he could take someone's life at any time!

Thinking of this, a powerful fear enveloped Lu Xiucai's heart, making his body tremble uncontrollably. Just now, if he hadn't had those five copper coins to buy his life, he would probably have met the same fate as Master Kui and the others.

After the fear, a strong sense of unwillingness continuously welled up from his heart. Why was he so worthless in the eyes of others? He also wanted to become like Chen Bazi!

What he hadn't learned from Li Huowang, he learned from this blind man. What skill was it to eat well, drink well, and play with women? Becoming as powerful as that blind man was true skill!

The thought that everyone's lives were at his whim made Lu Xiucai's body tremble with excitement.

"I... I'm going back to find my master! I must beg him to teach me divine abilities!!" Lu Xiucai clenched his fists, gritted his teeth, and climbed over the wall, rushing outside.

"Hey, little one, let me test you. Who founded this Great Qi? I suppose you don't know. Let me tell you, when the Black Calamity fell, it was General Qi Lu who led his clansmen across the seas.

"Back then, this place was all wilderness, with all sorts of large and small Daoist and Buddhist nations, a chaotic mess. It was General Qi Lu who campaigned tirelessly, and finally, at the age of ninety-five, he completely established this Great Qi Royal City. His grandson, Qi Heng, then unified the world, and the Imperial Observatory of that era was also founded by him."

Mantou, lying on Black Grand-Sui, tilted its head, looking at the clean-faced scholar in front of it. As a dog, it really didn't understand what the other person was saying.

Inside the carriage, except for Black Grand-Sui which occupied most of the space, all other gaps were filled with Zhuge Yuan's books and calligraphy. He didn't mind, sitting amidst the piles of books and speaking voluminously to Mantou.

Yawning, Mantou stood up. Just as it was about to leave, it immediately saw a strip of meat in the other person's hand. Mantou immediately sat back down and, tongue hanging out, listened to the other person continue speaking.

Li Huowang, who was driving the horse, listened to the sounds from inside the carriage and sighed helplessly. Zhuge Yuan, of course, wasn't insane, wanting to lecture history to a dog.

He simply saw that I was unwilling to listen, so he used the excuse of lecturing history to a dog, speaking to me instead.

For some reason, he always wanted to teach me the historical records of Great Qi. If he wasn't lecturing history, he would enthusiastically teach me his calligraphy skills, claiming my stiff characters were painful for him to look at.

Zhuge Yuan was a very eager teacher with an incessant mouth, which didn't quite match his unfathomable power.

The carriage wheels slowly rolled on. Gradually, a small stall was set up by the dirt road, from which some white smoke drifted, appearing to be selling food.

"Brother Li, why aren't we stopping? We've been eating these dry rations for so many days. It would be nice to have a change of taste," Zhuge Yuan said, pulling aside the curtain and asking, a little surprised.

Li Huowang, holding the reins, frowned and stared at the customers eating noodles and the old women serving them. "It's not safe. These people could be from the Sit-Forget Sect. They might set a trap for us."

"Disguising themselves as a small food stall to administer medicine? That would be too petty. The Sit-Forget Sect wouldn't do something like that."

"Besides, Brother Li, aren't you trying to find the Northern Wind Sit-Forget Sect? If you're so cautious, how will we find them?"

Li Huowang was startled. *That's right*, he thought. It wasn't the Sit-Forget Sect trying to trick him now; he needed to find them.

With a pull of the reins, the carriage stopped. Li Huowang, Zhuge Yuan, and Mantou got out and walked towards the stall.

"Youngsters, would you like some noodles? Our fish soup noodles are delicious," a kind-faced old woman said, coming to their table. "The whole fish—scales, bones, and meat—are all boiled into the soup."

"Three bowls of noodles," Li Huowang said, staring intently at the old woman's face.

Seemingly startled by Li Huowang's action, the old woman ran back somewhat flustered and whispered something to the old man who was cooking noodles.

"Brother Li, don't be so anxious. Just eat without worry; they are truly not from the Sit-Forget Sect," Zhuge Yuan said, wiping his chopsticks with a white cloth.

"Oh? Brother Zhuge, do you perhaps have a way to distinguish between true and false Sit-Forget Sect members?" Li Huowang asked, looking at the completely unruffled Zhuge Yuan with great curiosity.

"Heh heh, I suppose you could say so," Zhuge Yuan replied. "Since those of the Sit-Forget Sect cultivate falsehoods, as a Heartbound, if I was that close to them just now, I would have long since seen the threads on their bodies."

"Threads? What threads?" Li Huowang asked, listening very carefully, as this was crucial to whether he could deal with the Sit-Forget Sect later.

"The threads connecting them to their Fate Masters."

Zhuge Yuan's words startled Li Huowang. This was different from what he had understood before. "They also have Fate Masters?"

"Of course," Zhuge Yuan replied. "If they didn't have Fate Masters, where would their divine abilities come from?"