Chapter 59: Outsider Disciple

Before Li Huowang could answer, the slurping sound of noodles resumed.

"You can't just decide to become a spiritual medium," Li Zhi began to explain. "Spiritual mediums are chosen by the Immortals themselves; getting into this line of work requires opportunity."

"Oh? If you don't mind, please elaborate," Li Huowang urged. He had spent so long conversing with this man precisely to understand these matters better. The more he understood about this unfamiliar world, the safer he would be.

Li Zhi gestured with his chopsticks in the air. "To become a spiritual medium, you have to fall seriously ill, ideally on the verge of death. If you're lucky, an Immortal will send you a dream. It will heal you, and in return, you become its medium."

"What do Immortals look like?"

Li Zhi pondered, as if trying to recall something. "Hmm... how should I put it? They're definitely not human in appearance." After speaking, he tried to scoop noodles from his bowl with his chopsticks, only to find it empty. Excitedly, Li Zhi walked back towards the pot.

"Not human in appearance, huh..." Li Huowang mused thoughtfully. From what Li Zhi said, these Immortals could communicate and even conduct transactions. This suggested they might be similar to Master You. It seemed people here were actively or passively engaging in transactions and interactions with such entities. Li Huowang immediately recalled the writhing, fleshy "Great Buddha" at Zhengde Temple. From men, women, and animals, to the ultimate "Great Buddha," the monks' cultivation method seemed to be a gradual process.

Considering the abilities of the seven Buddhas he had encountered earlier—capable of both bestowing flesh and blood upon Master You and growing a thousand fleshy arms themselves—it wasn't difficult to deduce that the monks of Zhengde Temple likely gained flesh-and-blood related abilities through such cultivation.

"Perhaps interacting and trading with different entities grants different supernatural powers, and this is the origin of their various sects?" Li Huowang was beginning to form a preliminary understanding of this world.

At that moment, Li Zhi returned with his bowl of noodles piled high, completely dry. As soon as he squatted down, he began to eat while pouring out his grievances. "Let me tell you, being a spiritual medium is no good job. Avoid it if you can. There's a ton of messy business, three calamities and three tribulations, and you don't even make much money..."

After listening to his half-day of rambling complaints, Li Huowang couldn't help but interject, "So, what exactly can you spiritual mediums ask the Immortals to do?"

Li Zhi glanced at Li Huowang and replied, "Everything. Exorcising evil, healing illnesses, changing fortunes, attracting wealth, presiding over weddings and funerals, divination, and even geomancy for burial sites."

"That powerful? They can do everything?"

"Well, each Immortal family has different abilities. If you encounter trouble and your own Immortal can't handle it, you can always invite an Immortal from another family."

Hearing this, Li Huowang's expression involuntarily grew serious. "What if someone is haunted by something? Can they resolve that too?"

"Haunted by what? That's just being possessed by evil. Of course, they can."

"Are you sure? This isn't just anything ordinary." Li Huowang thought of Dan Yangzi as he looked at the man before him. By all accounts, this guy seemed somewhat unreliable.

"Hey, whether it works or not, why don't you just try? It's only fifty copper coins either way. Are you afraid I'll run off with your money?"

"Fifty copper coins? Is that your fee?" The cost was far lower than Li Huowang had anticipated.

"My fee is mine, and the Immortal's fee is the Immortal's. They're calculated separately." Li Zhi chewed and swallowed the noodles in his mouth, then let out a satisfied belch. "My 'tea money' is fifty copper coins. No bargaining; it's a three-hundred-year-old rule and hasn't changed. Of course, it has to be new coins; you can't use clipped or damaged ones. As for the Immortal's fee..."

"Do I negotiate the Immortal's compensation myself?"

"No, you can't negotiate. You have to let the Immortal choose whatever it wants. In most cases, Immortals don't want external possessions like money."

"'Choose whatever it wants'? And they don't want money?" A subtle unease stirred in Li Huowang's heart. If he truly made a transaction with them, what would these Immortals take? "Then, in the past, what did Immortals take from people?"

"Hey, you ask me, who am I supposed to ask?" Li Zhi cupped the bowl with both hands and began to lick it thoroughly. "Anyone from whom an Immortal has taken something must not speak of it outside. It's taboo; speaking of it brings bad luck."

"Aren't you a spiritual medium? Don't you know either?"

"To be blunt, I'm just the Immortal's long-term laborer. My only job is to invite the Immortal; I don't care about anything else. For such little money, I can't be bothered with those messy affairs." Compared to the monks of Zhengde Temple and Dan Yangzi, Li Zhi seemed to possess a detached nonchalance.

"So, you want to try it? Who's possessed?" Li Zhi, full and satisfied, picked his teeth with a chopstick while looking towards the others in the distance. The person in question was right there, but Li Huowang didn't press the issue. Instead, he patiently continued, "Brother Li Zhi, you've traveled extensively; you must have handled many cases, right? Do you know how the 'evil' you speak of, the kind that possesses people, comes about?"

Li Zhi shook his head with a touch of impatience. "I can't be bothered to remember those things. A fifty-copper-coin job barely puts food on the table, so why would I work so hard? If it let me charge five hundred copper coins per session, then I'd certainly remember every detail clearly. And they won't let me raise prices or switch professions. This work is truly frustrating. Oh, by the way, Daoist priest, your rituals must be quite profitable, right? How much can you earn from one ritual?"

Li Huowang glanced again at the motionless woman with the red veil behind him, then stood up. "We've rested enough. Let's continue on our way."

"Alright! By the way, what time are we having dinner?"

Li Huowang and his group continued walking. Li Zhi, with his overly lively personality, kept trying to strike up conversations with Li Huowang and the others, but they didn't respond with much enthusiasm. The man spoke and conversed quite normally, without any apparent malice. However, good intentions weren't always evident on one's face, and Li Huowang's guard remained up.

Li Huowang slightly turned his head to look at the two individuals on the other side of the road. His attention was entirely focused on the silent, unmoving woman with the red veil next to Li Zhi, the "Second God." The more he looked, the more unsettling she seemed. Compared to Li Zhi, this woman was distinctly more eerie. Every time she lifted her foot to walk, she covered the exact same distance, making her seem less like a real person and more like a puppeted corpse. Even stranger, Li Zhi actually called this entity his "wife."

"Brother Li, perhaps we should separate from them?" Bai Lingmiao said, walking up beside him.

"Not yet. Let's wait and see," Li Huowang replied. He needed to observe carefully. If the man wasn't lying, then perhaps the Immortals he spoke of were truly the key to getting rid of Dan Yangzi.