Chapter 744: Sitting Forgetting Dao

Li Sui slowly drove the horse-drawn carriage through a secluded alley. Behind her, two figures followed: a scruffy, thin man with a beard and Li Huowang, who had changed his clothes.

The scruffy man, known for picking pockets, was Li Huowang’s target.

As the carriage bounced, a grapefruit-sized package gradually jostled out from the back of the carriage. The glint of silver inside immediately drew the attention of the shifty-eyed thin man.

"Gee-up!" With a flick of the reins, Li Sui sped up the carriage. The cloth-wrapped package, tumbling with the bumps, finally fell to the ground, scattering some bits of broken silver.

As Li Sui’s carriage quickly drove away, Li Huowang, who had been standing slightly ahead, immediately rushed over and picked up the package of silver.

He then glanced left and right, shushing the thin man who was staring at him. He lowered his voice and said, "Shhh! Don't make a sound. Let’s go over there and split the loot! This bag of silver is half for each of us!"

"G-good... good!" The thin man trembled with excitement, eyeing the bulging package.

Seeing the man fall for the trap immediately, Li Huowang thought to himself, "If other tricks don't work, then I'll follow the 'Scam Scripture'."

This was called the "dropped package scam," a very classic trick from the 'Scam Scripture'.

Though the method seemed simple, this type of scam had existed for at least a thousand years. No matter how much time passed, for some reason, people still fell for the same simple trick.

A scam doesn't need to be new; it just needs to work. As long as human greed exists, scams that exploit this dark side of human nature will never go out of style.

Following the steps of the dropped package scam, Li Sui, pretending to be the owner who lost the silver, returned. She collaborated with Li Huowang to put on a double act.

One person claimed the silver in the bag was missing and loudly threatened to report it to the authorities, while the other cooperated by taking out all the money on his person to prove his innocence.

Although her expression was a bit exaggerated, Li Sui acted very seriously.

Soon, Li Huowang and Li Sui left with the few small coins they had conned from the thin man. Hiding in the shadows, they watched the thin man clutching the bag of silver.

After a while, when the thin man saw they hadn't returned, he immediately opened the package. He picked up a silver ingot from inside, put it in his mouth, bit it hard, and then, clutching the bag of silver, happily left.

"Huh? What’s going on?" Li Huowang's face showed confusion. According to the plan, this fellow should have discovered that it wasn't a silver ingot at all, but rather plaster.

Then he should have realized he'd been scammed, and Li Huowang himself should have received the "false essence" from the deception. Why wasn’t this guy following the script now?

"Dad, he wasn't scammed. There really was a bag of silver in there," Li Sui said.

"I know, of course I know, but I clearly only put plaster in there, so how did it turn into silver..."

Mid-sentence, Li Huowang suddenly understood. It seemed the plaster had been transformed into silver by his cultivation.

His ability to cultivate reality was uncontrollable; now, his false words turned into reality. Was this still considered a scam?

Since the silver was genuine, he hadn't been scammed. Everything was real.

All the scams he spoke of now had the potential to become real. If they were real, then it wasn't a scam, merely a statement of fact.

Cultivating reality and not falsehoods could lead to qi deviation, but for a cultivator who had achieved great mastery of reality, cultivating falsehoods would likely be very difficult.

"Let's go! Let's follow him." Unwilling to give up, Li Huowang took Li Sui and quickly followed the thin man, attempting to remedy the situation.

When he saw the beaming thin man again, Li Huowang stared intently at the package, muttering to himself, "That's plaster! That's plaster!"

Finally, when the thin man reached the brothel and reached into the package again to pull out silver, preparing to spend it, he discovered that all the silver had turned into plaster.

The thin man instantly panicked, crying out in alarm. He clutched the plaster and went to find Li Huowang to settle the score, but Li Huowang was nowhere to be found.

Logically, this dropped package scam should have been over. However, this time, Li Huowang still didn't feel the "false essence" flowing into his body; cultivating falsehoods had still not succeeded.

It seemed that he couldn't use true cultivation methods to cultivate falsehoods as a workaround. Perhaps the two conflicted; in any case, it just wasn't working.

"Sigh, it's one thing not to get it when it turns into silver, but why don't I get it when it turns back into plaster? Why is cultivating a falsehood and scamming someone so difficult?"

After several attempts, Li Huowang, seeing the sun begin to set, took Li Sui towards the inn.

Upon arriving at his room and pushing the door open, Li Huowang saw Li Sui sitting on a stool with a displeased expression.

"Dad! You lied! You said you’d be back soon! But you took so long to return!"

As soon as she finished speaking, the Li Sui who had been following Li Huowang instantly vanished. Immediately after, Li Huowang felt a peculiar sensation, a tingling that made his spine tremble, surging into his head from the back of his skull.

Although it was only a faint wisp, Li Huowang immediately understood what it was. "Is this the 'false essence'...?"

Suddenly, Li Huowang understood what cultivating falsehoods meant. Cultivating falsehoods required falsehoods—false lies, false things.

If he used true cultivation to cultivate falsehoods, simply put, that falsehood was still real; it was still true cultivation, not false cultivation.

To cultivate falsehoods, he must not use anything real. Only when the things used were false could he genuinely deceive and achieve true falsehood.

"So that's how it works!" Li Huowang became excited. He had finally found the trick to cultivating falsehoods; it was actually very simple, and he had overcomplicated it.

Li Huowang immediately disregarded Li Sui's explanation of who the "other" self was, turned, and prepared eagerly for a new round of scams.

Just as Li Huowang was congratulating himself that his trip to Qingqiu hadn't been in vain, he saw the figure of Xuannv, whom he hadn't seen in a long time, float up from the ground.

Looking at the illusion of Xuannv, which always made him feel uneasy, Li Huowang felt the faint wisp of "false essence" within his body and began to ponder.

This "false essence" was so meager; none of the Sit-Forget Dao's divine abilities could be used with it. At most, it was enough to change one's face.

Just as Xuannv was about to say something, Li Huowang leaned back in his chair, his face rapidly changing. Soon, an eighteen-sided die replaced Li Huowang's head.

Li Huowang laughed, mimicking the die's tone. "Hehehe, Xuannv, you didn't expect me to have a backup plan, did you? It's not that easy to kill me."

The illusion of Xuannv remained motionless, but Li Huowang, feeling the "false essence" surging like ocean waves into the back of his head, found it difficult to hold back.

"Hahaha! You believed it! You actually believed it!"