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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 19
Chapter Title: Superstition
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Hearing Li Huowang's words, Bai Lingmiao opened her eyes wide and said: "There are! There are! My grandpa also told me not to run outside the village. The people outside are really vicious. If they catch a kid, they'll peel off the skin and drape dog hide over them to train as a dog. Because kids are smart, they can take this dog that understands human speech out to perform street acrobatics. That kid is doomed, though, because their body sticks to the dog skin and they can never grow up again."
Li Huowang frowned slightly and shook his head. "No, I'm not talking about those old ladies scaring their little grandsons stories. I mean something like the Wandering Lord."
"Like the Wandering Lord? Let me think..." Bai Lingmiao furrowed her brows in thought. "My grandpa's stories are all jumbled up usually, but most of them are about mountain beasts eating people and such. Something like the Wandering Lord is really rare."
"Then who told your grandpa the Wandering Lord story?"
Bai Lingmiao blinked her eyes innocently. "Well, of course it was his grandpa who told him. Then my grandpa told me, and someday I'll tell my grandson."
Li Huowang scratched his head. So the story was handed down through generations. He'd miscalculated.
"Senior Brother Li, I know one." A frail young man leaning against the wall suddenly spoke up.
This man had deformed joints, one shoulder higher than the other, his entire body twisted in an unnatural way. Even among the folks in the Material Room, he stood out in terms of "striking appearance."
"Senior Brother Li, my family name is Zhao, I'm the fifth at home. You can just call me Zhao Wu."
Whoever told it didn't matter. Li Huowang walked up to him and said: "Alright, go ahead."
Zhao Wu glanced around and deliberately lowered his voice. "That kind of eerie stuff you're talking about, I heard the old folks mention one once. That thing's called the Great Matron."
"The Great Matron? What does it look like?" Li Huowang quickly searched his mind but found no related images. Guessing from the literal meaning gave him no clues either.
"Shh~ Senior Brother Li, don't say it so loud. Keep it down. This thing is seriously creepy. I heard the Great Matron can hear you. If you keep talking about it, they'll come find you!"
"Oh?" Hearing this, Li Huowang perked up.
"I heard from my cousin that it looks different to everyone. Some see it as a long-eared spirit monster, others as their own deceased elders. But the one thing they all have in common is that anyone who stays near them for a bit turns into a Great Matron too!"
Li Huowang stroked his chin thoughtfully. "This place really is weird. All sorts of bizarre things. Alright, got anything else?"
"Yeah, there's more. There's also the Husband-Wife Fish. That thing's creepy too."
From Zhao Wu, Li Huowang learned quite a few strange and obscure terms, all of which were materials he planned to mix into the immortality pill.
"You know a lot. Thanks, this helps me out." If he only used overtly toxic pill ingredients, Danyangzi might notice, but tossing in things even he couldn't identify made it far more convincing.
That was the point—stuff that didn't make sense. Anything incomprehensible just seemed profound.
Hearing Li Huowang say this, Zhao Wu grinned happily. "I got all that from my cousin. He's a traveling peddler, been everywhere, knows all sorts of things."
"Alright, time's almost up. I'm heading back. You all wait quietly for my news." Li Huowang took a deep breath, stood, and walked toward the door.
He'd barely taken two steps when a towering figure at least six foot three blocked his path. "I-I-I..."
Li Huowang recognized the bald man in front of him. Everyone in the Material Room called him the Fool—the cross-eyed, drooling type.
Calling him a complete idiot wasn't quite accurate. He just stuttered, reacted slowly, and was slow-witted. "I... I... I... know one too!"
Li Huowang sighed and patted the Fool's shiny bald head before turning toward the door.
Early the next morning, Danyangzi summoned Li Huowang to his quarters ahead of schedule. "The inner and outer minor and major heavenly cycle techniques you mentioned, I've practiced them pretty well. Now tell me about the pills to take alongside the technique."
"Yes, Master." Li Huowang stepped up to the stone slab and once more put on a show of examining it. "Hmm, two Great Matron hearts, refine their essence? Master, what does this mean?"
Danyangzi paced back and forth in the room, his expression flickering between dark and light as he muttered to himself: "So that's how it is? The path to immortality actually requires something so陰邪?"
"Master, what's a Great Matron?"
"Never mind that. Keep going."
"One Husband-Wife Fish, take its gills, soak in two taels of arsenic..."
The things he'd learned from Zhao Wu, combined with Li Huowang's modern knowledge and an all-nighter of effort, came together in his mouth as a complete system for attaining immortality.
After Li Huowang finished reciting everything he'd made up, he saw Danyangzi extremely excited, muttering something to himself.
But when he made out the words, Li Huowang felt utter astonishment.
"Yes, that's it. Arsenic is cold in nature, so it needs something hot and dry like the Husband-Wife Fish to balance it. Brilliant! And using Great Matron in a pill? Why didn't I think of that before? If humans can be made into pills, why not these陰邪 things?" The guy was even rationalizing the pill's properties into a balanced formula.
Li Huowang realized Danyangzi was sharp when he was sharp, but truly ignorant when he was ignorant. He trusted no one, only the notions he cooked up in his own head.
If there was a word for it, it was superstition. In a world without gods or ghosts, believing in them was ignorance. In a world with gods and ghosts, superstition was still ignorance—just a different object of belief.
At that moment, Danyangzi reached his right hand into his sleeve and pulled out a notched copper Dao bell—the kind Li Huowang had seen in zombie flicks used to control the undead.
As he shook it vigorously, a piercing bell rang out. Li Huowang's head throbbed in agony. He instinctively clutched his skull and gritted his teeth.
This bizarre copper bell didn't just affect his hearing—it messed with his vision too.
Everything around him began to twist and warp. The whole world shook violently like an earthquake.
"What's going on? What's Danyangzi up to? Did I slip up somewhere? Did he figure it out?"
As these thoughts raced through Li Huowang's mind, he noticed the table corner, the hem of Danyangzi's Daoist robe, even the edge of the Heavenly Book nearby. Every edge and corner visible in the room seemed to come alive, writhing slowly and gathering in front of Danyangzi.
This mass formed from the objects' edges was hard to describe, but one thing was certain: it was alive.
Li Huowang thought he was seeing things. He shook his head hard. If he hadn't shaken it, all would've been well—but the moment he did, that thing split into two following his motion.
(End of chapter)