Mutated Tao

Chapter 888: Reward

The women of the village stared at Li Huowang until he finished his meal.

Li Huowang used the bamboo leaf like a spoon to eat the rice.

As he ate, Li Huowang secretly used telepathy to converse with Li Sui. Suisui, what do you think?

Nothing much. They are just the regular people of Tianchen Kingdom. I doubt they would know much about this place.

After finishing his meal, Li Huowang wiped his mouth and returned the bamboo to the woman before him. “Thank you for the meal. If it’s possible, may I stay a night here? Of course, I will pay for it.”

Li Huowang reached into his sleeves and took out several broken pieces of silver. “It’s alright. You’re just staying for a night, so there's no need to pay us.”

The woman seemed surprisingly excited as she led Li Huowang to a hut.

Is everyone in the Tianchen Kingdom so kind?

It was hard to imagine the Tianchen Kingdom betraying the Heavenly Mater and stripping away her Heavenly Dao if they were all so kind.

Li Huowang looked around at the surrounding short huts and realized they were either built from wood or bamboo.

“It is remote, but that’s fine. Our food is ours, and no one will come and take it from us.”

“Yours? Don’t you need to submit the food as tax to the palace?”

Li Huowang started to shift the conversation towards the direction he wanted.

“Palace? What is that place?”

Li Huowang learned there was no palace or royal family in the Tianchen Kingdom, which meant there were no emperors. In that case, the golden dragon being the Dragon Vein was even more believable now.

Looking at the woman's confused face, Li Huowang quickly answered, “Oh, it’s nothing. It's just a normal thing where I'm from.”

Li Huowang looked at the woman’s back as they continued to walk. “Miss, when I was walking here, I saw someone wearing the robes of an Opera actor and walking on stilts. I saw that person running past the roofs.”

The woman turned back in surprise. “What? What did you see?”

Li Huowang looked at her Ten Emotions and Eight Sufferings to see if anything was out of the ordinary.

“What are you talking about? Don’t lie to me. There are no such beings in this world.”

However, Li Huowang was disappointed upon realizing that the woman didn’t know who the Unspeakable Army was.

Li Huowang asked more simple questions but didn’t get a single satisfactory answer.

Is it because it's too remote here? Do the people here lack information? Maybe I should ask something they might know.

Li Huowang decided to ask about the general geography of the Tianchen Kingdom. It turned out that the TIanchen Kingdom was huge.

From her explanation, Li Huowang determined that the Tianchen Kingdom was larger than the Liang Kingdom, though neither of them knew the exact size of the Tianchen Kingdom.

To the woman, the village she was born and raised in was her entire world.

She didn’t know the different regional names of the Tianchen Kingdom. Almost the entire northern half of the kingdom was flatlands with many rivers, and those who lived there were called northerners.

The southern half of the Tianchen Kingdom was covered in trees and forest, and the inhabitants were called southerners.

She knew almost nothing else. She knew nothing about the army of Unspeakable or the golden dragon. She had just been living peacefully in the village throughout her life.

If nothing were to change, she would spend her entire life within a hundred Li of her village.

Shai Zi tricked me! Li Huowang whispered in his heart to Li Sui, There’s no way they could touch the Heavenly Dao. I doubt that they can even read.

To his understanding, the people of the Tianchen Kingdom weren’t as fearsome as what Shai Zi had described, where anyone living in the Tianchen Kingdom could strip the Heavenly Daos away.

The people of the Tianchen Kingdom were no different from those in the Liang Kingdom. Only a handful would cultivate and learn techniques, while the majority lived in ignorance, simply being born, growing old, and eventually passing away.

Li Huowang sighed in relief. A small part of his stress was relieved just like that.

Father, Shai Zi did not lie. She could learn how to do so—she just hasn’t.

Isn’t that the same as not being able to do it? She couldn’t do it even if she were to start learning now. Shh… be quiet. We are arriving soon. Once she leaves, we will escape into the darkness and head towards the county she mentioned.

Since there wasn’t much that he could obtain from the small village, there was no reason for him to stay here either.

Li Huowang needed to find some kind of scholar to learn more about the Tianchen Kingdom.

Even if there wasn’t a palace or an emperor, there should be some kind of organization that controlled and managed the Tianchen Kingdom, possibly under a different name than “palace.”

They weaved around the village and soon reached a small wooden hut propped up by branches.

“You stay here tonight. I hope you don’t mind how old it is.”

Seeing that the woman was climbing up the wooden ladder, Li Huowang quickly followed her and prepared himself to knock her unconscious.

However, when he reached the top, he was stunned by what he saw—the woman had taken off her top.

She gestured and pulled Li Huowang inside. “Here, lie down.”

Li Huowang quickly shook off his arm and realized why there wasn’t a single man in the village during the day and why they welcomed him. He had to pay a price!

“What’s wrong? Do you think I’m too old? Let me call for my daughter, then.”

“No need.”

Li Huowang wiped his hand on the woman’s face, and she froze.

“Father, am I interfering? Don’t worry, I won’t tell mother.”

Li Huowang frowned. “You still have the energy to joke? Don’t forget what we came here for.”

He never thought the culture of the Tianchen Kingdom would be so bizarre.

“Father, it’s not healthy to suppress yourself like this every day. You should smile and laugh when you can. You will snap one day if you continue this.”

“Alright, that’s enough. You don’t have to teach me about it. Let’s go.”

“Father, are you really not moved by her offer? She doesn’t look ugly.”

Li Huowang felt his skin crawling. He never thought his own daughter would say something like that.

He previously thought Li Sui was very inexperienced, but the current Li Sui was too bright!

“Stop saying nonsense before I throw you back into the Qi Kingdom.”

Li Sui stopped talking when she saw Li Huowang reaching for the spine sword.

Snapping branches could be heard as Li Huowang continued to walk into the dark forest.

By the time the hourglass flipped again, Li Huowang reached an opening. A county appeared in front of him.