Chapter 148 - Nuo Opera

Soon, they arrived at the border of the kingdom of Si Qi.

As could be expected, the borders were being controlled by the military in order to prevent spies from entering the kingdom.

The border was being tightly monitored. None of the people here had smiles on their faces.

After a while, the two groups managed to leave the border peacefully with the help of some pieces of silver.

The kingdom of Si Qi was a place filled with rivers and lakes. After exiting the kingdom, everything around them started to become barren; the trees were slowly replaced by sand dunes.

By the tenth night of their travels, there were no more trees in sight.

The further they traveled, the more barren it was. Li Huowang had a feeling that this was Hou Shu’s natural terrain.

“Whew~” Zhao Wu sighed, his breath condensing into a white vapor from the cold air. He was the one on night duty tonight. He rubbed his cold palms and continued to breathe into them for some warmth.

Given that it was almost summer solstice, it shouldn’t be this cold. But out in the desert, there was not a single object blocking the wind. Additionally they couldn’t get any firewood to chop, and so there was no fire. Thus, it was natural for it to be cold.

Zhao Wu turned around and stared at Li Huowang cuddling Bai Lingmiao while sleeping. At this moment, he felt envious of Li Huowang.

𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

He looked down at his fragile and deformed body; he felt inadequate. He wanted a wife, but no one would marry him due to his condition.

After a while, he took another breath of the cold, dry air, feeling sleepy. He tried keeping himself awake by using a small rock to write words onto the sand.

Some of them were taught to him by Li Huowang while others by Gao Zhijian.

I need to learn how to read. I must!

Zhao Wu’s eyes were filled with determination. He needed to prove to his father that he was not a waste of resources!

After he learned how to read and write, he would become a fortune teller in a temple and help people write letters to earn money.

If he could read, then he would be able to study a lot and even try his luck on the examination to become a minister!

By then...

Just as he was thinking about his future, he felt someone move behind him, the sudden change sending shivers down his spine.

He started to tremble in fear and was about to shout to wake everyone up when a hand without fingernails covered his mouth.

“Don’t shout, it’s me!”

Hearing Li Huowang’s voice calmed him down. Zhao Wu whispered. “Senior Li, what’s wrong?”

Zhao Wu scanned his surroundings but didn’t see anything besides the dark sand dunes.

“Shh~ Something is crawling toward us. Let me check and see if it’s alive,” said Li Huowang.

Then, Li Huowang cleared his throat and shouted in a certain direction. “Three men and four youths walk on the shore, swim out the river and anger the sea serpent. I wonder what method it is today?”

Li Huowang’s voice echoed across the sand dune and into the night sky. His voice was so loud that everyone else woke up.

“Is the spring book open?” A hoarse voice asked from further away.

“The spring book is open!” replied Li Huowang.

“Shoulders together, throw me a vine?”

Li Huowang bowed in the direction of the voice. “A golden pagoda facing the green hut with sand at the back! Meat dumpling vine!”

“Oh, so it’s Taoist Li, are you passing or visiting?” asked the voice.

“We are passing, may I know your name?” replied Li Huowang.

However, after Li Huowang asked for their name, there was no reply. It was only after the sky brightened up that Li Huowang felt them leave.

“To think I had to use the codeword so soon after learning them.” Li Huowang mumbled to himself. Even though he had detected someone approaching them last night, Li Huowang wasn’t sure if the owner of the voice was alone or the leader of a group of bandits.

Being able to avoid fighting by just saying a few words was an excellent outcome. After all, Li Huowang didn’t know what kind of fighting methods the bandits would have, especially those of a supernatural source.

When Lu Zhuangyuan heard about what had happened from Li Huowang, he felt quite afraid.

“Yikes. We’ve only been here for a few days and were already intercepted by bandits. It seems that Hou Shu isn’t a safe place to be,” said Lu Zhuangyuan.

Meanwhile, Li Huowang sat down as he continued to practice the codewords a few more times. “Who cares if it's safe or not? We are just passing by the kingdom. Let’s hurry up and move. If we travel faster, then we can reach the town before nightfall.”

After this incident, their travels were rather peaceful. Even though it was still barren, at the very least they were not intercepted by bandits.

Just as Lu Zhuangyuan was trying to butter up Li Huowang, they encountered a group of people.

“Dad, why does that horse look so weird? It even has two humps on its back.” asked Lu Xiucai.

“Are you stupid? That’s a camel,” replied Lu Zhuangyuan.

Ding ding ding~

The bell hanging on the camel’s neck rang incessantly as they slowly walked on the hardened path. Li Huowang took a glance and saw that the riders had their faces covered to prevent the sand from entering their eyes.

The appearance of the camels was like a signal as more and more groups of people started appearing on the hardened path.

Li Huowang and the rest finally reached the first town in Hou Shu before nightfall.

Just as they had entered the town, they immediately realized the difference between Hou Shu and the kingdom of Si Qi. Both the buildings and the clothing of the people of Hou Shu were a lot more coarse. Many of them also covered their faces, not necessarily to keep the sand out of their eyes.

At the very least, Li Huowang’s group of people in black veils were not that conspicuous.

“Let’s go and find an inn. We’ve been traveling for many days and it’s time to rest,” said Li Huowang.

Hearing this, all their tired faces instantly lit up. It was purely torture to travel without fire and a supply of water.

All of them followed each other closely as they merged into the crowd.

The nearby stalls were selling food. The tantalizing smell of skewers and noodles was good enough to entice all of them.

Soon, they arrived at an empty plaza; this was most likely the center of the town.

At that moment, the sound of drums and cymbals instantly attracted their attention within the crowd.

“Is that a group performing Nuo Opera?” mumbled Li Huowang as he watched the three performers jumping around from within the crowd.

Shaking their heads, twisting their body, squatting, snaking their arms, running around, and jumping. The three performers had their heads covered with red clothes while they donned wooden masks. Their dance was eccentric and non-humanlike; it was as if a monster had come up with the choreography for the dance.

At the same time, the chaotic sound of the musical instrument accompanied their strange dance. Occasionally, there was even the sound of a horn.

The sound of the black horn being played was akin to the sound of a crying ghost.

Drums, cymbals, horns, and their strange dance—all of them made Li Huowang feel uncomfortable.

On the other hand, the rest of the townsfolk were in a trance as they sat there and silently enjoyed the show.

“What is this? Is this a performance?” Lu Zhuangyuan, who worked in the same line of business, said distastefully.

He had just said that when the three performers twisted their bodies even more wildly. As they twisted, sharp white fangs protruded out from the opening in the wooden mask where the mouth was supposed to be. It was like the white fangs had grown like a sprout.

However, there were not two, but sixteen white fangs!

The white fangs trembled and shook, following the beat of the drum.

“This is... Teeth play?”

Their teeth play was amazing. Li Huowang saw the white fangs retracting and extruding from their mouth fluidly, almost giving him the impression that the white fangs were indeed grown in their mouth.