Chapter 70 - Lake

“It’s just some poor-quality cracked jade; three silvers is all I can give~” said a man.

“Three silvers?! I’m not pawning it anymore!” Li Huowang was furious as he took the jade pendant back and walked out of the pawn shop.

The jade pendant was worth at least 400,000 in the real world, but to think that he would be offered only three silvers for it here. The pawn shop was being unscrupulous!

He turned around and took another look at the pawn shop’s wooden sign.

What an unscrupulous place. They’ve probably managed to earn a lot of money this way. Should I just break in at night and rob them?

Li Huowang was shocked at his own thoughts. He punched himself in the face before walking back to the inn, feeling frustrated.

Back in his room, Li Huowang opened the map and placed it on the bed before glancing at Bai Lingmiao, who was sewing something using the leather they got from Li Zhi’s items. Then, he asked her to call for Xiaoman.

Li Huowang slowly pointed toward the South on the map. Before Li Zhi died, he told him that there was a group of nuns in black toward the South and that they might be able to handle the matter of Dan Yangzi possessing him.

Right now, Dan Yangzi was constantly influencing him, so finding a method to get rid of him as soon as possible was of the utmost importance. Finding a Black Taisui as well as addressing the other matters could be delayed a bit more.

Li Zhi had told him that the nuns could be considered good people. However, Li Huowang naturally would not trust that after experiencing all the things he had.

At this point, he trusted no one.

If he needed the help of the nuns to deal with Dan Yangzi, then he needed a method to guarantee his safety and at the same time offer the nuns a handsome reward in return.

Li Huowang glanced at the side of the bed, staring at the sacred text and the gourd containing the lifespan pills. These items would be his bargaining chips.

But that was not important. Right now, the most important task was to find the nuns that Li Zhi had mentioned.

“Senior Li, you called for me?” Xiaoman panted as she came into his room. Except for the corners of her eyes being red, her emotions seemed to have stabilized.

“Where did you go just now?” Li Huowang asked.

“I went to the escort service and requested them to deliver the last words of those guiding drug ingredients who belonged to the kingdom of Si Qi,” said Xiaoman.

“Next time, let someone else do these kinds of things. You should keep a low profile; otherwise, the town guard might end up finding you,” Li Huowang reminded her.

Xiaoman’s eyes flickered as she shook her head calmly. “It’s alright... My mother did not report the incident to the authorities.”

“Oh. Then come here and help me with this map. You are a local, so you should know your surroundings, right?” asked Li Huowang.

Xiaoman walked over and stared at the location that Li Huowang was pointing at.

“Do you know if there is a nunnery somewhere around here? The nuns from there are said to wear black clothes,” explained Li Huowang.

“Nunnery? Black clothes?” Xiaoman thought about it for a moment before pointing her hairy fingers at a mountain in the South-West.

“If there is one, then it should be here in the Henghua Mountain. I’ve heard that one of the people from this town went there to pray to a golden Bodhisattva,” said Xiaoman.

“A golden Bodhisattva! How much do you know about this nunnery?” asked Li Huowang. He wanted to gather as much information as possible.

“I don’t know a lot. My family was poor, so we didn’t go to such faraway places to pray. The only thing I’ve heard is that the place gets a lot of pilgrims,” said Xiaoman.

“Hmm...” Li Huowang shook his head in silence. This piece of information wasn’t really useful. After all, the Righteous Monastery also had a lot of pilgrims.

“Is there anything special about that nunnery? Something along the lines of how people’s prayers for bearing a son were always answered back at the Righteous Monastery,” asked Li Huowang.

Xiaoman thought about it for a moment before giving him a reply, “The only thing I’ve heard is that the nuns at that place are fat.”

“Fat? What’s so special about that?” Li Huowang thought about it and rapped his fingers on the map. “Let’s move out. We will travel to the nunnery and check it out.”

The money they got from Li Zhi’s bag was used to exchange for dried rations and noodles along with a big pot of pork lard.

Soon, Li Huowang and the rest started their journey to the next location.

Now, at the very least, they were no longer traveling alone. Many others were on the same path as them.

After listening in on the conversations around them, Li Huowang heard that the war was about to start at the borders—many of these people were escaping inland to avoid getting into any trouble during the war.

They walked during the day and rested at night. As they passed by many forks along their journey, the number of people around them gradually lessened.

Just as Li Huowang thought that they would once again be traveling alone, a huge swathe of water blocked their path.

A light breeze blew over the surface of the water, gently shaking Li Huowang’s robes.

“Is this the sea that my second uncle’s father used to tell me about?” Puppy was filled with disbelief.

The vast body of water in front of them reflected the skies above like a large mirror. The lake was so enormous that they could not even see the opposite shoreline.

Li Huowang took out his map. “No, this is not the sea. It’s just a lake, albeit a very, very big lake.”

Si Qi was a kingdom with a lot of bodies of water, so having such a large lake was not very strange.

“Senior Li, why is the water of the lake black?” asked Puppy.

The water within the lake was indeed quite murky and dark. Even standing right at the shoreline, they couldn’t see the bottom of the lake. It was quite eerie.

Li Huowang closed the map and looked at the others who were waiting by the lake. “Let’s wait a while and see what they do.”

After a while, when a small black dot appeared from afar, the people at the shoreline started to move. It was a wooden boat. The people here were planning to use the wooden boat to cross the lake.

The ship was quite large but also quite old.

“Come! Come onto the boat! Seventy coins per person!” The old captain sitting in the boat hollered at the people standing on the shore.

“Seventy?! It was only forty-six coins last year.” Someone was instantly dissatisfied with the price increase.

However, the shoeless captain did not even bother to justify himself. Instead, he stared angrily at that man. “Do you want to take the boat or not? If not, then you can just swim across the lake.”

When the captain saw the man silently take out the money to pay, he had quite a satisfied expression as he spat into the lake. “We are already on the verge of war, so who cares about rules? What can you do to me even if I raise the price?”

“Let’s get on the boat,” Li Huowang said as he walked toward the boat. This was an unfamiliar place for them, and so he would rather pay the expensive fee than get involved in some other trouble later on.

Soon, the boat carrying tens of people slowly made its way toward the center of the lake. Some of those who were on a boat for the first time were experiencing motion sickness; however, Li Huowang was more or less fine.

He turned around and faced the captain before asking, “Sir, how long will it be until we reach the opposite shore?”

“Hoho, we should reach in four hours. We will get there before it gets dark,” replied the captain.

Li Huowang nodded as he looked forward, fully alert as the boat cut through the dark waters of the lake. The water within the lake was as black as ink and felt somewhat oppressive, almost as if something would emerge from within it.

“I hope there are no man-eating creatures in the lake,” muttered Li Huowang.

After experiencing so many incidents, Li Huowang was quite alert about his surroundings.

“What are you saying? Those are just some folk tales. I’ve been sailing on this lake for over twenty years, and I’m still alive. Just relax, nothing will happen. Since I have already taken your money, I will ensure your safety,” said the captain.

Those words were enough to calm Li Huowang down to some extent.

As the boat moved, the sun gradually started moving west. By sunset, the boat had arrived in a large field of reeds.

We should be arriving soon.

Li Huowang thought as he looked at the reeds around him.

Splash!

Just as he had that thought, the sound of someone falling into the lake was heard behind him.

Everyone turned around to see what had happened, only to find that both the captain and the person steering the boat had disappeared!

“Aiya! They were eaten by something in the water!” someone shouted.

No one knew who had shouted those words, but they left the people on the boat terrified.

“Sit down! Do you want the boat to capsize?” Li Huowang shouted at them.

Then, he turned around and looked at his own group. “Who here knows how to steer the boat?”

Everyone shook their heads.

Just as Li Huowang was thinking about what to do, the reeds around them started to move.

Soon, several small wooden boats appeared. The boats carried many people—both young and old, men and women. All of them were equipped with blades.

On one of the wooden boats, Li Huowang saw the captain who had just disappeared.

He was holding a short dagger. When he saw Li Huowang staring at him, he chuckled. “Hehehe~ Young man, do you want to eat sliced noodles or dumpling soup[1]?

1. Bandit codes: Sliced noodles = Cut apart. Dumpling soup: drowned. ?