Chapter 5 – Shi Wuluo, Enemy of Gods and Ghosts
Chou Bodeng was in hot pursuit and nearly followed the Taiyi Sword’s example by “throwing himself into Lord Liu’s arms.”
He skidded to a halt, but to his surprise, the young Oracle Master next to Lord Liu quickly raised a hand to block the space between him and Lord Liu. Under his own momentum, Chou Bodeng crashed right into the young man’s arm. The young man reacted swiftly, his hand clamping down on Chou’s shoulder.
Chou Bodeng reflexively swung his arm.
Smack.
A crisp sound echoed, and both of them froze.
Chou Bodeng looked up to see the unlucky fellow he had just soundly slapped.
As he looked up, he met a pair of very light-colored eyes—silver-gray, reminiscent of ancient, snow-capped mountains. A glance into them revealed a quiet sharpness. The moment their eyes met, the other person immediately lowered his lashes.
Did I traumatize him?
Chou Bodeng was usually heartless, but he had his own set of principles: he repaid kindness with kindness and grudges with grudges. The other person had acted out of goodwill, saving him from the nauseating scenario of a face-to-face collision with Lord Liu, yet he had forcefully slapped him away. If this were the modern world, Young Master Chou would have already asked what the person wanted, and even if he had asked for a limited-edition sports car, Chou would have had someone buy it as an apology without batting an eye.
Unfortunately, he was neither in the modern world nor at Taiyi, and couldn’t fulfill the other’s wish.
While Chou Bodeng was still pondering how to express his apology, the other person spoke first.
“My apologies.”
The young man’s voice was like cold snow falling on pines, chillingly clean.
“I’m the one who bumped into you. Why are you apologizing?”
Chou Bodeng asked curiously. The guy didn’t even dare to look at him. Was he that scary? Or was the reputation of the number one profligate just that terrifying?
The young man didn’t answer.
“Immortal… Immortal Elder Chou, this is the Oracle Master sent by the old City Diviner to see A Ren.”
Lord Liu spoke up timidly.
The Oracle Master lowered his eyes to look at the hand beneath Chou Bodeng’s sleeve. The daylight dyed the tips of his fair fingers with the crimson of the red robe… like fire, or like blood. His eyelashes trembled slightly as he handed the Taiyi Sword, which seemed to have resigned itself to its fate after being blocked, to Chou Bodeng.
“Your sword.”
“Thanks. I’ll buy you a drink sometime to repay you.”
Chou Bodeng took the sword and said casually.
When he was in a good mood, he liked to treat people to drinks. Although he always said it casually, he genuinely meant it. Unfortunately, whenever he said it, people either trembled in fear or didn’t take him seriously. As a result, he had only ever been the one accepting invitations, never the one whose invitations were accepted.
“Alright.”
The Oracle Master stared at the Kui Dragon Bracelet on his wrist and gave an unexpected answer.
Chou Bodeng looked up at him in surprise, then raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Then you’d better remember to find me.”
“Alright,” the young Oracle Master said, then paused. “I will remember.”
He was so solemn, it was as if he weren’t accepting a whim-of-the-moment invitation from a profligate like Chou Bodeng, but making a pact that he needed to protect with his life.
Could he be a stuffy, by-the-book type?
Chou Bodeng thought, then turned his gaze to the bewildered Lord Liu and asked, “Where is the best blacksmith?”
“That would be on East Third Street.”
Lord Liu answered subconsciously, only to see Chou Bodeng call over a few attendants and carry the sword out the door. Only then did he suddenly remember something.
“Oh no!”
A certain distinguished guest had also gone to that blacksmith this morning.
***
A fat man was holed up in the blacksmith shop on East Third Street.
The bamboo chair beneath him bore a weight it was never meant to endure, creaking as if it might give out at any moment. The fat man stared with a troubled expression at the swords and sabers on the wall. “Miasma Moon, what a cursed fate! To be stuck in the same city with that Chou fellow for so long, how can anyone bear it?”
As he was muttering, someone outside began to fawn obsequiously.
“Immortal Elder Chou, this is the best blacksmith shop in Fu City.”
The hair on the back of the fat man’s neck stood on end. He quickly glanced over, and the moment he saw a flash of red in the crowd, he leaped up with astonishing speed. To the amazement of the apprentices, he dove under a high table with a whoosh—it was a wonder how such a large man could be so nimble.
The red-robed youth, surrounded by a fawning entourage, entered carrying the city’s most infamous broken sword.
“Which is the hottest furnace? Who is the best blacksmith?”
The red-robed youth’s eyes were filled with murderous intent.
“Three hundred taels of gold!”
“Melt a sword for me!”
Boom!
The blacksmith shop instantly erupted like a pot of boiling water. Everyone turned to look.
Chou Bodeng wasted no words. His eyes swept the room, and the green-robed steward, whose professional skills had been honed to a new level in just two short days, immediately presented a box of glittering gold.
Without another word from Young Master Chou, the entire blacksmith shop reached an unprecedented state of fiery activity in a matter of breaths. The shop Lord Liu had pointed out on East Third Street was called “Iron Life Gully.” The name was a bit odd, but it surprisingly housed a massive iron-smelting furnace that was rarely fired up.
Now, the furnace rumbled like muffled thunder. The interior of the furnace body, over six meters high, was a fiery red. The finest Quci charcoal was shoveled in as if it were free, turning into a raging inferno that tumbled through the sloped belly of the trumpet-shaped furnace. The furnace had four sealed openings connected to ceramic bellows pipes. Each opening used a row of twelve bellows simultaneously. Forty-eight strong apprentices, dripping with sweat, pumped air from all directions into every corner of the furnace. The old blacksmith, who had already closed the furnace for the day, personally came forward and tossed the rusty, pitted, and broken sword inside.
The air grew so hot that even the experienced apprentices found it hard to bear. Chou Bodeng sat on a cold jade chair brought by the green-robed steward, his hands crossed. Ten cultivators took turns maintaining a barrier to shield him from the heat, so not a single drop of sweat appeared on him.
Logically, even if a cultivator’s cultivation wasn’t high, using them to fan someone was like using a butcher’s knife to kill a chicken.
But there was no helping it; Chou Bodeng was paying far too much.
Just for fanning him, they got twenty taels of gold. Only a fool wouldn’t take that money.
Did they really think all cultivators lived on wind and dew and had no use for gold and silver?
The immortals who regarded money as dirt existed only in storybooks. Real cultivators worried about pills for their breakthroughs today and their broken weapons tomorrow. Didn’t the Eight Directions Immortal Sects have to collect tribute from the cities within their borders for dispelling miasma and plagues?
At first, the blacksmith thought this was easy money, but gradually, he began to struggle.
The furnace was so hot that a person thrown in would turn to ash in an instant, yet the Taiyi Sword merely turned over lazily, showing no signs of melting. In fact, a lot of the rust had fallen off.
It had been upgraded from a rusty broken sword to a shiny broken sword.
The old blacksmith was as thin as a skeleton but had seen a lot. He pondered for a moment, put down his work, and came over to bow to Chou Bodeng. “Immortal Elder, this sword of yours was not forged with mortal fire. If we keep burning it like this, I’m afraid it won’t melt even in a year.”
“Hmm?”
Chou Bodeng let out a lazy, monosyllabic sound.
“However…” the old blacksmith changed his tune, “this old one is untalented, but I was once guided by an elder from the Heavenly Works Mansion. I have a method to draw heavenly fire to smelt iron.”
He narrowed his eyes to a slit, refusing to say more.
Chou Bodeng didn’t even blink.
“Five hundred taels of gold.”
“Right away! Second Brother, go get my Spirit Cleansing Stone!” the old blacksmith immediately shouted.
The Taiyi Sword, which had been comfortably bathing in the flames, instantly stiffened. The next moment, it tried to shoot out, but Chou Bodeng had anticipated this and had people string a crisscrossing net of profound iron chains across the furnace opening. The Taiyi Sword, a tiger fallen to the plains, crashed about wildly, making the profound iron chains clang loudly.
A sweat-drenched man rushed into the room and then rushed out again, carrying a small box.
Just as the old blacksmith was about to toss the Spirit Cleansing Stone into the furnace, a large figure shot out from the side.
“Wait—”
A fat man, who was a perfect circle whether viewed horizontally or vertically, stood in front of the furnace, his face full of heartache, his arms spread wide.
“Spare the sword from the fire!!!”
Chou Bodeng thought the fellow looked a bit familiar.
“It’s you!” A sphere so perfectly formed was a rare sight in the world. After racking his memory, Chou Bodeng managed to place him without much effort. “Zuo Yueban.”
The fat man’s face twitched, and he said angrily, “What Zuo Yueban, my name is Zuo Yuesheng!”
“Wow!”
The blacksmith shop erupted in gasps. Two men who had been about to step forward and drag the fat man away to curry favor with the Little Martial Ancestor of Taiyi instantly froze.
Zuo Yuesheng.
In Qing Province, this name was as famous as Chou Bodeng’s was in the East Continent.
As the saying goes, a large forest has all kinds of birds. Among the Kongsang Hundred Clans, the Eight Immortal Sects, and the Thirty-Six Overseas Islands, every sect and clan would occasionally have the misfortune of producing an oddball. The current hegemon of Qing Province, the Mountain Sea Pavilion, had been unlucky enough to produce a Young Pavilion Master who had gone astray. Among the disciples of famous sects, Chou Bodeng ranked last in cultivation, and he ranked second to last. He had no other skills but was a world-class expert at causing trouble for his father.
The original Chou Bodeng had never left the territory of the Taiyi Sect before. He knew this guy purely because the Taiyi Sect and the Mountain Sea Pavilion had a good relationship, and Zuo Yuesheng had visited Taiyi with his father when he was still a little fatty.
The moment they met, they started fighting.
Given the disparity in their sizes, Chou Bodeng suffered a rare loss. He immediately started wailing, a fake cry if there ever was one, which brought out a mountain of Taiyi elders. The little fatty, who had been arrogant just moments before, was so scared that he rolled all the way down from the main peak of the sect. In truth, Zuo Yuesheng had suffered more, but after that, the Little Martial Ancestor Chou held a grudge and would think of ways to get back at him from afar every few days.
Speaking of which, if he didn’t know he had transmigrated, Chou Bodeng would almost think this “endless grudge” personality was his own.
“What are you blocking the way for? Fatty Zuo.” Chou Bodeng waved his fan. “Want to go in and forge yourself a pair of fiery golden eyes?”
“What the hell are fiery golden eyes?”
Zuo Yuesheng gave up on correcting him and muttered, a warm smile of reunion spreading across his face.
“Oh, I was just afraid you might accidentally damage a treasure. This sword of yours is untouched by true gold and fierce fire; one look and you can tell it’s no ordinary item. If you destroy it in a fit of anger, won’t you regret it so much your intestines turn green?”
“I know it’s no ordinary item,” Chou Bodeng said lightly. “The Taiyi Sword, the genuine ultimate treasure of the Taiyi Sect. I’m trying to destroy it. Do you think a common piece of scrap metal is worth this young master’s personal supervision?”
Zuo Yuesheng was speechless.
He kind of wanted to curse Chou Bodeng’s ancestors for three generations.
But the damn guy was an orphan when he was picked up by some Taiyi ancestor. Forget three generations, he didn’t even have one.
“If you destroy the ultimate treasure, the Taiyi elders will deal with you,” Zuo Yuesheng persuaded earnestly. “Usually, they don’t dare say anything out of respect for your seniority, but this ultimate treasure is no small matter. If you really destroy it, even if Elder Jun and the others are sticklers for etiquette, they will still have to defy their master and destroy their ancestor.”
“It’s fine,” Chou Bodeng said gently. “I don’t mind if they defy their master and destroy their ancestor.”
Zuo Yuesheng, who had been swindling people for years, had never met such an impervious scoundrel. His belly full of clever words had nowhere to go. Seeing that Chou Bodeng was about to lose his temper and have him dragged away, he gritted his teeth and went all in.
“Aren’t you trying to sell this sword!” Zuo Yuesheng’s fat face contorted. “Seventy-seven thousand taels of gold, I’ll buy it.”
Chou Bodeng waved his fan, stopping the cultivators who were about to drag him away.
“Brother Zuo is a businessman. You should know that prices aren’t set in stone, right?”
This time it wasn’t “Fatty Zuo,” but “Brother Zuo.”
“Eighty thousand.” Zuo Yuesheng’s expression was so pained it was as if someone were carving out his heart. “Any more and you can just destroy it!”
Fatty Zuo was famously a “golden rooster,” a penny-pincher. As the Young Pavilion Master of the wealthiest Mountain Sea Pavilion, his stinginess was unprecedented. Eighty thousand taels was indeed his limit.
Chou Bodeng snapped his fan shut. “Alright, sold.”
***
Half a day later, in the most luxurious tavern in Fu City.
Zuo Yuesheng’s eyes were vacant, and he muttered, “I’m a fool, a real fool.”
When he spent eighty thousand to buy the Taiyi Sword, his face was pained, but his heart was blooming with joy.
Selling the Taiyi Sect’s ultimate treasure for only eighty thousand taels of gold was something only a profligate like Chou Bodeng would do. He bought the Taiyi Sword from Chou Bodeng, and the Taiyi Sect would surely come to redeem it later. The Mountain Sea Pavilion and the Taiyi Sect had a good relationship, so his old man probably wouldn’t let him extort too much, but doubling or tripling the price should be no problem.
His little abacus was clicking away, but Zuo Yuesheng had never expected one thing.
“This damn sword flies away on its own!”
This time, Zuo Yuesheng’s pain was genuine. He was on the verge of banging his head against a pillar.
The Taiyi Sword hovered around Chou Bodeng, occasionally poking him with its scabbard. The force wasn’t great, and it seemed furious but didn’t dare to truly lash out. Who knew what kind of bewitching potion that Chou fellow had fed it. The fat man talked until his mouth was dry, but the sword, which had almost been melted just now, would rather be impatiently pushed away by Chou Bodeng than pay Zuo Yuesheng any mind.
Zuo Yuesheng tentatively reached out a hand again, and as expected, was soundly whipped by the Taiyi Sword.
He should have just watched it get melted by heavenly fire!
“Young Master Chou, my lord, my dear lord,” Zuo Yuesheng was close to tears. “You see, this money…”
“Fatty Zuo,” Chou Bodeng put down his wine cup and said earnestly, “we just had a transaction, money for goods. No one went back on their word, right?”
“Right…”
“Did I stop you from taking it back?”
“No.”
“There you have it.” Seeing the fat man’s face so miserable it was a joy to behold, Chou Bodeng benevolently poured him a cup of wine. “Maybe it’s just shy. You should spend more time with it, build a relationship.”
“Shy my ass.”
Zuo Yuesheng rolled his eyes.
He looked down on the small cup of wine and took the jar of aged fine wine from Chou Bodeng’s side, gulping it down like an ox chewing on peonies.
Chou Bodeng was magnanimous and didn’t argue with him.
When Zuo Yuesheng thought about how this wine was bought with the money he had been swindled out of, he felt a pang in his heart as the bitter wine went down his throat.
After the strong wine burned his throat, Zuo Yuesheng calmed down a bit. His eyes darted around, and he asked with ill intent, “But, Young Master Chou, everyone saw how extraordinary your sword is today. In less than three days, the whole city will know it’s really the ultimate treasure of Taiyi. Aren’t you afraid of being killed for it?”
Although Taiyi’s reputation was great, a treasure could move a person’s heart. There would definitely be no shortage of fools who would take the risk.
And from what Zuo Yuesheng knew of Chou Bodeng and his observations over the past two days, the man had most likely come to Fu City alone… Drawing from his own experience of being sent to remote places by his old man, Zuo Yuesheng guessed that Taiyi had finally come to its senses and was trying to find a way to get rid of this ancestor.
Under these circumstances, for Chou Bodeng to swagger around with a mountain-suppressing sword was no different from seeking his own death.
“I have a way. As long as you’re willing to return half the money to me, I can guarantee you’ll return to Taiyi in one piece,” Zuo Yuesheng proposed eagerly.
“Hmm…” Chou Bodeng slowly reminded him, “You seem to have forgotten that now everyone knows that I sold the Taiyi Sword to you for eighty thousand taels of gold.”
Zuo Yuesheng’s smile froze instantly.
“So if someone comes to kill for the treasure, you’ll have to bear a share of the blame too,” Chou Bodeng added the finishing blow.
Zuo Yuesheng jumped up, looking around nervously. “Did you really come to Fu City alone? You didn’t bring any guards?”
“Really alone.”
“Fuck.” Zuo Yuesheng was impressed. “Where the hell do you get the guts to swagger around like this?”
Chou Bodeng turned his Kui Dragon Bracelet and asked seriously, “Look at my face. Am I handsome?”
Zuo Yuesheng subconsciously glanced at him and blurted out, “Handsome.”
It was the truth.
If the Taiyi Sect weren’t so strict about images of their Little Martial Ancestor, the title of the world’s number one beauty would definitely belong to Chou Bodeng. The man’s insides were surely black and rotten to the core, but his appearance was truly the pinnacle of beauty. Even with his hair tied crookedly and on the verge of coming undone, messier than a chicken’s nest, it didn’t detract from his looks in the slightest.
On him, disheveled hair became decadent charm.
“There you have it.” The decadent beauty Chou smiled and clasped his hands. “With a face like this, there must be at least ten or so great powers willing to protect me in secret, right?”
Zuo Yuesheng was dumbfounded. “…”
Looking at his face, for a moment, he actually believed him.
“Really?”
Zuo Yuesheng muttered, slowly sitting back down. He hadn’t noticed before, but now that he did, he couldn’t help but let his gaze drift to Chou Bodeng’s hair. Finally, he couldn’t resist asking.
“Which genius tied your hair for you? How have they not been beaten to death yet?”
Chou Bodeng’s smile vanished.
“It couldn’t have been you, could it?” Zuo Yuesheng had a flash of insight and burst out laughing, slapping the table so hard it shook the room.
“I think someone’s going to be after your life soon,” the genius himself said resolutely.
The laughter stopped abruptly.
Zuo Yuesheng cursed as he rummaged through his mustard seed pouch. “Not this,” “This isn’t it either,” “Fuck, where did it go?”… Who knew what kind of junk this guy had packed in his bag. The things he pulled out were all strange and bizarre. A jade slip rolled in front of Chou Bodeng.
Becoming the World’s Richest Overnight, Volume One.
Chou Bodeng picked it up with interest and asked, “What’s this?”
Zuo Yuesheng frantically stuffed the jumble of items on the table back into his bag. Hearing his question, he answered proudly, “That’s my masterpiece. Do you know whose wanted posters have the highest total reward in the world right now?”
“Me?”
Chou Bodeng asked tentatively.
“…” Zuo Yuesheng held it in for a long time. “No.”
“Oh, so it’s not me.”
“You sound quite disappointed. In terms of causing trouble, I think you’ve definitely got what it takes. Too bad your cultivation is so pathetic! Even more pathetic than mine!” Zuo Yuesheng said viciously, then lowered his voice. “Heard of the Southern Border Witch Clan?”
“Heard of them.”
He vaguely remembered a Southern Border Witch Clan in Chronicles of the Gods. They acted strangely and lived on the fringes of the Southern Continent. It seemed they had a hand in many things, but unfortunately, web novels were like foot-binding cloths, and keeping up with the serialization was a race against the author’s lifespan.
Chou Bodeng hadn’t won that race. When he transmigrated, the Witch Clan had yet to make a formal appearance.
He didn’t know if they were villains.
“This Southern Border Witch Clan, a thousand years ago, produced a ruthless character named Shi Wuluo. He’s said to be the head of their Ten Shamans. He offended the Kongsang Hundred Clans, the Eight Immortal Sects, and the Thirty-Six Overseas Islands. The number of people from various sects who died at his hands is countless. Few people know what he looks like, because basically everyone who’s seen him is dead. But wherever he appears, rivers of blood flow and corpses pile up by the millions.”
“To kill him, the Hundred Clans even parted the Si River. After the river was parted, everyone thought he was dead for sure, so someone threw a huge banquet. After three rounds of drinks, Shi Wuluo arrived. With one man and one saber, he killed all the guests. He told the trembling host that the wine was good, and the host was so scared he died on the spot!”
“To this day, almost every sect has a warrant out for his arrest. The combined rewards could buy the entire Qing Province.”
As Zuo Yuesheng spoke, a look of longing appeared on his face. “If I could kill him, I’d be rich overnight.”
“A role model for our generation,” Chou Bodeng said with admiration.
“Yeah… wait, no, no, no!” Zuo Yuesheng came to his senses and shivered. “Shi Wuluo, enemy of gods and ghosts. If you want that role model, you can have him!”
“I don’t know if he’s an enemy of gods and ghosts,” Chou Bodeng looked downstairs, “but I know you’re probably no match for them.”
“There he is! Get him!”
A furious roar, filled with killing intent, split the air.