Chapter 60 – Infallible Calculations and Iron-Clad Predictions
“So it was…”
Zuo Yuesheng’s mind was preoccupied with the manuscript he hadn’t had time to hide. While cursing Lu Jing’s slow reaction, he instinctively put on a smile and clasped his hands. His brain unconsciously processed the words. What did Young Master Chou say this person’s name was? Oh, right, Shi Wuluo of the Witch Clan… Wait!
Who?!
His foot slipped and his legs gave way.
All Zuo Yuesheng had time for was to flail his arms in the air, creating a spectacular wave of fat. His broad body then crashed backward… CRACK! CRUNCH! THUD! The carved and lacquered table of dark green couldn’t bear the weight of a mountain and its elegant surface was brutally dismembered, its slender, silver-inlaid legs meeting a cruel end. Wood splinters flew, the stone inkstone was sent flying, and the ground shook…
“Comrade Fatty Zuo, have you no shame?” Chou Bodeng lowered the sleeve he’d used to shield himself from the splinters. “What happened to your dream of getting rich overnight? Where did it go?”
A dream is called a dream because you can only think about it in your dreams!!!
Zuo Yuesheng was on the verge of tears.
Shi Wuluo, enemy of gods and ghosts.
In the thirty-six volumes of Becoming the World’s Richest Overnight that he had compiled, this person held the top spot by a long shot. The bounties for the other thirty-five people combined didn’t even amount to a tenth of this man’s. Just look at the crazy things he’d done! He had stormed into Kongsang and slain thirty-six clan heads of the Hundred Clans; traveled to the overseas Furuo Island and shattered the thousand-lock chain bridge with his saber; intercepted the Green Luan of the Ming Abyss and severely wounded twelve of the Buddhist Sect’s Vajras…
To put it more concretely, this person’s enemies could fill the entire Cangming Sea.
The inkstone fell from mid-air, splashing ink all over Zuo Yuesheng’s head.
Zuo Yuesheng felt his own life had turned just as dark… He finally realized what a blissful thing ignorance was… Why did he and Lu Jing have to be so curious about who Young Master Chou liked? This was beyond “doesn’t look like a good person”! This guy was the most ferocious and ruthless man in the Twelve Continents! It wasn’t even a matter of “might kill someone at any moment”! The number of people this guy had killed and mouths he had silenced was already countless!!!
“Found it.”
The culprit who had led the beast into their house rummaged for a moment and handed a jade slip, which Zuo Yuesheng found particularly familiar, to the cold, pale young man.
“Are all your bounties on here? Are any missing?”
Zuo Yuesheng’s vision went black.
Wasn’t that the first volume of Becoming the World’s Richest Overnight that he had compiled and edited?! Young Master Chou, why didn’t you throw this thing away? You two didn’t even know each other back then… Zuo Yuesheng remembered. When “Shi Wuluo, enemy of gods and ghosts” was mentioned in Fu City, Chou Bodeng had praised this madman, saying, “A role model for our generation.”
Fuck!
This damned couple!
Zuo Yuesheng suddenly understood a phrase Lu Jing often muttered under his breath: “These two definitely have something going on, or I’ll let you chop off my head and kick it like a ball!” Why on earth did he think back then that Lu Jing had gone mad from writing stories? This was, damn it, a case of hitting the nail on the head!
Was it truly a case of “I laugh at others for being too crazy, while others laugh at me for not seeing through”?
He watched as the young man beside Chou Bodeng took the jade slip. He recalled the six large characters he had written at the very top: “To get rich, kill this beast,” as well as the thousands of words he had written about how to claim the reward if he ever managed to take this person’s head, how to use the reward money, and other fantasies…
Zuo Yuesheng felt that his life was about to end here.
He pushed himself back with his hands, inching his considerable rear end across the ruins… The world was so dark, so cold. He needed another person to face this heavy sorrow with him!
As he shuffled back, Zuo Yuesheng suddenly pressed down on a slightly trembling hand.
“Stop!”
A faint, thread-like voice came from behind him.
“If you come any further, you’re going to crush me!!”
Zuo Yuesheng glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw Lu Jing, the great literary talent, lying on the floor with a pale face and tightly closed eyes… Lu Shiyi, you son of a bitch! You’re pretending to be unconscious!
And what was even more outrageous! He didn’t even invite him to pretend to be unconscious too!
While cursing inwardly, Zuo Yuesheng rolled his eyes back and promptly “fainted” backward. As it happened, he landed right on top of Lu Jing. The weight of his body nearly made Lu Jing vomit up last night’s dinner. His pale face instantly turned a purplish-red.
“Your reputation is quite intimidating.”
Chou Bodeng looked amusingly at the two idiots playing dead on the ground, then turned to Shi Wuluo beside him.
“Stop scaring them.”
Zuo Yuesheng peeked through a slit in his eyes, watching Shi Wuluo’s reaction, hoping that the once-in-a-millennium madman would be magnanimous. Then, he saw the pale, stern madman glance at him expressionlessly… When those silver-gray eyes swept over, it was like an ice blade cleaving through space in the dim light.
In that instant, Zuo Yuesheng felt that no Buddha or god could save him!
He was so frightened that he trembled all over, squeezed his eyes shut tight, and forcefully embraced the only thing that could give him a sense of security: darkness.
Didn’t I say to stop scaring them?
Chou Bodeng asked with his eyes.
A trace of confusion appeared on Shi Wuluo’s usually expressionless face.
Chou Bodeng understood.
Shi Wuluo hadn’t actually scared them. He had just heard him mention these two and had glanced at them, genuinely not understanding why they were so afraid… Zuo Yuesheng’s terror was most likely due to a guilty conscience…
“Alright, alright,” Chou Bodeng kicked a piece of broken wood at them, cursing irritably, “What are you two pretending for? Don’t you know what you’re worth? Do you think you’re even worthy of him making a move? Get up!”
“I thought so too! How could this humble one be worthy of Lord Head Shaman’s attention? Wouldn’t that be using a dragon-slaying saber to kill an ant?” Zuo Yuesheng, as if granted a pardon, flipped over and sat up, his face full of flattery. “I often tell Lu Shiyi that the one who can match Young Master Chou must be no ordinary person… Well! What a coincidence, the name of the Head Shaman of the Southern Borderlands is known to all under heaven!”
Chou Bodeng glanced at him.
“Enemy of gods and ghosts, with enemies all over the world” — wasn’t that known to all under heaven? This fatty’s ability to say the right thing to the right person was truly “unrivaled in the world.” However, this guy had forgotten that his face was still covered in ink, black in some places and white in others… It was an eyesore.
Chou Bodeng quickly looked away, not wanting to pollute his eyes. Seeing Lu Jing still playing dead, he kicked another piece of broken wood at him. “Lu Shiyi, is it that comfortable lying on the ground?”
Lu Jing didn’t answer.
Zuo Yuesheng thought to himself, “This kid has some nerve, huh? Daring to play deaf and dumb in front of the world’s number one madman? Does he not want to live?” He quickly turned to pull him up. As he pulled, Zuo Yuesheng first froze, then jumped up in shock. “Oh no! Oh no! How did this guy really faint?”
He really fainted?
Chou Bodeng couldn’t help but glance back at Shi Wuluo. He was a bit too pale, a bit too cold… but not enough to actually scare someone to death, right?
In the corner, Zuo Yuesheng was frantically trying to drag Lu Jing up. He saw white foam at the corner of his mouth and immediately started shouting again, trying to figure out if his liver or his gallbladder had burst from fear. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the hem of a dark black robe approaching… Zuo Yuesheng’s body stiffened, and he turned to look pitifully at Chou Bodeng.
Young Master Chou! My life is at stake!
Hurry up and take this human-shaped vicious saber of yours away!
Chou Bodeng leisurely walked through the mess on the floor and went to Shi Wuluo’s side. “How is he?”
“He’s stopped breathing,” Shi Wuluo flicked two gusts of wind with his finger, hitting Lu Jing. He paused, then added, “From being crushed.”
Zuo Yuesheng belatedly let out an “ah” and heard Lu Jing start to cough violently. Before his eyes were even open, he was already cursing, “Fatty Zuo! You son of a bitch! You almost squeezed my stomach out! Damn it, don’t you have any idea how many thousands of kilograms you weigh?!”
“…” Zuo Yuesheng said sheepishly, “It’s not thousands of kilograms… just a few hundred…”
“A few hundred my ass… Ahhh! A ghost!”
Lu Jing’s eyes flew open, and he was suddenly confronted with a huge, pitch-black face up close. He couldn’t catch his breath, and his eyes rolled back.
This time, he had really fainted from fright.
“…”
Chou Bodeng silently watched them for a while, then nudged Shi Wuluo’s arm with his elbow.
“Forget it, let’s go.”
These two idiots were just too embarrassing.
***
After a chaotic while.
Zuo Yuesheng and Lu Jing finally looked somewhat presentable. However, the original room was no longer habitable. In order to repair his image—and actually, to keep Chou Bodeng from noticing the manuscript in the ruins—Zuo Yuesheng volunteered to take everyone to a good place.
“Let me tell you, in all of Zhunan, there’s no better place for fishing, starting a fire, and drinking,” Zuo Yuesheng guaranteed mysteriously. “Heh, what a coincidence, Young Master Chou, you just happened to bring such a large, fine piece of Gold-Thread Fish meat. It would be a crime against nature not to take it there and cook it slowly over a fire!”
“Is it really that amazing?”
Lu Jing, having changed into a new set of clothes, asked curiously.
In fact, Lu Jing was still intimidated by the infamous Head of the Ten Shamans.
But the intuition of a new-generation great playwright told him that the relationship between Chou Bodeng and a certain someone seemed to have made a breakthrough!
This was unexpected.
Young Master Chou wasn’t as heartless as he appeared… Lu Jing even had a strange feeling that Chou Bodeng was constantly wrapping himself in layers of cold, hard, and sharp disguises. He and Zuo Yuesheng had only accidentally crossed one of those layers, entering the realm of “life-and-death friends.”
Everyone has secrets hidden in their hearts that they are unwilling to tell. As friends, as brothers, they didn’t need to pry into deeper secrets; they just needed to go crazy together when the other was going crazy. But as partners, one couldn’t just stop at those cold, hard armors.
Why do people always search and search, looking for their other half?
Because being alone is lonely and incomplete, because you can’t pull out the thorn in your own heart, because only when two souls lick each other’s wounds and save each other can they write a complete “person” together.
The character for “person” has two strokes, a left-falling one and a right-falling one, supporting each other.
Lu Jing was dying to know how far Young Master Chou had gotten in writing this character “person.”
But!
Chou Bodeng’s thoughts were, damn it, too hard to guess! Truth and falsehood, reality and illusion, more so than a flower in a mirror or the moon in the water! He needed more clues to verify his speculations…
Lu Jing felt that his great, selfless spirit of sacrifice had far surpassed that of Shen Shangqing from five hundred years ago! Shen Shangqing had only written The Twelve Romances with his freedom; he was writing Dream Return Order with his actual life!
Shipping with my heart, creating with my life.
Throughout history, how many could say the same!
The great literary talent Lu’s blood had just begun to boil when a desolate, cold wind blew in his face. Chou Bodeng, Shi Wuluo, and Zuo Yuesheng had already walked some distance away…
“Hey!”
Lu Shiyi quickly took off after them. This main pavilion of the Mountain Sea Pavilion was as winding as a maze. Without a guide, he’d be lost for a lifetime!
“Wait for me! Wait for me!”
***
The main pavilion of the Mountain Sea Pavilion was indeed like a maze.
It stood at the highest point of Zhunan’s nine cities and was actually composed of countless pavilions, connected by layers of winding, crisscrossing corridors and open-air stairs, forming a cloud-borne immortal pavilion that stretched across nine cities. At night, countless gauze windows lit up at various heights. Viewed from the Cangming Sea, it looked like a divine shrine with countless candles lit.
On a long, suspended corridor, Lou Jiang’s steps were particularly light.
The flowing clouds caressed his cheeks, so gentle it brought tears to his eyes.
And how could it not bring tears to his eyes?
He was finally! Finally! Finally back at the Mountain Sea Pavilion! Finally free from that pile of idiotic, crazy second-generation heirs!
Before, just having Zuo Yuesheng, Chou Bodeng, and Lu Jing together was enough trouble.
Fortunately, their cultivation levels were not high. Even if the three of them had a sudden whim in the middle of the night to try flying kites from the Divine Fu Tree—supposedly to experiment with some law of flow velocity—Lou Jiang could still fish Lu Jing out when he was blown away by the wind. Even if the three of them gambled all night and Zuo Yuesheng was chased all over the city for trying to welsh on his debts, Lou Jiang could still turn the tide and prevent the Pavilion Master from tragically losing his only son.
But after Monk Budu, whose cultivation was even higher than his, joined them, these people became completely uncontrollable…
Things like smashing seven or eight rooms on the flying boat during a fight were already minor incidents. The most outrageous thing was one time, for some reason, the four of them were messing around with Spirit-Containing Pearls all night and nearly blew up half the Heavenly Snow Boat… If it weren’t for Elder Tao, the Medicine Valley, the Taiyi Sect, the Mountain Sea Pavilion, and the Buddhist Sect would be in a massive brawl by now.
Looking back at the past two months, Lou Jiang felt as if two hundred years had passed.
What did “a day feels like a year” mean?
This was what “a day feels like a year” meant!
Therefore, upon returning to Zhunan, Lou Jiang didn’t delay for a moment. He immediately used the excuse of reporting to the Pavilion Master to part ways with these walking trouble-makers…
A rare peaceful sleep.
When he woke up, he heard that last night, hundreds of talented young prodigies at Qin Tower had been played for fools and were furious, and the patrol team of Red Railing Street had been running around all night…
Lou Jiang felt no ripples in his heart, and even felt a little like laughing.
Compared to accompanying a few second-generation heirs in their troublemaking, Lou Jiang would rather complete the task assigned by Young Master Chou—to organize the index of all the Sun and Moon Record Tables of the Mountain Sea Pavilion… To all the senior and junior brothers and sisters stationed at the Mountain Sea Pavilion, it was now your turn to taste the flavor of cleaning up the messes of second-generation heirs.
Lou Jiang took a deep breath of fresh air, ready to devote his limited life to the infinite task of organizing the index with a long-lost sense of ease and joy.
To be fair, the work was indeed quite tedious and tiring.
The Sun and Moon Record Tables accumulated by the Mountain Sea Pavilion over tens of thousands of years were vast, and the index alone was as boundless as the sea, not to mention the strange formatting requirements Chou Bodeng had listed.
Lou Jiang didn’t know what Chou Bodeng had discovered, but after calculating the Sun and Moon Record Table of Ru City that day, Chou Bodeng had drawn a Celestial Track Map himself, and his expression had been particularly ugly for a moment.
It was strange. This Little Martial Ancestor of Taiyi had a basketful of bad habits, but his playful laughter and carefree anger, his heartlessness, also gave people a strange sense of stability.
It was as if if he didn’t take it seriously, then it really wasn’t a big deal.
It was the first time Lou Jiang had seen his face look so grim, which made him feel uneasy as well.
“Benefactor Lou!!”
As he was lost in thought, a very familiar voice suddenly sounded, so familiar that Lou Jiang shuddered reflexively. A sense of foreboding welled up in his heart. Before Lou Jiang could turn and run, a dusty gray figure pounced in front of him.
“I’ve finally found someone!” Monk Budu was like seeing a long-lost relative, his eyes filled with tears. “This poor monk was getting dizzy from all the turning!”
“You, you, you!”
Lou Jiang leaped back a large step, looking at him in horror… After just one night, Monk Budu’s head was as bald as ever, but his face was painted with so much red and purple that he looked like a ghost.
“What happened to you? No, wait, why are you here?”
“It’s a long story…” Monk Budu said, then turned his head and shouted behind him, “Half-Diviner, stop your nonsensical calculations! Get your ass over here! We’ve found someone!”
Half-Diviner?
The feeling of foreboding in Lou Jiang’s heart grew even stronger.
“Alas, Zen Master Budu, how can you say this humble Daoist’s calculations are nonsensical?”
A young Daoist priest walked over from the other end of the long corridor. He had decent features, but unfortunately, he was also a bit abnormal… He carried a battered straw hat on his back, wore a broken vine shoe on one foot and was barefoot on the other, and spoke slowly, seeming to have a very good temperament.
“This humble Daoist’s calculations are infallible, I never speak falsely.”
Lou Jiang slowly backed away.
He seemed to know who this person was.
“You see,” the young Daoist priest explained good-naturedly to Monk Budu, “didn’t this humble Daoist successfully lead you to the right path?”
Monk Budu rolled his eyes. “Getting lost over a hundred times? And you have the nerve to call your calculations infallible?”
“Alas, the secrets of heaven cannot be revealed, so of course, it’s impossible to get it right on the first try…” the young Daoist priest continued to explain. “If you don’t believe me, let this humble Daoist perform another divination. I can definitely lead you to the several benefactors you are looking for.”
Monk Budu ignored him completely and grabbed Lou Jiang, who was trying to sneak away. “Amitabha, how fortunate, how fortunate. Benefactor Lou, do you know where Benefactor Zuo is? Could you take this poor monk there?”
“…”
Lou Jiang actually did know.
Fatty Zuo had just sent him a message, asking him to prepare some fishing rods and bamboo baskets. Lou Jiang didn’t want to go and face a group of second-generation heirs who were clearly planning to cause trouble, so he had sent someone else. He hadn’t expected to run into the bald donkey Budu while trying to hide.
Lou Jiang secretly circulated his qi, trying to break free from the bald donkey’s grip.
Monk Budu had a kind face and a dignified appearance, and he didn’t budge an inch.
“They went to the Cloud Terrace… Fine, I’ll take you there.”
Lou Jiang was helpless.
Monk Budu’s face lit up with joy, and he thanked him repeatedly. Then he turned around and grabbed the young Daoist priest who was looking down and counting on his fingers. “Let’s go, let’s go, stop calculating, what the hell are you calculating.”
“Alas! Wait, wait!”
The young Daoist priest had a look of terror on his face and struggled to break free from his hand.
“This hexagram shows an omen of great misfortune! If we go, we will definitely encounter a calamitous star!”
Lou Jiang thought to himself, “Then this hexagram of yours is quite accurate. Aren’t Little Martial Ancestor Chou, Young Master Lu, and Young Pavilion Master Zuo first-rate hell-raisers?”
Monk Budu clearly thought the same and dragged the man away.
“Alas—” The young Daoist priest hugged the railing and refused to let go. “Trust me, this hexagram is definitely not wrong. We can’t go. If we go, this humble Daoist will most likely be forced onto a path of no return!”
“Alright, alright! As if you’re on some righteous path now. Let’s go, let’s go!”
“Alas, alas, alas!!”
***
The Cloud Terrace was actually a stone platform on a sheer cliff, extending out about ten meters. There were no pavilions above or below, and to the left and right were jagged black rocks. It was very close to the sea, just right for casting a line from the platform. A small stream gushed from a crack in the rock, forming a small pool on the side of the platform, perfect for drinking and washing.
Zuo Yuesheng seemed to come here often. He was skillfully setting up a rack, vowing to let them experience what true mountain and sea delicacies were.
Lu Jing was highly skeptical about whether the things he made were edible…
“Does this one go here?” Lu Jing held up a slightly bent piece of thin bamboo.
“Put it down, put it down, that’s for later. You go fishing, go fishing!” Zuo Yuesheng was afraid he would ruin his hard work and quickly shoved a fishing rod into his hands.
Lu Jing took the fishing rod, stood up, took one step, and then silently turned back.
“Didn’t I tell you to…”
Lu Jing poked him with the fishing rod, then pointed behind him and said faintly, “I think… I’d better help you set up the rack…”
Zuo Yuesheng was puzzled. He looked up and suddenly fell silent too.
Over on the stone platform.
Chou Bodeng was sitting, and Shi Wuluo was standing. Chou Bodeng held up a fishing rod and said something. Shi Wuluo then leaned down and held his wrist.
Zuo Yuesheng whipped his head back and looked at Lu Jing in shock, mouthing:
What are those two doing?!