The Overlord of Puluo

Mourning Cultivator? I have never heard of this cultivation path.

Li Banfeng wanted to take a better look at the man’s face, but Qiu Zhiheng quickly pushed the shutter across the window and blocked his view.

”Brother,” Qiu Zhiheng said, ”with this sort of thing, one glance less means one bit less bad luck.”

”What kind of path is so wicked? I have never even heard of it.”

”It is normal that you have not heard of them. I have lived in Puluo Province for over forty years, and including this time, I have only seen Mourning Cultivators three times.

”Cultivators of this path do not usually wander around. They have fixed places of residence too. A Mourning Cultivator will only move elsewhere when they can no longer survive or continue cultivating in their place of residence.”

Li Banfeng did not quite understand. ”What do you mean when you say they can no longer survive’?”

”It means the people around them cannot stand it anymore and decide to fight him to the death. Once it reaches that point, he has no way to keep living there.”

Li Banfeng asked, ”Then what do you mean by not being able to continue cultivating?”

”It means he has driven all his neighbors mad, driven them away, or even driven them to their deaths. Once there is no one left for him to torment, he has to move somewhere else and continue ruining other people’s lives.”

As they spoke, Leafy kept crying beside them. Qiu Zhiheng’s wife tried to comfort her. ”Don’t cry. Don’t cry, all right? That old thing is only wailing for himself to hear. Just ignore him.”

Qiu Zhiheng’s wife knew very well that this sort of comfort would not do much good.

Qiu Zhiheng turned to Li Banfeng and said, ”This girl was struck by the Mourning Cultivator’s Never-Ending Mourning Bell. Every word that old man said is like a knife, stabbing straight into the most painful place in her heart. It can crush a person’s will. She might not recover for a month or more.”

Leafy cried for a long while before staring at Li Banfeng. ”You... You are Big Bro Bai Sha?”

She had thought Li Banfeng looked familiar from the start, but more than a year had passed since they last met, so she had not dared to call out to him.

Qiu Zhiheng’s wife was startled. ”You two know each other?”

Li Banfeng gave a small nod and smiled.

They had thought seeing an old acquaintance might make Leafy feel a little better. Instead, Leafy looked at Li Banfeng for a moment, then cried even harder.

”I am useless,” Leafy sobbed. ”I am just a useless person. Brother Bai Sha, you should not have saved me back then. If I had died, at least I would have been free.”

Before Li Banfeng could say anything, the old Mourning Cultivator somehow circled around from the entrance to the outside of the courtyard wall. He had heard every word Leafy said, and the vile old creature even took the trouble to answer her.

”You say death would be a relief. I think that is very reasonable,” the old man said. ”What does a person live for? To accomplish something, of course.

”But what can someone like you accomplish? You deliver medicinal herbs from Threeshore Village to Inner Gully, then drive the empty cart back again.

”Is a person even needed for this sort of work? If you train those two donkeys of yours properly, they would do the job better than you. Tell me! What is the point of you staying alive?”

Qiu Zhiheng’s wife could not bear it anymore. ”You shameless old dog! Stop spewing your filthy nonsense!”

Qiu Zhiheng tugged at his wife, warning her not to act rashly. It was already too late. Qiu Zhiheng’s wife had already cursed the Mourning Cultivator.

”Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

A loud smacking sound came from outside the door. Those three clicks of the tongue were the warning sign. The Mourning Cultivator was about to use another ability.

”Listen, listen! Neighbors, listen! Passersby, listen! This medicinal trading house opens its doors for business, yet they curse at their customers. Did you all hear how foul her words were just now?”

Qiu Zhiheng’s wife shouted back, ”Why do you not mention how foul your own words were?”

”What did I say? What did I say?” From his tone to his expression, the old man sounded perfectly innocent. ”I said nothing at all. I only said this young lady was speaking quite reasonably, and then this woman started cursing at me!

”You all heard it, did you not? I came to this medicinal trading house to buy medicine, and the moment they saw me, they shut the doors. I had not even complained, yet this woman opened her mouth and started hurling abuse!”

What should they do now? Keep arguing with him? Of course not. Ordinary people simply could not win an argument against a Mourning Cultivator.

Qiu Zhiheng knew well about the Mourning Cultivation.

He explained, ”This is one of the abilities of a Mourning Cultivator. It is called Mournface Grumble. To master this ability , every Mourning Cultivator goes through special training. No matter how you argue with them, they can always twist things until they sound reasonable. The longer the argument goes on, the more advantage they gain.”

If the Street-Cursing Crone was here, would she win an argument with this oldie?

Qiu Zhiheng continued, ”Besides, arguing with a Mourning Cultivator is a losing business from the start. Whether we win or lose, we will end up gaining nothing. He’s just a passerby. If he stands outside our door and makes a great ugly fuss, it is our reputation that suffers. It is our business that suffers. As for him, he loses nothing at all.

”And the longer we argue, the more we lose. It will not only damage our reputation. It will damage our fengshui too. Once the crowd gathers and starts pointing and muttering, the fengshui of this medicinal trading house will be ruined by him as well.”

Qiu Zhiheng’s wife sighed. ”Zhiheng, this is your fault. If you had listened to Shopkeeper Feng, we could have avoided this disaster.”

With tears in her eyes, Leafy said, ”Big Bro Qiu, Madam, that old man came for me. I will leave. I cannot drag you into this.”

”Silly girl, where can you possibly go?” Qiu Zhiheng’s wife held Leafy’s hand and led her back inside. ”Once a Mourning Cultivator latches onto you, you might end up dead!”

The old Mourning Cultivator was still cursing outside the courtyard wall.

To be honest, Li Banfeng still did not quite understand what made this Mourning Cultivator so dangerous.

Qiu Zhiheng was usually a very serious man. Otherwise, Li Banfeng would have suspected he was telling a joke.

What’s the point of leaving such a shameless old thing alive? Li Banfeng thought. Since he did not understand, he asked. ”Big Bro Qiu, is this Mourning Cultivator very good at fighting?”

Before Qiu Zhiheng answered, Li Banfeng was already heading for the door. Qiu Zhiheng quickly stepped forward and stopped him. ”Brother, you cannot.”

If fighting really worked, Qiu Zhiheng would have gone out already.

Li Banfeng said, ”Do they have some gang backing them up? Are you worried they will come back for revenge? That is fine. I can handle it cleanly.”

Qiu Zhiheng shook his head. ”If it was because some gangs were backing him up, I wouldn’t be afraid at all. After all, I have been stumbling around these circles for many years.”

Qiu Zhiheng’s wife said, ”Brother Li Qi, you might not know this, but there is an old saying: better to drink a bowl of Gold Cultivator’s soup than leave even the tiniest wound on a Mourning Cultivator.”

A bowl of Gold Cultivator soup? Li Banfeng froze for a while. ”Madam, when you say Gold Cultivator soup, you do not mean that... thing, do you?”

”That is exactly what I mean. The stuff in the bucket. Drink a bowl of that, and at worst, you suffer for two days.”

Li Banfeng waved a hand. ”Two days is not enough. Something like that would make a person suffer for many days.”

Qiu Zhiheng’s wife said, ”If we hurt a Mourning Cultivator, we will suffer for the rest of our lives. He will cling to us forever.”

”Then kill him.”

”If we kill him, his soul will still cling to us.”

”Then take his soul too.”

”If we take his soul, the other Mourning Cultivators will sense it. Then they will come after us and cling to us instead.”

”Then kill them all,” Li Banfeng said, growing more and more irritated as the old man kept shouting abuse outside. ”Kill them until there are no more of these Mourning Cultivators!”

Qiu Zhiheng shook his head. ”Mourning Cultivators ruin a person’s fortune. If we spend the rest of our lives fighting them, how are we supposed to live? Let me think of a way to handle this.”

Li Banfeng stared toward the wall and clenched his teeth. ”If only my mighty General Little Gen were here. I would feed that old wretch a few spoonfuls and see how bold he can be after that.”

***

Ma Wu got off the train at Girdle-Slipping Hollow, and two brightly dressed women in their twenties came over to welcome him at once.

”Sir, have you found a place to stay? Our inn has the best prices.”

”A single room is only one hundred and fifty. A shared bunk is just fifty.”

”Oh, look at you. Can you not read a man at all? Just look at this gentleman’s clothes. Does he look like someone who would sleep in a shared bunk? Our inn has fine rooms too. Three hundred a night, and the two of us sisters will warm the bed for you.”

Ma Wu politely refused the two young women. If he did not refuse, he would never get his proper business done. There had once been a man who wandered around Girdle-Slipping Hollow Station for a whole month and somehow never managed to leave.

After leaving the station, Ma Wu hailed a rickshaw.

The driver asked, ”Sir, would you like to find a place to rest first and have some fun afterward, or have some fun first and rest afterward?”

Ma Wu smiled. ”Is there anywhere I can have fun and rest at the same time?”

The driver nodded. ”Of course. Plenty of places.”

Ma Wu loved the atmosphere of Girdle-Slipping Hollow. He could come here a hundred times and still not have enough of it.

”Take me to a cinema first.”

The rickshaw driver paused. Customers who would go to a cinema the moment they got off the train were not exactly common.

”Which cinema would you like to go to?”

”Recommend one.”

”Then would you like to watch lying down or sitting up?”

This was one of Girdle-Slipping Hollow’s special customs. Watching a movie lying down meant lying on a large bed in a private box, with someone lying beside you.

Ma Wu had come here for serious business, so of course he could not watch lying down. He first had the driver take him around town, then chose a cinema where people watched sitting up.

Before long, Ma Wu arrived at the cinema, bought a ticket for The Legendary Bloodblade Detective, and settled into his seat.

Then a young woman came over and sat on his lap. This, apparently, was what they called watching sitting up.

In Girdle-Slipping Hollow, The Legendary Bloodblade Detective was not drawing much of a crowd. There were fewer than ten people in the whole cinema, which at least made it easier for the young woman to do her work.

The Legendary Bloodspear Detective, on the other hand, was selling extremely well. The afternoon and evening tickets had already sold out. Anyone who wanted to watch it now would have to wait until midnight showing.

Halfway through the film, Ma Wu kept glancing at the young woman’s eyes, but he did not see a love root in them.

This was different from what had happened at Blackstone Slope.

Over there, anyone who entered the cinema would have a love root formed in one of their eyes. However, once they left, the love root would slowly fade after three to five hours.

In other words, The Legendary Bloodblade Detective could only make money from one wave of viewers at a time. While the love root still affected them, those viewers would stay in the cinema and watch one showing after another.

But once they left the cinema, the film would lose all its appeal. Qin and Huo Ling were perfect examples. By the next day, neither of them wanted to go back and watch it again.

So what was the point of doing this? Was it really just to sell a few more tickets?

After thinking it through, Ma Wu had to admit that the extra earnings were not small. According to the information he had gathered in Blackstone Slope, The Legendary Bloodblade Detective had sold three times as many tickets as the previous film.

Based on Ma Wu’s guess, The Legendary Bloodblade Detective VI was probably the first film they had implanted with a love root.

Ma Wu muttered inwardly, Who are they? Why would they take such a huge risk? If people find out they are tampering with films, how can this business possibly continue? And is there any way to break it?

While Ma Wu was still thinking it over, the young woman on his lap wiped her lips, stood up, and left. That suited him just fine. He had already grown a little tired of her, so he settled in and watched the film properly.

A short while later, another woman settled herself on Ma Wu’s lap.

She smiled at him. ”Darling Wu, you came to my territory for fun, yet you did not even tell me?”

Ma Wu smiled back. ”That is exactly why I took a trip around town. I wanted you to know I am here.”

He handed the bloodstained handkerchief to Feng Daiku and lowered his voice. ”Take a look. Do you recognize this?”

Feng Daiku gave a little laugh. At first, she thought the blood had come from some bedchamber business. ”Which poor girl did you ruin this time?”

Then she caught the scent of the bloodstain and her smile vanished.

”Darling Wu, this is a fake love root. Where did you get this?”