The Overlord of Puluo

Li Banfeng wrote out a loan agreement. Every line was clear, every amount was exact, and both the principal and the interest were written down without the slightest bit of wiggle room. He had borrowed the Glove’s money, so he had to make the matter clear. More importantly, he had to repay it.

The Glove said from the side, ”Boss, you are scolding me by doing this. When I said you could borrow it, I was only joking. What is mine is yours. Just take it and use it!”

Li Banfeng shook his head. ”What is yours is yours. If I borrow it, I have to repay it.”

Once the agreement was finished, Li Banfeng spent the night moving all the silver dollars and gold into the bedroom. Then he called Feng Chongli and Feng Xincheng over.

Feng Xincheng stared at the room full of silver dollars, so shocked that his mouth fell open and he stood there frozen. He couldn’t understand where all this money had come from. If he were Feng Chongli, he wouldn’t dare touch this deal at all.

However, he was not Feng Chongli.

With a rather solemn expression, Feng Chongli stared at the silver dollars for a while. He then said to Li Banfeng, ”You still need to pay me three hundred and fifty-two yuan.”

Li Banfeng did not hesitate for even a moment. He took out his wallet at once.

Why was he so quick? Because he had calculated with the Glove and knew that they were indeed short by a little over three hundred yuan.

As expected of a Mercantile Cultivator! Li Banfeng thought. You are very sharp when it comes to money!

Feng Chongli accepted the banknotes and said to Li Banfeng, ”Trader Li, please wait here for a moment.”

Soon, Feng Chongli came back to the room with a pair of long rectangular boxes made of yellow rosewood. He handed them to Li Banfeng.

Li Banfeng opened the boxes and saw that an iron ruler was in each box. They weren’t very impressive to look at. The iron rulers had a dull sheen, with signs of wear in some places and even a little rust here and there.

Shopkeeper Feng couldn’t see anything special about them, so he did not dare say a word. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand why this pair of iron rulers was worth so much money.

Li Banfeng pretended to examine them for a long while. Then he nodded and said, ”Boss Feng, please wait here for a moment as well.”

This was the first time he had ever seen the iron rulers, so he honestly could not tell whether they were real or fake.

After leaving Feng Chongli’s room, Li Banfeng went downstairs and booked another room. Once inside, he entered the Pocket Dwelling and asked the Glove first, ”Do you think these are real?”

The Glove straightened itself at once. ”Boss, what sort of question is that? I have never seen the iron rulers before. How would I know whether they are real or fake?”

Li Banfeng nodded. ”True. You have not seen them. Then who do you think has?”

The Glove pressed its thumb and middle finger together, then wagged its index finger. ”In my opinion, since they are things meant for our dwelling, we should naturally ask the dwelling itself.”

Li Banfeng nodded again and agreed. ”But our dwelling has so many rooms. Which room would be the most suitable one to ask?”

The Glove tried very hard to keep its posture steady. After thinking for a moment, it replied, ”Back when our dwelling stole the oil, the oil was placed in the Third Room. In my humble opinion, the Third Room is the room that feels very much alive.”

Li Banfeng found this very reasonable as well. He took the iron rulers to the Third Room, looked at the Glove, and asked, ”The dwelling does not answer me whenever I want it to. How do you think I should ask?”

The Glove did its best to control its trembling body. After pondering for a while, it said, ”Since these are things meant for the dwelling, why not put them on the floor and see what the dwelling does with them?”

”That makes sense.”

Li Banfeng placed the pair of iron rulers on the floor of the Third Room.

A moment later, the pair of iron rulers began to melt. Little by little, they sank into the floor and vanished.

Huff! Huff! Huff! Choochoooooo!

A whistle rang out, and every room in the Pocket Dwelling trembled with it.

The Pocket Dwelling was very excited.

At this moment, Li Banfeng knew that he had gotten the real iron rulers. He took the Glove with him and went back to the inn.

Feng Chongli and Feng Xincheng were both waiting in the room. When Feng Chongli saw that Li Banfeng had not brought the iron rulers back, his face darkened slightly. ”Trader Li, our deal is not finished yet.”

”The deal is already finished,” Li Banfeng said. ”I have verified the authenticity of the iron rulers, and they are real. You have counted the money, and not a single coin is missing. The money and goods are settled. I will be leaving now.”

Li Banfeng was about to go, but Feng Chongli stopped him. ”Wait. We still need to draw up a contract. Once the money and goods have been exchanged, this pair of iron rulers will have nothing to do with me. If they are lost or damaged in the future, it will have nothing to do with me.”

”Sounds good!” Li Banfeng agreed. ”I paid you eight hundred thousand silver dollars in cash and you have counted it in person and confirmed the amount. Whether it later turns out to be more or less, none of it will have anything to do with me.”

Feng Chongli nodded and responded, ”Feng Xincheng is the witness of this business deal. From this day on, no matter what happens or why it happens, neither you nor I can harm the witness’s life!”

Oh. So there’s such a rule, Li Banfeng thought. No wonder Tu Shumei never killed Lü Yuesan to silence him for good.

Lü Yuesan was Tu Shumei’s accountant. His hands were not clean, and his mouth was not tight either. Logically speaking, Tu Shumei wouldn’t have let him live.

However, according to Feng Chongli’s rule, the deal had to be witnessed by someone both parties knew. Tu Shumei had not known about this rule beforehand, and at the time, the only suitable person by her side was Lü Yuesan. Since she had used him as the witness, she could not kill him afterward.

And what would happen if she ignored Feng Chongli’s rule and killed Lü Yuesan anyway? That would depend on whether her cultivation could stand against Feng Chongli’s.

Tu Shumei’s cultivation was not low. She was about level eight of the Terranean Layer. But what about Feng Chongli? He was Feng Xincheng’s elder brother, yet he looked younger than Feng Xincheng. If he had not altered his appearance the way Tu Shumei had, then it meant he had extended his lifespan long ago. His cultivation had likely reached the Cloudborne Layer.

Tu Shumei could not possibly offend Feng Chongli just to silence Lü Yuesan. That was why Lü Yuesan had managed to survive.

But why had Feng Chongli never told others about this rule beforehand? Li Banfeng had no way to figure that out, and he had no time to dwell on it either. He wrote up the contract, the three of them pressed their fingerprints onto it, and the business deal was settled.

Li Banfeng could not afford to linger even a moment longer. He took Shopkeeper Feng with him, bought tickets for that very night, and went back to Medicine King Gully.

Feng Chongli took out a money pouch from inside his clothes and began stuffing silver dollars into it.

Now, how many silver dollars could one money pouch possibly hold? There were hundreds of thousands of them, not to mention a whole chest of gold. Yet Feng Chongli’s money pouch really did hold them all.

An hour later, he had packed away every last coin and gold bar. Feng Chongli returned to his room and slept for the night. At daybreak the next morning, he headed straight for the train station.

Halfway there, someone called out from behind him, ”Stop! Where do you think you are going?”

Feng Chongli turned and saw a rickshaw driver pulling a rickshaw as he hurried after him.

”Oh, you are back,” Feng Chongli quickly said a word of greeting.

”Nonsense. How could I not come back?” the rickshaw driver snapped. ”Didn’t we agree to wait until tonight? Why are you leaving early?”

”My apologies. My business here is already done.”

The rickshaw driver froze. ”Your business is done? What is that supposed to mean?”

”It means the item has already been sold.”

”Sold to whom?”

”That is information I don’t feel comfortable telling you.”

Clang!

The rickshaw driver threw the rickshaw onto the ground. ”What sort of person are you? Did we not have an agreement? I went back to gather the money. One million silver dollars, and I brought every last coin!”

Feng Chongli smiled. ”There is nothing I can do about that. You did not pay a deposit, nor did we draw up a contract. This guest came with cash in hand, so of course I had to do business with him.”

The rickshaw driver’s brows shot up. ”Are you playing me for a fool?”

Feng Chongli’s smile disappeared as well. ”Where did that come from? I am a businessman, and this is how business works. You were simply one step too late.”

The two of them stared at each other for a long while. At last, the rickshaw driver picked up the rickshaw again. ”I will remember this.”

”Why damage our relationship over this?” Feng Chongli said. ”You still have important matters to handle here, and we will have plenty of dealings in the future.

”Besides, you should not keep throwing that rickshaw around. There is something very important hidden inside. If you break it, where will you find another one?”

***

After arriving at Medicine King Gully, Shopkeeper Feng went back to his general store. Li Banfeng hid the key, entered the Pocket Dwelling, and fixed his eyes on the sack of bloodstained soil before him.

He cleared away every stray thought and simply stared. There was blood in his eyes, and there was blood in his mind. What Li Banfeng needed to find was the next trace of blood.

Of course, the next trace of blood would not have the same shape, nor would it be in the same sort of place. The difference could be quite large. Could the Pocket Dwelling really find the place this sack of bloodstained soil had come from?

Now that the Pocket Dwelling had two more tracks, perhaps it could. That would depend on what it was capable of!

After waiting a few minutes, a whistle sounded beside his ear.

Li Banfeng picked up his trowel and was just about to head out when his wife called, ”Heyaaa~ Husband dear, wait a moment!”

A cloud of steam wrapped around the soil, and two gramophone needles darted up and down. A few minutes later, the Gramophone had picked out all the bloodstained soil and put the clean soil back into the sack.

”My dear husband, after you dig out the bloodstained soil, fill the hole back in with this soil. Do not let that dog thief, the Star of Misfortune, grow suspicious!”

”My wife is always so thorough!” Li Banfeng said, hoisting the sack of soil onto his shoulder.

The Gramophone instructed, Sister Hanxue, help my husband cover his tracks. Splatter more than a hundred blood spots. The Star of Misfortune will not examine each one too closely. Make the fresh soil look like the old soil! Make it look convincing!”

Hanxue answered, ”Don’t worry, Madam!”

”Second Saber, hold the door open. Until my husband returns, you absolutely must not let the door close.”

The Tang Saber barked, ”Understood!”

”My husband, Second Saber will not be able to hold it for long. Go quickly and come back quickly!”

As the Pocket Dwelling only recognize Li Banfeng, the Second Saber really couldn’t hold it for very long.

With one foot outside the door and one foot inside, Li Banfeng dug like mad. A little over ten minutes later, he came back with a sack of bloodstained soil on his back.

”Find the next one!” Li Banfeng exclaimed.

***

At Qiu’s Medicinal Trading House, Luo Zhengnan had already made preparations with his men. Today, they were going to take a gamble. They would try escorting one Mourning Cultivator out of Medicine King Gully and see what would happen.

Qiu Zhiheng was inside the medicinal trading house, choosing a suitable candidate. The Mourning Cultivator could not have too high a cultivation, and his skills could not be too good either. Otherwise, he might escape on the way.

After choosing for quite a while, Qiu Zhiheng had not picked anyone, but a sheen of sweat began to form on his brow.

Luo Zhengnan stepped forward to check on the situation. ”Master Qiu, what’s going on?”

”Hall Master Luo, we captured thirteen Mourning Cultivators. Why are there fourteen?”

”What are you saying, Master Qiu? There are only a few of them. Surely you can count that much.”

Luo Zhengnan counted them himself and froze in shock. There were really fourteen Mourning Cultivators!

”Master Qiu, this is no time for jokes.”

”I am not joking. There really is one extra person!”

”Master Qiu, they have been kept here the whole time. Can you not tell which one’s the extra?”

Qiu Zhiheng stared blankly for a long while. He really couldn’t tell which one was the extra person. He recognized all fourteen of these Mourning Cultivators!

Luo Zhengnan shouted, ”Bring the roster! We will check them one by one!”

Before the roster could be brought over, an elderly Mourning Cultivator suddenly showed a faint smile.

Luo Zhengnan lowered his voice. ”Who is that old fellow?”

Qiu Zhiheng went blank. He couldn’t call this old man by his name.

”Get him!” Qiu Zhiheng shouted and instantly rushed in front of the old man. He slapped the old man on the shoulder and the veins on the old man’s body bulged at once. The old man’s blood surged upward and his blood vessels could burst at any moment.

Yet the old man did not panic in the slightest. Instead, he gave a word of praise. ”What a powerful Hedonism Cultivator. You must be at level eight, right?”

The moment he finished speaking, Qiu Zhiheng’s foot slipped, and he crashed heavily to the floor.

A few days ago, hail had damaged some of the roof tiles, so a little water had seeped in. It had settled inside the cracks between the floor tiles, hidden so neatly that no one could see it. Qiu Zhiheng had stepped right on it. How could there be such a concidence?

With a room full of Mourning Cultivators, how could there not be?

The old man ignored Qiu Zhiheng and casually shoved one of the Mourning Cultivators beside him. The man staggered all the way across the room, slammed into a pillar, and died on the spot.

The collision was so hard that several roof tiles fell and crushed two other Mourning Cultivators to death.

Just as the old man was about to strike again, a soft numbness spread through his body. He turned and saw sparks bursting from Luo Zhengnan’s ten fingers. Those sparks were landing squarely on him.

The old man was rather surprised. Cultivators like Luo Zhengnan were rare in Puluo Province. ”What Daoist Path is this? An Electricity Cultivator? Such a Daoist path exist in Puluo Province?”

Qiu Zhiheng attacked again, but the old man sprang up and burst straight through the roof. Tiles rained down in every direction, and the Mourning Cultivators scattered in panic.

Every falling tile came down sharp-end first, and every one of them landed on a Mourning Cultivator’s head. It was that coincidental, that perfectly ill-timed, and that thoroughly unlucky.

Of the eleven Mourning Cultivators left, not one was spared. All of them were smashed to death by the falling tiles.

This was what the Star of Misfortune was capable of!

Qiu Zhiheng was covered in blood. Fortunately, the Zhongshan suit he wore was an enchanted artifact, and it had taken the fatal blows for him.

Luo Zhengnan managed to dodge the falling tiles, but roof water poured all over him. The moment the water soaked him, his own electricity ran through his body, making him twitch violently.

The old man stood on the roof and looked down at them. ”You wretches have wasted so many days of my time. You birdbrains should have died long ago. Wait here. I will come back and deal with you all later!”

When the old man vanished, Luo Zhengnan sensed that something had changed in the room.

He put on a pair of Glasses, then sent sparks crackling from his fingers to charge them. Through the lenses, he saw the room filled with ghosts. They followed the old man and flew out through the hole in the roof.

Luo Zhengnan wanted to stop them, but he could not. Whoever killed a Mourning Cultivator would be haunted by that Mourning Cultivator’s ghost. That was the nature of Mourning Cultivators.

Everything had happened far too quickly. Luo Zhengnan stood there in shock.

Qiu Zhiheng was the first to realize what was happening. ”The Formation of Misfortune!”

A thick, gloomy aura spread through Medicine King Gully. Even Bleater could sense that something was terribly wrong in the Medicine King Gully. Thirteen Mourning Cultivators had been killed and the Formation of Misfortune was about to bring down a disaster beyond imagining.

Qiu Zhiheng staggered to his feet, pulled out a sheet of yellow paper, and burned it at once to send a message to Old Mister Yao.

The Star of Misfortune would surely go after Old Mister Yao. If Old Mister Yao could kill him, then perhaps there was still a chance to turn things around.

However, Luo Zhengnan kept shaking his head. Compared to Qiu Zhiheng, he knew far more about the Formation of Misfortune. ”Even if the Star of Misfortune was killed, it would be useless. Even if the one who set up the formation dies, the Formation of Misfortune will still continue activating. It’s doomed. The Medicine King Gully will face its doom.”

Qiu Zhiheng froze for a long moment, then rushed out of the medicinal trading house. ”Then hurry up and deactivate the Formation of Misfortune!”

”How?” Luo Zhengnan was completely at a loss.

The Formation of Misfortune had been formed from more than a hundred blood-spattered points scattered across Medicine King Gully. How were they supposed to deactivate something like that?

***

Li Banfeng returned to the Pocket Dwelling covered in mud and utterly exhausted. He had dug up soil from one hundred and seventy bloodstained spots in all, and his back was so tired he could barely straighten it.

The Gramophone picked the bloodstains out of the soil and made a quick estimate. ”Husband dear, you will at most need to dig up three more. Once that is done, the formation will surely be deactivated!”

”Good! Wifey dear! Give me some strength!”

Boom! Boom!

The Gramophone began beating the war drums. The thunderous drumbeats rolled through the Pocket Dwelling, and Li Banfeng forgot his exhaustion at once.

Hooooooooot~

As the war drums thundered, the train whistle rang out even louder!

Li Banfeng stepped out of the Pocket Dwelling again.

Hong Ying could hardly believe it. ”Is he really going to deactivate the Formation of Misfortune?”

”Heyaaaaaaa, you wretched woman, that is my mannnnnn!” the Gramophone sang out in a bright, ringing voice.

”Well, do not make it sound as if this was all your man’s achievement. Without this dwelling, he could never have done it!”

”You wretched woman, hear me well! Give him a little more time, and even without this dwelling, he will still be able to do it. This is my mannnnn!” the Gramophone sang, her voice ringing out even louder.

Author’s Note:

PS: Go, Banfeng, go! Break the Formation of Misfortune apart!