The Overlord of Puluo

The next morning, Li Banfeng returned to his territory. Miss Chu had already set out the offerings early, waiting for the local land deity to respond.

Li Banfeng transformed into a cloud of black smoke and carefully checked the contract. It indeed stated that Cedric and the other Healers would not participate in activating the land, so Li Banfeng lit up the plot.

The land activation matter was settled. Next came the trial of worthiness. Li Banfeng returned to the Mountain-Uprooting Lord’s residence, took the land deity seal, and went looking for aberrant creatures.

The land deity seal contained cultivation power from his territory. It served as the funds he used to hire aberrant creatures.

Who should I hire that will be a good fit for this job? Should I fly around the territory once and advertise? No! Going around like a peddler hawking his wares seems kind of crude for a land deity.

Should I put up a notice? But how many aberrant creatures would even know what it said? Come to think of it, I think one of them can actually read, or at least he recognizes the character for ”leaf”.

Li Banfeng thought of the bull-headed man, Old Bull. Expecting him to read a notice would be asking a bit too much, but he should be capable of serving as a messenger.

After making a round of his territory, Li Banfeng found Old Bull in a forest, playing chess[1] with the Jujube Tree. The pieces were made of stone, and Old Bull and the Jujube Tree Monster each had a chessboard.

Old Bull threw a stone at the Jujube Tree Monster. ”I use the cannon!”

The Jujube Tree blocked it with the chessboard, then he threw a stone back. ”I move the chariot!”

Old Bull charged headfirst into the Jujube Tree. ”I send in the soldiers!”

The Jujube Tree staggered a few steps back, then he picked up a wild horse nearby and hurled it at Old Bull. ”I send in the horses!”

Old Bull was hit hard. He threw down the chessboard and shouted, ”I send in the elephant!”

The Jujube Tree laughed. ”You dare to send in the elephant? If Lord Qiu hears you, won’t he kill you?[2]”

Old Bull shouted, ”Lord Qiu isn’t here, so I’m sending in the elephant!”

He was just about to go find an elephant when Li Banfeng arrived before Old Bull.

With the aid of the Film Projector, the Judge’s Brush, and the Liquor Gourd, Li Banfeng’s appearance had been transformed into a ball of green fire.

”Where are you going?” Li Banfeng asked.

”I’m... sending in the elephant,” Old Bull muttered. He stood in stunned silence for a long moment before asking, ”Who are you?”

”The land deity of this territory.”

Old Bull sneered. ”Another fake land deity. Since when do land deities look like you?”

Whoosh!

A mighty and imposing aura swept over Old Bull, forcing him several steps backward.

Li Banfeng smiled. ”You signed a contract with me. You don’t recognize me already?”

The Jujube Tree said to Old Bull, ”Brother, his voice is the same as the local land deity’s!”

Old Bull lowered his head in respect. ”You have come to our home to visitation. What noble errand brings you here, sir?”

Li Banfeng let out a sigh. ”If you never went to school, don’t try to sound scholarly. Is that how you’re supposed to use ’visitation’?”

Old Bull looked at the Jujube Tree.

The Jujube Tree snorted. ”Why are you looking at me? I don’t know what ’visitation’ means either.”

Li Banfeng said, ”I have some business for you. There are people activating New Land to the east of the forest, on a 1.5-kilometer plot. Find some people and conduct a trial of worthiness. I’ll reward you afterward.”

Old Bull was delighted. ”Let’s talk about the price first. How much will you reward us for that 1.5-kilometer plot?”

How much would be appropriate? Li Banfeng wondered.

When He Yuxiu, Zhang Wanlong, Nectarine, and the others came to activate New Land in the past, Meng Yuchun had been the one to find the aberrant creatures for their trials of worthiness. None of the aberrant creatures had received rewards, and Li Banfeng really had no idea how much he ought to give them.

If Li Banfeng were to go to Meng Yuchun again now, it would make him look bad, so he thought about it for a moment and named a figure. ”Three months of cultivation progress if the trial of worthiness is conducted successfully.”

The old Jujube Tree’s branches and leaves trembled.

Old Bull asked, ”Is that three months in total, or three months for each person?”

If it was three months in total, that really was a little too little.

But if it was three months for each person, there was no telling how many people this old bull would bring. If he were to bring around a thousand people, Li Banfeng would not be able to pay them all, and Miss Chu would not be able to handle them either.

Li Banfeng answered, ”Everyone gets three months each, but the limit is ten people.”

Old Bull nodded. ”I’ll go gather people right now!”

The Jujube Tree shifted into motion. ”I’ll go with you.”

Seeing how eager the two of them were, Li Banfeng felt that he had offered too much.

Was it too much? It depended on who he was comparing it to.

Compared with Qiu Luoye, this was indeed a generous reward. Qiu Luoye did not offer such generous rewards—not because he was stingy but because he did not want the trial of worthiness to be too difficult.

However, some land deities offered even more than Li Banfeng. That was because some land deities nurtured humans, while others nurtured aberrant creatures.

Land deities who nurtured humans lowered the difficulty of the trial of worthiness because they wanted to increase the human presence in their territories as much as possible. Of course, there still had to be a basic bottom line. They could not simply let anyone come along and take the land, only for it to end up abandoned.

Land deities who nurtured aberrant creatures were land deities who did not hope for their territories to become Proper Lands. Instead, they hoped to temper their aberrant creatures through generous rewards. With more aberrant creatures, the human presence could increase as well. More importantly, as the land deity grew stronger, they could expand their territory and even completely swallow up the surrounding territories.

As for whether Li Banfeng should nurture aberrant creatures or humans, that was something he only needed to consider after ascending to the Cloudborne Layer. He left the trial of worthiness to Old Bull and returned to the Pocket Dwelling.

However, the moment he stepped inside, he felt that something was not quite right.

He’s excited.

The walls were quite hot and occasionally produced faint rumbles and tremors. He could not hear the Old Man’s voice, but Li Banfeng could sense that the entire Pocket Dwelling was in a state of excitement!

Whenever the Old Man became excited, everyone at home would be frightened and would not even dare to speak loudly.

The Glove woke up and ran from the shelf to Li Banfeng’s side. He whispered, ”The Old Man found something good. It’s in the third room.”

”What is it?”

Could he have found a pair of rails?

”We don’t dare go in. The Old Man doesn’t want us to see.”

Li Banfeng headed toward the third room, but the Gramophone tried to stop him. ”Husband dear, don’t bother. He probably just picked up some little trinket outside. There’s nothing special about it.”

Hearing that only made Li Banfeng more curious. What kind of little trinket could get the Old Man this excited?

The moment the third room, Li Banfeng froze. There were five large stones inside.

Li Banfeng was astonished. ”Sir, why did you bring these stones back?”

”Qi!” Old Man called out. Then he lowered his voice and said mysteriously, ”These are Heavenheart Stones.”

Heavenheart Stones? That sounds familiar, Li Banfeng thought.

Old Man reminded him, ”I told you about this before. A single Heavenheart Stone is worth as much as a pair of rails!”

And a pair of rails costs as much as Paramount Club...

Li Banfeng was overjoyed. He hugged one of the stones and grinned. ”Let’s go to Medicine King Gully first and find Shopkeeper Feng’s older brother. We’ll negotiate a price with him.”

Old Man asked, ”Why negotiate a price?”

”To sell them, of course! We should get at least one million silver dollars for just one stone!”

”Sell them? No!!” the Old Man snapped. ”I want to keep them to build a train station!”

Li Banfeng remembered that. Three Heavenheart Stones were enough to build a large station, where the Pocket Dwelling could remain for an hour. Nevertheless, was there really that much difference between an hour and half an hour?

He was a little reluctant to use all these Heavenheart Stones to build a train station.

”Let’s move somewhere else first, then build the train station!”

The Old Man replied, ”Qi, you need to look at the long term. This is your territory, and there will be many things to do here in the future. And if we build a large train station, we’ll have a longer stop duration.”

Li Banfeng smacked his lips. ”The problem is there’s already a train station here.”

”We can reclaim the Joysoil. We can build the train station somewhere else without wasting anything.”

There was no point in saying more. The Old Man was impatient and wanted to build a large train station right away, so Li Banfeng could only agree.

The thing that puzzled Li Banfeng was where these Heavenheart Stones had appeared from.

”I’ve traversed through this territory countless times, and you’ve followed me everywhere I’ve gone. Why have we never found any Heavenheart Stones before?”

”Heavenheart Stones are unnameable things. Their locations aren’t fixed. We just happened to get lucky this time. All five stones gathered here!”

Despite the Old Man’s explanation, Li Banfeng still did not understand what exactly an ”unnameable thing” was.

While the Old Man began building the train station, Li Banfeng went to check on the trial of worthiness. Old Bull formed a group of ten aberrant creatures, and they were ready to conduct the trial.

Li Banfeng took on his appearance of the local land deity and said to Old Bull, ”If you can’t win, stop as soon as possible. Don’t lose your life over this.”

Old Bull laughed. ”I’ll heed your words, but whether I can stop myself is another matter.”

Three months of cultivation progress was a great incentive. When the appointed time came, the aberrant creatures charged into the plot of land together.

Miss Chu led eleven subordinates to meet them head-on, and a chaotic melee broke out in the 1.5-kilometer domain.

Li Banfeng watched the trial play out for more than half an hour, without either side gaining the upper hand. So he left. He wanted to walk around his territory and see whether he could find any more good things like Heavenheart Stones.

After walking more than 1.5 kilometers south, the outline of a huge mountain under the dim moonlight.

Where did this mountain come from?

Li Banfeng knew his territory very well. There should not be a mountain here. This should have been a stretch of grassland.

Could I have remembered incorrectly?

When he approached to take a look, he found that the vegetation on the mountain was extremely dense, and there seemed to be no path leading up. There definitely had not been a mountain here before. It had somehow appeared without him noticing.

Li Banfeng did not climb the mountain rashly. He went to Meng Yuchun’s residence instead.

Meng Yuchun was grinding in front of the mirror. Li Banfeng waited outside the door, but his arrival alone had ruined her mood.

After seeing the two sisters off, Meng Yuchun wiped the sweat from her forehead. ”You came to ask me about a mountain? There are plenty of hills on your territory. What’s so strange about there being a mountain?”

Li Banfeng shook his head. ”This mountain isn’t part of my territory.”

Meng Yuchun let out a mocking snort. ”A fifty-kilometer territory isn’t exactly small. How could you remember every detail so clearly? Isn’t it perfectly normal to remember some places incorrectly?”

Meng Yuchun was telling the truth. For a Homebound Cultivator, it was common to remember places incorrectly. She did not remember her own territory all that clearly either.

However, Li Banfeng countered, ”I’m a Wanderlust Cultivator. How could I fail to remember an entire mountain?”

”So what if you’re a Wanderlust Cultivator? Does that make you so great that you can’t make mistakes? If you remembered it wrong, just admit it. Am I going to laugh at you?”

Meng Yuchun angrily followed Li Banfeng to the foot of the mountain in question, looked up at the peak, and remained silent for a long while. There truly was no mountain this high in Li Qi’s territory.

Meng Yuchun rubbed her chin and struggled to come up with a reasonable explanation for the mountain. ”New Lands change constantly. It’s perfectly reasonable for a mountain to occasionally appear out of nowhere.”

Li Banfeng knew that Meng Yuchun was a prideful person. It was understandable that she would occasionally make up a few things to save face.

But this is taking things a bit too far!

As far as Li Banfeng knew, the changes in a New Land involved new plots of land continually coming into existence. He had never heard of a plot of New Land changing after it had already taken shape.

Despite what she had said, Meng Yuchun also felt that there was something strange about this situation. ”I’ll ask the Cook Monster when I get back. He’s very knowledgeable and should know about similar situations.”

After Meng Yuchun left, Li Banfeng walked around the mountain and found a spot where the trees were not too dense. He used Severing Paths to Forge a Way, and the trees parted to the sides, revealing a narrow path.

The path was only seventy or eighty meters long. As soon as Li Banfeng passed through it, the ability deactivated, and the forest returned to its original state.

He continued clearing a path step by step until he reached halfway up the mountain. Li Banfeng had drained a lot of energy to get to this point. Fortunately, the forest ahead was significantly less dense, and he could pass through without using the ability.

Then several drops of water landed on his face. Li Banfeng thought it had started raining.

It was normal for New Lands to get rain, and rainwater could sometimes be a hunter’s last hope. However, the sky was perfectly clear today. The drops had come from the fog in the mountain forest.

Li Banfeng continued toward the summit through the dense fog. Apart from the vegetation, he saw no other living things, not even a single insect.

When he was almost at the summit, Li Banfeng caught a scent. It was the distinct scent of ink. Following the scent, Li Banfeng came upon a writing desk, on which lay an unfinished ink painting.

The painting depicted a young man wearing a changshan and a scarf. His eyes were bright as he gazed into the distance, his expression carrying the vitality of a young scholar. The arms had not yet been completed, so Li Banfeng could not tell what the young man in the painting was holding or what he was doing.

There was an inkstone beside the painting, and the ink was still wet.

Someone’s on this mountain, and they might still be nearby.

Li Banfeng looked around, then he turned his attention back to the painting.

The young man in the painting had originally been gazing into the distance. But at some point, his eyes had shifted, and now, they were fixed on Li Banfeng.

Li Banfeng stared at the ink painting for a long while, then he sensed someone approaching.

A person slowly emerged from deep within the forest, his figure gradually becoming clearer to Li Banfeng. He was an old man in his sixties, with graying hair hanging loose. Holding a brush in his hand, he walked over to Li Banfeng.

Li Banfeng recognized him. He was the painter Fu Taiyue.

How did he end up on this mountain?

1. Of course, this is referring to Chinese chess, not Western chess. ☜

2. Because Qiu Luoye is an elephant. ☜