The Overlord of Puluo

The level-four ability of the Wanderlust Cultivator path was called the Path of Unhindered Steps. The key to using it was simple: see nothing with the eyes, hold no obstruction in the heart, and focus the mind on unhindered movement.

The principle itself was not difficult. The real challenge lay in the speed and decisiveness required. After using Traceless Quick Steps, he had to activate the ability immediately. But how fast was ”immediately”?

Li Banfeng walked out to the open ground beyond Freewind Wharf and soon spotted an abandoned shed standing crookedly at the edge of the lot.

The shed had three small rooms. The walls between them were flimsy things, only a single layer of bricks, barely more than ten centimeters thick.

Li Banfeng tried to use the ability. After Traceless Quick Steps, he worked on seeing nothing with his eyes and holding no obstruction in his heart. He focused his entire mind on moving forward without hindrance.

Bang!

Li Banfeng slammed into the wall.

After a moment, he tried again.

Bang!

The wall shook slightly, and Li Banfeng felt a little dizzy.

Traceless Quick Steps activated far too quickly, leaving him almost no time to use the fourth-level technique.

He kept practicing.

Bang!

Who the heck came up with this ridiculous ability? Why does it have to be used right after Traceless Quick Steps? Li Banfeng roared inwardly.

***

An hour later, Li Banfeng finally managed to perform the ability, though only halfway.

What did halfway mean? It meant that the lower half of Li Banfeng’s body had already passed through the wall, while the upper half remained stubbornly outside.

Ah... so this is what it feels like to be stuck in a wall, Li Banfeng thought. The pressure is incredible. This feels completely different from being inside the horn of my Gramophone Wifey. Tang Saber, I’m counting on you!

”My lord, tearing down walls is hardly a task for me.”

”I am the lord and you are the subject. You address me as your lord, yet you will not even break down a wall at my command. Tell me, then, where does your loyalty lie?”

After a thousand thoughts churned through its mind, the Tang Saber made the choice that worked in Li Banfeng’s favor.

It couldn’t be helped. When Li Banfeng left Yuren City, he had been too lazy to bring any artifacts with him, so no one knew he had learned the Folly Cultivators’ abilities.

***

After the ceremony ended, Ma Wu saw the guests off. Just as he was about to find Li Qi and celebrate, Little Chuan came running over. ”Master Qi tore down the work shed. No one knows why.”

Ma Wu hurried over and found Li Banfeng standing beside the collapsed shed, covered in dust from head to toe.

”Old Qi, what happened to you?”

”This work shed was an eyesore,” Li Banfeng said, unable to think of a better excuse. ”We are planning to do big things. Aren’t you going to expand Freewind Wharf? Then get moving.”

Ma Wu looked at the broken walls and rubble and felt a surge of surprise.

Old Qi is really impatient. Still, he isn’t wrong. If we want to get things done, we do need some real resolve and the guts to go through with it. The problem is that we don’t have enough money right now. We will have to step up the business at Blue Poplar Village and Properfolk Village.

***

This ability was not easy to practice. It was hard on the body and even harder on the walls.

Li Banfeng wandered all around Greenwater City, searching for a suitable place to practice. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find any. In the end, he went to the outskirts, bought a cluster of abandoned houses, and practiced there slowly.

***

He Jiaqing sat half upright on the sickbed, pondering what to do next. He thought for a long time, but still could not come up with a solution.

”Ma Wu’s temperament really has changed. Does he really have no intention of returning to the Ma Family?”

Ling Miaoying replied, ”His temperament might not have changed. I think he’s just been influenced by that friend of yours. Look at what they’ve built already. In the New Land, they have a five-kilometer plot. Out in the outskirts, they have Blue Poplar Village. And now in Greenwater City, they have taken Freewind Wharf.

”If this keeps going, another household will rise in Puluo Province. On the surface, people will call it the Little Ma Family. But it will really be the Li Family.”

He Jiaqing let out a quiet sigh and gave a faint smile. ”Banfeng isn’t reckless. Leave him alone for now and see how things play out. He’s been in Puluo Province for less than a year. There are still plenty of things he doesn’t understand, and sooner or later, he will make the wrong call.”

***

It took Li Banfeng three days to completely master the Path of Unhindered Steps. To be fair, the ability wasn’t easy to use, but it was still far easier than Treading Through Ten Thousand Rivers.

After returning to Freewind Wharf, Li Banfeng found a private room to rest. Suddenly, Ma Wu pushed the door open and rushed in. ”Old Qi, I finally found you. I have got good news.”

”What good news?”

”The Lu Family brought a Border Controller to Freewind Wharf to talk business with us. As long as we pay a monthly fee from now on, we’ll get trading rights in the Central Thirty Percent Region.”

”What’s the Central Thirty Percent Region?”

”The central thirty percent of Puluo Province!”

Li Banfeng suddenly felt like he needed an encyclopedia. There were simply too many terms in Puluo Province.

”What does the Central Thirty Percent Region mean?”

Ma Wu explained, ”Any ordinary territories in Puluo Province are called Central Thirty Percent. They are also the most populated. Greenwater City, Medicine King Gully, Clearstream Stockade, Yellowclay Bridge, Blackstone Slope... all together, large and small, there are eighty-one territories. That whole area is what we call the Central Thirty Percent Region.”

Li Banfeng asked, ”Then what about the Ridges of Bottomless Stomachs?”

Ma Wu shook his head. ”The Ridges of Bottomless Stomachs aren’t part of the Central Thirty Percent. That territory isn’t normal. You haven’t stayed there before, so you probably don’t know what it’s like. If you stay there long enough, you’ll start feeling hungry again in less than three hours.”

Of course I have been there, Li Banfeng thought. You just don’t know it. At the time, you were busy enjoying yourself with Feng Daiku.

Ma Wu continued, ”The Ridges of Bottomless Stomachs, Girdle-Slipping Hollow, Pillow City, White Falcon County, Slumberless Town... and even the Three-Headed Fork. Places like these are known as the Upper Thirty Percent because their territories are unusual.”

”We haven’t secured any business in the Upper Thirty Percent yet,” he added. ”But if we deal with the Border Controller more often, we’ll probably get a chance in the future.”

”The Upper Thirty Percent. The Central Thirty Percent,” Li Banfeng said thoughtfully. ”Then what about the remaining forty percent?”

”There’s also the Lower Thirty Percent,” Ma Wu explained. ”Vilefolk Hillock, Iron Gate Fort, Ink Fragrance Shop, Kinless Township... places like those fall into the Lower Thirty Percent.”

”Are their territories unusual as well?”

Ma Wu shook his head. ”No. Their territories aren’t the unusual part. The people are. Business is generally difficult there. Once you’ve dealt with them a few times, you’ll understand.”

Upper Thirty Percent. Central Thirty Percent. Lower Thirty Percent, Li Banfeng thought. Together, that made up ninety percent. What about the remaining ten percent?

Ma Wu said, ”The remaining ten percent is called the Uncharted Land.”

”Uncharted? Because it doesn’t have a name?”

”It’s not that they don’t have names. It’s that they can’t really be explained. Bitter Greens Manor is one of those places.”

Li Banfeng thought for a moment, then shook his head.

”Bitter Greens Manor can be explained. I’ve heard people say it’s an extremely desolate place. It’s the territory of Ascetic Cultivators, and anyone who goes there has to endure hardship.”

The truth was that he had not heard it from others. Li Banfeng had experienced it himself.

Ma Wu nodded. ”What happens there can be explained, but the place itself cannot. Routes leading to Bitter Greens Manor appear all across Puluo Province, yet no one can say exactly where it is.”

”If you don’t believe me, go buy a map. Not a single map shows where Bitter Greens Manor is. Someone once stayed there for quite some time just to draw one, but in the end he couldn’t even determine how large the manor was.”

”Another person even took a hot-air balloon up to observe it from above. The balloon went up... and never came back.”

On that point, Li Banfeng agreed. He had run all over Bitter Greens Manor himself and still had never figured out where its borders were.

Yet on Old Mister Yao’s map, Bitter Greens Manor was marked. It was only a small dot, but that alone showed how valuable the map was.

Ma Wu continued, ”As for the Uncharted Lands, we won’t bother going there. There’s no business to be done in those places anyway.”

”How can you say there’s no business? Can’t people trade in Bitter Greens Manor?”

Ma Wu shook his head. ”What business would you even do there? They only buy grain once in a while and nothing else. Grain can be bought anywhere. It’s not worth going there for such a small trade.”

”Now that we have secured trading rights in the Central Thirty Percent,” Ma Wu said, ”we can start selling goods in other places too. The place I have got my eye on is Blackstone Slope. That place produces a mountain of stone, and any aberrant creatures related to stone sells very well there. But the Lu Family has been running that market for years, which means that it will be hard for us to get a foothold there.”

Li Banfeng frowned slightly. ”If we go to Blackstone Slope to do business, wouldn’t that be poaching on the Lu Family’s turf?”

”It would,” Ma Wu said. ”But Monkey Qiu was the one who told me to do it.”

”Monkey Qiu told you to poach on the Lu Family’s turf?” Li Banfeng looked puzzled.

”At Blackstone Slope, all the business is controlled by Lu Maoxian,” Ma Wu said. ”He buys stone and stone tools, and sells grain and rare goods. The profits flow both ways. It’s extremely lucrative.”

”Uncle Qiu wants us to reach in and keep Lu Maoxian in check. However, Lu Maoxian isn’t someone to take lightly. I plan to bring Old Zuo and Qin to Blackstone Slope first and see how the market looks. If Lu Maoxian really decides to go all out, we won’t dare act rashly.”

”Qin? Can she leave the New Land?”

”She can’t,” Ma Wu said with some difficulty. ”I’m thinking of talking to Elephant Qiu and seeing if he can loosen the terms of Qin’s contract a bit.”

Li Banfeng waved his hand dismissively. ”You think Elephant Qiu is that easy to deal with? He loses his temper over the smallest things. Why would you want to provoke him?

”Besides, there’s a boundary between the New Land and the Proper Land. Qin is an aberrant creature. Even if Elephant Qiu agreed, she still wouldn’t be able to enter the Proper Land freely.”

”I found a book that mentioned something about it,” Ma Wu said. ”It seems there might be a way...”

”Don’t be ridiculous,” Li Banfeng said. ”Even if such a method exists, it’s not something we could use.”

His wifey had once told him that aberrant creatures could not enter the Proper Land casually. Doing so would anger the local land deities, and those were not beings to provoke lightly. If Qin dared step foot into Blue Poplar Village, Green Beggar would come after her.

”Besides, if you leave, what happens to Freewind Wharf?”

Ma Wu smacked his lips. ”That’s where you come in, Old Qi. You can help keep things running here for the time being.”

”I wouldn’t even know where to start with a place like this.”

”It’s actually not that hard,” Ma Wu said. ”There are a few tricks to it.”

”Even if there are tricks, it still won’t work!”

The real issue wasn’t Freewind Wharf. Li Banfeng simply didn’t want to stay in Greenwater City any longer. Through his experience at Yuren City, he learned something. He had become too famous in Greenwater City. People in the New Land, the Old Land, and the Proper Land all knew who he was, which meant that it was time to move somewhere else.

”I will make a trip to Blackstone Slope,” he said. ”No need to bring any support hooks. I can go alone.”

Ma Wu shook his head repeatedly. ”That’s pure nonsense. Going to Blackstone Slope alone? That’s practically courting death.”

Li Banfeng shook his head. ”Old Wu, you are looking at this the wrong way. We are scouting the place, not marching into battle.

”If we were going to fight, then yes, we should bring more people. But one person is perfect for scouting. I can slip in quietly and find out what we need to know.”

Ma Wu thought about it for a long time, then shook his head again. ”No. You going alone won’t work.”

Li Banfeng lit a cigarette. ”Just listen to me. It’s settled. Can you get a travel permit for Blackstone Slope?”

”That’s easy,” Ma Wu replied. ”Things are different for us now. Getting a travel permit only takes a word.”

”What about one for the Outer Provinces?”

Ma Wu froze for a moment and looked at Li Banfeng. ”Old Qi, are you still thinking about going back to the Outer Provinces?”

”It’s nothing,” Li Banfeng said, holding the cigarette between his fingers. ”I was just asking. Now isn’t the time. Maybe later, if the chance comes.”

***

”Ma Wu got a travel permit to Blackstone Slope?”

After receiving Ling Miaoying’s message, He Jiaqing thought for a moment before asking, ”How many people is he bringing?”

”From the news I have received, he only bought a single train ticket.”

”One ticket? Ma Wu is going to Blackstone Slope alone? That’s suicide.” He Jiaqing shook his head. ”The one going probably isn’t him. It’s likely my friend. He prefers working alone. What time is the train?”

”Tomorrow night.”

”Are you confident you can capture him alive on the train?”

”If he boards a real train, I can’t be sure I will capture him. But if he boards my train, I am eighty percent certain. The remaining twenty depends on your friend’s cultivation.”

He Jiaqing thought for a moment before saying, ”Even though he has that item, he started cultivating too late. His cultivation shouldn’t exceed level three.”

”That makes things easy. As long as he hasn’t learned any level-four abilities, I can capture him alive for sure.”

He Jiaqing still looked worried. ”Could we wait until he reaches Blackstone Slope before making a move? Greenwater City is too complicated. I am worried something might go wrong.”

”I am not familiar with Blackstone Slope, so it will be hard to make preparations there. If the setup isn’t thorough, things could easily go wrong.”

”Then we will do it at Greenwater City Station.”

”What if Ma Wu goes to see him off?”

”Kill him. Ma Wu doesn’t need to be taken alive.”

Author’s Note:

PS: Lu Dongjun was killed by Ling Miaoying at the train station. One of Ling Miaoying’s specialties is using a fake train to lure someone into a trap.