The Overlord of Puluo

Inside the Pocket Dwelling, Li Banfeng quietly looked at the peep-box performer.

The man’s face was covered in snot and drool, and blisters had risen all over his body. Somehow, Wifey had managed to calm him down.

”What is your name?”

The peep-box performer answered, ”Mei Laokan.”

”Is that your real name or a nickname?”

”That is my name.”

”What position do you hold in the Blackstone Slope hall?”

”None.”

Li Banfeng pulled out his sickle and the peep-box performer shuddered in fright. ”I am not from the Blackstone Slope Hall. I was originally a Wind Watcher from the hall at Leaping Horse Ravine. I came to Blackstone Slope on the order of my hall master.”

”Why did he send you to Blackstone Slope?”

”Our hall master said that it was the gang leader’s order. The gang leader wants to build up the Blackstone Slope Hall, so he needs a few capable helpers.”

”You count as a capable helper?”

”I have been running peep-box shows for more than thirty years, and I have never once failed.”

Li Banfeng was silent for a moment. ”How many kids have you abducted?”

”Too many to count.”

”Have any children died by your hand?”

”This is business. I don’t usually kill people. But every now and then, if a child would not behave, I had to kill one or two. There was nothing I could do about that.”

“Do you understand that these children are their parents’ own flesh and blood?”

”I have to make a living too. Business has to be done. Their parents can always have another one...”

BAM!

Li Banfeng kicked the peep-box performer in the face, breaking his nose and knocking out several teeth. The peep-box performer lay on the floor wailing for a long while, making sounds that hardly seemed human.

The Gramophone coaxed him gently. ”Husband dear, do not lower yourself to his level. Ask the important questions first. This little wifey can deal with him slowly afterward.”

Li Banfeng asked, ”Is the hall master for Blackstone Slope really an officer from the Border Control Office?”

The peep-box performer shook his head through his tears. ”I really have no idea. All I know is that Blackstone Slope got a new hall master and the old one was sent to another hall. This hall master knew I was an expert, so he told me to do a few rounds of business in Blackstone Slope first. I didn’t dare to do it at first as the people of Blackstone Slope were people with grit. If they caught me, I would be dead. However, the hall master here told me that all the money I earned would be mine, and he would reward me on top of that. He only wanted me to abduct enough children and deliver the goods quickly.”

”Deliver the kids to who?”

”To the Sage at the Sage’s Peak.”

”Do you have connections?”

”After doing this for so many years, of course I have connections. Apart from the Sage himself, I have met everyone up on Sage’s Peak.”

When the peep-box performer said this, his voice rose just a little.

Hearing this, Li Banfeng thought, What the heck? Is he showing off in front of me?

He wanted to beat this peep-box performer again, but he held back out of fear that he might accidentally beat the man to death.

”How many kids have you abducted in Blackstone Slope?”

”If I count the ones today as well, it would be a total of eighteen.”

”Why are you keeping so many? Why did you not hand them over sooner?”

”Travel permits cost money too. If I only take one or two children out, I cannot even make back the cost. And if I bring only one or two kids to the Sage’s Peak, I will not get to meet anyone important at all. With three to five kids, I might meet a disciple from the foot of the mountain. With more than ten, I might meet a disciple from the mountain itself. If I have more than twenty, I can meet one of the Sage’s trusted disciples and even pass a few words on to the Sage.

”This time, the hall master gave me orders. He is coming with me when I hand over the goods. He must meet someone important. At the very least, he wants to meet one of the Sage’s trusted disciples.”

This new hall master is not abducting children for money. He’s doing it to connect with the Sage. But why?

There was no point asking the peep-box performer about this. He was nowhere near important enough to know why the hall master wanted to build a connection with the Sage. In fact, once this peep-box performer helped the hall master make that connection, he would most likely be killed to keep him quiet.

Li Banfeng pointed at the mangled remains on the floor and asked, ”Do you know any of these fierce men who were with the hall master?”

The peep-box performer shook his head. ”I don’t know a single one of them. They were not originally from the gang. They came with the hall master.”

Could all of them have come from the Outer Provinces?

”Have you always sent the children you abducted to Vilefolk Hillock?”

”No, not at first. In the early years, when I was doing this business, I did not even know that the Sage’s Peak existed. Back then, there were no travel permits, so I could only work in my own area. If I got my hands on a child, I had to sell the child off that very day and find someone capable in the gang to send the child out.

”After I had worked in the gang for a few years, the hall began to value a few experts like us. They arranged travel permits for us so we could take the children farther out. At that time, we still sold them to wealthy families. When the money came in, the hall took the lion’s share, and we got a little profit on the side.

”A few more years passed, and the rules changed. From then on, every child we got had to be sent to Sage’s Peak. There were many more rules involved, but the Sage did pay very well.”

”Who is the highest-ranking person you have ever met on Sage’s Peak?”

”I have met Emissary Zhong.”

”You mean Zhong Huaien?”

”I don’t know his name. I just know he always wears a white robe.”

”Aside from money, has he ever given you anything else?”

”He has given me pills. Good pills too, the kind you cannot find on the market. The more kids I delivered, the more pills he gave me.”

”You entered Vilefolk Hillock and still managed to come back out?”

”Of course. The road there is not difficult to walk.”

Li Banfeng had not been able to walk out. Many people in Vilefolk Hillock had not been able to walk out either. And now, Li Banfeng was sure that it had been the Sage’s doing.

Li Banfeng had asked nearly everything he needed to know about Sage’s Peak, so he moved on to questions regarding the Jiangxiang Gang.

”How did you know I was watching you?”

The peep-box performer shook his head. ”I had no idea. A gold-gate picker[1] in the gang told me. He said someone had their eye on my den. I told the hall master about it and the hall master said he would handle the rest.”

Li Banfeng had to admit that this hall master was quite clever. His arrangements had been thorough.

”When were you planning to hand over the kids?” Li Banfeng asked.

”Tonight. The hall master said he would have the other brothers bring in a few more goods to make it an even twenty. Then we would send them all to the large warehouse area south of the train station. It was storehouse five in warehouse six. We had planned to leave tonight just in case of any complications.”

”How were you planning to send the kids out?”

”I was supposed to take the goods back first and settle them somewhere, then go to the hall. When the time came, someone from the hall would put me on the train with the goods, and the hall master would come along too.”

If the peep-box performer didn’t go to the hall, those Jiangxiang Gang bastards probably wouldn’t come out either. Then Li Banfeng would have no choice but to storm the hall by force. \

However, if he brought the peep-box performer with him, the fellow might leak the news, and that would make things even harder to handle.

What should I do? Use the Film Projector to create an illusion? The image would look real enough, but the hall was heavily guarded. It would be hard to set everything up in advance. Is there a better way?

After thinking it over, Li Banfeng remembered an ability. ”Which of you is good at skinning?”

The peep-box performer went pale the moment he heard the word. He scrambled to his feet and tried to run, shouting as he went, ”I only took a few kids! As long as they behaved, I never killed them! I even found them good families. I have not done anything that heartless. What right do you have to kill me? Let us sit down somewhere and talk this through!”

Hong Ying moved forward and pinned him to the floor.

”Darling Qi, I can skin him,” she said. ”It just might not look very good.”

”What do you mean by that?”

Before Hong Ying could answer, the Gramophone mocked, ”Wretch, you want to skin this person alive, right?”

Hong Ying kept one foot on the peep-box performer and answered calmly, ”Does a man like him not deserve to be skin alive? This is exactly what should happen to a human trafficker!”

”Don’t cause trouble,” the Gramophone said. ”Husband dear still has a use for his skin. If you cut it into scraps, how is he supposed to use it?”

The Blood-Drinking Pendulum said, ”I can try.”

The Gramophone said, ”Sister, be careful with your hands. Do not make the cuts too large. Try to peel the skin off in one complete piece.”

The Pendulum started working on some human peeling, and the peep-box performer wailed without stopping.

Li Banfeng found the noise irritating, so he took the Film Projector to the fifth room and replayed the fight from earlier.

He had been ambushed, so he had gone all out in the fight. There had been no careful plan. Everything had been decided on the spot, and there were plenty of flaws in the details. Of course, he knew it was best that he didn’t let his wifey see these details as he had activated a great many Wanderlust Cultivator abilities in that fight.

Some things were better kept secret, and there was no need for him to expose the truth himself.

Perhaps because Li Banfeng had calmed down, he watched the footage carefully and felt that the four high-level cultivators looked somewhat familiar.

The mole-cricket Physique Cultivator, who had been stabbed to death by the Tang Saber, was especially familiar. Li Banfeng felt as though he had seen him before.

”Heyaaa~ Husband dear~ This little wifey has seen this man before!”

Li Banfeng flinched and quickly turned off the Film Projector. Then he returned to the main room with a placating smile. ”My dear Wifey, where have you seen him before?”

Wifey pointed at the relatively intact corpse. ”This man. This little wifey has likely seen him before. It was indeed the mole cricket that the Tang Saber had stabbed to death.

Isn’t this guy from the Outer Province? Li Banfeng thought. Perhaps wifey has been to the Outer Province?

”Wifey dear, when have you seen this person before?”

The Gramophone stretched out her needle and began flipping through the newspapers on the bookshelf.

Before long, one page was lifted onto the platter. In the flickering firelight, a photograph appeared on the wall.

”Husband dear, when you are not at home, I would pass the time by reading the newspaper. I have seen this guy before. He should be from the Chu Family.”

The newspaper Wifey had pulled out was from fifteen years ago. Li Banfeng had paid a high price for it at the Ru Family Bookhouse.

Back then, Chu Shaoqiang, the head of the Chu Family, and Lu Dongliang, the head of the Lu Family, had joined hands for a major business deal at Girdle-Slipping Hollow. The project was called Flowerbranch Street.

Flowerbranch Street still existed today and it was now a business of the Lu Family. The whole street sold flowers. There were all kinds of flowers and these flowers could be bought by both men and women.

Li Banfeng would certainly have to visit Flowerbranch Street one day, but that was not the important part right now. The important part was the photograph taken when the two sides signed the contracts.

Li Banfeng spotted the mole-cricket guy in the photograph.

His appearance had changed a great deal since then, but Li Banfeng still recognized him. The news article had not mentioned his name, but judging from where he stood in the photograph, he should have been a support hook of the Chu Family.

He’s from Puluo Province! Li Banfeng thought. But why is he now the bodyguard of someone from the Outer Province? Maybe there is more to this.

While Li Banfeng was thinking this over, the pendulum finished the skinning. The peep-box performer was still alive. His skin had been removed and he was still moving.

The Gramophone thought he was disgusting, so she asked the others, ”Do anyone of you want to eat his soul?”

Wifey turned to Hong Ying first. ”You don’t want it? It won’t do you any harm.”

Hong Ying shook the tip of her spear. ”I don’t want to fight you for this mouthful. You can keep it.”

The Gramophone turned to the Judge’s Brush. ”Lazybones, do you want it?”

”Hmph!” The Judge’s Brush ignored her.

”Thief Glove, you want it?”

The Glove wagged its index finger. ”Madam, you must not say such things carelessly. If you call someone a thief, you need stolen goods as proof. Without evidence, how can you call me a thief?”

The Gramophone gave a cold little laugh, then turned to the Tang Saber. ”It seems this treat will have to go to you.”

Aside from these few, Wifey did not ask anyone else.

There must be another reason for this. These enchanted artifacts were somewhat different from the others. Li Banfeng did not know why yet, but he needed to verify something.

With that, he took out the sickle and asked, ”Can you eat souls?”

The Gramophone was startled. ”HEYAAAAAA! HUSBAND DEAR! DID YOU JUST TALK TO THE SICKLE?

Seeing this, the Sickle stopped hiding. It came openly before the Gramophone and spoke in a clear voice. ”What is wrong with him speaking to me? I have followed Darling Li for so long, even longer than you have!”

”You little wretch! What is your name?” The Gramophone sounded a little surprised.

”I am called Sickle!”

The Gramophone asked again, ”Did you know me before?”

”Of course! We came from the same place!”

The Gramophone was startled. ”You are a Selfborn Spirit?”

Author’s Note:

PS: The Gramophone and the Sickle were both sold to Li Banfeng Li Banfeng by the Shopkeeper Feng. Technically, they are old friends[2].

1. Gang slang for fortune teller ☜

2. Check chapter 27 ☜