The Overlord of Puluo

Despite the bitter cold, the Peddler was still wearing nothing more than a blue cloth vest. He hacked a hole through the ice and plunged straight into the water.

A little over two minutes later, the Peddler climbed back out through the hole and wiped his face with a towel. He told the land deity, ”The entrance at the bottom of the lake has been sealed off. So have all the others. The only one left is the entrance that opens when you write ”wisdom” beneath the willow tree.”

It was a roundabout reference to Liu Xiahui, except the final character of his name had been replaced with 慧, ”Wisdom.”[1]

Li Banfeng was astonished. ”Who came up with such a creative entrance?”

”Murong Gui did,” the Peddler said. ”He left it behind after becoming the land deity. He said the way to open the door couldn’t be too complicated, or he might forget it himself, but it couldn’t be too simple either, or someone else might figure it out. So he used Liu Xiahui as the reference to the password, with wisdom beneath the willow’ as the answer.[2]. Easy for him to remember, but hard for anyone else to figure out.”

Li Banfeng looked at the Judge’s Brush admiringly. ”Gui, you are quite the genius!”

The Judge’s Brush was asleep and did not respond at all.

The Peddler sneered. ”Genius, my ass. He was just too lazy to put any thought into it. I even asked him why he was telling me how to open the door to his house. He said it was in case some crook broke in. If anything happened to him, I would still be around to help. And I actually believed him and memorized the way to open the door. It wasn’t until later that I realized he had basically turned me into his support hook. This brat was just too damn lazy and wanted me to watch his house for him. I should have figured it out back then that he had become a Lazy Cultivator.”

The Peddler took out two large ink blocks and handed them to the imposter land deity.

The land deity smelled the rich scent of ink and hugged the two ink blocks to its chest, nuzzling them for a long while. It soon looked much better. The dullness faded from its face, and it started writing much faster.

This brush is far too easy to trick... All it takes is two blocks of ink to satisfy it and fill it with fighting spirit again, Li Banfeng thought and asked, ”You only gave it ink. What about paper? What if it runs out of paper?”

The Peddler picked up one of the finished scrolls. ”You mean this?”

Li Banfeng nodded.

”I can’t give it these scrolls,” the Peddler explained. ”They are produced by the Ink Fragrance Shop itself.”

With that, the Peddler opened the scroll and the entire scroll was covered with the three orders of the Ink Fragrance Shop. Suddenly, Li Banfeng noticed that the writing at the start was disappearing one after the other.

Li Banfeng stared at the Peddler and asked, ”What’s the reason for this?”

The Peddler sighed. ”Too many people don’t want to study. That’s why a newly written order gets worn away very quickly.”

Li Banfeng thought the logic made sense and remarked, ”It is indeed very hard to get people to study.”

”That’s why being the land deity of the Ink Fragrance Shop isn’t easy,” the Peddler said. He kept staring at the scroll in his hand until the words on the scroll completely disappeared, leaving behind a blank sheet. He then handed the scroll back to the imposter land deity.

The imposter land deity took the scroll, dipped its brush in ink, and went back to writing the rules.

”What a hardworking little brush!” the Peddler praised. Then he turned to Li Banfeng. ”You are almost at the Cloudborne Layer, aren’t you?”

Li Banfeng shook his head. ”I have only been on the Daoist path for a few days. I am still a long way from the Cloudborne Layer.”

”If you are still that far off, how did you become a land deity?”

”I didn’t!” Li Banfeng denied it at once.

The Peddler snorted. ”I saw it myself. Murong Gui was dragging you all over the place, and you even dealt with people activating land in the New Land.”

Li Banfeng kept shaking his head. ”I AM SICK IN THE MIND! I JUST FELT LIKE FLYING! You wouldn’t understand what was going on in my head.”

The Peddler frowned. ”You don’t need to hide it from me. Wanting to become a land deity without going to the Inner Provinces is a good thing. It takes real guts to do something like that. The problem is that you have only one half of the deed and the other half is still in the Inner Provinces. If you are not careful, they might use it against you. The Ink Fragrance Shop is different. Its deed is complete. For you, this is a rare opportunity.”

Li Banfeng glanced at the land deity, which was still writing away, and shook his head. ”I don’t think this place suits me. I am not a Literary Cultivator.”

”That doesn’t matter!” the Peddler declared as he straightened his back, making himself seem much more impressive. ”Your cultivation path isn’t the important part. What matters is your mindset. As long as you have the heart to study, there’s no obstacle you can’t overcome!”

Li Banfeng could practically see ”EMPTY PROMISES” written across the Peddler’s face. The Peddler was clearly trying to sell him a grand dream.

”Thanks for the good intention, but this place really doesn’t suit me.”

The Peddler looked at Li Banfeng sincerely. ”I am asking you to become the land deity here because I really think it will be good for you. It’s not because I am trying to get my brush out of here!”

Li Banfeng nodded. ”I believe you mean well. But I am a Wanderlust Cultivator. Staying here and writing all day just isn’t right for me.”

The Peddler’s expression darkened. ”Fine, then don’t come. You really don’t know a good thing when you see one. Do you have any idea what kind of place the Ink Fragrance Shop is? Plenty of people would kill for a chance to come here, and they don’t even have a way in!”

That was exactly what Li Banfeng had been wanting to ask. ”The Ink Fragrance Shop is an important place, isn’t it?”

The Peddler froze. ”You didn’t know that? Then why were you fighting so hard here?”

Li Banfeng answered, ”This is part of Puluo Province. Why should it be handed over to the Inner Provinces?”

The Peddler smiled. ”Well.. you are not wrong about that. Any other reason?”

Li Banfeng continued, ”I can smell the fragrance of writing here. In Puluo Province, something like this is incredibly rare.”

The Peddler chuckled. ”You mean the smell of the ink?”

Li Banfeng shook his head. ”Not the ink itself. I mean the territory, the people, the books, the customs, the way people speak and act, every word they write and every stroke they make. The teahouses, the poetry clubs, the restaurants, the inns...”

He simply said whatever came to mind, telling the Peddler about everything he had seen over the past few days.

The Peddler listened to every word before asking, ”What do you think about the people here?”

Li Banfeng thought back to everyone he had met in the Ink Fragrance Shop. ”Pretentious, arrogant, stubborn, old-fashioned. Pretty annoying, honestly. But somehow, they are also pretty likable.”

The Peddler laughed. ”See? They are pretty likable, aren’t they? And you are right. The Ink Fragrance Shop has that scent of learning about it, and that’s something truly precious. Almost everyone in the Outer Provinces can read, and so can the people of the Inner Provinces. Puluo Province is far behind them. Barely half the people in Blackstone Slope are literate, and in Greenwater City, it’s less than thirty percent. In most other places, you could pick a hundred people at random and still might not find a single one who can read.”

Why are there so many literate people in Blackstone Slope? More than in Greenwater City? Li Banfeng thought, but he did not interrupt and continued listening.

”Only in the Ink Fragrance Shop can everyone read,” the Peddler continued. ”Every new word you learn lets you see a little farther. Know a hundred words, and you can understand what’s happening around you. Know a thousand, and you can start looking beyond what’s right in front of you. Know ten thousand, and you can connect the past with the present and understand both what happens here and what happens elsewhere.

”The people who stay in Ink Fragrance Shop know how to look at things and think about them. Whether their conclusions are right or wrong, at least they think. And the people who leave the Ink Fragrance Shop, no matter how they go about it or how pretentious they may sound, can still find a way to tell others what they have been thinking.”

Li Banfeng asked, ”But can anyone else understand them?”

The Peddler shook his head. ”Most can’t. Nine out of ten won’t understand a thing. But at least that leaves one person who might start thinking too. If the Ink Fragrance Shop is lost, there will be no one left in Puluo Province willing to think about anything. Then sooner or later, the Outer Provinces and Inner Provinces will swallow the whole place up.”

Li Banfeng nodded. ”Then no matter what happens, we can’t afford to lose the Ink Fragrance Shop.”

The Peddler nodded vigorously. ”Exactly! Which is why the Ink Fragrance Shop needs a fine young man with courage, backbone, and a strong sense of responsibility to become its land deity!”

After saying that, he looked at Li Banfeng with complete sincerity.

Li Banfeng politely replied, ”Hmph.”

***

After leaving the land deity’s house, Li Banfeng asked the Peddler about something that had been bothering him. ”Based on your usual route, you should have been around the Ridges of Bottomless Stomachs and Girdle-Slipping Hollow recently. I sent people looking for you, so why couldn’t they find you?”

At the mention of this, the Peddler’s face darkened. ”I was just about to ask you something. Is that madness of yours contagious?”

Li Banfeng puffed out his chest. ”I am not crazy. A doctor checked.”

The Peddler snapped, ”Then what’s wrong with your men? Why did they have the radio station looking for me?”

Luo Zhengnan had used the radio to look for the Peddler? Li Banfeng genuinely had no idea.

”Were you listening to the radio at the time?” Li Banfeng asked.

The Peddler shook his head. ”No. My darling heard it and tracked me down.”

Li Banfeng carefully asked, ”Where were you?”

The Peddler’s expression darkened even further. ”At another lover’s house.”

One lover had gone looking for him at another lover’s house. What did the Peddler experience?

Li Banfeng took a deep breath and thought, What a close call. Thank goodness the Pocket Dwelling was calm and didn’t track the Peddler down. If he had tracked him all the way into someone’s bed, things would have gotten seriously out of hand.

”Brother Peddler, this was my fault. I acted without thinking.” Li Banfeng quickly apologized.

Once they reached the edge of the woods, the Peddler handed Ge Junma and He Caiyuan over to him.

”They are both still alive. They just can’t move anymore. Take them home and eat them.”

Li Banfeng smiled and politely declined. ”Brother Peddler, you must be joking. I could maybe stomach the toad, but that old man is a person. I can’t eat him.”

The Peddler smiled too. ”So what if you can’t? You have got someone at home who can, don’t you?”

Li Banfeng glanced at the Peddler. It felt as though the man knew everything.

The Peddler tidied up his cart and prepared to leave.

Li Banfeng quickly asked, ”Brother Peddler, do you know someone called Face Not-Big?”

The Peddler immediately set the cart down and turned sharply toward him. His expression darkened. ”When did you meet him?”

”A while ago. I was dreaming that I was rowing a boat out at sea. There was a bit of a misunderstanding with my house, and it ended up sending me into Face Not-Big’s Oil Lake.”

The Peddler frowned. ”The house sent you there? You got your hands on some rails?”

Li Banfeng nodded.

The Peddler asked, ”What did Face Not-Big say to you?”

”He said he’s suffered a lot in that place. He wants you to go save him.”

”The Oil Lake...” The Peddler frowned. ”I know the place you are talking about. That’s his face. But even if I went there, I still wouldn’t be able to get him out.”

Li Banfeng said nothing. This was far beyond anything he knew how to deal with.

After a long silence, the Peddler said, ”I have always wanted to save him, but I have never been able to come up with a good way. If I figure something out, I will tell you. I might need your help when the time comes.”

Li Banfeng was taken aback. He needs my help?

Li Banfeng knew his own limits. With his current strength, there wasn’t much he could do to help the Peddler.

He probably needs me to lend him the Pocket Dwelling, Li Banfeng thought. But if the Pocket Dwelling was that useful, why did he give it to me in the first place?

This was something that Li Banfeng had been wanting to ask for a long time, and now seemed like a good opportunity.

”Brother Peddler, why did you give me that house? There must be plenty of people in this world who would want it.”

The Peddler paused. ”Didn’t we already talk about this? You suffered a disadvantage when you became a cultivator, so I had to make it up to you.”

”Just because I got hit once? With what you are capable of, you could have kept me from ramming into your cart.”

The Peddler’s expression turned serious. ”Not necessarily. Accidents happen. No matter how careful you are, there are always things you can’t prepare for.”

It seemed the Peddler didn’t want to explain any further.

Li Banfeng would never push people to tell him things they clearly didn’t want to say.

The Peddler pushed his cart forward. ”Anything else you want to ask? If not, I am leaving. I am only telling you this much because I am in a good mood today. The next time we meet, you might not get the chance.”

Li Banfeng still had plenty he wanted to ask, but he could tell the Peddler’s patience was wearing thin.

After thinking it over, Li Banfeng finally asked the question he wanted answered most.

”Brother Peddler, where is the Blightland?”

The Peddler fell silent. Maybe this was something Li Banfeng shouldn’t have asked, but it mattered too much to him.

Wifey and Hong Ying had both fought against the Blightland, and both had also fought the Peddler. So what exactly was the Peddler’s connection to the Blightland?

As Li Banfeng understood it, the Blightland should have been the Inner Provinces. They were the invaders. But then what side were the Peddler and Grandpa Train on?

Judging by their attitude toward the Inner Provinces, there was no way the two of them belonged to the same side. That meant Li Banfeng’s understanding of the Blightland was probably wrong in some way.

The question was whether the Peddler was willing to explain it.

The Peddler sat against his cart and thought for a long while before something seemed to occur to him. ”Now that you mention BlightLand, you have actually stumped me. That’s ages ago. That place hasn’t been called BlightLand for a long time.”

Li Banfeng froze. ”Then what is it called?”

”Puluo Province.”

Clatter! Dong, dong, dong!

The Peddler pushed his cart away, shaking his rattle drum as he disappeared into the night.

Author’s Note:

PS: Puluo Province is the Blightland? Has Salagus lost his mind?

1. 柳下惠 (Liu Xia Hui) is Liu Xiahui, the name of a famous historical figure. The last character in his name is 惠, pronounced hui. Murong Gui changes that final character to 慧, which is also pronounced hui but means ”wisdom.” ☜

2. This is different from raw. Raw says he changed the last character hui of the name Liu Xiahui to the hui that means Wisdom ☜