The Overlord of Puluo

Five days later, Liao Zihui gazed at the setting sun outside the window, picked up his teacup, and silently took a sip.

His secretary, Ling Sujun, walked in. The deep hollows around her eyes were completely dark.

”Commissioner, do we have to keep everyone on full alert today?”

Liao Zihui thought for a moment, then he asked, ”Has the tea all been distributed?”

”It was distributed the day before yesterday.”

”Did you mix the pills into it?”

”We did, but the effect hasn’t been obvious. Should we increase the dosage?”

Liao Zihui took another sip of tea. ”Just go home.”

Ling Sujun bowed deeply to Liao Zihui and did not dare ask another question. She turned and left.

Liao Zihui put on his overcoat. Before leaving his office, he glanced at the drawer and wondered whether he should put on the headphones and have a listen one more time. He opened the drawer, hesitated for a moment, then closed it again.

If he put the headphones on, he would definitely hear Li Qi’s voice, and Li Qi would certainly use some ambiguous wording to express his intention to attack the Border Control Office. Then, because of a single sentence from him, no one would get any sleep tonight.

No one knew what Li Qi was really thinking. And since Liao Zihui did not know either, why make things difficult for himself? He would just pretend none of this had ever happened.

Deputy Commissioner Xia Shumin was waiting outside the office with two tickets to Freewind Wharf. When Liao Zihui stepped out, Xia Shumin hurried over to greet him.

”Commissioner, I heard you like Jiang Mengting’s songs. She’s having a special performance at Freewind Wharf tonight, so I bought you two tickets. You can take your wife and unwind tonight.”

Liao Zihui accepted the tickets and smiled. ”Little Xia, you seem to be in pretty good spirits.”

Xia Shumin smiled back. ”I used to have many urgent assignments, so I’m used to staying up.”

Liao Zihui nodded. ”Being young is good. Being young really is good. My wife doesn’t like Jiang Mengting. How about the two of us go to Freewind Wharf and listen to some music tonight?”

Xia Shumin waved his hand to decline the offer. ”To tell you the truth, I’m not a fan of this sort of thing. When I was young, I went to a concert once. It was far too noisy, and I was too far from the stage. All I could do was shout along with a crowd of people without even being able to see what the singer looked like.”

”You can see them here! The song galas in Puluo are different! There aren’t that many people in the venue, and there aren’t any things like microphones here. You hear the music in its original form and see the singer exactly as she is. Let’s go together. We’ll have a couple of drinks and a meal at Freewind Wharf first. In another two hours or so, it’ll be time for the song gala to start.”

***

”Mengting, the song gala is about to start. You can’t throw a stubborn fit now!” Manager Zhang exclaimed.

He was absolutely frantic. The song gala was about to begin, but Jiang Mengting said her throat was bothering her, so she could not sing.

”Can’t you hear how hoarse I am? How am I supposed to sing like this? Put up a notice at the entrance and say the song gala has been postponed.”

Manager Zhang pleaded anxiously, ”Oh, my dear lady, the tickets sold out a month in advance, and now you want me to postpone it?? You’d ruin Freewind Wharf’s reputation! I’m begging you. I’ll kowtow to you if you want! Just go onstage and sing two songs. At least that will give everyone some sense of compensation.”

However, Jiang Mengting simply refused to go onstage, so Manager Zhang hurriedly told Li Banfeng what had happened. Li Banfeng had dinner with Jiang Mengting and personally fed her a bowl of decoction to clear her lungs and soothe her throat. Jiang Mengting recovered, and she was able to perform that evening.

When the song gala began, Li Banfeng took his seat below the stage and looked up to see Liao Zihui in a private viewing box on the second floor. Li Banfeng entered the private viewing box and sat beside Liao Zihui.

Looking at the other man’s dark circles, Li Banfeng asked, ”Commissioner Liao, you don’t look very well. Have you been burning the midnight oil these past few days?”

Liao Zihui smiled. ”Yes. I’ve been thinking about you these past few days. I thought you might come by the Border Control Office for a visit, but you still haven’t come.”

Li Banfeng looked surprised. ”If you’ve been thinking about me, why didn’t you come to Freewind Wharf to find me?”

Liao Zihui nodded. ”I came to find you last time, but you didn’t exactly give me a warm welcome.”

Sitting beside Liao Zihui, Xia Shumin saw what was going on. He leaned forward to greet Li Banfeng. ”You must be Mr. Li?”

Li Banfeng shifted his gaze to Xia Shumin. ”And you are?”

Liao Zihui said, ”This is the new commissioner, Commissioner Xia.”

Li Banfeng was surprised. ”A new commissioner? Commissioner Liao, have you retired?”

Liao Zihui sighed. ”I’ve been looking forward to this day.”

Li Banfeng looked at Xia Shumin. ”Have you also been looking forward to this day too?”

”I haven’t—” Xia Shumin started, cutting himself off by drawing a breath. He wanted to say that he had not been looking forward to it, but somehow, that did not seem appropriate either.

Liao Zihui said, ”Things like this generally aren’t good to say in front of me. How about this, you two talk here. I’ll go sit downstairs and listen to the music.”

Li Banfeng felt a little embarrassed. ”How could I make you go sit elsewhere? I’ll find somewhere else to talk with Commissioner Xia. This is definitely something you can’t know about.”

Xia Shumin let out two awkward laughs. ”Mr. Li certainly knows how to joke. Let’s just focus on listening to the music.”

Li Banfeng really wanted to chat with them a little more about Liao Zihui’s retirement, but he suddenly felt a pang of unease. It was a very familiar feeling.

Someone’s activating New Land!

Li Banfeng said his goodbyes, left the private viewing box, and quickly returned to his room.

He entered the Pocket Dwelling and said to Old Man, ”Go to the station. The station on my territory.”

A few minutes later, Li Banfeng borrowed Hong Ying’s imposing aura and left the Pocket Dwelling shrouded in it. He later arrived at his territory and headed toward the direction from which he sensed the land getting activated.

The first person to appear in his line of sight was Cedric. Li Banfeng immediately abandoned the idea of responding to the land activation. Letting Cedric activate New Land there would be a catastrophe for the aberrant creatures in his territory.

However, Cedric was not the only person who had come to activate New Land. Li Banfeng counted fifteen people in total. The person waiting for a response in front of the offering table was Chu Huaiyuan.

She came to activate New Land? I haven’t seen her lately. How did she end up here?

Li Banfeng took out the Judge’s Brush and the Film Projector. ”Brush, fly me over there. Projector, disguise me and give me a bit of that local land deity vibe.”

The Film Projector quickly prepared made the preparations. He used a cloud of black smoke to conceal Li Banfeng’s body and face, leaving only a cluster of blue-green flames drifting through the smoke.

All that remained was to fly there. Li Banfeng said to the Judge’s Brush, ”The station stop duration is limited, so hurry.”

”Hmph!”

The Judge’s Brush let out a long breath, stretched, and flew Li Banfeng to the center of the plot. The Film Projector hid somewhere and presented Li Banfeng before everyone in the form of a smoke cloud.

Li Banfeng looked down at Miss Chu. ”You want to activate New Land?”

Miss Chu had been wondering why the local land deity had been slow to respond and assumed there was something wrong with the offerings. To her surprise, the local land deity appeared suddenly, making everyone who was there to activate the New Land very nervous.

Miss Chu answered respectfully, ”Yes. I want to activate a plot of land that is a kilometer and a half in diameter in your territory.”

”Why do you want to activate land in my territory?”

Why did he have to ask that? Miss Chu wondered.

She answered, ”A friend recommended this place to me.”

That was the truth. He Yuxiu had recommended this place to Miss Chu, saying that it was quiet and well suited to Miss Chu’s cultivation path.

Li Banfeng asked, ”Have you chosen the people who will activate the land?”

Miss Chu answered truthfully, ”They are all here.”

Li Banfeng said, ”Foreigners cannot activate land here.”

Cedric was stunned. He had not expected the local land deity to discriminate against foreigners.

Is he really a local land deity? His imposing aura is certainly intimidating, though.

Cedric answered, ”Honorable deity, I am not one of the people activating the land. I am a Healer that they hired.”

There were two other people behind Cedric, and both were Healers. If Cedric was not participating in the land activation, then this matter was still negotiable.

Li Banfeng said to Miss Chu, ”You need to state the identity of the landowner and the identities of the people activating the land in the contract. Once all the preparations are complete, come back tomorrow and present the offerings.”

Then Li Banfeng disappeared.

Miss Chu had some experience activating New Land, but she did not know much about land deities and did not dare question him casually. She could only write up a new contract.

With the help of the Greenwater Beggar, Cedric had already reached the ninth level of the Terranean Layer. He could sense that the local land deity from earlier had seemed somewhat unreal, but he did not have much experience activating New Land and did not know what a local land deity in that state was supposed to look like.

Looking into the distance, he saw the domains of Zhang Wanlong and Little Gen. He was surprised to seee that there were such lush crops on such a remote New Land. Cedric was very interested and went into the fields to take a look.

Zhang Wanlong came over carrying a hoe and greeted him with a smile. ”Foreign friend, can you understand what I’m saying?”

Cedric nodded. ”Yes!”

”Are you here to buy grain, or to buy vegetables and fruit?”

Cedric looked Zhang Wanlong up and down. ”I’d like to buy some of everything.”

***

Then came time for the train to leave.

Li Banfeng returned to the Pocket Dwelling, waited a few minutes, then returned to Freewind Wharf. He entrusted the business matters to the manager, stocked the Pocket Dwelling with some supplies, and immediately set off for the New Land.

Hee needed to conduct a trial of worthineess for the land activation. This was not something that could be handled within the limited station stop duration, so Li Banfeng had to make the trip himself.

The song gala happened to be ending at this time, and it was bustling with traffic just outside Freewind Wharf. Li Banfeng lowered the brim of his fedora and walked forward.

Suddenly, he noticed a man standing beneath a streetlamp, looking around with huge eyes.

Those eyes are far too big.

If Li Banfeng had some latiao in hand, he would have liked to see whether his skill of never missing the shot within a distance of five meters had gotten rusty.

Isn’t that Lightbulb? When did he come to Puluo?

Li Banfeng walked over and stared at Lightbulb for a moment.

Lightbulb felt increasingly nervous as he looked at the person who had just approached him—a bearded man dressed in a black suit and a fedora.

Li Banfeng asked, ”Are you here to find me?”

Lightbulb turned his face away. ”No, no.”

Li Banfeng tried to confirm it once more. ”I’m Li Qi. Are you really not here to find me?”

”No, no,” Lightbulb replied, his voice growing quieter and quieter.

He had indeed come to find Li Qi. Xia Shumin had assigned him to monitor Li Qi.

The man in the black suit had admitted that he was Li Qi. What did that mean for Lightbulb? It meant he was in a bad situation.

If the man in the black suit was not Li Qi, then it meant Lightbulb’s identity had already been compromised, while he knew nothing about the other man’s identity. If the man in the black suit really was Li Qi, then it meant Lightbulb would probably be killed.

Lightbulb’s skin oozed oil all over as he prepared to escape.

Li Banfeng offered him some advice. ”I’ll find you a good place. Run there, and ordinary people won’t be able to find you.”

Lightbulb was stunned. ”What?”

Li Banfeng grabbed Lightbulb and ran.

Lightbulb had ridden in Xiao Zhenggong’s convertible before, and even with Xiao Zhenggong pressing the accelerator all the way down, it had never gone this fast. The problem was that Lightbulb’s two feet could not keep up. He had no time to move them properly and could only slide along the ground.

The layer of oil had not even fully spread over his body yet, and Lightbulb did not know how to escape.

Li Banfeng advised him, ”Conserve your oil and put it all under your feet. We’ve got a long way to go.”

Lightbulb did not know how long he had been traveling or how far he had gone. By the time they stopped, he had used up all his oil, and the soles of his shoes had been worn through. Snot ran from his nose, and tears flowed from his eyes. They dried in the wind and flowed again, drying and flowing repeatedly until the layers formed a hard crust across his face.

When Li Banfeng finally came to a stop, Lightbulb sat on the ground. He panted for a long time, gasping for air. Then his mouth twisted into a frown as he burst into tears.

”Sob~Ah-ah~”

Lightbulb pointed at Li Banfeng, then he looked around. He slapped his hands against his thighs several times, unable to say anything for a long while.

Li Banfeng gave him a water flask, two tins of canned food, and a piece of bread.

”This is a New Land. There are quite a few hunters’ camps nearby. If you can find a way out, you get to live. If you can’t, you’ll just have to stay here for good. Got it?”

Lightbulb looked up at Li Banfeng, still sobbing.

Li Banfeng frowned. ”Why are you crying? Running into me is much better for you than it would have been if I’d run into you!”

Lightbulb could not understand what Li Banfeng meant, and Li Banfeng wwas not in the mood to explain.

Watching Li Banfeng walk away slowly, Lightbulb did not know whether he should follow him. After thinking it over, Lightbulb decided not to. The difference in their strength was too great. Every extra step he took with him might cost him his life.

After traveling all this way, Lightbulb was indeed hungry. He tore the bread up, stuffed it into his mouth in a few bites, and washed it down with water.

He was about to have a few bites of the canned food when he suddenly felt something slippery beneath him.

Am I leaking oil? That can’t be right. I already used up every last bit of my oil.

Lightbulb looked down and discovered that the patch of blood-red earth beneath him was moving.

Why is the earth moving?

Lightbulb looked back and gradually understood what was happening. The thing that was moving was not the earth. It was a gigantic blood-red worm.

I was sitting on this thing just now? Looks like I’m still sitting on this thing...

Looking at the size of the worm, it was several times larger than the silkworm he had seen at the factory.

Lightbulb felt like crying again. But he held back his tears and prepared to run for his life.