Senior Brother, Don't Go!

Luo Dagui was Fort Lord Zhou? They were the same person? What kind of logic was this? Li Banfeng had no time to ponder logic right now. A mob of furious Dwelling Cultivators came surging toward him. Clutching the severed head, Li Banfeng sprinted away as fast as his legs could carry him. "Catch him!" "Avenge the fort lord!" "He runs so fast—he's clearly a journey cultivator! Not a single journey cultivator is any good!" Li Banfeng ran for a dozen-odd li before finally shaking off the Dwelling Cultivators. Sitting on a hillside, Li Banfeng looked at Luo Dagui's head in his hand, carefully organizing his thoughts. It made no sense. Right in front of Tiemenbao's gates, Luo Dagui had been talking with Fort Lord Zhou. How had he turned into the fort lord in the blink of an eye? Just what was the hidden truth here? Now all those Dwelling Cultivators think I murdered Fort Lord Zhou. How am I supposed to explain this to them? He almost forgot—there was an eyewitness. Luo Dagui hadn't known Sui Donglan was hiding in the grass because his cultivation wasn't high enough. Li Banfeng had the Thread-Hook Earring; he had heard the sound of her taking a leak with utter clarity. He went straight to Sui Donglan's dwelling. Seeing Li Banfeng, Sui Donglan smiled. "You're here." "I am," Li Banfeng nodded. "Did you see what happened earlier today?" "Today? What happened today? I've been home all day, waiting for you to come." Li Banfeng blinked. "What are you talking about? I mean what happened at Tiemenbao!" "Tiemenbao? Where is that? Are you willing to take me there? I want to go with you." Has this woman gone crazy? Li Banfeng looked at Sui Donglan and sighed softly. "I originally intended to give you a cup of wine to remove the characters from your face." With a dull, vacant smile, Sui Donglan said, "What characters? Are there words on my face?" Li Banfeng shook his head. "Since you've already lost your mind, I'll leave these two characters on you as a keepsake. Maybe someday you'll regain your senses." With that, Li Banfeng rose and turned to leave. Sui Donglan dropped flat to the ground and immediately grabbed his leg. "Lord Peddler, you can't leave! Have pity on me!" Li Banfeng snorted coldly. "Playing dumb with me? Did you really think your act was convincing? Did you see what happened today?" "I saw it," Sui Donglan wept. "Luo Dagui was Fort Lord Zhou. Seeing it scared me out of my wits at the time." "Good that you saw. Come on, come with me to Tiemenbao and explain things clearly." "Sir, it can't be explained! How would anyone in Tiemenbao believe me? I'm an outsider, and a swindler to boot. Nothing I say will make any difference." That was actually true. Forget it, then. If it couldn't be explained, so be it. Either way, that fraud Fort Lord Zhou was dead, and so was Feiying Mountain's vanguard gunner Luo. Everything that needed to be done was done. Whatever remained would depend on their own fortunes. He just wondered whether this would implicate Wu Yongchao. ... Wu Yongchao really was implicated a bit—just a little. Ma Dingfu hadn't died. He was the first to step forward to convict Wu Yongchao: "You wanted to open the main gates! You wanted to let that peddler in! You're in cahoots with him, and together you murdered Fort Lord Zhou!" He fabricated a whole string of charges, but Wu Yongchao offered only one explanation: "I heard someone fighting the bandits, so I wanted to go out and see. What was wrong with that?" "There's plenty wrong with it! What gave you the right to open the main gates? By what right did you—" Ma Dingfu's voice grew softer and softer. He had realized something: Zhou Anju was dead. Wu Yongchao was a fourth-tier Dwelling Cultivator, while Ma Dingfu was a third-tier body cultivator. If they really came to blows, Ma Dingfu wouldn't stand a chance, and he might even lose his life. What about Fort Lord Zhou's former subordinates? Couldn't they back Ma Dingfu up? For now, it seemed they couldn't. There was a Steward He, a cultivator of the fifth tier, who stayed inside Fort Lord Zhou's house, but he never stepped out the door—that was Zhou Anju's command. The other subordinates were all from Feiying Mountain, and they were all lying dead outside Tiemenbao. Ma Dingfu adamantly insisted that they were all Tiemenbao men murdered by the peddler, but the wooden box fitted with the large horn was hard to explain, as were the clothes and masks on their bodies. Though the matter was hard to explain, Dwelling Cultivators were easy to deceive. Ma Dingfu concentrated all his firepower on cursing the peddler, railing until tears filled his eyes and his teeth gnashed in fury. "Fort Lord Zhou died so wrongfully! We must avenge him!" The Dwelling Cultivators' emotions were stirred up, and they all joined in the cursing. Only Wu Yongchao didn't curse. He was honest, but he wasn't foolish. Many things were slowly connecting in his mind. The crowd retrieved Fort Lord Zhou's corpse and was preparing to handle the funeral when the roll of a drum suddenly came from outside the valley: "Foreign soap, vanishing cream! Silk scarves, handkerchiefs, sewing kits for seams! Leather pails, iron buckets, foreign matches, foreign candles, foreign iron shovels..." Pushing his cart, the peddler passed by Tiemenbao and saw a crowd of people rushing out. So many people! The peddler was pleasantly surprised. "Business is good today! Would you folks like to buy some—wait, what are you... what are you doing?" The crowd of Dwelling Cultivators roared, "Grab him! Kill him!" "Quick, avenge the fort lord!" "It's not him, it's his senior brother!" "Doesn't matter which one, neither is any good!" "Careful, everyone, his cultivation isn't low!" "No need to fear, us Dwelling Cultivators are no cowards!" ... Li Banfeng gave Sui Donglan a choice: either keep the characters on her face, or endure an hour of facial pain every day. In short, her past swindling couldn't simply be brushed aside. Sui Donglan pleaded in vain, ultimately choosing to keep the characters. Li Banfeng gave Sui Donglan a cup of wine, putting an end to her pain. Following the route Wu Yongchao had given him, Li Banfeng found Peach Blossom Lake. After circling half the lake, he found the large boulder. He felt the temperature of the lake water, deliberating whether to jump in. Li Banfeng knew how to swim, but he had no idea what it was like under the lake. These clothes weren't suitable for the water either, though the Portable Abode didn't seem to have a swimsuit anyway. Should he wait a bit longer? Forget it, no more waiting. Sooner or later he had to return. It was also time to settle matters with Ling Miaoying. That man had plotted against him, and Li Banfeng wouldn't let him off easily. High cultivation or not, there would always be a way to deal with him. He looked back at Tiemenbao, unable to shake a lingering worry. In the midst of his inner struggle, someone suddenly called out by his ear: "Senior Brother, where are you off to?" Senior Brother? Is he talking to me? Li Banfeng turned around and saw a man with a black-and-blue, swollen face standing behind him. Anyone who could appear behind Li Banfeng without making a sound was definitely no ordinary person. Li Banfeng stepped back two paces and barked, "Who are you?" The man smiled. "Senior Brother, you don't recognize me so soon?" Li Banfeng listened carefully to the voice, which sounded a bit muffled. "Peddler? How did you end up like this?" The peddler laughed even more heartily. "Senior Brother, that's something I ought to ask you!" "D-don't keep calling me senior brother," Li Banfeng said, quite embarrassed. "There's a misunderstanding here." The peddler nodded. "A huge misunderstanding indeed—so big it can't even be explained! Putting everything else aside, let's talk about this 'senior brother' business first. Tell me, just where did this senior brother come from?" As he spoke, the peddler was rolling up his sleeves. Li Banfeng realized the situation was bad and swiftly thrust his hand into his trouser pocket. "Don't, don't you dare pull out that key," the peddler sneered. "Others might not know your tricks, but do you think I don't?" "Look, hear me out. I was doing a good deed..." "Speak, take your time. Ruining my reputation and impersonating my senior brother—let's see what you have to say!" The peddler pulled a feather duster from his cart. ... Half an hour later, both of them sat side by side by the lake, their faces bruised and swollen. Li Banfeng sighed. "With your cultivation, how could you possibly get beaten up by that mob of Dwelling Cultivators?" The peddler smiled bitterly. "They're all mortal beings. What was I supposed to do, strike them with heavy hands?" Li Banfeng rubbed his face. "You struck hard enough on me!" The peddler looked at Peach Blossom Lake. "What, heading back to Lüshuiwan?" Li Banfeng hesitated for a moment. "I want to go back, yet I feel like I can't. The business in Tiemenbao... it just doesn't feel finished. "They're honest folk, but why should honest folk get bullied? You stepped in for Haichiling—why won't you step in for Tiemenbao?" The peddler let out a chuckle. "The famine in Haichiling was caused by an insect chief. And what cultivation level was that insect chief? When someone like that acts against mortals, I can't just stand by. "The trouble in Tiemenbao was caused by a bunch of frauds. A bunch of swindlers with hardly any cultivation tricked them. How am I supposed to manage that? "Zhou Anju, relying on nothing more than a giant iron gate and colluding inside and out with the bandits of Feiying Mountain, easily conned those Dwelling Cultivators for decades. "Go ask those Dwelling Cultivators—have they ever seen the bandits of Feiying Mountain? Would that gang of petty thieves from Feiying Mountain ever dare attack Tiemenbao? "Dwelling Cultivators are best at guarding their own doors. Never mind that bunch of petty thieves, even if you had the Lu family—the most powerful clan in Puluo Province—march on it, go ask them if they could bring down Tiemenbao! "Dwelling Cultivators keeping their noses out of outside affairs is their nature, but these ones took it too far. The yelps and cries of any stray cat or dog are treated like tigers by them. "Today comes a Zhou Anju who can con them; tomorrow comes a Pei Anju who might con them just the same. Can I manage them all?" "If you can't manage it, what about the local spirit? Doesn't the local spirit care either?" "Why would a local spirit care? As long as there's a population on the land, that's enough. Are swindlers not people too?" Li Banfeng pondered for a moment and asked, "Is there actually a pathway called the Deception Cultivator?" The peddler stared at Li Banfeng. "Are you asking about Fool Cultivators or Deception Cultivators? You haven't run into a Fool Cultivator, have you?" Li Banfeng shook his head repeatedly. "No, I heard Fool Cultivators went extinct long ago." "Good thing you haven't. When it comes to the Fool Cultivator pathway, you must stay far, far away." Warning me only now... Li Banfeng quickly shifted the topic: "I was asking about Deception Cultivators." "The Deception Cultivator pathway, how should I put it?" The peddler's tone grew profound. "If you say it exists, it really does. If you say it doesn't, it really doesn't." "Could you be a bit more direct?" "It all starts from the origin of Deception Cultivators. Back then, a con artist appeared in Puluo Province claiming to be a ninth-tier Deception Cultivator. He fabricated an entire background and doctrine for himself. Since cultivation cannot be seen, his story fooled countless people. "Common folk aside, even many prominent clans and illustrious families were tricked by him. He built up an estate and even founded a massive sect, sweeping across Puluo Province for decades without anyone ever seeing through him." "Decades, and nobody saw through him?" The peddler sighed with emotion. "He had three cultivation tenets, and they were truly remarkable: "First, so long as you don't strike, your cultivation is real. "Second, so long as you aren't seen when you strike, your cultivation is also real. "Third, if you are seen, but others can't understand what you did, your cultivation remains real. "For decades, ninety-nine percent of people couldn't see through those three tenets. A tiny few did see through them after being duped, but they couldn't speak of it." "Why couldn't they say anything?" The peddler looked at Li Banfeng. "If you were a high-tier cultivator and got duped by a swindler with no cultivation, what would you say? "You would definitely say, 'I carelessly fell prey to his technique.' Otherwise, where would you put your face?" "If you knew you lost face, you should've just killed the swindler!" The peddler smiled wryly. "Human nature doesn't work that way. Once people realize they've been taken for fools, they're eager for others to fall for it too. Seeing others get duped brings them a bit of comfort. That's just how people are." Hearing this, Li Banfeng fell silent for a long while. The peddler continued, "Taking those three tenets and pairing them with rhetoric, plotting, power politics, and psychological manipulation, along with a band of accomplices and all sorts of stage props and magic tricks, it became a unique pathway of its own. "If you say it's not a pathway, this con artist's cultivation tenets are indeed effective, and the longer one cultivates them, the purer the deception becomes. "If you say it is a pathway, he doesn't have any real cultivation. So the Deception Cultivator is an ambiguous existence that can't be clearly defined." Li Banfeng felt a deep stir of realization. Spoken of as earth-shaking, yet never seen when asked about—Li Banfeng realized Zhou Anju's 'cultivation' was indeed quite formidable. No wonder he had held sway over Tiemenbao for decades. The peddler stood up. "There are too many swindlers in this world. There are some even I can't identify. "There is no earthly paradise in this world either. You killed one fort lord today, and another will come tomorrow. If the Dwelling Cultivators of Tiemenbao want to survive, they ultimately have to rely on themselves." Li Banfeng stood up as well. "They should rely on themselves, but someone ought to give them a hand too. This business still isn't finished." ... The peddler was right: inside Tiemenbao, they were already electing a new fort lord. As Fort Lord Zhou's old subordinate, Ma Dingfu naturally became the next fort lord. Wu Yongchao felt somewhat dissatisfied. He had no interest in the position of fort lord, but he remained convinced that Old Man Hu's death had something to do with Ma Dingfu. Not just Old Man Hu—he even suspected that the Feiying Mountain bandits were entangled with Ma Dingfu. Yet he couldn't produce concrete evidence, and the other Dwelling Cultivators didn't care much about the fort lord's position. Ma Dingfu's appointment as fort lord seemed all but decided. However, things had to be done properly and legitimately. Ma Dingfu still needed to host a banquet to cement his status as fort lord. Late at night, Wu Yongchao was agonizing over whether he should attend this banquet. If he didn't go, he would likely be ostracized in the future. If he did go, seeing Ma Dingfu's face made him feel sick to his stomach. Amid his indecision, he heard another knock at the door. Wu Yongchao opened the peephole and found that it was the "peddler." "Hear me out first. About your fort lord—" "No need to explain. Come in first," Wu Yongchao immediately opened the door. "I believe you!" With those words, things would be much easier. "Do you know where your fort lord lives?"