Who Are You Calling Dust?

Li Banfeng walked forward humming a ditty. His voice was loud, carrying clearly to Zhuo Yuling and the two Iron Sheep Mountain masters hiding in the shadows. The singing made their heads spin, and their bodies shifted involuntarily. That minuscule sound could not escape the Thread-Hook Earring. "Master, there's movement in the woods. Three people in all." Three people. Li Banfeng didn't know their cultivation levels, but since this ambush had been arranged by Ling Miaoying, their tiers were bound to be reasonably high. Taking on three at once put him at a disadvantage. Should he retreat into the Portable Abode for a moment? No need. Li Banfeng knew this territory inside and out. Back when cultivating the Journey path, he had traversed the domains of Shui Yongquan and Qiu Luoye countless times. He might as well have a little fun with them. Standing his ground, Li Banfeng continued his tune. The more they heard, the heavier their injuries grew. Lu Xiaolan used her hooks to send a message to Zhuo Yuling: "Mom, there's a technique woven into his singing!" Since Li Banfeng had struck first, Zhuo Yuling wasted no time either, bursting from the woods alongside the two masters. Zhuo Yuling flicked her plump backside, and before she even arrived, her tail lashed out first. Li Banfeng was well prepared. His Tang dao cleared its scabbard an instant faster, lopping off a section of her tail. Zhuo Yuling recoiled in pain, pulling back for the moment while the other two masters rushed forward. One was Fan Baoxing, a fifth-tier Poison Cultivator; the other was Cui Lisheng, a fifth-tier Bug Cultivator. Cui Lisheng's lips fluttered, letting loose a string of eerie, hissing chirps. From the grass, swarms of crickets, grasshoppers, katydids, and mantises banded together, hurtling toward Li Banfeng. No one could afford to underestimate these insects. Infused with a Bug Cultivator's technique, a single bite could tear away a large patch of flesh; a whole swarm descending upon someone could reduce them to a skeleton in an instant. Li Banfeng slapped his liquor gourd, sending a mist of spirits billowing into the air. He struck a match, and a swath of bugs was instantly incinerated to ash. The slowest of the three, Fan Baoxing, drew near, bringing with him a pungent, briny stench. This one would be troublesome. Dwelling Cultivators had a degree of resistance to toxins, but even they couldn't withstand an endless onslaught. Li Banfeng turned on his heel and ran, the three pursuers hot on his heels. Zhuo Yuling knew Li Banfeng was a journey cultivator. Once a journey cultivator hit their stride, the three of them would have no hope of catching him. She had been on the verge of giving up, only to realize he wasn't running very fast. Was he poisoned? This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The three drew closer and closer to Li Banfeng, yet every time they seemed poised to catch up, he would quietly pull ahead again. This left them thoroughly torn. Should they keep chasing, or not? If they pressed on, it seemed unlikely they would actually catch him. Yet seeing Li Banfeng stumbling and swaying as though he might collapse at any second, it really looked like the poison had taken deep root. If they gave up now, wouldn't they be throwing away such a golden opportunity? The man possessed the Xuansheng Red Lotus—the very prize Zhuo Yuling dreamed of night and day. Chase! No matter what, they had to chase him down! This pursuit stretched across more than twenty li, and the gap between the three pursuers began to widen. A body cultivator had the best physique. Zhuo Yuling sprinted far in the lead, but saw no sign of Li Banfeng. A Bug Cultivator's physique was decent. Cui Lisheng crouched in the grass to catch his breath for a moment, relying on his sensory connection with bugs to search for Li Banfeng's trail. A Poison Cultivator had poor stamina. Fan Baoxing hadn't been able to keep pace with the other two and fell far behind. Leaning on his knees, he panted heavily in the branches of a tree. Suddenly, the Tang dao dropped down from the foliage, plunging straight toward the back of his head. Fan Baoxing was truly caught off guard. A fifth-tier Poison Cultivator wasn't incapable in combat; in a direct confrontation, he could have kept Li Banfeng tangled up for a long time. Even in his brief moment to catch his breath, he hadn't forgotten to scatter poison all around himself just in case. Yet the Tang dao was an artifact; it had no fear of venom. The tip of the blade pierced through the back of his skull, driving right out through his face. Fan Baoxing died without making a sound. Perched in the tree, Li Banfeng retrieved the Tang dao. Using the technique of seeking good fortune and avoiding calamity, he circumvented the carpet of poison on the ground and crept toward Cui Lisheng, the Bug Cultivator. Li Banfeng aimed for another sneak attack, but things didn't go quite as smoothly this time. Hundreds of insects were patrolling around Cui Lisheng. Although a fifth-tier Dwelling Cultivator was easily overlooked, he could not evade the perception of all these bugs. Huo-huo! Huo-huo! A cricket sounded the alarm, and Cui Lisheng immediately darted from his spot, rubbing his hands together to produce sharp, grating screeches. He wasn't a body cultivator, nor was he an insect transformed into human form; a Bug Cultivator was best at controlling bugs. Li Banfeng had seen the insect chief's severed head and assumed cultivators of this path would fight like insects themselves. He had miscalculated. Bug Cultivators didn't need to fight in person. Rubbing his hands together for a moment, Cui Lisheng summoned a centipede. What was so frightening about a centipede? An ordinary centipede was nothing to fear, but one over three meters long was another matter entirely. The centipede lunged at Li Banfeng with its fangs bared. Li Banfeng dodged twice, then stomped down hard, shattering a rock beneath his boot. The jagged stone fragments blasted a cluster of holes through the centipede's body. With a heavy crash, the centipede fell to the ground, motionless. Immediately after, two grasshoppers flanked Li Banfeng. Fighting in a newland gave a Bug Cultivator an enormous advantage! Dispatching two grasshoppers wasn't difficult; these creatures possessed virtually no intelligence. Behind those grasshoppers, however, thousands of insects stood waiting in line. If the fight continued like this, Cui Lisheng would wear Li Banfeng down to exhaustion. Seeing the battle turn against him, Li Banfeng chose to leap into a tree. Cui Lisheng sneered. There were bugs that could climb trees too—plenty of them! "Wuuu—" Cui Lisheng whistled sharply, and dozens of ladybugs the size of rice bowls swarmed the treetops. Cui Lisheng grinned. As his lips fluttered, a massive flock of dragonflies swept in from the distance. Li Banfeng could incinerate them with fire or cut them down with his blade, but he had to face the same reality: how long could he hold out if he kept fighting this way? Actually, not long at all. Five minutes should be plenty. Dodging the ladybugs in the branches, he drew the old teapot from his coat. Looking down at Cui Lisheng, he asked, "Do you really love smiling that much?" Cui Lisheng froze. He suddenly felt heat beneath his feet as tea began bubbling up from the earth. Scalding tea surged over his shoes, plunging Cui Lisheng into searing agony. He tried to flee, but sturdy barriers encircled him on all sides. He tried to climb a tree, only for Li Banfeng to kick him back down. He ran toward another tree to climb it, but Li Banfeng leaped between the canopies, shadowing his every move. The moment Cui Lisheng took a step up the trunk, Li Banfeng planted a kick right in his face, knocking him down once more. Soaking in the boiling tea, Cui Lisheng was severely burned. Yet he didn't just wait around to die. A fifth-tier cultivator, even driven to such straits, still had means of escape. He summoned an enormous spider from a tree, using a mass of webbing to hoist himself out of the tea. Li Banfeng stared at the spider for a good while. At first, he had been somewhat worried, thinking it was Daboyins. Once he confirmed it was just a mindless beast, Li Banfeng raised his scythe. Cui Lisheng wasn't worried. Even if Li Banfeng hacked the spider to pieces, the silk would still keep him suspended from the branch. The spider would protect Cui Lisheng with its life until its last breath. Such was the might of a Bug Cultivator! Li Banfeng chopped through the tree branch with a single stroke. Wearing a look of total despair, Cui Lisheng plummeted along with the spider into the boiling tea. It had to be said: the old teapot truly was an exceptional artifact. It was just a shame that fishing Cui Lisheng out of the tea would be awkward. He wasn't an Ascetic Cultivator with a body tough enough to endure it; by the time the tea receded, he was thoroughly cooked—unfit to serve as a dish for his wife. Should he sing a song to summon his soul instead? Forget it. First, take care of business. Zhuo Yuling was closing in. Catching sight of Cui Lisheng's corpse, Zhuo Yuling dropped onto all fours against the ground, using vibrations to pinpoint Li Banfeng's location. Her severed tail had already regenerated. The recovery speed of a fifth-tier body cultivator was astonishing. Perched in the tree, Li Banfeng quietly observed Zhuo Yuling's movements. The Tang dao whispered in his ear, "Master, let me have a try." Li Banfeng shook his head slightly without explanation. Zhuo Yuling was a hardened veteran tempered by the underworld; the Tang dao would hardly catch her off guard twice in a row. So would he just stall with her like this? Li Banfeng really had intended to bide his time, but out of nowhere, Zhuo Yuling leapt upward. Her long tail lashed out, its tip skimming across Li Banfeng's cheek, nearly wounding him. Strange. Why hadn't Li Banfeng sensed any malice when she struck? Had seeking good fortune and avoiding calamity stopped working? Inside Zhuo Yuling's mouth rested a green worm. This worm could consume her malice. It was by this very trick that she had deceived Lu Dongliang. Zhuo Yuling scrambled up the tree, pressing Li Banfeng step by step. In a head-on clash between a fourth-tier journey cultivator and a fifth-tier body cultivator, Li Banfeng held no advantage. A gecko's fighting methods were too bizarre. Her claws could scratch, her tail could whip, lash, and pierce, and her four limbs moved in twisting spirals, making her trajectory impossible for Li Banfeng to predict. Worst of all, Zhuo Yuling was intimately familiar with journey cultivators, guarding against every single move. She could anticipate when Li Banfeng would use Half-Step and when he would employ Treading Ten Thousand Rivers. When Li Banfeng passed through a large tree using Unimpeded Passage, Zhuo Yuling was already waiting on the other side. In the midst of the violent clash, the Tang dao slashed at Zhuo Yuling, but narrowly missed. The clock pendulum seized the opening to launch an ambush and struck her, but Zhuo Yuling took no damage—her hide was simply too thick. Seeing Li Banfeng slowly losing ground, a handsome woman took up the Mandarin Duck Axes and struck Zhuo Yuling. The axes still failed to slice through Zhuo Yuling's skin, but it struck terror into her heart. Dealing with Li Banfeng alone was already no easy feat; now another woman had joined in, flanking her from front and back. She clearly had no odds of winning. Was she supposed to just run away? Throw away such a golden opportunity? In truth, this woman wasn't nearly as formidable as Zhuo Yuling imagined. She was merely Li Banfeng's paper girl, who had lain in wait up in the tree for a long time before finally finding the right moment to strike. With just a modest amount of effort, Zhuo Yuling could have shredded this paper girl to pieces. She didn't even need to attack the paper girl; if she simply held out for a few minutes, the paper girl would collapse on her own. Yet amidst her hesitation, Zhuo Yuling made a disastrous choice. She whipped her long tail to force back the paper girl, then turned on her heels and fled. Choosing to flee meant exposing her back to Li Banfeng. In a battle against a journey cultivator, this was the single most foolish decision one could make—because she could never outrun him. After just two steps, Zhuo Yuling snapped to her senses, utterly unable to understand how she could have made such a blunder. She swung her long tail back, attempting to intercept Li Banfeng's pursuit. Alas, it was too late. Li Banfeng arrived in front of her first, driving an iron ruler straight between her eyebrows. Wuuu-aogh— In that instant, Zhuo Yuling hallucinated. She heard the whistle of a train. She remembered herself at her vanity aboard the Lu family's private train. She remembered dancing with Lu Dongliang to the music. She still remembered every single word she had spoken to Lu Dongliang that night. "Master, you needn't remember his name. It doesn't matter. Once Xiaolan extracts the Red Lotus's whereabouts, this man won't be long for this world." "He doesn't even count as a mediocre person; he doesn't even count as human." "His life is cheaper than a cockroach's." "His life is as worthless as this speck of dust. No parents, no family, he has nothing at all. "He grew up in an orphanage, hauling bricks, slinging sacks, and hawking roadside stalls just to put himself through college. "When someone like that dies, they're dead and gone, like a speck of dust blown away. No one will ever care." What a wonderful night it had been. Dongliang had held me so tight. How I wish I could stay in that night forever. Will I ever see him again? When we meet, will he forgive me? Li Banfeng had no idea what thoughts were running through Zhuo Yuling's head, yet he was destined to be her benefactor. Zhuo Yuling longed to be reunited with Lu Dongliang, and Li Banfeng granted her dream. He carried Zhuo Yuling into the Portable Abode. Seeing that peculiar gramophone, Zhuo Yuling found it strikingly familiar. Where was this? The Lu family's private train? That private train that once belonged to me? She recalled once more the tenderness she had shared with Lu Dongliang that night. Looking at Li Banfeng, Zhuo Yuling forced out, "Why are you here? You're as lowly as dust, you motherless, fatherless bastard." Chhh-chhh! Those words enraged the gramophone. "Vile wench, who are you calling dust? Who are you calling motherless and fatherless? You dare speak of my husband that way?!" "Husband? What kind of thing are you?" Zhuo Yuling stared at the gramophone in bewilderment. Chhh-chhh! "I had planned to give you a quick death. Now, you won't be finding release for at least two hours." Steam swirled, and the wife devoured her soul. Agony washed over Zhuo Yuling, making her entire body convulse. ... Three hours later, Li Banfeng arrived beside Lu Xiaolan's territory, watching her calmly from across its border. Blood was still trickling from Lu Xiaolan's ears. Clenching her fists, she glared at Li Banfeng. "Come on! Come over here! You want to kill me? Come and try!" If Li Banfeng set foot across the line, Lu Xiaolan would immediately spill blood onto the land, summoning Qiu Luoye. As for the relationship between Qiu Luoye and Li Banfeng—needless to say, there was no love lost between them. So Li Banfeng had no intention of crossing over. Reaching behind his back, he produced a bundle and set it down in front of Lu Xiaolan. When the bundle was opened, Lu Xiaolan froze in horror. Zhuo Yuling's severed head lay inside. Li Banfeng smiled at Lu Xiaolan and waved her over. "Come on. Step out. Avenge your mother."