"Within my land, I am the lord! Hwahahaha!" Li Banfeng threw his head back in raucous laughter.
A shadow walked up beside him and said, "Once you're done laughing, lend a hand over here. This pile of corpses isn't going to carry itself!"
Over sixty three-headed men had been thoroughly finished off by Li Banfeng. Once they finished hauling the corpses away, the glove gave the battlefield a quick tidy-up.
The glove truly had it rough. "Master, why don't you teach me that Body and Shadow Comforting Each Other technique? I could whip up a few clones of my own. Doing all this grunt work by myself is just exhausting."
"You want to learn Body and Shadow Comforting Each Other?" Li Banfeng asked the glove with utmost seriousness.
"Sure do." The glove thought a casual joke wouldn't warrant such solemnity.
"Then you have to take me as your master!"
"Easy enough." The glove didn't mind much; formally bowing to its master wasn't out of the question either.
"Then let's get ready. Bow to me right now!" Li Banfeng grew increasingly earnest.
"Master, quit messing around. How is this the time to take an apprentice?"
"Now isn't the time?" Li Banfeng grew angry. "Your heart isn't sincere about learning the craft! I'm not teaching you anymore."
The glove looked at Li Banfeng intently and realized he wasn't joking. His mental state was rather peculiar, closely resembling how he had been in Hulu Village. The lingering effects of the Mad Cultivator techniques seemed to have held on; Li Banfeng had not yet shaken off their influence.
"Master, isn't our battle finished? It's about time to dismiss these shadows, isn't it?"
"Dismiss them for what? It's not every day everyone gets to gather like this. Think how lively it is!" Li Banfeng led dozens of shadows, sprinting wild and free across the wilderness. Along the way, the shadows chatted and laughed, the atmosphere as festive as the New Year.
"Speaking of which, is today New Year's?"
"Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, so today doesn't count yet."
"How can it not count? On the twenty-seventh of the twelfth lunar month, we pay respects to the Seventh Lord. We're all Li Seven, so for us, today definitely counts as New Year's!"
"I really want to go check out the temple fair. Back in Sandaoling, our Li Seven is undeniably the sharpest lad around!"
"Hey, you were glowing so brightly just now!"
"Really?" The shadow examined itself closely. "Seems I got hit by the heavenly light."
Li Banfeng turned back and barked, "You're not allowed home later! Not until you've thoroughly digested that heavenly light!"
The group charged toward the Boundary. Before running far, they spotted the driver and Lu Qianjiao surrounded by over two hundred three-headed men.
Gripping the carriage shafts, the driver unleashed Treading Ten Thousand Rivers in an attempt to force the three-headed men back. Yet the power of his stomping technique was truly modest; in Li Banfeng's eyes, it was barely stronger than an oversized firecracker.
Although Li Banfeng wasn't in his right mind, he knew better than to mock the driver to his face. The driver's willingness to strike at all was already giving immense face.
Leading his shadows, Li Banfeng plunged into the crowd and shouted at the driver, "You go first! Don't worry about me, I have a way out! Hey, what's-his-name..."
Before he finished, the driver was already gone.
Li Banfeng's charge with the shadows disrupted the three-headed soldiers' formation. The driver seized the opening and fled immediately without the slightest hesitation. Lu Qianjiao cast a glance at Li Banfeng. "Brother, what about your..."
"No need to talk, just get moving!" Li Banfeng waved an impatient hand. Lu Qianjiao still had to keep an eye on the driver, fearing he might abandon the carriage and bolt, so she hurried after him.
Li Banfeng remained alone with his shadows, locked in a brutal melee against more than two hundred three-headed men. A squad leader barked an order: "Tactic Number—"
He wanted to call out Tactic Number One, but before the words left his mouth, three shadows pounced together. Each taking a head, they slit all three necks at once. According to tactical protocol, when the squad leader fell, the deputy squad leader assumed command.
The two remaining centurions exchanged looks, neither speaking a word.
Opening their mouths seemed like a death sentence. No matter how disciplined their execution, no one was immune to the fear of death.
Without anyone commanding, the combat effectiveness of these two hundred three-headed men plummeted, devolving into a chaotic brawl against Li Banfeng's shadows. In a true free-for-all, none of them were Li Banfeng's match. The two hundred men suffered increasingly heavier blows, their casualties mounting fast. Just as he was about to slaughter his way out of the encirclement, a group of people came running from the distance.
A centurion shouted, "Reinforcements are here! Brothers, fight him to the end!"
Reinforcements had truly arrived.
There were indeed far more than three thousand Sinless Army soldiers in the vicinity; the Peddler alone had tied down over eight thousand. They had originally planned to launch a general offensive tonight. Had they truly stormed up the mountain, not one of the ten thousand three-headed laborers atop it would have survived.
Now, the Peddler could no longer hold them back. He had merely maneuvered on the mountain without advancing or retreating, and the three-headed forces had noticed the oddity. They had dispatched troops down to pursue.
The glove wasn't worried. With the current tactical advantage, Li Banfeng had plenty of chances to break away. "Let them chase! We can shake off these three-headed soldiers right now. As for the ones coming behind, they won't catch up to Master even if they run themselves to death!"
Li Banfeng held a different view.
"Run? Why run? If we run, won't our momentum be lost?"
"Master, what are you doing? Master, you can't throw a fit now! Master..."
Li Banfeng didn't run. Leaving some of the shadows behind to keep slaughtering the remnant ambushers, he led the rest and charged straight toward the incoming army of three-headed men.
"No, Master!"
Facing them was an army thousands strong!
The glove fell into despair, holding an arsenal of dharma treasures without knowing what to do.
Seeing Li Banfeng charge head-on, the three-headed army froze, unable to discern what tactic this was.
Not recognizing it didn't matter; the three-headed troops had standard response drills. The squad leader ordered the execution of Tactic Number Three. Its core involved the Armored Ones intercepting the charge while the Brawlers closed the encirclement—a textbook maneuver against enemy breakthroughs.
Armored Ones were a unique variety of dark-energy users, with no direct counterpart pathway in Puluo Province. In reality, they corresponded to body cultivators possessing specialized external shells, such as crabs, beetles, and scorpions.
Their dark-energy abilities were relatively straightforward: coating their bodies in a thick, coarse armor while significantly increasing their physical mass, using sheer weight and hardness to blunt enemy momentum.
Such dark-energy users played a vital role in withstanding enemy charges. At Santoucha, many desperate three-headed men would gamble on a fight to the death when survival seemed bleak. Yet against the Armored Ones, their full-force breakthroughs would be stopped cold, and once encircled by the Brawlers, highly efficient slaughter awaited them.
Faced with such a simple and effective tactic, Li Banfeng's countermeasure was to kill the squad leader.
He took flight, leaping over the Armored Ones to reach the commander's vicinity. Then, with Sever the Path to Forge a Way, he parted the surrounding soldiers while cleaving the squad leader's body in two.
Li Banfeng found squad leaders to be quite intriguing beings.
Within the Sinless Army, the squad leader was the only person in the entire unit expected to judge and think. Of course, once a squad leader was slain, a deputy took over, and if the deputy fell, another stepped up.
Even with replacements, this tactic worked just as well—like dealing with the ambushers earlier, picking them off one by one would shatter the enemy's chain of command. Yet this time, Li Banfeng's judgment was flawed. In his unhinged state, his reasoning was far from meticulous.
No deputy stepped up to assume command, because the squad leader's existing orders had encountered no flaw.
The commander was dead, and yet there was no problem?
This was the Sinless Army's standard protocol upon an officer's death: if the fallen commander's tactical deployment still suited the current battle, the tactic remained in effect. He had ordered Tactic Number Three to encircle Li Banfeng. At present, Li Banfeng was surrounded, so the tactic had encountered no issue.
Trapped in the heavy encirclement, Li Banfeng had to break out. Surrounding Scholars and Judges unleashed waves of techniques toward him like a tsunami. "Decide victory, determine death, not a half-step back!"
Emulate the Virtuous combined with Standardize Script and Uniformize Rules—virtue and scholar techniques were being wielded simultaneously with seamless fluidity.
Amidst the deafening clamor, Li Banfeng abandoned any thought of breaking out and prepared to fight to the bitter end.
He didn't want to use Expand the Domain and Open the Frontiers; he abandoned all techniques entirely. With no tactical thought left in his head, he only wanted to engage in raw, bloody melee, deciding life and death.
Under the sonic barrage, all the shadows, along with all the dharma treasures around him, lost their sanity. All they had left was fierce, roaring battle will, determined to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Li Banfeng and fight to the last man.
This was the true power of the Sinless Army.
Having lost his senses, Li Banfeng paid no heed to his injuries or the enemy's sheer numbers, throwing himself entirely into desperate slaughter. At this rate, it wouldn't be long before he fell amidst the chaos.
*Clack-clack-clack!*
Breaking out from the mountain, the Peddler noticed the massive crowd and happened to rush over to check, stumbling upon Li Banfeng, whose eyes were blood-red with slaughter. Hearing the rattle of the pellet drum, the Sinless Army's onslaught slowed slightly, and Li Banfeng's mind cleared a fraction.
The Peddler grabbed a handful of ground black pepper from his cart and flung it into the air.
Choked by the dust, thousands of three-headed soldiers broke into tears and runny noses, momentarily unable to speak. The Peddler gave Li Banfeng a shove. "Leave this to me, get out of here!"
Li Banfeng nodded. "All right."
Having regained some lucidity, Li Banfeng could have used Sever the Path to Forge a Way to break out, but he didn't. Instead, he grabbed the Peddler's cart, pushed it, and left.
Because he hadn't fully cleared his head.
The Peddler stared dumbfounded for a moment, then yelled after him, "What are you taking my cart for?!"
Li Banfeng didn't explain.
He had taken a fancy to this cart long ago.
Just look at how interesting it was—equipped with such a huge cabinet, holding everything under the sun inside. He had wanted to try pushing it for ages, but feared the Peddler would refuse. Today felt like the perfect opportunity.
Was it appropriate to steal the Peddler's cart during a battle?
Perhaps not, but the current Li Banfeng wouldn't ponder such things. Right now, he was having a grand time!
Pushing the cart, he slipped into a cluster of shadows. Helpless, the Peddler chased after him into the thick of them.
Catching up to Li Banfeng, the Peddler reclaimed his cart, looked around at his surroundings, then turned to Li Banfeng. "What did you bring me here for?"
A rectangular room, furnished with a bed, a shelf, and a tea table.
This was the carriage of the Little Train. The Little Train had been a gift from the Peddler to Li Banfeng, so the Peddler was intimately familiar with it.
"Since you're already here, take a seat." Li Banfeng poured a cup of tea for the Peddler using the old teapot, then went right back to hugging the cart. A group of shadows circled the Peddler, making welcoming gestures for him to sit.
"I'm in no mood to sit. We'll settle our scores in a moment." The Peddler pulled his cart and tried to walk outside, only to find the door of the companion dwelling wouldn't open.
The companion dwelling spoke: "Make yourself at home. It's not your first time here."
The Peddler frowned. "Little Train, what is the meaning of this?"
The Little Train chuckled. "Nothing special, just catching up. It's been so long since we last saw each other."
Outside the companion dwelling, the crowd of three-headed soldiers had no idea what was happening. The Peddler was gone, and so was that lunatic.
Even the pack of pitch-black lunatics had vanished.
Amidst their bewilderment, one pitch-black lunatic suddenly sprang from the ground, unleashing Sever the Path to Forge a Way.
A clear lane was cleaved straight through the tight encirclement of three-headed soldiers. The pitch-black lunatic took off like the wind, tearing down the path.
Had they been on guard in the slightest, the three-headed soldiers would never have let this lunatic slip away; a single concentrated volley of techniques would have shredded his skin and flesh to pieces—assuming he actually had skin and flesh.
This lunatic was Li Banfeng's shadow.
Banfeng had commanded that one shadow was forbidden from returning home, suspected of having been exposed to heavenly light.
Though they laughed and joked normally, serious matters were never taken lightly. If Banfeng said not to come home, this shadow truly could not return home.
This shadow couldn't fly, nor could it use Riding the Wind and Driving the Clouds. Yet in terms of pure foot speed, these three-headed soldiers genuinely couldn't catch him. Clutching a vital object in hand, he sprinted all out toward the Boundary.
Zhao Xiaowan and Hong Ying were still waiting beside the Boundary when they vaguely spotted someone approaching from the other side. Adjusting her aim slightly, Zhao Xiaowan fired the cannon at once, casting a shadow that spanned across the Boundary.
Following the driver onto the dark bridge, Lu Qianjiao sped along, sensing someone seemed to be outside the bridge. "Che Wushang, don't you feel like someone's nearby?"
"So what if there is?" The driver couldn't care less. "This bridge is about to collapse. You'd better move faster!"
The driver wasn't exaggerating; the dark bridge truly was on the verge of collapsing.
According to the Peddler's plan, the Haichi old carriage packed with over ten thousand people weighed as much as one hundred individuals. Li Banfeng had claimed the dark bridge could support one hundred people, which suited the Peddler's needs perfectly. In reality, the bridge's safe capacity was eighty people; one hundred pushed it to its absolute limit.
The driver was terrified. His instinct for seeking fortune and avoiding calamity told him the bridge was going to give way.
Zhao Xiaowan was equally worried. She couldn't guarantee the bridge would hold either. Judging by the various readings on the gauges, the dark bridge was in rough shape, with many components already failing.
*Meow~*
The Dark Bridge Cannon let out a low wail; the bridge was reaching its breaking point.
The shadow along the Boundary wobbled ceaselessly, and the dark bridge inside the wormhole shook violently in turn.
Lu Qianjiao grew frantic, yet the driver remained remarkably composed. "Run with everything you've got! Once we're across, we'll be fine!"
True to his reputation as the premier driver of Puluo Province, Che Wushang hauled the Haichi old carriage and burst out alongside Lu Qianjiao just before the dark bridge gave way.
Dropping the carriage shafts, the driver slumped to the ground to catch his breath, his legs trembling uncontrollably.
Having fought her way through, Lu Qianjiao was utterly exhausted as well, sitting by the roadside panting heavily.
Still maintaining the dark bridge, Zhao Xiaowan turned to the pair. "Where is my husband?"
The driver stayed silent.
Lu Qianjiao whispered, "He hasn't come out yet..."
Hong Ying raised her spear, pointing it straight at Lu Qianjiao. "Bitch, you made it out, so why hasn't my Seventh Brother?"
Lu Qianjiao couldn't answer.
She was a renowned general of her generation, yet she had slipped away from the battlefield while leaving a young junior behind.
*Little brother, where have you gotten to?*
Hugging the cart, Li Banfeng was keeping the Peddler company over tea inside the companion dwelling. Beside the tea table sat a woman in her twenties, draped in a sheer green dress with her long hair swept up, grinning eerily at the Peddler.
The woman had a slightly slender face, willow-leaf brows, and almond-shaped eyes. When she spoke, her gaze flickered in tune with her tone, brimming with clever charm. With a tall nose bridge and lips as red as cherries, her looks fell short of Zhao Xiaowan and were roughly on par with Hong Ying, yet among ordinary folk, she would be a rare beauty found only once in ten thousand.
"Hehehe!" The beauty smiled at the Peddler. The Peddler took half a sip of tea and nearly spat it out.
Composing himself after a moment, the Peddler said to the woman, "Let's make things clear: your father refusing to swear brotherhood with you all can't be blamed on me!"
The young woman nodded. "That wasn't your fault."
"The Old Train refusing to marry your elder sister wasn't my fault either!"
Lady Nine pondered. "That had something to do with you!"
The Peddler refused to accept it. "Nonsense! The Old Train refused; what did that have to do with me?"
Lady Nine sighed. "Forget it, let's say it wasn't your fault!"
The Peddler added, "Your elder sister striking out on her own and founding the Mad Cultivator pathway wasn't my fault either. Her cultivation was sufficient and her pathway stood firmly on its own feet, so it was only right for me to give her the medicine powder."
The young woman nodded. "Fine, that wasn't your fault either!"
The Peddler frowned. "Then what do you want?"
Lady Nine furrowed her brows, her expression turning somber. "I just want to ask you one thing: was the destruction of the City of Fools your fault or not?"
The Peddler fell silent for a moment, then looked up at Li Banfeng. "Brother, what's the deal here? Did you bring me in specifically to put me on trial?"
"I just invited you in for tea. I didn't expect Jiu'er to come out." Li Banfeng opened a drawer on the cart, stepped on a switch with his foot, and watched the drawer snap shut. The cart was simply too amusing; he couldn't get enough of playing with it.
The Peddler nodded. "So she's your ninth wife!"
Lady Nine snapped at Li Banfeng, "I told you not to call me Jiu'er! It makes me sound like your concubine, and the youngest concubine at that!"
The Peddler asked, "If you're not the youngest, which one are you?"
"I am his..." Lady Nine wanted to say senior sister, but decided it was best not to mention the Fool pathway to the Peddler. "I am his ninth."
Gritting her teeth, Lady Nine owned it.
Li Banfeng crawled inside the cabinet of the cart. "Senior Brother, I don't know what grudges you had in the past. Before you arrived, I hadn't even seen Jiu'er in person. This is the first time she's revealed her true form."
The Peddler sneered. "So what if you revealed your true form? Want to pick a fight with me?"
Lady Nine resented him. "If it weren't for the fact that I can't beat you, I would've fought you to the death long ago."
The Peddler gave a laugh. "If you don't dare fight, stop talking. Wait until you've gained some real skill before coming back to look for me."
The companion dwelling piped up: "The Old Train being trapped in the Inner States—tell me, is that your fault or not?"
The Peddler remained silent.
The calculation cultivator from Room Eight yelled, "I solve problems for them every single day, and whenever I can't solve them, they beat me! Tell me, is that your fault or not?!"
The Peddler said nothing.
The man from Room Seven shouted, "I don't even know how long I've been stuck here, to the point I almost forgot my own pathway! Tell me, is that your fault or not?!"
The Peddler lowered his head.
The young woman from Room Five cried out, "I've already forgotten my pathway! I've forgotten everything! I don't even remember if I've met you before! Tell me, is that your fault or not?!"
The Peddler slammed the table. "You don't even remember if you've met me, yet you're pinning that on me too?!"
Clutching the cart, Li Banfeng yelled, "Stop arguing, all of you! I invited Senior Brother here so we could share a cup of tea and leave Santoucha together, not so you could bring up all this rotten history, nor so I could just fiddle with Senior Brother's cart!"
The Peddler nodded. "Now that sounds somewhat decent. First, get off my cart."
Li Banfeng climbed down from the cart and sat across from the Peddler.
The Peddler asked, "Did you fight that bloody battle against the Sinless Army just to cover my retreat?"
How should he answer that properly?
Tell the honest truth?
The truth was: I had gone mad at the time and just wanted to throw my life against the Sinless Army, completely unaware you were coming. Later, I got struck by the Sinless Army's techniques, and if you hadn't shown up, I couldn't have left even if I wanted to.
Putting it that way felt rather awkward...
After thinking for a moment, Li Banfeng phrased it differently: "Senior Brother, I didn't know when you would arrive, but so long as you hadn't made it, I was determined to fight them to the finish. I refused to leave!"
From a certain perspective, that was true as well.
The Peddler was deeply touched. Raising his teacup, he drained it in a single gulp. "Good! Calling you my brother wasn't for nothing."
After drinking two more cups of tea, the companion dwelling reminded them, "We're almost at our destination."
Li Banfeng said, "There's another friend here. Would you like to meet her?"
The Peddler asked, "An old friend?"
"An old friend, one very close to you. I'll go carry Hua Jiu'er over."
The Peddler glanced at Lady Nine. "You're Jiu'er, so who is Hua Jiu'er?"
Lady Nine smiled. "Honglian. Aren't you two old acquaintances?"
The Peddler stared at Li Banfeng in shock. "Honglian is with you?!"
Li Banfeng frowned. "Why act so surprised, as if you didn't know?"
The Peddler waved his hands frantically. "Under no circumstances tell anyone about this! I have urgent business to attend to, so I'll pass on seeing Honglian. I'm taking my leave!"
With that, the Peddler pushed his cart toward the door to open it. Li Banfeng quickly stepped forward to stop him. "If you don't want to meet, then don't! Just wait a bit longer until we cross the Boundary."
...
Outside, Hong Ying looked ready to trade blows with Lu Qianjiao, but Zhao Xiaowan didn't spare them a single glance.
Standing beside the Boundary, she stared across it with longing eyes, waiting only for Li Banfeng's return.
Hong Ying pressed Lu Qianjiao: "Where on earth did my Seventh Brother go?"
Lu Qianjiao had no answer. Zhao Xiaowan prepared to fire another shot from the cannon. "Yingying, I'm heading across in a moment. You help me operate the Dark Bridge Cannon. When it comes to my own man, I'll go find him myself!"
Hong Ying walked to the edge of the Boundary. "Cut the nonsense! How would I know how to work a Dark Bridge Cannon? Fire a shot right now and send me over. I'll bring Seventh Brother back!"
Just as they spoke, a figure appeared on the far side of the Boundary.
Hong Ying cried out in delight, "Xiaowan, look quickly! Isn't that Seventh Brother?"
Zhao Xiaowan studied the figure intently for a long while. "The frame looks just like Seventh Brother, but why is this person so pitch-black?"
Chapter 626