Li Banfeng crossed Mount Jiangyue in Waigou, traversed over a hundred li of mountain trails, and reached a gorge at three in the morning.
According to Yu Nan's directions, passing through this gorge led straight into the newland.
The gorge was difficult to navigate: two to three meters across at its widest, and narrow enough in places that one could only squeeze through sideways.
Sideways, Li Banfeng walked for more than a li through a long, narrow crevice. By his perception, walking this single li was more effective for his cultivation than walking ten li in Ligou Town.
Just as he stepped out of the crevice, Li Banfeng failed to notice that beneath his feet lay a cliff a dozen-plus meters high, and he tumbled straight off.
Fortunately, a journey cultivator possessed agile footwork. Cushioning his fall along the slope before hitting the bottom, Li Banfeng landed uninjured.
His clothes were torn, but that didn't matter—they were a Geng family guard's uniform anyway. His shoes, however, were worn through, which pained him a little.
Patting the dust from his clothes, Li Banfeng looked back up at the cliff face, only to spot a spider crawling out from the crevice, descending slowly on a thread of silk.
What was so remarkable about a spider?
Yet this spider truly was peculiar: it was enormous, its body alone over a meter across, not counting the legs.
Even more peculiar, the spider wore a black top hat on its head. When it scuttled up beside Li Banfeng, it went out of its way to doff the hat, offering him a very gentlemanly bow.
Not only could it bow, the spider could actually speak: "Dear lady, whatever brings you walking through such treacherous terrain all alone?"
Lady?
Li Banfeng stared at the spider for a good while. "Mistook me for someone else, didn't you?"
Hearing Li Banfeng's voice, the spider froze in place. This "woman" before it, wearing heavy makeup on a handsome face, was actually a man. "Ah, so you are a gentleman. Forgive my insolence. Are you heading to the newland to clear the wilderness? We happen to be going the same way."
Clear the wilderness? Farming?
"Are you a Tillage Cultivator?" Li Banfeng asked.
"A Tillage Cultivator?" The spider chuckled. "You do jest. From my appearance, you ought to know that I am a body cultivator."
The way this spider spoke was unlike the locals, nor was it like the modern society Li Banfeng was familiar with. The fellow spoke with the melodramatic cadence of an old dubbed foreign film.
Of course, his manner of speech was beside the point.
The point was, he was a talking spider.
At the Geng Family Medicine Shop, Li Banfeng had seen Song Baiming. As a body cultivator, Song bore some resemblance to a crab.
Before that, on Bitter Mist Mountain, Li Banfeng had also seen a body cultivator who came with a natural suit of armor.
Now seeing a spider, it seemed the body cultivator pathway came in quite a rich variety of forms.
Ahead, the path widened somewhat. The spider quickened its pace to walk alongside Li Banfeng. "My friend, seeing your steady footing, you must be a journey cultivator. A journey cultivator's medicinal powders are quite expensive; you must be a person of means."
"Passable," Li Banfeng brushed it off casually.
"My lot is a bitter one. I had no money to build a foundation, nor money to buy medicine powders, so I could only try my luck at Santoucha."
The spider was rather talkative. Now that it mentioned Santoucha, Li Banfeng was actually intrigued.
"You built your foundation at Santoucha? Did you sprout three heads?"
The spider chuckled. "Are you poking fun at us body cultivators on purpose?"
Li Banfeng shook his head. "I've never left Yaowanggou in my life. I don't know much about Santoucha."
The spider talked as it walked: "Even if you haven't been to Santoucha, you ought to have heard of the origins of body cultivators. All body cultivators under heaven hail from Santoucha. For poor folks seeking cultivation, it is the only road."
"Why poor folks?" Li Banfeng didn't mind showing ignorance; if he didn't understand, he asked.
The spider laughed. "Friend, are you playing dumb on purpose? Poor people cannot afford miraculous pills or wondrous medicines, nor do they have the wealth to acquire Dao affinity. They can only try their luck at Santoucha. That place is born with Dao affinity, yet it isn't something just anyone can absorb and enjoy. Out of ten people who go, nine turn into three-headed monsters, destined to remain monsters for the rest of their lives. Only the one with a sturdy constitution can attain true fruition. That is why our branch is called body cultivators."
"And attaining true fruition means turning into a spider?"
"I cannot shake the feeling that you are mocking me." All eight of the spider's eyes rolled upward together. "What form one cultivates depends on individual luck and innate talent. Some cultivate into birds, some into beasts, and quite a few cultivate into scorpions or spiders. Do you look down on this appearance of mine?"
Li Banfeng shook his head. "Not at all. A path this treacherous, yet you traverse it more smoothly than I do as a journey cultivator. That is genuine skill."
"Thank you for the compliment." The spider lifted its top hat, offering another bow. "I shared all this to show you that I am an honest person. If you are also going to clear the wilderness for the Lu family, we might as well be partners."
Partners?
This reminded Li Banfeng of his bitter experience with taking a partner.
"I'm truly not going to clear land," Li Banfeng politely declined the spider's invitation.
"If you are not going to clear land, then you cannot blame me..."
"Blame you for what?"
Li Banfeng looked at the spider with a smile.
The spider's eight eyes stared into Li Banfeng's two eyes. After locking gazes for a moment, the spider abruptly shot out a strand of spider silk.
Li Banfeng's smile remained intact, because the silk hadn't been shot at him, nor had he sensed any malice from the spider.
The silk snagged onto the rock face ahead in the gorge. Reeling in the thread, the spider continued scurrying along the cliff wall: "If you aren't clearing land, then I won't be guiding you along! Hohahaha!"
The path ahead was narrow and muddy. Li Banfeng slogged with difficulty through the muck and water, watching helplessly as the spider zipped across the cliff face in smug triumph.
A few minutes later, the spider's figure vanished from Li Banfeng's sight.
After another full two hours, Li Banfeng finally reached the end of the gorge.
No wonder Yu Nan had come here to seek refuge. Even as a tier-one journey cultivator, Li Banfeng had found the journey so arduous; anyone else making this trek would have lost a layer of skin.
The end of the gorge was not a normal exit as Li Banfeng had imagined, but another cliff face. Strictly speaking, the gorge was merely a fissure embedded in the precipice, and now Li Banfeng had to step out of this fissure.
Standing at the edge of the cliff, he had two choices: first, jump straight down; second, use both hands and feet to climb down the precipice.
The cliff beneath his feet was hundreds of meters high; neither choice seemed particularly scientific.
In the end, Li Banfeng made the most scientific choice.
He opened the Portable Abode, and before stepping inside, he tossed the key over the cliff.
After sitting inside the house and waiting a moment, Li Banfeng stepped out of the Portable Abode and picked up the key beneath a tree.
Before him were trees; all around were trees. Dense trunks and foliage occupied over ninety percent of his field of vision.
Li Banfeng took a step forward, the ground covered in dead branches and fallen leaves that swallowed his ankles.
Taking another step, he stumbled over a tree root concealed beneath the leaves, stepping straight into mud.
The step went deep enough that the mire rose all the way to the base of his thigh.
Li Banfeng was quick with his hands, grabbing a vine to pull his leg out. Just as he regained his balance, he suddenly sensed danger approaching.
Not approaching—it had already arrived.
Li Banfeng felt a tingling itch on his calves. Rolling up his trouser legs, he saw a dense swarm of leeches sucking away at his skin, looking as if he were wearing a pair of woolen leggings.
Li Banfeng yanked off a leech. It was no ordinary leech; its grip was tremendously strong and it bit down so tightly that tearing it away tore off a piece of Li Banfeng's flesh.
If he peeled off the entire pair of "leggings," his legs would probably have no skin left.
He returned to the Portable Abode, took off his pants, brought out a jar of salt, and sprinkled it over the leeches.
To his surprise, these leeches were remarkably tough; even covered in salt, they refused to let go.
Li Banfeng was about to use a knife to slice off their bodies first when he saw the gramophone spew a cloud of steam.
Scorched by the high heat, the leeches suffered unbearable agony and released their holds one after another.
The gramophone then blew several more blasts of steam over Li Banfeng's legs, sterilizing the wounds covering them.
It hurt a bit. But after the pain came a comfortable relief.
The gramophone even played a song to comfort Li Banfeng:
"If not for me, how would you live your days..."
As I recall, the original lyrics were 'If not for you.' Wife, are you comforting me, or singing your own praises?
Geng Zhiwei's soul had long been devoured, and his corpse had also been eaten by the bronze lotus, whose petals and leaves remained tightly shut as it continued refining medicinal pills.
A fair amount of miscellaneous items lay scattered on the floor. Li Banfeng tidied them up briefly, and while the bronze lotus had no free mouth to snap them up, he quickly gathered the weapons belonging to Geng Zhiwei and the two Martial Cultivators.
Their weapons were quite good. One Martial Cultivator's weapon was an iron spike over a foot long, with two smaller three-inch spikes at the base.
Li Banfeng simply called it an iron spike, only to be mocked mercilessly by the gramophone.
"What are you laughing at me for? Do you know what this thing is called?"
The gramophone didn't answer.
The other weapon was also peculiar, resembling a fork formed by two crossed crescents, one large and one small.
Li Banfeng called it a fork, and was mocked by the gramophone once more.
Geng Zhiwei had a handgun, its magazine loaded with bullets.
Stowing the weapons away and tossing the useless junk out of the Portable Abode, Li Banfeng followed the map drawn by Yu Nan and continued trekking through the forest.
After walking for over an hour, Li Banfeng clicked open his pocket watch and glanced at it.
It was nearly nine o'clock—why hadn't dawn broken yet?
...
Yaowanggou, Mount Jiangyue newland, the Lu family mansion.
A ray of sunlight shone into the main hall. Zhuo Yuling, the second concubine of Lu family head Lu Dongliang, lifted her teacup, took a gentle sip, and quietly waited for her guest's arrival.
After waiting for about an hour, a man of medium build was led into the main courtyard by the housekeeper.
The man was clad in a black tailcoat and a black top hat, with round, black-rimmed sunglasses on his face. He had full cheeks and regular features, exuding a thoroughly gentlemanly air.
Doffing his hat, he offered Zhuo Yuling a bow: "Private detective, Daboyins, at your service."
Daboyins?
Standing before her was clearly a local with yellow skin and black hair, yet he had given himself a foreign name.
Furthermore, he and Zhuo Yuling were old acquaintances.
Zhuo Yuling did not return the courtesy; she did not even rise from her chair. Looking at the bowing man, she responded only with a sneer tinged with contempt: "Haven't seen you in years—how did you turn into a fake foreign devil?"
Her voice was gentle, but her words were harsh.
Daboyins replied politely, "Madam, a gentleman is not defined by pedigree, and elegance knows no borders."
Zhuo Yuling pointed to a chair beside her. "Sit."
Daboyins put his top hat back on, displeased with Zhuo Yuling's arrogance, but took a seat nonetheless.
Zhuo Yuling lit a lady's cigarette, took a drag, and spoke slowly: "I summoned you here for three matters. The first is to clear the wilderness; the second is to find someone; the third is to kill someone.
"There is no need to explain clearing the wilderness—you know the going rate.
"As for finding someone, I mentioned it in my letter: she is my daughter. That matter is of the utmost urgency.
"As for killing someone, the man's name is Li Banfeng. Here are his photograph and intelligence. If possible, take him alive."
Daboyins looked at Li Banfeng's photograph, fell silent for a moment, and remarked, "A pity."
"What is a pity?" Zhuo Yuling started.
Daboyins smiled. "Nothing. Just that it's a pity about this young fellow."
Chapter 68