Chapter 415: The World’s Distorted Perception of Me

"Since you've already given it, then give me more—"

While the beggar was still talking, Hong Ying hacked off one of the beggar's hands and shoved it into his mouth. "Have I given you enough now?"

Li Banfeng found it rather curious. Hong Ying could not see, yet she had managed to stuff the hand into the beggar's mouth with perfect accuracy.

Whether it was because this beggar had taken too many beatings in his life or because Beggar Cultivators were simply that resilient, he endured it. He spat the hand back out and tried to activate his ability again. "Since you've already given it..."

Before he could finish, a cloud of steam swept from his feet to the top of his head, stripping away an entire layer of skin. The excruciating pain finally forced him to abandon all resistance.

"Spare me! I am a land deity! Someone sent me here! I was only following orders! I never intended to harm you!"

Hong Ying fell silent for a moment before saying to Li Banfeng, "Darling Qi, this isn't Yuan Shoulü."

Li Banfeng pretended to be surprised. "Oh? It really isn't him?"

Hong Ying gently shook her spearhead. "Yuan Shoulü might have run away, but he isn't a coward."

The Tang Saber unconsciously straightened at those words.

The Gramophone asked, "Who sent you?"

"I... I..." The beggar broke into another fit of coughing.

"Still won't talk?" The Gramophone gave a cold laugh. Wave after wave of steam washed back and forth over the skinless beggar.

"Urgh... urgh..." The beggar kept coughing. He seemed to have lost the ability to speak altogether.

Hong Ying shouted, "You wicked woman, ease up! We still haven't gotten any answers out of him!"

The Gramophone probed the beggar's throat with her stylus. "Doesn't look like we are going to. He can't speak. Someone did something to him."

"If he can't say it, then write it!" Hong Ying roared.

The beggar dipped a finger into his own blood and tried to write on the ground. The moment he did, his finger began to rot away.

"Something's wrong!" The Gramophone boiled the beggar alive with a blast of steam. "Husband dear, stay away from him!"

Li Banfeng scratched his cheek. It seemed something had already gone wrong.

***

Out in the wilderness, Cedric was still searching for traces of the beggar when he suddenly heard Li Banfeng call from behind him.

"Doctor Cedric, out for a walk this late at night?"

Cedric slowly turned around and smiled at Li Banfeng. "You can see me."

He was shrouded in Greenwater Beggar's power, so under normal circumstances, Li Banfeng should not have been able to see him. However, Li Banfeng could see him clearly through Keen-Eyed Perception.

From Cedric's point of view, he thought that Li Banfeng could do this because he was powerful. Cedric gave a casual shrug. "Looks like I still underestimated you. I will be straight with you. I came here looking for that beggar."

Li Banfeng deliberately asked, "What beggar?"

Cedric smiled. "There's no point pretending anymore. Judging by how things look, he's probably already dead by your hand. Li Qi, there's something I have never understood. Back in Medicine King Gully, when we first met, Daboinsky and I both tried to capture you. Neither of us was actually a match for you, so why did you keep running away from us back then?"

Naturally, Li Banfeng was not about to admit that he genuinely could not have beaten them at the time. And so, he gave a different answer.

"Because I really did want to be your friend."

Cedric nodded. "I am deeply touched by your insincere friendship. If I am not mistaken, the beggar I am looking for is already dead by your hand. And I just happened to show up at the wrong place at the wrong time. Which means what you should do now is kill me to keep me quiet. I would rather not be killed, though, so how about we find some middle ground?"

Li Banfeng thought for a moment. "That depends on just how deep our friendship runs."

"I don't trust friendship. Business, on the other hand, I can trust," Cedric said with a smile. "How about we make a deal?"

"Let's hear it."

Cedric said, "I genuinely don't know where that beggar went. So I will simply assume you killed him. I need to report his death to someone very important, but I won't say you were the one who did it. I will say it was a person dressed in white. That much, at least, I saw with my own eyes. Would that be acceptable to you?"

By "a person dressed in white," Cedric meant the muskmelon Hong Ying, who was dressed entirely in white. That really would make it difficult for anyone to connect the killing to Li Banfeng.

Li Banfeng pondered for a moment before replying, "Whether I can accept that depends on what you are offering."

Cedric smiled. "I can cure your illness. Tell me, isn't your face starting to itch?"

He was right. Li Banfeng's face had been itching unbearably. No one else in the Pocket Dwelling had shown any symptoms, not even Hong Ying, who had grown blood and flesh. Only Li Banfeng's face itched so fiercely that it was almost unbearable. It was also the reason he had temporarily gone out of the Pocket Dwelling.

Cedric explained the situation to Li Banfeng. "This disease comes from the founding cultivator of my Daoist path. It's deadly, though it's nowhere near as severe as the festering sores I was infected with back then. I can cure you. Would that be enough as my bargaining chip?"

"The founding cultivator of your Daoist path? Greenwater Beggar?" Li Banfeng was tense, but none of it showed on his face. With a calm expression, he continued saying, "As far as I know, only the Greenwater Beggar himself can take away a disease he planted."

Qiu Zhiheng had once told Li Banfeng that not even Old Mister Yao could clear up the effects of Greenwater Beggar's abilities.

Cedric, however, was completely confident. "I have that ability now. You don't have to trust me. You can kill me right here if you want. Maybe you have some other way to cure yourself, but that would take time. As long as the founding cultivator's disease remains on you, he can pinpoint your location. He can find you at any moment. I am sure you don't want that to happen, so this is a pretty good deal for you. What do you think?"

With the characteristic abilities of a Homebound Cultivator, together with the power of the Pocket Dwelling and its dwelling spirit, Li Banfeng might indeed have been able to purge the disease Greenwater Beggar's ability had inflicted on him. Cedric was right about one thing, though. It would take time.

Li Banfeng nodded. "I think it's a fair deal."

Cedric walked up to him and fixed his eyes on Li Banfeng's cheeks. "Don't worry. I am not going to ambush you. That would be far too stupid. Give me a little time, and I will have this dealt with soon."

A few minutes later, the itching was gone.

Cedric's face twisted as dense clusters of bumps rose across his cheeks. He had transferred the disease Greenwater Beggar left behind onto himself.

"The taste of the founding cultivator really is something else..." Cedric said with difficulty. "I have kept my end of the bargain. Can I leave now?"

Li Banfeng nodded. "Before you go, can you tell me a little about what your founding cultivator is after? Was that beggar sent by him?"

"He was. Greenwater Beggar is very bothered by what you are doing with the land activation."

"Why would he care about me activating land? Is it because I gathered so many people in Greenwater City?"

Cedric shook his head. "I still don't know the exact reason, but my advice is to keep doing what you want to do."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because that is simply the sort of man the Greenwater Beggar is. Even if you choose to stop now, he will not let you go. My friend, until we meet again. And one more thing. Do not touch that beggar's corpse again."

That, at least, was nothing to worry about. The beggar had already ended up in the stomachs of Li Banfeng's household items. Whatever little remained of the corpse had been thoroughly disposed of by the Crimson Lotus. After everyone finished their meal, wifey had even disinfected them all with steam. What really worried Li Banfeng was what the Greenwater Beggar would do next.

***

Cedric went back to the hospital and immediately offered a prayer to the Greenwater Beggar. "O Great Ancestral Cultivator, as you instructed, I have been watching that beggar's movements. He is no longer in this world."

Before long, the Greenwater Beggar appeared before him. "Say it plainly. Is he dead?"

"Yes." Cedric nodded.

"Where's the body?"

"I destroyed it."

"Why?"

"O Great Ancestral Cultivator, it is because your power remained upon his corpse. If someone else were to discover the body, they might use that power to trace your whereabouts."

The Greenwater Beggar smiled. "You did well. Do you want to know who that beggar was?"

"O Great Ancestral Cultivator, only if thou art willing to tell me, and only if it is something I am permitted to know."

The Greenwater Beggar smiled. "Listening to you talk is still damn tiring, but at least I like what I am hearing. That beggar's name was Foxtail Grass. He was the local land deity of the New Land beside Blue Poplar Village. I have fought him several times over the years and taken more than seventy percent of his territory. His cultivation was already on the verge of falling back to the Terranean Layer. Now that he's dead, there's no need to leave him what little territory he had left. I will take the rest for myself. If fortune favors you and you manage to reach the Cloudborne Layer one day, you can come to me and ask for a territory of your own."

"I thank the Great Ancestral Cultivator for thy favor."

The Greenwater Beggar shook his head. "Don't thank me yet. I am not finished. Did you see who killed him?"

Cedric answered truthfully, "I did not witness the battle itself. I saw only the figure of a person in white."

The Greenwater Beggar smiled. "That vile one at Vilefolk Hillock actually sent Zhong Huaien and that robe to protect Li Qi. If that robe can kill Foxtail Grass, how powerful has it become?

Cedric bowed and said, "O Great Ancestral Cultivator, I will do everything in my power to help you win this war."

"War?" Greenwater Beggar chuckled. "I am still not used to the words you use. I have already made my move. I doubt Chu Shaoqiang will be able to handle it, just like back then."

***

In a Western-style house beside Horned Goat Garden, Chu Shaoqiang, the former head of the Chu Family, sat on a sofa in a grayish-white overcoat. Before him, Zhong Huaien, the youth in white, was reporting the results of his investigation.

"Mr. Chu, Li Qi is back at Greenwater City. He's made contact with the He Family, and he seems particularly close to He Yuxiu. He also recruited even more people for the land activation," Zhong Huaien said as he rubbed his chin. "Should we make our move against him?"

Chu Shaoqiang shook his head. "There's no hurry. I am more interested in having a talk with Qiu Luoye. His contract is still under the Inner Provinces's control, after all. I have also heard that the Border Control Office has been making some moves. It sounds like they are coming after me."

Zhong Huaien already knew about this and had been about to bring it up. "Commissioner Liao sent someone to the Pure Conduct Society. He wants to meet with you."

Chu Shaoqiang refused without hesitation. "No! And a word of advice. You would be better off keeping your distance from him. You must have heard something about my past."

Zhong Huaien scratched his cheek. "But our teacher said that if we are going to reclaim our territory, we can't do it without the Border Control Office's support."

Chu Shaoqiang shook his head with a smile. "The Border Control Office won't support you. The only one who can help you is Inner Provinces."

"But our teacher said..." Zhong Huaien scratched harder at his cheek. One by one, clear, glistening blisters slowly began to rise across his face.

Chu Shaoqiang frowned and quickly rose from the sofa, putting some distance between himself and Zhong Huaien. "Have you met Greenwater Beggar?"

Zhong Huaien shook his head in bewilderment. "No. I did as you told me and kept away from him."

"Looks like you didn't keep far enough away!" Chu Shaoqiang prepared to leave the Western-style house at once.

Only then did Zhong Huaien realize that he might have fallen victim to one of Greenwater Beggar's abilities. He hurried after Chu Shaoqiang. "Mr. Chu, what should I do? Is there any way to cure the disease Greenwater Beggar gave me?"

Chu Shaoqiang offered him a solution. "Steam yourself over boiling water for a few hours. That should take care of it."

"Steam myself?" Zhong Huaien shook his head. "I wouldn't survive that. My cultivation isn't high enough."

Chu Shaoqiang kept as much distance from Zhong Huaien as he could. "I was talking to the robe you are wearing."

The white robe immediately slipped off Zhong Huaien and hurried into the kitchen to dip himself in some boiling water.

***

Wan Jinxian got in touch with He Jiaqing. "Jiaqing, Greenwater Beggar wants to work with us."

"Greenwater Beggar? Isn't he a lackey of the Inner Provinces? Why would he possibly want to work with us?" He Jiaqing said. He was out delivering food on an electric scooter. Several nearby residential complexes were bustling with human auras.

"He's fallen out with Inner Provinces. Inner Provinces sent Chu Shaoqiang over, and it looks like they are about to fight."

"Wasn't Chu Shaoqiang dead?"

"How could Li Qi possibly have dealings with Chu Shaoqiang? What has he been busy with lately?" He Jiaqing asked as he suspected that Wan Jinxian's information was wrong.

"Li Qi has been busy with land activation. He went back to Greenwater City last night, and someone saw him enter the He Family's residence. He Yuxiu personally welcomed him inside, and he didn't come out until the next morning."

Clang!

He Jiaqing slammed into the curb. His delivery box toppled over, scattering the food all across the road.

Wan Jinxian was still waiting for an answer. "Jiaqing, what should we do about Greenwater Beggar?"

"Keep him hanging for now. Don't give him a definite answer. I will decide after I have looked into this properly."

He Jiaqing cut off the connection and stood beside his electric scooter. "Shameless! The two of them are absolutely shameless! Don't they know there's a whole generation between them? Fucking shameless!"

His phone kept chiming with alerts. This delivery is overdue.

***

Zhong Huaien made his way to Medicine King Gully and into the depths of the mountains, where Old Mister Yao lived. He knew something had happened to Yao Xin, and he also knew Xu Han was staying there.

It was Chu Shaoqiang who had told him to come. If Zhong Huaien wanted to live, he would have to seek out the founding cultivator of the Gold Cultivation path. If Xu Han was willing to help him, there might still be a chance to save his life.

When Old Mister Xu saw the blisters covering Zhong Huaien from head to toe, he frowned. "Child, were you struck by one of Greenwater Beggar's abilities?"

Zhong Huaien burst into tears. "I am just an ordinary resident of Greenwater City. The other day, I ran into a beggar covered in festering sores. I even gave him some money, but after I went home, I ended up like this. Later, a powerful cultivator told me that if I came to Medicine King Gully and paid you a visit, there might still be a chance to save my life. That's why I..."

Xu Han cut Zhong Huaien off. "Child, don't rush. Let's get this straight first. You said you are an ordinary citizen, but you don't look much like one to me. If I am not mistaken, you are a disciple from Sage's Peak, aren't you?"

Seeing that his identity had been exposed, Zhong Huaien did not dare deny it. "Senior Xu, I know there's some bad blood between you and my teacher. I really don't know anything about what happened between the two of you. Please be generous and save my life."

Zhong Huaien dropped to his knees. This was something he had plenty of practice doing on Sage's Peak. Kneeling for several days and nights would have been no issue at all.

Xu Han hurriedly helped him back to his feet. "Whatever happened between us old fellows has nothing to do with a child like you. Now that you have come all this way, how could I simply stand by and watch you die? Stay here for a couple of days. Once I have finished what I am working on, I will prepare some medicine for you."

Zhong Huaien remained kneeling on the ground. "Old Mister Xu, I can't wait that long. The itching is so unbearable I can barely stand being alive."

Old Mister Xu had no choice. He got to work at once and prepared an enormous barrel of golden juice for Zhong Huaien.

"Here, child. Soak in this for three days and you will be cured."

Soak... in this? Zhong Huaien found this rather difficult to accept.

Xu Han frowned. "Child, you are here to be cured. This is hardly the time to be picky. If you can't endure even this much, how do you expect to survive?"

Zhong Huaien gritted his teeth, stripped off his clothes, and climbed into the barrel, submerging his entire body in the golden juice.

"That's right. Now lower your head a little more and put your mouth and nose under as well. When you need to breathe, lift your nose out of the water, but whatever you do, keep your mouth submerged."

With his voice bubbling through the liquid, Zhong Huaien struggled to ask, "Will this really cure me?"

"You came to see me. Do you not trust me?" Old Mister Xu said. "Stay here and soak for a while, child. I will head up the mountain and gather a few more medicinal herbs for you."

Old Mister Xu stepped out of the courtyard, let out a soft sigh, and muttered to himself, "Why does the world have such a distorted perception of me? Why does everyone think I am a good person?"

Author's Note:

PS: Zhong Huaien, the proudest disciple under the Sage, found himself sinking ever deeper into his golden dream.