The Overlord of Puluo

Li Banfeng turned the remote control over in his hands and examined it several times.

It was not that he lacked the nerve to try it. He simply could not tell what changes the Pocket Dwelling had made. More importantly, he had no idea whether its new function was what he needed.

"You know what this is used for?"

"To cross roads," the Pocket Dwelling replied.

"You know what kind of road I need to cross?"

"Why wouldn't I know? Wherever you go, I go with you."

"This thing can open a path through the regional border?"

"Half a minute each time, once a day."

Li Banfeng considered this for a moment. "You're talking about this device, right?"

"What else could I mean? This device is ingeniously made, but with the materials available, this was as far as I could modify it. Go and test it. Whether it works is another matter."

Li Banfeng took out a paper effigy and dripped a little blood onto it. After leaving the Pocket Dwelling, he stopped near the regional border and pulled the lever.

He guided the paper effigy across the border. It passed through without suffering any damage.

It worked! The Pocket Dwelling is really capable! Who would have thought a train could be so skilled at craftsmanship?

The remote remained active for only thirty seconds, and it took twenty seconds for the paper effigy to cross the border. Li Banfeng did not hesitate any longer and rushed across the regional border.

Ten seconds later, the device clicked, and the lever returned to its original position. When Li Banfeng tried to pull it again, it would not move.

Li Banfeng could hardly believe it. He had crossed Puluo Province's supposedly impassable border just like that.

As long as the remote remained intact, he would be able to travel freely through most of Puluo Province without worrying about travel permits.

Blackstone Slope lay behind him, while Soda Kiln, the neighboring region, stretched out ahead.

Li Banfeng carefully put the remote away, lowered the brim of his hat, and disappeared into the night.

***

Soda Kiln was a town roughly the same size as Medicine King Gully.

Its name had always stood out to Li Banfeng. Back at the newspaper office, he had once asked Little Chuan how the town had gotten its name. According to Little Chuan, the soda there was exceptionally good.

Li Banfeng reached the town at daybreak and was greeted by a rich, sweet fragrance. It was the smell of soda. Despite the early hour, quite a few soda stalls were already open.

Li Banfeng took a seat at one of the stalls, and the woman running it asked what flavor of soda he wanted.

Orange, grape, and snow melon were among the choices. Every soda sold here was made entirely from artificial flavoring and contained no natural fruit juice whatsoever. Yet somehow, the people of Soda Kiln had perfected the craft, and their concoctions were especially delicious.

Li Banfeng ordered two bottles of grape soda, along with the stall's signature set meal: two authentic Ingris sausages, a plate of authentic Greenwater City pork head meat, a serving of spicy cabbage prepared according to Soda Kiln's traditional recipe, and a bowl of the stall's house-special plain congee.

Was it really suitable to eat all of that together? Li Banfeng thought it was. The portions were generous and filling, the flavors were rich, and the meal was not greasy at all.

As Li Banfeng ate, he chatted with the woman running the stall and asked how Soda Kiln had gotten its name. As it turned out, the name originally had nothing to do with soda.

"Soda Kiln was the town that built the first boiler in Puluo Province. Inside a boiler, water turns into steam, then the steam condenses back into water. That cycle is the foundation of the steam engine. Every household in Soda Kiln had steam power before Blackstone Slope did. If the people over there weren't so good at business, we would be living far better than them!

"Later on, our town became more famous and someone came here and started selling soda. Then, they made up some nonsense about Soda Kiln being the birthplace of the drink. Our steam engines never improved much after that, but the soda kept getting better. Locals loved it, and so did visitors. Soon, soda stalls were everywhere, and people began claiming the town had been named after the drink. Tell me, isn't that nothing but a rumor?[1]"

The woman running the stall looked no older than twenty-five or twenty-six, but once she began talking about Soda Kiln's history, she could hardly stop. When she noticed that Li Banfeng was nearly finished with his meal, she gave him another bottle of soda simply to keep him there a little longer.

After breakfast, Li Banfeng went back to the Pocket Dwelling and slept until evening. He then bought a map and wandered through the streets.

By that hour, even more soda stalls had opened. As Li Banfeng considered where to have dinner, he soon found himself passing the same stall where he had eaten that morning.

The young woman spotted him and eagerly called him over. Before he could sit down, a voice came from nearby. "My friend, don't be in such a hurry. Allow me to say a few words."

Li Banfeng turned and saw a man sitting by the roadside. He wore a long black cloth robe and a small round cap, with a goatee on his chin and a rosewood folding fan in his hand.

A square table stood before him, with a banner hanging beside it. Four bold lines were written across the cloth:

Past and future, both laid bare,

Endless turns of fate made clear.

Fortune, ruin, joy, and woe,

All foretold before they show.

This was a fortune teller.

The woman running the stall coughed a few times, warning Li Banfeng not to interact with him.

Li Banfeng walked over to the fortune teller. "Were you calling me?"

The fortune teller nodded. "First time in Soda Kiln?"

"It is really my first time," Li Banfeng answered honestly

The fortune teller counted on his fingers for a moment, then suddenly frowned. "You shouldn't have come here."

Li Banfeng was shocked. "Why not?"

"You are destined to encounter a dangerous calamity and it awaits you here in Soda Kiln. Now that you have come, you have already walked straight into it. Bloodshed is inevitable."

"What does that mean? It sounds rather frightening." Li Banfeng clasped his hands together and squatted on the ground, putting on an honest, guileless expression.

The fortune teller asked, "Did you come here to visit family or a friend?"

"A friend."

"Are the two of you close?"

"Very close. We have been through life and death together more than once!"

The fortune teller snapped his folding fan shut. "You are here to collect a debt, aren't you?"

Li Banfeng looked genuinely taken aback. "Collect a debt? No, I came to repay a favor."

"That's not what your fortune says. You came here to collect a debt." The fortune teller set out a sheet of paper and handed him a brush. "Write a character."

He wanted to read Li Banfeng's fortune with character divination.

Li Banfeng asked cautiously, "How much does character divination cost?"

"Not a single coin." The fortune teller waved a hand. "I am not after your money. You strike me as a man who values loyalty, so I want to help you avert this calamity."

"As long as it's free." Li Banfeng nodded repeatedly, then wrote the character "相"[2] on the paper.

The fortune teller's expression grew even graver when he saw the character. "This is a sign of terrible misfortune. I can practically smell blood through the paper."

"What smell? I don't smell anything." Li Banfeng looked increasingly nervous.

"Look closely at the character. The radical for 'wood' stands beside the one for 'eye.' It means bloodshed is already looming before your eyes."

Li Banfeng looked puzzled. "It's just the character for wood. How does it mean bloodshed?"

"If a splinter from a piece of wood pricked your hand, wouldn't you bleed?"

"Of course I would."

"And if a wooden pole went straight into your eye, wouldn't that kill you?"

"That would definitely kill me!"

The fortune teller nodded. "That's why I said you came to collect a debt. The moment you entered Soda Kiln, your friend's life was already in danger."

Li Banfeng broke into a cold sweat. He wiped his face and stood up. "Then I will leave."

"It's too late." The fortune teller gave a long sigh. "You have already crossed paths with the calamity. Your friend will not escape it."

"No, that can't happen!" Li Banfeng clasped his hands together and squatted down once more. His voice trembled as though he were on the verge of tears. "I came here to repay a kindness. How could I end up getting my friend killed?"

"What a sincere and loyal man. People like you are rare these days." The fortune teller nodded. "Since fate has brought us together, I will spend half a lifetime of cultivation if that is what it takes to find a way out of this. First, tell me your friend's name and where he lives."

"I don't know his name."

The fortune teller stared at him. "What do you mean? Didn't you say the two of you had been through life and death together?"

"We have. He once placed his life in my hands so I could settle a matter that had weighed on me for years."

Words Chiseled in Stone only worked when Li Banfeng mixed some truth into his lies. This statement he just said was true.

The fortune teller felt even more confused. "Then how can you share such a deep bond without even knowing his name?"

Li Banfeng wiped away his tears. "He wouldn't tell me. He only said he was a chancellor of the jianghu. The word for 'chancellor' is zaixiang[3], so I wrote the character xiang. He also said he lived in Soda Kiln."

At those words, the fortune teller fell silent for a moment. "Chancellor of the jianghu" was what the members of the Jiangxiang Gang would call themselves.

The fortune teller asked, "How old is your friend, and what does he look like?"

"He's in his fifties, rather thin, and somewhat dark-skinned. He speaks gently and treats people kindly."

The fortune teller fell into a deep thought.

There did seem to be someone at the local branch who fit that description, but it was far too vague to tell who Li Banfeng meant. That was only natural. Li Banfeng had not mentioned a single distinctive feature, and half the men on the street could have matched what he had said.

The fortune teller wrestled with the question. Was the man Li Banfeng had described really one of his fellow gang members?

After thinking it over for some time, he studied Li Banfeng's honest, harmless expression and decided to do this business anyway.

"I will cast a hexagram and see whether I can help you find your friend. How do you plan to return the favor when you see him?"

Li Banfeng continued telling the truth. "I brought quite a few valuable things with me, but I can't tell you what they are. Once I find my friend, I will give them all to him. I will make sure you get a share too."

"Heaven takes pity on kindhearted men. I will help you with this." The fortune teller brought out his counting rods and asked for Li Banfeng's birth date and hour.

Li Banfeng had no idea when he had been born, so he made up a detailed answer from beginning to end.

Once the divination calculation was complete, the fortune teller packed up his stall at once. "Come with me. I have divined where your friend is. Whether we can save him now depends on the fate you two share."

When the woman at the soda stall saw Li Banfeng preparing to follow the fortune teller, she grew anxious. She wanted to stop him, but did not dare say a word.

The fortune teller led Li Banfeng through the streets and alleys, chatting with him along the way and repeatedly praising him for his loyalty.

This was one of the Jiangxiang Gang's standard scam routines, carried out in six stages: observe, probe, intimidate, deceive, flatter, and sell.

"Observe" meant studying the target's words, expressions, and behavior. Li Banfeng kept looking around as he walked, so the fortune teller quickly judged that he was not from Soda Kiln.

"Probe" meant asking indirect questions to draw out useful information. Although the two men had only just met, the fortune teller had already learned quite a lot about Li Banfeng.

"Intimidate" meant frightening the mark by insisting that disaster was inevitable. Once those first three stages were complete, the trap had been properly set.

Only then did the real con begin.

"Deceive" meant taking unrelated details and presenting them as though they were connected. The character divination was part of this stage.

"Flatter" meant praising Li Banfeng until he lowered his guard and began to trust the fortune teller.

"Sell" meant promoting the fortune teller's own abilities and convincing the target that only he could provide the solution. Once that final stage was complete, the deal was done.

As they walked, Li Banfeng nodded along to everything the fortune teller said, appearing to believe every word. As far as the fortune teller was concerned, the fish had taken the bait.

The only thing the fortune teller still needed to confirm was whether Li Banfeng was really a friend of someone at the branch.

If he was, the fortune teller would leave him to that fellow member. No target, however profitable, was worth causing friction within the gang. But if no one at the branch knew him, the fortune teller would have no reason to hold back. If Li Banfeng left with even a single copper coin, it would mean he had failed to master his trade.

When they reached a narrow alley, the fortune teller performed another divination calculation on his fingers.

"Wait here. The calamity lies just ahead. I'll go and see whether your friend has been caught up in it."

Li Banfeng clasped his hands together and waited obediently in the alley.

The fortune teller left through the far end, turned into another lane, and entered a private residence that served as the branch headquarters.

Inside, the branch master was disciplining two female members. The Jiangxiang Gang ran a scheme known as "releasing white doves," which used women to lure men into surrendering their money. Zhou Yujuan, the owner of Elysian Melody Dancehall and the Threaded Earring's former host, had started out in that line of work.

The two women had gone half a month without managing to fool a single man out of so much as a copper coin. The branch master considered this a disgraceful waste of perfectly good scheming, so both women were now stretched facedown across a long, wide, backless wooden bench, receiving a thorough whipping under the gang's rules.

The fortune teller hurried forward with his report. "Branch Master, there's a man outside looking for a friend. He says the friend is part of our gang, and that the two of them have been through life and death together."

"He came here looking for one of us? And they're supposed to have a life-and-death bond? You must be spouting some nonsense?"

The fortune teller was about to explain when Li Banfeng spoke from nearby. "Branch Master, I wasn't lying. Our bond really was forged through life and death. They gave me their lives personally.

"I brought plenty of good things for all of you today, so don't be impatient. We are all friends here. Everyone will get a share."

Li Banfeng pulled out his sickle.

At once, the Tang Saber rose into the air. The Liquor Gourd moved to his left, the Pendulum took the right, and the Glove went to the entrance and shut the door.

***

Ten minutes later, Li Banfeng emerged with one arm around the fortune teller, helping him along.

"Now, now, don't cry. I told you nothing but the truth. Those men and I really did share a bond forged through life and death. I came here to wipe out your gang, and every last one of them gave up his life to help me fulfill that wish. What could be deeper than that?"

As they passed the soda stall, Li Banfeng even raised a hand in greeting.

The woman at the soda stall had no idea what was going on. She had never expected the two men to end up talking so earnestly.

Li Banfeng went on soothing the fortune teller in the gentlest voice imaginable.

"You really are a marvelous fortune teller. I am not flattering you. I mean every word. Those fellows back at the branch were all dear friends of mine, and every last one of them handed his life over to me.

"I am sure there are plenty more good friends waiting at your hall. Take me there and introduce us. You saw all the lovely things I brought. I prepared them especially for your people, and I even saved a little something for you.

"Now, what did I tell you about crying? Look at you. If you carry on like this, people will think I have done something dreadful. Dry your eyes, and wipe the blood off your face as well."

***

After wiping out two branches of people, Li Banfeng reached the main hall that Jiangxiang Gang had set up at Soda Kiln.

This time, he did not charge straight inside. He waited until late at night before making his move.

The fortune teller had warned him that a high-level Artificer Cultivator was stationed there, someone particularly skilled at building mechanical traps. He had even drawn Li Banfeng a map marking out a supposedly safe route, though Li Banfeng had no idea whether any of it was true.

Li Banfeng had no intention of testing the route himself. First, he used the Music Box to put the guards and lookouts to sleep. Then he took two paper effigies from the Pocket Dwelling and sent them along the marked path.

The fortune teller had told the truth. The route was indeed safe.

Li Banfeng entered the courtyard of the main hall. It was the tail end of autumn, with winter already breathing down everyone's neck, and the night was bitterly cold. Naturally, Li Banfeng began to worry that the hall master and his men might catch a chill. The considerate thing, he decided, would be to set the place on fire.

He was still searching for the most suitable spot when the Threaded Earring whispered, "Master, I hear something."

Clang! Clang!

It was the sound of metal clashing with metal and it seemed to be coming from underground.

Down in the dungeon, He Yuxiu was covered in wounds and bound tightly in chains.

The chains were made of some unusual material, and no matter how hard she struggled, she could not break free. With no other way out, she threw herself against the iron door again and again.

"You dog-bred bastards!" she snarled through clenched teeth. "As long as I have one breath left, I will fight every last one of you to the end!"

Author's Note:

PS: Shen Jingye had previously said that he planned to use the Jiangxiang Gang to kill He Yuxiu. It turned out he had already put that plan into action.

1. In Chinese, the word for Soda 汽水 (qìshuǐ) is made up of the characters for 'steam' and 'water. The joke is that the town's name originally treated the two characters literally, as steam + water, referring to the cycle inside a boiler. Later, people interpreted 汽水 (qìshuǐ) as the complete modern word soda. ☜

2. This 相 character is read as xiang. It is the same xiang in Jiangxiang Gang. It is formed with the character 木 (mu), which means wood, and the character 目 (mu), which means eyes or sight. ☜

3. Zaixiang is written as 宰相 ☜