The Overlord of Puluo

Li Banfeng took He Yuxiu to an inn and booked a room. He gave the attendant an extra banknote and asked for a large basin of clean water. The attendant hurried off and soon returned with one.

The Liquor Gourd spoke to He Yuxiu. "Take off your clothes and sit in the water for a while. I will neutralize the poison and mend your wounds."

He Yuxiu did not move. She sat there with a dull, distant look in her eyes.

Li Banfeng could hear the voices of enchanted artifacts and speak to them directly because of his ability Perceiving the Spirit's Melody. But could other cultivators do the same?

They could, though it depended on their cultivation path and level. Cultivation paths with sharper senses were better at it, and the higher a cultivator's level, the more they could understand an enchanted artifact.

Martial Cultivators were not known for having particularly keen senses, but He Yuxiu had reached the level eight. At this cultivation level, even if she could not hold a proper conversation with an enchanted artifact, she would have been able to sense at least a few of its thoughts.

He Yuxiu, however, could not sense a thing. This simply was not one of her talents.

She had tried very hard in the past. Unfortunately, every attempt had ended with her losing her temper and smashing several enchanted artifacts to pieces. Not once had she managed to speak to any of them.

So she did not hear a single word that the Liquor Gourd said and Li Banfeng had to tell her, "Sit in the water for a while. This big sis will tend to your wounds."

Then he pulled his hat lower over his face and left the room.

"Big sis?" He Yuxiu looked at the Liquor Gourd. He called this Liquor Gourd big sis?

The Liquor Gourd tugged at the front of her clothes, motioning for her to take them off.

The blood had dried and stuck the fabric to her wounds. He Yuxiu tore the clothes away by force, leaving herself covered in fresh blood. Then she lowered herself into the basin.

The Liquor Gourd slowly poured liquor into the water. It hurt terribly, but He Yuxiu was tough and did not make a sound.

Before long, the wounds had been cleaned. The Liquor Gourd then gave He Yuxiu another two mouthfuls of liquor.

This liquor was quite different from what she had drunk before. The moment it went down, her stomach began to churn violently, and she felt as though she was about to vomit.

She certainly couldn't vomit into the basin. He Yuxiu tried to climb out, but her legs had gone soft, and for a long while she couldn't get up.

The Liquor Gourd gave a little wobble toward the door, asking whether she should call Li Banfeng back in.

He Yuxiu hesitated. The very thought made her feel far too embarrassed, so she gritted her teeth, struggled out of the wooden basin, found a bucket, and vomited into that instead.

Weird. Why do I feel embarrassed today?

Even He Yuxiu couldn't figure out why she was feeling embarrassed.

Once she had emptied her stomach completely, she climbed back into the basin and soaked for a while longer. The water had been pale red before, but it gradually turned a murky blue-black.

That was the poison seeping out into the water.

After soaking for more than an hour, seventy or eighty percent of the poison had been cleared from He Yuxiu's body. The Liquor Gourd gave her another mouthful of liquor, and she lay down on the bed and fell asleep.

The Liquor Gourd went to the room next door to update Li Banfeng, only to find that he was not there at all.

Li Banfeng had gone back to the Pocket Dwelling to divide the spoils with Glove.

There were plenty of valuable things in the base of the Soda Kiln Hall. The two of them crouched in the third room and went through the valuables piece by piece. They both knew there was something unusual about that room, so anything that seemed like the sort of thing the train might like went straight to the Pocket Dwelling.

Glove spat out two chests of banknotes first. Li Banfeng gave them a rough count and found that there were more than seven hundred thousand.

Then Glove spat out a chest full of silver dollars and Li Banfeng could not be bothered to count them.

"It's all yours," he said to the glove.

"Thank you, Boss!" Glove cried happily, then spat out a length of chain.

It was the chain that had been used to shackle He Yuxiu in the dungeon. Anything strong enough to hold a level-eight Martial Cultivator was a treasure indeed.

Li Banfeng was about to take a closer look when the Pocket Dwelling promptly swallowed it up.

"The quality is not that good, but I suppose I can make do with it," said the Pocket Dwelling.

Li Banfeng did not know much about how trains worked. Could an iron chain really be of any use to a steam train?

Glove consoled him. "Boss, since the house took it, it is not like we lost anything. I have other good things here."

It spat out a hammer. The hammer had a spirit of its own and could move by itself. Li Banfeng had expected the Pocket Dwelling to take it too, but the house seemed to look down on it.

"The crafting that made this hammer was too bad. Leave it for that girl."

Which girl? Li Banfeng thought and gave the Gramophone the hammer.

Huff...

The Gramophone let out a puff of steam and sang slowly, "Heyaaaa~ Husband dear, your little wife knows a thing or two about work that calls for a bit of muscle."

Using her needle, she removed a wooden beam from the windmill gramophone, fastened it to the hammer, and tucked the whole thing into her front compartment.

Seeing that the mistress liked the tools, Glove eagerly spat out everything else it had taken: pliers, screwdrivers, saws, chisels, and adzes. The Gramophone accepted them all.

There were still some glass marbles left and the Glove spat them out too. "Boss, these are some good concealed weapons. Scatter them under someone's feet, and they will never see the fall coming."

Li Banfeng had noticed it too. There was definitely something unusual about those glass marbles. He reached down to pick one up, but before he could touch it, the entire pile clattered across the floor and rolled into the third room.

By the time Li Banfeng followed them inside, the Pocket Dwelling had already swallowed them all.

Li Banfeng stared at the floor. "Oldie! What do you want with those?"

"To relieve my boredom."

The answer caught Li Banfeng completely by surprise.

With everything taken care of, he left the Pocket Dwelling, summoned the Liquor Gourd back to his side, and slept through the night.

The Jiangxiang Gang's hall at the Soda Kiln had been wiped out. The Border Control Office would probably make his move soon.

Li Banfeng was not worried about that. He was confident he could escape since his movement was no longer restricted by the border. As for He Yuxiu, there was even less reason to worry. She was bound to have methods of her own.

Though the chances were slim, even the most capable person could suffer an unexpected setback. Regardless, He Yuxiu was still the head of the He Family and what mattered was finding out how she had ended up being captured.

By dusk the next day, He Yuxiu had regained consciousness. Most of her external injuries had healed, and although some poison still lingered in her body, it no longer affected her greatly.

She found Li Banfeng and shamelessly asked him for a favor. "All my money was stolen. Could you buy me something to wear?"

Her clothes had been torn to shreds and were still covered in blood, so she could hardly go outside looking like that.

This was a hard task. The money was not the problem. Finding something that fit her was.

He Yuxiu was a tall, big woman, and she had such a generous "heart" that ordinary clothes were quite unable to hold it. And if her "heart" was difficult to fit, her bottom was an even greater problem. The plump cheeks were already threatening to pop straight out of her torn clothes.

Li Banfeng went to a few clothing stores before he finally found a set of men's clothes large enough for He Yuxiu to wear for the time being.

She put on a checked shirt and a pale beige suit, then tucked all her hair neatly beneath a felt hat. Strangely enough, she looked even more dashing and spirited than most men did.

He Yuxiu went rather red in the face. "I... well... I am hungry. Could you perhaps buy me a meal?"

He Yuxiu was terribly particular about saving face.

Since going out to eat might attract too much attention, Li Banfeng asked an attendant to prepare some food and liquor and bring it up to the room.

The Soda Kiln was famous not only for its excellent soda, but also for its rich, fragrant liquor. The smell made the Liquor Gourd wriggle eagerly against Li Banfeng's side.

Li Banfeng gave the gourd a pat, letting her know she could drink to her heart's content. From then on, most of the liquor he poured into his own bowl was secretly drunk by the Liquor Gourd.

After several bowls of liquor, He Yuxiu seemed to have regained much of her energy. She looked at Li Banfeng and said, "Brother Li Qi, you saved my life. I really don't know how I can ever repay such kindness."

Li Banfeng shook his head. "Saving your life was no small favor. You cannot simply mention repaying me in a few words and call it sincere."

He Yuxiu said, "Then what do you want me to do?"

Li Banfeng looked at He Yuxiu with a faint smile. "We should make this a little more serious."

He Yuxiu chose her words carefully. "Are you saying you want to sleep with me?"

Li Banfeng waved a hand. "We can't! Because we are from different generations. How about this instead? Let us become sworn siblings."

He Yuxiu froze. "And being of a different generation shouldn't be taken into consideration when becoming sworn siblings?

Li Banfeng said, "Once we become sworn siblings, the fact that you rank above me in the generational hierarchy should not matter anymore. I saved your life and this is more important than anything else. If you are still going to fuss over seniority after that, how can you claim that you want to repay me?"

He Yuxiu found herself in a real muddle. When Lu Chunying would call her Sister Yuxiu, she would happily answer.

However, becoming sworn siblings was quite another matter. This was not merely a pleasant way of addressing one another. In Puluo Province, such an oath was taken very seriously indeed. Once it was done, the two of them would truly stand as equals in the family hierarchy.

Still, Li Banfeng had saved her life, and beside a debt like that, this seemed a very small thing to fuss over.

So He Yuxiu made up her mind. The two of them burned yellow paper there and then and swore themselves brother and sister.

Li Banfeng said, "Yuxiu, from today onward, I am your elder brother."

"Of course. I suppose that makes us..." He Yuxiu suddenly stopped. "Wait a moment! You are the elder brother? How old are you to be calling yourself my elder brother?"

Li Banfeng picked up the liquor jar. "I saved your life. That is a tremendous debt. Compared with something like that, what is a little matter such as age?"

"Absolutely not!" He Yuxiu protested. "You are taking far too much advantage of me!"

"Yuxiu, have some more liquor first and listen while I explain. You will not lose out by having me as your elder brother. The truth is that you do not even know how old I really am. Now, let us start by talking about the fact that I saved your life..."

Don't know how old you are? But don't you and Ma Wu call each other brothers? Will I really not suffer consequences from this? The more He Yuxiu thought about it, the more tangled up she became.

***

Of the two jars of liquor, one and a half had been emptied. He Yuxiu had drunk most of it, while nearly everything that remained had gone to the Liquor Gourd.

The Liquor Gourd sighed to herself. The liquor from the Soda Kiln was certainly strong stuff!

A rosy flush had spread across He Yuxiu's face. She thumped a hand against her generous "heart" and looked solemnly at Li Banfeng. "Big Bro Qi, I owe you my life. From now on, your business is my business. Even if I have to climb a mountain of blades or cross a sea of fire, this little sister of yours will not hesitate for a moment!"

"Splendid! Yuxiu, that is exactly the sort of spirit I admire!" Li Banfeng praised her and poured her another bowl of liquor.

He Yuxiu took a large gulp and went on, "Erm... there is something we should discuss. Your little sister has spent many years making a name for herself in the jianghu. I feel a little embarrassed to call you Big Bro Qi in front of everyone.

"How about this? When we are alone, I will call you Big Bro Qi, and you can call me Little Sis. But when other people are around, maybe you can make a small sacrifice of calling me Big Sis instead. What do you think?"

Li Banfeng nodded. "You just said you have spent years fighting your way through the jianghu. How did you end up falling into the Jiangxiang Gang's hands?"

"What a bloody humiliation! The whole thing is downright shameful!

"Last night, you said I got some balls, and I told you I did not. I meant it. I came out here because I was fleeing for my life. Running away was humiliating enough, and then I suffered such a humiliating setback here," He Yuxiu said.

She lit a cigarette and rested a hand against her forehead as she continued explaining what had happened. "I offended the Border Control Office, and every one of my family's businesses was shut down. We finally managed to get them back, but Ma Wu was afraid the Border Control Office would wait until later to retaliate, so he told me to hide in the New Land for a while.

"I could not stand staying there. The very thought of the place made me feel stifled, so I decided to hide at the Soda Kiln instead. It was more remote, and I had cultivated there for several years, so I had some familiarity and some connections in the area.

"I even changed my identity and disguised myself. I did not dare bring a single piece of equipment with me. I bought a hard-seat ticket and made my way to the Soda Kiln as carefully as I could.

"After I got off the train, I went to see an old friend. We had already agreed that he would arrange somewhere for me to stay.

"Who would have thought that bastard would sell me out? That very night, people came after me.

"This little sister of yours is not exaggerating. There were more than a hundred of them surrounding me, and every last one had decent cultivation. Even so, I fought my way out through a trail of blood."

She had actually managed to fight her way out while more than a hundred cultivators attacked her at once!

Li Banfeng had no doubt that she had fought her way free despite being surrounded by more than a hundred cultivators.

From what he had seen of He Yuxiu's strength the night before, she was among the strongest eighth-level cultivators he had ever encountered.

However, gathering more than a hundred cultivators for a single attack was no ordinary feat. There was no doubt that the Border Control Office had been behind it.

He Yuxiu took another drink before continuing. "I lost all my enchanted artifacts, and my travel permit was gone too, but none of that really mattered. At least I managed to keep myself alive.

"I fought and ran for two days and two nights before I finally shook them off. I had nothing to eat or drink the entire time, and by then I was starving and nearly dying of thirst. So I found a soda stall and tried to get something into my stomach.

"I did not dare go anywhere crowded, so I picked a quiet, out-of-the-way place. And who should I run into but those bastards from the Jiangxiang Gang? They knocked me out with just a few bottles of soda.

"I survived all those great dangers, only to be brought down by some lowlife selling soda. Tell me that is not bloody humiliating! Big Bro Qi, you must never tell anyone about this. Your little sister could not bear the shame."

Li Banfeng shook his head when he heard that. "Little Sis, there is nothing shameful about it."

He Yuxiu looked up. "Those birdbrains tricked me, and you are saying that is not embarrassing?"

Li Banfeng asked, "Have you ever read Romance of the Three Kingdoms?"

He Yuxiu shook her head. "I have never read the book, but I have heard storytellers perform a few parts of it."

Li Banfeng smiled. "You know who Lü Bu was, do you not?"

"Of course. He was the greatest fighter in the Three Kingdoms!"

"How did Lü Bu die?"

"At White Gate Tower. His own men tied him up and handed him over to Cao Cao."

"And what were those men called?"

He Yuxiu blinked and shook her head. "I cannot remember their names."

"Zhang Fei was known as a warrior worth ten thousand men. How did he die?"

"He was killed by his own subordinates too."

"What were their names?"

He Yuxiu scratched her head but could not answer.

"You do not remember, do you?" Li Banfeng went on. "Then how did Guan Yu die?"

He Yuxiu thought for a moment. "I remember someone brought him down with a horse-tripping rope."

"Who set the ropes?"

He Yuxiu stared at him with wide eyes. "How would I know?"

"Exactly! Neither do I!" Li Banfeng said with a serious expression. "Plenty of heroes have been brought down by some petty mishap, but that never stopped them from being heroes.

"Yuxiu, you fought your way out after more than a hundred cultivators surrounded you. That makes you a hero. By the time you fell into their trap, you were already exhausted and at the end of your strength. There is nothing shameful about that."

He Yuxiu lowered her head. "I am only afraid people will laugh at me. I cannot go around telling everyone that it happened because I fought my way out from more than a hundred men. If I keep saying that, they would just laugh at me even more."

Li Banfeng looked at her. "Let them laugh. If they do it behind our backs, we will not hear a thing, so they can laugh as much as they like. But if anyone dare to laugh in our faces, we will knock out their front teeth and see how much laughing they can do then."

He Yuxiu held her bowl of liquor and studied Li Qi carefully.

She was not good with words, and there were some things she simply could not explain. Still, for some reason, she no longer felt that calling him Brother Seven put her at any disadvantage.

"Yuxiu, what do you plan to do next?"

He Yuxiu thought for a moment. "I will go to the New Land. The He Family owns some land in the New Land near Soda Kiln. Ma Wu was right. The New Land is the only place where I can hide."

"Someone betrayed you in the Soda Kiln. What makes you think no one will betray you in the New Land?" Li Banfeng said. "Go back to Greenwater City instead. We will return openly with our heads held high."

"Openly?" He Yuxiu looked at him. "You mean we simply buy train tickets to Greenwater City? I doubt we would even make it inside the station."

Li Banfeng shook his head. "How can we buy tickets? Does the He Family not have a private train? Call it over and have it take the head of the family home!"

He Yuxiu stared at him in astonishment. "Wouldn't that be too much of a spectacle?"

"You scared?"

He Yuxiu fell silent for a moment, then drained her bowl in one gulp. "I will do as you say. I am not afraid!"

Li Banfeng nodded. "That is more like it. The two of us should go back in proper style!"

It was certainly a fine and proper way to return, but would they survive it?

"Big Bro Qi, I lost all my enchanted artifacts when I was fighting, and I cannot contact my family now. As for the others, I don't dare to trust them anymore."

"I will figure out a way."

Li Banfeng contacted Luo Zhengnan and asked him to pass a message to Ma Wu. Ma Wu was to contact the He Family and have their private train leave at once for the Soda Kiln to bring the head of the family home.

Ma Wu could not understand what Li Banfeng was thinking. Doing this might get He Yuxiu killed.

After considering it for a moment, however, he contacted the He Family.

The He Family immediately dispatched their private train, sending more than a hundred support hooks, large and small, to escort the head of the family back home.

The train departed that same day and was expected to reach the Soda Kiln three days later.

The He Family's support hooks were prepared to fight to the death. They had even prepared for the possibility of being attacked aboard the train.

When the Border Control Office received the news, they understood at once that He Yuxiu was openly challenging them.

They ordered the Jiangxiang Gang to hunt He Yuxiu down with everything they had. Whether they brought back a living woman or a corpse, the Border Control Office expected results within three days.

The hall at Soda Kiln had already been wiped out, so the Border Control Office transferred a large number of men from the other halls.

The Border Control Office's orders were perfectly clear. He Yuxiu was to die at the Soda Kiln. Under no circumstances could she be allowed to board the private train back to Greenwater City, and the whole affair had to be handled in complete secrecy.

Even with the Border Control Office supporting them from the shadows, this was no easy task for the Jiangxiang Gang.

The best men from several halls had already arrived, and they were using every method possible. For the next three days, they would tear the entire Soda Kiln apart looking for her.

On a steam freight train bound for Greenwater City, He Yuxiu sat up in a carriage piled high with coal and wiped the soot from her face. "Big Bro Qi, is this what you mean by going back in proper style!

Li Banfeng gave a snort. "What is that supposed to mean? Are you looking down on me? Is that any way to speak to your elder brother? Have you no respect for the family rules?"

"I am not looking down on you. I only think the way we have been travelling is a little... well..."

Li Banfeng put on a serious expression. "Listen, I am not afraid of them. I am simply avoiding them while they are at their strongest. I am doing this because..."

"Big Bro Qi, I think the train conductor is here!"

Li Banfeng lay flat against the coal pile and did not move a muscle.

Author's Note:

PS: So the two of them became sworn siblings just like that. What is He Jiaqing supposed to do now?