Mutated Tao

“This year?” Li Huowang’s heart beat rapidly when he heard Puppy saying that. He had an unsettling thought bubbling out from his mind.

“What do you mean?” Li Huowang approached Puppy and carried him up. “Did a long time pass?”

“Senior… Senior Li, please don’t relapse into your illness again. Not… Not much time has passed. It’s still not the Qingming festival yet.”

Li Huowang took a deep sigh before placing Puppy down. “Please speak more clearly and be specific next time.”

“Alright.” Puppy dared not get angry at Li Huowang, who was mentally ill.

“Oh, right. Senior Li, you have nothing to do, right? Do you mind managing the village if you are free? There are more and more people in the village. Without you or Senior Bai, Zhao Wu and I can barely manage it.”

“Can’t you hire someone to dol it? Do you need me to say this?” However, as he observed the village, he had a realization.

“Puppy, do we have enough food in the village?”

“Of course we do. Senior Li, do you remember how the Heavenly Dog ate the sun last time? You instructed us to stockpile more food for emergencies. We did buy a lot more food. We should have enough food to feed the village for a few years.”

Puppy led Li Huowang to the Bai family’s ancestral hall. They twisted the bronze monkey statue and went underground.

Li Huowang saw the secret rooms of the White Lotus Sect stuffed with food. The spacious underground hall and the corridors were filled with mountains of food.

Li Huowang’s eyes were wide with shock, but Puppy misunderstood and quickly explained, “Senior Bai took everything last time. Since this place was empty, we used it to stockpile our food instead. It’s a very good place to keep food, with plenty of space and no water leaks. More importantly, it's also hidden. Even if the village comes under attack, it’d be hard for the enemies to find this place.”

Li Huowang laughed when he saw the food in front of him. He never imagined the village would have such a large stockpile, all while he had been painstakingly searching for food.

“Puppy, call everyone in the village and bag up the food. I want to use it!”

“Use it? How?” Puppy was confused, but he still followed Li Huowang’s orders.

Even though Li Huowang was rarely in the village, everyone knew that he made the decisions.

Everyone gathered around the Bai family’s ancestral hall and slowly moved out the food from the secret room, bag by bag.

“You guys, keep sorting the food in the bags. Let me go check the other side.” Li Huowang swung his spine sword.

He returned to the Qi Kingdom and saw a man with tattered clothes hunched over the ground.

“Niu San! What are you doing?” Li Huowang called for the man.

Niu San looked back and was surprised to see Li Huowang. “No… nothing. I’m planting some potatoes.”

Li Huowang had left some food for him last time. Niu San didn’t want to eat it all, so he decided to plant some.

“Stop whatever you are doing now and come help me fetch food!”

“Alright!” Niu San tearfully nodded and ran towards Li Huowang.

Those nearby the area were once the refugees who lived in Cowheart Village. They all heard Li Huowang shouting that there was food and came running towards him. They cried and called him their savior again and again.

At the very least, there were enough people to carry the food. They sent bags of food through the rift again and again.

There was so much food that it would take days to transport all of them to the Qi Kingdom, even with the help of the entire village, especially since the secret room’s corridor was tiny.

While the food was being transported, Li Huowang ran towards the You capital to meet with Chen Yurong.

He had just reached there when he met someone he had not seen before.

“This lowly one is called Liang Yuxuan. I greet the Daoist!” A disheveled elderly man greeted Li Huowang. There were several people behind him.

Chen Yurong explained, “Daoist, they are the officials that I found. Thankfully, you ordered me to find them in time, or they would have starved to death.”

Li Huowang looked at the man and asked, “What kind of official are you in the Qi Kingdom?”

“I work in the Imperial Clan Court.”

“What kind of official is that?” Li Huowang did not understand what the job entails.

“We take records of the palace by etching the records onto jade discs at certain time intervals. We record the family tree of the royal family and the titles of the nobles and officials. We also write down details about deaths, births, and marriages within the royal family.”

Li Huowang pondered before asking, “The Qi Kingdom is in chaos now. There’s no law and order everywhere. Can you temporarily form a palace in the Qi Kingdom with the people behind you right now?”

“We can!” Liang Yuxuan answered without hesitation. The price of not being able to do so was naturally starvation. He had no choice but to put together some sort of organization with whatever he had left.

Li Huowang looked at the sunken faces of the people and nodded. “Alright. Let’s get it started, then. I will talk about my ultimate goal right now. We need to revive the Qi Kingdom and make sure that the people of the Qi Kingdom can stand on their own feet. They must be able to survive even if I don’t send food here.”

Everyone felt nervous when they heard that.

“Daoist, does that mean you won’t send food from today onwards?” asked a younger official out of fear.

“Are you deaf? I said I want us to be independent. Now go and work!”

Li Huowang wasn’t sure they would be helpful, but it was better than nothing.

“Yes!” All of them bowed and retreated except for Liang Yuxuan.

He bowed towards Li Huowang once more.

“The disciple of the Minglun Hall, Liang Yuxuan, greets the Daoist.” For some reason, his aura changed completely.

“Minglun Hall?” Li Huowang stared at the man before him but wasn’t surprised.

He knew that there were people like him in the Qi Kingdom, so it was inevitable that he would run into them one day. After all, they had a higher chance of surviving after a Natural Disaster than regular people.

However, he hadn’t expected to meet someone from the Minglun Hall, a sect he hadn’t interacted with. It wasn’t the White Lotus Sect, the Moongate, the Ao Jing Sect, or the Antrabhara Temple.

Still, Li Huowang had some memories of meeting them before during his fight with the Dharma Sect.

The people from Minglun Hall all had three arms and could turn drawings into real life. He must’ve hidden his third arm.

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