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July 1 - August 20, 2024
Yet somehow, with a little bit here, a little bit there, and a lot of oversight everywhere, Xie Lian was finally able to repay most of the eight million eight hundred and eighty thousand merits.
Xie Lian felt a little depressed. He wasn’t even that old, so how did he end up becoming the senior among the heavenly officials, who couldn’t keep up with the trending topics of the youngsters?
Alas, it couldn’t be helped, so whatever. He gave up, and became less depressed.
And one day, on a whim, he suddenly thought: If no one worships me, I’ll worship myself!
Xie Lian left, walked for three to four kilometers and entered town. To do what? To get a life of course, so he went to do what he did best.
With the curse collar on, he was no different than a mortal. He could eat anything, and through experience, nothing he ate could kill him either.
To compare them, building a shrine cost him money, while collecting scraps made him money, so ultimately, truly, collecting scraps was better than ascension.
That tight pair of black boots on a pair of long legs was a sight pleasing to the eyes, and it reminded Xie Lian of a different pair that walked with him at Mount Yujun.
The Prince of Xianle, ascended thrice as: a Martial God, a Misfortune God, a Rubbish God. “…Well, all right,” Xie Lian said out loud. “If you think about it, a martial god is no different than a rubbish god. All gods are equal. All beings are equal.”
For example, Xie Lian was known as the Laughingstock of the Three Realms, the Infamous Freak, the Jinx, the Loser, ahem, ahem, etcetera.
He saw a flower was getting battered by the bloody rain, so he tilted his umbrella and shielded it.”
“You never know,” the youth said. “There are circumstances where a ghost would voluntarily give away his ashes.”
“There’s a custom in the Ghost Realm where if a ghost has a special someone, they entrust their ashes to that person.”
“I’m all right. Not hungry yet,” Xie Lian replied. San Lang pushed the bun back. “Then I’m all right too.” Xie Lian looked at him, then split the bun in half and gave him half. “You can have half, and I’ll have the other half.” Seeing this, San Lang accepted the steamed bun and started munching. Watching him sit and eat a simple bun obediently, Xie Lian felt like he was abusing the boy.
A group of white-clad figures slowly made their way toward them, carrying their own severed heads.
“It’s Zhongyuan.” The middle of the seventh month, when the gates to the underworld opened.
“What the hell’s going on? Why can’t we pass?!” “Yeah! What the hell! Is it haunted?” “Fucking hell, we’re the ones doing the haunting, all right?”
“Um, did you make a mistake? How come it feels like the one holding your head is my body?” “You’re the one whose body grabbed the wrong head!” “Hurry and switch back then, you guys…” “How come the cut around your neck ain’t clean?”
“Hahhh, the executioner was a newbie. It took him five or six tries before he managed to chop my head off. Made me think he did it on purpose!” “Your family probably didn’t tip him well enough. Next time, don’t forget to pay the guy, and he’ll give you one clean chop!” “There is no next time!!”
friend. Your future is bright and full of success.” All of that was complete bullshit, made up on the spot. Xie Lian had never learned palmistry.
San Lang picked up the fortune shaker, playfully gave it a shake, and then put it down. “So. Is there a bed?” Xie Lian silently took the straw mat from his back and unrolled it to show him. San Lang quirked a brow. “There’s only one?” Xie Lian only met the youth on his way back from town, so of course he didn’t think he needed to buy more than one. “If you don’t mind, we can squeeze a bit for the night.”
Painting a portrait of himself to be hung in the shrine he built for himself to pray to himself. If the Heavenly Realm caught wind of this, they’d probably laugh at him for another ten years.
so Xie Lian would rather be laughed at for ten years and save the money.
Xie Lian smiled a little and thought, Indeed the thinking of a child. He lowered his head and slowly removed his belt. “I don’t think it has anything to do with likes or dislikes. There are many things in this world that can’t be explained that way.”
Xie Lian contemplated for a moment, then opened the door. Sure enough, two young men dressed in black stood at his door, one handsome, one elegant. It was Nan Feng and Fu Yao. “You two…” Fu Yao rolled his eyes, and Nan Feng blurted, “You’re going to Banyue Pass, aren’t you?”
Well, that was undeniable logic. Xie Lian clearly possessed transcendent grace, and yet he still collected scraps all day; was that not the very definition of odd?!
“Everything just now was a misunderstanding, please don’t mind them,” Xie Lian said warmly. “Since you say so, I won’t mind. Maybe they thought I looked familiar.” Fu Yao said frostily, “Yeah. Quite familiar. Probably why I was mistaken.” San Lang laughed. “What a coincidence! I think you two look rather familiar too!”
Under the blazing sun, the youth had peeled off his outer red tunic and was using it to lazily block the sun, looking tired and cranky. His skin was pearl white, his hair coal black, and with the red tunic covering his face, his features seemed even more accentuated. Xie Lian removed his bamboo hat and put it on San Lang’s head. “Here, I’ll lend it to you.”
Actually, they weren’t the ones who vanished, he did: another powerful gust had carried him away for real!
Xie Lian felt drained. “Ruoye,” he said tiredly. “I said no ‘people,’ but I didn’t mean it so literally…all right.”
and as they fought, this man’s boot laces came loose and he stepped on them, tripped, then…” Everyone in the cave had assumed the death must have been tragic but heroic, so they were all taken aback at first, thinking what kind of death was that? Then, laughter exploded.
Even when the issue was barely related to him, he still got shot. Xie Lian was speechless.
In the legends, many hundreds of years ago, there was once a king of Banyue who, while hunting, inadvertently caught two spirits borne from two venomous creatures: one snake and one scorpion.
He forced the two creatures to mate in front of him and his ministers to serve as entertainment at one of his many banquets, and after the feast, they were executed.
“That plant is called shanyue, and it only grows within the borders of Banyue,” San Lang finished.
“Meaning the only way to live after getting bitten is to venture into the Kingdom of Banyue?” Xie Lian said. No wonder so many caravans passed through Banyue territory despite knowing the deadly rumors.
His eyes were extremely cold, and he moved his glare to the unconscious snake on the ground. There was a loud BOOM! and the snake abruptly exploded into a purplish-red pool of blood and flesh.
Xie Lian once again comforted them in a skilled and practiced manner: “Don’t panic. Everyone calm down. It’s only a face, nothing extraordinary. We all have faces, no?” That face chuckled. “Oh, did I scare you? Hahhh, I frequently scare myself too.”
The mud face cleared his throat and screwed up his face. “I…I was captured by the Banyue soldiers. I accidentally entered the city. They caught me and buried me here, and made me the fertilizer for their shanyue ferns…” No wonder the herbs in their hands were big and full! They were fed with live humans!
He smashed the face into a bloody mess, the teeth of his mace piercing the brain. When he pulled his mace up again, the entire body was pulled out with it, fulfilling his wish of “let me out!” However, the body that was unearthed was not a full human body but a chilling skeleton!
The mud face countered immediately, “That wasn’t odd! It was just…a tongue that’s a bit longer than average!”
“Those Banyue soldiers call their leader ‘General.’ I wonder who it is.” As expected, when he posed a question, San Lang still answered. “At the time when the Kingdom of Banyue fell, there was only one general. His name, translated, is Kemo.” “Kemo? As in ‘Millstone’?” Xie Lian wondered at the odd name.
Both Xie Lian’s head and heart started pounding.
As for Xie Lian, when he saw that Ruoye didn’t catch San Lang, he didn’t waste any time thinking before pulling back the silk band and taking a leap off the wall himself.
As if Kemo would listen to reason. He said resentfully, “You two are despicable, fighting me two-on-one.” Xie Lian felt a little exasperated. “I really only smacked you once. I didn’t do much.”
Kemo was even more disgusted. “You, man of Yong’an, why is your mind so full of depraved and vile developments? There was none of that! I protected her!” Xie Lian was exasperated. “I already said I’m not from Yong’an… All right, whatever.”
“Don’t worry about it. I randomly made up a fake name at the time. I think it was ‘Hua Xie.’” Hearing the name, San Lang’s face changed slightly, his lips faintly twitching.
Who knew why Fu Yao was looking so smug? He said passive-aggressively, “Well, aren’t you a saint.”
“I know better than anyone where my place is,” Xie Lian replied. “Then how dare you still stand next to him?!” Fu Yao shouted. “Because…if I stand next to him, the snakes won’t come,” Xie Lian answered earnestly. “…” Hearing the response, San Lang pfft-ed and laughed out loud. Fu Yao grew grimmer.
Pei Xiu said coolly, “First of all, we already had a battle to the death two hundred years ago, and you lost. Second of all, how am I despicable?”