The Unruly Immortals

In the dead of night, a hideous and terrifying shadow puppet monster was perched on the dim paper window.

No matter how you looked at it, the scene was spine-chilling. Yet what was even more horrifying to Li Huowang was that it had called him Xinsu.

Having gone through so much, Li Huowang of course understood what it meant for someone to address him by that name.

"Who exactly are you?" Li Huowang asked the odd shadow puppet with a grave expression.

"Hehe, coming to my territory, yet you don't know who I am?"

No sooner had the words fallen than Li Huowang saw the shadow puppet on the paper window beginning to seep into the room.

"Clang!" The blade was drawn, and the whole room instantly became charged with murderous intent.

A dark red longsword suddenly appeared in front of Li Huowang. This was his first time drawing his sword for real.

In the next instant, something surged rapidly from the hilt of the strange beast along the sword and throughout Li Huowang's body, making him feel his blood rush and his veins bulge as everything he saw turned red.

Before his eyes, the black tendrils with window flower patterns seemed to stand up right off the paper.

Li Huowang's right foot stomped forward fiercely, going straight into a Bow Stance Thrust.

With his tongue pressing against his lower jaw, he cried out involuntarily, "Kill!"

Seeing the blood-tipped sword enveloped in evil Qi thrusting towards it, the shadow puppet didn't dare to meet it head-on and swiftly moved to the right.

A rustle of metallic noises followed as it instantly relocated to the wooden door nearby.

"Hmm? This sword... what is your relation to the Siqi You Family?"

Seeing the sword in Li Huowang's hand, the voice of the creature carried a hint of hesitation and its movements also became somewhat cautious.

Under normal circumstances, Li Huowang might have stopped to listen to it speak, but his mind was entirely enveloped by that heat and couldn't do so.

Before he could finish speaking, Li Huowang's sword had already arrived.

The Red Blade, gleaming with a cold light, struck heavily against the wooden door. With a "crack," the door was split into fragments instantaneously.

Reduced to splinters along with the door frame was the shadow puppet.

Bursting out of the room, Li Huowang's gaze pierced through the corridor before him to the figures behind the distant window. There stood a person with several wooden sticks in their hands, controlling the shadow puppet in the air.

The very thing he'd been fighting against was the reflection of the puppet frame held in that person's hands!

Seeing Li Huowang chase after him, the figure decisively threw the puppet aside and quickly retreated into the house.

When Li Huowang chased after him with great momentum, he found the room was already empty, with only the shadow puppet gradually turning to black ash on the floor.

He had only glanced hurriedly and hadn't paid much attention, but the most memorable detail for Li Huowang was that the person's face was covered with an old brass mask.

"Clang." The sword returned to its sheath, and Li Huowang took a few deep breaths to calm down.

"What exactly is this person's motive? Did they really approach Xinsu just for greed?"

Although the person had been driven away by him, Li Huowang felt that it wasn't that simple.

"Wait, Bai Lingmiao!" With heightened alertness, Li Huowang quickly rushed back to his residence.

Upon seeing Bai Lingmiao quietly sleeping on the bed, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Concern had thrown him into disarray; Bai Lingmiao was not an unarmed and weak lady, there was no need for him to worry about the enemy drawing him away from her.

Walking to the bedside, Li Huowang carefully examined the longsword in his hand.

That someone had come looking for trouble was not surprising, but this time was different from the rest. He was no longer just running away, and the person fleeing had become the enemy.

This made Li Huowang somewhat excited, as it meant that he finally had a foothold in this chaotic and bizarre world.

And all of this was thanks to the sword given to him by Master. The mere sight of the sword had put the adversary off the fight.

Li Huowang understood that it wasn't him the man was wary of, but the sword itself.

Compared to its powerful strength, the sword also had other added values.

"Siqi You Family? Is that the original owner's name? Doesn't sound like it's the name of a sect."

Li Huowang had no answer to this question, but he knew one thing for sure: the sword's origin was no trifling matter, and the debt he owed Master had become even more substantial.

As Li Huowang caressed the Sword Sheath with his hand, he suddenly sensed something amiss.

He looked down and saw a pair of ghastly pale hands with long black nails grasping his calf.

After a moment of thought, Li Huowang didn't struggle free but instead looked down at the Second God beneath the bed and said, "Thank you for the warning about today's events. If you hadn't alerted me, I might have actually been ambushed."

Regardless of what happened before, today Bai Lingmiao's Second God had indeed helped him.

However, this also puzzled Li Huowang. With his current heightened perception, he had detected bandits from a distance; yet this time someone had reached his door, and he needed someone else to warn him.

"Does that person have something that can block detection? I wonder if it could be of any help with my identity as Xinsu. If it could be used in the same way and I could seize it, it would be great,"

"Then I might not have so many people causing me trouble."

As Li Huowang was deeply engrossed in this problem, he felt something different around his calf.

He looked down again to find the ghastly pale hands had vanished, replaced by several cold objects rising inside his trouser leg and extending upward.

The touch against his skin felt soft like snake skin.

Then, a tingling female voice whispered in Li Huowang's ear, "My lord~"

Li Huowang's scalp tingled and he broke out in goosebumps all over his body. "Stop! I said stop!"

Just as Li Huowang's hand touched the hilt of the sword and was about to draw it, the thing inside his trouser leg finally slowly retracted.

Li Huowang turned to glance at Bai Lingmiao, who was asleep, and said, "Let's put a stop to what happened before, I don't want to mention it again! Go to sleep!"

After saying that, Li Huowang lay back down on the bed.

In response to Li Huowang's words, the Second God under the bed didn't say anything more, and the room suddenly became quiet.

After such an incident, how could Li Huowang possibly sleep? He stayed awake with his eyes open until dawn.

Only when he heard the cries of street vendors outside the window did Li Huowang finally drift off to sleep.

When he woke up again, he found that he had slept until the afternoon.

Dressed and sitting in the inn's lobby, Li Huowang ate his lunch while pondering over last night's events.

"Judging from his approach, that man is clearly not in the same league as Zhengde Temple or An Ci Nunnery, maybe he's a rogue cultivator like Master Danyang. If that's all, it's not a big problem."

"He said this is his territory, not 'theirs' or 'their sect's', which means he's likely alone."

Li Huowang had no intention of fleeing. If it came to a fight, the less populated wilderness was far easier for an ambush than a lively town full of people.

Just as he picked up a peanut with his chopsticks and was about to eat it, Li Huowang saw Top Scholar Lv enter with an air of confidence, accompanied by his two sons.

Considering yesterday's event, it wasn't hard for Li Huowang to guess what had happened.

"Band Leader Lv, did you go argue with those Nuoxi performers again? Judging from your demeanor, you won the argument?"