The Unruly Immortals

Li Huowang stuffed the charred Mantou into his mouth with one hand, slowly chewing.

His eyes, devoid of spirit, stared at the bonfire in front of him as he pondered over the places they might have left behind.

They were en route to Siqi, and three second-hand old carriages had joined them on their journey, acquired by selling off the camels and adding some Silver.

The road ahead was long, and they couldn't continue without carriages.

A chopstick bearing a few slices of smoked meat and steaming hot noodles approached Li Huowang's mouth, waiting for him to open up.

Li Huowang, with a slight frown, slightly shifted his head. "I can eat by myself, no need to feed me."

"Brother Li, how can you eat with just one hand? Until your hand grows back, let me feed you. By the way, how much longer before your hand grows back?"

Upon hearing Bai Lingmiao's words, filled with concern, Li Huowang lifted his right arm, looking at the empty sleeve cuff, and muttered with a wry smile in his eyes, "It's growing back, it will be back soon."

"But it's been three days since it was cut off, and there's not even a twitch," Bai Lingmiao said, lifting Li Huowang's sleeve to inspect the already healed stump.

"It's already the third day?" Li Huowang's pupils shrank as if he remembered something. He immediately stood up and looked around the barren Gobi, as if searching for something.

Soon, he found his desired target and walked towards a large rock in the distance.

"Brother Li, where are you going? The noodles will get cold if you don't eat now!"

"I'm going to relieve myself, don't follow!"

Arriving at the huge rock that resembled a small hillside, Li Huowang gazed at the far distance where everything had turned into tiny black dots and entered the shadow of the boulder.

Behind the rock was nothing but barren ground, exactly what Li Huowang needed.

He sat cross-legged facing the giant rock, his expression tinged with hesitation. Yet, in the end, he drew his sword and began to etch a human figure onto the wall.

"Mom, it's been hard on you during this time," Li Huowang said gently to the figure on the wall.

"Mom, I'm awake now. Can you bring me my phone? Today is her birthday, and I want to give her a call."

"Don't unlock it for me, just dial for me. The second line in the contacts is her number."

Li Huowang, with a sharp little spade in hand, began to trace the face on the human figure. Before long, a crude yet somewhat familiar face appeared before him.

Li Huowang was no artist, and the drawing was ugly, but the wall painting before him was more beautiful than anything in his eyes. "Happy Birthday, Nana."

"Happy Birthday to you〜 Happy Birthday to you〜 Happy Birthday to you〜"

Alone, Li Huowang smiled warmly as he looked at the wall painting he had drawn, singing softly to himself.

The sound did not travel far before it was torn apart by the relentless winds of the Gobi.

"Sorry, Nana, I can't be with you on your birthday this year, so I can only congratulate you in this way. I'll make up for the gift when I have time," said Li Huowang with a smile as he reached out, gently caressing the painted face.

After speaking, Li Huowang leaned in to bestow a kiss on the painting, then stood up, supporting himself with one hand.

No sooner had he turned around than he came face-to-face with a figure wearing a red bridal veil. It was Bai Lingmiao's Second God, who had witnessed the entire scene, both heartwarming and eerie, with her own eyes.

"Shut up," Li Huowang snapped at her before turning around to walk towards the distant carriage.

When he came back, he found that everyone had eaten their fill and was leisurely chatting away.

Li Huowang reached out to take the bowl of noodles from Bai Lingmiao's arms and set it directly on the ground, then started slurping them up with chopsticks in one hand.

After wolfing down most of the noodles, a sharp metallic clanging sound caused his body to involuntarily tense up. He recognized that sound from somewhere.

He looked up in the direction of the sound and saw that it came from Gouwa, who was sitting on the ground, holding his knife as if prying something open on the ground.

Li Huowang stood up and walked towards him. "What are you doing?"

Gouwa twitched in fright at Li Huowang's words; he turned to Li with a sheepish smile and picked up an object from the ground.

"Nothing, just thought we were spending money too freely, so I wanted to scoop up a bit more for the group," he said.

It was a row of old, tarnished copper coins that seemed to have been burnt recently; Li Huowang recognized them—they were the brass mask that the dwarf from the shadow play had worn on his face.

He remembered that it had been taken by Second God before, and he had even put it on his face.

The burnt copper mask now had numerous scratch marks on it. Obviously, Gouwa seemed to want to pry the coins off to use them.

"It seemed like such a waste to just throw this into the ash. After all, these are hundreds of copper coins. It was too wasteful to discard, so I picked them up," he explained.

"I didn't intend to keep it for myself. I was planning to pry them off and let Sister Bai take care of them. I really didn't expect that the fine chains holding the coins together would be so sturdy. I couldn't pry them open no matter how hard I tried."

Li Huowang took the object from him and ran his hand over the copper coins, easily rubbing off the black ash on the surface.

The raging fire hadn't harmed the item in the slightest; the fine old chains threaded through the holes of the coins, linking them into a strange copper coin mask.

The copper coins, just like ordinary copper coins, were round with a square hole inside, and they were inscribed with four big characters that Li Huowang didn't recognize.

"Dao.... Dao.... Dao Guang.... Tong... ah, Tong.... ah, Tongbao!" Gao Zhijian translated for Li Huowang.

"Dao Guang Tongbao?" Li Huowang didn't know which country's currency it was and he didn't care. What he was contemplating now was the inherent value of the object itself.

After pondering carefully, Li Huowang called Mantou over and fitted the mask over its head to see if there were any pitfalls.

What happened next astounded him—although Mantou was right in front of him, shaking its head and scraping at its temples with its paws, he felt as if the dog wasn't there at all.

That night, the dwarf had worn this mask, attacking him stealthily without him noticing. If it hadn't been for Second God warning him beforehand, he might have really fallen for the trick.

Later, when Second God wore this thing and hid among the crowd, he had been unable to locate her quickly at that time.

These instances indicated that this item might be some kind of magic artifact that could conceal one's presence.

"This thing... seems useful to me," he mused.

Li Huowang's eyes gradually brightened as he looked at the object. "This thing is not just useful—it's very useful to me!"

Although he didn't know why, in this world, anyone with a bit of ability could easily tell that he was Xinsu.

And this thing might just prevent that from happening again. He no longer had to be the exposed flesh!