The Unruly Immortals

In the astonished eyes of the Lv Elevated Man and Luo Juannhua, the figure of Li Huowang gradually emerged from the ground.

With a solemn expression, he glanced at the Silver in the other's hand and said, "By the looks of it, he must have been threatened. Alright, your part is done."

Having said that, he turned, pushed the door open, and walked out.

Li Huowang pushed open the door, concealed his ethereal body color beneath the ground once again, and returned to the cook's room.

He was exactly the same as before, still wrapped in his blanket, shivering as he peeked around at the paper windows, as though afraid of something.

Compared to the woman before him, the biggest difference about him was the complete absence of any bloody scent.

While Li Huowang was surreptitiously watching, the cook suddenly raised both hands and thrust them into his cotton trousers, his expression twisted as he fiddled about.

Seeing this, Li Huowang furrowed his brows and turned away.

This time, he found the inn's runner again, but the runner was nervously wiping the tables, looking over at where the Lv Family Troupe and others stayed.

The fat man from before wasn't wrong; the people of Pi County were indeed very nervous, and they all looked quite sickly.

Realizing he couldn't find the information he wanted inside the inn, Li Huowang lifted his foot and started walking towards the rain-drenched exterior.

However, he had hardly taken a few steps when he was met by an old man in a straw raincoat, wooden clogs, and a bamboo hat coming towards him.

When the old man looked in Li Huowang's direction, his eyes suddenly widened to their maximum, and with a scream of utter horror, he passed out and fell into the rainwater.

"He can see me? How can he see me?" Li Huowang, in shock, looked down at his own body and saw that indeed there was nothing visibly there.

Suddenly, Li Huowang realized that although he had shifted his ghostly color beneath the ground, which made him invisible, his body was still outside and could touch things.

It was raining everywhere outside, except for the spot where he stood, which formed a rain-free silhouette—too bizarre.

No wonder the old man had been startled; Li Huowang himself would probably have been scared too.

When he noticed that people on the street had heard the noise and were looking towards the old man, Li Huowang shrank back and re-entered the inn. "This won't do, I'll wait until the rain stops."

In the Lv Family Troupe room, although Li Huowang had left, they were still discussing.

"Oh my god! The Taoist Master knows the Pass-Through-Wall Technique!" Luo Juannhua's eyes bulged.

"Stop fussing about, it's none of your business! Be nice," Top Scholar Lv said sternly, then turned and walked toward his small son sitting cross-legged on a bed.

He reached out, gently touching his son's head, "Scholar, you saw it, right? How powerful Divine Skills are. You must learn well. If you truly master the Pass-Through-Wall Technique, what can't you do in the future?"

The awakened Scholar Lv glared at his own father with a look that could kill. If it weren't for the fact that his elder brother had come over, he would have let loose with his words.

"Old geezer! Stop bothering me! I'm busy!!" With that, Scholar Lv closed his eyes again.

Looking at his youngest son, whose personality had completely changed, Top Scholar Lv sighed softly and sat down beside him, dejectedly starting to smoke his pipe.

In the past, how he dealt with his youngest son had always been through corporal punishment, but now that hitting no longer worked on his son, Top Scholar Lv suddenly didn't know how to handle him.

The rain in Pi County lasted all night, and by the next day, although the sky remained overcast, the rain had finally stopped.

Li Huowang, getting up early and dressed in a straw raincoat, walked out of the inn through the sparse crowd of sickly-looking Pi County people.

Upon seeing Li Huowang, the Pi County people still showed fear and quickly moved out of his sight.

Li Huowang paid no mind to them, circling around towards the largest mansion in the county town—the Government Office where the County Magistrate held court.

During sleep the night before, he had already chosen his target.

If there was any place most likely to have information about what exactly happened in Pi County, it was certainly the Government Office, which managed the whole county.

"I'm being watched," Li Huowang, unsurprised, took advantage of a turn to glance at the two constables in green clothes behind him.

Their complexions were as poor as everyone else's, lips purple from the cold, with two dark bags heavily hanging under their eyes as they stared fixedly at Li Huowang's back.

Li Huowang acted as if he hadn't noticed anything and turned directly into the corner.

Just as the constables quickened their pace, reaching the corner to turn, they were shocked to find the alley completely empty.

"Old Wu, we've lost him, what do we do?" the slightly younger constable asked the older one with a troubled expression.

The older constable's expression changed unpredictably as he looked at the ground, devoid of any footprints, thought for a moment, then gestured with a hand, "Let's go!"

Li Huowang, sitting atop the wall invisible, watched them leave. After their figures disappeared from view, he turned and vaulted down from the wall, moving stealthily towards the other side—his destination.

As far as Li Huowang knew, every county generally had a county record documenting major local events. And this was his target.

In his invisible state, Li Huowang moved through the entire Government Office as if entering uninhabited territory and quickly found what he was looking for.

"Zi Chou year, summer of the fourth month, Xin Si, great calamity...people exchanged their children to feed....."

"Wu Hou year, Shen Hui, Awakening of Insects, heavenly dog eating the sun....."

Li Huowang flipped through the pages, reaching the most recent entries to discover that the latest record, from two years ago, reported a great harvest in the county?

"How could this be? The entire county is terrified, and the County Magistrate has no record of it? Or is he deliberately hiding something?"

As Li Huowang pondered, he suddenly heard the pained screams of a child.

Li Huowang tensed, closed the county record he was holding, placed it back in its original spot, and carefully followed the sound with slower steps.

His keen hearing made the cries clearer; among the wailing, he could make out a child's words. "Dad...it hurts.....mom....don't...."

After walking for a while, Li Huowang had arrived outside the woodshed where the noises were coming from, and by then, the sounds had become crystal clear.

"Dad!! Stop pulling, stop pulling!! Wah wah wah～mom～it hurts, it hurts..." The boy's voice was excruciatingly woeful, as if he were undergoing torture.

"This must be the child beating that old wheat customer mentioned earlier," Li Huowang thought as he sneaked closer to the paper window, wetted his index finger, and carefully created a hole.

When Li Huowang's eyes peered through the hole, his pupils immediately shrank to pinpoints.

He saw a child, sniveling and tear-streaked, naked and bound to a pillar, in a very pitiable state.

Standing by were a man and a woman, who, by their reluctant expressions and their resemblance, were presumably the child's parents.

Despite their reluctance, they were using a metal clamp to grip his lower body and, shaking, pulled forcefully outward.

Instantly, a piercing scream erupted, and the bound body bounced wildly.

This scene made Li Huowang's eyes twitch; the pain seemed almost comparable to the torture he administered.