The Unruly Immortals

Li Huowang once again confirmed the stolen items listed on the paper, and although he could not discern the effects of the elixir merely by its ingredients, Li Huowang could easily tell it was a pill recipe.

As the personal disciple of Master Danyang in elixir cultivation, Li Huowang was still able to easily distinguish that this was indeed a pill recipe.

"Could it be another Master Danyang?" Recalling his past at Qingfeng Taoist Temple, Li Huowang's expression turned unsettled.

Seeing the changes in Li Huowang's expression, the County Magistrate Lou at his side immediately asked tentatively, "My lord, have you discovered something? Have you found the children?"

"No, not yet, but there's a lead," Li Huowang slapped the paper against his chest.

"Although I don't know what they're concocting, some things never change. Alchemy must adhere to 'one qi, two polarities, six dusts, seven returns'. These alchemy ingredients are not complete. To achieve the 'six dusts' stage, they will definitely steal more materials like Wushi Powder."

"List those ingredients and watch them closely! No matter what they are, they will surely come again!" Li Huowang said this with finality.

Whether it was another Master Danyang or not, the first step was to find him. Once found, the rest would be easy to handle.

"Fine! As long as it helps the people retrieve their children, I will follow your orders, my lord! I'll call all the medicinal material shop owners in the county right away!"

"Wait," Li Huowang grabbed him, "if you do that, you'll be startling the snake. I'll handle this. Right now, you need to cooperate with me to put on a show."

"Put on a show?"

That afternoon, County Magistrate Lou, accompanied by a crowd, grandiosely escorted Li Huowang out of Cangshui County, holding onto Li Huowang's hand and showering him with flattery all the way.

When people learned that Li Huowang was the one who caught the flower thief, they surrounded him in even thicker layers.

Many grateful citizens, holding all sorts of gifts, tried to stuff them into Li Huowang's carriage, but he stopped them all.

After escorting him for five miles, Li Huowang urged them to stop again, and only then, with reluctance, did County Magistrate Lou and the others turn to go back to the county.

With the execution of the flower thief, no other cases of women being violated were found in Cangshui County.

Although the missing infants weren't recovered, no other children went missing either. The anxious hearts of the people of Cangshui County gradually calmed down.

Days later, at night, on a deserted street, a hunchbacked night watchman was calling the hours into the empty night, "Dry season, be wary of fire hazards—"

At first, there was nothing odd, but after the third watch, things became strange.

Amid the clanging sounds, the night watchman's shadow rose from the ground, its limbs stretching thin and long, moving slowly in the same manner as the watchman himself.

The shadow seemed propped up by something, and within that pitch-black silhouette, something was stirring.

The wooden clack sounded again with the night watchman's chanting, "Dry season, be wary of fire hazards—"

As this night watchman approached a pharmacy, some medicinals wrapped in oilcloth simply passed through the walls, vanishing into the watchman's shadow. The shadow grew larger, "Dry season, be wary of fire hazards—"

More and more medicinal materials merged into the shadow of the night watchman, and the engorged, bloated shadow slowly lost its human shape, becoming increasingly twisted and horrifying.

All the while, Li Huowang, perched on a rooftop, watched coldly with a keen eye.

The previous send-off by County Magistrate Lou was just a ruse, intended to make the opposition believe that Li Huowang had left and lower their guard.

Using the ability to turn invisible, Li Huowang alone quickly determined the remaining quantity and location of Wushi Powder in Cangshui County.

After several days of covert surveillance, he finally caught them in the act again.

Alchemy requires specific timing, so he had anticipated that they couldn't just wait indefinitely.

"Taoist! Since we've found them, what are you waiting for? Hurry up and catch the thief who's kidnapping the children! We can't let them harm anyone else."

In this matter, the monk seemed even more anxious than Li Huowang.

"No rush, catching someone stealing is useless, we must let him go to catch the bigger fish behind him."

As the night watchman walked farther away, the invisible Li Huowang, stepping lightly on the roof tiles, quietly followed behind him.

Time passed by minute by minute, and by the fourth watch, that bloated shadow had grown as big as a house, moving languidly through the streets like a small black giant.

At that moment, the monk beside Li Huowang became so anxious that he started hopping up and down because he saw a child, from a bamboo basket, phasing through a wall and merging into the massive shadow.

Apparently feeling that he had taken enough, the shadow detached itself from the night watchman and floated up into the air, waving its slender limbs.

"Taoist! He's getting away! Chase him!!" cried the monk, seeing the scene unfold, so agitated that he was almost in tears.

"Quiet!" Li Huowang stamped hard on a roof's stone ornament with his right foot and took off toward the shadow.

The shadow drifted in the sky, Li Huowang chased on the ground. Fortunately, his eyes were sharp enough because the pitch-black shadow blended into the dark sky, making it indistinguishable.

As Li Huowang ran farther and farther, he left Cangshui County and reached the dirt road outside the county.

By then, he was panting heavily, and the distance between him and the thing was increasing.

"This won't do, I'm going to lose it!" Li Huowang immediately took out a talisman and, biting his fingertip, started to draw on it.

As two talismans adhered to his knees, veins bulged on Li Huowang's face, making him look particularly ferocious, and an indescribable heat enveloped his heart.

But the sacrifice was rewarded, as his speed instantly multiplied several times over.

Due to the increase in speed, the wind blew back the flesh on Li Huowang's face as he finally caught up with the shadow.

Gradually, dawn broke, and with the sunrise accompanied by a splash, the shadow shattered. The objects inside fell towards a turbulent river.

When Li Huowang rushed to the riverbank, he saw some objects in the blurry water being moved—medicine ingredients that had fallen into the river.

The water rippled, making it difficult for Li Huowang to see clearly what it was; he could only watch the underwater blur wrap the ingredients as they moved toward a distant underwater cave.

Li Huowang raised his head to look at the low fissure where the water was flowing. "Could this be their lair?"

Above the cave towered a lush, towering stone mountain; at the foot of the mountain, the cave resembled a black giant mouth that ceaselessly devoured the vast river into its belly.

After carefully comparing their location with the map, Li Huowang realized that this was precisely the center of those counties where children had been lost, everything seemed to have originated from here.

"Whatever they are, these guys must be like Master Danyang from before, deliberately hiding in this desolate place."

Finding their hiding place should have been a joyous occasion, but Li Huowang, looking at the cave on the water's surface, felt somewhat perplexed.

"But how do I get in there?"