The Unruly Immortals

He wanted to perform a divination, but it was not easy to find human bones in this little fishing village on Apricot Island. Li Huowang could only use his own—fortunately, after the divination, the bone wasn't damaged.

After using his own arm bone to complete the divination, Li Huowang carefully reinserted the cracked bone back into the flesh.

"Next is to go and find the place where the bone is cracked..." Li Huowang muttered to himself as he walked towards the seaside village.

The village was small; a short walk was all it took to encounter an acquaintance.

He saw a sallow-faced woman with her daughter buying mantou in the distance. She hesitated for a long time and finally bought herself a coarse grain mantou, and a half-piece of brown sugar mantou for her daughter.

Seeing how destitute the mother and daughter were, Li Huowang's heart softened. With a light flick of the reins, he steered the horse carriage closer.

"Benefactor..." The woman, seeing Li Huowang, hastened to bow and pay her respects, her expression filled with a sincere and fearful recognition.

The little girl, on the other hand, shyly buried herself in her mother's embrace, not daring to look up.

"Why have you brought your daughter to Apricot Island?" Li Huowang asked as he sized them up.

"I... my husband died, and I've come here to seek refuge with relatives...." The woman said timidly, not daring to look directly at Li Huowang, her demeanor extremely humble.

Li Huowang thought for a moment, reached into his bosom, and pulled out the money he had won from playing card games, stuffing it directly into the little girl's hand.

"Although she is young, half a brown sugar mantou is not enough for a meal. Take this and buy her something to eat."

Without waiting for the woman to react, Li Huowang had already driven the carriage toward the distant inn.

Talismans and divination—useful when they worked, utterly useless when they didn't—offered no control over timing. Once he had performed the divination, all he could do was wait for fate to run its course.

This opportunity was as good as any to settle down in the inn, rest well, and rejuvenate his spirit to face the impending crisis.

Entering the inn was the same old routine: washing up, eating, and sleeping.

Li Huowang had thought he would have to make an effort to find Zhuge Yuan, but unexpectedly, someone on the island sought him first.

As Li Huowang fell into slumber, he suddenly opened his eyes, alert, and kicked the mantou beside his bed—someone was outside.

"Bang bang bang"—the door was abruptly knocked on. "Is Daoist Li there? Is Daoist Li there?"

The voice outside was delicate, androgynous; it was quite awkward to the ear.

Quickly dressing, Li Huowang cracked the door open a sliver, looking outside with extreme caution.

The visitor was dressed in blue silk, with a jade pendant hanging from his waist—a rich man's garb—and sported a fine mustache beneath his nose. Despite such attire, he had his face fully powdered. The moonlight illuminated his face eerily white.

Li Huowang felt this person was odd, but couldn't quite pinpoint what exactly was strange.

"Is this Daoist Li? My master has been waiting for a long time; please, come with me," the person bowed, asking in a conciliatory tone again.

"Who is your master?" Li Huowang's hand had, without his knowing, already clutched the hilt of the Purple Tassel Sword.

"My master's surname is Zhuge, given name Yuan, styled Chenmo, also known as the storyteller. Didn't Daoist Li divinate for my master during the day? He knew of your arrival."

"Upon hearing this, Li Huowang felt a sudden pang of dread in his heart. As soon as he had performed divination for Zhuge Yuan, the other party had immediately known it was him and found his exact location.

It seems that divination shouldn't be used recklessly on some powerful individuals, otherwise, it would be terrible if the enemy knew one's whereabouts.

Seeing that Li Huowang stood at the doorway without responding, the man began to urge him. "Taoist Master Li, are you going or not? If you're not going, I'll go and reply to the master."

"Lead the way," Li Huowang said as he pushed open the door with a creak and followed the man downstairs, the inn was extremely quiet, with only the sound of their footsteps.

Once outside the inn, under the silver moonlight, a pure white sedan chair appeared before Li Huowang, with four black-clad bearers standing as still as statues, an utterly eerie sight.

"Taoist Master Li, please get into the sedan chair. The place where the master lives is quite a distance away, so we need to hurry," the man said with a grin as he walked to the side of the sedan chair and pulled back the curtain with his withered palm.

Li Huowang's brows gradually furrowed, and anxiety began to take hold of him.

But thinking of the spindle Zhuge Yuan had given him before and his soothing tone, Li Huowang ultimately got into the sedan chair.

With a "squeak," the sedan chair was lifted by the bearers and they began to run.

"How long will it take us to get to Master Zhuge's place?" Li Huowang's question received no response. When he lifted the sedan curtain to look outside, he found that the man had long since vanished.

Not only had the man disappeared, but the four bearers were also quite odd: they moved as if their limbs had no joints, running stiffly with eyes wide open, unblinking.

Such bizarre changes greatly increased Li Huowang's suspicion. "What's going on? Could it be that these people were not sent by Zhuge Yuan?"

As Li Huowang stayed on high alert, the scenery outside the sedan slowly changed; the layered black tiles of the fishing village gradually disappeared, replaced by dark green bamboo leaves.

Amid the dense, ink-green bamboo stalks, it was as if something indistinct was lurking.

"Hee hee hee..." It seemed like laughter coming from the depths of the Bamboo Forest, but when Li Huowang listened carefully, he realized it was just the sound of the bamboo leaves rustling in the wind.

As he sat in the swaying sedan chair, Li Huowang kept moving through the Bamboo Forest.

This journey took a very long time, an entire two Hours, yet Li Huowang still found himself in the midst of the Bamboo Forest.

"This Bamboo Forest is really quite extensive." Just as Li Huowang muttered to himself, he suddenly noticed something and his pupils shrank to pinpoints.

"Wait! I saw that rock not long ago; you haven't been traveling at all! You've been going in circles! Stop the sedan!!!"

Upon hearing Li Huowang's words, the black-clad bearers did not stop but moved even faster.

With a "clang," the Purple Tassel Sword was drawn from its sheath, swiftly cutting a hole at the bottom of the sedan chair. Li Huowang brought his feet together and dived in.

But as soon as he landed, the ground covered with withered bamboo leaves sank rapidly as if made of ox sinew, attempting to envelop him.

Li Huowang held the Longsword across his body and made a fierce horizontal slash. Accompanied by an inhuman scream, the bulging ground spurted out thick blood and quickly subsided.

Li Huowang, panting, stood still in the Bamboo Forest, but the white sedan and the black-clad bearers were nowhere to be seen, leaving him utterly alone.

"What in the world were they? And how did they know I performed Divination for Zhuge Yuan? Could it be that the Evil Spirit of Apricot Island has become sentient?""