The Unruly Immortals

"Water bandits," Li Huowang identified the identity of the people on these small sampans.

This was nothing but a trap, a scheme to lure everyone into a snare and then rob them all together.

"Heh, the local customs here are indeed very 'simple and honest'," Li Huowang muttered to himself as he watched them.

At that moment, he also noticed that the water bandits were not just strong young men; there were also old people, women, and half-grown children, suggesting a long-standing family trade.

"Swoosh—" An arrow shot over and pinged against the hull, sending the dozens of people on the boat into an even greater panic.

"Folks, just throw over your luggage and belongings, and all the gold and silver jewelry on your person. We, the good fellows of Hengshan Po who rob the rich to aid the poor, definitely won't harm a hair on your heads."

"But if we find that you've hidden even a single Wen of money, huhuhu~, then you'll have to choose between being sliced by a rolling blade or minced for dumplings."

Hearing the boat captain's threatening voice, the panicked crowd began to stir up again.

Quite a few people had started to throw their luggage and packages into the water.

On the road, you might still have a chance to run into highway robbers, but now, out in the middle of the water, you could only concede defeat.

Even if you jumped into the water, you were no match for these swimmers.

Li Huowang, watching the small sampans circling and roving on the lake surface, stepped forward and said to the leader on the boat, "Friend, just deliver the boat to the shore honestly, and I'll pretend like nothing happened."

The captain's brow furrowed slightly as he took another look at Li Huowang. His voice carried a hint of scorn as he asked, "Shoulder-to-shoulder, throwing a vine?"

"Speak plainly; get us to the shore," Li Huowang's tone began to grow irritable.

"Hey! Guys, come and see~ This one's still wet behind the ears! Maybe he hasn't even grown hair down there yet! Hahahaha!"

"Hahahaha!" The water bandits burst into laughter together.

"Young man, do you think you're something special just because you're a Taoist? Taoists like you, I've chopped up seven or eight already!"

"Let me tell you, this lake is the Yuan Family's turf. Even dragons coil up for us; tigers have to lie down too! Even if the Jade Emperor himself came, he'd damn well have to pay us a toll!"

The boat captain's threatening voice instantly drew rounds of cheers from the water bandits, with clapping and whistling incessantly erupting.

Many of them had already started to divvy up their spoils in advance.

"Dad! I want to take that white-haired lass as my bride! She's so pretty!"

"No way, playing around is fine, but someone defective like that can't be your wife! I don't want my grandson to end up looking strange."

"Then I'll play with her first for dad. Once dad's had his fill, then she's mine."

"Haha, good son, truly filial!"

"Ting-a-ling-ling-ling~" The grating sound of bells suddenly made the water ripple.

A murderous look in his eyes, Li Huowang took out a packet of earth from his bag and poured it into his mouth. "Kang Kong Lou!!"

The swiftly formed Traveling Patriarch immediately swam over and pounced on the water bandits on the small sampans.

Facing this unknown entity, the panicked water bandits instinctively fought back with bows, arrows, and blades, but obviously, this was ineffective.

Any body that the Traveling Patriarch passed through instantly stiffened and toppled into the water.

Before long, more than a dozen bodies were floating on the surface.

The water bandits clearly hadn't expected to provoke such a formidable person, and in a moment they were crying and screaming, jumping into the water to flee for their lives.

"Brother Li! The boat is leaking! There is a water ghost drilling a hole in the bottom of our boat!"

As Li Huowang's fingers moved, Lord You rapidly dived underwater, and after a while, several corpses of half-naked water bandits slowly floated up from beneath the surface.

Seizing this brief opportunity, the other water bandits around had already fled cleanly, leaving only ownerless sampans and bodies drifting with the waves.

Though the people had escaped, the matter was far from over.

"Hurry, scoop out the water! Use clothes to plug the hole!" Li Huowang quickly instructed the others to start saving themselves.

This was the center of the great lake, and if the boat truly sank, not even many Lord Yous would save his life.

After a bout of frantic scrambling, the hole was finally plugged.

But before Li Huowang had a chance to rest, Bai Lingmiao tugged at his sleeve and pointed towards the distant Reed Marshes.

Under the red sunset, one boat after another slowly reemerged from within, their occupants' eyes red, staring unblinkingly at the dozens of corpses on the water.

An old, bent, white-bearded man was being supported by the boat captain, standing in the front. His old, trembling voice carried far.

"Honorable one, these are the lives of dozens from our Yuan Family! If you had just called out names earlier, us crude folk wouldn't dare to obstruct you. Or is it that you were just feeling displeased and in the mood to see blood today?"

Li Huowang, uninterested in listening to his nonsense, asked the others behind him who was good at swimming to retrieve the bamboo poles sticking out of the water in the distance.

The boat always needs to move on, and it's impossible to just stop in the middle of the water, especially as the sky gradually darkens.

The old man's voice took on a strong tone of grief and indignation, "It's useless to say more now. Our lives may be cheap, but I'm afraid it won't be so easy for someone who has killed so many of our Yuan Family to just walk away!"

The unusual words of the old man in the distance caught Li Huowang's attention, but because it was too far and the sky was growing dark, he couldn't see clearly.

"Who has sharp eyesight, help me see what they are up to."

Li Huowang still wouldn't let his guard down; in this forsaken place, caution was paramount.

At this point, the one-armed man squinted hard, alternating between squinting and opening his eyes wide for a while before finally speaking, "They seem to be... bowing their heads, looks like they're worshiping something, with a quite high status, using pigs, cows, sheep, all three animals. Oh my god! That old man just threw two infants into the water!"

Hearing this, Li Huowang's heart tightened instantly, and he quickly shook the Taoist Bell in his hand again.

No matter what they were doing, these abnormal actions were definitely not right; now was not the time to save three months of life.

The rapidly formed Lord You sped towards that side with blinding speed, but just halfway there, it quickly returned.

In the instant it rushed back, the entire large boat beneath Li Huowang violently shook, and the sound of wood incrementally creaking under stress came from below.

"There's something underwater!"

With a thunderous "Boom!" the whole boat was abruptly lifted into the air by a massive force, then cruelly smashed back onto the surface of the lake.

The already worn boat could not withstand such torture and immediately broke apart, disintegrating.

Li Huowang tumbled into the lake water, the icy coldness making him shiver violently and his eyes snap open.

He could barely make out some vague silhouettes writhing and lurking in the dark, muddy silt at the bottom of the lake.

"Swoosh!" Seven bizarre eyes, gleaming with evil and continuously changing reflections, suddenly opened and stared fixedly at Li Huowang.