Chapter 474 - Spiritual Sin
“Four hundred?!” Li Huowang was shocked. He didn’t even need to check his gourd to know that he didn’t have that many lifespan pills.
“Please don’t think that it's too expensive. It's a great item from thousands of years ago; it's from the Great Qi! Do you really think there are any monks left today that'll generate relics upon self-immolation?”
Li Huowang didn’t mind the price, but he couldn't afford it. He had been so busy dealing with his hallucination that he hadn't been able to earn lifespan pills.
“How much is the Sacred Eye Bead?” Li Huowang asked. He decided not to care even if Bai Lingmiao would look bizarre—it didn't matter as long as she could see.
“Five hundred,” said the eunuch, dashing Li Huowang's hopes of using a cheaper item. He didn't expect that the Sacred Eye Bead was more expensive than the relic.
Li Huowang finally realized that the Surveillance Bureau was the greediest organization in existence. He had worked hard and had risked his life to earn lifespan pills outside, but he couldn’t even afford what he needed right now.
Without the lifespan pills, he wouldn't be able to obtain the relic for Bai Lingmiao; without the relic, Bai Lingmiao would be blind, and Li Huowang couldn't let that happen.
When Li Huowang obtained Li Zhi's gourd, it contained only four lifespan pills, but Li Huowang needed four hundred to buy the relic! It was a mind-boggling amount that made Li Huowang feel dizzy. Who was he supposed to rob to earn that many pills?
No, this is a small price to pay compared to killing her entire family. I must get it for her! Li Huowang vowed as he walked out of the vault.
He then went to the hall with numerous screens rather than leaving the building, as he could take on some missions there. Li Huowang saw a few familiar faces, but he was rather calm rather than hostile toward them.
The Surveillance Bureau treated the lives of others lightly, but the Surveillance Bureau's existence was vital to the world.
“Er Jiu?! You're alive?! I thought you were dead.” Nangong exclaimed
Nangong said the same thing as Sima Lan and Li Huowang couldn't be bothered with him at all as he immediately went straight to the point, asking, "I want to take on the mission, and I want the highest paying one."
Nangong put two and two together and went silent. He took out a book and handed it over to Li Huowang. "Check it for yourself. It’s on the final page.”
Li Huowang opened it and saw the mission details.
[Wanted: Sitting Oblivion Dao Hong Zhong, dead or alive.]
Li Huowang skimmed through the pages.
Sitting Oblivion Dao Fa Cai, Sitting Oblivion Dao Xi Feng, Sitting Oblivion Dao Bai Ban, SItting Oblivion Dao, Sitting Oblivion Dao. The missions were related to the Sitting Oblivion Dao. Liu Zongyuan was right. The Surveillance Bureau was indeed going after them.
The rewards were attractive, but Li Huowang decided not to take them because he didn't want to get into contact with those tricksters.
The Three Officials and Four Joys were like a glue trap. If he killed one of them, he could expect to see them all the time, just like how Zhuge Yuan had fallen into their trap.
“Brother Er Jiu. I thought you had a grudge against the Sitting Oblivion Dao? Why don't you accept missions related to them?”
“I paid the price with one of my eyes and settled the score. I’ve killed the Sitting Oblivion Dao member who killed the elders of my sect,” Li Huowang replied. He flipped over some pages and stopped.
“The spiritual sin?”
The reward for the mission titled "The Spiritual Sin" was four hundred and thirty lifespan pills and five pure lifespans. Li Huowang looked at Zhuge Yuan standing beside Nangong and asked, “The Spiritual Sin? What is it? Is it like a spiritual beast?”
“No. Even though it has the word 'spiritual' in it, it’s not a spiritual beast at all,” Zhuge Yuan replied. He revealed a look of disgust upon seeing the words "Spiritual Sin."
“Yep. The Spiritual Sin,” Nangong answered, “But are you sure you want to accept that mission? I hope you didn't become crazy after seeing the reward, which includes five pure lifespans. It’s more dangerous than the members of the Sitting Oblivion Dao.”
“What is it? Why is it dangerous?”
“It’s not as dangerous as the Muddled Ones, Strayed Ones, and the Twisted Ones, but it's very tiresome to handle. The difficulty depends on the entity that it has possessed. It would be fine if it possessed a normal human, as it would at most be as strong as a crazed half-Immortal, but the story is different if it possessed an evil entity."
“So it's like a parasite?” Li Huowang asked, deducing some information himself.
The crux of the matter here was the fact that the Spiritual Sin’s powers would change depending on the entity that it possessed. In other words, it was capable of using a variety of techniques.
Li Huowang read some recorded encounters about the Spiritual Sin and quietly compared his own strength to it to see if he could handle it.
After a few moments of hesitation, Li Huowang made up his mind. He was as strong as a Hong Zhong, so he was not weak at all. There was no reason for him to be afraid of it. Moreover, it wasn't like he wouldn't be able to escape if he couldn't win.
There was also a chance that the Spiritual Sin wasn't that strong. One of the recorded encounters stated that a monk was lucky enough to find a Spiritual Sin that had possessed a blade of grass. The monk was overjoyed with the discovery and made quick work of it
“I'll take this one,” Li Huowang said, pressing his thumb on the red paste and accepting the mission by marking it with his thumbprint.
“Sure. These are the locations where it might appear according to our investigations. You can go ahead and look for it yourself.”
“I need to find it myself?!”
“Of course. Do you really think that it's that easy to obtain such bountiful rewards? Fortunately, your rank is high enough, so you can find some people to help you carry some of that risk.”
Li Huowang didn’t want to recruit people like what Ji Xiang had done in the past, so he took the map away and walked out of the building. Li Huowang knew that he'd have to give up a few lifespan pills if he wanted helpers, and he needed as many lifespan pills as he could to afford the relic, so he decided not to recruit anyone.
Li Huowang stayed only a single night in the house before bringing Bai Lingmiao with him on a journey to hunt a Spiritual Sin. He thought he'd find one in the blink of an eye, but the first two locations turned out to be worthless.
He didn't receive even a hint from those two locations.
Just like that, a month and a half passed by.
Smack, smack, smack!
Bai Lingmiao was smacking Li Huowang’s Daoist robes, which she had drenched in the water. Bai Lingmiao smacked it for a while before washing and scrubbing it against the stones in the river.
They didn't have a washing board, so Bai Lingmiao had to make do with stones.
After washing Li Huowang's robes, she washed her dress carefully—the same dress that Li Huowang had purchased for her at Shangjing. It was a pretty dress, and she loved it. Soon, she was done with the laundry, and she placed the clothes into a wooden bucket before standing up to leave.
Bai Lingmiao picked up a bamboo pole roughly the width of her thumb and used it as a cane. She then used the bamboo pole to make her way toward the carriage with a bucket of wet clothes in her other hand.
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶