Chapter 223 - Leave
“Lion Dance?” Li Huowang’s still could not fathom it. The thing that was approaching them was not the Lion Dance that he knew of. The Lion Dance he knew was festive and glamorous, not a large dirty white sheet that didn’t even have a head on it!
Underneath the white sheet was a glowing white light. The light illuminated the white sheet from within, as well as the surroundings. Li Huowang noticed that it was the same exact light that he had seen just now.
Li Huowang wouldn’t have thought that it was an evil being if it was just a glowing piece of white sheet, but what made his hair stand on end were the various dried handprints on the white sheet.
Under the illumination of the light, the white sheet was somewhat translucent, and there were handprints of various sizes clearly printed on it.
As the Lion Dance got closer, Li Huowang saw that it had many white tassels attached to it, the same ones that were seen on the funeral banners.
Then, Li Huowang looked down and saw the legs of the performers. They weren’t wearing shoes and their feet were caked in mud.
If there was one similarity between this and the Lion Dance that he knew, then it was the hands holding up the white sheet. They were all swaying rhythmically while moving forward, almost as if they were dancing. Everytime they moved forward, the sound of pieces of wood smacking against each other could be heard from underneath the white sheet, as if following a beat.
“Senior Li, it’s fine. I also cried when I saw them for the first few times, but afterward I got used to it,” said Sun Baolu, trying to reassure Li Huowang.
However, Li Huowang just carefully pulled his coin veil up a bit to cover more of his face. “Sometimes the things we are used to are not all that safe. Why doesn’t that Lion Dance have a head?”
“That’s because they are still disciples! Only the masters have the qualifications to don on the head. The disciples usually practice at night when no one is around,” explained Sun Baolu.
Once Sun Baolu explained everything to Li Huowang, he shouted toward the Lion Dance. Based on his tone, Li Huowang could tell that Sun Baolu was cheering on the Lion Dance performers.
But the headless Lion Dance did not respond to his cries. They just kept moving forward slowly and rhythmically before passing by Li Huowang and Sun Baolu.
After a while, the Lion Dance finally left the street. Now, the Lion Dance was nothing more than a glowing white light in the darkness, the same as before. During the entire process, the Lion Dance hadn’t even reacted to Li Huowang or Sun Baolu.
“See, Senior Li? Qing Qiu is not the same as the other places. With the protection of Immortal Heaven, the evil beings dare not come out over here,” said Sun Baolu proudly.
Li Huowang was still somewhat suspicious when he looked at Sun Baolu before heading into the inn. “Then, why is the Immortal Heaven so selfish? Why is it only protecting this area?”
“I don’t know. My family was the one who taught me that,” replied Sun Baolu.
“The Lion Dance... Do the masters among them gather and teach the disciples so that they can take the mantle as the next generation?” asked Li Huowang.
“No, they don’t gather disciples from the public. They are inherited instead. There’s a special place in Qing Qiu where they came from, called the Lion Dance Palace,” explained Sun Baolu.
“Lion Dance Palace?” Li Huowang mumbled and repeated the name. He had heard of it before but he couldn’t remember where.
Just as he was thinking hard about it, Monk’s illusion suddenly shouted and pointed in the direction of the Lion Dance, “Daoist! Something’s not right! Something’s wrong with the Lion Dance!”
“Hm?” Li Huowang turned and looked at Monk’s illusion. “What’s wrong?”
“Did you not count them? The number wasn’t right! There were more hands than there were feet under that sheet! Something’s definitely wrong with that Lion Dance!” replied Monk.
“Wait!” Li Huowang tried his best to remember what he had seen and a chill went up his spine.
If it wasn’t for Monk, he would’ve failed to notice it.
Why were there more hands than there were feet?!
“Senior Li?” Sun Baolu retreated a few steps back when he saw Li Huowang mumbling to himself. Just as he was planning to call for the others and ask them to bring the chains in case Li Huowang’s illness relapsed, Li Huowang started hobbling back inside.
“Baolu, we won’t be sleeping tonight! We need to guard everyone!” shouted Li Huowang while hobbling inside.
“Ah? Oh! Alright!” While Sun Baolu didn’t know why they still needed to stay up at night to stand guard, he did it anyway.
During the third section of the night, Sun Baolu saw as Li Huowang stood up and called for everyone to start preparing to move out.
The others didn’t know why they needed to travel during the night, but they did as they were instructed.
At this moment, they had traded their gold and silver for a whole bunch of highland barley and several lambs.
“Here, let me handle it! I’m great at it! When I was young, I helped some rich people to herd their lambs for two years!” Lu Zhuangyuan volunteered himself and was temporarily assigned the position of the lamb herder.
Soon, they left Women’s Mountain under the moonlight.
Throughout the process, Li Huowang kept looking backward from time to time. He looked terrible due to the lack of sleep.
Given how anxious Li Huowang was, everyone thought that something would happen to them. However, they didn’t have the energy to think about other stuff and so the mood of the entire group became depressing.
Chun Xiaoman was carrying her sword as she went over and asked Sun Baolu, “What happened to Senior Li? Wasn’t he always by your side? I saw him bringing Senior Bai to happily play around earlier, so why did he suddenly become like this tonight?”
Sun Baolu hesitated for a moment before whispering back, “I don’t know either. There shouldn’t be a problem.”
Sun Baolu’s voice was as quiet as a mosquito as he continued, “Maybe Senior Li is having one of his episodes again. I remember that every time it happened, there was always someone trying to harm him through his hallucinations.”
Xiaoman looked at the nervous Li Huowang and ran over to Bai Lingmiao to question her instead.
But even as they arrived at a river to rest, Chun Xiaoman still had no idea what had happened to Li Huowang.
“Set up the pot, gather some of the lamb feces and start the fire under it!” instructed Li Huowang.
Meanwhile, some of them scattered to find some wild vegetables.
Puppy’s eyes lit up as he caught two grasshoppers from the long grass. He plucked off their wings and legs before placing them into a pouch on his waist.
“Qing Qiu is so fertile. I can’t believe that I managed to catch some good food so quickly over here,” mumbled Puppy as he started to look for more grasshoppers.
After a while, Puppy suddenly found a small spiny vine. He carefully twisted a part of the vine off before peeling it to reveal the emerald core within. Then, he chewed on the core, feeling satisfied. He had eaten this before and it tasted quite good, just like a stalk of celery.
Just as Puppy was about to harvest the entire vine, a basket fell in front of him, surprising him. He raised his head and saw that it was Chun Xiaoman’s basket. She had placed the basket down in front of him as she walked toward Li Huowang.
“Please bring these back when you return to the fireplace,” said Xiaoman.
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