Chapter 283 - Information
He is from the Surveillance Bureau? Hong Da honored his promise?
Li Huowang stared at the man warily. The man was wearing a female doll head. The doll head had a red dot on the forehead that shone brightly within the dark stable.
Since the man was someone from the Surveillance Bureau, Li Huowang dared not act rashly. He had deduced that the most likely development at this point would be them wanting to test him and see if he was worthy of joining the Surveillance Bureau or not. However, before that Li Huowang needed to ensure that the man in front of him was not a member of the Sitting Oblivion Dao.
Just as Li Huowang was thinking about what to do, the man with the doll head spoke up; it was almost as if he knew what Li Huowang was thinking. “Don’t worry, the Three Officials of the Sitting Oblivion Dao have been injured. It’s likely that they will stop their activities for a while.”
Li Huowang pondered for a moment and then spoke slowly, “About Hong Da... I helped him quite a bit last time and I think I could have even handled it on my own. There’s no need for him to get all of the rewards, so...”
Hearing that, the man with the doll head swayed a little before slowly approaching Li Huowang. “To join the Surveillance Bureau is both easy and difficult at the same time. Sometimes, you need to think a bit about others and that will make your path much easier. Do you understand?”
“Hm?” Li Huowang was taken aback. Originally, he did not understand what the man meant, but he realized it soon enough.
He wanted some bribe.
This was good news for Li Huowang. At the very least, people with desires were people who were alive.
After having gone through so much, Li Huowang didn’t have high expectations.
After a moment of thought, Li Huowang took out a chest embedded with gemstones and handed it to the man. Within the chest were a number of gold pieces.
“Gold?” The man extended his wrinkled hands and checked it out before throwing the gold and chest onto the ground.
Seeing that the man wasn’t moved, Li Huowang took out the gourd from his waist. Then, he took out five lifespan pills that were covered in yellow talismans from within it.
Seeing those pills, the man’s voice became discernibly more friendly, “Hmm... Not bad, looks like you know how to do it.”
Once he gave the five lifespan pills to the man, Li Huowang received a metal plate that was half the size of his palm. The metal plate had the words “Surveillance Bureau” etched onto its back while the front side had the words “Tenth Pawn, Er Jiu” carved on it. The words were all encircled by depictions of constellations and the whole thing looked quite pretty.
Is this it? Did they prepare it beforehand? Isn’t this too convenient?
After receiving the metal plate, Li Huowang looked at the man with the doll's head. “What does Tenth Pawn mean?”
“I don’t think I need to explain about the “Pawn” part, but “Tenth” refers to your rank. One to ten, where the larger your number, the lower your rank. You will know soon enough. Now, here’s your mission: Go and check if this is related to the Sitting Oblivion Dao. If it is, then you can just deal with it like how you helped Hong Da last time,” said the man as he passed a red envelope to Li Huowang.
“Sitting Oblivion Dao? Now?” Li Huowang was surprised at how quickly he had received a mission.
“Why? You can’t do it? Then I can just give it to the other pawns,” said the man, wanting to take the envelope back from Li Huowang.
However, Li Huowang continued to hold onto it. “No, I will take care of it. What is my reward and how do I go about increasing my rank within the Surveillance Bureau? Also, is there any information about the enemy?”
As he asked these questions, Li Huowang’s heart was beating rapidly. The only reason he had joined the Surveillance Bureau was to learn more about the Sitting Oblivion Dao.
At the same time, he considered that they might also have information about Strayed Ones.
“Get to work first. If you do well, then you will get your reward. The information about the mission and the enemies is all written inside the letter,” said the man with the doll head. Then, he turned around and walked out from the stable. However, even though the man had turned around, the doll's head did not. The eyes of the doll head were staring at Li Huowang the whole time as the man walked out.
It was only after the man disappeared that Li Huowang turned his attention toward the envelope and the metal plate.
He knew that it wouldn’t be easy. This mission was also a test for him.
He could only join the Surveillance Bureau after passing it. If he couldn’t pass the test, then the metal plate would be nothing but junk.
Could it really be related to the Sitting Oblivion Dao again? Is this a coincidence? Or did they do it on purpose? Did they give me this mission because they are suspicious of me being someone from the Sitting Oblivion Dao?
Does this mean that they are going to send someone over to observe me while I’m doing the mission?
Li Huowang carefully opened the envelope while thinking about the various possibilities.
The letter didn’t say much. All it said was that an informant felt that there was a possibility that the Sitting Oblivion Dao was operating in a village, and so they requested the Surveillance Bureau to come and check.
Everything looked normal. There was even a piece of paper that described the Sitting Oblivion Dao.
The letter was written in an ancient format that was quite difficult to read. Li Huowang had to spend some time before he finally managed to decipher what it was talking about.
According to the description, the Sitting Oblivion Dao was an organization that appeared out of nowhere. Not even the Surveillance Bureau knew about how they came about. All they knew was that the members of the Sitting Oblivion Dao only cared about pleasure.
As long as it was fun, they would even be willing to risk their lives.
They had also managed to trick the Simings into giving them power; however, no one knew how they managed to do it.
Li Huowang had already known about most of it, but there was one word that attracted his attention.
“Siming? So the Surveillance Bureau calls those beings from within the Baiyu Capital “Siming”? Why do people call them by so many different names?” muttered Li Huowang as he committed the name to memory. Then, he continued reading.
The entire Sitting Oblivion Dao’s hierarchy was based on mahjong tiles. Tiao, Bings, and Wan[1] were the lowest ranking ones.
After that were the Four Joys: Dong Feng, Xi Feng, Nan Feng, and Bei Feng[2].
Beyond the Four Joys were the Three Officials: Hong Zhong, Bai Ban, and Fa Cai[3].
Finally, above the Three Officials was the legendary Shai Zi[4] who controlled the entirety of the Sitting Oblivion Dao.
As for why they were a legend, that was because no one had ever seen Shai Zi before.
Not only were the members of the Sitting Oblivion Dao bizarre and used bizarre techniques, but even the method of joining them was crazy. Rather than joining normally like the other sects, you needed to trick your way into the Sitting Oblivion Dao.
They didn’t only trick the Simings and the others, but even themselves.
Thus, if someone wanted to join the Sitting Oblivion Dao, then they had to trick those who were already within it.
All the members of the Sitting Oblivion Dao were both liars and victims of lies at the same time.
“I knew it. They are just a bunch of crazy bastards,” cursed Li Huowang.
Li Huowang wanted to read more, but that was the end. He felt sad that the information had stopped at that point.
At that moment, a rooster called out, causing Li Huowang to raise his head.
It was already morning—he had spent the entire night standing in the stable.
1. Correspond with the Bamboos, Circles, and Characters mahjong tiles ?
2. East Wind, West Wind, South Wind, and North Wind respectively ?
3. Correspond with the Red, White, and Green of the Three Dragons in Mahjong respectively ?
4. Dice, as in gambling dice ?
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