Chapter 405 - Discrepancy
Zhuge Yuan tossed a few silver pieces on the table.
The waiter picked them up and said, “Thank you for the three silver pieces, scholar.”
Bun ate heartily beneath the table. As Li Huowang and Zhuge Yuan ate, Zhuge Yuan expressed his concerns in a low voice in between chewing, “Brother Li, it is imperative that you remain calm while you're looking for them. You don't want them to know your intentions.
“Relax. I'm here, so they'll definitely come."
“Brother Zhuge, I just feel that if we're in a den of burglars, no one is going to be wary of burglars barging into our homes. What I'm trying to say is that what if we—” Li Huowang stopped mid-sentence just as he started chewing on a piece of stir-fried lamb. He smacked his chopsticks on the table and roared, “Damn it, we're eating human flesh!”
Li Huowang rushed over and placed his sword against the neck of the cashier.
Meanwhile, Bun trembled as it stood up. Li Huowang smacked the pommel of his sword on the cashier's head before slicing open his stomach and pouring out the contents of his stomach.
Li Huowang washed his stomach with wine to make sure that the drug wouldn't take effect.
The others moved about busily while Li Huowang was busy washing his stomach clean.
Some swallowed pills, and some chanted scriptures. Xia Risheng reached into his clothes and pulled hard on the hooks hanging from certain acupoints.
Li Huowang’s actions had not only alerted the others in his group, but it had also alerted the staffers. The waiter's fawning expression had vanished, and he rushed over to Li Huowang and the others with a large knife in hand.
The red-robed Daoist brandished his sword with a fierce look and kicked off of the table, jumping toward the waiter.
And that was the last scene the waiter saw before his consciousness went dark...
Everything went swimmingly afterward, and there was no suspense whatsoever. It was just a one-sided slaughter, and the entire inn was soon drenched in blood amidst the chaos.
Li Huowang was like a god of slaughter as he stood in the sea of corpses. Eight tentacles were sticking out of him, and every tentacle squirmed as they wielded a variety of weapons.
The Great Qi's Surveillance Bureau was shocked by the sight. They had seen many bizarre scenes, but they had never seen something like this before. Their reservations toward Li Huowang vanished just then. They finally considered Li Huowang worthy of being Lord Zhuge’s friend.
Li Huowang panted heavily as he approached Zhuge Yuan.
Li Huowang sounded astonished as he asked, “Did you not see that the dishes were drugged?”
Zhuge Yuan had been vomiting since Li Huowang revealed that they were eating human flesh. He wiped away the saliva on his lips, and he looked disgusted as he replied, “Of course, I saw that it's drugged. However, I thought they only used drugs to make us fall asleep. It'd be a waste to throw away so much food, and I was going to take care of the drugs once we're done eating, but...
"Who would've known that the lamb we were exacting was actually human flesh? This is absolutely disgusting!"
Li Huowang sighed deeply as he stared at the gaping hole in his stomach. He was in great spirits today, but to think he'd be involved in such a disgusting incident. Although he wasn't exactly afraid of something like this, it still left a bad taste in his mouth.
“Hasn't the Liang Kingdom always been stable? How could shop owners drug their own customers?” Li Huowang asked.
Hong Zhong had been absent for quite a while now, but he finally reappeared, emerging from behind a nearby table, saying, “Hehehe, Li Huowang, that's just your wishful thinking. Didn’t you hear what the Twisted One say? We're in Great Qi, not Great Liang!”
Li Huowang paused slightly. Has this really become the Great Qi? What exactly is the Twisted One’s special ability?
Li Huowang thought about many things in the blink of an eye. He wanted to ask Hong Zhong some questions, but he refrained from doing so after seeing Hong Zhong's eager expression. In the end, he took out the Fiery Scripture to heal his injuries.
However, Hong Zhong didn't give up so easily. “Ah, Lord Li is so knowledgeable. He's actually familiar with the taste of human flesh! How remarkable!”
Hong Zhong was about to say a few more words when Li Sui interjected, “Dad, can you give me a few swords?”
“A few swords? Why would you want that?” Li Huowang asked, stopping his chanting.
“I want to help you, Dad. Next time we encounter bad people, I want to be able to help you like what I did just now!” Li Sui replied.
“My body doesn't have any room for swords, so stop it with the nonsense, all right?"
Li Sui didn't want to give in and protested, “No, no, no! I want swords! I want swords!”
Black tentacles emerged from Li Huowang’s legs and rolled on the ground. The sight resembled children running down a street in protest against their parents who didn't want to buy candied hawthorns for them.
Damn it, where did Li Sui learn to be rebellious? Li Huowang lampooned inwardly. He soothed Li Sui for a while, and Li Huowang finally managed to silence Li Sui by offering him his own bag of torture tools.
“See, there’s everything in here—knives, saws, awls, scissors, clamps, shovels. These are yours now. Whenever we encounter bad people, you can just use these to deal with them.”
Li Sui’s tentacles emerged from Li Huowang's navel, and he started playing with the tools. Li Sui's laughter echoed in Li Huowang’s ears. Li Huowang shook his head slightly and joined the Great Qi’s Surveillance Bureau members outside the shop.
Li Huowang had killed the staffers, so the mounts in the backyard now belonged to them.
Li Huowang’s horses finally had new companions.
Zhuge Yuan walked up to Li Huowang and said, “Rest assured, our people in You Capital already know that Qin Lao has encountered enemies. They'll send someone to pick us up soon, and we'll be at You Capital in no time.”
Li Huowang wasn’t very optimistic as he glanced at Qin Lao, who needed assistance just to get on and get off the carriage.
Li Huowang soon got into his own carriage and took out a map to pinpoint their exact location.
"At this rate, it's going to take us a while," Li Huowang muttered, tracing his blood-stained finger along the coastline and toward the center of the Jiang Nan region, “Hmm? You Capital?”
Li Huowang looked at the familiar yet unfamiliar characters and thought that he was mistaken. Li Huowang frowned and stared at it for a while, but nothing really changed. Shangjing had vanished and was replaced by You Capital.
Li Huowang cast an astonished gaze at Zhuge Yuan. “This is your map?”
Zhuge Yuan seemed annoyed as he replied, “Brother Li, you must be joking. I'm well versed in geography, and I've never needed maps to travel.”
“If that's the case, then why...” Li Huowang trailed off, hesitating.
Hong Zhong popped up once again and said, “Isn’t that normal? You’re in Great Qi, so it's not strange that you're using a map of the Great Qi."
Li Huowang's brows knitted as he looked down at the map in his hands. He looked around the map, and his gaze soon landed on a red stain in the upper left corner of the map.
The red stain was from a drop of oil he had unintentionally dropped on the map when he was eating oily noodles while trying to find Xing Island on the map. The red stain made it clear that this was the same map he had used at the time.
However, Li Huowang had purchased the map back in Shangjing, so how come Shangjing wasn't on the map and had been replaced by the You Capital of the Great Qi?
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺