Chapter 19: Superstition

Chapter 19 Superstition

Hearing Li Huowang's words, Bai Lingmiao widened her eyes and said, "Yes, yes, my grandpa even told me not to run outside the village. The people outside are terribly wicked; if they catch children, they'll skin them and wrap them in dog hides to train them like dogs. Because children are smart, they can use these dogs that understand human speech to perform acrobatics on the streets. It's miserable for the child, because their body fuses with the dog hide and they can never grow up again."

Frowning slightly, Li Huowang shook his head. "No, I'm not talking about those old wives' tales used to scare little grandsons. I mean things like Lord You."

"Like Lord You? Let me think..." Bai Lingmiao furrowed her brows in thought. "The stories my grandpa usually tells are all jumbled, but mostly about giant serpents in the mountains eating people. Things like Lord You are really rare."

"Then who told your grandpa the story of Lord You?"

Bai Lingmiao widened her eyes innocently. "Why, my grandpa's grandpa told him, of course, and then my grandpa told me, and I'll tell my grandson in the future."

Li Huowang scratched his head; so the story was handed down through the generations. It seemed his calculations were off.

"Senior Brother Li, I know one," a frail young man leaning against the wall, who had been listening in, suddenly spoke up.

The man had deformed joints, one shoulder higher than the other, his entire body twisted and contorted, making him rather striking in appearance even among the inhabitants of the ingredient room.

"Senior Brother Li, my surname is Zhao, and I'm the fifth child in my family. Just call me Zhao Wu."

It didn't matter who told it; Li Huowang walked up to him and said, "Alright, go ahead."

Zhao Wu glanced left and right, deliberately lowering his voice. "That kind of bizarre thing you mentioned, I heard the older generation talk about one. That thing is called the Grand Granny."

"Grand Granny? What does it look like?" Li Huowang quickly searched his mind but found no related images, and guessing from the literal meaning offered absolutely no clues.

"Shh! Senior Brother Li, don't speak so loudly, keep your voice down. This thing is deeply sinister. I've heard that the Grand Granny can hear you; if you talk about it often, they'll come looking for you!"

"Oh?" Hearing this, Li Huowang's interest was piqued.

"I heard from my maternal uncle that it looks different to everyone. Some see it as a long-eared spirit, others as their own deceased elders, but the one similarity is that anyone who stays near them for a while will also turn into a Grand Granny!"

Li Huowang stroked his chin thoughtfully. "This place is truly strange, filled with all sorts of inexplicable things. Alright, anything else?"

"Yes, there's more. There's also the Husband-and-Wife Fish; that thing is bizarre too..."

From Zhao Wu, Li Huowang learned quite a few bizarre and eccentric terms, all of which were ingredients he planned to put into the immortality elixir.

"You really know a lot. Thank you, this information is helpful to me." If he only mentioned highly toxic elixir ingredients, Danyang Zi might see through it, but adding these things that even he couldn't identify would make it much more credible.

The goal was to be incomprehensible; as long as something couldn't be understood, it would seem profound.

Hearing Li Huowang say this, Zhao Shi smiled joyfully. "I heard all this from my maternal uncle. He's a traveling peddler who's been everywhere and knows a lot."

"Alright, it's almost time. I'm heading back. Wait quietly for my news." Li Huowang took a deep breath, stood up, and walked out.

He had barely taken two steps when a towering figure, at least six foot three, blocked his path. "I-I-I..."

Li Huowang recognized the bald man before him; everyone in the ingredient room called him the Fool, the cross-eyed, drooling kind.

Calling him a complete fool wasn't entirely accurate; he just had a stutter, slow reflexes, and low intelligence. "I... I... I... know one too!"

Li Huowang sighed, patted the man's large bald head, and turned toward the door.

Early the next morning, Li Huowang was summoned to Danyang Zi's residence bright and early. "The inner and outer microcosmic orbit techniques you mentioned, I've nearly mastered them. Tell me the elixir to take alongside the techniques."

"Yes, Master." Li Huowang walked to the stone slab and pretended to observe it once more. "Hmm... two Grand Granny hearts, refine their essence? Master, what does this mean?"

His expression shifting unpredictably, Danyang Zi paced back and forth in the room, muttering to himself, "So that's how it is? The path to immortality actually requires such sinister elements?"

"Master, what is a Grand Granny?"

"Never mind that, keep going."

"One Husband-and-Wife Fish, take its gills, soak in two taels of arsenic..."

Combining what he had learned from Zhao Wu with his modern knowledge, and blending it with the effort of a sleepless night, Li Huowang smoothly articulated a systematic method for achieving immortality.

After Li Huowang finished reciting everything he had fabricated, he saw that Danyang Zi was extremely agitated, muttering something to himself.

However, when he listened closely and made out the words, he was instantly struck with astonishment.

"Yes, it can't be wrong. Arsenic is cold in nature, so it must be neutralized by something hot and dry like the Husband-and-Wife Fish. Brilliant! And to actually use the Grand Granny in the elixir, why didn't I think of that before? If humans can be used, why can't these sinister entities be used as well?" The man had actually started rationalizing the balance of the elixir's medicinal properties in his own mind.

Li Huowang realized that when Danyang Zi was smart, he was very smart, but when he was ignorant, he was truly ignorant. He trusted no one, only the system he had devised in his own mind.

If there were one word to describe it, it would be superstition. In a world without gods and ghosts, superstition represents ignorance, but in a world with gods and ghosts, superstition is still ignorance; only the object of obsession differs.

Just then, Danyang Zi reached his right hand into his sleeve and pulled out a chipped copper Daoist bell, the very kind of bell he had seen in jiangshi films used to control the undead.

As he began to shake it vigorously, a piercing ringing instantly erupted. Li Huowang immediately felt a splitting headache, instinctively clutching his head and gritting his teeth.

This eerie copper chime not only affected his hearing but also his vision.

Everything around him began to twist and deform, the entire world shaking violently as if in an earthquake.

"What's going on? Danyang Zi, what trick is he pulling? Did I make a slip? Has he found me out?"

Just as Li Huowang was thinking this, he saw the corners of the table, the edges of Danyang Zi's Daoist robe, and even the sides of the heavenly book nearby. Every edge and corner of every object in the room came alive, twisting and slowly coalescing before Danyang Zi.

It was hard to describe the shape of this mass formed from the edges and corners of objects, but the only certainty was that it was alive.

Li Huowang thought his eyes were playing tricks on him and shook his head vigorously. But it would have been better not to shake it at all, for with that shake, the thing actually split into two.

(End of Chapter)