Mutated Tao

“There’s… There’s shit!”

“Stop pushing! I’m not blind! Don’t tell me that you want to eat it? Even if you are a simpleton, you shouldn’t be eating shit, right?”

“Puppy, stop talking. There are people in front of us.”

“Alright, Senior Li.”

It wasn’t long before Lu Zuangyuan saw the people walking out of the forest.

No wonder my son thought that they were ghosts. They look so frightening!

Lu Zuangyuan took a deep breath when he saw them walking out. A skinny guy with black and white markings on his face, a white-haired lady, a twisted man on the back of a giant of a man, and there was even someone with hair all over their face.

Lu Zuangyuan had traveled and seen a lot. Even so, the scene in front of him was enough to frighten him.

“Father, I’m scared.” Lu Xiucai said as he walked backward. It was as if he wanted to hide his entire body behind his father.

Lu Zuangyuan silently scolded his son in his heart. If it weren’t for the young Taoist and the young assistants who looked quite normal, he too would’ve made a run for it.

Lu Zuangyuan stammered as he spoke to Li Huowang. “Respected sir… are these… the monsters that you’ve subjugated?”

The moment he said this, several pairs of eyes filled with hostility focused on him.

“You damned geezer! Are you asking for a beating? Who are you calling monsters?”

At that moment, Lu Zuangyuan saw the Taoist motion for the man with black and white markings on his face to stop talking. This made him even more certain that the Taoist was the one in charge of all of them.

“Old man, may I ask where this road leads to?”

“Wuli Gang! It’s just slightly further ahead. In fact, we are pretty close to it, hehe.”

The moment he said this, he stealthily took his pipe and used it to burn the rump of his horse. The horse neighed loudly and ran down the path along with their stuff.

“My horse! Aiya! Quickly! Follow it!” Lu Zuangyuan pretended that he was anxious as he took his people and quickly ran for his horse, using this opportunity to make a quick getaway.

They ran so fast that they were gone in an instant. They continued running for two hours until Lu Zuangyuan saw his youngest son vomiting due to the stress. Finally, Lu Zuangyuan blew a whistle, signaling the horse to stop.

Instead of caring for his youngest son who was vomiting, he went and checked on the horse that was pulling their cart; horses were much more expensive than the people in the troupe.

As night approached, the sky slowly turned dark.

“What were those things? I swear, they looked so terrifying!” Lu Juren was sweating buckets as he panted.

Lu Zuangyuan kicked him. “Don’t you see that it’s getting dark soon? Quickly go and gather some firewood!”

Soon, a warm fireplace was made just slightly off the forest path. They roasted some multigrain buns till they were soft and mushy before passing them along to everyone, trying to use the taste of the food to calm themselves down.

“Look at how frightened you guys look! Remember: When you are on the road, you need to be calm even if you encounter something strange like that. You must remain level-headed!” Lu Zuangyuan said to the others.

“Father, maybe they were not monsters? They looked like humans to me. The young Taoist even called you old man.”

Listening to his daughter-in-law, he shook the gourd of water in his hand.

“No matter what they are, don’t go trying to interact with them. If we want to survive out here, we need to remember not to interact with others if we can avoid it.”

This was based on Lu Zuangyuan’s personal experience. Even if it was very little, he had survived until now thanks to it. He needed to teach all this to both of his sons as well. After all, they would one day inherit the entire troupe.

He passed the gourd of water to one of his nephews and then looked at his granddaughter who was in his daughter-in-law’s arms.

Lu Zuangyuan fell more and more in love with his granddaughter as he looked at her munching on a small piece of bun with her newly-grown teeth.

He turned back to his cart and took out a single salted duck egg from inside a round jar. Then, he carefully opened the egg and exposed the fatty yolk inside it before passing it to his granddaughter. “Come, suck on this. This is some good stuff!”

Seeing his granddaughter sucking on it voraciously, Lu Zuangyuan smiled contentedly.

Even though he was somewhat disappointed that it wasn’t a grandson, she was still a part of his family, and he took great care of her.

Sensing that this was a good opportunity, Luo Juanhua said, “Father-in-law, look at how much Cui Er has grown. I think it’s time for her to get a new set of clothes. I don’t think it’s appropriate for her to wear a costume every day.”

When Lu Zhuangyuan heard that, he knew that his daughter-in-law was asking for money. His smile disappeared in an instant and was replaced by a stressed expression.

He was just about to decline when he saw the loose costume that his granddaughter was wearing, causing him to sigh.

He smoked his pipe for a while before he walked to his cart, his face filled with wrinkles. He then took out a long bronze key to open up one of the chests.

He rummaged around for a bit before taking out a stack of bronze coins. He counted 50 before placing the rest back inside.

“Don’t buy the fabric for the clothes in the cities. It would be too expensive there. We will reach Wuli Gang in two days. Once we get there, go and ask around to see who is willing to sell some fabric. Ask around multiple houses and buy roughly a meter or so from the one that is the cheapest. Oh, and remember to buy fabric made of cotton and not linen. She is still young and it might not be suitable for her to wear rough linen.”

“I understand.” Luo Juanhua was quite happy as she took the coins. She had thought that it would already be very good if she was allowed to purchase some linen, but to think that her father-in-law would be so generous this time around.

The child was still quite young so she wouldn’t need a lot of fabric to make a set of clothes for her. She might even be able to save some of the money for herself.

Lu Zuangyuan split the white of the salted duck egg amongst the rest of them after his granddaughter had finished eating the yolk.

While everyone only got a little bit, they were happy to just be able to taste the salt and egg. It wasn’t every day that they got to eat protein.

There was nothing else to do after they finished dinner, and it was already quite late into the night. Lu Zuangyuan told all of them some random stories before everyone went to sleep.

Lu Juren was the one in charge of keeping watch in the first half of the night. It had been a long day and he was already very tired, but he still forced himself to stay awake. He stared at the bonfire, making sure that it didn’t die out.

“Son, go and get some sleep. I will keep watch.” Lu Zuangyuan sat beside his son while smoking his pipe.

Lu Juren yawned. “No need, father. I’m not that sleepy. You should get some sleep first.”

“No. Go and sleep now. As an old man, I don’t need to sleep a lot.”

Just as the two were telling each other to go and sleep, Lu Zuangyuan suddenly used his hands to cover his son’s mouth. Then, he silently pointed toward a dark figure that had appeared from the depths of the forest.

“Hehe~” A shrill sound of female laughter soon rang out from their right.

Both of them stared in the direction of the voice but couldn’t see anything.

“Hihi~ Tell me. Do I look like a human or a God?” The shadows of the trees in the forest shifted; it was as if something was walking toward them.

Lu Zuangyuan was scared, cold sweat drenching his shirt. He had experienced many things in his lifetime and knew that something was trying to ascend to Godhood through him.

He knew that he must not answer the question wrongly. If he did, there was a chance that everyone here would perish.

But the problem was that he didn’t know what the thing was. Why was it asking him?

At that moment, a strange rustling sound was heard as the trees in the forest shook.

Chacha and Char’s Thoughts

Lu Zhuangyuan acting all tough but in the end he’s just winging it. Gotta give him props to be that sly though

Also, the spirit trying to ascend to Godhood through asking a question is a very interesting piece of folklore.

Basically, to become immortal, an animal/spirit/human would cultivate until they reach a bottleneck. Once they reached it, they would seek out people with good karma/or stronger cultivation. They would then ask how do they look, a human/animal or an Immortal/God?

If the person answered the former, the cultivator’s effort for the past hundreds of years or so would go to waste and they have to do it from scratch again. If the answer is the latter, the cultivator would ascend.

But here’s the caveat if you were the one being asked the question: If you answer they look like an animal, the cultivator would take revenge on you because you wasted their cultivation for the past hundreds of years. If you answer they look like an Immortal, they would take your karma and lifespan to ascend. If you don’t have sufficient karma/lifespan, you will die.