Chapter 382: That Peddler

The phonograph stood beside the bed, first glancing at Li Banfeng sleeping on the bed, then at Xiang Xiang Hongying standing before the dressing table.

Sitting was out of the question — these past two days she could only stand.

After a moment of silence, Xiang Xiang Hongying suddenly barked, "You wicked woman, how do we settle this score?"

"Settle? My man gave you a bargain, and you still dare settle with me?" The phonograph was even more furious than Xiang Xiang Hongying. "If you'd been the least bit useful, would I have had to suffer so much last night?"

"What do you mean, not useful? Your madman can't even tell a door from a household — how was I supposed to be useful?"

The phonograph gave a cold laugh. "Even if he could tell them apart, would you have gotten the job done?"

Xiang Xiang Hongying laughed too. "If I couldn't, could you? While we were alive we were both novices — we knew nothing but fighting. What are you showing off to me for?"

Hiss hiss~

"True enough, you wretched woman. You could have been Wang Fei, but I held you back — do you hate me to death?"

"Wicked woman, I'll tell you one more time: my killing you has nothing to do with this matter! I killed you for the lives of the tens of thousands in the whole army — lives you never cared about at all."

"Wretched woman, what gives you the right to say I didn't care?"

"If you cared, why did you keep pushing the attack?"

"Because I could win!"

"Win, my ass! That peddler has already reached the battlefield — what are you going to fight him with?"

"I'm not afraid of him!"

"Still talking nonsense!" Xiang Xiang Hongying raged. "Ask anyone who was there — who wasn't afraid of him? Even pulling out the toughest fighters from the Inner Province, wouldn't they tremble before him? What are you going to fight him with?"

The phonograph fell silent for a moment, then said through gritted teeth, "Why won't you trust me? Why won't you trust that I can win?"

Xiang Xiang Hongying replied, "I trust you. Ever since we hit the battlefield, I've followed you — whatever you said, I believed it!

Three vanguard units, two wiped out, only one left — Yuan the Yuan Shoulv — and he ran. He said in this life he'd rather beg than fight again.

Even at this point, I still trust you. I trust you can win — but so what if you win? Isn't it still a dead end?"

The two were about to keep arguing when the phonograph suddenly noticed Li Banfeng's eyeballs move.

"Oh, husband, if you're awake, hurry and get up."

Li Banfeng opened his eyes. He'd wanted to keep listening a while longer, but hadn't expected his wife to see through him.

"What exactly happened back then?"

His wife said nothing.

Xiang Xiang Hongying sat down in the chair in a huff, then stood up again in a huff.

"Sit down," Li Banfeng said, looking at Xiang Xiang Hongying in surprise. "Sit and tell me slowly."

"Sit? After what you did to me last night, how am I supposed to sit?"

Li Banfeng scratched his head — he didn't remember doing anything to Xiang Xiang Hongying last night.

The peddler those two were just talking about — was he a peddler?

A peddler who could make the tough ones from the Inner Province tremble? Just how powerful was he?

Li Banfeng got up and went to the third room for a look — the whole room was still piled with Tianhe Huan earth.

"Hasn't this been taken to repair the station yet?"

Leaving Leaving Suishenju replied, "Have you picked a spot yet?"

"I get to pick the spot? Any spot will do?"

"An ordinary spot definitely won't work. You've ridden the train, so you know what a station looks like. The platform has to be big — big enough to hold a train and accommodate passengers.

But the platform can't just let anyone in. It needs walls to block people off, so those without tickets can't sneak onto the train."

That kind of spot wouldn't be easy to find.

Holding a train wasn't the hard part.

Li Banfeng roughly calculated the length of Leaving Leaving Suishenju. Each room was only a little over three meters long. There were eight carriages now; once he advanced to Cloudrise, theoretically there would be twelve rooms. The third room didn't count toward the length, so the other eleven rooms added up to just over thirty meters — there were plenty of spots to choose from.

As for whether it could accommodate passengers, that needed even less thought. Leaving Leaving Suishenju was Li Banfeng's home — under normal circumstances, the only passengers were the people in his household. Even counting everyone in the family, there was no chance of not fitting.

The key issue was the walls.

Such a large piece of land — where would he find walls?

Hire people to build some?

Out in the wild mountains, suddenly a strange building appears — wouldn't that be the same as telling everyone this place is special?

Find a natural wall?

Where would such a place exist?

Li Banfeng thought for a moment — and actually thought of one.

Ba Shan Zhu's estate.

Since returning to Xindi, Li Banfeng hadn't gone back to the estate to look.

Ba Shan Zhu's estate was built deep in the mountains, with no entrance, surrounded on all sides by the mountain itself. That barrier certainly couldn't stop Leaving Leaving Suishenju, but it did form a natural wall.

Li Banfeng went to the cliff, used the Shen Zhai Da Yuan technique, borrowed Xiang Xiang Hongying's method of unimpeded passage, and burrowed into the rock face.

Through the rock, Li Banfeng walked into a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel was Ba Shan Zhu's residence.

The station couldn't be built directly inside the residence, because there were still quite a few blind sentries inside the estate.

This tunnel was over a hundred meters long — a very suitable choice.

Li Banfeng hid the key well, entered Leaving Leaving Suishenju, and asked, "How's this spot?"

Leaving Leaving Suishenju sighed. "Who builds a platform inside a tunnel?"

"A tunnel is fine — no need to build a roof, and no worry about rain."

Leaving Leaving Suishenju agreed. "Hide the key well. For ten days, don't let me leave this place."

Li Banfeng said, "Do I really have to hide the key? If you just don't leave on your own, wouldn't that do?"

Leaving Leaving Suishenju gave a bitter laugh: "You think I don't want to leave? If I could leave whenever I wanted, I would have been long gone from here,

either following you, or following the key—those are the only two paths open to me, and I don't even get to choose."

"What do you mean you don't get to choose?"

Leaving Leaving Suishenju did not answer.

Li Banfeng hid the key away and went to Ba Shan Zhu's residence.

There had originally been two watch-wolves at the gate; one had been beaten to death by Li Banfeng, and the other had since been promoted to steward of the estate, so guarding the gate was no longer his job—it had been replaced by a blind, headless ox.

The headless ox had no head; on its neck was only a clean, even stump.

Although it had no head, the headless ox's five senses were all intact.

On the headless ox's left flank there was an opening connected to its stomach—this opening was its mouth.

On its back there were also two holes; these had originally been its eyes, but Ba Shan Zhu had gouged them out.

On each of its two front hooves grew an ear; hearing footsteps approaching, the headless ox wagged its tail and blocked Li Banfeng's way.

"Who are you!"

Li Banfeng looked the headless ox up and down and asked, "You don't recognize me?"

"I don't recognize you!" This headless ox truly did not recognize Li Banfeng. On the day Li Banfeng declared himself the master of the house, this headless ox had fallen ill with unceasing diarrhea and had never heard Li Banfeng's voice.

Li Banfeng did not bother arguing with the ox and simply walked past it.

He didn't expect the ox to be so loyal—knowing it couldn't stop Li Banfeng, it immediately shouted at the top of its lungs: "Someone come! Someone's broken into our estate!"

This ox had a tremendous voice; quite a few people in the estate heard it.

Mountain Wolf was the first to rush out, bellowing loudly: "Who dares cause trouble here!"

Li Banfeng smiled and stepped forward to pat Mountain Wolf on the head.

At that pat, Mountain Wolf recognized Li Banfeng's identity.

"You blind old ox, don't you recognize our master? Hurry and apologize to the master!"

Hearing that the master had come, the old ox wagged its tail and stepped forward to apologize.

Mountain Wolf had caught wind of something and snapped at the old ox: "You dare wag your tail in front of the master? No manners—get lost somewhere else!"

The old ox hurried off. Li Banfeng asked Mountain Wolf: "Wagging his tail—which rule did that break?"

"Master doesn't know this, but that old ox's nose is on its tail. It wagged so hard just now, it must have farted and is airing out the smell!"

The estate, under Mountain Wolf's management, was in perfect order; the various strange creatures in the estate were also considerably plumper than the last time Li Banfeng had come.

Li Banfeng asked Mountain Wolf: "The strange creatures from the territory—are they sending more food than before?"

Mountain Wolf shook its head: "Master won't like hearing this, but the food they send is less than before—only about half of what it used to be."

Li Banfeng couldn't understand: "If the food sent is less, why have you all still gotten fatter?"

"Even though it's only half, it's still more than enough for us to eat. When Ba Shan Zhu was here, we couldn't even get one-tenth."

Mountain Wolf had told Li Banfeng before that they could only eat Ba Shan Zhu's leftovers.

"Could Ba Shan Zhu really eat nine-tenths by herself? She's not a Two Shi Xiu."

"Even when she couldn't finish it, she wouldn't let us eat. Around the estate, in plenty of the mountain caves, there are piles of rotten, stinking food—but even when it went bad, she still wouldn't let us eat it.

She said we were all born to lowly fates, that going hungry was our destiny. Ever since I came to this mountain cave and followed you, I ate my first full meal. Master, I truly don't know how to thank you…"

"You don't need to thank me. You earned this yourself."

Li Banfeng went down to the cellar and took out the territory seal from the contract.

He rewarded Mountain Wolf with a share of merit, and gave the others their rewards as well.

Leaving the estate, Li Banfeng went to Meng Yuchun's residence, took out the territory seal and said: "The cultivation here, I'll split half of it with you, as payment for all these days."

Meng Yuchun shook her head repeatedly: "I owe you a life. Doing things for you is only right."

"Doing things for me is only right, and since the work is done, giving you payment is also only right—one thing at a time. First tell me about Bei Wushuang and Pan Dehai. Their territories are far apart—how did they come into conflict?"

"From what the cook has gathered, it seems to be related to the insect plague at Sea-Eating Ridge."

Insect plague?

The insect plague at Sea-Eating Ridge was caused by the Insect Overlord; the Peddler personally killed the Insect Overlord for it.

What does this have to do with Bei Wushuang?

Meng Yuchun continued: "I hear Pan Dehai has already declared that he will take Bei Wushuang's life. I've never dealt with a proper-land territory god, but I know their ranks are all high, and they have far more methods than us new-land territory gods. If this fight really breaks out, I'm worried we'll get dragged into it too."

Li Banfeng nodded: "This is indeed something to worry about. We need to prepare early—give the cook more payment, have him bring back more intelligence."

Meng Yuchun nodded: "If anything stirs, I'll light up the territory. I don't care how they fight each other, but I won't let them fight onto my turf."

Li Banfeng lowered his voice and asked: "That move where you light up the boundary—what technique is it, exactly?"

Meng Yuchun frowned: "Why do you keep asking me about my techniques? Techniques can't be casually told to others."

"What kind of time do you think this is!" Li Banfeng said with a solemn expression, "We're about to go to war, you know that? Know yourself and know your enemy, win every battle—do you understand that principle?

I don't even know how much capital we have between us, and yet we still keep so many guards up between ourselves. Tell me—how are we supposed to fight this war?"

Meng Yuchun thought for a moment and felt Li Banfeng had a point.

"It's a Yu Zhaixiu eighth-layer technique: Shut the Door, Bar the House."

"What are the key points of the technique?"

PS: Yuan Shoulu, the original territory god of Huazi Bay, was later defeated by Green Water Beggar; from then on, Huazi Bay became Green Water Bay.

(End of chapter)