That thought made Xie Lian feel awful. San Lang was truly treating him with the utmost courtesy.
Suddenly, a light turned on in his head—why did he have to just sit around? There was no meeting Hua Cheng for a while, and he’d been wanting to do something for San Lang, his good gege. Why not go seize that monster for him?
His mind made up, Xie Lian got started immediately. He left behind a letter that said “Do not worry, San Lang-gege. Lian will be back soon,” and other such things. Then he leapt out and silently left the magnificent mansion behind.
The location the man in the ghost mask reported wasn’t difficult to find. It was many kilometers south, inside a particular cave within a particular mountain. Xie Lian was confident that no ordinary human could match his speed, so he would definitely reach it faster than San Lang’s subordinate.
Sure enough, two hours later, he arrived at the mountain in question and charged right up, smashing and punching wildly at random, leaving wailing ghosts and spirits in his wake until he finally found the cave he was looking for.
Although the monster put on quite the show by having three or four hundred minions guarding its door, against Xie Lian, there might as well have only been three or four. He didn’t act recklessly at first because he was worried that the opponent was formidable, but after patiently watching the cave from nearby, Xie Lian learned from the gossiping minions that the monster had been having a rough couple of days too.
“Yeah, yeah, Shanzhu went through a lot of trouble escaping from the hands of a foul cultivator—he was scared half to death! He was injured and went back to his old cave, but he fled as soon as he got there, scared shitless. Then he came here.”
“I see! I was gonna ask why he called everyone out here. So it’s because he’s scared of that cultivator coming after him for revenge!”
“But he shouldn’t be, you know? Shanzhu took a few big bites out of the guy, so he must be completely lost even if he did manage to wake up.”
“How could he not be scared? Shanzhu is a great, renowned yao, centuries old, but apparently that cultivator popped up out of nowhere and smacked him silly with only a couple strikes. If the cultivator hadn’t been injured somehow and given him an opening, Shanzhu would probably be lost to us today.”
“Holy… Where’d that random cultivator come from? How’s he so strong?!”
At that point, Xie Lian felt it was time. He emerged and strolled up to them, fully at ease, and greeted them with an amiable, “Hello.”
The minions jumped.
“Who are you?!”
“Where’d this little pretty boy come from?”
Xie Lian gave them a smile. He didn’t bother explaining before he went straight for the kill, moving toward the cave as he did. Even without spiritual power, he caught many of them in simple, casual grabs, and they were tossed hundreds of meters away with equally casual throws. The minions were reduced to screaming, terrified wrecks.
“What’s with that pretty boy?! He looks so gentle, so how is he such a brute?!”
Like he was pulling weeds along the road, Xie Lian stepped into the cave without a single obstruction. He had been prepared for a huge battle with a renowned yao, yet when he went inside the cave, all he saw was a monster in human form rolling around on the ground, groaning and crying in pain while clutching its stomach.
At first, Xie Lian thought it was only faking it, but a closer look proved otherwise—its stomach was massively distended as if it’d swallowed something horrific.
Xie Lian crouched next to it. “What’s wrong?”
The monster was probably too far gone from the pain. As soon as it saw Xie Lian, it shouted, “You! Perfect timing! I don’t want to eat it anymore; I don’t dare to! I’ll never do it again! I’ll return what I’ve swallowed to you! I can’t digest it—it can’t be digested!”
“I think you’ve got the wrong person,” Xie Lian said. “You didn’t swallow anything of mine, so what would you be returning?”
But the monster only writhed in agony, unable to answer. Puzzled, Xie Lian absentmindedly wrote out a talisman, thinking it’d be best to capture and seal the monster first—but when he slapped the talisman onto the creature, to his amazement, it transformed into a ridiculous-looking round budaoweng with a belly much bigger than any normal doll’s.
Although Xie Lian was surprised, he also found it hilarious. He looked at the talisman that he had written, confused as to how the spell turned out this way. Had he made a mistake? But it wasn’t a problem; the battle had been a cakewalk, and Xie Lian left the deep mountains with the early morning sunlight overhead. He tucked the budaoweng doll in his sleeve and hurried back toward the city.
He had finally managed to do something for San Lang. In a cheerful mood, Xie Lian was already thinking about how he would show off the monster he’d captured to San Lang—he told himself to tamp down on his pleased expression if he wanted San Lang to be surprised.
After an entire night of toil, his feet were tired, so Xie Lian found a random stall to sit in and got himself a bowl of free tea water.
As he drank, he heard someone behind him call, “Xie Lian!”
Xie Lian immediately put down the tea bowl. Who was so audacious as to call his name out directly in public? There were very few who could act so disrespectfully, even among the members of the royal family. Who was it who did not address him with the full awe, reverence, and respect due to him as His Royal Highness the Crown Prince?
When he looked back, he was surprised to see that the speaker was a commoner; he was walking with long strides and carrying a large wooden chest.
“Wait! Hold up!” he shouted. “You forgot Xie Lian! Take him with you too!”
So the man wasn’t calling to him, but someone with the same name—but now Xie Lian was even more puzzled. Even though he’d never care about royal naming taboos or any of that, he was still shocked that someone dared to have the same name as him.
But he soon learned that the “Xie Lian” the man spoke of wasn’t a person.
There was a burly man sitting near Xie Lian, and the man with the chest went to sit down beside him.
“I brought Xie Lian over,” he said, patting the chest. “Remember to bring it to the other half you worship in your house—today! Don’t dismiss it as a superstition; it’ll spell great misfortune if they aren’t placed together!”
“Of course, of course—I know that…”
Xie Lian couldn’t hold back anymore. “Excuse me…” The two men looked at him, and he continued, “Pardon my forwardness, but may I ask what’s in the chest?”
“Didn’t I already say? It’s Xie Lian,” said the man.
Xie Lian was confused. “But…isn’t Xie Lian His Highness the Crown Prince?”
The two seemed to find him funny. “No one said he’s not the crown prince; of course he is,” the man replied. “See?”
He opened the chest, and Xie Lian’s eyes bulged. There was a small shrine within, and a dusty divine statue was venerated inside it—a cultivator dressed in white, wearing a bamboo hat on his back.
He didn’t recognize this idol. Xie Lian couldn’t understand it at all.
“…Are you saying that this divine statue is the Crown Prince of Xianle, Xie Lian?”
“Who else would it be?”
A crowd began to surround them; half had been attracted by what a novelty he was. “What a strange young man. You look like you’re a cultivator too—how do you not know something so simple?”
The other half of the crowd had come to check out the divine statue.
“Wow! That’s a pretty decent Scrap Immortal! Looks sufficiently depressing.”
“Yeah! Look how woeful and dejected it is. That’s obviously the face of bad luck!”
“Very good, excellent! The worse it looks now, the better it’ll look when the other one helps it break free! You’ll see the results in eight days, tops.”
Xie Lian was completely lost. “…Scrap Immortal? What do you mean, he’s a Scrap Immortal?”
“Daozhang, you really are strange!” the crowd replied. “Xie Lian was originally a scrap collector, you know!”
“…”
Xie Lian wasn’t someone who got angry easily, but right now, he was starting to feel a little vexed. No one wanted to hear others say they were a lowly collector of junk. He shot to his feet and said darkly, “Do you have something against the royal family of Xianle? Even if you do, it doesn’t seem very proper to insult the crown prince this way, does it?”
The crowd exchanged looks of dismay, then laughed.
“What are you saying? Proper by which country’s standards? Xianle fell over eight hundred years ago!”