Chapter 19 Superstition

Hearing Li Huowang's words, Bai Lingmiao widened her eyes and said, "Yeah, yeah, my grandpa also told me not to run outside the village, that people outside are terribly bad, and if they catch a child, they will skin the child and put on a dog skin to train as a dog, because children are smart, so they use this dog that understands human speech to perform acrobatics on the streets, and that's awful for the child, because their body will stick to the dog skin and they'll never grow up."

Li Huowang frowned slightly and shook his head. "No, I'm not talking about those stories old ladies tell to scare their grandkids, I'm talking about the kind like Master You."

"The kind like Master You? Let me think..." Bai Lingmiao started to ponder with a frown. "The stories my grandpa usually tells are all mixed up, but most of them are about long worms in the mountains eating people. We rarely have the kind like Master You."

"Who told your grandpa the story about Master You?"

Bai Lingmiao innocently widened her eyes, "Well, that would be my grandpa's grandpa who told him, and then my grandpa told me, and I will also tell my grandson in the future."

Li Huowang scratched his head, realizing that this story was passed down through generations and that he had miscalculated.

"Elder Brother Li, I know one," a feeble young man leaning against a wall suddenly spoke up.

This person had deformed joints, one shoulder higher than the other, and his entire body was twisted, making him stand out even among those in the storage room.

"Elder Brother Li, my surname is Zhao, and I am the fifth at home, so you can just call me Zhao Wu."

Li Huowang didn't care who told the story, he walked over and said, "Okay, go ahead."

Zhao Wu looked around and then lowered his voice deliberately, "The kind of weird thing you're talking about, I've heard the older generation mention one, that thing is called 'Dama'."

"Dama? What does it look like?" Li Huowang quickly searched his mind and found no related images, and guessing from the literal meaning, he had no clues either.

"Shh~ Elder Brother Li, don't be so loud, keep it down, this thing is very sinister, I've heard that Dama will hear you, and if you mention it often, they will come looking for you!"

"Oh?" Upon hearing this, Li Huowang perked up.

"I've heard from my cousin that it appears differently in front of everyone, some look like spirits with long ears, some are like deceased elders, but the one thing in common is that if anyone stays near them for a while, those people will also turn into a Dama!"

Li Huowang stroked his chin in thought. "This place is really strange, it's got all kinds of inexplicable things. Okay, anything else?"

"Yes, there's more, there's also the 'husband and wife fish,' and that thing is also ominous..."

From Zhao Wu, Li Huowang learned about a lot of peculiar and odd terms, and these were all ingredients he was going to use for the Immortality Alchemy Pill.

"You really know a lot, thanks, this information is helpful to me." Simply mentioning toxic alchemy ingredients, Master Danyang might get suspicious, but adding these things that even he couldn't distinguish would make it more credible.

That's the point, to be incomprehensible. Anything, as long as it's incomprehensible, starts to seem profound.

Hearing Li Huowang say this, Zhao Shi smiled with joy. "I learned all this from my cousin, he's a porter and has been all over the place, so he knows a lot."

"Alright, we're about to start, I'm heading back, you guys wait quietly for my news," Li Huowang took a deep breath and stood up to walk outside.

He had hardly taken two steps when a very tall figure, at least one meter ninety, blocked his path. "I, I, I..."

Li Huowang recognized the bald man before him, the people in the storeroom all called him "idiot," the kind with crossed eyes and drooling.

Calling him a complete idiot might not be entirely accurate, he just had a bit of a stutter plus slow reactions and below-average intelligence. "I... I... I... know too!"

Li Huowang sighed, patted the man's bald head, and turned to walk towards the door.

The next morning, Li Huowang was called early to Master Danyang's residence. "The Major and Minor Heavenly Circulation Cultivation Technique you spoke of, I've almost mastered it. Now tell me about the Elixirs that should be taken with it."

"Yes, Master." Li Huowang walked to the stone slab and once again pretended to scrutinize it. "Hmm... Two hearts of the great granny, extract their essence? Master, what does this mean?"

Master Danyang, whose expression fluctuated, paced back and forth within the room, muttering to himself, "Is that so? The path to immortality actually involves the use of such sinister elements?"

"Master, what is the great granny?"

"Never mind that, continue with what you were saying."

"A pair of mandarin fish, extract their gills, soak in two taels of arsenic trioxide..."

The things that Li Huowang knew from Zhao Wu, mixed with the knowledge from his modern-day background and a night of restless energy, he wove together into a systematic method to attain immortality.

After Li Huowang had finished reciting everything he had concocted, he saw Master Danyang extremely excited, murmuring something to himself.

However, when he listened closely, he was utterly astonished.

"Right, there's no mistake, arsenic trioxide is cold in nature, it must be counterbalanced with something like the warm nature of mandarin fish. Brilliant! And to think of using the great granny in the Elixir, why didn't I think of it before? If humans can be used in Elixirs, why can't these sinister elements be used as well?" The man actually began to supplement the balancing of the Elixir's properties in his mind.

Li Huowang found that Master Danyang was very clever when he was smart, but truly ignorant when he was foolish; he trusted no one but the system he devised in his own mind.

If there was a word to describe it, it would be superstition. In a world without gods and ghosts, superstition towards spirits represents ignorance, but superstition remains ignorance even in a world with gods and ghosts, it's just a different delusion.

Just then, Master Danyang reached into the sleeve of his robe and pulled out, a Copper Taoist Bell missing a corner appeared in his hand—it was the kind of bell he had seen used to control zombies in zombie movies.

As he began to shake it vigorously, a jarring bell sound rang out immediately, and Li Huowang felt a splitting headache, instinctively covering his head and clenching his teeth.

This strange ringing of the copper bell affected not only his hearing but also his vision.

Everything around began to twist and deform; the entire world seemed to shake violently like during an earthquake.

"What's going on? Master Danyang, what are you up to? Did I make any mistakes? Could he have discovered something?"

As Li Huowang thought this, he saw the edge of the table, the hem of Master Danyang's Taoist robe, even the side of the Heavenly Book nearby—every edge and corner he could see in the room, seemed to come alive with the twisting and slowly converging in front of Master Danyang.

This mass formed by the corners of objects was hard to describe, but one thing was certain—it seemed to be alive.

Li Huowang thought he was seeing things; he shook his head vigorously, but rather than helping, as he shook his head, the thing split in two in sync with Li Huowang's movements.