Mutated Tao

“Father! Father, where are you?” Li Sui shouted in panic as she looked around at the unfamiliar forest. The leaves were completely red. She had never come here with her father before, so she didn’t know where she was.

This was the first time she had been genuinely separated from Li Huowang. Most of her tentacles were already broken, and her body had been torn apart. She was both afraid and in pain.

She looked down and saw that she was crushing a young man. The impact from her fall had crushed him, and he was vomiting blood. She had seen him before. It was the same young man who talked to her before she left.

Li Sui didn’t have the time to ponder why he was here. In the end, she confirmed that he was dead and then ate his organs. Afterward, she wore his skin to recover her frail body.

She felt her body slowly getting better thanks to the nourishment from her food, but her situation was still perilous.

She looked up and saw the hole in the sky had been grafted over. She couldn’t go back even if she wanted to. Without Dragon Qi, she would be dead when she flew up there.

She called for help, but no one came to her rescue. Li Sui had no choice but to cheer herself up. “It's alright. Father is busy up there. He will come down soon once he’s done. I can wait for him here.”

Li Sui pushed her eyeballs out of her eye sockets and raised them high in the air to look at the sky. She stared at the sky for an entire day, but she still didn’t see Li Huowang falling from the sky.

Although she may have been naive, she was smart enough to realize that something was amiss.

Li Sui regained her motivation and started running down a dirt path. “My father said he needs Dragon Qi! I need to go and help him obtain some!”

“The big Emperor has Dragon Qi. I need to find him and ask him to send Dragon Qi to my father!” Li Sui said as several tentacles sprouted out from her body.

Li Huowang had never hidden anything from her, so she remembered what he had said even though she hadn’t understood it.

Li Sui perked up upon seeing track marks of carriage wheels on the dirt path. She earnestly followed the tracks.

She noticed a carriage up ahead and quickly approached it. She jumped up and grabbed the reins, then turned to face the astonished carriage driver. "Where is the war? I want to go there!"

The driver stammered when he saw Li Sui. “There’s… There’s no war. I don’t think there’s a war here.”

“Impossible! So many people died! Isn’t this place Nan Ping?” Li Sui suddenly panicked. Somehow, the situation wasn’t unfolding as she had remembered.

“Nan… Nan Ping? I never heard of that place. This is the Great Qi!”

The sound of footsteps snapped Li Sui out of her reminiscence. She looked out from the window and saw several children running excitedly in an alleyway.

One of the children had vitiligo. Despite her condition, she made an effort to keep pace with the others. She was holding a lit incense stick in her right hand.

They ran around and soon found their target at the entrance of the village: a fresh pile of cow poop.

“I don’t think this is a good thing to do. My dad said we needed to take the cow poop home and plaster it onto the walls to make biscuits.”[1].

“Who cares? Blasting them away is much more fun than collecting them! Everyone, stand back. I’m going to light it up!”

One of the older children placed a red firecracker into the poop before taking the incense stick from the younger child and lighting it up.

Sparks flew and everyone scattered. Those who didn’t manage to run out of the blast radius in time would be peppered in cow poop.

Even so, there was an undeniable sense of excitement among all of them as they saw the cow poop getting blasted apart by the firecrackers. All of them laughed happily. A child’s happiness was always so simple.

Li Huowang, who had been soaking in the sun’s rays at the top of the roof, saw everything. “Why are there so many children in the village now? And of all things, why are they playing with cow poop?”

Li Huowang lifted his finger when he saw the children lighting one of the firecrackers up again. The firecracker, which was supposed to explode, became silent.

As the children took out another firecracker and circled around the cow poop, Li Huowang let his finger down. The previous firecracker exploded and covered all of the children in cow poop as they cried.

“Hehehe.” Li Huowang chuckled gleefully when someone overshadowed him from the back.

“Want to sit down for a bit? Taking in the sun’s rays during winter is pretty comfy.” Li Huowang patted the spot to his left.

Li Sui, who was now wearing Xuan Pin’s red robes, sat beside Li Huowang. “Father, there’s something I need to do in the Surveillance Bureau. I have to go back now, so I won’t be accompanying you and mother.”

“Does the Surveillance Bureau not celebrate the New Year? At least go back after the Lantern Festival.[2]

Li Sui replied, “The Dharma Sect might’ve been eradicated, but the divisions haven’t returned yet. The Surveillance Bureau in Nan Ping needs to be rebuilt too. Also…”

“Also?” Li Huowang looked at his daughter.

“The Sitting Oblivion Dao is back. We have a lot of work to do.”

“Sitting Oblivion Dao!” Li Huowang’s killing intent leaked out. “Leave it to me!”

“Father, there’s no need to do that. The Sitting Oblivion Dao will never be exterminated as long as the Heavenly Dao of Lies exists. We just need to knock them down a peg if they go overboard.”

“But they are the Sitting Oblivion Dao!”

“I don’t think it's rational to destroy the Heavenly Dao of Truth and the Heavenly Dao of Lies just because we want to exterminate the Sitting Oblivion Dao. The Sitting Oblivion Dao will exist for as long as they exist.”

Li Huowang frowned at those words. The Heavenly Dao must exist, including the most dangerous and useless ones. The world would be in chaos if even one of them were gone, especially since Li Huowang himself was controlling the Heavenly Daos of Truth and Lies.

Li Sui continued, “You are technically a Sitting Oblivion Dao member too. You can’t kill yourself to remove the Sitting Oblivion Dao permanently, right?”

“You are talking about Shai Zi, not me.” Li Huowang frowned when he recalled that unkillable pest. “I always wondered what his plan was, but I never thought he had a plan to use my ‘Lies’ to bring himself back to life.”

Li Sui was surprisingly calm in the face of Li Huowang’s reaction. “Father, the Sitting Oblivion Dao is indeed a hassle, but it's just a small issue.”

“Small issue? Don’t forget that they almost stole the Liang Kingdom’s Dragon Vein.”

“They wouldn’t be able to do so. They almost succeeded because I let them do it. If not, we wouldn’t have Ji Zai. This is part of the Cause and Effect, after all.”

Li Huowang looked at Li Sui with displeasure. “Sui Sui, why do I think that you are speaking out for him?”

1. Not the kind of biscuits they would eat. They plaster the poop onto the wall and use the sunlight to dry them. The dried poop biscuits can then be used as fuel to burn wood since they are rich in fiber. ☜

2. The fifteenth day of the new year, which is also the day signaling the end of the celebrations. ☜