Chapter 66 - An Impossible Number
Chapter 66: An Impossible Number
After dealing with these chores, it was already five to seven in the evening.
Jiang Li raised his head to look at the sky. Dark clouds had already drifted over from an unknown place and completely covered the sky, causing the dusk to become extremely gloomy and oppressive.
“Manager, please give us a superior room!”
When Jiang Li walked into the inn, a red-clothed woman and a maidservant were chatting with the owner of the inn.
However, because Jiang Li had brought more than 30 people to stay here, the guest rooms in the inn were already full, so they probably could not book rooms.
“My madam is going back to her hometown to visit her parents, but the sky is already dark and it’s about to rain soon. Manager, please help us. It’s fine even if we don’t take the superior room.”
It was also a custom for women to go home to visit her parents. Three months after she got married, she should return to her family to visit her parents and tell them how she missed them.
However, the timing to return home was also quite specific. When the sun rose in the morning, the morning air was full of vitality and fortune. It was an auspicious sign, which was the best time to return.
At noon, when the sun was the strongest, the yang qi was strong. It meant peace, which was a secondary choice.
Night time was a taboo in the tradition. Coupled with the dark clouds covering the sky, going home now would probably be treated as an ominous sign.
If she had unreasonable parents, they might not even let the daughter enter the house.
That was why the two of them came to the inn. They wanted to rest for the night and return tomorrow morning.
“Madam, please don’t make things difficult for this small store. We really don’t have a guest room available. Otherwise, why would we deliberately not do business?”
The boss kept rejecting them.
The mark left behind by Jiang Li on his wrist could still be seen clearly. It was the work of an Immortal. Even though it was neither painful nor itchy, he firmly believed that so long as he was disobedient, he would die on the spot.
Therefore, how could he dare to touch Jiang Li’s brow and make him give up his room?
“What happened?” Jiang Li walked into the inn and asked.
The boss hurriedly abandoned the two of them, and he ran over to Jiang Li before bowing and cupping his hands. After that, he told Jiang Li everything in detail.
Jiang Li looked at the two of them. People of this era married early, and the madam and maidservant were not much older than him.
“Get the men to squeeze in and make room for them.”
He threw two appraisals over and did not find anything abnormal. He did not plan to make things difficult for the two, so he gave them a chance.
“Yes, Master Immortal!” The boss cupped his hands again as he replied.
The two women heard this and turned around to thank him.
However, as soon as they turned around, Jiang Li was immediately slightly disappointed.
“The novels are indeed full of lies. How can anyone be a beauty? Forget it, forget it. I’ll go back and meditate.”
He cursed silently and waved his hand before returning to the room.
…
After tossing aside his thoughts and meditating with rapt attention, Jiang Li quickly immersed himself in the lecture of the Great Carefree Bodhisattva Heart Sutra.
Although this Heart Sutra was still very incomplete, Jiang Li had already experienced its miraculous effects.
This Heart Sutra seemed to really have a deep connection with that entity who had three thousand incarnations!
Currently, Jiang Li’s speed of comprehending the sutra was less than 1/3000. However, reading it every day had unexpectedly caused his other two spell techniques to advance by leaps and bounds.
Those were the two minor paths that were related to the technique of incarnation, the Zombie Puppet Technique and the Five Senses Technique!
The seed of the Zombie Puppet Technique was planted deeper now. Not only was his control stronger, it could also borrow spiritual qi from the main body to where the zombie was. Although the spiritual qi borrowed was limited, it could already increase the zombie’s strength by quite a bit.
The Five Senses Technique had improved even more. In a short period of time, he had already connected all five senses. Although he was not like Elder Weng Sanqi, who could control dozens of puppets at the same time, the puppets’ words and actions were no different from ordinary people under his control.
This Heart Sutra was especially good at observing the outside world!
Jiang Li began chanting the Bodhisattva Heart Sutra.
His hearing gradually became sharper, and all the tiny sounds around him were clearly heard.
A world composed of voices quickly formed in his consciousness.
In the shadows in the corner, a cockroach was eating the rice that had fallen a few days ago.
In the gap between the wooden window, a fly smelled food and twisted its body in an attempt to squeeze into the room.
In the room next door, two workers were using moist cloth to wipe the dust and stains on the table…
The voices that entered his ears became clearer and clearer, and the range of Jiang Li’s hearing became larger and larger. Soon, a few familiar voices entered his ears.
“Da Qiang, what are you afraid of? Can he hear us from so far away?”
“But… but are we really going to do this? We can’t beat him.”
“That’s right. Even Wu Han, who is at the late-stage Qi Refinement realm, is no match for him. How can we stand a chance? Moreover, he has a contract with him.”
When Jiang Li heard this, he noticed that it was the voices of those three fellows, and it seemed like they were plotting something. He immediately calmed down a little.
“No, I suspect that kid is actually not that powerful!” One said this in a “wise” tone.
“What do you mean? Quick! Speak carefully!” The other two immediately asked.
“Didn’t all of you notice that kid Jiang Li’s way of walking has become slightly strange after he entered the city?”
“Now that you mention it, I remember it too. He didn’t seem to be walking like this at first, but then his walking speed suddenly slowed down, and… and he became much stiffer.”
“But what does that mean?”
The other two people also noticed Jiang Li’s abnormality, but they did not understand the reason.
“It’s a pill!”
“Medicinal pill?” The other two still did not understand.
“That’s right. We’ve asked around before. That kid, Jiang Li, is actually still a registered disciple of the Alchemy Hall. He definitely has quite a few medicinal pills on him.”
“Don’t you guys find it strange that a mid-stage Qi Refinement cultivator like him could kill Wu Han? I suspect that he ate some sort of strengthening medicinal pill to become so powerful.”
“At that time, it was not that he did not want to kill us, but he no longer had the ability to kill us. That was why he tricked us into signing that contract!”
“Then, do you remember? He deliberately avoided us and stayed alone for several breaths of time. That must be the side effects of the pill. He needs to take other pills to suppress it!”
“Then, his movements started to slow down. He stayed in his room and did not come out. I’m sure that he must be very weak right now. He doesn’t have much strength!”
The other two followed his words and came to a realization at the same time. Immediately, anger surged in their hearts.
“Damn it! Then we’ve been tricked by him!”
They were naturally furious that they had been tricked into signing such a contract by such a weakling.
“But now that the contract is in his hands, there’s nothing we can do?”
“That’s why we need to plan this carefully. When he lets down his guard, we’ll counterattack! At that time, we’ll let him have a taste of signing a contract himself!”
“Right, let’s hang him again. We’ll do as he says and hang him lower! Let him not be afraid of heights!”
If Jiang Li used some effort to counsel them, it was actually not difficult to subdue them to a reliable extent.
However, Jiang Li did not do that. The three of them were originally bait used to test an idea.
The chance of surviving in the end was not high, so it was not worth his effort.
While Jiang Li cultivated the sutra and listened to their secret plots, the sky completely darkened outside.
They did not know that in a dark corner, there were already a few pairs of eyes staring at them.
…
At night, under the cover of the dark clouds, Cloud Stream City was completely pitch-black.
Only this inn was still lit. It was even busier in the back kitchen, not daring to slack off in the slightest.
All kinds of exquisite dishes and bowls were carried to the dining table, and the seal on jars of good wine was removed and placed at the side after diluting them with water.
Jiang Li had specially instructed them to mix water in the wine so that the spirits would not be too drunk to help him.
Soon, on the 20 Eight Immortal Tables, pairs of pitch-black bamboo chopsticks were neatly arranged, awaiting the guests’ good news.
The smell of meat and wine spread far and wide, to the extent where the children next door could not stand it and moved away that very night.
Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock!
Finally, with four knocks on the door, it was finally past midnight!
In the dark night, pairs of glowing eyes lit up. Clearly, no one was walking on the road, and the noise suddenly sounded, but it was clearly as noisy as the streets of the city.
All sorts of demonic guests presented gifts and took their seats. The 20 Eight Immortal Tables were quickly filled.
Jiang Li had still underestimated the enthusiasm of these spirits. He hurriedly instructed his subordinates to set up more dining tables and seats. He even knocked on the doors of a few restaurants overnight and asked them to start a fire to help cook.
However, although delicious food was tempting to these spirits, gold and silver were even more tempting to them.
Jiang Li only saw countless black shadows lining up to exchange gold and silver before rushing into the bamboo shed. After eating quickly for a while, they left from the other side and hurriedly went to capture more souls.
Jiang Li was overjoyed when he saw this. This scene was much better than he had expected.
However… he felt a strong sense of strangeness in his heart.
There seemed to be something wrong, but he could not pinpoint exactly what it was.
It was not until four hours later that the owner of the inn hurriedly went upstairs and spoke to Jiang Li that he finally came to a realization!
“Master Immortal! Master Immortal! This is bad!”
“The silver! It’s about to run out!”
Jiang Li was stunned on the spot. 700,000 taels of silver… was not enough!?
Wait!
Five taels of silver for one ghost, and five taels of silver was one living soul… Did they capture nearly 70,000 souls in one night!?
Impossible!
Jiang Li’s first reaction was disbelief!
He suspected that those three guys were dishonest and had given out too much money.
After all, ordinary souls would completely dissipate after seven days without the nourishment of Yin qi.
How could there be so many souls in a city with a population of only 400,000?
But thinking of the long line of spirits, it seemed that this was the case.
He walked to the window and looked at the pitch-black night sky of Cloud Stream City.
“Elder Duan Shuang… what exactly have you done to this city!”