The Overlord of Puluo-Chapter 34: Don't Scare Me Again

Chubby Qin looked at the corpse on the ground, then at Li Banfeng. Li Banfeng just said that he had been terrified just now, but Chubby Qin had no idea how to comfort him.
"I was really scared he would kill me, so I killed him first. That way, he couldn't kill me," Li Banfeng said, giving Chubby Qin what sounded like a perfectly logical explanation.
Chubby Qin felt that… he couldn't find any flaw in that explanation.
Li Banfeng walked over to Old Smoke Cannon's corpse, untied the cloth pouch attached to him, and counted the harvest inside. There were ninety-one speckled-snake chrysanthemums in total, which was worth about eight thousand yuan if sold.
"All this killing for less than eight thousand yuan?" Li Banfeng thought of the prices in Medicine King Gully. A life shouldn't be this cheap.
Chubby Qin sighed. "You're a foreigner, so you don't understand the rules here. Money is too hard to earn and far too easy to spend. In some remote places, people will kill for just a hundred yuan, not to mention on Mount Bitterfog, a region of peril where human life is as worthless as grass."
Li Banfeng handed him the pouch. "Take this."
Chubby Qin shook his head. "You killed those two bastards and avenged Old Smoke Cannon. His belongings rightfully belong to you."
"Hold onto it for now. We'll talk about it once we're down the mountain," Li Banfeng said, handing the pouch over to Chubby Qin.
Chubby Qin noticed Li Banfeng's empty hands and asked, "Where are your flowers?"
"That's a long story," Li Banfeng replied, pulling a few black-and-white beads from his pocket. "Brother, do you recognize these?"
Chubby Qin took the beads, and his eyes lit up. "These are Speckled-Snake Pills! I've seen them before. Where did you get them?"
They were indeed Speckled-Snake Pills, just as Li Banfeng had guessed. Since he dared to take them out and show Chubby Qin, he had already prepared an explanation.
"On the way down the mountain, I ran into an old woman. She said she was from a medicinal trading house and wanted to trade pills for my speckled-snake chrysanthemums. Ten stalks for one pill."
At first, Li Banfeng had considered asking for five stalks per pill, but that would only cover the cost, and no one would agree to it. Offering double the cost seemed far more reasonable.
Hearing this, Chubby Qin stared at the Speckled-Snake Pills in his hand, then turned to Li Banfeng. "You made the trade?"
"I did!" Li Banfeng nodded.
"All of them?"
"All of them!" Li Banfeng said proudly. "Brother, tell me, did I strike a good deal or not?"
"I'd say this deal… was probably a scam." Chubby Qin handed the pills back to him. "Bro, I may not know how to tell a real pill from a fake, but I can tell when the numbers don't make sense. A single Speckled-Snake Pill sells for at least ten thousand. Ten stalks of speckled-snake chrysanthemum go for only eight hundred fifty. Who would ever make that trade with you? You were almost certainly scammed."
"Is that so?" Li Banfeng smacked his lips, put the pills away, and offered no further explanation.
He couldn't explain. He couldn't tell Chubby Qin that these pills hadn't come from the old woman at all, but had popped out from the bronze lotus flower.
Chubby Qin let out a long sigh. "This trip to Mount Bitterfog has made me understand one thing. We are still far too naive and inexperienced. This is money that we're not qualified to earn yet. I got duped by that man in glasses, and you by that old woman. Earlier, you said there was a place with plenty of flowers. Was that true?"
Li Banfeng gave a cold laugh. "Of course it wasn't true. I made it up when I saw they were about to attack you, hoping to lure them after me. I thought if they followed, I could deal with them on the road. I didn't expect that they would want to kill you first, so I had no choice but to take them out here."
Chubby Qin nodded. "You're sharper than me. Honestly, you're much sharper. Nevertheless, you don't have to feel sad. You were scammed out of your speckled-snake chrysanthemums, but Old Smoke Cannon's speckled-snake chrysanthemums are all yours now. Let's hurry down the mountain."
Just as the two were about to leave the grove, a flicker of firelight suddenly appeared in the distance.
Chubby Qin froze. "Torches."
Li Banfeng's eyes flashed as he realized that things were about to turn bad.
The people coming their way were most likely with the man in gold-rimmed glasses, and it was probably that bald guy. He wasn't much of a fighter, but he had more people with him. If they wanted to win, they had to strike first.
Li Banfeng said to Chubby Qin, "Find somewhere to hide, and do it as quickly as possible. When I make a move, that's when you act. I'll hide the bodies first."
Chubby Qin said, "I'll hide with you! There's no time. Forget the bodies."
Nevertheless, Li Banfeng dragged the two corpses deeper into the forest. Chubby Qin grew anxious as he watched. The trees here were too sparse. How could anyone hope to hide a body in a place like this?
Li Banfeng couldn't find anywhere to hide the bodies, and the torches were closing in fast. When he saw Chubby Qin scramble up a tree, he slipped out of sight, pulled out a key, and unlocked the door to his Pocket Dwelling. In one swift motion, he hurled the two corpses inside.
It felt inauspicious to store corpses in his house, but he had no choice.
Then he stepped out of the Pocket Dwelling, put away the key, and crouched in the grass to watch in silence.
The bald man entered the forest first, carrying Leafy over his shoulder. She was bound tight and sobbing the whole way. Two men followed behind, carrying Nectarine. Her body was covered in wounds. If not for the faint rise and fall of her chest, Li Banfeng would have thought she was dead.
They threw Leafy and Nectarine into a clearing. One of the bald man's lackeys stepped forward, pinched Leafy on the cheek, and said, "Quit crying. What are you crying for? I know how deep I can go. I promise it won't hurt!"
As he spoke, he reached for her, but the bald man barked, "Don't you dare! Didn't I tell you to wait until Big Bro comes back?"
"Do we really have to wait for Big Bro for everything…" the lackey complained.
The bald man kicked him. "With me here, even if it's just a single grain of rice, Big Bro eats first, not to mention a woman."
The lackey didn't dare say another word. Then, the other lackey spotted Old Smoke Cannon's corpse.
"Third Brother, this old guy was killed by Big Bro, right?"
The bald man told two men to keep watch over Leafy and Nectarine, then went to examine Old Smoke Cannon's body himself.
"Judging from the cut, this must be Second Brother's work. However, this old thing has been poisoned and this is definitely Big Bro's way of killing." The bald man spoke with pride, pointing out the differences between the techniques of Tiger Lamb and the man in gold-rimmed glasses.
Li Banfeng wasn't in the mood to listen to the bald man go on about differences. The man in gold-rimmed glasses and Tiger Lamb were already dead.
At this moment, he only cared about one thing, which was that the group had split up. The bald man and his three lackeys had separated into pairs.
With the sickle in hand, Li Banfeng crept toward the two guarding Leafy and Nectarine.
One of them was groping at Nectarine, trying to take full advantage of her. The other slipped his hand into Leafy's clothes, and when her crying grew too loud, he quickly covered her mouth.
Closer. I just need to move a little bit closer to them.
Li Banfeng had no way to attack from a distance. For his ambush to work, he needed to get close enough. He gauged the distance and figured he was still about twenty meters away, which was still a little too far. He crept forward a few more steps until he was roughly fifteen meters away.
I just need to move a little bit closer.
Crack!
Li Banfeng's foot came down too hard, crunching a dead leaf. At once, he held his breath and pressed himself against a tree, staying perfectly still.
The two lackeys had probably noticed him. The ambush seemed to have failed. If all four of them swarmed him, he would need a plan to withstand the first wave and then let Chubby Qin come down to assist.
If things really didn't work out, he could always run. After all, he wasn't that close to the two women. But even after thinking for a moment, Li Banfeng didn't hear any movements.
Li Banfeng peeked at the two from behind the big tree and pleasantly discovered that the two lackeys were still groping Nectarine and Leafy. They did not notice Li Banfeng at all.
This was thanks to the gift of a Homebound Cultivator known as
Being Ignored
.
It did not mean he ignored others, but that others could not sense his presence. They had overlooked Li Banfeng entirely and hadn't heard his footsteps at all.
In the desolate forest, the crack of a dry leaf was nothing unusual. Their attention stayed fixed on the two girls.
Since they hadn't noticed, Li Banfeng pressed forward. With only ten meters left, he stopped sneaking.
He suddenly burst out from behind the tree. Relying on the speed of a Wanderlust Cultivator, he reached one of the lackeys in less than a second. Before the lackey even saw his face, Li Banfeng had already slit his throat with a single slash.
The other lackey ducked behind Leafy. Li Banfeng pushed her aside and swung again. Sparks burst as the sickle struck, but it failed to cut through the man's skin.
Nectarine cried out, "He's a Physique Cultivator!"
The bastard had a natural suit of armor!
Li Banfeng struck again, but his sickle couldn't even cut through the lackey's skin. By now, the bald man and another lackey had already rushed over.
He was in dire straits, about to face three attackers at once. Fear overtook him. His body trembled, and his eyes turned red.
The bald man glanced at the dead lackey on the ground, then at Li Banfeng.
"Well, you little bastard, you really are a mongrel," the bald man said this with eyes that gleamed coldly as he tilted his head. "You dared lay your hands on my men! Today I'll chop off your hands, scoop out your brain, and make you eat it yourself!"
Hearing this, Li Banfeng turned and bolted. He wasn't fast enough. When he reached a tree, the Physique Cultivator with armored skin blocked his path.
The bald man and his lackey followed unhurriedly.
Li Banfeng's face contorted in terror, his knees bending as though he were about to kneel.
The bald man walked forward slowly, each step deliberate, until he stopped beneath the tree. The smile on his face carried a chilling menace. "Kneel! Kneel properly, and I'll give you a quick death. Kneel, I said! Are you deaf? Can't you hear me?"
Bang!
The bald man heard a dull thud.
Chubby Qin had leapt down from the tree.
The bald man had no idea why Chubby Qin had jumped down and he certainly had no idea why Li Banfeng had run straight to this tree.
Chubby Qin's axe landed squarely on the lackey's head. Skull fragments and scattered brain matter splattered across the bald man's face.
The bald man's twisted grin vanished, for he saw that Li Banfeng had raised his sickle.
As a Martial Cultivator, the bald man reacted with lightning speed. He raised his dagger, dropped into a horse stance, and braced with all his strength. A sharp, agonizing pain drove him to his knees.
Li Banfeng still held his sickle high, but holding a blade and bringing it down on someone were two very different things. He raised the weapon with his right hand and kicked with his left foot straight into the groin. The movement flowed seamlessly, and because the bald man had crouched into a horse stance, the outcome was brutal.
The bald man knelt before Li Banfeng. Inside, he cursed,
Why is this bastard so cunning and vicious?
Only the lackey with natural skin armor was left. Like everyone else, this lackey had endured a whole day on Mount Bitterfog, and his condition was far from ideal.
Chubby Qin, however, was in better shape. A Gourmandism Cultivator's resilience was sturdier than that of a Physique Cultivator.
Chubby Qin swung his axe again and again, hacking with relentless force.
The lackey held out behind his armored skin as long as he could, but at last it failed. The axe bit from his left shoulder to his right ribs, cleaving half his body apart.
At the same time, Li Banfeng hooked his sickle beneath the bald man's chin. The bald man's jaw quivered as he stammered, "I just… just wanted to scare you. I didn't mean to kill anyone. I wouldn't kill anyone. I swear I wouldn't…"
"You just wanted to scare me?" Li Banfeng blinked and asked with complete seriousness. "Is that really true?"
"It's true!" The bald man's jaw was pinned and couldn't nod, but his eyes shone with sincerity.
"Then don't ever do that again. I get frightened so easily," Li Banfeng told him earnestly.
For a moment, the bald man's eyes lit with hope. "I'll never scare you again, never-"
Before he could finish, Li Banfeng pulled out his trowel, drove it into the man's skull, and pried his head open.