Mutated Tao

When Li Huowang saw Bun fetch him a human skull, he suddenly realized what the bone from before was—it should have been a human bone as well!

Does Bun like the taste of humans now since I kept feeding it scraps my skin?

Li Huowang was starting to regret his earlier actions as he watched Bun with a pained look on his face.

“Woo?” Seeing how its owner did not react, Bun tilted its head and used its black snout to push the skull closer to Li Huowang’s feet.

Seeing this, Li Huowang extended his hands and started rubbing Bun’s head. At the same time, Li Huowang raised a dagger and cut off a piece of his own flesh and placed it in front of Bun.

Li Huowang held the bloodied dagger and aimed it at Bun’s neck.

He had decided that he would kill the dog the moment it was attracted to the piece of flesh.

Even though Li Huowang had come to like the dog after traveling with it for so long, he would never keep a man-eating dog by his side, both for the sake of himself and the others.

However, Bun just continued to enjoy the head pats, not the slightest bit attracted to the piece of flesh. After waiting for a moment, Li Huowang slowly retracted the dagger.

Bun hadn’t become a crazy dog that loved to eat humans. It just loved to fetch things and present them to Li Huowang.

But, compared to Bun, one person came to mind when he started thinking about how suspicious all this seemed.

It was a human bone, so why did Sun Baolu say that it was a horse bone? Something’s up… Why did he lie to me?

Li Huowang frowned. Sun Baolu was the only one who could interact with the people of Qing Qiu. If there was something wrong with him, then they were all in big danger.

“Senior Li, what’s wrong? Why are you not talking anymore? Are you feeling tired? If so, we can just head back.” Bai Lingmiao felt the atmosphere was off and tried to be considerate.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Bun just fetched the hoof of a donkey. It’s right in front of us; you can touch it if you want,” replied Li Huowang.

When Bai Lingmiao felt Bun’s familiar head, she smiled. “So it really is Bun. I see that it loves to fetch a lot of different things for us. I have to wonder… where did it learn to do that?”

Just as Bun was about to lick Bai Lingmiao’s hand, Li Huowang stopped it and pulled her away.

“It’s definitely a bad habit. Bun, let’s go. We should look at the other places in the market as well,” said Li Huowang as he kicked away the skull and continued talking to Bai Lingmiao.

The incident from earlier did not stop Li Huowang and Bai Lingmiao’s little adventure through the market. They continued browsing the place with Li Huowang describing what was going on to Bai Lingmiao.

They were going to resume their journey tomorrow anyway, and he didn’t want to make Bai Lingmiao worry because of these small issues. At the same time, he also decided to temporarily hide his suspicions about Sun Baolu.

In order to prevent Bai Lingmiao from accidentally seeing those gruesome scenes, Li Huowang did his best to guide her away from those places. But due to that, the places they could go to were quite limited.

Soon, many people within the market noticed a hobbling man guiding around a blind woman, walking through the market again and again. However, the man would say a different thing every time they passed through the same area.

With Li Huowang’s crafty storytelling, Bai Lingmiao still managed to ‘see’ how wonderful the place was without taking off her blindfold. It took them the whole afternoon before they finally decided to stop. The sun would soon set causing the temperature to drop.

“Miaomiao, it will be dark soon. We should head back,” said Li Huowang as he took off Bai Lingmiao’s blindfold.

Bai Lingmiao blinked a few times and excitedly looked around, but was disappointed; she didn’t see any of the interesting things that Li Huowang had told her about.

“Since it’s going to be dark soon, many of them have already closed shop for the day. Let’s go back well,” Li Huowang gently explained to her.

Bai Lingmiao looked at the sky and nodded. “Yeah, you are right. Let’s go back. Ah! Today was so fun!”

As he saw Bai Lingmiao’s smile, Li Huowang’s heart ached.

Was she satisfied with just this?

“Senior Li, look. Bun is still following us,” said Bai Lingmiao.

Li Huowang stared at Bai Lingmiao as she rubbed Bun’s chin. “Don’t touch it. The dog has become quite dirty.”

“No worries. Bun is quite clean. Everytime we found a river during our journey, Bun would always wash itself in the water,” said Bai Lingmiao.

Li Huowang said nothing. Both Bai Lingmiao and Bun didn’t know any better, and so he didn’t know how to explain. In the end, he just slowly hobbled back to the inn.

Seeing this, Bai Lingmiao quickly stopped petting Bun and went to support Li Huowang, helping him distribute some of his weight by letting him lean onto her.

“Woof!” Meanwhile, Bun barked and wagged its tail while circling around them.

However, the quiet atmosphere didn’t last long.

Soon, Li Huowang and Bai Lingmiao saw Sun Baolu standing on the deserted street, accompanied by tens of goats.

Sun Baolu was very happy when he saw Li Huowang. “Senior Li, look at all these goats! After an entire day, I’ve picked the best of the best! Oh, Senior Bai, this is the leftover money after I bought all these goats.”

Li Huowang looked at Sun Baolu.

He still looked the same as before.

Li Huowang acted as if nothing had happened and calmly said, “Let’s herd the goats back. We still need to resume our journey tomorrow so that you can reunite with your family as soon as possible.”

“Yay!” Sun Baolu did not realize that something was wrong with Li Huowang and started herding the goats back.

None of them said anything along the way. After arriving at the inn, Sun Baolu quickly herded the goats to the side of the ox-cart. Then, he went and boasted to Zhao Wu about how he had chosen the best goats with the lowest price.

“Sun Baolu, are you really that happy to go back home?” asked Zhao Wu while munching on some cornbread and staring at Sun Baolu. He felt confused; the Sun Baolu in his memories was not someone that was this jovial.

“I’m really confused. You are just like a regular human without any disabilities. Why did that Baldy capture you?” asked Zhao Wu suddenly.

Sun Baolu’s face froze as he pulled his sleeves down. “Did that Baldy ever need a reason to capture people? The goats are here, so just count them. They will be our food source for our travels so please be more careful with them.”

Zhao Wu nodded and Sun Baolu left the ox-cart.

As Sun Baolu thought about how he would be able to reunite with his family soon, he broke out into a smile. He happily skipped around for a while before stopping abruptly.

In front of Sun Baolu was Li Huowang, leaning against a wooden beam. At this moment, his gaze looked quite… unfriendly.

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