Mutated Tao

Li Huowang walked through the Great Qi with a heavy expression as he observed everything around him.

This wasn’t as Niu San had described, where there was nothing but grass. At least in the capital of the Great Liang—You Capital—there were still countless ruins and broken walls.

Li Huowang had used the spine sword to travel from Shangjing, so he naturally arrived in Great Qi’s capital city since Shangjing was built on top of the Great Qi’s capital.

A person blocked Li Huowang’s path, lying motionless on the ground like a corpse.

This person appeared to be overweight. Though several days of starvation hadn’t turned her into a skeleton, drinking too much water had caused her body to swell considerably.

As Li Huowang stepped over her, she suddenly moved and shakily raised her blackened fingernails toward him.

Her cracked, pale lips trembled as she tried to say something. Before Li Huowang could do anything, her raised hand fell back down. She had starved to death.

Qiu Chibao was terrified by the scene. She wailed as she ran away while holding onto her rotten child.

Li Huowang clenched his fists tightly, but he gradually relaxed them and continued to stride forward.

This wasn’t the first person he had seen starve to death, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. The capital of the Great Qi was filled with people collapsing from hunger.

Li Huowang knew the most immediate thing he should do was transport grain from the Great Liang to save as many people as possible.

However, saving all of the Great Qi couldn’t be done this way. If he couldn’t turn the situation around, bringing grain would be useless, no matter how much he brought.

Disaster relief wasn’t just about providing food. It also required the organizational capability to integrate all the refugees from the Great Qi.

When Li Huowang arrived at a temple and saw monks distributing porridge, he knew he had found the people he had been looking for—the monks of the Righteous Monastery.

He noticed something was off as he approached. If there’s nothing left, where did the porridge come from?

He hurried to the porridge stall, only to discover that what was being distributed wasn’t plain porridge or mixed grain porridge—it was meat soup!

At that moment, a monk emerged from the city, pushing a wheelbarrow filled with various dead bodies. It included the woman who had just starved to death before him.

“Amitabha, Benefactor Li, it’s been a while,” Chan Du, the abbot of the Righteous Monastery, said from behind Li Huowang.

Li Huowang turned around and looked at him with a shocked expression. “Are you all eating people?!”

“Benefactor Li, your words are mistaken. These are just dead bodies. In the eyes of Buddha, the flesh is merely a vessel. Moreover, the monks of Righteous Monastery chant sutras and strike wooden fish to offer prayers before cooking them.

“Besides, there’s no food anywhere now. As monks, we must be compassionate. We can’t let others starve to death just because of some taboo against the dead.”

Li Huowang stood there in silence for a long time. He ignored the large pot beside him, then turned and walked toward the Righteous Monastery.

Under these circumstances, if he told them not to eat human flesh, it would be akin to asking them to eat cake when there was no bread. They were just trying to survive.

Thanks to the monks' maintenance, the Righteous Monastery was relatively intact compared to the rest of the capital. It was still habitable, at least on the surface.

The monks inside didn’t appear emaciated from hunger and looked relatively healthy.

Li Huowang sat down on a stone bench above a newly sprouted sapling. He got straight to the point with Chan Du. “This can’t go on. Without food, the remaining people will eventually starve to death.

“The Righteous Monastery’s religion used to be the Great Qi’s state religion, right? After all of your good deeds, shouldn’t you should still have some influence?”

“Why does Benefactor Li ask this?”

“To save people! I can’t stand seeing others starve to death any longer!”

Li Huowang laid out his plan to Chan Du. “Use the Righteous Monastery’s influence to gather as many survivors as possible. I’ll bring as much grain and seeds as I can. We’ll plant them together and have a unified distribution.

“There must be some officials amongst the survivors, right? They’re good at managing things, so set them to work. The sooner we restore Great Qi’s government, the sooner we can turn this dire situation around!”

“Amitabha. Benefactor Li, you are truly compassionate. On behalf of the people of Great Qi, I thank you.” Chan Du bowed to Li Huowang.

“Enough with the talk! Let’s get to work. People are dying every moment.”

Li Huowang stood up and pulled out the spine sword to return to the Great Liang, but Chan Du blocked his path.

“Senior Li, it’s said that you’ve achieved great success in cultivating ‘Truth.’ Can you create grain out of nothing?”

Li Huowang sighed. “Do you think that’s possible? Do you think I’m a Siming? I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that in the future, but right now, I can’t.”

“I do have the ability to create food,” Li Huowang said. He looked at the stone table in front of him, and then the stone expanded and transformed into a pile of white buns.

The sight of the white buns immediately drew the monks’ attention and caused them to salivate.

“These things are edible and taste good, but once I stop maintaining my ‘Truth’ cultivation, they’ll turn back into stone.”

As Li Huowang thought about it, the buns instantly became solid black rocks.

“I can’t constantly keep thinking about these foods being real. It’s slow and won’t save many people. With the time required to spend on that, I could bring several bags of grain from Great Liang instead.”

“I’m not just trying to save a few people or even a group of them. I’m trying to save all of the Great Qi!” Li Huowang said. He drew the spine sword and returned to Shangjing.

Upon his return, he wasted no time and dashed into a store to start buying grain.

The shopkeeper thought he had landed a big customer and was overjoyed. However, an old eunuch with his golden whisk also walked in.

“Master Li, if you use gold created through ‘Truth’ cultivation to buy grain, that would be considered fraud, wouldn’t it?”

He continued, “This grain is the result of the hard work of our people, meant to fill their bellies. It wouldn’t be quite fair if you were to take it and give it to the Great Qi for nothing, would it?”

Li Huowang sneered. “Who said I’m going to cheat? I have my own money! I even have a courtyard in Shangjing! If I sold it, don’t you think I could afford enough grain?”

“Of course. Although grain is expensive now, real estate in Shangjing is worth a lot. But what if the money from selling your house runs out?”

Li Huowang stood before the eunuch and said, “I also have a Strayed One’s corpse in Shangjing! Is that enough? Now get lost!”

The eunuch took two steps back, bowed respectfully to Li Huowang, and then turned to leave the store.

Li Huowang turned around while still enraged. He had scared the shopkeeper so much that he was trembling.

“What are you looking at? Get your workers to load the grain! I’m going to get the land deed!”