Chapter 680 – Returning to the Hometown One (2/2)
“Who are you?”
“You country bumpkin, the Iron Fist school isn’t a place that you can check out. Stop looking around. Get out of here!”
“My name is Li Long, a disciple under school master Liu Hong. Please pass this on quickly!”
Li Long did not recognise these two doorkeepers and knew that they were new disciples accepted after he had left. They sure were imposing by standing there, but their martial arts had not even reached the second or third-rate. They could only scare some common people. Otherwise, they would not have been told to watch the entrance.
“You said you’re Li Long?”
The two burly men widened their eyes. They had never met him, but they knew this name all too well. That was a powerful figure who had emerged from their Iron Fist school in Qingyang city, a great master several dozen layers into the innate realm. The Iron Lion Liu Hong would brag about him every time he drank.
However, from the way this person was dressed, he did not resemble the legendary “Li Long” at all. He clearly looked like he had just returned from the fields!
However, the two did not dare to brush him aside. They knew that certain masters of the jianghu liked to pose around, so they immediately passed the message up. A while later, a dignified, middle-aged man in brocade robes walked out swiftly, but he was not Liu Hong. When he saw Li Long, he was taken aback, going up and grabbing his hands. “Junior brother, it really is you!”
“Senior brother Wang Lei.” Li Long recognised this person too.
As it turned out, the Iron Lion Liu Hong had already passed the position of school master to his first disciple, Wang Lei. He had left the city and retired.
Wang Lei patted Li Long’s shoulder and demonstrated sorrow. “Junior brother, I’m sorry for your loss. Uncle had reached a very advanced age…” He said a few comforting words, but Li Long could obviously tell there was not much sincerity at all. It was only for the sake of courtesy.
Li Long said, “Life and death are decreed by fate.”
Wang Lei passed orders, sending people to invite over Liu Hong, who had retired to outside the city. At the same time, he gathered all the disciples of the Iron Fist school, making them line up all the way from the screen wall inside to the entrance of the main hall.
“Junior brother, please!” Wang Lei extended his hand and walked at the front, showing off his status as the school master. He specially emphasised the words “junior brother”, basically to remind him he was still his “senior brother”.
Their relationship had never been particularly amicable. Over a decade ago, Wang Lei had regularly been dissatisfied with the special treatment Liu Hong showed Li Long. Only after assuming the position of school master did this gradually stop annoying him. Now that he saw Li Long’s dishevelled appearance, he could not help but feel rather delighted. He explained to Li Long the changes that had happened after he left the Iron Fist school, telling him how he led the good men of the Iron Fist school to realise his ambitions, placing the entire Qingyang city under his control.
Out of the four original organisations, Li Qingshan had personally destroyed two of them. The Drawn Reins village had always been isolated from the world, becoming even more so after Huang Binghu had left. The Iron Fist school became the only organisation left in Qingyang city. As the school leader, Wang Lei obviously had great power and prestige, able to rally almost everyone at his call. Even the district magistrate had to watch out for him, and he had whole groups of women in his harem.
He thought, Compared to being some cultivator outside, you probably don’t even have it as easy or delightful as me as I serve as the local despot of Qingyang city.
All Li Long could do was nod. In the past, Qingyang city had once seemed like the entire world to him, but now, it was merely a tiny city lying in an inconspicuous corner. There were no fertile fields, rich with spiritual qi, either. If Liu Hong were not here, he basically would not be interested in stopping here at all.
The two of them sat in the central hall. Wang Lei asked with a smile, “Junior brother, you haven’t married and had any children during all the years you spent outside? What do you do normally?”
“There’s too much farmwork to do, so where am I supposed to find the time to get married and have children?” Li Long said. There had been a disciple of the school of Music who had been interested in him in the past, but he had absolutely no time to spend on anything else apart from farmwork, so nothing happened in the end.
Wang Lei raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Farmwork!? Cultivators still have to tend to the fields?”
Li Long smiled. “I’m a disciple of the school of Agriculture, so how can’t I tend to the fields?”
Wang Lei frowned and shook his head firmly. “Then what’s the point of cultivation?”
“I also found it boring in the beginning, but after a while, you start to find it pretty interesting,” said Li Long. He toiled in the fields, watching the fruit and vegetables ripen and the spiritual herbs grow. The whole time, the earth and the plants paid him back, allowing his cultivation to rapidly progress. It was an indescribable sense of joy.
Wang Lei curled his lip, unable to understand him. He felt that Li Long was probably just being stubborn.
In his eyes, farmers were only slightly better than beggars. He would rather die than spend a decade toiling in the fields. Sure enough, it was like being a large fish in a small pond compared to being a small fish in a large pond. As the imposing, majestic master of the Iron Fist school, he was obviously the large fish in the small pond, countless times better off than Li Long, the small fish in the large pond that happened to be the cultivating community.
PS: Yesterday, I wrote five thousand characters and deleted three thousand of them, leaving behind two thousand. I might not even end up using them, so sorry about that. However, this process is actually quite interesting. I’m a little further away from typing away mindlessly and just a little bit closer to writing.