CHAPTER NINE

A few weeks later, Lam Bai is once again trying to locate Li Feng inside the estate. Li Feng, ever since hearing about the parade of demonic monsters, has been reluctant to show himself. Today is finally the day of the parade, and Lam Bai has enlisted six other servants to help find Li Feng.

Finally, after hours of searching, Li Feng is found under the bed in a guestroom.

“Young master, the lord has insisted that you attend the parade,” Lam Bai says, pulling Li Feng by the feet out from under the bed. “You’ll disappoint him if you don’t go!”

“I already disappoint him, what does a little more disappointment matter?” Li Feng asks, grabbing onto the feet of the bed.

“You’ll disappoint me, too,” Lam Bai says and manages to pulled Li Feng out, lifting him into the air by his ankles.

After a few seconds of thinking, Li Feng speaks, “I need to return to my room to change.”

Lam Bai escorts Li Feng to his room, not allowing him to get out of an arm’s reach. At his room, Lam Bai waits outside to give Li Feng privacy while he changes. From his closet, Li Feng selects a white tunic to wear, and swaps it for the nightwear he’s wearing. The change is fast, and soon Li Feng is ready to put on his shoes and leave his room. Before leaving the estate, Li Feng gets a meat skewer as a snack from a kitchen.

Unlike the last time they had to go somewhere in the city, Li Feng and Lam Bai do not get a rickshaw. Instead, they walk to the center of the city, the street where the parade will be passing through. There are thousands of people walking the streets of Shijiang today, but it’s not more than an ordinary day.

After two hours of walking, Li Feng and Lam Bai arrive at the city’s center street, which runs north to south. There are dozens of people in Li Feng’s way, preventing him from seeing the parade, but Lam Bai splits the crowd by announcing the family she works for.

“The young master Li Feng of the Li family of cultivators wishes to view the parade!” Lam Bai shouts, and several people look in her direction. “Make way for the young master!”

Since the Li family is so influential in the city, everyone in Lam Bai’s way parts for her and Li Feng. ‘This is crazy,’ Li Feng can’t help but think, seeing how a crowd of people were split by the announcement of which family he came from. With a path clear for them, Li Feng and Lam Bai walk to the street for a better view.

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“It shouldn’t take long for the parade to arrive,” Lam Bai says, looking north for the start of the parade. The street is long and wide, but she can’t see any of the wagons which will soon be carrying caged demonic beasts down the street.

Li Feng waits, bored, for the parade to start. Almost half an hour later, cheers erupt from the north. Barely visible for Lam Bai, and not at all for Li Feng, the first few wagons start down the street. There are two wagons in the lead, followed by one wagon containing a cage which nearly takes up the entire street.

“Can you see them, young master?” Lam Bai shouts to ask Li Feng. The cheers from the crowd are loud, making it hard for Li Feng to hear her.

“No, they’re still too far,” Li Feng says, not giving serious effort to see the beasts. After all, Li Feng expects the demonic beasts to be something he’s seen in his past life, something he’s killed dozens if not hundreds of.

“They’re almost here!” Lam Bai pats Li Feng on the shoulders, and the cages become visible for him. Inside the two smaller cages are tigers with manes made from flames. In the larger cage behind them, there’s an elephant creature with a stone body. The tigers have their snouts bound shut and their legs chained to the floor of the cage. The elephant has its legs in much larger chains, but is similarly bound to the cage’s floor.

“What the heck?” Li Feng questions, looking at the strange monsters. In his past life, he hadn’t seen these beasts even once.

“It’s two Fire Tigers and Stone Behemoth! What a rare sight!” Lam Bai tries to explain. “Look that’s next!”

Following the Stone Behemoth is a snake with wings. The snake’s body is only about ten feet long, but the wings are twice that size and must be tied to the cage’s walls. Next to the snake are various reptiles, most of them with huge horns and fangs. A particularly nasty looking lizard, identified by Lam Bai as a Draconic Newt, has red scales the size of buckler shields covering its body.

“Gah!” Suddenly, someone screams from the other side of the parade. Li Feng and Lam Bai look to see what happened, by they can only see people feeling from the general direction.

“Maybe we should,” Lam Bai says, but is cut off by the cage of the Draconic Newt being broken. The Draconic Newt’s tail, though tied to the bars of the cage, has broken the wooden bindings like the lizard next to it. “Let’s get out of here!”

Lam Bai tries to pick up Li Feng and run, since she knows Li Feng won’t be able to move as fast as her, a 13-Mortal cultivator, but she is knocked down by a gust of wind from a winged creature above them. The winged looks like a lion, but with golden wings and teeth the size of short swords. The winged lion bites down at the crowd, but is repelled by several cultivators punching it in the mouth.

Suddenly, Lam Bai notices that Li Feng is still standing. ‘He’s too stunned to move!’ She thinks and lunges to pull Li Feng down. Mesmerized by the sight of the strangely foreign creature, Li Feng doesn’t even try to dodge its mouth closing in on him.