Little An looked at Li Qingshan. His entire person seemed to have been gilded with a halo of light amidst the sunlight and snow, his faint smile so brilliant it made people not dare to look at it directly. It simply had the flavor of glory and splendor, and that hand was just like an invitation from a radiant world.
The pain from the burn of sunlight was still engraved into his heart, but he was unable to repress the stretching out of his hand even so. That white bony hand without flesh or blood was like moth to the flame. He couldn’t refuse the invitation from that hand even if he were to be entirely burned by the sunlight.
His index was the first to cross the boundary between the worlds of light and darkness. The sunlight didn’t ignite him. It gave him an extremely warm feeling instead, sparkling from the depths of his soul. He was unable to wait and put his hand inside Li Qingshan’s palm.
Li Qingshan clenched that pale-white bony hand. That bone hand could possible be somewhat terrifying for ordinary people.
Little An crossed through the door and out of the room, pa.s.sing through the boundary between the worlds of darkness and light, immersing himself under the sunlight.
Li Qingshan laughed out loud and lifted Little An: “How do you feel?”
Little An nodded happily, showing he felt really good, he’d never felt so good.
The sunlight was not only harmful to shady ghosts, it also had a restraining effect on every evil spirit in the world. The green bull hadn’t duped Li Qingshan. Little An was able not to fear sunlight in the slightest, not because he was strong enough, but because he inherently didn’t belong to the same category as evil spirits and demons, even to the point of carrying the holy and solemn atmosphere of a Buddhist. This was precisely the might of a demonic supernatural skill created by a senior Buddhist monk like the [Dao of the Beautiful Bones]. It was hard to cla.s.sify between the lands of the living or the dead, and it originated from Buddha and demons at the same time.
Li Qingshan couldn’t think of a way to celebrate such a great happy day for Little An. Little An couldn’t eat and couldn’t drink either, don’t tell him he had to go out and scoop back two hearts?
Hence he waved his hand. “I’ll stack up a snowman for you!”
Little An was indeed as happy as an ordinary child.
Li Qingshan said: “I haven’t told you right, my skill at building snowmen is even above my supernatural skill.”
Little An immediately manifested an admiring appearance. Li Qingshan laughed loudly, fully proud of himself. He crouched down and piled the thick snow mantle into a great ball, then rolled out another small ball and put it over the great ball. He gave it a look, very satisfied with the perfect form of those two s...o...b..a.l.l.s, and was about to go back to the room and find some things to build the eyes and nose with.
Suddenly a white figure stood in front of him. He observed it carefully and found out this white figure was unexpectedly himself, a Li Qingshan carved from snow. Although the facial features were a little fuzzy, the form of that figure, that aura, it was simply true to life. Little An was in the middle of patiently carving the outlines of the clothes.
Li Qingshan said, “You… you did this?” This was already not a snowman anymore, but more like a snow sculpture!
Little An nodded, throwing a greatly curious glance behind Li Qingshan.
“Hah!” Li Qingshan spit out his voice and turned back, flying up with a kick and breaking to pieces those two s...o...b..a.l.l.s that could have been called perfect. It made Little An jump in fright. “Haha, that was just practice, now I’m serious.”
When Little An finished the big Li Qingshan, the medium Li Qingshan, and the small Li Qingshan, as well as snow sculptures of every kind of birds and beasts.
“Hah!” “Hah!” “Hah!” Li Qingshan also destroyed his great “masterpieces” one by one, dropping exhausted on the snowy ground. “Fine, my snowman-making skill is still this little bit inferior to my supernatural skill.”
But seeing Little An looking so extremely happy as he played, it could probably also count as achieving his goal!
“Someone came over!” Li Qingshan’s mind flashed as he heard the sound of footsteps. Little An immediately hid back inside the room. “Dong dong dong.” Several knocks sounded on the door. Li Qingshan opened the door. It was the adviser.
The adviser was full of smiles: “Constable Li, how did you sleep last night. My lord invites you to go by the government offices, we open court1 today.”
Li Qingshan told Little An to hide carefully, and came to the government offices after slight tidying. Ye Dachuan invited him personally to the rear hall, then ordered someone to bring a set of clothes. It was the constable’s apparels, together with a standardized wind sewing blade2.
He could naturally not decline someone else’s good intentions. Moreover this status of constable also had some use for Li Qingshan. The feudal authorities in this world didn’t seem very powerful, but they certainly had their own peculiarities since they could occupy the status of orthodox power under the heavens. He still needed this status for the moment.
Li Qingshan changed his clothes in the side room, and also fitted the wind sewing blade. His temperament seemed to have changed once again when he came back out. The black color of the constable clothes had a style that wasn’t as ugly as Li Qingshan had first imagined. It very much had the style of an uniform instead, and when worn on his body, he looked a little less like the free and bold men of the martial world and a little more like a dignified upright hero.
Ye Dachuan said: “I was originally saying whether it was a little too small, I didn’t expect it to fit just right. Although it can’t match up to proper dark wolves garments, you’re even more awe-inspiring than those real Eagle Wolves guards when it’s put on your body.”
Li Qingshan thought that it indeed wasn’t his own illusions, he really became thinner. That wasn’t because of his excessive activities these days, it was probably a side effect from cultivating the [Tiger Demon Bone Refining Fist].
“Dark wolf uniform? Eagle Wolf guards?”
Ye Dachuan said: “Hmph, a bunch of wolf cubs who walk with their noses in the air and don’t even spit out bones when they eat someone. Don’t worry, their influence can’t reach all the way here. Inside this Suncheer City, it’s just you and me who are number ones!”
Li Qingshan was originally only asking casually, but at this moment he cared about this issue. The meaning inside Ye Dachuan’s words was that they wouldn’t be the number ones instead if the Eagle Wolf guards’ influence reached this place. Ye Dachuan had already seen his own martial strength. It looked like the court and government in this world weren’t actually as weak as in his imagination. The weak one was only this Ye Dachuan in front of him in all likelihood.
He’d been closed up inside a mountain village for more than a dozen years, and he’d fought east and west as soon as he’d come out. He had absolutely not spared any time to carefully gain an understanding of this world. It was likewise even now, he wanted to cultivate the [Tiger Demon Bone Refining Fist] as fast as possible to answer the changes and dangers that would possibly appear next.
“Lord Ye, Constable Li, we ought to open court.”
Li Qingshan stood there and showed off his positions a bit, then took his leave and returned to his yard. He discovered the door slightly open ajar. His heart jumped and he rushed inside, but he found Sick Yellow Tiger standing in the courtyard, in the middle of examining those snow sculptures: “Qingshan is really refined!”
Li Qingshan smiled bitterly, unable to refute. “Chief hunter came really fast, could those be?” There were eight great wine jars in the yard together with two bamboo baskets, looking very eye-catching.
“Of course it’s the tiger bone wine you wanted!” Sick Yellow Tiger opened a wine jar, and a thick medicinal wine fragrance pervaded the entire courtyard.
“So much!”
“I’ve dug out all our properties.” Sick Yellow Tiger smiled and looked at Li Qingshan: “This dressing style is really dashing. You won’t need to fear other plotting to seize your things if you can really join the Eagle Wolf Guard.”
The Eagle Wolf Guard again? Li Qingshan said, “Chief hunter, how fierce is the Eagle Wolf Guard really?” Sick Yellow Tiger had once gone out of Suncheer City to great places like the Clear River capital, so Li Qingshan naturally had to ask him for a little guidance.
Sick Yellow Tiger’s expression also became solemn: “More than fierce. One of their duties is to arrest those people of the martial world ordinary bailiffs can’t control. There’s no one who isn’t afraid of them in the martial world, they all call them the hunting dogs of the imperial court. But the Eagle Wolf Guard only recruits innate masters, they won’t act for no reason. I’ve walked through the martial world for half my life and I’ve only seen them a few times from afar.”
1. Court opening, where the magistrate receives the population and hears their cases.
2. Probably a kind of saber/dao out of many from the Qing dynasty.