Chapter 140: Hiding in the Cellar

Li Wantong leaped across the rooftops within Dingbian City, uncertain for a moment where best to take cover.

Without a hiding place now, his situation would only become more precarious come daylight. Under the cover of darkness, bounding across roofs made it unlikely for him to be spotted. But by day, leaping back and forth across tiles like this would surely invite detection!

As Li Wantong ran, he suddenly spotted a vegetable cellar in the backyard of a residence. His eyes lit up at the sight, and he thought to himself that hiding inside should keep him safe from prying eyes. Jumping down from the roof into the backyard, he lifted the lid of the cellar and dropped inside.

This cellar was used by the household to store winter vegetables. In this era, without the refrigerators of later generations, people typically relied on cellars to keep vegetables through the winter. Chinese cabbages, radishes, carrots, potatoes, and sweet potatoes could all be preserved this way, safe from freezing or rotting, easily lasting several months without issue.

After landing inside, Li Wantong pulled the lid back over the opening, feeling considerably safer.

The soldiers of Dingbian City searched for the greater part of the night without managing to capture the Daoist priest. At daybreak, Magistrate Yang ordered portraits to be sketched and posted on the screen wall outside the county yamen, offering a bounty for the capture of a Daoist priest carrying a large bundle. Anyone who provided a lead would be rewarded with silver.

Within a short time, everyone in the city knew the authorities were hunting for a Daoist priest with a large bundle.

Consequently, some innocent Daoists fell into misfortune. Someone reported them to the yamen, and soldiers immediately marched out to arrest them. Only after interrogation and comparison with the portraits was it confirmed they were the wrong men, giving them a severe and needless fright.

Having tossed and turned for most of the night, Li Wantong was both exhausted and sleepy. Once hidden in the cellar, he sat down among the piles of vegetables and fell asleep.

He did not wake until noon, roused only by the gnawing hunger in his stomach. He was famished and parched, yet he dared not venture out to look for food. He knew the authorities were certainly scouring the entire city for him, and stepping outside would easily lead to his capture.

Yet the hunger in his belly was unbearable! Glancing at the vegetables in the cellar, an idea struck him: why not eat some of them to appease his appetite?

To think was to act. He quickly used his treasured sword to peel a radish, then tore open a head of Chinese cabbage. He took alternate bites of radish and cabbage. Though bland and tasteless, the gnawing pain in his stomach subsided somewhat.

However, not long after finishing—about the time it takes to burn a stick of incense—he suddenly felt a rumbling sensation moving downward in his belly.

With a loud *poot*, he passed a resounding and foul-smelling fart, followed by more rumbling and downward shifting in his gut.

After a succession of a dozen or more loud farts, a sudden wave of abdominal pain struck him. Oh no, he was going to have diarrhea!

Naturally, he dared not go out to look for an outhouse.

Looking around the cellar corners, he went to one of them, used his sword to dig a small pit in the earth, and then dropped his trousers to squat and answer nature's call.

When he was done, he endured the foul stench and covered the pit back over with soil.

Yet no sooner had he finished than another wave of abdominal pain gripped Li Wantong. He knew that eating raw radishes and cabbage on an empty stomach had upset his digestion.

Radishes inherently possessed the property of regulating qi and aiding digestion. Having consumed an entire large radish along with the tender heart of a Chinese cabbage, his stomach had inevitably revolted.

With no other choice, Li Wantong found another corner of the cellar, dug another pit, and relieved himself once more.

All afternoon, Li Wantong remained busy with the arduous task of "digging a pit—answering nature's call—filling the pit." He had filled the cellar with an unbearable stench, yet he had no choice but to stay trapped inside breathing it in.

It was not until nightfall that Li Wantong felt his stomach finally stop hurting, the contents of his bowels having long since been emptied. Though his belly ached no longer, his backside burned with intense agony from a whole afternoon of diarrhea, making it impossible for him to even sit down.

Seeing that darkness had fallen outside, he endured his hunger and thirst and crawled out of the cellar. By now, his legs felt light and unsteady as he walked.

Despite this, he summoned his lightness skill, leaped onto the rooftops, and raced once more toward the direction of the city walls.

When he reached the vicinity of the wall, he found soldiers patrolling the streets everywhere, with even more reinforcements stationed atop the walls. Patrol squads marched past one after another, making it exceedingly difficult to find an opening to slip through.

After a brief moment of reflection, Li Wantong decided he had better hole up somewhere for the time being, waiting a couple of days for the guards to relax their vigilance before seeking a chance to slip out of the city.

Thus he retraced his steps, though this time he avoided returning to his previous cellar—the stench there was simply too much to bear.

Li Wantong found a different family's cellar and slipped inside. Though his stomach hungered, he no longer dared to eat raw vegetables. He wanted to sneak out and steal something to eat, but feared being discovered.

He resolved to endure it, but after holding out a little longer, the hunger became simply too much to bear, and he decided to take the risk and go look for food.

Emerging from the cellar, he crept to the front of the house and listened intently. Hearing no movement within, he reached out to test the door, only to find it barred from the inside. He had no choice but to draw his sword, slip it through the gap in the door, and push aside the wooden latch.

Before long, the bolt gave way. He pushed the door open and stepped straight into the kitchen. In the kitchen cabinet, he discovered half a leftover flatbread. Eagerly grabbing it, he raised it straight to his mouth.

At that exact moment, a voice sounded from behind him: "Such a big man refusing to walk the straight path, coming here in the middle of the night to steal! See if I don't haul you off to the officials!"

Startled, Li Wantong spun around to see a sturdy, large-handed woman standing there holding a broom.

Before Li Wantong could speak, the woman swung the broom and struck at him. Caught off guard in his flustered state, Li Wantong failed to dodge, taking a blow to the arm that nearly knocked the flatbread from his grasp.

As the Imperial Preceptor of the Great Xia Nation, when had he ever been reduced to such a pathetic state? Stealing food like a common petty thief, only to be beaten with a broom by a woman!

Consumed by shame and anger, Li Wantong drew his sword and lunged straight at the woman. Being an ordinary commoner with no knowledge of martial arts, she had no way to evade his strike.

The sword pierced straight through the woman's chest, the tip emerging from her back. With a miserable scream, she collapsed in a pool of blood.

At that moment, another voice drifted in from outside the kitchen: "You dead hussy, what are you howling about in the middle of the night? Did you find that mouse or not?"

Accompanied by these words, a middle-aged man in nightclothes walked into the kitchen. Upon seeing Li Wantong holding a sword and a flatbread, alongside his wife lying dead in a pool of blood upon the floor, he was struck speechless with terror.

"You—you—you actually..." the man stammered, pointing a trembling finger at Li Wantong.

Guessing that this man must be the master of the house, and realizing that since one had been killed, the other could not be left alive either, Li Wantong knew he had to silence him.

With that thought, he stepped forward and drove his sword into the man's chest. Coughing up a mouthful of blood, the man collapsed to the ground and died.

Li Wantong never imagined that he, an Imperial Preceptor, would one day slaughter an entire family for the sake of half a flatbread.

Yet, to satisfy his hunger for the moment, he could afford no further distractions. He scooped half a ladle of cold water from the earthen vat, drank it down, and walked back toward the cellar carrying the half-flatbread.

Another night passed, and though Dingbian City had been thoroughly turned upside down, the backpack-wearing Daoist was nowhere to be found.

Magistrate Yang, along with Huang Wenlong and Fei Wen, had already issued strict orders for the soldiers to search every single household, leaving no suspicious nook or cranny unchecked.

As the verse goes:
A poisoned scheme turns one as savage as a wolf,
Yet stealing the chicken only brings panicked defeat;
Evil deeds multiplied will surely meet their retribution,
While aiding others is the only path to reward!