Chapter 261 – Latter Years
Wang Lin could only imitate the desperate emotion domain. Although he was eventually able to finish the carving, it was still very different from the middle age man’s desperate emotion domain.
Wang Lin looked at the broken carving knife. He waved his hand and the blade flew onto a shelf on the side. He took out another piece of wood and used his finger as a carving knife.
Time passed by, and in the blink of an eye, ten years had passed.
In these 10 years, Wang Lin’s appearance became even older. Strands of white hair appeared on his head, his straight back had become somewhat hunched, and he overall looked like he had entered his latter years.
The amount of carvings had gradually decreased. In these past ten years, Wang Lin had only finished one carving, which was the old woman from the White Cloud Sect.
Actually, he had finished the old woman’s carving nine years ago. Although it was similar to the middle age man’s carving and far from as powerful as the original, he knew that this was because he hadn’t reached the Soul Formation stage yet.
The reason Wang Lin hadn’t finished another carving was the cyan robed old man.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t seem to carve the passing of time domain into his carving of the old man. He had tried for nine years without any success.
Although he had crafted countless carvings of the old man, none of them contained the old man’s domain. In the end, all of them were destroyed by him.
On this day, Wang Lin looked at the carving of the old man. He let out a sigh and waved his hand over the carving. The carving turned to dust. Then, he stood up and opened the door of the shop.
The gentle sunlight fell on his body as he sat on a wooden chair and looked at the passing people. The ironworks shop across the street had expanded several times in these past ten years.
Not long after, a four year old boy peaked his head out from the ironworks shop. When he saw Wang Lin, he let out a smile and ran toward Wang Lin with a jug of wine in his hand. After handing the wine to Wang Lin, he asked, “Grandpa Wang, I secretly stole this wine for you. Where is the candy?”
Wang Lin let out a smile. He rubbed the boy’s head as he took out a pill the size of his finger nail. He threw the pill at the boy and took a drink from the jug.
The boy quickly swallowed the candy and displayed a satisfied look. Then, he leaned his head on his two small hands and asked, “Grandpa Wang, does this wine taste good? I see you drinking it every day.”
Wang Lin faintly smiled. At that moment, a sturdy young man came out from the ironworks shop. One could see a resemblance between this young man and the little boy from back then. When the young man saw Wang Lin, his eyes flooded with emotion and he said, “Uncle Wang, you can’t drink anymore today!”
Wang Lin laughed and said, “Okay, just one more drink and I won’t drink anymore. Da Niu, how is your father?”
Da Niu’s face darkened as he replied, “Same old illness. It’s not a big deal.”
Wang Lin secretly sighed. He couldn’t interfere with a mortal’s life. Growing old and getting sick was a natural part of life. Da Niu married shopkeeper Zhao’s daughter and this little boy was his son.
The little boy pulled Wang Lin’s sleeves and asked, “Grandpa Wang, you still haven’t told me if this wine tastes good or not.”
Da Niu looked at Wang Lin. He secretly sighed and said, “What your Grandpa Wang is drinking is not wine, but ginseng…”
Wang Lin looked at Da Niu. His eyes were filled with praise and then he said, “Da Niu, take the kid home. I’m going to go walk around the block.”
Da Niu took the wine from Wang Lin’s hand. He placed it inside the shop and closed the door. Then he said, “You promised me earlier that you won’t drink anymore today.”
Wang Lin smiled as he got up and walked down the street. His slightly staggering figure was filled with age.
Da Niu let out a sigh and held the boy’s hand on the way back to the ironworks shop. The boy smiled and happily said, “Dad, the candy Grandpa Wang gives me sure is tasty. Every time I eat it, my body feels warm.”
Wang Lin walked down the street he had lived on for all these years. All of the shopkeepers seemed to have heard of this. They all came out with a panicked faces and begged before Wang Lin.
“Shopkeeper Wang, you have to understand that this business is not easy to run. Next month, I promise, next month, I’ll pay the rent!” This was a new grocery shopkeeper that had moved in three years ago.
“It is true, Lord Wang. Business really isn’t good right now. How about you wait for a few days?” This was the fat inn owner.
Similar voices came from everywhere. He couldn’t help but to wryly smile. He didn’t know how it came to be, but in the past ten years, almost every house on this street owed him money.
Even most of the shops now belonged to him. Every time there was a shop owner who needed money, they would pledge their shop to borrow money from him.
As for Wang Lin’s own shop, the owner came and sold it to him 2 years ago. Of course, the price was sky high.
Even now, every time Wang Lin came out, these shopkeepers would come up and try to get on Wang Lin’s good side. In fact, this had to do with the fact that Wang Lin didn’t come out much. Sometimes, he would not come out for months at a time, so whenever he appeared, these shopkeepers would be nervous, afraid that he had come for their rent.
In truth, the rent wasn’t much money, but anyone who had lived here for a while knew that Wang Lin was really good natured, so they started to delay their rent payments. Eventually, it became a habit for everyone to not pay rent.
After all, no one in the mortal world would want to use up silver. Everyone thought “the more the better.”
Wang Lin really didn’t care about this at all, so he just let whatever happened happen and considered it part of understanding the heavens.
In these nine years, everything had changed greatly. Not many of the old faces remained. This caused Wang Lin to feel very regretful as he waved his hand at the shopkeepers and said, “I’m not collecting rent today. You can all leave.”
All of the shopkeepers let out breaths and left.
Wang Lin walked down the street with his hands behind his back. After a short while, he arrived at the end of the street. But just at that moment, a large horse being ridden by a middle aged man charged toward him. The middle aged man’s expression was very ugly and there was fresh blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.
He rode the horse past the corner, and just as he passed by Wang Lin, his eyes widened. He quickly pulled the reins, and, as the horse let out a long neigh, he jumped down from its back. He arrived before Wang Lin, but before he could even speak, he coughed out a mouthful of blood.
Within the blood, there were pieces of his internal organs. His face was pale as he knelt on the ground and said, “Please save me, mister Wang!”
Wang Lin’s expression was normal as he looked at the person. This person was the one who would always visit him on the holidays and give him a large amount of money, Xu Tao.
Wang Lin said, “If there is any problem, tell me.”
“Mister Wang, his highness is in danger!” After hearing Xu Tao’s frantic words, Wang Lin gradually understood what had happened. His highness had somehow angered a very powerful cultivator. Once that cultivator appeared, all of the cultivators around his highness backed off, unwilling to get involved.
As of today, his highness was hiding inside the palace. The cultivator felt it would be troublesome to enter the palace, so he was unloading all of his anger on his highness’ followers.
Xu Tao was very smart. When he noticed that something was wrong, he immediately ran away, but he was still hit by the cultivator, so he panicked. At that moment, he could only think of Wang Lin.
Just as Xu Tao was speaking, a young cultivator walked around the corner. He looked very bossy as he walked towards Xu Tao.
After Xu Tao saw the cultivator, his body shivered and he coughed out another mouthful of blood before slumping over. He looked at Wang Lin in desperation and pleaded, “Save me!” With that, he passed out.
The cultivator sneered as he looked at Wang Lin and waved his hand. Immediately, a black gas invisible to mortal eyes spread out and formed a giant skull in the air. The skull moved toward Xu Tao to devour him. This cultivator was evidently very cruel as he included Wang Lin in the attack as well.
In his eyes, although Wang Lin was only a mortal, because Xu Tao fled to where Wang Lin was, then their relationship must be deep, so he might as well kill them both.
As for any trouble caused by mortals, his master will resolve the issue for him. Thinking about that, his expression became very cruel.
Wang Lin furrowed his brow. If this cultivator had only targeted Xu Tao, then he wouldn’t have acted. Although Xu Tao had been very respectful toward him all these years, that wasn’t enough for Wang Lin to act.
But now, this mere Foundation Establishment cultivator dared to include him in the attack. Wang Lin’s expression was normal and his eyes were calm as he waved his hand as if he was shooing away mosquitos.
Suddenly, the skull seemed to have seen something very scary. It let out a scream and no longer dared to move forward to devour. It backed away instead.
But it was still a step too slow. As Wang Lin waved his hand, the devil Xu Liguo appeared and devoured the skull. He loudly chewed the skull before swallowing it and then gave the little cultivator a fierce glance before slowly disappearing.
The little cultivator’s face became red and he coughed out a mouthful of blood. This happened because when the skull was destroyed, his soul sustained damage. Then, without a word, the little cultivator ran away in fear.
Wang Lin coldly stared at the figure that was running away. He didn’t kill him because he was nearly done with turning into a mortal and didn’t want to waste effort on this little matter.
