"Alright, stop bowing and get up. I don’t like people bowing at my feet. I’m not made of clay," Lin Wanwan said lazily.
"Thank the Immortal Lady for her great kindness, thank the Immortal Lady!" The skinny monkey continued to bow a couple more times before standing up with the help of the parapet.
It’s no wonder that the common folk of the Great Tang were superstitious. Just seeing Lin Wanwan push open a glowing door from the void and move a huge pile of goods from it had convinced the skinny monkey that she was not human.
If she’s not a god, then she must be a ghost.
If she’s a ghost, his life would be in danger, so he might as well think of her as a god.
The skinny monkey was bowing until he was dizzy, just hoping to save his own life.
This group of theirs banded together just to barely get by, essentially a motley crew.
In their daily lives, apart from stealing and looting, they had to find ways to avoid the government officials, fearing that they might be caught and forced into endless labor, which would truly cost them their lives—exile wouldn’t happen because their Qiong State was already the central court’s favorite place for exile.
Lin Wanwan leisurely covered her head with a scarf and then looked at the skinny monkey, asking, "Do you have any skills?"
The skinny monkey hunched over, stood to the side, and replied with a bitter smile, "The Immortal Lady jests. How could someone like me have any skills? I just survive under... under Wang Ergou’s command. I have a forty-year-old widowed mother above and a six-year-old daughter below. To support them both, I had to become a fugitive, avoiding the court’s duties and taxes."
A grandmother at forty, truly a characteristic of the Great Tang.
"Stand straight. How old are you this year?"
"In reply to the Immortal Lady, I’m twenty-four this year."
"Where do you live? Who else is in your family?"
"The Immortal Lady, I live in that cluster of broken shacks to the west. Apart from me, there’s only an old mother and a little girl. It’s hardly a home—just some trees cut from the mountain, roughly made into a shelter to barely keep out the wind and rain."
"Hmm, then bring them to the dock tomorrow, and follow my ship when we leave. If you choose not to come, suit yourself. After all, you’re just a wrecked life, and reporting to the King of Hell sooner isn’t impossible either. The underworld is lacking ghosts."
"Never dare, never dare. I’ll take them to the dock in a while."
Lin Wanwan had managed to both deceive and intimidate this person into serving her, and now it was time: "Put these things on the cart and take me to find a warehouse near the dock."
The skinny monkey, to show loyalty, immediately offered a piece of information: "The Immortal Lady, I know there’s an empty warehouse next to dock number eleven, and I can open the lock."
Lin Wanwan tilted her head to glance at him and casually said, "So you live on your skills, huh?"
The skinny monkey, catching on to the hint, replied, "I dare not say much, but I can unlock a lock."
"Ha." Lin Wanwan let out a humorless laugh and said, "Maybe you should practice your skills more often?"
The skinny monkey quickly replied, "I dare not do so. In the future, I’ll only listen to the Immortal Lady. Anything the Immortal Lady forbids, I won’t touch even a bit."
Lin Wanwan said plainly, "Remember what you said now."
Soon, the bundles of cloth and cotton were secured tightly on several foldable luggage carts with bungee cords. Neither the foldable luggage carts nor the corresponding bungee cords were things the skinny monkey had ever seen, further convincing him that Lin Wanwan was indeed an immortal.
In the silent night, the skinny monkey dragged several luggage carts while Lin Wanwan carried the spinning wheel of Huang Dao Po—it’s not that she didn’t want to appear more refined, but the skinny monkey was too useless. Probably accustomed to a life of having one meal and missing the next, his ribcage too visible, there was no way he could carry the spinning wheel.
If she had known earlier, she would have bought another cart. A mistake, an oversight indeed.
Luckily, it was late at night, and there was no one around to watch, so this weight was not much of an issue for the current Lin Wanwan—except for being somewhat unrefined.
The warehouse was not far, and they reached it in two quarters of an hour.
The skinny monkey fiddled at his waistband, drew out a thin wire, and went to work on the warehouse lock, really unlocking that thick lock in less than a second.
"The Immortal Lady, here it is."
The warehouse door swung open, and a wave of dust assaulted them. Lin Wanwan stood outside, fanning away the dust, then pulled a self-charging flashlight from her hiking bag. Once switched on, the bright light illuminated the entire warehouse, scaring the skinny monkey so much that he fell to the ground and clapped a hand over his mouth to prevent a scream.
Having been recognized as an immortal, Lin Wanwan naturally had nothing to hide from the skinny monkey.
"Move these things inside and watch over them tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll bring the others to retrieve them—do you know what to say?"
"Understood, I won’t run my mouth and mess up the Immortal Lady’s affairs," the skinny monkey promised repeatedly.
Under the light, Lin Wanwan thoroughly saw the appearance of the skinny monkey before her. Barely reaching 1.6 meters in height, his skin was darkened by the sea breeze, and he appeared filthy all over.
Only after watching the skinny monkey push the items into the warehouse did Lin Wanwan speak, "What’s your surname?"
"In reply to the Immortal Lady, my surname is Sun. Even I can’t remember my given name; no one uses it. Because I look like a monkey, everyone calls me the skinny monkey."
Lin Wanwan said, "Skinny monkey sounds too awful. I’ll give you a new name. From now on, you’ll be called Chuyao."
The skinny monkey quickly knelt in gratitude: "Thank you, Immortal Lady, for bestowing a name upon me! Hehe, I’m finally someone with a name. From now on, I’m not called a skinny monkey; I’m called Chuyao."
Lin Wanwan said flatly, "Don’t kneel so easily. Since you’ve joined me, you should have some backbone. Don’t let your knees be too soft. From now on, don’t call me Immortal Lady either. Secrets are not to be revealed; call me Master." The rightful source is novｅlfire.net
"Yes, I... I will remember," Sun Chuyao pledged loyalty and stood up.
Lin Wanwan took out her mechanical watch to check the time. They had been delayed quite a bit; it was time to return.
"Go outside, count to five, and then come back in."
Once Sun Chuyao stepped outside, Lin Wanwan opened the Space-Time Gate and returned to the small warehouse in the modern era.
After counting, Sun Chuyao called out from outside: "Master, may I come in?"
Shouting several times without a response, he turned to peek into the warehouse, which was pitch black once more; a living person had disappeared into thin air just like that.
Unable to help himself, Sun Chuyao knelt once more to worship the sky a few times. Then, the next moment, he grew excited—he was actually following an immortal! Even if she was an immortal who had been banished to the mortal world to undergo trials for her wrongdoings, she was still an immortal!
They say when one person attains divine enlightenment, their dogs and chickens ascend to heaven too. If Sun Chuyao served the immortal well, who knows, he might ascend to heaven with her one day.
Thinking of this, he chuckled to himself, feeling invigorated.
Tonight, he intended to shut the door and guard the place—this was all the immortal’s stuff, and he couldn’t afford to be careless with it.