“Kid, what’s with that look?”
Koda had already turned around.
His eyes looked at the middle-aged man with resentment.
“Didn’t you see that I was too scared to move?
If you dare laugh at me, I’ll throw this entire cart of lettuce down below.”
Facing Koda’s threat, the middle-aged man mocked him back.
“You little brat, one look and I can tell you’re just some wanderer.
You don’t even have clothes, yet you dare talk big here.
See those guards over there?
They won’t let wanderers into the city.
Just give up on that idea.”
Just now Koda had been crawling forward and hadn’t noticed how far he’d gone.
Hearing the Lettuce Uncle say this, he looked up.
The city that was originally far away was now right before his eyes.
It seemed he had been crawling for quite a while.
After this period of crawling, he had gradually adapted to this road.
As long as he didn’t intentionally look down, basically nothing would happen.
He stood up gently, patted the dust off his thighs and belly, and slowly walked behind the wooden handcart, lifting his leg as if to kick it down.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t, my little ancestor!
I was wrong, okay?
You’re a big person with a big heart, please be kind.
My entire livelihood is on this cart.” The Lettuce Uncle hurriedly grabbed his arm.
Seeing that Koda was actually serious, he immediately softened his tone.
He probably realized that even if he let the soldiers ahead catch this vagrant, he wouldn’t be able to claim any compensation.
Fighting with a vagrant would only result in his own loss.
Koda actually just wanted to scare him.
Who told him to mock him for no reason?
He couldn’t bring himself to actually destroy someone’s livelihood.
He put his leg back down.
Holding it up for too long made his body a bit unbalanced.
“Heh, now you know fear?
What if I just pat my butt and leave later?
Can you stop me?”
“Ah, yes, yes, yes.
I take back what I said.
If you want to enter the city, you need a permit.
Without one, you can’t get in.”
The Lettuce Uncle’s attitude changed completely, becoming flattering, and he stopped harping on the matter of him being a vagrant.
“A permit?
What does it look like?
Let me see it.”
“This…
this…”
“Hurry up, don’t dawdle.”
The middle-aged man reluctantly reached into his chest pocket and took out a piece of paper.
Koda took it and looked at it.
The permit was written with content regarding legal business operations, rules that needed to be followed, price ranges set for vegetables, and so on.
At the end, there was a stamp with a very strange shape.
“Hey, who would use an old man’s image as a stamp?
Sticking his tongue out, he looks so sleazy.
Do you think I’m easy to fool?” Koda looked at him with a face full of disbelief.
After all, this was the image of a city.
How could it be so childish?
“This of mine is real.
This stamp of Omashu City is the head of City Lord Bumi.
There’s no mistake about that.” The uncle said with absolute certainty.
Koda handed the permit back to him.
The more he looked at the stamp, the more familiar it felt.
Oh~~~~
He suddenly remembered who this old man was.
“Bumi,” a childhood playmate of the Avatar, who has now become the City Lord of Omashu City.
He is about 100 years old and is a powerful earthbending master.
This was all the information he could recall.
After seeing the permit, he knew he couldn’t get in through normal means.
To prevent Fire Nation spies from infiltrating, the checkpoints were very strict.
During wartime, they were extremely sensitive about this.
“Hey, uncle, let’s discuss something.
You get me in, and I’ll give you this.
It’s gold, pure gold!” He raised his left hand, shook his wrist, and pointed to the gold chain on his wrist.
Besides that loincloth, this was the only valuable thing on his body — of course, the jade pendant around his neck definitely couldn’t be given away.
The Lettuce Uncle’s eyes almost went straight staring at the gold chain.
He had spent all the money on him to buy this cart of lettuce and desperately needed a new sum of capital to start his life.
He forcibly moved his gaze away from the gold chain, his mouth trembling slightly.
“I…
how do I know this chain of yours is real gold?”
Koda could tell he was very excited and unwilling to look away.
There was a high probability this would work.
“How about this?
I’ll give you this gold chain first.
You try to see if you can bring me in.
If you can, I don’t want it back.
If you can’t, you return it to me.
How’s that?”
Koda wasn’t worried at all about the gold chain being embezzled.
Even if there was no water source nearby to use, his martial arts were no joke.
The condition for using waterbending is to use specific martial arts movements to channel internal energy.
Practice martial arts before practicing the art — this was one of the things Father taught him back then.
It’s just that the more he practiced this martial art, the more it looked like Tai Chi.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t say that out loud.
“Have you thought about it?
If it’s a go, give me a straight answer.
If not, I’ll find another way.”
“Fine!
Give me the gold chain first, and I’ll find a way to get you in.” The uncle said, gritting his teeth.
He actually didn’t have any good ideas.
If the soldiers got serious, he would have to spend a couple of days in the earthen dungeon too.
He took the gold chain Koda handed over and bit it with his teeth.
In fact, he couldn’t really tell anything.
People who did this were basically just seeking psychological comfort.
After tucking it into his robe, he turned to Koda and said, “Later, I’ll say you’re my servant.
Don’t speak.
Whatever they ask, I’ll answer.
If you can do that, there’s a chance we’ll get in.”
“Fine!”
“You push the cart.
Since when does a boss push the cart?
If you want to play the part, start now.”
Koda strongly suspected he just wanted free labor, but he had no evidence.
To be honest, the Lettuce Uncle completely didn’t expect Koda to be able to push it so easily.
The weight of this cart was quite something even for an adult, let alone a child.
In the end, he could only attribute it to the child wandering and working odd jobs all year round, which had built up his strength.
…
Only half of the setting sun could be seen on the distant horizon.
The boy pushed the cart along the narrow road, while the middle-aged man, dressed in loose clothing, walked behind with his hands behind his back.
Finally, just as it turned dark, they reached the city gate.
The Lettuce Uncle spoke first, “Sirs, sorry to bother you.
This is the permit to enter Omashu City.” As he spoke, he handed over the paper he had prepared earlier.
The man standing on the right side of the road, wearing a suit of armor, took the paper from the uncle’s hand, gave it a cursory glance, and then handed it back.
He said directly, “Go on in.
If you two had dawdled over there any longer and the sky truly went dark, it wouldn’t be us two letting you through.
If we weren’t in a hurry to change shifts, we’d definitely give you two a proper check.”
As they spoke, the two raised their hands, and a massive opening appeared out of thin air in the seamless city wall.
They then gestured for the two to hurry up and leave so as not to delay their clock-out time.
And just like that, Koda entered the city without any hindrance.
Looking back at the massive opening that suddenly closed, leaving no trace of its existence, he was still somewhat shocked.
This was his first time seeing a divine power other than waterbending with his own eyes.
Before, he had only seen it in films and television, so it naturally wasn’t as real as experiencing it personally.
After the shock passed, he looked at the Lettuce Uncle with a face full of disdain.
“This is the ‘heavily guarded’ you mentioned?
This is the ‘impenetrable fortress’ you spoke of?
They’re super lazy, okay?
They let us in without even asking a question.
Are you sure you’re not just scamming me of my money?”
The Lettuce Uncle was also a bit surprised.
“It wasn’t like this the last time I came.
I’m really not lying to you.
You’re not thinking of taking the gold chain back, are you?
Impossible, absolutely impossible!
Now that it’s in my hands, is there any reason to give it back?” He quickly clutched his chest tightly, looking as if he would live or die with the chain.
“When was the last time you came?”
“About five months ago.
These past few months I’ve been in Ba Sing Se selling lettuce, so I’m not quite sure what happened here.
However, I seem to have heard that the Earth Kingdom’s army ambushed the Fire Nation Army once at the Southern Qihe Temple and won a great victory.
I wonder if it has anything to do with that.”
Koda thought to himself, “Could it be that after winning one battle, the Earth Kingdom’s army got cocky and started slacking off?
Shouldn’t the normal operation be to boost morale and keep up the momentum after winning?
Can it really go the opposite way?
This animation was made by Americans and references Chinese martial arts, and the Earth Kingdom is the country that most resembles the Qing Dynasty.
Thinking about it that way, it seems to make some sense.”
“You don’t really want it back, do you?” The Lettuce Uncle’s voice trembled slightly, but his conscience told him he really wasn’t qualified to take this gold necklace.
…
📢 Author’s Note
The full completed version of Avatar:
✅ Part 1 Complete — 110+ Chapters
Follow Koda’s incredible journey as he leaves the mysterious Foggy Swamp, masters the art of waterbending, uncovers ancient secrets, and grows stronger while changing the fate of the world.
🔥 I also have additional 18+ fanfics available for readers who enjoy exclusive mature stories.
😉
1 Dragon Ball: Oolong’s Sex Adventure
2 Elements of Lust – ATLA & Korra Mixed Smut
3 Doraemon: Filtering with Nobi Tamako
4 The Naive Me Who Became Someone’s Everyday Secret
5 High School DxD: Rias Gremory, the Phenex Bride
6 Versatile Mage: Awakening the Succubus System