Li Huowang raised the medicine pestle in his hand, smashing it into the medicine mortar again and again in utter boredom, slowly grinding the mud-stained, gleaming green stones inside into powder.
Although the cave was damp and cold, he was only wearing a single rough cloth garment. Yet his face showed no concern, as if none of this mattered to him at all.
He wasn't the only one in the cave; there were other men and women, their hair tied up, clad too in rough cloth and hemp ropes.
The only thing that set them apart from Li Huowang was that each bore some obvious physical defect—some had albinism, some suffered from polio.
All sorts of congenital and acquired deformities could be found here; in this cramped storeroom cave they seemed like exhibits in a grotesque museum.
Their labor was the same as Li Huowang's—grinding ingredients—but what they pounded varied: some did gold stone, others ground medicine. It was clear, though, that a few were not focused on their work.
"Ah!" A woman's terrified scream rang out, drawing everyone's attention.
There, at the side of the cave, a fat, hare-lipped boy wore a lewd grin, trying to pull an albino girl into his arms.
"Lemme just do it once—I promise, just once, hehe~"
Li Huowang ignored the noise, closed his eyes, and kept up his steady, repetitive work.
As the woman's cries became sharper and more desperate, the irritated Li Huowang cursed under his breath, grabbed his stone mortar with one hand, and stood up.
"Thunk"—stone struck bone with a dull, heavy sound.
The hare-lipped, now-bloodied fat boy plopped to the ground in a daze, clearly stunned by the blow. Only after two seconds did his face twist in pain as he clutched his wound and howled dryly.
Escaping fate, the white-haired, pale-skinned girl cowered behind Li Huowang, clutching her clothes in fear.
"I'm tellin' ya! You're done for! Don't you know who my master is? If he finds out, you're dead!" The hare-lipped boy threatened, rage twisting his face.
"What the hell is he? He's not even worth shit!" The moment Li Huowang said this, silence dropped like a guillotine.
No one present had ever expected this man before them would dare say such a thing.
Gazing at the so-called senior brothers and junior apprentices before him, Li Huowang took a deep breath, pushing down his anger.
"What's wrong with me? Why am I getting angry at these people? I know I'm not usually this confrontational. I can't let them change my nature. That wasn't the real me—calm down, calm down."
Just as Li Huowang was calming himself, he heard someone at the doorway calling his name.
"Junior Brother Li, Junior Sister Wang, Master wants to see you." The tall young man at the door was clearly of higher standing—he wore a blue Daoist robe.
Though the robe was old, its cuffs bleached white with washing, it was still vastly better than Li Huowang's ragged hemp clothes.
The man held a horsetail whisk in one arm, his eyes shining with arrogance as he looked at the apprentices before him.
At the sight of the young Taoist, the bloodied fat boy's face lit up with malicious glee. "Ha! You're done for! Today's the day you get it."
But Li Huowang paid him no mind, turning to follow a drooling, slack-jawed woman toward the exit. The woman's face was waxen and sickly.
After only a couple of steps, he felt someone pulling at his sleeve, trying to stop him. Looking back, he saw it was the albino girl he'd saved.
Tears welled in her eyes as she kept shaking her head, terror etched into her stare.
Li Huowang's face remained cold and unmoved. He shook her off hard and strode forward with long, determined steps.
Leaving the storeroom, they entered a larger cave. The walls here held other caves like the storeroom, repurposed for various uses. From their knobby, uneven look, the amateur skill of the builders was plain to see.
The entire cave was vast, intricate tunnels branching everywhere like a giant ant nest.
Rotting planks of peach wood were nailed above each cave opening, names carved deep into them: Spiritual Palace Hall, Old Disciplinary Hall, Ancestral Celebration Hall, Four Emperors Hall.
An all-natural cave turned into a strange imitation Daoist temple.
As they walked on, the slack-mouthed woman pulled out something black from her pocket and suddenly offered it to Li Huowang, mumbling in her dull-witted voice, "Want... molasses candy?"
Li Huowang frowned, having guessed at her foolishness, and took the sweet impatiently, stuffing it into his sleeve.
Seeing him accept it, she pulled out another piece and popped it into her own mouth, grinning foolishly. "Master's good... Master gives candy..."
Li Huowang made no response. They walked on for almost a quarter of an hour before a grand, antique, pitch-black alchemy furnace appeared before him.
Blue smoke rose from the furnace, which jabbed up towards the cave roof, a massive metal mountain in itself.
Step by step, as he drew closer, the furnace loomed ever larger, its shadow soon swallowing him whole, pressing down on Li Huowang.
More than the five-story furnace, what suffocated him was the figure seated before it.
Viewed from behind, the man wore a blue-green Daoist robe, a hairpin and crown holding his white temples, the very picture of an immortal Taoist sage.
Sitting cross-legged, he was doing exactly what Li Huowang had just been doing—pounding with a medicine pestle, though his was much larger, like a giant pillar.
With every rise and fall, clashing gold stone echoed throughout the cave.
"Mas...Master!" The slack-mouthed woman clumsily pinched her left thumb with her right hand, draping four left fingers over the right, and, hands at her chest, bowed respectfully toward the silhouette, reverence filling her eyes.
At her voice, the harsh pounding halted abruptly.
The figure turned. Though Li Huowang was prepared, his pupils still contracted in fright.
The front of the Taoist was nothing like his back—seen from behind, he was sage-like, but from the front, he was a disgusting, leprous old man; several yellow teeth snarled visibly from his underbite.
"Here? Good disciple, you made me wait."
The filthy Daoist robe swished as the old Taoist leapt up, grabbed the slack-mouthed woman by the throat with one hand, and yanked her away.
Before the dull woman could utter half a word, she was hurled into a stone vat half as tall as a man. With a crazed snarl, Master raised the huge stone medicine pestle in both hands and brought it down hard.
Her screams ceased abruptly, swallowed by the stone vat.
Flesh and blood splattered across the old Taoist's face and body, but unmoved, he chanted excitedly to some eerie rhythm.
"Ding Chou extends my life, Ding Hai guards my soul, Jiazi protects my body, Jiaxu preserves my form, Jiashen secures my fate, Jiawu watches over my soul, Jiachen affirms my spirit!"
When there was nothing left but pulp, he grabbed the hundreds-of-pounds heavy stone vat single-handedly and dumped all its contents into the alchemy furnace. Then, looking feverish, threw his hands upward toward the sky.
"Light the furnace—alchemy!"
Two Daoist Boys with exaggerated rouge painted on their cheeks stepped out of the shadows—one fanned the flames as the other poured assorted ingredients into the furnace: gold stone powder, and a host of live, writhing things.
Before long, a thick, bizarre fragrance filled the air.
At this moment, the leprous Master shut his eyes, breathing in deeply. Stroking what little beard he had on his filthy, ugly chin, he showed a satisfied smile.
Slowly opening his eyes, he clasped his hands behind his back, turned to Li Huowang, and said, "I hear you called your Daoist Master 'a piece of shit'? Is that so?"
Instantly, the air around seemed to freeze.
Gazing at this ruthless, murderous so-called Master, Li Huowang didn't move, but closed his eyes slowly, calming his ragged breath, muttering inwardly: "You can't fool me, none of this is real. It's all fake, all of it."
"Speak! Cat got your tongue? Hm?!" Master's footsteps came closer, his body exuding a stench of blood and rot, bearing down like a wall.
Trembling, Li Huowang suddenly clenched his teeth, mustering all his strength to yank his eyes open wide.
The oppressive darkness of the cave-temple dissolved away—suddenly, he was in a bright, clean hospital room, the air fresh. Yet his lower body was bound tightly to the bed by cloth straps.