Li Huowang lay on the bed in the hospital's binding clothes, silently staring at the IV hook hanging above his head, as if waiting for something.
With a creak, the door to the ward opened. "Hey, Xiao Li, you were recovering so well before, weren't you? What happened this time?"
Li Huowang's attending doctor walked in, looking at him with a face full of disappointment.
Hearing this, Li Huowang, his head wrapped in white gauze, immediately grew anxious and hurried to explain: "Doctor, they went at Yang Na first! I only fought back to protect her!"
The doctor curled his index finger and pushed up his glasses, "You call that fighting back? That was a counter kill! Liu Jianye is still lying in the ICU and hasn't come out yet. With that kick of yours, you nearly sent him off completely. You've been here quite a while, everyone knows what's going on. Didn't you consider Master Liu's condition before you acted? I thought you were a sensible kid."
Thinking of Yang Na, tears streaming down her face in fright, Li Huowang looked a bit indignant, "So what if he's mentally ill? Does having a mental illness let him do whatever he wants? If I had to choose between Yang Na being hurt and going to jail, I'd pick the latter any day."
"You—" The doctor was rendered speechless by Li Huowang's retort.
He finally sighed and shook his head, "Forget it, forget it. The director has already called both families. You don't need to worry about these things anymore."
Hearing this, Li Huowang curled up a bit, turning to face the empty side of the bed, quietly calculating whether that jade pendant worth 400,000 was enough for compensation.
But right now he wasn't panicked at all. After seeing that the elixir actually worked, Li Huowang suddenly found his life full of new options.
Noticing his young patient's low mood, the doctor tried to reassure him: "Xiao Li, don't worry, you won't go to jail— the hospital can give you paperwork for that. Stop thinking about these things. Just focus on getting better, we'll take care of the rest."
Li Huowang could feel the doctor's concern for him in his words, "Thank you, Doctor."
"Thank me for what? I'm your attending physician, after all. And you're still so young, of course I'll look after you a little more." Li Huowang felt the doctor pat his shoulder.
"But, Xiao Li, tell me honestly—how did you manage to hurt them like that? That's not something just anyone could do. Were you in a normal state at the time, or did you fall into some new stress-induced huan jue?"
Hearing this, Li Huowang's heart tightened and he immediately focused on the pocket of his shirt. "Um... I..."
"I specialize in psychology, and I'm pretty good at this stuff. Don't bother trying to hide anything, you'd better think carefully before answering. I can't stand when my patients lie to me."
Although the doctor's tone was gentle, Li Huowang felt an invisible pressure filling the room. "What do I do... He can't find out about the elixir."
Just as Li Huowang was anxiously searching for a way out, everything around him started to distort, and the doctor's voice grew more and more blurry.
Seconds later, he realized he'd fallen into huan jue again, lying on a stone bed in Xuan Yang's single cave.
Sitting up and clutching his head, Li Huowang looked at the simple furnishings all around and broke into a laugh. "Heh, no matter what, this is one way out."
This time, he wasn't planning to go back so soon—no point letting the doctor wait around next to him.
Walking out of the room, Li Huowang watched his fellow disciples coming and going in the cave corridor, already beginning to calculate his next move.
Since those elixirs really work, he couldn't afford to act as casually as before; he had to manage things here properly and squeeze out as much benefit as possible.
Lucky for him, his identity now wasn't just the medicinal guide of the ingredient room, but the registered disciple under the Lame Head, giving him much more freedom.
As he saw a bearded Taoist in a Daoist robe walking by, Li Huowang's eyes lit up and he quickly chased after him. "Hey, Senior Brother! Senior Brother!"
The bearded Taoist turned and saw it was Li Huowang speaking, his manner indifferent. "Junior Brother Xuan Yang, what is it?"
Copying their way of speaking, Li Huowang replied, "I've just become Master's disciple, Senior Brother. Can you offer some guidance on what I should do next?"
"Don't blame me for speaking plain, even though Master took you in himself, you're the newest here. For now, you'll be running errands in Qingfeng Daoist Temple."
"If you want Master to teach you an immortality cultivation technique, that's a privilege for closed-door disciples. You're not there yet. For now, come wait with me outside the pill room."
"Immortality...?" Li Huowang muttered to himself. He'd never heard of any immortal being refined out of other people making elixirs.
"Can Master really achieve immortality?"
The bearded Taoist looked a bit proud. "Of course. Master has true divine skills, so just serve him well."
From this senior brother named Xuan Yin, Li Huowang finally learned the composition of the cave's members: five registered disciples in total, one personal disciple, and one temple master—Master Danyang.
Apart from these, the rest were outer personnel—cooks, medicinal guides in the ingredient room, errand-running Daoist Boys, all together adding up to eighty or a hundred people.
This was Li Huowang's first real understanding of the Daoist temple. It had few members, you could even call it meager, especially after the recent mass deaths.
As they talked, that oppressive pill furnace appeared before Li Huowang again, thin white smoke drifting from inside, as if something was being refined.
This time, aside from Master Danyang, there was also his closed-door disciple—a sullen-looking young man.
After waiting with Xuan Yin for a while, Li Huowang got his assignment: taking the ingredient list to the ingredient room to check supplies, just like Xuan Yang used to do in the beginning.
Arriving at the ingredient room covered in white dust, Li Huowang found everyone working inside looking over at him—nervous, with a hint of fear in their eyes.
The albino girl pursed her lips and took two urgent steps forward, but ultimately said nothing and timidly retreated.
Their role had shifted from oppressed to oppressor.
Watching them, Li Huowang's mind was active. His role on both sides had now changed—maybe he could get some benefit from this.
"So, you guys got any money on you?" As soon as he said this, everyone froze. "Money, don't you get it? Silver, gold, jade pendants, whatever."
To be honest, Li Huowang really needed money—Old Liu's compensation wasn't settled yet, and he came from an ordinary family. If it was a lot, his mom might have to sell the house. He needed it badly.
"You can't spend it here anyway, so just give it all to me. Call it protection money—from now on, I'll look after you."
He put it so bluntly that they all got the message. People in the ingredient room started rummaging through their clothes. They didn't expect Li Huowang to protect them—just handed stuff over so he wouldn't bully them.
A half-thumb-sized, blackened piece of silver, a copper hairpin, forty-some copper coins with square holes— that was all he got.
Staring at these things, Li Huowang sighed. Clearly, he'd miscalculated; these guys didn't have any money at all. What little this would fetch was probably less than the balance on his health card.