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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: Head
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After being roughed up by Zhengkun like that, Li Huowang had two ribs snapped, along with several bruised hollows on his body.
Fortunately, it wasn't anything serious. With the aid of his pills, he could just barely patch up these minor injuries.
Compared to the wounds themselves, he cared far more about his scheme.
It just so happened to be the first day of the lunar month. Amid another clash with Zhengkun, Li Huowang casually let slip the information about the "Wandering Lord" that he'd learned from Bai Lingmiao.
The moment he spotted the slight shift in the man's expression, Li Huowang's heart leaped with joy.
Truth be told, he had no idea what the other party would do with that intel. He was just testing the waters. Nothing better to do anyway—might as well take a swing and see if it stuck. And now it looked like it had worked. The guy definitely had his own agenda.
Days deep in the cavern blurred together without sun or moon, and the first of the lunar month arrived in no time.
This was the prime hour for Danyangzi to refine his pills. He'd hole up in the Pill Refinery Room all morning—and conveniently, it was also when the Wandering Lord was away.
Clear Wind Temple wasn't huge, but it wasn't tiny either. After so much time living there, Li Huowang had long mapped out Zhengkun's routines.
Yet he made no moves. He simply sat cross-legged in silence within Zhengyi Hall.
"Could I have read him wrong? Is the guy not that greedy after all?"
Li Huowang lay on his bed, puzzling over where he'd gone off track.
Fifteen days slipped by, bringing them to the first of the second lunar month. Zhengkun still showed no signs of action.
Just as Li Huowang started convincing himself he'd miscalculated, on the fifteenth of the second month, Zhengyi Hall—Zhengkun's usual haunt—sat empty.
He'd finally cracked.
The instant Li Huowang spotted Danyangzi opening the furnace, he stuck to the plan and hurried toward Danyangzi's quarters.
Right as he neared the cavern mouth, Li Huowang halted abruptly.
There was Zhengkun, standing watch from afar. He hadn't gone in.
Watching the man peer cautiously from the doorway, Li Huowang pieced it together in a flash. Someone was doing the dirty work for him. He was just the lookout. The guy's paranoia ran deeper than he'd figured.
Some half hour later, Li Huowang watched Xuanyin slink out from inside.
Zhengkun shot him a glance, slapped a black talisman onto both their knees, and the pair vanished like a gust of wind.
The door hung slightly ajar, like a lure dangling for some fool to take the bait.
With them paving the way, Li Huowang knew that any traps inside had likely been neutralized.
He edged closer, slow and steady. This was his shot.
Danyangzi's place was spacious enough, but a total disaster—filthy beyond belief, reeking of dead rats.
Harsh as the conditions were, Li Huowang's eyes locked straight onto the prize: a stone slab shrouded in a net of black threads and copper coins.
No surprise there—that had to be the Heavenly Book Danyangzi was always yammering about.
He crept up carefully and peered at its surface through the netting.
Zhengkun had clearly tried swiping the immortality cultivation method. But judging by the scene, he'd bombed.
Li Huowang strained to make out the Heavenly Book's text. Obscure as hell, damn near incomprehensible. It resembled pictographs, but from some ancient dynasty long faded.
Even accounting for how little Hanzi had evolved over a millennium, he still struggled hard.
The longer Li Huowang stared, the more wrong it felt. Hadn't Danyangzi preached that immortality came from cultivating inner and outer elixirs in tandem? Looked like the old coot hadn't followed a word of it.
"Joy steps universally sound Gandharva... obtain like clouds, spreading wide the universal shade and grace... wondrous good body grants all peace, joy, and liberation..."
No way around it—this didn't read like any immortality manual. It was a scripture.
"Hee hee."
An eerie titter sent a chill crawling up Li Huowang's neck. He whipped around. Nothing there.
The hollowed-out wall held only a slender blue-and-white porcelain vase, forearm-thick at most, standing upright.
Something was off.
Spine tingling with dread, Li Huowang backtracked the way he'd come. Zhengkun hadn't cleared every threat.
"Don't move."
A shrill, girlish voice piped up from behind.
Li Huowang turned slowly once more. The sight froze his blood cold.
Perched atop the narrow vase mouth was a ghostly pale little girl's head.
Little girl, maybe—but her skin didn't look alive. Not even close. Especially those cheek blushes, a red that screamed unnatural.
He fixated on the pinpoint scarlet dot dead center on her forehead. The eeriness only grew.
In that heartbeat, it clicked for him. This was how Danyangzi got the Heavenly Book read aloud. This... thing.
"You're with that guy from before? Hee hee, you're in deep now. One shake of this bell, and Daddy comes running back."
Red cords bound her twin topknots, each dangling copper bells.
Her words lit Li Huowang's nerves on fire. But in the next breath, calm settled over his face.
"Go on, ring it. Let Daddy hear all about how you've been lying to him."
Panic flickered across the vase-head's face. Li Huowang smirked inside. Nailed it. He wasn't the only one gaming the illiterate bald bastard. Whatever this freak was, it'd beat him to the punch.
When the lintel warps, so do the beams below. Everyone in Clear Wind Temple hid their own knives.
"This... this isn't my fault! Those characters are ugly as sin—I couldn't read them! Daddy made me read it to him. What was I supposed to do?"
The vase-head whined, tears welling up.
Seeing her fully rattled, Li Huowang weighed his options for a beat before deciding.
"Fine. Three rules, then. I walk out now. You pretend you never saw me. I pretend your secret's safe. Best for everybody."
The vase-head wobbled side to side, then nodded.
"Okay. Scram already. I'll act like you were never here."
Li Huowang inched backward toward the door, one foot at a time.
"If the Heavenly Book's bogus, then those human-flesh pill recipes—you cooked those up for him too?"
A dopey grin spread over the vase-head.
"Yep! I only remembered that stuff, so I passed it off as being in the book for Daddy. No worries—they won't kill. I don't want Daddy dead. Just scared he'd toss me if he knew I was useless. Look at me—no arms, no legs—"
Mid-babble, Li Huowang whipped his right arm high, clenched the jade pendant, and smashed it down on the vase.
The round jade, trailing ghostly white, cracked the porcelain on impact.
In her flailing panic, the vase-head crashed hard to the floor.
Shards flew. Black Buddhist beads wrapped around guts and organs—sloshed through shit and piss—spilled out into the open air.
"Wahhh~ Daddy!! It hurts! Daddy, it hurts so bad!!"
The vase-head's sobs faded to whimpers.
(End of chapter)