The Dead of Night

1,178 words

Chapter 40: The Dead of Night

“Huh? What the hell is this?”

Frowning, Li Huowang walked into the woods where the fool had been.

The moment he stepped into the treeline, his pupils contracted. The fool was squatting beside a small grave mound with the old beggar from earlier, both of them hunched over, eating with their heads down. On top of the mound lay a few sheets of yellow spirit paper, held down by a rock.

Li Huowang suppressed his fury, strode over, and kicked the fool to the ground. “Get up! You dare eat grave offerings? You tired of living? Didn’t I tell you not to talk to this beggar?!”

The fool scrambled up, looking wronged. “I-I-I didn’t talk to him.”

“Kneel! Kowtow and apologize. Now!” Li Huowang’s voice was harsh.

He watched as the fool knocked his head heavily against the grave mound a few times, then grabbed him by the arm and yanked him to his feet.

In a place like this, anything could happen. He didn’t dare gamble. If he handled this wrong, trouble would follow fast.

With a clang, Li Huowang drew the longsword from his back and leveled the point at the old beggar’s nose. His eyes were cold. “I don’t care what you’re after. Stay away from my people. Or don’t blame me for what happens next.”

Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed the fool and turned, marching back to the road.

“I’m not a beggar,” the man muttered under his breath, still chewing. “I’m a monk.” He crouched back down and continued eating the dead man’s offerings.

Back on the road, the group resumed their journey. Li Huowang’s expression was grim as he gave the others instructions. “For the next few nights, don’t sleep too deeply. Something might happen.”

The fool had already kowtowed and apologized, but who knew what kind of temper the thing in that grave had? He wasn’t going to gamble on it.

Hearing this, the others understood immediately. They nodded quietly.

As the sun set and night fell, travelers on the road began drifting into the roadside woods to gather firewood.

Around the two donkey carts, Li Huowang built a large, roaring fire. He made sure to chop enough wood to last the night.

There was no moon. Darkness pressed in from all sides. The branches swayed in the breeze, as though countless things were hidden within them, peering out at the people gathered around the fire.

As time passed, the area grew quiet. The others drifted off to sleep.

But Li Huowang did not sleep. He sat in silence, waiting.

Apart from the woods around him, half his attention was fixed on the old beggar.

If something came looking for us, it would come for me first, he thought. And if it does, that’s fine. It’ll give me a chance to figure out what that man really is.

The long wait stretched on. The first half of the night passed. Then came the dead of night—the hour when sleep weighed heaviest.

“Brother Li… that spot over there… was that a face just now?” Dog-Whelp’s voice trembled as he kept watch beside Li Huowang.

Li Huowang looked sharply in the direction, but saw nothing in the darkness.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Dog-Whelp swallowed hard. “Not sure… Maybe it was… just my eyes.”

“Don’t talk. Stay quiet.” Li Huowang pretended to stare at the campfire, watching the spot from the corner of his eye.

He waited in silence.

Then, in the faint glow of the flames, he saw it: an ugly face slowly emerging from the darkness, a cruel grin stretched across it.

But what made his scalp crawl was the fact that more and more heads appeared behind the first one. Pale gleams flickered beneath them.

“Wait. Pale gleams?” Li Huowang shot to his feet. He grabbed a burning branch from the fire and hurled it into the dark. “Stop right there! Who the hell are you?!”

His shout cut through the quiet night like a thunderclap, jolting the others awake.

As the burning branch rolled to a stop beneath those heads, Li Huowang saw that they all had feet and shadows. They were real people.

The others saw them too. And they saw the large cleavers in their hands.

“Mounted bandits! Run!!”

The cry set off a panic. Everyone grabbed their belongings and scattered in all directions.

“Shit! They spotted us! Bring the horses!”

Hoofbeats rang out as the bandits chased after the fleeing travelers, blades drawn.

“Head for the woods! Their horses can’t run in the trees!”

Hearing the old beggar’s shout, the others swerved away from the road and plunged into the forest.

They could run. But Li Huowang—stuck with his donkey carts—could not. A donkey could never outrun a horse.

Hoofbeats pounded behind him. Li Huowang stopped and spun around. A tall horse bore down on him, carrying a scruffy-faced bandit who swung his blade at an old woman staggering ahead.

“Can’t dodge this!” Li Huowang shoved a pill into his mouth. A wave of heat surged through his body.

Just as he pushed off the ground to lunge at the bandit, the old beggar burst out from the side, shoving the falling woman clear.

Gao Deqiu, atop his horse, sneered at the old beggar. He didn’t even bother raising his blade. He just yanked the reins, lifting the horse’s front hooves to trample the man beneath them.

His grin widened as he anticipated the satisfying crunch—the same kind he always enjoyed when he wasn’t busy raiding or raping.

But then a figure shot forward from the front. A fist slammed into the horse’s skull.

CRACK.

The horse screamed. Its forward momentum twisted violently as it toppled sideways, dragged down by the weight of its own crushed head.

Gao Deqiu was thrown in the same direction, helpless, watching the caved-in head grow larger in his vision.

The next moment, a dull thud. His head met the same fate as his horse’s.

Seeing their comrade fall, the other bandits whistled shrilly and converged on the fight.

But Li Huowang, cranked on Danyangzi’s alchemical pills, soon made them realize they had picked a fight with someone far above their weight class.

One by one, dull impacts rang out across the darkened road. After losing several men, the remaining bandits fled in panic.

“Fall back! This guy’s tough! Might be the Supervisory Office!”

Li Huowang stood there, his fists dripping with blood, breathing heavily.

He turned and looked at the old beggar. After that display, he was sure now—the man wasn’t a tiger. He was a pig.

Under Li Huowang’s gaze, the old beggar stood up and walked over to a corpse the bandits had cut down. He knelt, pressed his palms together, and muttered something.

Li Huowang moved closer. He caught the words.

“Ah-mi-tuo-fo… Ah-mi-tuo-fo… Ah-mi-tuo-fo…”

Over and over, the same prayer, slurred and imperfect, chanted dozens of times.

Then the old beggar got up, walked into the woods, and began digging with his bare hands.

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Reading Guide Decoding

Blood, Bandits, and a Broken Prayer: Li Huowang Finally Fights Back

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

Let’s unpack a few layers here.

First, grave offerings. In Chinese folk religion (and across many East Asian traditions), food left at a grave is literally the property of the dead. Eating it is a major transgression—it’s stealing from a spirit, and the consequences can range from bad luck to full-blown haunting. This is why Li Huowang’s reaction is so extreme. In his worldview, this isn’t just a theft of food; it’s a potential activation of a supernatural curse.

Second, the old beggar’s “monk” claim. This is a recurring theme in the Dao-Twisted World: hollow piety. The man insists he is a monk, but his chant of “Ah-mi-tuo-fo” is a mispronounced, mechanical recitation of the Buddha Amitabha’s name—a basic mantra that any real monk would know perfectly. He also has no temple, no robes, no understanding of Buddhism. He wears the label because he has absorbed the cultural shape of piety without any of its substance. This mirrors Danyangzi’s own hollow Daoism: a system of ritual and power built on ignorance and lies, where the image of spiritual authority is more important than actual belief.

Third, the Supervisory Heavenly Office (监天司). The bandits scream this name as they flee, assuming Li Huowang is an agent of it. This is our first real hint of a larger institutional power structure in the Dao-Twisted World—something the bandits fear. It suggests that whatever chaos lies beyond the pass, there are still organizations that enforce order, or at least hunt down those who break too many rules. This is a tantalizing worldbuilding seed for future chapters.

Fourth, alchemical combat drugs. Li Huowang takes a pill to boost his strength—this is no different from a traditional waidan (external alchemy) elixir, but here it’s used like a potent, short-term steroid. It shows that in this world, alchemy isn’t just for immortality or healing; it’s a tactical battlefield asset. But the price—the cost that always comes with Dao Twisted cultivation—remains to be seen.

Fifth, the Nine Classes (九流). This is the brutal social hierarchy of this world, and it’s been a quiet background rule this whole time. Actors, prostitutes, servants—all of them are locked into the lowest tiers, with the law stacked against them. The bandits are predators who know exactly who they can prey on. Men like Lü Zhuangyuan and the old beggar are survivors of this system, each bent in their own way by the weight of their social station.

Daoist name (道号)

A religious name adopted upon joining a Daoist sect, often following a generation-character pattern (e.g., Xuan Yang, Zheng Kun). It carries symbolic weight and lineage.

Chapter Overview

Right, strap in, fellow survivors, because Chapter 40 is a masterclass in tension and payoff. After the simmering dread of the previous chapters—watching Li Huowang piece together the rules of this broken world—we finally get the hammer to drop. And it drops hard.

This chapter begins with a classic folk-horror misstep: the fool is caught eating grave offerings with the eccentric old beggar. Li Huowang’s reaction is immediate and violent, a testament to how deeply he now fears the supernatural rules he’s only beginning to understand. But the real horror here isn’t the ghoul-logic—it’s what follows.

The real threat turns out to be brutally mundane. Bandits. Mounted highwaymen with cleavers, no different from the human predators that plagued China’s ancient roads. And in a brilliant twist, Li Huowang—our scrappy, half-mad hero—finally gets to flex. He’s been learning alchemy, scheming, running. Now he gets to punch a horse’s head in with a fist.

There’s a raw, visceral energy to this chapter. It’s not just action for action’s sake; it’s Li Huowang transitioning from victim to survivor, from observer to operator. He doesn’t just survive the bandit raid—he wins it, decisively, using Danyangzi’s alchemy like a combat drug. But the chapter ends on a note of quiet, unsettling ambiguity with the old beggar, who reveals his true nature in a way that raises more questions than it answers. Get ready for blood, confusion, and that signature Dao Gui Yi Xian feeling of never being quite sure who’s a threat and who’s just… wrong.

Key Plot Points

The chapter opens with Li Huowang catching the fool eating offerings from a grave alongside the old beggar. His fury is immediate—he kicks the fool, forces him to kowtow in apology, and confronts the beggar with a drawn sword.
The beggar mutters a quiet defense—“I’m not a beggar, I’m a monk”—before continuing to eat. This establishes him as a figure of ambiguous piety, a recurring theme in the Dao-Twisted World.
The group travels through the night under a moonless sky. Li Huowang stays awake, on high alert, expecting a supernatural retaliation for the grave violation.
In the dead of night, Dog-Whelp spots faces in the darkness. What Li Huowang initially fears as a ghostly visitation turns out to be a band of mounted bandits (响马) about to raid them.
Li Huowang’s shout alerts the group. Chaos erupts. Most travelers flee into the woods, but Li Huowang is stuck with his donkey carts.
When a bandit rides down an old woman, Li Huowang takes one of Danyangzi’s alchemical pills—the same ones that supercharged his strength earlier—and goes on the offensive.
The old beggar surprises everyone by shoving the woman clear, then watching as Li Huowang delivers a devastating blow to the horse’s head, crushing it and then doing the same to the bandit’s skull.
A melee ensues. Several bandits are killed. The survivors flee, shouting a guess that Li Huowang might be from the Supervisory Heavenly Office (监天司).
Bloodied and breathing hard, Li Huowang observes the old beggar kneeling by a corpse, chanting a slurred “Ah-mi-tuo-fo” over and over—a Buddhist prayer he clearly learned by rote, with no understanding of its meaning.
The beggar then walks into the woods and begins digging a grave with his bare hands. The chapter ends on this quiet, unsettling act.

Reading Guide

This chapter is a huge turning point. If you’ve been holding your breath, hoping Li Huowang would stop being a victim and start being a player—congratulations, you’ve arrived.

The key shift here isn’t just physical (though beating a horse’s head in with a single punch is a pretty dramatic visual). It’s psychological. Li Huowang’s internal voice, which has been a study in forced calm and raw panic, finally shows a note of calculated confidence. He takes the pill. He attacks. He wins. For the first time, he forces the world to bend rather than breaking under it.

But the chapter isn’t simple power fantasy. Pay attention to the old beggar. His actions—eating grave food, muttering a broken prayer, digging a grave with bare hands—place him firmly in the folk-horror tradition. He is not a normal man. He might not even be human. He’s something that looks like a harmless, senile old monk, but behaves with a logic that feels alien, instinctual, and deeply rooted in the soil of this twisted world.

Also, keep an eye on Dog-Whelp (狗娃). He’s a minor character, but his fear is our barometer. When he sees faces in the dark, we share his unease. When Li Huowang acts, his relief is our relief. This chapter establishes him as Li Huowang’s loyal follower, a witness to his master’s growing power.

One more thing: the line “监天司” (Supervisory Heavenly Office) is going to be important. In xianxia terms, this is a classic bureaucratic organization that polices supernatural activity—think of it as a mixture of a celestial audit bureau and a monster-hunting agency. The fact that bandits fear it tells us that even in this broken, chaotic world, there are still structures of control. Whether they are good, neutral, or just as corrupt as everything else is a question for future chapters.

Get ready, because the road ahead is about to get much more interesting.