Who Did This?

Li Huowang stared at the tangled iron pellets he had just vomited. They looked like some kind of hidden weapon.

The moment he saw them come out of his mouth, he understood immediately. The “liquor-filled chocolates” he’d eaten earlier had been made of these things.

He lifted his right hand and felt a sharp pain in his shoulder.

Li Huowang trembled as he looked down at his arm. A wound had opened on it, so deep he could see the white of the bone beneath.

The spot was exactly where Yang Na had hit him with her shoulder bag.

Someone tried to kill me while I was trapped in the hallucination. The realization hit him all at once.

Biting back the pain, Li Huowang swept his bloodshot eyes across the room. The rows of Ao-Jing Sect followers stood rooted in place like tombstones, watching him in silence.

His expression twisted. Reaching behind him with one hand, he unfurled the Thousand Greats Record across the floor. The blood dripping from the corner of his mouth fell steadily onto the red bamboo slips.

With a sharp clang, Li Huowang drew his longsword and pointed it at the surrounding sect members.

“What’s your game?!” he roared. “Is this how you keep your word? Do you really think I’m some pushover you can just cut up whenever you feel like it?”

His voice echoed through the cave, but no one answered.

The Ao-Jing followers remained where they were, staring at him with expressions that mixed mockery, curiosity, and confusion.

Just as Li Huowang was bracing himself for a fight to the death, Yingzi burst out from the crowd, tears streaming down her face. She struggled to support his weight as she helped him up.

“Benefactor, let’s go. Quickly. Don’t look them in the eye.” Jiang Yingzi’s voice was frantic as she urged the blood-soaked Li Huowang forward.

He turned his gaze on her. The look in his eyes was just as cold as it had been for everyone else.

Slowly, he pulled a few Moistening Blood Pills from the gourd at his waist and swallowed them.

With Yingzi holding him up, he walked back through the crowd’s staring eyes and returned to his own cave.

The pain inside his body hadn’t lessened. Li Huowang knew for certain that his stomach and esophagus were a mess from what he’d eaten.

But there was nothing he could do about it now. He could only lie on the bed, grit his teeth, and wait for his body’s accelerated recovery to do its work.

Once the cave was quiet, Li Huowang noticed that he wasn’t just injured internally. There were also cuts on his body. It looked like someone had tried to hack him apart.

He thought back to the earlier hallucination. It matched perfectly with Yang Na hitting him with her bag.

Yingzi watched his wounds from the side, her expression caught in a painful struggle. She pulled a wax-sealed book from inside her robe. “Benefactor, bear with it. Let me treat your wounds.”

She started to move closer, but Li Huowang swung his right arm and knocked the book out of her hands.

“You were the only one beside me just now,” he said. “Tell me. What the hell happened?”

Yingzi’s hands trembled as she clutched her robe, looking deeply panicked. “I… I can’t say. They’ll kill me.”

Li Huowang studied her as she kept her head down. It occurred to him that in all the time he’d known her, he had never once looked her in the eye.

“Lift your head. Look at me.”

Hearing this, Yingzi grew even more uneasy.

Her head stayed low, her gaze darting away every time it threatened to meet his.

“What are you so afraid of?” Li Huowang pressed. “Are you a plant they put next to me from the very beginning?”

“Everything you said last night—it was all made up, wasn’t it? What are you self-torturing bastards really after?”

“That’s not it… it’s not…” Yingzi’s breathing was ragged. She seemed to be holding something back.

“If you’re not one of them,” Li Huowang said, “then just tell me who hurt me just now! Say it! Don’t you people pride yourselves on following rules? Is this how you follow them? Do you have to do evil just to feel alive?”

Hearing this, Yingzi’s expression twisted in agony. She bit her lip so hard it bled.

Just as she was about to say something, a knock came at the door.

Li Huowang and Yingzi both turned their heads. Standing in the doorway like a pair of gate gods were two Ao-Jing sect members—one in a black robe, one in a white—each over two meters tall, watching in silence.

Yingzi clearly understood what their presence meant better than Li Huowang did. Trembling, she walked toward the door.

What’s this? They’re not even pretending anymore? Is it a full break then?

Li Huowang closed his eyes again, trying to recover as much as he could.

He couldn’t let the wounds get any worse. If they did, Danyangzi would come out.

Suddenly, he felt something moving near his injuries.

Opening his eyes, he saw Mantou.

The floppy-eared dog had crept up beside him and was gently licking the wounds on his body.

“Mantou,” Li Huowang muttered, stroking the dog’s head with his hand, “next time, don’t stay behind to guard the camp. Stick with me. I really can’t do without someone by my side.”

Suddenly, Mantou’s lean body tensed. He turned his head toward the door.

Seeing nothing there, he lowered his head again and went back to licking Li Huowang’s wounds.

Li Huowang frowned, also looking at the door.

He knew what Mantou had just reacted to. The dog had heard a scream.

His own hearing was much sharper than usual, and he too had caught the faint sound. It sounded like a woman’s scream.

Given that Yingzi had just been taken away, it wasn’t hard to guess whose scream that was.

A flicker of hesitation passed through Li Huowang’s eyes. In the end, he pressed down on the dog’s back and forced himself to his feet, grimacing against the pain.

“Every damn day, something new. Can’t a man get a break?”

His body swaying like a torn sack, Li Huowang slowly shuffled toward the cave entrance.

The screams grew louder. Finally, in a wide cavern with echoes, he found them.

Two barbed hooks had been driven through her collarbones. They hung her naked body in the air.

The two-meter-tall Ao-Jing follower in white was circling her, two blades as thin as cicada wings dancing around her flesh.

Swoosh. Li Huowang’s fingernail flew out and severed the chains holding Yingzi up.

The girl, her body a mess of blood and torn flesh, hit the ground hard.

Li Huowang stepped in front of her, shielding her from the others’ view.

Then he turned to Shou San, who stood nearby, his body scorched black, and demanded harshly, “How do you people of the Ao-Jing Sect manage to treat your own words like farts?! I’m asking you—does our deal still count or not?!”

Shou San looked genuinely surprised to see Li Huowang here. Then a faint, amused smile crossed his face.

“I still have to give face to the old nun. Of course we keep our word. The deal is still valid.”