Who?

1,269 words

Chapter 128: Who?

“Me? I slaughtered the entire town? I killed Yingzi’s whole family?”

Trembling, Li Huowang turned his head, looking into the eyes of the dead girl before him.

Her completely lifeless pupils were dilated to their maximum. The mocking smile still clung to her face.

“I killed her. Killed a girl who just wanted to avenge her parents. I’m the one who deserves to die the most?”

In that moment, fear began to take root in Li Huowang—an overwhelming, crushing fear. He shoved Yingzi’s body away and stumbled back a full step.

He raised his hands, watching them shake. They were stained crimson with Yingzi’s blood.

“No… no, that’s not right! I didn’t cross over four years ago! Even if I did cross over four years ago, there’s no way I could have killed everyone in town! I couldn’t have stormed the Ao-Jing Sect either! I’m just an ordinary person!”

“You’re hardly ordinary. An ordinary person wouldn’t have your kind of ability,” someone cut in.

Watching Li Huowang’s growing terror, the red-robed Daoist, Shou San, continued his explanation. “Strictly speaking, I didn’t want to have too much contact with you. Who knows if you might go mad halfway through? But since Abbess Jingxin put in a word, we’re doing her a favor.”

“SHUT UP!”

“Don’t bother trying to trick me! Aren’t you people greedy for the Heart-Element? Stop pretending! I’m right here! Make your move!”

Seeing Li Huowang glaring at him, Shou San took a small step back. “Friend Xuan Yang, calm down a little. We’re here to help you. You can't repay kindness with enmity.”

The man’s words did nothing to help; they only deepened the fear in Li Huowang’s heart. He spoke as if it were all true.

Shou San raised a hand, signaling the other Ao-Jing Sect followers who were poised to act to back off.

“Friend Xuan Yang, although our Ao-Jing Sect has a bad reputation in the outside world, we’re not like you. We don’t kill people indiscriminately. Everything we do has a proper reason and justification.”

Li Huowang looked down at Yingzi’s corpse once more. His eyes bloodshot, he gritted his teeth and charged out of the cave.

Seeing him charge forward with such ferocity, any Ao-Jing follower blocking his way pressed themselves flat against the walls to let him pass.

Outside, it was night. The full moon hung in the sky. The cold wind that hit his face brought Li Huowang back to his senses somewhat.

He staggered over to a tree, leaned his back against the trunk, crouched down, and covered his face with his hands. His body shook uncontrollably.

“I’m a bloodthirsty murderer? I’m worse than Danyangzi? I really killed Yingzi’s entire family? And then I killed Yingzi herself when she came for revenge?”

Intense oppression and pain pressed down on his mind like a mountain, pulling the string inside him taut to its breaking point.

His keen ears caught the sound of footsteps approaching. But all he wanted was to hide, to ignore everything.

Suddenly, he felt a light pat on his shoulder. A voice laced with faint concern asked, “Friend Xuan Yang, you’re leaving? Does that mean our earlier agreement is off?”

The man’s words easily shattered Li Huowang’s fragile cocoon.

“Impossible! Absolutely impossible! I’m going to find proof! There’s no way I destroyed that town!”

Li Huowang stood back up, shoved Shou San aside, and sprinted straight down the mountain path toward the town.

Watching Li Huowang vanish into the mountain trail, Shou San turned respectfully to a square-faced Ao-Jing believer. “Elder Shen Benyou, what do you think…?”

The square-faced man frowned in thought for a moment, then said, “Follow him. Keep a safe distance. Don’t get yourselves involved.”

Accompanied by moonlight, Li Huowang returned to the dead town.

In the darkness, the sparse, withered forest and the silent, empty town formed a picture that was utterly horrifying.

But Li Huowang couldn’t care less. In a panic, he rushed in and began searching frantically, not stopping even as his hands were cut and bled profusely.

When he found a skeleton lying on the ground, his eyes lit up. He pulled a fluorescent stone from his pocket, leaned in, and examined it closely.

“The left side of the skull is completely shattered. Died from a blunt force blow. That’s not how I operate. Besides, I don’t like blunt weapons.”

His mind began to settle. Methodically, he continued searching through the other skeletons.

“This body’s bones are all charred black and crumble at a touch. Died from intense fire. There’s no way I could have done that either.”

“And this one is even more ridiculous. Half his body is exposed, and the other half is stuck in the wall. How could I have managed that?”

The more types of death he saw, the lighter his heart became.

When he came across a skeleton lying spread out on the ground like a flower in full bloom, the heavy stone in his heart finally dropped.

“I didn’t kill anyone. I’m not a murderer. Yingzi was wrong!” Li Huowang repeatedly reassured himself of his identity.

But then, another question popped into his mind. “Why would Yingzi be mistaken? Could it be that there’s some evil person who looks exactly like me?”

“Hmm… that’s a problem. It might cause a lot of trouble in the future.”

“But I’ll worry about that later. For now, I need to find a way to deal with Danyangzi.”

Just as Li Huowang was about to walk out of the dilapidated wooden house, some pieces of paper nearby caught his attention.

Calmed down, he walked over and picked them up.

They were stained with a good deal of blood, as if they had been written just before death.

Li Huowang couldn’t make out the content. There were many characters he no longer recognized.

“Wait. These three characters look familiar.”

Frowning, Li Huowang traced the final three brush-written characters with his fingers. A deep confusion settled in his mind.

He stayed there, touching them for a very long time. Just as his frown was deepening to its limit, a sudden explosion went off inside his skull.

“Li Huowang! These three characters are Li Huowang!”

The moment he excitedly shouted the meaning of those three characters, Li Huowang felt as if someone had seized him by the throat.

He surveyed the skeletons around him. His pupils dilated and contracted, dilated and contracted. Fear began to erode his insides.

“No… impossible! Yingzi must have been wrong! I didn’t kill her parents! I didn’t kill these people!”

Nervously, Li Huowang repeated denials under his breath, but his emotions only grew more intense.

He could find all kinds of excuses to deceive himself, but the three characters on the paper in his hand forced him to face reality.

It was as if a string had snapped. Twang.

“Li Huowang!! You killed them!! You madman!!”

“No! I didn’t! I didn’t! I didn’t! I’m nothing like Danyangzi and those people!”

With veins bulging on his forehead, Li Huowang knelt in the center of the grotesque skeletons, screaming hysterically into the void.

Swoosh. A pill covered in fur tumbled through the air and flew into Li Huowang’s mouth.

In an instant, the suppression, guilt, and pain inside him multiplied many times over, nearly devouring his heart entirely.

Then, someone slowly walked in. It was Shou San.

His body charred black, he snapped his fingers softly. A raging flame instantly enveloped him, crackling and burning.

With a wave of his hand, the searing fire spread rapidly across the ground and engulfed Li Huowang’s entire body.

Share to

Reading Guide Decoding

The Name in Blood—Li Huowang’s Shattering Identity Crisis

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

Recognizing Characters in Late Imperial China: Li Huowang’s difficulty in reading the bloodstained letter is a key detail. In a world before mass literacy, recognizing only your own name was a common reality. The novel uses this fact to weaponize the moment of recognition; it’s not a scholarly deduction but an instinctual, horrifying identification.
The Ao-Jing Sect’s M.O.: The Ao-Jing Sect is introduced here as a fusion of Zoroastrian (袄教) and Nestorian (景教) elements—both foreign religions that arrived in China along the Silk Road. The “Healing Fire” shown here (snapping fingers to create flame) inverts the usual Buddhist or Daoist exorcism, replacing gentle purification with grotesque, physical cleansing. This aligns with the novel’s thesis: the “sacred” is always corrupted into something painful.
Self-Harm as Grounding: The “fur-covered pill” and the subsequent immolation are not random torture. In the Dao-Twisted World, intense physical pain is often used as a mechanism to stabilize or suppress overwhelming spiritual/psychological symptoms. It’s a perverse, corrupt version of a psychiatric treatment, turning “shock therapy” into a bloody ritual.

Chapter Overview

Welcome back, fellow survivors of existential dread. Chapter 128 is a masterclass in psychological demolition. Forget monsters; the real horror here is the name. After a brief hope that he could rationalize away the slaughter of an entire town, Li Huowang is confronted by three characters written in blood—his own name. The chapter opens with him staring at Yingzi’s corpse, his mind cascading through denial, rage, and finally a shaking, tear-soaked breakdown. He tries to use forensics (bone analysis!) to prove his innocence, but the evidence just keeps stacking up against him. And just when he hits rock bottom—literally kneeling among skeletons—the Ao-Jing Sect’s Shou San shows up with a literal fire extinguisher of agony. This chapter is a brutal, necessary reset: it takes the “am I a monster?” theme and stamps it on Li Huowang’s soul with a red-hot iron. Get ready for a ride that’s more therapy session than fight scene.

Key Plot Points

The Weight of a Name: Li Huowang is paralyzed by the accusation that he murdered Yingzi and her family. He alternates between frantic self-defense and horrified self-loathing, a classic Li Huowang spiral.
Shou San’s Unwelcome Reassurance: Shou San tries to calm him down by saying the Ao-Jing Sect doesn’t “kill randomly,” only pointing out Li Huowang is… special. This is the worst possible comfort; it only confirms Li Huowang’s worst fears.
The Forensic Escape: Li Huowang, in a desperate bid for sanity, runs to the corpse-strewn town to inspect the evidence. He examines multiple skeletons and concludes each death style (blunt force, fire, wall-crushing) doesn’t match his known capabilities. He feels a wave of relief.
The Damning Document: Just as he’s about to relax, he finds a bloodstained letter. He can barely read it, but he recognizes the final three characters brushed on it: “Li Huowang.” His denial shatters instantly, replaced by a screaming breakdown.
The Final Push: Kneeling in the middle of the carnage, Li Huowang is pushed over the edge by a “fur-covered pill” that amplifies his pain. Shou San then walks in, snaps his fingers, and engulfs them both in fire. This isn’t a fight; it’s a catastrophic emotional and physical conflagration.

Reading Guide

Watch the Voice: Pay attention to how Li Huowang’s internal monologue degrades. It starts with logical defense (“That’s not how I fight”), shifts to desperate hope (“She must have been wrong”), and then collapses into hysterical, repetitive denial (“No, I didn’t, I didn’t!”). This is a textbook case of cognitive dissonance under acute stress.
Don’t Trust the Evidence… Yet: The skeleton analysis is logically sound. It’s the written name that breaks him. This is a key learning point for readers: in the Dao-Twisted World, “proof” isn’t just about facts—it’s about what sticks emotionally. Li Huowang can question violence, but he can’t question his own name.
Shou San’s Role: Notice how Shou San doesn’t attack. He waits, he observes, and he intervenes at the exact moment of maximum despair. This marks him as a sophisticated manipulator, not just a brute. His fire isn’t an attack; it’s a “cure” for the broken man. Keep your eyes on this guy—he’s playing a longer game.
The Emotional Arc: This chapter is a closed loop: accusation → denial → forensic logic → hope → final evidence → breakdown → external intervention (fire). It’s a tight, emotional rollercoaster that leaves the reader feeling as shattered as Li Huowang. The horror here is the uncertainty—he might be the monster, or he might just look like one. Either way, he’s trapped.