The Kill

1,171 words

When Li Huowang heard their answer to his question, it struck him like a thunderbolt, freezing him in place.

“Brother Li, what two monks? There’s not a single monk inside our wagon circle! Come help us! Their crossbows are deadly!”

“Not a single monk? All the monks were an illusion? How is that possible? At least one of them had to be real!”

“No! That’s absolutely impossible!” Li Huowang’s glare snapped toward the panting Yang Xiaohai.

“When we were sending the ashes back, we clearly ran into a monk on the road! That monk accompanied me the whole way! Are you telling me you didn’t see him?!”

Terrified, Yang Xiaohai crawled on the ground, peeking through the wagon wheel at the enemy outside. Hearing the question, he turned his head back to look at his peculiar-acting senior brother.

“Brother, really, there wasn’t any monk. When we were sending the ashes back, there was no monk by your side at all.”

“Impossible! The monk chatted with me the whole way. If he was fake, I was talking to empty air the entire time. Are you blind? You didn’t react to that at all?”

Yang Xiaohai finally burst into tears, his voice full of grievance. “But Brother Li, you often talk to people nobody else can see. How am I supposed to know which time is real and which isn’t?”

Li Huowang staggered as if struck. “I often talk to myself… Then what… What is real… and what is false?”

He began to look around at everyone. A bitter, dry smile cracked his lips.

Bai Lingmiao, Gouwa, Sun Baolu, Chun Xiaoman, Yang Xiaohai, Gao Zhijian, Lü Zhuangyuan, Lü Juren, Lü Xiucai—every single face flashed before Li Huowang’s eyes.

“Or maybe… some of them are fake too? Is this world even real? If it’s this fake, then maybe the reality over there is the real one, and this side is the fake?”

The monk lifted Li Huowang up from the ground and continued his earnest persuasion. “See? I told you. You’re Peng Zhi, the one prone to delusions. Anything happening to you is perfectly normal.”

“If you think he’s real, then go touch him and find out! Where is that hallucination monk? Let’s go! I’ll go with you to touch him!”

His mind buzzing, Li Huowang raised a finger and pointed to the right. The monk, indignant, dragged him over.

The monk in the distance was identical to the one beside Li Huowang. No sign of anything wrong.

“Daoist, are you alright?”

Just as he approached with concern, Li Huowang stretched out his right hand and passed straight through his body.

He was right. This monk, just like Danyangzi and Jiang Yingzi, was a figment of Li Huowang’s imagination.

“That means…” A look of extreme pain twisted Li Huowang’s face.

“See? Did you pass through him? Did you see? I’m the real one! What I’m saying is real! You are Peng Zhi! You are not Li Huowang! We have to join forces to—”

The monk stopped mid-sentence. He lowered his head slowly, his eyes widening slightly as he looked down at his abdomen. A long sword was embedded there.

“Why?” The monk’s voice was filled with shock. He stared at Li Huowang, so close, demanding an answer.

His voice trembled. “He was obviously fake! Was what I said wrong? I helped you the whole way, and now you’re killing me?”

Gritting his teeth, Li Huowang shoved the sword in his belly even deeper with one hand.

“You weren’t wrong about anything. He was fake… But I am not Peng Zhi. I am Li Huowang!”

“What gives you the right? What makes you so sure you are Li Huowang? You did believe me just now!”

Hearing this, Li Huowang’s face contorted with rage. Gripping the sword with both hands, he shoved the monk backward.

“I don’t need any right! I don’t need any reason to be Li Huowang! I don’t need any logic! Even if all the evidence proves I’m Peng Zhi, I am still Li Huowang!”

He took three quick steps, both hands locked on the sword, and pinned the monk against a wagon.

Red blood flowed down the monk’s tattered robes onto the ground. Growing weaker, the monk looked up at Li Huowang and asked with difficulty, “What if… you killed… the wrong person? What if what I said… was true?”

Li Huowang took a deep breath, and with all his strength, he roared hysterically, “So what if what you said was true! So what if you are Peng Jiao!”

“I don’t care! I am Li Huowang! I’m the Li Huowang that they care about! No one else can take that away!”

Hearing this, the monk’s head finally drooped. His face twitching, Li Huowang stared at the dead body and kept repeating, shaking, “I am Li Huowang… I am Li Huowang… I am Li Huowang…”

With each cry, the murderous intent in his heart grew stronger. The image of the birthday cake from earlier flashed through his mind.

“If the Li Huowang that Yang Na and the others care about really exists… Then I just need to find him and kill him! As long as I kill him! The identity of Li Huowang will be mine!”

Seeing this scene, Danyangzi’s three faces curled into a look of disdainful contempt.

“Ah… you madman, how could you do this? I was having such a good trick. Why didn’t you follow the script? Why did you suddenly strike? So annoying. It was so much fun just now.”

The dead monk suddenly spoke. His round head quickly squelched and morphed into a square shape. The facial features and wrinkles on his face swirled into two circular patterns on that square head.

Seeing this sudden transformation, Li Huowang froze for a moment. First, he was overjoyed, and then he was furious.

“I knew I was right! You’re a liar! You’re a li—No! You’re not just a liar! You’re Zuowandao! You’re Two Dot!”

The moment he saw that mahjong-tile face, Li Huowang instantly understood. This was the Zuowandao the abbess had warned him about!

“Aah! So annoying! You had already fallen for it! Why did you suddenly have to attack me? You don’t even follow reason. A madman really is a madman!”

Two Dot’s face rapidly shifted, becoming a beautiful woman’s visage. She flashed a charming smile, stomped her feet on the ground, flipped over, and jumped onto the roof of a wagon.

The moment she landed on the wagon roof, the people outside saw her, and the attacks from all sides immediately stopped.

By the time Li Huowang stepped on a wheel and chased her to the wagon roof, Two Dot had already leaped out of the wagon circle and joined the others outside.

Seeing that neither the Nuo opera performers nor the bandits attacked Two Dot, Li Huowang instantly understood the situation. Clearly, all these people were brought by Two Dot! The whole nonsense about cutting off the Three Corpses was all made up by the Zuowandao!

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Reading Guide Decoding

Identity Defied, The Zuowandao Exposed

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

The Three Corpses (三尸 / San Shi) and Peng Zhi (彭质): This chapter plays directly with a core Daoist concept. The Three Corpses are three parasitic "corpse demons" said to reside in every human's body—one in the head (Peng Zhi), one in the chest (Peng Ju), and one in the belly (Peng Jiao). They crave the host's death so they can roam free, and they are blamed for tempting humans toward greed, lust, and delusion. In Daoist cultivation, "cutting off the Three Corpses" through fasting and meditation is a prerequisite for immortality. The Zuowandao weaponizes this very real mythology against Li Huowang: by calling him "Peng Zhi," they frame his identity itself as a parasitic delusion that must be eliminated. Knowing this context makes Li Huowang’s defiant "I don’t care if you’re Peng Jiao" even more powerful—he is rejecting an entire religious framework that would deny his very being.

Zuowandao (坐忘道) and the Mahjong Face: The sect’s members are named after mahjong tiles. "Two Dot" is one of the lower suit tiles (the dots/circles suit), and their faces can reshape into these geometric patterns during transformations. This visual cue—a face turning into a tile with two round circles—is a signature calling card, signalling that the Zuowandao’s power is tied to deception, games, and luck manipulation. The author's choice of mahjong tiles as identifiers is deliberate: mahjong is a game of chance, skill, and hidden information, perfectly mirroring the sect’s philosophy that reality is a game to be played with.

The "Li Huowang" Identity as a Battlefield: This chapter marks a critical turning point. Up until now, Li Huowang has doubted his sanity. But here, he makes a meta decision: even if all evidence points to him being "Peng Zhi"—a delusion demon—he will will himself into being Li Huowang. This is not rational; it’s an act of pure phenomenological defiance, reminiscent of existentialist philosophy ("existence precedes essence"). In the Dao-Twisted World, where belief can rewrite reality, this may be the most powerful move he could make.

Military sword (兵家剑)

A sword forged for warfare and saturated with killing intent (sha qi); its dark, unadorned appearance belies its dangerous nature.

Chapter Overview

Get ready for one of the most psychologically brutal chapters in the Dao-Twisted World so far. Li Huowang’s grip on reality is systematically dismantled as he’s told that the monk traveling with him—the one who’s been whispering "you're a delusion named Peng Zhi" for the last arc—was invisible to absolutely everyone else. The result is a raw, violent, and deeply existential confrontation where Li Huowang doesn’t just fight an enemy; he has to affirm his own identity against a world that keeps telling him he isn’t real. This is a chapter about will, not logic.

Key Plot Points

Li Huowang frantically asks his companions if they see the two monks (the one beside him and the one in the distance), only to be told there are zero monks inside the wagon circle.
Yang Xiaohai tearfully confesses that Li Huowang "often talks to people nobody else can see," shattering Li Huowang’s confidence in distinguishing reality from illusion.
The false monk (who has been impersonating a wise advisor) seizes the moment to push the "Peng Zhi" narrative: Li Huowang is a delusional fragment named Peng Zhi from the Three Corpses myth, and should surrender his identity.
Li Huowang tests the false monk's claim by passing his hand through the distant monk, confirming it is a hallucination—but instead of breaking down, he attacks the advisor monk anyway.
In a stunning act of pure existential defiance, Li Huowang declares he doesn't need evidence or logic to be Li Huowang. He stabs the advisor through the gut, rejecting the "Peng Zhi" label completely.
The dead monk's body twists into a square, mahjong-tile face, revealing her true identity: Two Dot of the Zuowandao. The entire "cutting the Three Corpses" trap was a lie.
Two Dot escapes as it becomes clear she orchestrated all the bandits and Nuo performers; the chapter ends with Li Huowang's furious realization that the whole ordeal was staged by the deception sect.

Reading Guide

This is a chapter you read with your heart pounding, not your head analyzing. The Zuowandao’s trap is brilliant because it uses a real-world religious concept (the Three Corpses) to gaslight Li Huowang into questioning his own existence. The genius of the payoff isn’t that Li Huowang finds the "real" truth, but that he chooses to be himself despite the truth. That moment—"I don’t need any reason!"—is a thesis statement for the entire novel. Pay close attention to the way Danyangzi’s three-faced form watches from the sidelines with unimpressed commentary; his presence is a reminder that even when Li Huowang wins against one deceiver, older, deeper monsters are still lurking. The scene also reveals a dark new impulse in Li Huowang: after affirming his identity, his mind jumps to "if the other Li Huowang in the modern world exists, I’ll kill him and take his place." The protagonist is becoming more dangerous to himself.