Intercalating the Five Phases

1,170 words

Chapter 167: Intercalating the Five Phases

"You little bastard, don't you think you're pushing things a bit too far? Do you truly believe that just because you slaughtered a town, you can look down on everyone?"

The elder of "Sorrow-Body" stared at Li Huowang before him, a clear displeasure on his face.

He gave a slight shudder, and the rusty long nails that had been buried in his body rapidly ejected, flying toward Li Huowang.

But to his surprise, just as the nails reached the halfway point, Li Huowang, who had been slicing at his own neck, dodged with extraordinary agility.

Now, a sinister smile spread across Li Huowang's haggard face. With a stamp of his feet on the Thousand Greats Record, he charged toward the five elders with the force of a gale.

"Protect the elders!" Fire swiftly ignited the bodies of the Ao-Jing Sect followers, Shou San and Tou Qi.

As they raised their hands in unison, their flames seemed to leap across, appearing on Li Huowang's body and setting his red Daoist robe ablaze.

It looked grim for "Li Huowang." Yet in the next second, with a slight tilt of his head, the situation was instantly reversed.

Not only did the fire on "Li Huowang" extinguish, but their own charred, flame-blackened bodies began to swell inexplicably.

Their blackened, crispy flesh cracked open like scorched rice crust. Fresh, malformed flesh and blood spurting from the cracks quickly extinguished most of the flames on their bodies.

Gripping his sword in one hand, "Li Huowang" swung it in a single stroke, cleaving two of the increasingly deformed flesh-monsters in half. These Ao-Jing disciples were no match for him; he was carving through them like chopping melons and greens.

"This isn't right! That little bastard has been possessed by a wicked spirit! He's now his half-immortal master, Danyangzi!"

The five Zuowandao elders understood in a flash and quickly sat cross-legged. They began to chant.

"The joy of pleasure is the epitome of elegance, the beginning of attaining the Dao, the completion of delight, the affair of holding chaos, the zenith of happiness. Having no mind for joy, yet there is nothing that is not joy..."

As the sound rose, Li Huowang laughed. He laughed not just with his mouth, but also with his eyes, his fingers, every organ in his body.

With the laughter, all his features began to loosen.

But in the next instant, Danyangzi's counterattack arrived.

A formless black mist materialized out of thin air, shrouding Danyangzi and gradually muffling the laughter emanating from him.

Li Huowang watched from a distance as Danyangzi and the "Zuowandao" were locked in an inextricable battle.

Though the pain in his neck was excruciating, his smile grew even wider.

This was exactly what he wanted—to provoke a mutual slaughter between Danyang and the Zuowandao through his own actions. No matter which side died, his goal would be achieved.

"No, this isn't enough. It needs a bit more!" With that, Li Huowang raised a dagger and drove it half an inch into his chest.

Gripping the hilt, Li Huowang gritted his teeth and slid it downward with a tremor.

Seeing this, the hallucination of the monk who had been following Li Huowang gasped, gesturing frantically from the sidelines.

"Daoist, don't do this! We can think of another way!"

But Li Huowang didn't think so. He didn't want Danyangzi to continue his atrocities using his body after death.

With a low roar, Li Huowang jerked the dagger downward in one fierce pull. Bright red blood gushed from his chest and abdominal cavity, splashing onto the Thousand Greats Record beneath his feet, making the bamboo slips an even more vivid crimson.

The amplified pain, combined with the near disembowelment, nearly caused Li Huowang to faint from the agony.

But he dared not black out. If he fainted now and woke up to find his wounds healed and his body usurped by Danyangzi, everything he had done would be for nothing.

Danyangzi had already emerged. There would be no second chance.

With a clatter, the blood-covered dagger fell to the ground. Staggering, Li Huowang raised his hand and plunged it into his own wound.

"Ahhhh!!" His hoarse scream tore from his throat as he dropped to one knee. His hand, veins bulging, hooked onto the edges of the gash and pulled with all his might. Everything inside him was laid bare to the cold air.

"Wood Liver!"

Red root tendrils rustled out from the Thousand Greats Record, burrowing into it, revitalizing the liver that had been starved of blood.

More root tendrils emerged, drilling into Li Huowang's knee, pushing deeper and deeper.

"Metal Lung!"

The root tendrils on the Thousand Greats Record began to thicken.

"Earth Spleen!!"

From outside the cave came the rumble of thunder. A certain aura spread through the cavern. Everything around Li Huowang began to warp.

In Li Huowang's eyes, everyone present became terrifying abominations of flesh. The Thousand Greats Record on the ground turned into a writhing mass of squirming worms.

"Water Kidney!!" Just then, the surrounding Ao-Jing followers tried to rush in and stop him, but as soon as they approached, all the scattered Thousand Greats Record slips flew over, spreading out to encircle Li Huowang.

Li Huowang, now hollowed out, smiled with even greater joy.

It hurt. It hurt so much. But he was truly happy, because he was about to die. Once he was dead, he would never feel pain again, and Danyangzi would never be able to control his body.

He took a deep breath, and his voice, filled with anguish and grief, poured out with the blood from his mouth.

"And finally… Fire Heart!!"

In that instant, the Thousand Greats Record, now possessing all five viscera, was filled with life. It lived again.

After Li Huowang had offered even his most vital internal organs to Bashe, his body was left as little more than an empty shell. His pupils dilated as he fell to the ground.

But this was not yet the end. This was not the Dung-Beetle Ascension that summoned Bashe. It was another ritual recorded in the Thousand Greats Record: Intercalating the Five Phases.

At this moment, the now-completed Li Huowang saw the writhing flesh that had formed the Thousand Greats Record rapidly gather and burrow into his empty body.

In no time, Li Huowang's body, which had been like a torn burlap sack, was refilled, with more spilling out from within.

Those worms burrowed freely inside him, leaving no gap unexplored.

Staggering to his feet, Li Huowang picked up his sword. He looked down at the worms writhing inside his open cavity.

He could feel the touch of these sea-cucumber-like worms within him. The sensation was strange. He felt as though the worms had become a part of him. He could even feel the peculiar power they contained.

He could no longer tell if these things were worms or part of himself.

More importantly, Li Huowang no longer felt any pain. None at all.

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Reading Guide Decoding

The Flesh-Scripture's Final Ritual: Li Huowang Replaces Himself with Worms

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

Intercalating the Five Phases (置闰五行): The phrase "置闰" (zhì rùn) comes from the Chinese calendar system—an intercalary month inserted to realign the lunar and solar years. Here, it is grotesquely repurposed into a ritual that "re-aligns" the body's Five Phases by replacing the organs with parasites. The ritual is not a promotion but a substitution: the body is kept "functional," but its original nature is overwritten by the Thousand Greats Record. This is the Dao-Twisted World's ultimate logic: nothing is gained without something else being eaten from the inside.

The Five Viscera (五脏) and Five Phases (五行): Each organ is linked to a phase: Liver (Wood), Heart (Fire), Spleen (Earth), Lungs (Metal), Kidneys (Water). Traditional Chinese medicine views them as interdependent systems of vitality. Sacrificing them one by one is not just physical destruction—it is the systematic dismantling of the self's foundational structure, leaving only the worms to "play the part." The fact that Li Huowang feels "no pain" at the end is not a blessing; it signals that the self that could feel pain is already gone.

"Joy to the point of loosening the features": The Zuowandao's counter-chant targets the body's structural integrity through extreme emotional force. This reflects a Daoist idea that excessive emotion can damage the organs and unseat the spirit. The elders weaponize this principle: they force Danyangzi's body to "laugh itself apart," forcing the spirit to either lose control of its host or dissipate. Danyangzi's black mist is his countermeasure—smothering the sound vibration that drives the attack.

Chapter Overview

Li Huowang reaches the final, ultimate gambit of his existence. With Danyangzi now puppeting his body in a full-blown war against the five Zuowandao elders, Li realizes he has one last card to play—not to win, but to ensure that after the fighting is over, there is no "him" left for Danyangzi to take back. This is not a fight for victory; it is a fight to give himself a death no one can steal. The chapter is a single, breathless descent into self-annihilation, where every wound is a word in a tragic language only Bashe can read. No turning back, no clever escape—just a boy deciding that the only way to save himself from being a monster is to stop being anything at all.

Key Plot Points

The "Sorrow-Body" elder attacks Li Huowang with rusty nails, but the possessed Li—now fully Danyangzi—dodges easily and begins slaughtering Ao-Jing followers with contemptuous ease.
The Zuowandao elders recognize Danyangzi's possession and counter with a Joy Sutra, which forces Danyangzi to laugh uncontrollably until his features start to loosen. Danyangzi retaliates by conjuring black mist to muffle the chant.
Li Huowang, observing the stalemate from within his own body, decides to escalate. He wants both sides to destroy each other—but realizes he needs to ensure that even if Danyangzi wins, there will be no host body left for him.
Li Huowang stabs himself in the chest, then slices open his abdomen in a crude self-surgery. The amplified pain is almost unbearable, but he forces himself to stay conscious.
He reaches into his own wound and pulls open his cavity, exposing his internal organs to the air. He then begins a ritual from the Thousand Greats Record: the Intercalating of the Five Phases.
One by one, Li Huowang offers his Liver (Wood), Lungs (Metal), Spleen (Earth), and Kidneys (Water) to Bashe, with root tendrils from the Record sustaining them. Ao-Jing followers try to intervene but are blocked by the flying bamboo slips.
Finally, he offers his Heart (Fire), completing the sacrifice. His body becomes an empty shell, and he collapses.
The ritual is not an ascension but a replacement: the flesh-worms that formed the Thousand Greats Record swarm into his hollow cavity, filling him completely. He stands back up, now filled with writhing worms, no longer in pain, but unable to tell where the worms end and he begins.

Reading Guide

This is not a fight scene; it is a suicide note written in blood and bone. Li Huowang's actions are cold, methodical, and absolutely final. Readers should pay attention to the shift in his internal tone from desperation to a kind of grim satisfaction—he is not collapsing into despair but succeeding in his plan. The horror of this chapter is not that he is dying, but that he is completing a transaction. When the worms fill his body, pay attention to the ambiguity: he can still think, still stand, still act—but he is no longer "Li Huowang" in any sense that matters. The disappearance of pain is the first sign that the self has been hollowed out and refilled with something else. If you're looking for a heroic last stand, you won't find it here. What you'll find is a boy deciding that the only way to stop being a puppet is to become a stage.