Contemplation

1,295 words

Chapter 217: Contemplation

Ox-carts were slower than horse-drawn carts, but they could carry more, and in Qingqiu, there was no need to worry about feed for the oxen — it was everywhere.

Since leaving Later Shu, Li Huowang and his group had been traveling smoothly, encountering neither evil spirits nor bandits.

Adding to that was Li Huowang's injury steadily improving, the smiles on everyone's faces had grown a little more frequent.

Beside the rolling cart wheels, Li Huowang hobbled along with a crutch. Mantou, wagging his tail, ran back and forth around him.

"Brother Li, wouldn't it be better if you went back to lying on the cart? Your injury isn't fully healed yet," Bai Lingmiao said worriedly from beside him.

The hair that had just begun to grow back on Li Huowang's head swayed faintly as he shook his head.

"Lie on that cart and all my limbs go numb. Walking is good for me. Besides, I'm recovering pretty well now — at least Mantou has recognized me again."

Li Huowang still remembered how Mantou had barked at him when he first got down from the cart.

But he couldn't blame the dog. After all, at that time, his own appearance had been too frightening.

Fortunately, the dog recognized him now. For now, at least, his skin was fully grown back all over his body, and the Thousand Greats Record had been successfully embedded into his back, just as he'd planned.

"Brother Li, we can rest now. After noon, if we walk for another two shichen, we'll reach Nüren Mountain."

The local, Sun Baolu, spoke to Li Huowang, a perpetual smile on his face. Always reticent, he had become much more talkative since arriving in Qingqiu.

"Old Sun, are you really going back? Why not just come with us? That way, you won't get abducted again," Zhao Wu said.

Hearing this, Sun Baolu smiled and shook his head.

"No. Someone's waiting for me. I need to go home." When he said this, there was a light in his eyes.

Li Huowang raised his crutch, pointing it towards the distant stream. "Let's go. We'll make a fire over there."

Qingqiu wasn't an easy place to find firewood — there weren't many trees — but after digging up some dead shrubs, they finally got a fire going.

Some fetched water, others dug for wild vegetables. All around, different sounds rose and fell, but Li Huowang, sitting cross-legged on one leg, completely shut them out from his own world.

He lifted his head and looked at Peng Longteng, who was blocking the sunlight before him. After all this time, she was still there.

The only comfort was that she just stood there. She did nothing.

Peng Longteng, majestic in her heavy armor, was truly tall. Even without a head, she was still much taller than Li Huowang.

Li Huowang estimated that when she was alive, she must have been over two meters tall.

Some peculiar, rustling sounds reached his ears. Li Huowang didn't turn his head to look; it was just the sound of Jin Shan Zhao's internal organs dragging across the grass.

"Why did those two turn into hallucinations that follow me?" This question had churned through Li Huowang's mind countless times, but there was no answer.

It wasn't just the two of them. Jiang Yingzi and the monk from before had no answers either.

"Is this also an ability of being a Heart-Element? Can a Heart-Element control those they have killed?" A new conjecture appeared in Li Huowang's mind.

"How do I make them disappear? But that's not right. I didn't kill the monk. He's probably still fine in Zhengde Temple. He's not dead at all."

"But if their appearance isn't an ability of the Heart-Element, then what is the reason? Could it be... that I really do have a mental illness?"

Feeling a little lost, Li Huowang noticed an itch on his body. He lifted his right hand, mottled red and white, and reached into his new clothes to scratch.

Mantou, seeing this gesture from beside him, quickly ran over, sat down obediently in front of him, and wagged its tail vigorously.

With a rip, a large piece of blackened, dead skin was picked off. He tossed it far away, straight at Peng Longteng.

"Woof woof woof!" Mantou excitedly rushed through Peng Longteng's body, caught the dead skin with its tongue, and gnawed on it happily.

After finishing, Mantou wagged its tail again, passed back through Peng Longteng's legs, and once more sat down obediently in front of Li Huowang.

Li Huowang knew Mantou liked eating these. All of his previous dead skin had gone into its stomach, including that severed leg.

He reached out and patted the dog's head, which felt like a bicycle seat, staring blankly at Peng Longteng in the distance.

After a long while, he let out a deep sigh and muttered to himself, "It's okay. At least these two can't talk. Not like that annoying monk."

"Daosit, you find me annoying? I'm not annoying, am I? I didn't do anything!"

Li Huowang laughed bitterly at himself and said nothing. Self-comfort was just self-comfort. Compared to these three hallucinations, what he feared more was what would happen next.

What if, later on, there were more and more of these hallucinations? What if he ended up like Danyangzi back then?

Remembering the terrifying ordeal Danyangzi had experienced through him, those dozens or even hundreds of hallucinations, Li Huowang shuddered violently.

"I need to figure out what this is all about, and then get rid of them. If I really end up like Danyangzi did back then, I will go mad."

Thinking this, the whole situation made Li Huowang's desire to resolve his identity as a Heart-Element more urgent than ever.

"Baolu!" Li Huowang's voice made Mantou's drooping ears perk up. The dog turned its head to see Sun Baolu running over from a distance, then shuffled its front paws forward a bit, laying its dog head on Li Huowang's leg and nudging him with its black nose.

"Brother Li, you called?"

Li Huowang looked over the young man in front of him once more. He looked just the same as when he'd left Qingfeng Temple, unchanged. He was still wrapped up tightly from head to toe.

In fact, along this journey, he had always kept a very low profile, so much so that sometimes Li Huowang would forget he existed.

"Are you familiar with this place, Qingqiu?"

Hearing Li Huowang's question, Sun Baolu nodded. "I know most of it."

"Know most of it?" Li Huowang was genuinely surprised. He had never heard any of the other disciples say such a thing.

Most people in this world lived their entire lives within a radius of twenty li, unless there were exceptional circumstances.

For Sun Baolu to say he knew most of it made Li Huowang suspect he might be bragging.

"Brother Li, the people here in Qingqiu are different from other places. We basically follow the grass. Wherever the grass is lushest, that's where we go. From my grandfather to my father, they basically spent their whole lives circling around Qingqiu, over and over."

Hearing this, Li Huowang immediately understood. "Oh, so you're nomads."

Looking at the vast grasslands, Li Huowang could have guessed as much. Live off the mountain if you're by a mountain, live off the water if you're by the water; and if you're by the grass, live off the grass.

"The sun is so strong today. Don't you want to take off some layers?"

Seeing the other man just stand there smiling, Li Huowang didn't press further. "Alright, let's talk business. Is there anyone around here that people around these parts would consider a master? Someone like Danyangzi?"

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Reading Guide Decoding

The Weight of Headless Shadows

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

Qingqiu (青丘): The name itself is a loaded one. In ancient Chinese mythology, Qingqiu is the legendary homeland of the nine-tailed fox spirits, a place of strange beauty and hidden dangers. The novel borrows the name but turns the terrain into an open grassland—a quiet, almost peaceful stage that feels disconnected from the horrors of the Dao-Twisted World. But in this story, peace is never permanent.

Nomadic pastoralism in the Dao-Twisted World: Sun Baolu's description of a family that "follows the grass" is a historically grounded depiction of pastoral nomadism in the steppe regions of northern China and Central Asia. In a world where the land is hostile and settled towns are few, such a lifestyle is a survival strategy, not a choice. That Sun Baolu knows the whole region is a rare and valuable asset, but his silence about what he really knows is a quiet red flag.

Heart-Element speculation (心素): Li Huowang's internal debate here touches on one of the novel's core mysteries. Is the ability to produce hallucinations a supernatural power of the Heart-Element constitution, or is it a symptom of a genuine psychiatric disorder? The novel deliberately refuses to give a clear answer, leaving the reader in the same agonizing uncertainty as the protagonist. Chapter 217 deepens this by framing his fear not of the hallucinations themselves, but of the consequences—of becoming a walking menagerie of ghostly prisoners like Danyangzi.

Chapter Overview

Li Huowang is healing. His skin has grown back, The Thousand Greats Record is safely buried under his flesh, and the endless grasslands of Qingqiu feel almost... peaceful. But the quiet gives him room to think—and what he thinks about is the two headless corpses that follow him everywhere he goes. Peng Longteng and Jin Shan Zhang stand as silent witnesses to his past violence, while Li Huowang pokes at his own dead skin, feeds it to his dog, and speculates on whether his hallucinations are a Heart-Element ability or proof that he really is just losing his mind. As the group rests before the final leg to Nüren Mountain, he interrogates the quietest member of the party, Sun Baolu, about whether this land has any masters who might help him before his head fills up with ghosts.

Key Plot Points

The group crosses into Qingqiu successfully. No bandits, no spirits—a rare stretch of easy travel. The injury is improving, morale is cautiously up.
Li Huowang walks with his crutch instead of lying on the cart; his new skin is growing in, and Mantou the dog has stopped barking at him.
He scratches off a large piece of blackened dead skin and tosses it to Mantou, who gleefully eats it. This is established routine—Mantou has already eaten Li Huowang's other shed skin and even his severed leg.
The two headless hallucinations, Peng Longteng and Jin Shan Zhang, still stand behind him. He can hear Jin Shan Zhang's internal organs dragging on the grass.
Li Huowang turns over his old theories again: Is this a Heart-Element power? Can Heart-Elements control the people they've killed? But the monk from Zhengde Temple is still alive, so that theory doesn't hold. He lands on the most terrifying hypothesis: Maybe I really do have a mental illness.
He comforts himself that at least these two can't talk. Immediately, a hallucinatory voice mimics his thought: "Daosit, you find me annoying?" — the monk's voice, proving the comfort is hollow.
He recalls Danyangzi's fate—dozens or hundreds of hallucinations packed into one skull—and shudders. The fear of becoming that is a primary driver now.
He calls Sun Baolu and questions him about Qingqiu. Sun Baolu says he knows the whole region because his family followed the grass like nomads for generations.
Li Huowang asks whether Qingqiu has any "masters" like Danyangzi. Sun Baolu, wrapped head to toe as always, just stands there and smiles. The answer is not given in this chapter.

Reading Guide

This is a quiet chapter, a breather between horrors, but don't be fooled into thinking nothing happens. This is Li Huowang doing what he does best in the lulls: obsessively cataloging his own internal pathology. The skin-peeling scene with Mantou is a masterclass in the novel's signature tone—casual, almost domestic body horror that normalizes the grotesque. He feeds his dead skin to his dog. The dog is happy. The reader is deeply unsettled.

The two headless corpses standing behind him in broad daylight are a visual that should make the hair on your neck stand up. They don't do anything. They just stand there. And that's the point. They are the weight of his past violence made visible, a reminder that he is never alone in the way he wants to be. His brief mental comfort that "at least they can't talk" is immediately shattered by the monk's voice—proving that his mind is no longer a private space.

Sun Baolu's introduction here is significant. He's been so quiet the reader—and Li Huowang—almost forgot him. But he knows the land, and he's heading home. In the Dao-Twisted World, "home" is a loaded word. A man who smiles and says "someone is waiting for me" is either a man with hope or a man walking into a trap. Keep an eye on him.