The Second Spirit

Chapter 220: The Second Spirit

“Horse bone? Where did you scavenge that from? Don’t just go picking up random stuff anymore. I’ve pretty much peeled off all my dead skin, so there’s nothing left to feed you.”

Mantou clearly didn’t understand what Li Huowang meant. It lowered its head, using its black nose to nudge the horse hoof bone closer to Li Huowang’s foot. “Woo?”

Li Huowang patted it on the head, then turned to look at Sun Baolu across from him. “Alright, we’ve eaten enough. You can go now. I know the places are different and the food is different too, so just pick some native stuff from Qingqiu that’s easy to store.”

With a slight chin gesture toward Bai Lingmiao, the white-haired girl took out her coin pouch, sewn from scrap cloth, and handed it over.

Sun Baolu weighed it in his hand, stood up, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and walked out. “Alright, leave it to me!”

“It’s getting late. Let’s find an inn and get a room to rest. Staying out in the open every day is pretty tiring.” Li Huowang said, standing up with his crutch. But he soon ran into a new problem: without Sun Baolu, they couldn’t even understand what the locals in Qingqiu were saying.

After a lot of gesturing from Gouwa, they finally managed to check in.

Mantou followed Li Huowang into the tent-like guest room, circled a few times, then sat down, using its front paws to hold the horse bone in its mouth, chewing on it with relish.

Lying down on the straw mat, Li Huowang let out a deep sigh. He closed his eyes, letting his body fall backward, feeling a moment of relief from his tense nerves.

A pair of slender hands gently cradled Li Huowang’s head, resting it on soft thighs. Fingers, equally soft, rhythmically pressed against his newly grown scalp.

He breathed in the familiar faint fragrance, his mind growing hazy as he drifted toward sleep.

“Wait. These fingernails are a bit long.” Li Huowang pressed down on the hands and slowly opened his eyes. Then he realized it wasn’t actually Bai Lingmiao—it was the Second Spirit.

Li Huowang found that from his current angle, he could just barely see inside the red bridal veil.

Inside the veil, it was very dark. Even with his excellent eyesight, he could only make out the faint, glowing eyes that resembled a fox’s.

But the number was off. It wasn’t a symmetrical pair—it was three eyes, one large and two small.

Then, something inside the veil gently tugged, blocking his view.

“What exactly do you want?” Li Huowang asked, looking at her calmly.

In the past, trouble from the Second Spirit might have made him extremely wary. But after everything he had been through, compared to that, her matters no longer seemed so important.

“Hee hee…” The Second Spirit grabbed Li Huowang’s hand—the one missing its fingernails—and slowly guided it into her red veil.

Li Huowang touched snake scales. He touched animal fur. He also touched the prickly, piercing “hairpins.”

Suddenly, she pulled his hand sharply downward and stuffed it into her bulging clothes.

Then, she slowly bent down, the red veil drawing closer and closer to Li Huowang’s face.

Through the veil, certain things began to appear faintly before Li Huowang’s eyes.

There were skulls. There were animal craniums. And there were other things he couldn’t name or describe.

Li Huowang looked at these things and said in a calm tone, “I don’t know where you came from, or if there’s some scheme by the immortals behind you. But I only need to say this: if you dare lay a hand on Bai Lingmiao, I won’t let you off!”

“You’ve been watching from the sidelines so many times, so you must understand that I have the ability to do it now. Even if… using that ability comes at a great cost.”

He laid out his threat to her, then waited for her reaction.

What surprised him was that, faced with his threat, the Second Spirit showed neither anger nor fear. Instead, she suddenly began to cry.

It was a sound like a female ghost’s eerie wail, sending chills down the spine. Although it was terrifying, the Second Spirit was genuinely crying.

She leaned down, nestling against Li Huowang’s body, continuing to sob.

Li Huowang looked at the red veil and instinctively reached out to hold her. He didn’t know why he did it. It was as if the one crying in his arms wasn’t the Second Spirit, but the albino girl who had shared life and death with him.

He hesitated, then extended his hand. After a moment’s thought, he finally began to gently stroke her head, pat by pat.

Amid the faint, eerie crying, the exhausted Li Huowang drifted hazily into sleep.

He had traveled through wind and rain this whole way, his body truly tired and in need of rest.

“Senior Brother Li, wake up quickly! We’ve arrived at Ox Heart Mountain! We’re finally home!”

“Home?” Li Huowang opened his eyes, looking at the massive mountain before him, the small village at its base, and the vast, golden rice paddies nearby.

The scene was so harmonious, every bit the equal of a paradise.

His gaze moved upward, examining the mountain’s shape. In a good mood, he asked in surprise, “This doesn’t look like an ox heart at all. What’s with the names you people pick?”

As he spoke, he turned around and saw Bai Lingmiao standing beside him, her profile in view.

“I don’t know either. My grandfather taught me, and his grandfather taught him.” Bai Lingmiao turned around with a smile, revealing the half of her face that was shockingly grotesque.

Green snake scales, like centipedes, crawled over the white fox fur. The black, thorny bristles among the fur couldn’t stop their advance.

But in the end, the snake scales could climb no further once they reached the middle of her face, because two crowded animal eyes, glowing with a sinister green light, blocked their path.

“Senior Brother Li, what’s wrong?” Bai Lingmiao took a step forward. Li Huowang took a step back.

His sharp senses suddenly detected something behind him. He spun around, and two even more twisted, monstrous animal faces were shoved right in front of him. “Husband, now that I look like this, do you find me repulsive?”

“Ha!” Li Huowang’s eyes snapped open, drenched in cold sweat. The gray, dusty tent ceiling appeared above him.

Seeing Bai Lingmiao sleeping beside him with her hands tucked against her chest, and then seeing Jin Shanzhao and Peng Longteng standing in the corner of the room, Li Huowang finally realized he had just been dreaming.

“So real. I haven’t had a nightmare in a long time.” Li Huowang turned onto his side, pulling Bai Lingmiao into his arms, and closed his eyes again.

“That was a nightmare. So is this one a new nightmare?” He shook his head. “No, this isn’t a nightmare. Because Peng Longteng and Jin Shanzhao are here.”

No sooner had he closed his eyes than he opened them again. He sensed someone lying behind him.

A forked red tongue snaked out from behind, twisting and writhing, gently licking Li Huowang’s neck, which was patchy with white and red. “Husband, now that I look like this, do you find me repulsive?”

Li Huowang tightened his arms slightly, pulling Bai Lingmiao closer into his embrace. He buried his face in her white hair, closed his eyes, and said slowly, “I don’t find you repulsive. But you are not Bai Lingmiao.”