The Unexpected

Chapter 230: The Unexpected

“She’s fake, you don’t need to remind me! That’s right! Even if my mom is a hallucination! I don’t want to make her sad!”

Li Huowang, his body bound entirely in chains, roared with bulging veins.

The next moment, he wilted. Pain once again covered his face. He knelt on the ground, tilting his head back and slamming it against the earth.

The pits his head smashed into the ground grew larger and larger.

Finally, Li Huowang calmed down. He did his best to control his emotions, to stabilize himself.

“Mom, can you step outside for a bit? Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll have a good talk with Doctor Wang. It’s fine, I’m tied up. Tied up tight. I can’t hurt him. And I won’t hurt him.”

Just then, Mantou squeezed out from the crowd, a thing dangling from its mouth as it tried to move closer to Li Huowang. But Gao Zhijian quickly grabbed it. “Don’t… don’t go!”

“What the hell do you want? I’m telling you, if you dare use them again, I’ll—”

“Take responsibility for what? Just take your money and go! Can’t you just half-ass it and tell my mom ‘there’s nothing more I can do’? Is that so hard?”

“I said it already, someone like you can’t help with my problems!”

“Fine, I said it wrong, let me rephrase! This kind of hallucination of yours can’t help at all!”

“Try what? I’m not trying!! This side is fake! It’s all fake!”

Li Huowang twisted his head and shoved it directly under the turf, burying his entire face in the ground.

After a moment, with a BOOM, Li Huowang’s head burst through the turf. His expression twisted with rage as he screamed into the empty air: “You think you’re so great? Standing there, just flapping your gums!”

“And don’t tell me you ‘understand’ me! What the hell do you understand?! Do you know what I’ve been through?! How could you possibly empathize?!”

“Treat both sides as real!! Easy for you to say! Why don’t you try being in my shoes?! Have you ever had this happen, where on one side you’re eating chocolate balls, and on the other side someone’s feeding you iron nails?!”

“I don’t care about myself! I don’t mind swallowing nails! But I have people I care about, Li Huowang does, and I’m scared!”

“I’m scared that one day, I’ll be picking up food with chopsticks on one side, and on the other side, I’ll be shoving those chopsticks into Bai Lingmiao’s eyes!”

“I won’t give up! One day I’ll find a way to get rid of you hallucinations! I won’t be in pain forever! One day, I’ll be able to be normal again!!”

Suddenly, Li Huowang seemed to see something. His face showed disbelief. His breathing grew faster and faster. His pupils trembled.

Li Huowang spun around again, his bound body writhing like a maggot as he burrowed into the earth, his mud-caked head shaking frantically back and forth.

“No! Li Huowang, you’ve fallen for it twice already! You can’t fall for it again! That must be fake!”

“You absolutely cannot sink into confusion again! The others are still running for their lives over there! If you get lost again, what will happen to them?!”

Under the watchful eyes of the others, Li Huowang rolled across the green grass, churning the once-neat turf into a mess.

An hour later, Li Huowang stopped. He lay there, unmoving. Aside from the rise and fall of his chest, he was indistinguishable from a corpse.

“I’m fine now. Untie me.”

Li Huowang’s hoarse voice was filled with profound exhaustion.

Just as the others were about to rush over, Bai Lingmiao stopped them.

“Don’t come. I’ll go alone. Li-shixiong doesn’t want to see anyone else right now.”

Only after the crowd had dispersed did Bai Lingmiao, ignoring the mud that caked Li Huowang, crouch down to gently undo the chains. She cradled his head in her arms and used her fingers to gently massage his temples.

Li Huowang took a deep breath, then forced out all the stale air in his lungs. Staring vacantly at the sky, he muttered to himself, “Miaomiao… they’re pressing in so tight… I’m so tired of holding on…”

Bai Lingmiao’s heart ached so much she wanted to cry. But at a time like this, there was nothing she could do to help. She could only hold Li Huowang’s head and press her fingers against his temples, over and over.

Li Huowang looked up at her, at Bai Lingmiao’s delicate features. His expression was hesitant. After staring for a long moment, he spoke again, his voice soft. “Miaomiao, in the future… be a little worse to me. If you’re too good, it feels too unreal. I’m afraid this side is a hallucination.”

In the end, Bai Lingmiao’s tears fell. She buried her face against Li Huowang’s chest, sobbing quietly.

Li Huowang raised his right hand before his face. With his left hand, he took a dagger and sliced down. A pinky finger was cut clean off.

He closed his eyes and savored the pain. The hesitation between his brows slowly faded. “Ridiculous. The pain this intense… how could it be fake?”

“Woof…?” Mantou, something still dangling from its mouth, cautiously circled Li Huowang.

“Here, boy.” Li Huowang picked up the severed finger and tossed it towards Mantou’s feet.

“Woof!” Mantou spat out the thing in its mouth—what looked like a lump of black snakeskin—pinned the finger with one paw, and began gnawing on it with glee, using its side teeth.

Li Huowang put his still-bleeding right hand into his mouth and sucked. Then he patted Bai Lingmiao on the back. “It’s okay. Stop crying. Get up. Look, people are staring at us.”

When Bai Lingmiao lifted her head from Li Huowang’s chest, her eyes red, he untied the ribbon from her wrist and gently wrapped it around her eyes. “The sun is strong during the day. Remember to keep this on, or it’ll hurt your eyes.”

Leading the now-blindfolded Bai Lingmiao, Li Huowang turned and walked towards their ox-cart.

After Li Huowang’s episode, the Qingqiu people in the entire tent-village looked at him a bit strangely.

Li Huowang didn’t care. They were leaving anyway. He probably wouldn’t see them again. How they looked at him or what they whispered behind his back didn’t matter.

“Baolu, we’ll meet again. We’re leaving now. If it’s convenient, write to us.”

Li Huowang stood by the ox-cart, speaking to Sun Baolu, who was holding the Qingqiu girl in his arms.

Sun Baolu looked a bit helpless. “Li-shixiong, I can’t read or write.”

Li Huowang was taken aback. “Alright, then. That’s that. Take care of yourself.” With that, he led the rest of the group away from the cluster of tents.

As for what was under Sun Baolu’s clothes, Li Huowang didn’t feel like asking. He wasn’t that nosy.

Gouwa, Gao Zhijian, and the others gave Sun Baolu a strong embrace. Many of them had red eyes. They were brothers who had survived life and death together. It was possible they would never see each other again. It was impossible not to care.

Mantou, being a dog, clearly didn’t understand this kind of emotion. It still circled Li Huowang, carrying its prize.

When Mantou’s tail brushed against his calf for the fifth time, Li Huowang let out a soft sigh. He looked down at the dog. “Spit that thing out. If you bring me another random piece of trash, I swear I’ll cook you.”

Mantou spat the thing out at Li Huowang’s feet, sat down, and wagged its tail, looking up at him.

“What is this? Shed snakeskin? Are there snakes this big in Qingqiu?”

Gouwa used his knife to flip the thing Mantou had brought onto the tip of his blade, holding it up in the air.

The next moment, a dark shadow shot out from the side, startling everyone.

It was Li Huowang. The man who had just been so nonchalant was now trembling as he clutched the thing, his expression one of intense excitement.

“This is… a Black Tai Sui!”