The Source of the Auditory Hallucination

In the dim farmyard, Li Huowang’s hand trembled as it clutched the tip of the blade protruding from his own chest. Stunned, he stared at the figure before him—his own face, but with double pupils.

“You… I…” Li Huowang, pale from blood loss, staggered backward.

His mind churned chaos from the sudden reversal: one moment the other man’s words about Hongzhong, the next his own impending death.

Just as Li Huowang was about to fall, the other disciples rushed over and caught him, steadying him with panicked hands.

Long black fingernails trembled as they reached toward the blade tip in Li Huowang’s chest—but before they could touch, they yanked back and struck the pale drumhead instead.

Dong dong dong! Ox-head and Horse-face brandish their chains. Black and White Lords raise their sails! Dong dong dong! They drag the unruly child to the underworld. Life and death are but a hair’s breadth away. No need for words to know—the child has reached the gates of hell! Dong dong dong! Today we call no other—the Spirit Summoner calls the Grief King to the hall!

As the Bang Bing Jue resounded, the crimson bridal veil rippled. Yin winds swirled from all sides, as if trying to coalesce into something.

Bai Lingmiao wanted to save Li Huowang, but the double-pupiled Li Huowang would not stand idly by. With a flick of his wrist, three domino tiles fanned out and shot toward Li Huowang.

Clang! Clang! Clang! The tiles struck the flagstones with sharp, ringing sounds. Gao Zhijian, clad in heavy armor, placed his towering body between Li Huowang and the blades. His honest eyes now stared at the enemy with grim resolve.

“Eh? Brother Hongzhong, where did you con these loyal followers from? Very faithful indeed. But…~” The double-pupiled man snapped his fingers. With a clatter, all the clay statues on the rooftops rose to their feet. “But not as faithful as mine. Why don’t you step down and let me be Hongzhong?”

The moment the words fell, the clay figures leaped as one, raining down upon them like hail.

So they were all under his command—the good and the bad were both him. The supposed trouble in Ganyuan Village had never been anything but a Zuowandao trap.

Ring ring ring!! The piercing bell sounded. As Chun Xiaoman’s stature stretched taller, dozens of Wandering Lords surged forward.

“Ah!” Gao Zhijian raised the spiked club he had looted from the bandit stronghold and swung it with all his might, letting his pent-up killing aura leak outward.

They struggled desperately, but facing so many clay figures, they were clearly overmatched. Fighting and retreating, their situation grew increasingly dire.

And as the drumbeat and the Bang Bing Jue grew faster and more urgent—whether from sweat or tears, the two veils were soaked nearly through.

But when Bai Lingmiao saw the two blades slowly being drawn from Li Huowang’s chest and the wounds starting to heal, she clung to that thread of hope.

“It’s okay! Brother Li can still be saved! He won’t die!”

Little by little, with the help of the immortals, the two knives piercing Li Huowang’s chest were finally pulled out, and the wounds barely closed.

Ting— The blood-soaked knife fell. Then Bai Lingmiao suddenly saw someone standing abruptly before her.

It was the double-pupiled Li Huowang. The Zuowandao that Li Huowang had spoken of—the one who could change his face.

Seeing the Great Spirit and the Second Spirit before him, both veiled in red, a cruel, slanted smile stretched across his lips. “Heh~ heh~ Quite capable. Healed him, did you?”

Shhk, shhk, shhk. Three razor-sharp daggers plunged straight into Li Huowang’s shredded chest.

Hearing the frantic sobbing from beneath the red veil, the double-pupiled Li Huowang laughed hysterically. He doubled over, cackling, one hand shielding his eye, the other clutching his stomach as he convulsed.

Li Huowang, who had passed out from the pain, was jolted awake again by the agony. He took a deep breath, struggling to regain control of his rapidly cooling body.

“…Fire… water… mouth…” The hallucination returned—the voices—layered over the ringing bell and drumming, drowning out every sound around him.

“Shut up! Shut up!! Give me some quiet!!” Li Huowang roared with the last shred of his strength. And the voices actually stopped.

The moment the hallucination fell silent, the Zuowandao’s voice slid back into his ears. “Brother Hongzhong~ hehehe~”

The bastard’s face appeared before him, nose to nose. Li Huowang stared at him, feeling as though he were looking into a mirror.

The drum struck again. The Great and Second Spirits charged together—only to be blasted sideways by the roaring wall of mud that slammed into them from behind.

“Come on, Brother Hongzhong, don’t lie on the ground. The ground’s so dirty.”

The Zuowandao grabbed the dagger hilt in Li Huowang’s chest and pried upward, hoisting him bodily into the air.

Staring at the barely conscious Li Huowang, the trickster’s eyes showed a flicker of something like nostalgia. “Tsk tsk tsk… Had enough fun, Brother Hongzhong? Or maybe… how about I make you change back?”

Li Huowang stared at the face so close to his, but he couldn’t hear a word. The hallucinations had returned.

“What are you… Where did you come from?” Li Huowang asked the voice again, his words sluggish.

Seeing Li Huowang not respond, the Zuowandao sighed. “Fine. In that case, Brother Hongzhong, you have a good journey. I’ll take your place, fool the other cards, and become the new Hongzhong! Hehehe~”

He grabbed both knife handles, his arms straining like a butcher slaughtering a pig, and slowly began cutting the blade toward Li Huowang’s skull.

He wasn’t just gutting him—he meant to split Li Huowang’s head into three pieces.

The stronger Li Huowang struggled, the more twisted the double-pupiled face became with glee.

The pain made the auditory hallucination worse. Li Huowang could even feel the voice right beside him. “Who the hell are you?! What are you?!”

With the final scream in his heart, a violent nausea surged up his throat. The next moment, his neck swelled to the thickness of his head.

Li Huowang moved his nearly-bloodless hands, grabbed the Zuowandao’s arm, and then—wide-mouthed—he released a torrent over the trickster’s shocked face.

In that instant, black tentacles slick with viscous fluid, mixed with dark red blood, erupted from Li Huowang’s mouth and splattered directly onto the Zuowandao’s face.

Neither the Zuowandao nor Li Huowang himself had expected this. The auditory hallucination—it had been the Black Tai Sui inside his body all along!

The Zuowandao, flustered, jerked backward, but the Black Tai Sui’s tendrils hooked deep into his flesh. The sutures Bai Lingmiao had used to close the wound split apart one by one.

The snakelike tentacles writhed, forcing their way into the Zuowandao’s seven orifices. The double-pupiled Li Huowang let go of the daggers and, panicked, clawed at his own face.

Shhk! With a twist of his hand, four domino tiles fanned out and sliced toward the tentacles.

The Black Tai Sui, sensing the sharp edge of the tiles, yanked itself abruptly back into Li Huowang’s mouth.

With a ripping sound and the Zuowandao’s scream, the face that had been identical to Li Huowang’s—along with the double-pupiled eyeballs—was peeled off raw.