The Phantom Feast and the Veiled Bride

The raving Li Huowang brandished the food in his hand, leaped onto a nearby car, and started bouncing, bouncing along with the blare of the car alarm.

“I’m a lunatic!! I’m a psycho!!!” Li Huowang’s voice carried far, far into the distance.

Li Huowang’s bizarre behavior drew the attention of others. When the car owner charged over with a broom and began swinging it at Li Huowang’s body, the crowd of onlookers grew larger.

Just as his laughter was reaching its most manic peak, Li Huowang caught sight of an adorable little girl. Her mother was holding her hand, making a wide detour around him. The red cherry hair clip nestled in her hair was painfully familiar.

The instant he saw her, the look of extreme excitement on Li Huowang’s face gradually faded, replaced once more by anguish.

Then he jumped down from the car, ignoring the owner’s beating, and clutching his food, walked away.

Back inside the bridge culvert, Li Huowang used the somewhat murky river water to refill the milk tea cup and began to drink it numbly.

The steamed buns had a strange smell; they were probably spoiled. But he didn’t care. As for what he was eating on the other side, he didn’t care about that either.

Li Huowang ate this meager amount of food very, very slowly, as if savoring every last bit of its flavor.

“Uncle?”

Li Huowang turned his head and saw a little girl dressed in a pure white dress standing at the entrance to the bridge culvert.

In the dazzling sunlight, she seemed to be glowing all over.

Looking at her cute face, Li Huowang blurted out without thinking, “Layue Shiba?”

The little girl’s voice was timid and anxious. “I… I’m not Layue Shiba… I… my name is Liu Yuhuan. My mom calls me Huanhuan.”

When she saw Li Huowang stand up, Liu Yuhuan took a few frightened steps back.

She hurriedly took off her schoolbag, first spread a piece of paper on the ground, then took a wrapped bundle from the bag and placed it on the paper.

After doing that, she glanced at Li Huowang once more with some panic, then quickly ran away.

Li Huowang walked over and looked down. He saw three steamed buns in a white plastic bag—the kind of piggy-shaped buns only elementary school kids would buy.

A gentle smile touched Li Huowang’s face. He bent down, picked them up, untied the plastic bag, and started eating.

The bun was warm. It must have just come out of the steamer not long ago. This wasn’t leftovers she’d thrown away; she had gone specifically to buy them.

Li Huowang sat there, taking small, careful bites. The bun had a meat filling. It was really, very good.

As he ate, the environment around Li Huowang began to shift. He found himself sitting on a muddy road, holding a ball of mud in his hands and gnawing on it.

“Heh heh.” Li Huowang shook his head with a wry smile, then continued to take small bites, finishing the ball of mud in his hands.

After he had eaten, Li Huowang returned to the temple. Under the gaze of his other hallucinations, he resolutely picked up the sword lying on the ground once more.

Just then, Li Huowang heard the sound of footsteps and horse hooves. The footsteps were so familiar…

“Miaomiao?!” Li Huowang rushed out holding the sword, but he saw an unexpected person—it was Dà Shén, still wearing her red veil.

The rain outside had stopped by now, but Dà Shén’s red veil was still wet. Two trails of watermarks slid down from where her eyes should have been.

With a complex expression, Li Huowang stood before the temple, looking at her next to a horse-drawn cart some distance away. “What are you doing here?”

“Woof woof!” Mantou, wagging its tail, poked its head out from behind the cart. It shook the rainwater off its body vigorously and rushed excitedly towards Li Huowang.

Wriggling its whole body, Mantou leaped up, its front paws leaving a spatter of yellow mud-stamped paw prints all over Li Huowang’s clothes.

At that moment, Dà Shén lifted the curtain of the cart beside her, revealing the Black Tai Sui, bound with cowhide ropes, lying inside.

She led the cart over, took Li Huowang’s hand with her cold hand—her fingers tipped with sharp, black nails—and pulled him into the ruined temple.

Once they reached the only dry spot inside the temple, Dà Shén first took out a towel and wiped the rain and mud from Li Huowang’s body. Then she brought out new clothes, shoes, and socks from the cart.

She helped Li Huowang dress, and then draped a worn red Daoist robe over his shoulders.

As she was lowering her head to fasten his belt, Li Huowang reached out and lifted the red veil from her face.

In that instant, Dà Shén’s face was revealed before him—a face like a venomous flower in full bloom.

Only, its petals and stamens were formed from snake scales, porcupine quills, and other such things.

In the very center of this monstrous bloom, half of Bai Lingmiao’s small face peeked through, tears streaming from her eyes as she gazed at Li Huowang with a sorrowful expression. Opposite this half-human face was a fox-like, animalistic face.

And the organs on her face were not fixed. As time passed, they slowly shifted and changed.

Sometimes the human features were more prominent, sometimes the beast’s. The number of eyes also varied, increasing and decreasing.

Such was the face of Dà Shén. She opened her arms and gently embraced Li Huowang, holding him tighter and tighter, squeezing him until he could barely breathe. “Husband…”

Her hands moved around to his back. One by one, she pried his fingers open, making the Purple-Tasseled Sword fall to the ground.

The white band from her wrist was untied and gently placed over Li Huowang’s uncovered eyes.

“Husband. We will wait for you. We will wait for the day you are healed.”

Hearing these words, Li Huowang wrapped his arms around her in return, holding her tighter and tighter as he stared into that huge, elongated feline eye.

Even if life is miserable, even if the world is utterly hopeless, even if every inch of Li Huowang’s life has been forged from pain…

No one truly wants to die. Sometimes, it only takes someone pulling them back, just a little, to avert a tragedy.

Dà Shén eventually left. But she left behind Mantou and the cart carrying the bound Black Tai Sui.

Li Huowang sat on the ground, staring blankly at the hole-riddled roof where the sky was visible through the broken tiles. After a long, long time, he picked up the Purple-Tasseled Sword again.

Looking at the small reflection of his own face on the blade, Li Huowang’s expression suddenly twisted. He raised the sword and thrust it fiercely towards the sky, pointing it directly at a black pigeon perched on a roof beam.

“A pigeon?”

The moment he thought this, the pigeon flew down and landed on Li Huowang’s shoulder. “Coo… coo-coo… coo…”

It was only then that Li Huowang noticed a small strip of paper tied to the black pigeon’s ankle.

On it was an oracle bone script character, which looked like the character ‘Heaven’ with an eye below it.

Slowly unrolling the paper strip, Li Huowang read the contents. His heart jolted, and immediately he led the horse-drawn cart out of the ruined temple.

This was a message by carrier pigeon from Tuoba Danqing. He was informing Li Huowang to come to Yinling City, to the usual place.

This thing immediately brought back to Li Huowang the memory of his plan: his plan to find North Wind through the Supervisory Heavenly Office.

A fierce unwillingness surged into his heart, suppressing the pain and the will to die that filled Li Huowang’s eyes in that moment.

“Mantou, let’s go! If this godforsaken place wants me dead, it’s not gonna be that easy!”

“I’ve got nothing left now, so what am I afraid of?! Even if I’m going to die, I’ll tear a hole in it first!”

“One day… one day, I will get rid of this Heart-Element status! One day! And when that day comes… it’ll be…”

(Apologies, sorry for the delay. It got stuck in review, so it’s coming out now. Truly a fault of mine.)