The Coffin

1,200 words

Li Huowang walked slowly back from the execution ground, his mind still fixated on the scene he had just witnessed.

That stomach, swollen by elixirs. It was hard to imagine a normal person’s gut being stretched to such a size by pills.

Considering the man’s former identity, it wasn't difficult to guess why he had consumed so many.

In Li Huowang’s memory, quite a few emperors had taken elixirs in pursuit of immortality. He suspected the same was true in this world.

“Even an illiterate like Danyangzi was obsessed with becoming an immortal,” Li Huowang thought to himself. “As the most powerful ruler of Great Liang, the Emperor is probably even more extreme.”

“Still, everyone fears death. It’s only human nature. But…”

Li Huowang recalled the story of Xu Fu taking five hundred virgin boys and girls to find the elixir of life. In this utterly mad world, he truly couldn’t imagine what lengths the Great Liang Emperor would go to.

Eventually, Li Huowang found himself back outside the towering palace walls. He craned his neck, trying to peer inside, speculating on what horrors the imperial city might contain.

Noticing a guard on the wall glance his way with suspicion, Li Huowang shook his head and turned back towards the prison.

Whatever unspeakable things were happening in there, they were none of his business. His task was done; now it was time for Battalion Commander Cao to fulfill his part of the bargain and cure Bai Lingmiao.

The underground prison was as cramped and oppressive as ever. When Battalion Commander Cao saw Li Huowang return, his face broke into a wide grin. “Oh? Back so soon, Brother Erjiu? Tell me all about what happened on the road.”

There was no need to hide anything. Li Huowang quickly recounted the journey. “Commander Cao, the business is finished. I ask for your assistance now.”

“Mm, mm. Of course, of course.” Smiling amiably, Commander Cao reached into his robe and produced a small, pitch-black coffin, about the length of a forearm, which he slid across the table to Li Huowang.

Perhaps it was Li Huowang’s own sensitivity, but looking at the large, blood-red “寿” (longevity) character on the coffin, he felt a heavy, deathly stillness emanating from it. As if a corpse truly lay inside.

This coffin immediately reminded Li Huowang of the countless dead sheep beneath Qingqiu. They had radiated the same feeling.

“This isn’t a Military artifact. It’s from some other sect.” Li Huowang was certain. The difference between this and the Military Path’s items was too vast. They were complete opposites.

“Tsk, tsk.” Commander Cao tapped his calloused finger on the table. “Take this coffin, open it towards the person for the span of three breaths, and it will drive away the malevolent qi infecting them. Remember, exactly three breaths. Not a single one more.”

“It’s that simple?” Li Huowang took the black-lacquered coffin. It was surprisingly light, feeling not like wood, but more like paper.

“Heh. A little malevolent qi entering the body? How hard can it be? If I weren’t so tied up here, it’d be a simple wave of the hand.” Commander Cao scoffed, then took a drink of wine from his bowl.

Just then, the ground began to tremble slightly. An indescribable aura surged up from below, making Li Huowang’s skin involuntarily crawl.

It was clear that the commotion came from whatever was imprisoned beneath them.

“Goddammit! Fucking bastard!” Commander Cao slammed his bowl down on the table in annoyance, grabbed his straight saber, and strode towards the distant cell door. “I have urgent matters. No time to see you out. Just return the coffin when you’re done with it. I don’t want to have to come fetch it.”

As Li Huowang walked out of the prison, he was overcome by a strange sense of unreality. He stared at the coffin in his hand, his thoughts churning. “Is it really this simple? Can this really turn Bai Lingmiao back to normal?”

“Are these people all lying to me? Are they all in on it together? Do they already know I’m a Heart-Element?”

The crazy thought surfaced in his mind, sending a chill down his spine.

His expression contorting, his pupils contracted as he scanned his surroundings. In that instant, everything—the rooftops, the stone lions, the paving stones—seemed to be filled with malice.

He stood frozen for a long time before finally calming down. Clutching the coffin, he stood on the spot and meticulously reviewed the entire affair from start to finish in his mind, several times over.

After a long while, Li Huowang let out a long sigh. “No. They don’t know who I am, not yet. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have let an unpredictable element like me get so close to the palace.”

He realized he was probably overthinking things. Since the Military Path could generate malevolent qi, they naturally had a way to dispel it. Perhaps this really was just a simple matter.

“I have the tool. Now…” Li Huowang tucked the coffin into his lapel and walked back to the inn with a grave expression.

He pushed open the door to his room. Bai Lingmiao was sitting before a bronze mirror, using an iron comb dipped in black liquid to dress her hair.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m using a lead comb soaked in vinegar to comb my hair. It can turn it black. This white hair is ugly and unpleasant to look at.”

Looking at Bai Lingmiao’s back, Li Huowang took a deep breath and pulled the small coffin from his robe.

He had already tested it on someone just moments ago; it was indeed capable of removing malevolent qi from a person.

Through the bronze mirror, Bai Lingmiao saw the object in his hand. “What’s that? A coffin?”

Steeling himself, Li Huowang dug his fingernails under the lid and, facing Bai Lingmiao, wrenched it open.

A bizarre, powerful suction emanated from within the coffin. With incredible speed, it drew away the tangled guilt, worry, and fear in Li Huowang’s heart.

He even felt that the method to escape the hallucinations, the one spoken of by the “North Wind,” had become trivial. This coffin was sucking away his very will to live.

“One… two… three!” He slammed the lid shut.

He immediately looked at Bai Lingmiao.

The vinegar-laden lead comb fell to the floor with a clear clatter. Li Huowang watched as Bai Lingmiao slowly turned to face him. Her eyes were wide with shock, and tears silently streamed down her cheeks.

Seeing the familiar Bai Lingmiao had returned, Li Huowang rushed forward, his body trembling. He threw his arms around her, his eyes burning with tears of joy.

He held the embrace for a long time before finally pulling back to look her over. “How do you feel? Is there any discomfort? Tell me if there is!”

Bai Lingmiao, her eyes red and brimming with tears, was silent. She reached out a hand to touch the Purple-Tasseled Sword on Li Huowang’s back.

When Li Huowang quickly grabbed her hand, stopping her, her eyes were filled with deep resentment and profound pain.

“Senior Brother Li… I’m begging you… I can’t live without this…”

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Reading Guide Decoding

A Cure That Cuts Both Ways

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

The Emperor and Elixirs: Li Huowang draws a direct line from the executed high official’s pill-popped corpse to the common historical practice of Chinese emperors seeking immortality through alchemy. It’s a grim tradition with real-life costs (from the First Emperor’s mercury pills to the Tang dynasty’s alchemical-poisoned rulers). In this novel, that quiet desperation is scaled up to a cosmic horror level.
The “寿” (Longevity) Character: The bright red “寿” character on the black coffin is a stark contrast of symbolism. In Chinese culture, this character is almost universally positive, used for birthdays and well-wishing. Placing it on a coffin, a symbol of death, creates a nauseating cognitive dissonance—as if the container for a corpse is wishing it a long life.
The “Papery” Weight: Li Huowang noticing the coffin feels like paper, not wood, is a subtle but powerful nod to funerary paper offerings (纸扎). In Chinese folk religion, paper houses, money, and items are burned for the dead to use in the afterlife. A “paper” coffin, then, feels not like a real container for a corpse, but like an effigy or a tool meant to function in a space between life and death. This makes its effect—sucking away life and spirit—even more uncanny.

Two-Layer Heart-Turbid Trap (一生一死心浊)

A containment paradox where a dead Heart-Turbid conceals a living one, trapping victims in a fabricated layer of reality, unable to perceive the true threat that has already taken root.

Chapter Overview

Get ready, folks. After the stomach-churning execution field and a trip to a thoroughly unnerving prison, Li Huowang is handed the key to fixing Bai Lingmiao. It’s a tiny black coffin. Simple as that. Open it for three breaths, and she’s cured. And it works. The malevolent qi is gone, Bai Lingmiao is back to her old self, and there’s a moment of pure, tearful relief. But this is the Dao-Twisted World. Happiness is always a poisoned bait. The very second she’s “cured,” her hand shoots for the Purple-Tasseled Sword on Li Huowang’s back. The cure was real. The cost, as always, is everything else.

Key Plot Points

Li Huowang returns from the execution ground, mentally repulsed by the image of the elixir-stuffed corpse and connecting it to the Emperor’s likely obsession with immortality, which parallels his own world’s history of alchemical hubris.
He reports to a visibly busy and irritated Battalion Commander Cao, who casually hands over a tiny black coffin as the cure for Bai Lingmiao.
The coffin’s light, almost papery weight and the ominous “寿” character immediately clue Li Huowang into its nature – it’s not a Military Path artifact, but something from another, likely darker, school.
After a brief moment of paranoid self-doubt (wondering if everyone is in on a plot to trap him, the Heart-Element), Li Huowang decides the logic holds and returns to the inn.
The “cure” works, but he notes the horrifying side effect it has on him – it starts sucking away not just his fear, but his attachment to living.
Bai Lingmiao is restored, but her very first conscious act is to reach for the weapon that corrupted her, openly begging Li Huowang not to take away its sustaining, poisonous influence.

Reading Guide

Alright, let’s talk about the big, ugly elephant in the room. The horror isn’t that the coffin fails—it’s that it works perfectly. Li Huowang gets exactly what he wanted from Commander Cao. The problem is that the cure only addresses the physical “煞气 (malevolent qi)” but ignores the spiritual addiction. Bai Lingmiao is back to her old self, but that old self is now a broken self. Her first instinct isn't relief, it’s to grab the sword and beg. This is the novel at its most brutal: it’s not about finding the right tool; it’s about living with the wounds the wrong tool left behind. This chapter also showcases Li Huowang’s growing, jaded professionalism. He suspects a trap, tests the coffin on someone else, and executes the procedure with cold precision. He’s getting better at this world. And that’s perhaps the saddest thing of all.

Deeper Dive: The Two-Layer Trap

This chapter sets up a crucially important concept for the coming arcs. Li Huowang is walking right into a trap that isn't a trap at all—a "Two-Layer Heart-Turbid Trap (一生一死心浊)." The "dead" layer is the solved problem: Bai Lingmiao is cured. The "living" layer is the problem that was hiding underneath the cure: that the cure itself was never going to fix what was truly wrong. The coffin fixed the surface; the sword’s corruption is now the new, deeper reality. For the Dao-Twisted World, this is the most insidious kind of horror. It’s a paradox where the living sickness is perfectly concealed by the dead, solved one. The reader, and Li Huowang, can only watch as the thing they feared most—that Bai Lingmiao was beyond saving—reveals itself in a new form.