The White Tower

The enemy was upon him, and there was no time to mind the pain. Li Huowang fumbled two glowing fluorite stones from his chest and hurled them into the black water.

The phosphorescent stones sank fast, illuminating a corner of the darkness—and the “Dragon King” within. A ring of long, hair-covered, elongated things was presented before him.

“What the hell is all this?” Li Huowang gritted his teeth. Gripping his sword in his right hand, he swung it at his own wrist.

A gnarled bone spur burst from the severed arm, spinning wildly as it shot toward the mass.

From the stump of Li Huowang’s arm, several black tentacles writhed out, barely forming a hand.

As his left hand plunged in and out of the black tangle, the seawater was gradually stained dark by black blood. The thing that should have been a single cohesive mass was forced to break apart.

One by one, faces that looked human emerged from the black hair. Their dark green eyes were full of hostility and murder.

“Those aren’t human faces,” Li Huowang realized. “They’re monkey faces. There’s no Dragon King at all. Just a tangle of water monkeys.” He stared at the creatures whose limbs twisted like algae. “Water monkeys will do. At least they can understand human speech.”

With a clang, he drew the Purple-Tasseled Sword. An overwhelming aura of slaughter flooded his body. He opened his mouth wide, and a torrent of bubbles rolled upward toward the surface. “GET LOST!”

The mass of water monkeys stared hard at Li Huowang. But after a moment, their hair-covered bodies began to sway with the current, gradually fading from sight. It seemed they had indeed been intimidated.

The crisis averted, Li Huowang prepared to surface. But he didn’t see the bald, bearded man anywhere. “Where did he go? I didn’t see him earlier.”

Li Huowang burst from the water, took a few deep breaths, and dove back under to search for the vanished man. After several trips back and forth, he finally found him at the bottom.

But half of his face was gone. One eye had been gouged out by the water monkeys. The skin on his face, washed clean by seawater, was whiter than Bai Lingmiao’s.

“You—” Li Huowang stared at the corpse, at a loss for words.

“Amitabha, Amitabha. You were bald. You could do good deeds. You’re definitely a remarkable monk,” the monk beside him began to chant a eulogy.

Helpless, Li Huowang sighed inwardly. Grabbing the man’s beard, now trailing in bloody water, he swam for the surface.

I should have tested his skill before letting him go down.

As these thoughts churned in Li Huowang’s mind, a sudden shout came from the monk behind him. “Daoist, watch out!! Behind you—!”

Before the monk could finish, Li Huowang whipped his head around. The last thing he saw was a gaping maw, larger than a house, covered in thick, dark, long tentacles.

“Hm?” Li Huowang stared blankly at the dusty ceiling fan.

A single white wildflower filled his vision. “Brother? You’re awake? Look, isn’t it pretty? I picked it from outside.”

Li Huowang shifted his gaze, following the chubby hand holding the flower up to a simple, honest, fat face.

The man looked old—at least forty or fifty—but his gestures and manner were like a child’s, his eyes especially pure and innocent.

Suddenly, every muscle in Li Huowang’s body tensed. “No. I was just being eaten by something underwater. How did I end up here?”

He struggled to sit up, only to find his limbs tightly bound with wide restraint straps.

“Brother, this is White Tower Hospital. Though some people call it White Tower Prison. The guard found me digging through a trash can on the street and brought me here.”

“The guard said I’m not that dumb, so he told me to empty your bedpan and feed you. Then he gives me extra food.”

Taking in all the unfamiliar sights, Li Huowang’s mind raced. The Black Tai Sui’s ability failed. I don’t know why. But if I can show up in this hallucination, it means I’m not dead yet. There’s still hope. No—this is inside that thing’s stomach! I have to get out of here now!

Once he’d sorted his thoughts, he turned to the man beside him. “Can you do me a favor? Help me get these straps off.”

The man shook his head frantically, like a rattled drum. “No way! The guard said I can’t. If I let you loose, they’ll put me in the dark room.”

The situation in reality was desperate. He could be completely digested any moment. Li Huowang had no time to waste here.

He took a deep breath and wrenched himself to the left. The entire metal bed tipped over with a deafening crash.

The man burst into tears. He pounded on the iron door, sobbing at the camera overhead. “Guard! Boo-hoo-hoo! Come quick! I’m scared!”

Li Huowang twisted his body, bouncing the bed up high, then slamming it down onto the floor.

With that momentum, he crushed his own left palm bone into several pieces. Gritting his teeth, he yanked.

His crumpled left hand slid out of the restraint strap like a wet noodle.

Using his only free finger—his pinky—he frantically hooked at the buckle. Soon, his right hand was free.

By now he could hear the sound of leather shoes approaching from outside the ward. He moved faster.

The instant a guard burst through the door, Li Huowang drove his right knee up. Three of the guard’s ribs snapped with a wet crack.

He had barely subdued one man when two electric batons were jammed into his body. He convulsed violently, his whole body trembling.

Li Huowang clenched his teeth, grabbed the wires, and ripped them out. He fixed the remaining guard with a predatory glare.

The man flinched under that look. Even though he still had other weapons, facing this guy felt like a losing bet. Everyone knew why he was locked up here.

“Li Huowang? Li Huowang, right?” the guard said quickly. “I know you’re bipolar positive. I know you can hear me, okay?”

“Calm down! Your girlfriend just finished her visit. She hasn’t left yet. I’ll call her here, let you two meet. How about that?”

Li Huowang paid him no attention. He snatched the magnetic card and electric stun gun from the fallen guard and charged for the door.

“I don’t care what you are! You want to keep me in your gut to die? DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!”

As Li Huowang forced open one iron gate after another and fought through more guards, alarms blared through the entire White Tower Prison psychiatric ward. Several teams rushed into the block, converging on the exits.

Surveying the situation, Li Huowang rationally chose not to flee through the main exit. He glanced left and right, then burst into the guards’ office. Bracing one foot on the windowsill, before anyone could react, he leaped from the fourth floor.

“Cough! Cough—” Li Huowang spat blood and stood up on shaky legs from the grass below.

He ignored the mental patients staring at him from the exercise yard. Lifting his head, he looked up at the massive gray prison building before him, and a smug grin spread across his face.

“I don’t know what you are. But you want to eat me? Dream on.”