The Emperor

1,161 words

Chapter 409: The Emperor

Clang— A trembling gong rang out from the distant gate, followed by solemn music drawing closer and closer. The Great Qi Emperor had truly arrived.

Before Li Huowang could react, the official beside him, who had been drinking vinegar from a small dish, turned pale. He scrambled to his feet and rushed frantically toward the entrance.

By the time Li Huowang made it to the courtyard, everyone—including the so-called Elder Qin and Lord Liang—was already kneeling on the ground.

The music grew louder. A thick, cloying fragrance filled the air as the circular canopy of the imperial chariot slowly emerged from behind the tall wall.

As the honor guard drew nearer, the chariot's four pillars—wrapped in black silk cords and painted with red cloud-dragons—came into view. Between the pillars, curtains embroidered with black dragons and feathered patterns wrapped the entire wooden tower tightly, sealing it from view.

Li Huowang thought it would end there, but the Great Qi Emperor's chariot kept rising, growing taller and larger, as if it had no end.

More and more objects piled onto its surface: lanterns, dragon banners, circular jade ornaments, swinging rings, bells—beautiful but densely packed, covering the entire tower.

Accompanied by the solemn music, this enormous, magnificent, yet top-heavy wooden tower drew closer like a small mountain. To Li Huowang and the others, it loomed larger and larger, pressing down on them with suffocating weight.

In the dim light, it looked down at everyone in the Liang family courtyard like a giant, bloated stillborn infant.

The fragrance drifting from the imperial chariot intensified, growing so thick it nearly choked the lungs.

Just as Li Huowang moved to Zhuge Yuan's side to say something, crimson-robed Embroidered Uniform Guards poured through the gate, surrounding the entire area.

A row of bald old eunuchs carrying horsetail whisks followed close behind. They formed a human wall beneath the wall, separating the two sides. Their pallid faces stood motionless in the night, lined up like rows of paper effigies.

At some point, the music gradually faded. Silence fell, so absolute that even breathing seemed to cease.

Li Huowang stood in a corner, watching everything like an observer. His gaze lingered mostly on the enormous wooden tower, his mind churning with thoughts.

"My chief eunuch said you were playing here. Why didn't you invite me to play?" A childish voice suddenly rang out from behind the多层 curtains.

The moment those words fell, the kneeling men's faces turned deathly pale. Some of the weaker-willed nearly collapsed to the ground.

"What are you playing? Bring it out and let me play too?"

As he spoke, a young boy wearing an imperial crown and a gold-and-black dragon robe poked his head out from between the layers of curtains.

The sight was grotesque—as if this enormous, ornate wooden tower were merely the colossal body belonging to that tiny head.

The moment Li Huowang saw him, he knew instantly: this was no child. No six-year-old looked at people with such naked intent.

It was as if he didn't see a person's surface, but their flesh and bone.

A flicker of dizziness passed through Li Huowang's mind. Is this really something Zhuge Yuan distorted? It's too real...

Just then, the eunuchs noticed the two men still standing conspicuously in place. Their fury erupted. "How dare you!! His Majesty has arrived—why do you not kneel?!"

Li Huowang glanced at Zhuge Yuan. Zhuge Yuan met his gaze.

Without a moment's hesitation, Li Huowang pulled out two sheets of turmeric paper, bit his fingertip, and began rapidly drawing talismans on them.

When he finished, he slapped the talismans against the insides of his thighs, drew the Purple-Tasseled Sword, and charged straight toward the little emperor's massive chariot, leaving an afterimage in his wake.

"You've been deceived! The emperor is a fake! A Zuowandao in disguise!" Li Huowang's shout exploded through the courtyard like thunder.

The moment Li Huowang moved, the Embroidered Uniform Guards formed a wall to block him.

But Zhuge Yuan's expression had turned uncharacteristically grave. He flipped his hand, and an old, yellowed almanac—two palms wide—fell to the ground.

Then he pulled a white wolf-hair brush from his sleeve, raised it, and swept it sideways through the pitch-black sky. The night stained the brush's tip.

With starlight glimmering on its tip, the brush fell vertically and wrote on a page of the old almanac: "Yihai year, Guimao, Metal Wall-Level Day—Auspicious: none. Taboo: fabricating lies and hollow boasts. Taboo: disguising faces and changing appearances!"

The moment the brush left the paper, the character lifted off from the almanac page.

As the black ink on the brush tip returned to the night sky, it carried that yellow character up into the darkness.

Immediately, the little emperor's expression began to twist—along with the faces of several accompanying eunuchs. The Embroidered Uniform Guards' faces filled with confusion.

"Good! I've been waiting! You're finally here!" Li Huowang pulled out a pair of pliers and clamped them onto his own mouth, yanking hard. Several teeth scattered through the air like petals scattering from a celestial maiden.

At that moment, several domino tiles shot up from the ground, stabbing straight into Li Huowang's abdomen.

But no blood came from the wound. His entire body tilted sideways and sank into the earth, disappearing from the guards' sight in an instant.

When they came to their senses, they saw the red-robed Daoist already leaping from the roof, kicking off hard toward the emperor's imperial chariot.

Li Huowang's bloodshot eyes locked onto that childlike face drawing closer and closer. The hatred and murderous intent inside him nearly swallowed him whole.

He pulled out a fire striker and scraped it across his own body. Raging flames instantly covered his newly healed skin. The searing pain tore through him, and he threw back his head in a heart-wrenching scream: "Which color are you?!"

Now a blazing kite of fire, Li Huowang lit up the entire dark sky. The air around him warped and twisted from the heat.

Seeing such a monstrous figure charging at him, the Zuowandao disguised as the Great Qi Emperor quickly retreated into the curtains.

But it was already too late. The moment Li Huowang crashed through the curtains, the raging flames engulfed the entire bloated wooden tower. Thick black smoke rose straight up, carrying faint screams.

"Come out! Where are you?!" Li Huowang searched through the flames.

Then, a dark figure flickered past the distant curtains, rushing toward the outside of the tower.

"Trying to run?!" Li Huowang snatched a rib handed to him by a black tentacle, crossed his arms, and plunged the bone into his own abdomen. Within thirty yards, every living creature felt the same pain.

The distant figure let out a scream and tumbled into the fire.

Li Huowang, his body still ablaze, forced himself through the pain to approach. He reached out and turned the figure over—only to find nothing inside but a burning shadow puppet.

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Reading Guide Decoding

Li Huowang vs. The False Emperor: A Blazing Zuowandao Showdown

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

Zhuge Yuan’s trick with the yellowed almanac is a joy to break down. In traditional Chinese culture, the huangli (皇历 or 黄历, “imperial almanac”) is a calendar that specifies which days are auspicious for which activities—a practical guide for everything from weddings to breaking ground on a building. What Zhuge Yuan does here is weaponize that system. He writes a specific date and imposes taboos against lying and face-changing, effectively forcing the heavens (or the narrative itself) to enforce those rules on his enemies. It’s a beautiful example of how the novel takes a folk-level, mundane belief system and turns it into a real, binding supernatural law. The “taboo” system here mirrors real almanac conventions, where each day has both auspicious (yi, 宜) and inauspicious (ji, 忌) entries. Zhuge Yuan is essentially hacking fate using calendar logic.

Seven apertures (七窍)

The seven openings in the human head (eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth); in Daoist and folk belief, bleeding from these is a sign of extreme qi disturbance or supernatural backlash.

Chapter Overview

Get ready, because Li Huowang finally gets to throw down with a Zuowandao—and not just any impersonator, but one who’s been masquerading as the Great Qi Emperor himself. This isn’t a quiet infiltration or a test of wits; it’s a full-frontal, fire-and-teeth assault that pays off chapters of tension. Zhuge Yuan steps up with a brush and almanac that rewrite the rules on the spot, and the chapter ends on a classic Zuowandao twist: the enemy you thought you cornered was just a burning shadow puppet all along. It’s action-packed, lore-heavy, and leaves you questioning how deep the deception goes.

Key Plot Points

The Great Qi Emperor arrives in an absurdly oversized, top-heavy chariot that looks like a “bloated stillborn infant,” setting an immediate tone of grotesque spectacle.
Li Huowang instantly deduces the emperor is a Zuowandao impostor by the unnatural way the “child” looks at people—like seeing through flesh to bone.
Zhuge Yuan unveils a critical ability: his old almanac and wolf-hair brush can impose restrictions on reality, writing taboos that physically distort the disguised Zuowandao members.
Li Huowang goes full berserker mode: he rips out his own teeth, sets himself on fire, and uses the Black Tai Sui's tentacle to deliver a pain-sharing attack that catches the fleeing enemy.
The final reveal—only a shadow puppet lies burning inside the false emperor—confirms the Zuowandao's escape, leaving Li Huowang’s victory hollow and the mystery intact.

Reading Guide

Li Huowang’s opening move—yanking out his own teeth—isn’t just shock value; it’s a direct callback to his time under Danyangzi, where he learned to weaponize self-mutilation. The fact that he does it joyfully (“You’re finally here!”) is the real character beat here: he’s no longer a victim of body horror, but its active, grinning practitioner. Keep an eye on how the Zuowandao’s escape—leaving only a puppet—connects to earlier lore about “shadow puppets” and illusions. This chapter doesn’t just advance the fight; it crystallizes the philosophical divide between “cultivating the true” and “cultivating the false.” Li Huowang burns everything down with raw, painful reality; the Zuowandao slips away with a clever, fake-out veneer. The game isn’t over, and the next move belongs to the deceivers.