A Massacre for the Truth

1,206 words

Chapter 429: The Zuowandao

As he listened to their words, Li Huowang, who had just been lost in his own emotions, stared in shock at everything before him.

When he regained his senses, a surge of hot blood rushed straight to his brain. "All of this is because of you bastards!!"

With a clang, Li Huowang grasped his sword in one hand, pushed off the roof tiles with his feet, and charged toward the three Zuowandao members who had their backs to him.

Hearing the sound of the wind behind him, the Zuowandao member under attack bent his body to the left like it was broken, narrowly dodging the strike.

His upside-down head stared at Li Huowang in shock. "Boss Hongzhong, are you still messing around? They won't believe you anymore! You go, we’ll hold them off!"

Just then, the hallucination of Hongzhong beside him also leaned in, speaking with a grave expression. "He's right. This isn't the time for games. You need to retreat."

"Retreat my ass!" Li Huowang swung his longsword fiercely. The sharp blade swept across the illusion's face—a bloody, skinless mess—but nothing abnormal happened.

And at that moment, the Supervisory Heavenly Office agents began to move. A Daoist in a purple robe pulled two fist-sized yellow talisman flags from his sleeve, stabbed them into the back of his own neck, and began chanting a spell while tracing a massive Eight Trigram formation in the air.

Every time his finger moved through the void, it stirred up shimmering, transparent ripples.

The Daoist made a hand seal and pressed the formation down onto the roof tiles beneath his feet. "Raise your heads to see, lower them to hear! Above, the Six Jia; below, the Six Ding! By the decree of the Three Pure Ones, let it be done!"

The next moment, with a single, synchronized cracking sound, the tiles and beams beneath everyone’s feet broke apart rapidly. With no foothold left, everyone standing on the roof fell into the room below.

A massive, ink-black Eight Trigram formation was revealed directly beneath them, perfectly encompassing the three Zuowandao members and Li Huowang.

The masked Supervisory Heavenly Office agents, who had appeared from somewhere below, stood at attention around the formation, watching intently.

In that split-second of crisis, a male Zuowandao gritted his teeth, used a falling roof tile as a springboard, and pushed Li Huowang with all his might. "Boss Hongzhong! Get out of here!"

Shiiing! Li Huowang raised his blade and brought it down, severing the man's hands in a single stroke.

Under the man's stunned gaze, a black tentacle wrapped around a coin-sword twitched sharply. The coin-sword clattered and lengthened, taking the Zuowandao's head clean off.

No sooner had he done this than Li Huowang and the remaining two Zuowandao hit the ground.

The moment they touched the Eight Trigram formation, it rose instantly, wrapping them all together like a net.

Seeing that these people had trapped him along with them, Li Huowang's anger flared. These useless wastes were more hindrance than help!

"What the hell are you doing?! I told you! I'm not Zuowandao!" Li Huowang dug his fingernails into his own jaw and tore off his entire face.

Yet this act of self-vindication did nothing to convince the collaborating Supervisory Heavenly Office agents. Instead, it only made them attack faster.

The purple-robed Daoist reached behind him, pulled the yellow talisman flags from the back of his neck, and hurled them at Li Huowang.

The flag poles lengthened in midair, spiraling like spears as they curved and pierced into the three people’s acupoints—entering from the front and exiting from the back, stringing all three of them together in an instant.

Then, with a wave of an agent’s hand, several dark green talismans flew over and stuck to the foreheads of the three. Now, they couldn’t even move a single finger.

Seeing the three restrained before them, the six Supervisory Heavenly Office agents finally breathed a slight sigh of relief.

Just as a hunchbacked man holding a soul-summoning banner was about to speak, he saw the skewered mass of flesh begin to move.

"How many times do I have to say it?! I am NOT a Zuowandao!!" Li Huowang's murderous roar exploded in the cramped room.

To everyone’s shock, thick, sticky black tentacles burst from all over Li Huowang’s body, forcing the tangled mass of three people upright.

A breeze lifted the talisman paper from Li Huowang’s forehead, revealing the bloodthirsty, murderous gaze beneath. "Kill!"

The boiling blood within Li Huowang surged into Li Sui's tentacles, swelling them instantly.

With a sweep and a thrust of the tentacles, the entire flesh-ball flew high into the air, crashing down toward the Supervisory Heavenly Office agents.

As the agents tried to retreat, Li Sui, following her father’s command, quickly snapped off two of her own ribs, crossed them, and stabbed them straight into his own lungs.

Instantly, everyone clutched their chests, grimacing in pain just like Li Huowang.

While they were paralyzed by the shared agony, Li Huowang’s fingers were severed by Li Sui and sent spiraling into the temples of two of the agents.

With the Daoist’s death, the Eight Trigram tattoos on the three of them faded rapidly. Li Huowang found he could move again.

Paying no heed to the two people still skewered on him, Li Huowang, his eyes bloodshot with rage, tore the talisman from his forehead and, enduring the searing pain all over his body, charged at the remaining agents.

"How many times do I have to say it?! I am not a fucking Zuowandao!"

Even when they had him pinned down, they were no match for him. Now that he was free, they stood even less of a chance.

Especially with the occasional help from the remaining Zuowandao members and Li Sui, the Supervisory Heavenly Office agents were defeated even faster.

When his white banner was sliced in two by the sword, the hunchback staggered back, stammering in panic, "Alright, alright! You're not Zuowandao! I believe you! I believe you, okay!"

A flash of white. The murderous longsword, seizing the moment he was speaking, thrust straight into his mouth, exited through the back of his skull, and pinned itself into the rammed earth wall behind him.

Li Huowang stared into the man’s despair-filled eyes, pouring all his strength into the sword’s hilt. The rammed earth wall burst open, creating a hole.

The hunchback’s eyes rolled back, and his hands, which had been gripping the sword hilt, went limp. All of the previous Supervisory Heavenly Office agents were dead by Li Huowang’s hand.

"Boss Hongzhong is amazing!"

"Yeah, no wonder he’s the boss, and we’re just the pawns!"

Two cheerful, gleeful voices came from behind Li Huowang.

Li Huowang pulled his sword from the hunchback's mouth, sheathed it behind his back, then grabbed the flag poles piercing his body and slowly drew them out.

With the poles removed, the Zuowandao members who had been skewered to his back finally regained their freedom.

As they chattered, flattering Li Huowang like a comedy duo, he drew his longsword from its sheath again. The bloodstained tip pointed straight at the heads of the two Zuowandao members. "Where is the Heart-Element North Wind now?!"

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Reading Guide Decoding

The Roof Caves In on the Big Misunderstanding

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

The Eight Trigram (八卦, Bā Guà) Formation: This is a classic defensive and binding technique in Chinese fantasy, derived from the ancient divinatory symbols of the I Ching. The Eight Trigrams (Heaven, Earth, Water, Fire, etc.) represent cosmic forces, and their arrangement can be used to create a reality-warping prison, trap, or battlefield. In this chapter, the purple-robed Daoist uses a "mine-type" version, collapsing the roof to trap his targets. Note the chanted invocation of the "Six Jia" and "Six Ding"—these are powerful spirit-generals in Daoist ritual, often called upon to act as a celestial strike force.

The Flag-Sword and Point-Sealing: The length-changing, homing flag-spear and the talisman-to-the-forehead combo is a textbook example of how xianxia handles "restraining" techniques. The acupoints (穴) are vital energy nodes in the body; piercing them is the go-to method for a magical body bind. Here, the agents use it on both Li Huowang and the Zuowandao, treating them all as a single threat—a massive tactical blunder.

Li Sui’s Shared Pain Attack: This is a fascinating application of the Black Tai Sui’s parasitic bond. By damaging her own body, she forces a sympathetic reaction on everyone who was magically linked to Li Huowang. It’s less a combat move and more of a tactical "reset button," exploiting the very bind the agents created to break it.

Chapter Overview

Sometimes, you just can't catch a break. Fresh off a hallucinatory identity crisis, Li Huowang finds himself literally skewered together with the very people he's trying to kill—the Zuowandao—because the Supervisory Heavenly Office can't tell the difference. This chapter is a claustrophobic, roof-shattering brawl where Li Huowang fights with the desperate rage of a man screaming “I’m not one of them!” while everyone around him assumes he is. It’s messy, bloody, and ends with him standing over a pile of dead agents and asking a terrifying question about the one person he's been searching for.

Key Plot Points

The chapter opens with Li Huowang snapping out of his internal fog and immediately attacking the three Zuowandao members who have been impersonating his companions. He kills one of them mid-fall, but is quickly trapped by the arriving Supervisory Heavenly Office agents, who use an Eight Trigram formation to cage all three remaining combatants together.

In a desperate attempt to prove his innocence, Li Huowang tears off his own face—a gruesome, visceral act of self-vindication. It doesn't work. The agents only tighten their assault, skewering him and the two surviving Zuowandao members together with flag-spears and applying sealing talismans.

When the agents think they have him subdued, Li Huowang, his rage hitting a fever pitch, unleashes Li Sui's tentacles to break free. Using Li Sui’s ability to share his pain with others (by stabbing her own ribs into her lungs), he incapacitates the agents and proceeds to slaughter every single one of them. The chapter concludes with him confronting the surviving Zuowandao members, demanding to know the location of the mysterious "Heart-Element North Wind."

Reading Guide

This is pure, unfiltered Li Huowang: a man pushed past the point of reason, fighting not for victory but just to be heard. The sheer frustration of being mistaken for a trickster deity when you're just a broken guy with a sword is palpable. The chapter is a brutal highlight reel of his power: the instinctive violence, the grotesque willingness to self-harm as proof, and the terrifying symbiotic bond with his parasite-daughter, Li Sui. If you've been waiting for him to stop just reacting and start demanding answers—this is your chapter. The cliffhanger question is a game-changer.