Why is Li Huowang suddenly scared of studying?

His entire identity is built on surviving supernatural violence; facing a problem he can't solve with force or sacrifice terrifies him on a fundamental level.

Is the watcher real or a hallucination?

The novel deliberately leaves it ambiguous. The feeling is real to Li Huowang, but the vanishing figure and lack of evidence make it impossible to confirm.

The Watcher in the Dark

1,245 words

After sending Sun Xiaoqin away, Li Huowang was left alone in the slightly messy bedroom. He let out a breath and sat down on the stool.

He opened the calendar and looked at Yang Na's birthday. There were only a few days left.

Li Huowang silently calculated in his mind. Besides giving her the surprise of being discharged from the hospital on her birthday, what birthday gift should he give Yang Na?

"Wait, how many points do I even need to get into Yang Na's university?"

His finger tapped the screen, and immediately a number appeared that made him suck in a breath of cold air.

But soon, Li Huowang gritted his teeth, his eyes firming up.

"I'll fight for it. Since I promised Yang Na, I have to deliver. I've been through everything. Am I really going to be afraid of this?"

Li Huowang acted on his impulse. He immediately searched for study materials on his phone and began to focus on them intently.

Creak~ The door to Li Huowang's bedroom slowly opened.

When Sun Xiaoqin, still in her pajamas, saw Li Huowang with his head down looking at his phone, she nodded in satisfaction and slowly backed out.

"Mm, playing on the phone is good. Young people should play on their phones."

Time passed, bit by bit. The residential complex gradually quieted down. In the dead of night, only the soft sound of Li Huowang's fingers rubbing his temples slowly echoed.

Finally, at one in the morning, Li Huowang closed his eyes and leaned back in despair, his whole head buzzing.

"Okay, I was wrong. This one, I'm really afraid of. Why is it so profound? I should have learned this in class, right? Why can't I understand it?"

Some things just can't be solved by willpower and hard work. If you don't get it, you don't get it. This really can't be self-taught.

Li Huowang understood he needed systematic learning. Trying to cram it at home by himself, he'd probably never get into Yang Na's university.

"What do I do? I have to think of something. Even if I can't catch up to her sophomore year, at least I need to make it to her senior year."

Li Huowang closed his eyes, thinking. Suddenly, he touched the paper money in his pocket, and an idea struck him.

"Can I use this money to buy online courses? Or online training?"

"Right, and there's the red envelope my mom forced on Yi Donglai. That should be enough together."

With that, Li Huowang acted on his impulse. Ignoring the exhaustion of one in the morning, he opened his phone again and started searching.

Just as Li Huowang was planning his college entrance exam strategy, he suddenly felt something. His brow furrowed tightly.

"Seriously? The neighborhood committee aunties are still working this late? Isn't that a bit too dedicated?"

Li Huowang reached out, lifted a corner of the curtain, and looked outside. However, he didn't see anyone.

"Am I too tired?" Li Huowang thought it over and simply lay down on the bed.

He closed his eyes, forcing himself to sleep, to forget the unusual feeling from before, to see if the sensation would disappear once he recovered his energy.

But as he tossed and turned, the feeling of being watched made it impossible for him to fall asleep.

At this moment, he finally understood the meaning of "a prickling sensation on one's back." He hadn't been wrong! There really was something staring at him.

"Fine, let me see what it is!" Li Huowang sat up abruptly in bed.

He lifted the starry curtain again, carefully scanning the pitch-black residential complex.

It was very dark outside. Finding whoever was hiding was incredibly difficult.

After standing for over half an hour, Li Huowang finally, guided by the gaze, found who was watching him.

The person stood in a dark corner, motionless like a wooden post.

In the blur, Li Huowang felt the figure seemed very tall and very thin.

He shook his head hard, and the person in the darkness seemed to change shape.

It was too dark outside. Li Huowang thought he must have seen wrong.

"Could it be..." Li Huowang thought back to the crazy things Qian Fu had said to him.

"Impossible. How could it be? Why am I even thinking about that guy? Am I crazy?"

Whatever it was, Li Huowang felt he had to go see it with his own eyes. After all, the thing hiding in the darkness absolutely could not be Auntie Qi from the neighborhood committee.

Li Huowang quickly picked up a pillow and placed it on the stool, adding a few other things to make its silhouette in the window look more like a person.

He did this, naturally, to avoid startling the quarry. Meanwhile, he slowly lay down on the floor, crawled out of the bedroom, and quietly slipped out the security door.

To avoid making a sound, Li Huowang didn't even wear shoes. He slipped down the emergency stairs, using the cover of the greenery to slowly approach that spot.

As Li Huowang got closer and closer, the thing's outline gradually became clearer.

"Huowang!!"

A shout from within the complex made Li Huowang look up instinctively.

From the window of his own bedroom, Sun Xiaoqin, still in her pajamas, poked her head out anxiously, looking around.

When Li Huowang looked back to where the figure had been, he found it was gone. The spot was still pitch black, but it was empty.

"Ran? Where?" Li Huowang searched frantically.

"Son! Where are you! Don't scare me!" Sun Xiaoqin leaned half her body out the window, scanning the complex.

Hearing the worry in Sun Xiaoqin's voice, and seeing the lights turning on one by one in the windows around him, Li Huowang reluctantly stepped out.

"Mom, I'm here! It's nothing. Something fell down, I came to get it."

"What kind of thing are you picking up in the middle of the night? Can't you do it tomorrow? Get back up here!"

Li Huowang glanced one last time at the darkness over there, then turned and went back upstairs.

For the rest of the night, Li Huowang lay in bed with his eyes wide open until dawn.

Eating breakfast, his mind was still on what that thing was last night.

First, he could be sure that, whatever its purpose, it was watching him. It existed.

Those gazes he'd sensed before probably only half belonged to Auntie Qi. The rest were its.

"But why is this thing watching me?" Li Huowang was utterly perplexed. There was absolutely nothing valuable about him.

Hiring someone specifically to watch him would cost a fortune.

"Son, what's wrong with you? Have you developed a liking for spacing out?" Sun Xiaoqin picked up the dishes with one hand and wiped the table with a rag in the other.

"Why aren't you playing games? Go on, I've already turned on the computer for you."

"Mom, I don't want to play games." Li Huowang held his head, feeling a headache coming on. He couldn't tell his mother about this; otherwise, she'd probably think he was having an episode again.

"Nonsense! A young man your age, how can you not want to play games? Hurry up and go play. Don't live like an old man. I'll cut you a fruit platter later. What fruit do you want?"

Li Huowang sighed, stood up, and went back into his bedroom.

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Reading Guide Decoding

Home Is Where the Paranoia Is

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

The "Prickling on One's Back" (背如刺芒): This is a classic trope in Chinese paranormal and wuxia stories. It describes the physical, instinctual sensation of being observed, often from a hostile or supernatural source. It isn't just a metaphor; in many traditions, it is a sign that one's qi or spiritual perception has been disturbed. Li Huowang's sensitivity to this feeling here, after his extensive training, shows that his cultivation instincts are bleeding over into his modern-world perception. It's a visceral clue that the threat is real, not just his mental illness.

The Mundane as Horror: Dao Gui Yi Xian excels at using the banality of modern life to amplify terror. Sun Xiaoqin's concern—cutting fruit, turning on the computer—becomes a foil to the abject horror lurking just beyond the lamplight. The contrast isn't just thematic; it's a weapon. The familiar becomes a cage, and the mother's love becomes a blindfold that prevents Li Huowang from fully confronting the predator in the dark. This is a core strength of the novel's dual-world structure.

Chapter Overview

Alright, fellow traveler, let’s take a breather. After the relentless meat-grinder of the last few arcs, this chapter is a slow, paranoid slice-of-life—Dao Gui Yi Xian style. Our boy Li Huowang is back in the modern world, and his new mission is terrifying in a completely different way: he wants to study for the college entrance exam to get into Yang Na’s university. But even in the mundane, squeaky-clean halls of his mother’s apartment, the horror finds him. A simple feeling of being watched spirals into a late-night confrontation with a shadowy figure in the dark. It’s a masterclass in building psychological tension from nothing, reminding us that for Li Huowang, no space is ever truly safe.

Key Plot Points

Li Huowang, freshly discharged, is planning a birthday surprise for Yang Na and decides his gift must be getting into her university.
He hits a wall of cold, academic reality. Diving into the material is a brutal shock—he understands nothing. The sheer complexity of the textbooks breaks his usual dogged determination. He admits, “This one, I'm really afraid of.”
Desperate, he considers using his stash of supernatural cash (paper money) for online courses, anchoring his immense, bloody wealth in a practical, almost farcical plan.
His late-night study session is interrupted by a powerful, unmistakable feeling of being watched from outside his window.
He checks and sees nothing, initially blaming the neighborhood committee. But the paranoid prickle persists, driving him to sneak out barefoot to investigate.
Sun Xiaoqin’s shout from his own bedroom window ruins the ambush. The figure vanishes instantly, leaving Li Huowang frustrated and sleepless all night.
The chapter ends with Li Huowang haunted by the memory of the gaze and Qian Fu’s crazy warnings, trapped in a paranoid loop that his mundane reality can no longer contain.

Reading Guide

This is what I call a "breather chapter" that isn't really a breather. Don't be fooled by the mundane setting. This is Li Huowang trying to build a normal life with the tools of a monster. His plan to use paper money for tuition fees is peak Li Huowang—a brutally pragmatic solution that completely ignores the moral horror of his wealth source. The tension here is 100% psychological. Pay close attention to the feeling of the gaze: it’s patient, isolated, and perfectly timed to ruin his sense of safety. It’s not the flesh-buddhas or the blood-soaked altars that bring the horror home; it’s a stillness in a dark corner. If you’re waiting for a slasher villain to jump out, you’re reading the wrong book. The real horror is the uncertainty—the possibility that Qian Fu’s warnings were real, and that something has followed him home.

Quick Q&A

Lore recap (TL;DR) drawn from this chapter's Cultural / Xianxia Notes — same text as the FAQ structured data on this page.

Why is Li Huowang suddenly scared of studying?: His entire identity is built on surviving supernatural violence; facing a problem he can't solve with force or sacrifice terrifies him on a fundamental level.
Is the watcher real or a hallucination?: The novel deliberately leaves it ambiguous. The feeling is real to Li Huowang, but the vanishing figure and lack of evidence make it impossible to confirm.