Why does Li Huowang feel *happy* when he is attacked?

He has been terrified that his perceptions were hallucinations and that he was going insane. The physical attack proves that the threat is real, relieving him of the crushing doubt about his own mind.

What is the significance of the severed fingers?

They are a desperate, physical attempt by Li Huowang to force the world to accept his version of events. In a normal detective story, they would be irrefutable evidence; here, they become a symbol of his helplessness, because the system is treating them as if they don't exist.

Is the surveillance footage lying?

In the context of the *Dao Gui Yi Xian* universe, it is entirely possible that the kidnappers were supernatural entities that cameras cannot record, or that reality itself has been tampered with to discredit Li Huowang. The narrative leaves the ambiguity intact.

The Answer

1,103 words

Li Huowang sat limply in place, his mind numb as he tried to process what had just happened.

He had clearly answered his mother's call. The other party had clearly known his name. But when he actually picked up, the phone was broken—didn't even have a charge. So who had he been talking to just now?

And if that was his hallucination, then didn't that mean the gaze he'd felt earlier was also a hallucination?

Did Li Huowang really have a mental illness? Had he been sick the whole time, from start to finish?

Li Huowang shut his eyes in pain, clutching his head with both hands, digging his nails into his hair.

He didn't want to admit it. But he had to face it—because he didn't even trust himself anymore.

"I…"

After a struggle, his face twisted with anguish, he found Yi Donglai's number in his contacts and called.

A long series of beeps. Then Yi Donglai's voice came through.

"Hey, Xiao Li? Something on your mind?"

Li Huowang clenched his fist. His voice trembled. "Dr. Yi… do you think I might have delusions of persecution?"

"'Might'? Xiao Li, are you experiencing new symptoms?" Yi Donglai's tone turned serious.

"I don't know. It feels like people are watching me. They seem to have some kind of scheme. This feeling has come up a lot."

"Never while you were hospitalized? It only appeared after you were discharged?"

"Right. Never inside the hospital. …There. That feeling is back again."

Li Huowang pulled out his mirror and adjusted the angle again.

But this time, what he saw reflected was not Aunt Qi. It was a woman—a woman holding a parasol, her face hidden.

They were still in early spring. A woman standing like that in the middle of the residential complex was incredibly strange.

"Is she my hallucination? A delusion I'm inventing? Or… something else?" Li Huowang asked himself in confusion.

Yi Donglai's voice continued through the phone, but Li Huowang's eyes had hardened. He gently pressed the end-call button.

"Fine. If it's really a delusion, I'll accept it. I'll go back to the hospital, whatever. But today, I am going to find out—is this real, or is it all in my head?"

Li Huowang put the phone down, grabbed a few things from the drawer, and shoved them in his pocket. He rushed downstairs. When he stepped out of the apartment building, the woman was still there.

He studied her position and quietly circled around the adjacent building to come up behind her, closing in fast.

As he got closer, he noticed more details. She was wearing high heels and her clothes were too thin for the season. They didn't fit at all.

With each unsettling detail, the fear in Li Huowang's eyes deepened.

He got closer. Closer. Just a few more steps—

The black car parked nearby suddenly slid open. Two dark figures shot out.

One pressed a soaked cloth toward Li Huowang's face. The other grabbed his arms from behind and dragged him toward the car.

The heavy medicinal smell hit his nose. But instead of panic, a surge of wild joy rushed through Li Huowang's chest. The weight that had been pressing on his heart finally lifted.

"I'm not crazy! This isn't a hallucination! Someone really is trying to hurt me!"

The thought had barely formed when his consciousness began to blur. The cloth was soaked in anesthetic.

Li Huowang parted his teeth, shoved his tongue between his rear molars, and bit down hard.

Agony and hot blood flooded his mouth. His mind snapped back to clarity.

In the next instant, he opened his jaws as wide as they'd go and bit down—on the cloth, and the fingers underneath it.

A savage gleam filled his eyes. His jaw muscles flexed. His teeth tore through the man's fingers.

"Hss—!" The man gasped, hammering Li Huowang's head with his other fist, trying to pull his hand free. Li Huowang didn't budge.

All three of them tumbled into the car. The moment they were inside, Li Huowang released his bite. His target's head slammed into the window.

Li Huowang opened his blood-soaked mouth wide. He stared coldly at the strangers around him—faces he'd never seen before.

"You want to know why I got in your car?" he said, his voice frigid. "Whoever you are, once I'm inside this car, no matter whether I kill you or cripple you—it's justifiable self-defense."

He pulled a utility knife from his sleeve and drove it into the nearest man's thigh.

As the man's grip loosened from the shock, Li Huowang's face twisted. He tightened his hold on the knife, bared his teeth, and lunged.

The black SUV began to rock. The shaking grew violent. The door flew open, and Li Huowang tumbled out, covered in blood.

He watched the car speed away, his gaze cold. He threw the bloodstained knife to the ground, pulled out his phone, and dialed.

"Hello? 110? I want to report a kidnapping."

"I killed one of the kidnappers. The other one is probably dying too. They're driving a black SUV, heading out from Wuyi Road."

Kidnapping was a big deal—especially a kidnapping where the victim had killed the kidnappers.

Soon, Li Huowang was sitting in the police station for questioning. A very thorough questioning.

As he was being interviewed, Sun Jianye stood outside, staring at Li Huowang's file on the police tablet and at Sun Xiaoqin beside him, her eyes red and teary.

"Comrade, don't worry. Your son is fine. Just sit here and wait for a moment. I'll go in first and see what's going on."

With that, he brought his apprentice into the mediation room and listened in on his colleague's questions.

"Xiao Li," the officer asked, "so you're saying they were trying to kidnap you? Do you know why they wanted to do that? Have you had any conflicts with people recently?"

Li Huowang was holding a disposable cup with both hands. He fell into thought.

After a moment's hesitation, he opened his mouth. "I've killed a few people before. I think these guys are their accomplices—they're here for revenge. You might want to look into that lead."

The mediation room fell completely silent. No one spoke.

Then another uniformed officer walked in.

"I've pulled the surveillance footage for the complex. But from what I can see… there were no kidnappers."

Sun Jianye watched the footage with his colleague. He looked at Li Huowang with suspicion in his eyes.

"That's impossible. Good thing I kept evidence." Li Huowang reached into his pocket and placed two severed fingers on the table.

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Reading Guide Decoding

The Proof That Proves Nothing — Li Huowang Faces the Worst Answer

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

This chapter plays a very specific game with the concept of "evidence" in a modern procedural setting versus the subjective truth of the Dao-Twisted World. In Western crime dramas, physical evidence (fingers, wounds) is treated as irrefutable. But here, Li Huowang's world has already shown us that reality can be edited, overwritten, or simply missed by systems that don't recognize supernatural interference. The surveillance footage "proves" nothing happened—but Li Huowang's bloody body and the fingers on the table "prove" it did. This is classic Dao Gui Yi Xian: the procedural world (police, hospitals, cameras) is just as fallible as the Dao-Twisted World, but its errors are bureaucratic and institutional, not existential.

Also, the use of anesthetic-soaked cloth (迷药湿巾) is a classic trope in Chinese crime and pulp fiction—a quick, dirty way to incapacitate a target. Its appearance here grounds the horror in a recognizable, mundane threat before the supernatural doubt creeps in.

anesthetic-soaked cloth (迷药湿巾)

A common trope in Chinese pulp crime fiction and real-world kidnapping cases. A cloth soaked in a volatile anesthetic (usually chloroform or ether) is used to incapacitate a victim.

Chapter Overview

[LORE] justifiable self-defense | A legal principle in many jurisdictions where a person is not held criminally liable for using force to protect themselves from immediate harm. In China, it is often a key factor in court rulings, but the bar for proving "excessive" versus "necessary" force is high and context-dependent. In this scene, Li Huowang uses it as a cold calculation to guarantee legal cover for his violence.

Get ready for a brutal, gut-wrenching chapter that throws Li Huowang's biggest fear—his own broken mind—right in his face. Just as he finally proves he's not delusional and that the threats are real, the police surveillance footage shows none of it ever happened. The triumph of the kidnapping fight curdles into the deepest horror yet: if the evidence says it's not real, then what the hell is Li Huowang supposed to believe? This chapter is a masterpiece of psychological whiplash, shattering the fragile trust he'd just rebuilt.

Key Plot Points

Li Huowang, after hanging up on his mother, spirals into doubt about whether the recent eerie calls and sensations were hallucinations, questioning his own sanity.
He calls Dr. Yi Donglai to ask if he might have delusions of persecution, describing the feeling of being watched and targeted.
Spotting a mysterious woman outside his window, Li Huowang resolves to confront her, deciding that either he is crazy and will accept it, or he will get concrete proof.
He is ambushed by two men in a car with anesthetized cloth; his reaction is not fear but elation—he has finally proven he's not crazy.
Li Huowang bites through one attacker's fingers, stabs another, and fights his way out of the car, killing one and wounding the other.
At the police station, he confesses to having killed people before, believing the kidnappers were revenge seekers from his past.
The police review the surveillance footage: it shows no kidnappers, no struggle, and no car. Li Huowang's severed fingers are produced as evidence, but the implication hangs in the air—are they real either? The chapter ends with the reader and Li Huowang trapped in the same unbearable doubt.

Reading Guide

This chapter is a cruel emotional pivot. Li Huowang's joy at the ambush—his relief at finally having proof—is one of the most heartbreaking moments in the modern-world arc. The translator's note on page 1 (Li Huowang's joy as "fragile, almost childlike relief") is spot on: he's not celebrating violence; he's celebrating the validation of his own mind. The fall that follows—the police's disbelief, the null footage—is even worse than if he'd been proven crazy from the start. Watch for how his register shifts from cool tactical calculation (the car fight) to a hollow, functional confession at the station. He's not a victor; he's a man who just proved he's a monster and then had that proof taken away.

Also, pay close attention to the severed fingers. In a normal story, they're a triumphant "gotcha" piece of evidence. Here, they feel almost pathetic—a desperate, bloody attempt to force the world to accept his version of reality. The chapter title, "The Answer," is bitterly ironic: Li Huowang got his answer, but it was the wrong one.

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 does Li Huowang feel *happy* when he is attacked?: He has been terrified that his perceptions were hallucinations and that he was going insane. The physical attack proves that the threat is real, relieving him of the crushing doubt about his own mind.
What is the significance of the severed fingers?: They are a desperate, physical attempt by Li Huowang to force the world to accept his version of events. In a normal detective story, they would be irrefutable evidence; here, they become a symbol of his helplessness, because the system is treating them as if they don't exist.
Is the surveillance footage lying?: In the context of the *Dao Gui Yi Xian* universe, it is entirely possible that the kidnappers were supernatural entities that cameras cannot record, or that reality itself has been tampered with to discredit Li Huowang. The narrative leaves the ambiguity intact.