The Missing Hour

Through the pain, Lyu Xiucai understood what was happening. The white donkey that had been with his master's wife was dead now, and it was said that Wusheng Laomu needed to be reborn upon six white donkeys.

Now that the white donkey had been tattooed onto his back, he was no longer an ordinary mortal to be pushed around. He was Wusheng Laomu's mount.

This was his chance. He needed to seize it, no matter what painful price he had to pay. He would not give up any opportunity to grow stronger now.

Before long, a white donkey began to take shape on Lyu Xiucai's back. As the tattoo grew more complete, Lyu Xiucai started to feel as if something had been added to him.

The sensation was very strange. Lyu Xiucai had only ever felt this way before when he had been possessed by a spirit in a trance.

But if that previous possession had only been temporary, now he could maintain this state forever.

"You are now one step closer to Wusheng Laomu than the ordinary faithful. This is a glorious thing that honors your ancestors. You must treasure it well and not break the precepts," Lian Zhibei instructed Lyu Xiucai.

Feeling the change in his body, Lyu Xiucai nodded excitedly. He wished he could find some of those Fa Sect bastards to test his new strength right now.

But just then, the noise outside suddenly grew lively. When Lyu Xiucai, still bare-chested, stepped outside, he instinctively squinted his eyes.

Without him realizing it, the sky had already grown fully bright. The other White Lotus faithful were frantically packing their luggage and loading it onto carts.

Under normal circumstances, it shouldn't have been light this early, but because one hour was missing, the sun was rising much faster than before.

"Let's go! Let's go, brothers and sisters! Hurry up! We need to spread Wusheng Laomu's compassion to every person in the Later Shu lands! We'll skip lunch—just make do with dry rations!"

Hearing this, Lyu Xiucai immediately understood what was happening. After resting for so long, they were finally moving out.

He didn't have time to worry about anything else. He rushed toward his own quarters. As long as he could kill Fa Sect animals, he would always be the first.

But what surprised Lyu Xiucai was that the White Lotus faithful and Brother Li were not taking the same road as the imperial soldiers. Instead, they split off and left on their own.

Lyu Xiucai was a little confused, but when he saw that his master's expression was grim, he wisely chose not to say anything.

Just as he thought they had a long road ahead, he suddenly saw his master's face darken as he sat on the cart. "There's a smell of blood. Head south."

The caravan began to move, following Li Huowang's instructions southward.

They traveled for two hours like this, but found nothing.

No one in the group raised any objections, though, because they too could smell the growing scent of blood in the air.

The nauseating stench of blood and rot was thick, spreading through the surroundings like morning fog.

Clearly, such a strong smell of blood could not have come from just one or two corpses.

Finally, after cresting a hill, they saw the source of the smell.

A wall of heads. A massive rampart built from death and decay.

The enormous wall was formed entirely from human heads packed together. The air was thick with the stench of blood and rot. The sight filled everyone with despair and oppression.

Silence spread through the group. The atmosphere weighed on everyone present, making it hard to breathe.

By rough estimate, at least several hundred thousand people had died here.

Suddenly, Li Huowang moved. He lifted his foot and began walking forward alone.

As he drew closer, he noticed more details.

He saw that they were all men, and most of them wore helmets. These were the soldiers of the Later Shu military path!

As he got closer and closer, the smell of blood grew stronger and stronger. Li Huowang's expression grew uglier and uglier.

The Fa Sect's intentions were not hard to guess. They knew that the Later Shu emperor would try to persuade the Later Shu soldiers to surrender, so they simply killed all of them and built this skull mound!

Li Huowang walked to the base of the wall. He looked up, staring at those iron-gray faces.

Their expressions were not fierce. They didn't seem to have been killed violently.

Was it to eliminate future threats? Or to intimidate? Or both? Li Huowang didn't know.

But what he did know was that now, Later Shu was completely finished.

All the soldiers were dead. The common people had been corrupted. There was nothing left.

In the coming fight against the Fa Sect, this place was completely useless.

Looking at the dead, a thought suddenly occurred to Li Huowang. With so many people dying at once, the Siming of Death beneath Qingqiu would probably be gorging itself.

And then, the world suddenly changed. A violent tremor shook the ground. The entire wall of heads began to collapse, and a dense cascade of skulls came crashing down toward Li Huowang.

At first, Li Huowang thought there might be something hiding inside the heads, but he quickly realized the tremor was coming from deep underground. The Earth Dragon had turned over again.

"Xuanpin! I know you're watching me! What the hell is going on!" Li Huowang shouted from within the pile of heads, demanding an answer.

Just as he expected, Xuanpin's body rose from the ground. "The xu hour is gone. The Fa Sect destroyed another Dragon Vein."

Li Huowang cursed fiercely. "Didn't we get all the Dragon Veins back? Where did they get another one to destroy?"

"As I said before, there are sixteen Dragon Veins in total, once guarded by sixteen regions. It seems the Fa Sect has seized the Dragon Vein from another place."

As he finished speaking, several rotting heads nearby suddenly began to speak in unison. "Death comes from the West. Be at peace."

Clang!

Li Huowang's sword was out of its sheath in an instant, ready to slash at these reanimated heads.

"Calm down. This is an elder of Zhongyin Temple. He's one of ours." Xuanpin stepped in front of Li Huowang to explain.

"What he just said means the destroyed Dragon Vein belongs to the Anxi Kingdom. To the right of Nanping lies Siqi, but to the left of Nanping lies the Anxi Kingdom. There's a Dragon Vein there too. It seems the Fa Sect found this place too tough to crack, so they're putting their efforts there instead."

Just then, the ground shook even more violently. The world changed. The sun in the sky began to move at a visible speed.

"The you hour is gone too," Xuanpin said succinctly.

"My apologies. I have matters to attend to. I must return now. Great Elder, if it's convenient, I would ask you to come as well."

With that, Xuanpin's body vanished.

By now, Li Huowang had no need to guess where this destroyed Dragon Vein had come from. No matter where it was from, it wouldn't change the fact that the Dragon Vein had been destroyed.

"No time to waste! Let's go! Siqi!!"

Li Huowang and Li Sui simultaneously produced sheets of turmeric paper, quickly drew talismans on them, and pressed them onto the backs of the horses pulling the carts.

The draft horses reared up, neighing, and despite the violent tremors, they trampled across the heads and galloped off.

Not long after they had left, a figure emerged from the pile of heads.

"Is that the Li Huowang?"

"Yes. That's Li Huowang."