Why does Qian Fu fake a personality switch?

He wants Li Huowang to untie him by pretending to be a confused, harmless alter. Li Huowang catches the deception mid-sentence and walks away.

Why doesn't Ba Shengqing join the group?

He is a solitary projection who believes he can solve his own problems without allies. He only came to verify the team's activity, not to cooperate.

Is Li Huowang lying about taking his medication?

Yes. He stopped taking his psychiatric meds after capturing the surveillance group, believing he is not actually mentally ill. This is a dangerous gamble that the novel's reality-bending logic may not forgive.

The Audience With Ba

1,161 words

Li Huowang, satisfied with his weapon, prepared to leave the RV.

Regardless of whether Qing Wanglai could talk things out or not, since they had completely burned the bridge, he had to stay constantly alert to the possibility of the other side making a move against him.

Seeing Li Huowang about to step down from the RV, Qian Fu immediately grew anxious. "Li Huowang! It's fine if you don't believe me! Go ask the others! They all know what Qing Wanglai did! They all know! They just won't tell you!"

One hand on the RV door, Li Huowang turned his head to look at him. "Then answer me one question. If they all know, why are they still following Qing Wanglai?"

Seeing that Qian Fu had fallen silent, Li Huowang spoke to him. "What Qing Wanglai did in the past—what does that have to do with me? Even if he killed someone, it's not my job to catch him. What do I care what they knew before?"

"We're not gathered here because we're one big happy family. We're together to huddle for warmth against the enemy outside. You understand that? Do you think I actually like dealing with a bunch of psychos with unknown backgrounds?"

Having said that, Li Huowang was ready to step off the RV. But at that moment, Qian Fu's expression twitched, his body jerking sporadically.

"Mm?" Li Huowang pulled his foot back inside.

"Li Huowang… where is this? Why am I tied up?" A completely different expression appeared on Qian Fu's face as he asked Li Huowang.

"Oh? Switched personalities, have you?" Li Huowang walked over, preparing to untie his ropes. "You've got it easy, hiding here without having to do anything. We've already done all the dirty work."

"Is that so? What have you been up to?" Qian Fu looked at Li Huowang with a surprised expression, waiting for him to elaborate.

"According to you, we raided an alien UFO base."

"Really? An alien UFO? How'd it go? Tell me all about it."

Li Huowang's hands suddenly stopped moving. He took two steps back, scrutinizing the Qian Fu before him. He quickly noticed something was off.

"No. You're not that Qian Fu. You're faking being his other personality. But you're not good at it. Stay put." Li Huowang turned and left, completely ignoring Qian Fu's shouts.

Back in the basement, Li Huowang told the others about Qian Fu pretending to be his other personality, warning them to stay alert so they wouldn't be tricked.

But just then, a stranger unexpectedly appeared at the basement entrance. Ignoring everyone else, he walked straight up to talk to Qing Wanglai.

He was a very odd man with a crew cut. His neck and even half his face were covered in tattoos—a pattern of thorny vines.

His ear lobes were stretched huge by two rings. As he talked with Qing Wanglai, a tongue stud glinted faintly.

Judging by the others' expressions, they all seemed to know this person. Li Huowang slowly released his grip on the knife hilt.

But this man was clearly extremely wary. The moment Li Huowang approached, he immediately shut his mouth and sized Li Huowang up with intense vigilance.

"This is—" Li Huowang started to say something, but the man just shot Qing Wanglai a guarded look and abruptly left.

Watching the back of his head, Li Huowang realized the guy's crew cut was also a tattoo—he was completely bald; the short hair was just ink on his scalp.

"What's his story?" Li Huowang asked Qing Wanglai, puzzled.

"Remember when I said we're not the only ones who realized we're projections? Besides us, there are some who can't be communicated with, and some who don't want to join. He's one of the ones who doesn't want to join."

"So why come see you today? Changed his mind? Wants to work with us?"

"No. He always thinks he can handle whatever problem comes up by himself. He just sensed we were making a move and came to confirm."

"I don't get it. Times like this, and he still won't join up."

"Different strokes. He's a solitary type. If he doesn't want to be involved, we can't force him to help."

"What's his name?"

"Ba. Ba Shengqing. Runs a tattoo parlor. He's a skilled tattoo artist. If you ever need work done, you could patronize his business."

"Ba Shengqing? What kind of name is that?"

"The Ba surname exists, just very rare. I suspect he's from an ethnic minority, but he doesn't like to tell us." Wu Qi spoke up from the side.

Filing the name away in his memory, Li Huowang pulled out his phone to check the time. "I'm heading back. If I don't go home for too long, my family will start to wonder. Keep me posted on any progress here."

He glanced at the prisoners on the floor, then turned and left the basement.

"Hey, next time you come, remember to bring some snacks or something. This shithole has nothing," Chen Hongyu complained.

"Got it." As Li Huowang was getting onto a shared bicycle, he paused. The phrase felt strangely familiar.

"Huowang? What is it?" Yang Na asked.

Li Huowang just shook his head and left.

Just as he was exiting Orange Island, his phone rang. It was an unexpected caller: Yi Donglai.

"Hello, Dr. Yi. What's up?" Li Huowang answered.

"Just a follow-up call. How have you been lately? Any auditory or visual hallucinations? Or any of the other symptoms you had before?"

"No, I'm fine. I'm really cured. Thanks, Dr. Yi. My mom didn't waste that banner she sent you."

Just then, Li Huowang spotted a motorcycle parked at an intersection down the road. The rider was none other than Ba Shengqing, who had just been talking to Qing Wanglai.

As Li Huowang looked at him, the man looked back. At that moment, Li Huowang noticed a detail—it seemed this man even had tattoos on his eyeballs.

Tattooing an eyeball… Li Huowang had never seen that before.

"Hello? Li Huowang, are you listening?"

"Oh, I'm here, Dr. Yi. Go ahead."

"I'm asking you, are you still taking your medication on time?"

"Yeah, I'm taking it," Li Huowang answered dismissively. He wasn't, of course.

Ever since he caught those people, he had completely stopped his meds.

There was truly someone watching him. There was truly someone trying to kidnap him. He wasn't sick at all. Why would he take medicine?

Those psychiatric drugs had terrible side effects. If he kept taking them, he'd probably end up sick even if he wasn't in the first place.

"Good. Remember, you have to take it on time. If you don't, some symptoms can set in, and you won't be able to tell them apart yourself."

Seeing the man named Ba riding his motorcycle closer, Li Huowang quickly said, "Okay, I understand, Dr. Yi. I've got some things to deal with. I'll talk to you another day."

Share to

Reading Guide Decoding

Trust As Taxonomy: Li Huowang's Three Interrogations

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

"Projections" (投影) In the novel's metaphysics, a "projection" is a being who has realized that their entire reality—including their sense of self—is an image cast from a higher-dimensional source. This isn't a metaphor; it's a material condition. Characters who "wake up" to this status are rare and socially fragmented. They can't even fully trust each other, because a projection implies a caster, and the caster might be able to see through its own shadow's eyes. This chapter's brief mention—"we're not the only ones who realized"—quietly reveals a much wider network of broken, isolated projections who have not unified into a coherent faction.

The Ba Surname (巴姓) Wu Qi's comment that the Ba surname is "very rare" and possibly from an ethnic minority isn't idle trivia. Ba (巴) is historically associated with the ancient Ba people of Sichuan and Chongqing, a non-Han civilization absorbed during the Qin-Han period. Ba Shengqing's full-body tattoos and solitary personality fit the trope of the independent ethnic outlier—someone whose loyalty is to his own lineage, not the mainstream sect or modern system.

The Crew Cut as Tattoo Li Huowang's discovery that Ba Shengqing's "crew cut" is actually a tattoo mimicking hair texture is a masterclass in the novel's worldbuilding. In the Dao-Twisted world, tattoos carry ritual, protective, and parasitic functions; in the modern world, that same energy is sublimated into aesthetic paranoia. A man who tattoos his own eyeballs and scalp is someone who fears having his identity stolen or overwritten—every visible surface is branded as a warning.

Chapter Overview

Li Huowang exits the car, enters a circular confrontation, and exits again—but the geometry of power in this chapter isn't a straight line. After arming himself, he walks into three back-to-back interrogations: a double-bluff with a prisoner who tries to perform being his own sanity, the silent audit of a suspicious outsider who refuses to join the party, and finally a clinical phone call that feels more like a reality-test than a check-in. The chapter doesn't explode; it tightens. The real tension is not an attack but a series of locked doors that Li Huowang has to recognize before they lock him in.

Key Plot Points

Li Huowang disengages from Qian Fu's plea with cold logic: "What do I care what they knew before?" He explicitly frames their alliance not as trust but as temporary survival huddling against a shared enemy, delivering this with the same flat tone he'd use to explain why you don't share a foxhole with someone you can't trust.
Qian Fu performs a false personality switch—pretending to be his own sane, curious self—to get Li Huowang to untie him. Li Huowang catches the con mid-sentence ("You're not good at it") and abandons him without a second glance, confirming that this group's central currency is the ability to detect performance.
A tattooed stranger (Ba Shengqing) enters the basement, exchanges a guarded conversation with Qing Wanglai, and leaves the moment Li Huowang approaches. We learn he is one of the "projected" who refuses to join the collective—a loner who senses the team's activity and comes to verify rather than cooperate.
Li Huowang returns to the surface world, where Dr. Yi Donglai's follow-up call forces a confrontation between the medication logic of psychiatry and Li Huowang's lived certainty of persecution. He lies about taking his meds and immediately gets distracted by Ba Shengqing's parked motorcycle—a silent, visual reminder that the two worlds are bleeding into each other.

Reading Guide

This chapter is a masterclass in trust-as-taxonomized-resource. Every single conversation is a verification test: Qian Fu's con, Ba Shengqing's silent audit, Dr. Yi's clinical probe. Li Huowang treats all three as incoming unknowns that must be sorted into "real enough to cooperate with" vs. "must be kept at arm's length." The chapter's emotional core isn't action but threshold management. Pay special attention to the psychological loop: Li Huowang lies to Dr. Yi about taking his meds, and the sentence "I'm not sick at all" is delivered with a certainty that feels too clean—a red flag for anyone familiar with the novel's pattern of reality-bending deception. The chapter ends not with a bang but with a motorcycle, a phone call, and a silent observer cutting across Li Huowang's field of view—the true threat is never the one that announces itself. Get ready to read between the lines, fellow readers—this chapter is a chess match played entirely in the space between sentences.

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 Qian Fu fake a personality switch?: He wants Li Huowang to untie him by pretending to be a confused, harmless alter. Li Huowang catches the deception mid-sentence and walks away.
Why doesn't Ba Shengqing join the group?: He is a solitary projection who believes he can solve his own problems without allies. He only came to verify the team's activity, not to cooperate.
Is Li Huowang lying about taking his medication?: Yes. He stopped taking his psychiatric meds after capturing the surveillance group, believing he is not actually mentally ill. This is a dangerous gamble that the novel's reality-bending logic may not forgive.