Chapter 118
Chapter 118
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 118
>Chapter Title: Ba Hui
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Chapter 118: Ba Hui
After carefully searching the temple grounds, Li Huowang returned to the mountain path.
He patted Mantou's head on the steamed bun-like dome, lips pressed tight in silence as he pressed onward.
The Saojing Cult's cross temples seemed densely built. It wasn't long before Li Huowang spotted another one.
This cross temple was clearly more intact—at least the Buffalo God's head hadn't vanished.
The Buffalo God's skull was charred black, as if it too had endured the ravages of flame.
Yet on that head was carved an expression of intense jealousy and desperate longing.
Its eyes—reduced to twin lumps of charcoal—stared fixedly upward toward the temple ceiling.
Li Huowang's gaze followed, landing on something above: a patchwork mass stitched together from colors and shapes of every kind.
Judging by the statue's expression, it desperately craved the mural painted on the ceiling. But Li Huowang couldn't yet fathom what that mass represented.
"Woo~! Woof! Woof woof woof!!" Mantou's barking made Li Huowang's body tense instantly.
He whipped around, peering in the direction the dog was snarling.
It was a side door. Light from outside didn't reach inside, leaving the entrance swallowed in pitch blackness.
In that darkness, he spotted a broad gray robe.
From the nun at An Ci Nunnery, Li Huowang had learned that Saojing Cult members wore robes to conceal their bodies' wounds.
But he could see only the lower half—no sign of the upper.
Sensing something amiss, Li Huowang immediately pulled out the human-skin letter from Abbess Jingxin and hurled it into the dark.
"This one is Xuanyang of Clear Wind Temple. I come to your sect with urgent business, seeking aid!"
Li Huowang announced himself to the robe in the darkness. But it offered no reply.
As Li Huowang wondered if this was even a living person, the robe stepped out from the shadows.
One glance told Li Huowang this was definitely Saojing Cult—no mistaking the man's scarred face, utterly skinless.
As the nuns had said, he wore a broad robe and a tall hat.
The hat was enormous, shadowing his eyes and nose. All Li Huowang could see was the bloody mess of flesh dangling from his chin.
Li Huowang swallowed hard, eyeing the man warily.
"So far, so good. At least they haven't attacked the moment they clocked me as a heart elemental."
Li Huowang glanced at the man's hands, bulging unnaturally within his sleeves, then calmly restated his request.
The other gave no verbal response, but he clearly understood Li Huowang's intent.
In silence, he turned and walked out of the cross temple.
Li Huowang drew a deep breath and followed, heart pounding with unease.
Trailing the man, Li Huowang ventured deeper into the mountains.
Watching the wide robe sway ahead stirred a question in his mind.
Wasn't the *Great Thousand Record* a Saojing Cult possession? Why hadn't the man brought it? Was it hidden inside the robe?
With that doubt nagging him, Li Huowang pressed on, occasionally crossing paths with other Saojing Cult members.
All dressed identically, they fixed him with stares from beneath their tall hats the instant they spotted him.
The eerie atmosphere terrified Mantou. Ears flat, tail tucked, it huddled close to Li Huowang's hem as it followed.
Under their unblinking gazes, a gourd-shaped mountain cave finally loomed before Li Huowang.
The sight of the cave dredged up bad memories. He hated caves.
Unlike Clear Wind Temple's depths, the interior wasn't dark—it blazed with light.
Crackling torches lined the walls, illuminating every inch.
So many torches raised the cave's temperature, leaving Li Huowang feeling restless with inner heat.
Linking this to the flames on the earlier statue, he suspected fire held great significance in the Saojing Cult.
After two full incense sticks' worth of walking in the bright cave, Li Huowang at last met the one in charge.
It was a figure sprawled on the cold stone, charred black all over. Less a man than a burnt corpse.
But the gaze piercing from that wayward form told Li Huowang it lived.
Seeing this one also cleared up Li Huowang's earlier question.
A blood-red *Great Thousand Record*, fully unfurled, lay spread across its chest.
It had clearly rested there a long time—the bamboo strips had even sprouted.
Bloody bamboo roots pierced the figure's entire body, emerging from its back laden with scraps of flesh and skin.
Seeing his guide reverently present the human-skin letter with both hands, Li Huowang knew at once: this burnt corpse held high status in the Saojing Cult.
Yet it ignored Jingxin's letter, eyes locked unblinkingly on Li Huowang.
It stared and stared, for a very long time.
"Have you been seen by Ba Hui?"
The ability to converse was a good sign. Li Huowang nodded.
"That's right."
"Every heart elemental makes a fine candidate—they draw nearer to the sea of suffering with ease. Pity they all go mad in the end." A trace of regret entered the man's tone.
His gaze flicked to the *Great Thousand Record* at Li Huowang's waist.
"I am Shou San. Pleased to meet you. Might you tell me how you performed the Cang Qiang ascension? Even among us, not everyone can manage it."
Li Huowang knew he was being praised, but it brought him no joy.
"Cang Qiang ascension? So that's the name of the ritual requiring extreme dual torment?"
After holding some details back, Li Huowang recounted his prior ordeal to Shou San.
"Heh, overkill for dealing with the Eighteenth of the Twelfth Month. But fortune from misfortune—you turned it to your gain."
Li Huowang hadn't come to chat. Seeing the man could converse normally, he restated his purpose once more.
"Very well."
Before Li Huowang could feel relief, the condition followed.
"But in exchange, you must perform the Cang Qiang ascension before our eyes."
"Why make an outsider like me conduct your sect's ritual?" Li Huowang couldn't grasp the man's thinking.
"I've never seen a heart elemental do the Cang Qiang ascension. I want to witness it—perhaps find a way to steal Ba Hui's power from the process."
"Steal... Ba Hui's power?" Li Huowang almost thought he'd misheard.
"You've seen Ba Hui. You know its might. In that instant you gazed upon it, did you not crave that power for yourself?"
Hearing this, Li Huowang finally realized: the mass atop the cross temple had depicted Ba Hui.
Unable to fully portray Ba Hui's form, they'd used that patchwork instead.
They traded agony with Ba Hui for power, yet they didn't worship it. They venerated the Buffalo God instead.
And that Buffalo God, too, lusted desperately to seize and plunder Ba Hui's power.
(End of chapter)