Chapter 120
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 120
>Chapter Title: Yingzi
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Li Huowang pulled the girl in front of him behind his back and stared at Hand Three before him, enunciating each word deliberately.
“Even if I die, I won’t do something like that!”
“Pfft~” One of the Ao Jing cultists nearby couldn’t help but snicker.
“Don’t sound so certain. You’re a Heart Elemental, after all.”
“What if I am? I may be mad, but I’m no inhuman beast like Danyangzi! I’d never do anything like he did!”
Hand Three eyed that follower with clear malice.
“Eye Lu, is this amusing? You can’t hold it in even in front of an outsider?”
The cultist seemed about to say something, but soon his facial features rapidly fused together.
Not just his features—the gaps between his palms and soles sealed up as well.
In no time, the man turned into a wriggling maggot.
“Wrap him in bedding. For the next month, don’t let him feel any pain.”
Hand Three was right; they were experts at healing.
As soon as the man was carried away, Li Huowang turned back to Hand Three with a heavy expression.
“Find me a place to stay in one of these caves. I’ll figure out a way to achieve ultimate agony myself. Also, I need this woman to tend to me.”
“Hmph, big talk. This old man doesn’t think you’ll come up with anything good.”
Despite his words, Hand Three agreed to Li Huowang’s request and had his underlings handle it.
Li Huowang was led to a cave room of moderate size. Though the walls were rough and uneven, the furnishings inside were complete—everything one could need, even including a latrine.
The girl from before silently trailed behind Li Huowang.
Mantou, who had been huddled under Li Huowang’s robe hem, scurried into the cave and excitedly sniffed around everywhere.
With a grim expression, Li Huowang unstrapped the sword from his back and set it on the stone table inside the cave.
Though he’d sworn so confidently in front of Hand Three just now, he had no clue how to actually achieve that extreme inner torment.
Without extreme agony, he couldn’t summon Ba Hui.
Without meeting the Ao Jing Cult’s conditions, they wouldn’t help excise Danyangzi. It felt like a dead end.
Li Huowang paced restlessly inside the cave. As he paced, his gaze fell on the girl at the doorway.
Suddenly, Li Huowang’s eyes lit up.
An idea struck him. Some things didn’t necessarily have to follow their script.
“Don’t worry, with me here, they won’t hurt you. Come over—I have some questions for you.”
Li Huowang patted the stone bench beside him.
But the girl at the door didn’t approach. Instead, she began to sob, her cries growing louder as her trembling form slowly sank to the ground.
Hearing the endless grievance in her sobs, Li Huowang let out a soft sigh.
She must have thought she was one of the Ao Jing Cult by now, only to be tossed out as a tool. It was normal to feel wronged—especially since she didn’t look very old.
Li Huowang walked over and helped her to the stone bench, looking at her as she choked back sobs. He tried to sway her.
“They don’t treat you like a person at all. Do you really plan to stay in this hellhole? Help me instead. If you help me achieve my goal, I promise—as soon as I get out of here alive, I’ll never abandon you.”
At his words, deep confusion flickered in the sobbing girl’s eyes.
“...Once I’m out, where could I even go? My home is gone... Everything... is gone...”
“What happened to your home?” Li Huowang’s voice softened. He felt a profound empathy for her situation right now.
“That village at the foot of the mountain... that was...”
Hearing this, Li Huowang’s heart clenched. That ruined dead village—this girl was likely one of its rare survivors.
“My father, my mother... my three sisters and two little brothers... they’re all gone. They all died...” The girl hung her head low, tears dripping onto her tightly clenched fists.
“What happened in that village exactly? Was it people... or something else that wiped out the whole place?”
Li Huowang realized his mistake the moment he spoke. Asking that now was like rubbing salt in her wounds.
“No place to go? No problem—come with me. I’ve got lots of brothers and sisters. We’re all scraping by together. You can join us.”
“We only have two other girls, so we’re short on yin to balance the yang. With you, we’ll have three—perfect to even things out a bit.”
After comforting her for a while and seeing her emotions stabilize, feeling the moment was right, Li Huowang asked,
“How long have you been here?”
They didn’t trust Li Huowang, and he didn’t trust them either.
Once bitten, twice shy—he didn’t want a repeat of Zhengde Temple. This time, Li Huowang had no intention of playing by their rules.
If he could get his hands on the Ao Jing Cult’s method for excising Danyangzi, he wouldn’t need their damned extreme agony at all. He could handle Danyangzi himself.
Hearing Li Huowang’s question, the girl nodded lightly, still keeping her head bowed low.
“Four years...”
Seeing her open up, Li Huowang decided to take it slow and steady.
“You’ve been here so long—you must know the place pretty well by now, right? Tell me about it. Anything at all.”
Her scarred hands fidgeted endlessly with her hem.
“The Ao Jing Cult... used to be two cults. One worshiped the Buffalo God, the other Ba Hui...”
“Then the Buffalo God absorbed some of Ba Hui’s power, and the two cults merged...”
“Hm? Is that a fact, or just what’s written in the Ao Jing Cult’s books—speculation?”
Right now, Li Huowang felt like he was hearing a myth, and the story struck him as profoundly unreal.
“I don’t know... That’s just what I heard from others... By the time I arrived, the two cults had already merged...”
The girl furtively lifted her head to glance at Li Huowang, then quickly lowered it again, not daring to meet his eyes.
“It’s fine—go on. Oh, right, I haven’t asked your name yet.”
“They... call me Ear Nine...”
Ear Nine, Hand Three, and that earlier Eye Lu—why were all the Ao Jing Cult members named after body parts plus numbers?
Li Huowang found it odd. It didn’t feel like a daoist courtesy name.
“What was your name before?”
“Jiang Yingzi...”
“Alright then, I’ll call you Yingzi from now on. Yingzi, in these four years with the Ao Jing Cult, have you ever seen them heal anyone else?”
Yingzi nodded lightly.
“Mm... a few times.”
“And they all got better?”
“Probably... They all left afterward, anyway.”
“Sounds like they really do have the ability,” Li Huowang thought to himself.
That was good news, at least. They hadn’t lied to him—the Ao Jing Cult likely did have the power to deal with Danyangzi.
“Alright, Yingzi, one more question. Besides the self-mutilation rituals from the Great Thousand Record, does the Ao Jing Cult have any other techniques or divine abilities?”
(End of chapter)