Chapter 220
Chapter 220
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 220
>Chapter Title: Two Gods
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“Ma bone? Where’d you snag that? Don’t go snagging random stuff anymore. The dead skin on my body’s almost all peeled off—nothing left to feed you.”
Mantou clearly didn’t get what Li Huowang meant. It lowered its head and nudged the horse hoof bone toward Li Huowang’s feet again with its black nose. “Woof?”
Li Huowang patted its head with his hand and turned to look at Sun Baolu across from him. “Alright, we’re about done eating. You go ahead. I know the place is different, so the grains are too—just pick some local Qingqiu stuff that keeps well.”
With a tilt of his chin toward Bai Lingmiao, the white-haired girl pulled a money pouch sewn from scraps of cloth out of her bosom and handed it over.
Sun Baolu weighed it in his hand, stood up, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and headed out. “Got it, leave it to me!”
“It’s getting late. Let’s head to an inn and grab a private room to rest. Staying outside every day is exhausting.” As Li Huowang spoke, he leaned on his crutch and stood.
But he quickly ran into a new problem. Without Sun Baolu, none of them understood a word of what the Qingqiu locals were saying.
After Gouwa’s frantic round of gesturing, they finally managed to check in.
Mantou followed Li Huowang into the tent-like guest room, circled a few times, then sat down and happily gnawed on the horse bone held down by its front paws.
Lying on the straw mat, Li Huowang let out a deep breath of relief. He closed his eyes, his body sinking back as the tension in his voice eased slightly.
A pair of slender jade hands gently lifted Li Huowang’s head and pillowed it on soft thighs. Equally soft fingers rhythmically massaged through the new hair growing on his scalp.
Li Huowang inhaled that familiar faint fragrance and started drifting off into a daze.
“Wait, these nails seem a bit long.” Li Huowang grabbed those hands and slowly opened his eyes. He realized then that it wasn’t really Bai Lingmiao—it was Two Gods.
From the angle he was lying at, Li Huowang could just barely peer under the red veil.
It was dark inside the red veil. Even with Li Huowang’s exceptional eyesight, all he could make out were eyes glowing faintly like a fox’s.
But the number was off—not the usual symmetrical pair, but three: one large and two small.
Something inside the red veil tugged gently then, blocking Li Huowang’s view.
“What exactly are you trying to do?” Li Huowang looked at her calmly.
In the past, Two Gods’ antics might have put him on high alert, but after everything he’d been through lately, compared to those horrors, her issues didn’t seem so pressing anymore.
“Hee hee.” Two Gods grabbed Li Huowang’s nail-less hand and slowly drew it under her red veil.
Li Huowang felt snake scales, animal fur, and even a hairpin that pricked his skin.
Suddenly, she yanked his hand downward and shoved it into the bulging front of her clothes.
Then she slowly bent at the waist, her red veil drawing closer and closer to Li Huowang’s face.
Something was peering through the red veil, faintly materializing before Li Huowang’s eyes.
A skull. An animal’s cranium. And other things too vague to name.
Li Huowang looked at them and said calmly: “I don’t know where you came from or if there’s some scheme by the immortals behind you, but I’ll say this once: if you dare lay a hand on Bai Lingmiao, I won’t let you off the hook!”
“You’ve watched from the sidelines so many times now—you know damn well I’ve got the power to do it. Even if... using that power comes at a huge cost.”
Li Huowang issued his threat and waited for her response.
What caught him off guard was that Two Gods didn’t rage or show fear at his words. Instead, she started crying.
It was an eerie, ghostly wail that sent chills down the spine—terrifying, yes, but Two Gods was undoubtedly crying.
She leaned down and nestled against Li Huowang’s body, sobbing through choked gasps.
Li Huowang looked at the red veil and instinctively wrapped his arms around her. He didn’t know why he did it; it felt like the one sobbing in his arms wasn’t Two Gods, but the albino girl who’d shared life and death with him.
Li Huowang hesitated, then reached out. After a moment’s thought, he began gently stroking her head, one pat at a time.
Amid the faint sobs, the exhausted Li Huowang drifted off to sleep.
After all that travel with wind and rain for shelter, his body truly needed the rest.
“Senior Brother Li, wake up! We’re at Oxheart Mountain—we’re finally home!”
“Home?” Li Huowang opened his eyes and took in the massive peak before him, the little village at its base, and the vast expanses of golden rice fields nearby.
The scene was so serene, a perfect match for Peach Blossom Land.
His gaze shifted upward to examine the mountain, and in his good mood, he asked in surprise: “This doesn’t look like Oxheart Mountain at all. Why do you all name things so randomly?”
As he spoke, he turned and caught sight of Bai Lingmiao’s profile standing beside him.
“I don’t know—Grandpa taught me, and his great-grandpa taught him.” Bai Lingmiao turned with a smile, revealing half her face in all its horrifying glory.
Green snake scales crawled like centipedes across the white fox fur. The black needles bristling from the fur didn’t slow their progress.
But when the scales reached the center of her face, they went no farther—blocked by two beastly eyes glowing with sinister green light, squeezed together.
“Senior Brother Li, what’s wrong?” Bai Lingmiao took a step forward. Li Huowang took one back.
His sharp senses picked up something behind him. He whipped around to find two even more grotesque and twisted beast faces pressed right up to him. “Husband, do you hate me looking like this?”
“Ha!” Soaked in cold sweat, Li Huowang’s eyes snapped open. The dingy hide tent ceiling loomed above him.
Seeing Bai Lingmiao asleep beside him with her hands tucked to her chest, and Jinshan Zhao and Peng Longteng standing in the corner, Li Huowang realized he’d just been dreaming.
“So real... It’s been forever since I had a nightmare.” Li Huowang rolled over, pulled Bai Lingmiao into his arms, and closed his eyes again.
“That was a nightmare. So is this a new one now?” Li Huowang shook his head. “No, this isn’t a nightmare—because Peng Longteng and Jinshan Zhao are here.”
He’d barely shut his eyes when he opened them again, sensing someone lying behind him.
A forked red tongue slithered out from behind, twisting as it licked gently at the red-and-white patchwork of scars on Li Huowang’s neck. “Husband, do you hate me looking like this?”
Li Huowang tightened his arms slightly, pulling Bai Lingmiao even closer into his embrace. He buried his face in her white hair and murmured with his eyes closed: “I don’t hate it. But you’re not Bai Lingmiao.”
(End of chapter)