Chapter 230
Chapter 230
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 230
>Chapter Title: Unexpected
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“Her being fake doesn’t need your reminder! Even if my mom is a hallucination, I don’t want to hurt her feelings!”
The veins on Li Huowang’s body bulged as he roared furiously, bound head to toe in chains.
The next moment, he wilted down again. Pain once more covered his face as he knelt on the ground, raising his head and slamming it repeatedly against the earth.
The craters left by his head grew larger with each smash.
Finally, Li Huowang quieted down. He tried his best to control his emotions and steady himself.
“Mom, could you step out for a bit? Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll have a good talk with Doctor Wang. It’s fine—I’m tied up tight. I can’t hurt him, and I won’t.”
Just then, Mantou wormed its way out from the crowd, the thing in its mouth dangling as it tried to approach Li Huowang. But Gao Zhijian quickly scooped it up. “No, no... don’t go!”
“What exactly do you want? I’m telling you, if you dare use them again, you and I are through!”
“What responsibility? Just take your money! Can’t you just go through the motions and tell my mom it’s hopeless?”
“I told you, people like you can’t help with my problems!”
“Fine, I said it wrong. Let me rephrase—you hallucinations can’t help at all!”
“What test? I’m not testing!! This side is fake! All of it’s fake!”
Li Huowang whipped his head away and buried his face into the turf, shoving his entire head underground.
After a while, with a “boom!”, Li Huowang’s head burst the turf free. His expression twisted savagely as he screamed madly at the empty air. “You think you’re so great? All you do is stand there flapping your gums!”
“You claim to understand me! What the hell do you understand? Do you know what I’ve been through?! How could you possibly empathize?!”
“Treat both sides as real!! Easy for you to say! If you’ve got the guts, try being in my shoes!! Have you ever experienced one side eating chocolate while the other gets nails fed into its mouth?!”
“I don’t care about myself! I could swallow nails for all it matters! But Li Huowang has people he cares about—I’m scared!”
“I’m scared that one day, on one side I’m picking up food with chopsticks, while on the other I’m jamming them into Bai Lingmiao’s eyes!”
“I won’t give up! Someday I’ll find a way to deal with you hallucinations! I won’t suffer like this forever! Someday I’ll be normal too!!”
Suddenly, Li Huowang seemed to see something. An incredulous look crossed his face, his breathing growing more rapid. His pupils trembled.
Li Huowang spun around violently. His bound body wormed into the dirt like a maggot, his mud-caked head shaking desperately from side to side.
“No! Li Huowang, you’ve fallen for it twice already! You can’t fall again! That’s definitely fake!!”
“You absolutely can’t get lost in confusion again! They’re still fleeing for their lives over there! What happens to them if you sink back in!”
Under everyone’s gazes, Li Huowang rolled ceaselessly across the green lawn, churning the neat grass blades into a ruined mess.
An hour later, Li Huowang stopped. He lay there stock-still, his rising and falling chest the only sign he wasn’t a corpse.
“I’m good now. Untie me.”
Exhaustion filled his hoarse voice.
As the others surged forward, Bai Lingmiao held them back.
“Don’t come over. I’ll go alone. Senior Brother Li doesn’t want to see anyone else right now.”
Once the crowd dispersed, Bai Lingmiao knelt beside the mud-covered Li Huowang and gently unfastened the chains. She cradled his head in her lap, softly massaging his temples with her fingers.
Li Huowang drew a deep breath, then exhaled all the stale air from his lungs as thoroughly as he could. His vacant eyes stared at the sky as he murmured, “Miaomiao, they’re pressing so hard. I’m really so tired...”
Bai Lingmiao’s heart ached to the point of tears, but at a time like this, she could offer no real help. She could only hold Li Huowang’s head and press gently again and again.
Li Huowang looked up at her, gazing at Bai Lingmiao’s delicate features. Hesitation flickered in his expression. After staring a while longer, he spoke softly again. “Miaomiao, from now on, be a little less good to me. If you’re too good, it feels too illusory. I’m afraid this side is the hallucination.”
Tears finally spilled down Bai Lingmiao’s cheeks. She collapsed onto Li Huowang’s chest, sobbing.
Li Huowang raised his right hand before his face. With his left, he gripped the dagger and slashed hard. His pinky finger came clean off.
He closed his eyes, quietly savoring the pain. The hesitation between his brows gradually faded. “Ridiculous. How could pain this intense be fake?”
“Woof woof~?” Mantou circled Li Huowang cautiously, something in its mouth.
“Shoo shoo.” Li Huowang picked up the severed finger and tossed it toward Mantou’s paws.
“Woof!” Mantou spat out the black, snakeskin-like thing in its mouth, pinned the finger down with its front paws, and eagerly gnawed at it with one side of its teeth.
Li Huowang stuck his still-bleeding right hand into his mouth and sucked. Then he patted Bai Lingmiao’s back. “It’s fine now. Don’t cry. Get up—look, everyone’s sneaking peeks at us.”
Once Bai Lingmiao, her eyes red and swollen, lifted herself from Li Huowang’s chest, he unwound the ribbon from her wrist and gently tied it over her eyes. “The sun’s harsh during the day. Remember to keep this on, or it’ll hurt your eyes.”
Holding the now-blindfolded Bai Lingmiao by the hand, Li Huowang turned toward his carriage.
After Li Huowang’s episode, the Qingqiu folk in the tent village looked at him a bit strangely.
Li Huowang didn’t mind. They were leaving anyway, and he’d probably never see them again. What they thought or gossiped about him didn’t matter.
“Baolu, until we meet again. We’re off. If it’s convenient, write.”
Li Huowang stood by the ox cart, speaking to Sun Baolu, who was embracing that Qingqiu girl.
Sun Baolu looked helpless. “Senior Brother Li, I’m illiterate.”
Li Huowang chuckled dryly. “Alright then, that’s that. Take care.” With that, he led the rest away from the tent cluster.
As for what Sun Baolu had under his clothes, Li Huowang couldn’t be bothered to ask. He wasn’t the nosy type.
Gouwa, Gao Zhijian, and the others hugged Sun Baolu tightly, many with reddened eyes. They were brothers who’d lived and died together—maybe they’d never meet again. It was impossible not to care.
Mantou, being just a dog, clearly didn’t grasp such sentiments. It kept circling Li Huowang with that thing in its mouth.
When Mantou’s tail brushed his calf for the fifth time, Li Huowang sighed softly and looked down at it. “Spit out whatever’s in your mouth. Keep dragging random crap over here, and I’ll stew you, believe it or not?”
Mantou dropped the thing at Li Huowang’s feet and sat, tail wagging, gazing up at him.
“What is this? Shed snakeskin? Are there snakes that big in Qingqiu?”
Gouwa hooked the item Mantou had brought up into the air with his knife.
The next instant, a black shadow darted over, startling everyone.
It was Li Huowang. The man who’d seemed utterly indifferent moments ago now cradled the thing in trembling hands, his face alight with intense agitation.
“This is... Black Tai Sui!”