Chapter 231
Chapter 231
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 231
>Chapter Title: The Source
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“Senior Brother Li? What’s wrong with you?” When Gouwa cautiously saw Li Huowang put that thing into his mouth and start chewing, his heart skipped a beat.
“Trouble. Senior Brother Li’s having another episode.”
Li Huowang completely ignored what he was thinking. He savored the taste of that thin skin carefully. The more he chewed, the more excited his face became. “This taste is unmistakable! It’s Black Tai Sui skin! My hysteria can be saved!”
Although the skin had completely dried out, Li Huowang, having seen it once before, knew that Black Tai Sui turned into a puddle of water after death, leaving only this layer of skin behind.
The reason it had turned like this was entirely because the Black Tai Sui had dehydrated after dying.
Right now, he had absolutely no leads. Talking about finding a way to resolve the heart essence was nothing but a pipe dream, with hope extremely slim.
Black Tai Sui could help him block out the hallucinations, even if only temporarily—that alone would be incredibly useful!
“Mantou! Where did you find this thing?” Li Huowang turned his head to ask Mantou.
“Woof woof...” The floppy-eared earth dog tilted its head left and right at its master, clearly not understanding.
Li Huowang shoved the Black Tai Sui skin right under its nose. “Smell! Go find the thing that this came from!”
“Woof woof!!” This time, Mantou seemed to understand Li Huowang’s intent. It sniffed at the black skin and dashed off toward the nearby grassland.
“Leave the ox cart with Sun Baolu first! We’re not leaving! We’ll go once we find the Black Tai Sui!” With that, Li Huowang leaned on his crutch and hurried after it.
Though they had no idea what Li Huowang was up to, the others followed anyway. Given his current state, they were really worried he was having another episode.
Mantou ran a long way—so far that Li Huowang’s armpits started bleeding from the friction against his crutches.
“Clop clop clop.” The rapid sound of hooves rang out. Li Huowang turned to see Sun Baolu riding over with some Qingqiu folk.
“Senior Brother Li! What are you looking for? Get on the horse! I’ll take you!”
Li Huowang stepped into the stirrup and swung himself up onto the horse. He pointed at Mantou still sprinting ahead in the distance. “Follow it!”
The horse was obviously much faster than Li Huowang on foot, so they finally stopped falling further behind Mantou.
Gradually, the sun climbed higher in the sky, and the air grew scorching.
“So far? Where on earth did Mantou find the Black Tai Sui?”
As Li Huowang pondered this, he reached back to touch the sword at his side. Black Tai Sui might have been very dangerous to his past self, but to him now, it was completely harmless.
He shouldn’t be worrying about whether Black Tai Sui would threaten him anymore. Instead, he should be thinking about how to capture one alive, how to imprison it, and then steadily eat its flesh bit by bit.
Just as Li Huowang was mulling over these questions, Mantou, racing ahead in the distance, suddenly vanished.
When the horse caught up, Li Huowang realized Mantou hadn’t disappeared—it had just run into a low-lying depression in the grassland.
To the left of the depression was an irregular round hole, shaped like the rabbit burrows common on the plains.
But no matter how you looked at it, this hole didn’t seem dug by a rabbit. It was too big—at least ten feet wide.
Li Huowang dismounted and went to Mantou’s side, where it was circling. He spotted the traces on the ground—Black Tai Sui traces.
The scattered black skin had been blown away by the Qingqiu winds, leaving only tiny fragments. But the black water stains on the ground hadn’t vanished.
Li Huowang recognized that black water. It was the black liquid Black Tai Sui spewed from its body before dying. Wherever the black water had touched the grass on the ground, it had withered dead.
The trail of black water stretched out from inside that round hole. From the scene, Li Huowang could piece together what had happened to this Black Tai Sui.
It had probably lived in the cave before, suffered some fatal injury, crawled out with its last bit of strength, and ultimately died outside.
Then, the skin it left behind after death had been picked up by Mantou and brought back to him.
“Hmm, hopefully there’s more than one Black Tai Sui in that cave.” With that thought, Li Huowang gripped his crutch warily and slowly approached the dim round hole.
“Wait!!” Sun Baolu charged up on horseback, stopping right in front of the cave mouth to block Li Huowang’s path.
Utterly terrified, he jumped down from the horse and yanked Li Huowang back toward the outside. “Senior Brother Li! You can’t go in! You really can’t go in!”
Cold sweat poured down Sun Baolu’s face. He seemed deathly afraid of that round hole, not even wanting to glance at it.
“You’ve been here before?” Li Huowang didn’t need to be blind to see the man’s terror at the cave mouth.
“Senior Brother Li! I’m begging you! Let’s go, really, quick! This place is seriously dangerous!!”
Sun Baolu was practically on his knees pleading with Li Huowang, but he remained unmoved.
“What a joke. I finally found a lead on Black Tai Sui. No way I’m letting it slip away again.”
“Baolu, calm down. It’s safe here now. No one can hurt you.” Under Li Huowang’s soothing, Sun Baolu gradually calmed.
Li Huowang borrowed a water gourd from Gao Zhijian nearby and handed it to Baolu. “Take a sip. Your lips are so chapped they’re peeling.”
Once he saw Sun Baolu gulp down every last drop in the gourd, Li Huowang spoke to him again. “Do you know this place? What’s inside? I need to find something in there. Your info might help me out big time.”
“Senior Brother Li, you really can’t go in there! Qingqiu has no evil beings not because they all vanished into thin air, but because they’re all hiding! Hiding under the grass! That’s their nest!!”
Seeing Sun Baolu’s trembling finger pointing straight at the cave mouth, Li Huowang glanced down at the lush green grassland underfoot.
So, the entire vibrant Qingqiu was crawling with evil beings underneath? Li Huowang felt a chill run through him unbidden.
But after thinking it over, he realized it made sense in this mad world. Otherwise, Black Tai Sui wouldn’t have appeared here out of nowhere.
“That’s it? Nothing else? Do your people know anything more?”
“Senior Brother Li, please don’t go! No one else knows what’s inside either! The Great Khan of Qingqiu has even decreed that no one’s allowed to talk about the things in that cave. Some of the stuff in there—if you so much as say its name or picture it in your mind, it brings evil upon you!”
Hearing this, Li Huowang pondered for a moment before speaking again. “Alright, got it.”
With that, he leaned on his crutch and headed toward the cave behind the horse.
“Senior Brother Li! I’ve told you everything so clearly! How can you still go in?! You’ll really die!” Sun Baolu jumped up and down in frantic worry.
Li Huowang looked at him, recalling the hallucination he’d endured that morning. He craved Black Tai Sui’s ability to block hallucinations more than ever.
“I’ve already tangled with plenty of evil beings myself. I’m not the greenhorn I used to be. If I run into one, I might actually have a shot at winning.”
He truly didn’t want that entanglement between two worlds anymore. Truth be told, Li Huowang had little confidence in himself. He was deeply afraid that a few more hallucinations would drag him back under.