Chapter 237
Chapter 237
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 237
>Chapter Title: Darkness
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“Senior Brother Li, who is Wang Wei?” Hearing Li Huowang muttering to himself, Bai Lingmiao couldn’t help but ask from the side.
Li Huowang shook his head indifferently. “Heh, Wang Wei is nobody. He doesn’t exist at all.”
With Bai Lingmiao supporting him, Li Huowang led the others gradually back the way they came.
Compared to the way in, the return journey felt far less grueling.
After all, no one had died, and they had even found the Black Tai Sui. Everyone’s steps were light.
“Senior Brother Li, we’re not rushing back this time, right? Can we rest properly at Old Sun’s place? I want to eat a few more meals of lamb. Coming to this godforsaken place has cost me at least half a year of my life.”
The one speaking was Gouwa. With patches of white and yellow on his face, he pulled a bitter expression as he looked at Li Huowang.
Glancing around at the exhaustion on everyone else’s faces, Li Huowang nodded. “Sure. I owe you all for helping out on this trip. You deserve a good rest.”
People weren’t made of iron, after all. He really should consider everyone else’s limits.
Hearing this, Gouwa excitedly clenched his fists. Just thinking of that flavorful lamb made saliva pool in his mouth.
“Man, the lamb in Qingqiu lives up to its reputation. Nowhere else compares.”
“Hang on, Gouwa, what’s that you’re clutching in your hand?” Li Huowang noticed some white fur scraps drifting about with the movement of his fist.
Gouwa raised his fist in front of Li Huowang and opened it. “Oh, this? It’s the white fur from those lion things. I cut off a bunch. Since it turned Sun Baolu into that, it’s definitely no ordinary stuff.”
“Maybe in a big city, it’ll fetch a good price. It could help cover our expenses, right? We’ve been burning through food and gear on this road.”
The white tufts wrapped in cloth appeared before Li Huowang. They looked like a pile of cotton.
Li Huowang shook his head. Gouwa couldn’t go three sentences without mentioning money. “The lion dance thing is dead. Whether this stuff even works is debatable, and you still grabbed it?”
Hearing this, Gouwa’s heart sank. He cautiously extended his pinky and lightly brushed it over the white tufts.
Then he watched in horror as his fingernail twisted with the motion, flipping to the pad of his finger, while the textured pad rotated to where his nail had been.
“This... this...” Gouwa stared at his upside-down pinky and looked helplessly at Li Huowang. “Senior Brother Li, it’s flipped! Flipped!”
“No need to panic. It works the same either way. Don’t rush to sell it. Better figure out how to use it against enemies—like wrapping it on a needle and blowing it out through a thin tube.”
Li Huowang’s suggestion lit up Gouwa’s eyes. “Oh! Right! Senior Brother Li, you’re literate—you’re way smarter than a dirt farmer like me.”
His heart raced with excitement. This meant he had a supernatural power that could warp people’s bodies now.
Real or not, if he showed it off to those women, wouldn’t they come running to be his wife?
And from now on, he wouldn’t just be a lackey. He could actually help Senior Brother Li too.
With that thought, Gouwa ignored his flipped pinky, yanked off his upper garment, and carefully wrapped up the white tufts.
As Gouwa schemed away, he noticed everyone else’s steps slowing to a halt.
“Hang on, something’s off. We’ve been walking so long—where’s that copper tripod from before?”
Li Huowang’s words hit like a bucket of cold water, dousing their joy and sending shivers through the more timid ones.
Everyone stared blankly into the surrounding darkness, searching for any familiar landmark from the way in.
But to their despair, the blackness around them was all identical.
“This place is wrong! It’s making us lost!” The earlier ease was gone; anxiety and tension etched every face.
“Don’t panic! Check the footprints! Follow them back!” At Li Huowang’s command, everyone thrust their glowing fluorescent stones to the ground.
Seeing the clear footprints steadied their nerves a bit.
“Let’s go! Backtrack along the footprints.”
Everyone moved as Li Huowang directed. Even where prints were faint, it didn’t matter.
The blood drops steadily dripping from Li Huowang pointed the way back.
A quarter-hour passed, half an hour, then a full half-hour—longer than their original trek.
Yet the lion dance corpse hadn’t appeared, and the blood drops kept stretching into the darkness.
Sun Baolu looked at Li Huowang with despair in his eyes. “Senior Brother Li, we’re not getting out. This cave’s gonna swallow us whole.”
In such a dire bind, even Li Huowang’s face darkened. But suddenly, his expression turned puzzled.
“Shh!” Li Huowang crouched low, eyes shut tight, brows furrowed as he listened intently.
In that odd stance, he began to move, slowly heading eastward. “Put the stones away. I hear voices.”
The others complied. As darkness swallowed them, panic rose. They gripped each other to avoid getting separated.
“Where’s voices? I don’t hear anything.” The moment Gouwa spoke, Li Huowang clapped a hand over his mouth.
They pressed on side by side for about the time it takes to burn a joss stick before Li Huowang halted. The others strained to listen but heard nothing.
Yet a shrill elderly voice pierced Li Huowang’s ears. “Let me test you: born as a human, what makes one human?”
A childish girl’s voice replied next: “Humans are made of flesh, so flesh is human.”
“Wrong! The fleshly body is mere skin and bones.”
“But Master doesn’t say that. He says don’t overthink it—humans are made of meat.”
“Don’t believe our master. That old coot makes it all up! It’s all fake.”
“Could you stop beating around the bush? If you won’t say it, then don’t. I’m annoyed!” The girl’s voice turned irritable.
The elder’s tone grew smug. “Man is one, one is man. Because everyone has this one, it births two, transforming into the dual forms of life and death. Then two births three, extending into the later three corpses and seven emotions.”
“Cultivating the Dao means cultivating that one. So we discard the seven emotions, sever the three corpses, break life and death, and finally become that one!”
(End of chapter)