Chapter 448
Chapter 448
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 448
>Chapter Title: Ankle Ring
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Seeing Bai Lingmiao's huge reaction, Li Huowang looked somewhat speechless. "What are you talking about? I've told you before—this is the Black Tai Sui inside my body that suppresses my hallucinations. I just don't need it to suppress them anymore, so it came out."
With that, Li Huowang picked up Li Sui's bamboo hat, revealing the clusters of black, sticky tentacles underneath.
Hearing this, Bai Lingmiao immediately latched onto the key point, her face lighting up with ecstatic joy. "Oh?! So that means you won't have to fall into hallucinations anymore?"
"Not exactly—I still have to go there. Things on that side aren't fully resolved yet, but now I can barely control it."
Bai Lingmiao was overjoyed beyond measure, looking far happier than Li Huowang himself. "That's fantastic! You're the first among us to fix your own flaw!"
Looking at her delighted smile, Li Huowang felt a twinge of guilt in his heart. Compared to how he treated her, she undoubtedly cared for him far more.
After a moment's thought, Li Huowang pulled a gold ring threaded with a red string from his robes. He knelt down and gently slipped off Bai Lingmiao's white shoe.
"I still remember—back when we left Clear Wind Temple, we had no money for food, so you melted down your gold ankle ring to buy me steamed buns."
Gazing at the gold ankle ring on her fair, jade-like ankle, Li Huowang spoke with a complicated expression. "I promised you back then that once I had money, I'd buy you a bigger one. Sorry—so much has happened along the way that I only just had the chance to get it for you now."
Bai Lingmiao's white lashes fluttered slightly, but she said nothing more. She simply leaned forward gently, nestling into Li Huowang's embrace.
Li Huowang looked inside Bai Lingmiao's body, where joy and love among the Ten Emotions overshadowed desire and malice. At this moment, she was exactly the same as when the baleful energy hadn't entered her—no change at all.
As Li Huowang gently stroked Bai Lingmiao's silky hair, inhaling her faint fragrance and savoring this rare moment of peace, Li Sui shuffled over to the nearby table beside them, coiled up on it, and stared unblinkingly with its two eyeballs.
"Dad, what are you doing?"
It was extremely curious—it had never seen anything like this, and Li Huowang had never explained it to it.
"Is your kid an idiot or something?" Bai Lingmiao mumbled from where her head was buried in Li Huowang's chest.
With a soft chuckle, Li Huowang released Bai Lingmiao and walked over to Li Sui, whispering a few instructions. Soon, Li Sui clumsily clambered out the open wooden window like an octopus, off to play with Mantou.
Once he closed the window and turned around, an exhilarated Bai Lingmiao threw herself straight at him.
Li Huowang caught her in a panic, about to speak, but she sealed his lips with her soft, slick ones. At this moment, the desire within her shone far brighter than the rest.
A long while later, Li Huowang lay on the bed, holding Bai Lingmiao—who wore only a white lotus bellyband—basking in the calm after the storm, softly recounting what had happened since they'd parted.
Curled up in Li Huowang's arms, Bai Lingmiao fiddled lovingly with the red-threaded gold ring around her ankle as she listened.
But as he spoke on—reaching the part about cultivation techniques that could fake true cultivation—Li Huowang's words suddenly halted.
"If both sides can become real, then isn't what I'm doing bad for both Bai Lingmiao and Yang Na?"
Li Huowang sank into distress. He'd never considered this before, always assuming one side had to be fake. Pondering it had seemed a total waste of time.
"Go on—why'd you stop?" Bai Lingmiao gently nuzzled her silky hair against his chest.
"It's nothing. Nothing worth saying about the hallucination side. How was Niuxin Village while I was gone?" Li Huowang lightly brushed it off.
"Same as always—what else? I hired some folks to work the fields for you. There's too much land in the village; Gouwa, Zhao Wu, and the others couldn't handle it alone. Besides, they're not cut out for farm work."
Li Huowang nodded in understanding, picturing those new faces in the fields.
"Right—though they're servants in private, on the surface they call you dry daddy. You have to play along."
"Dry daddy? What's that supposed to mean?"
"It's a Great Liang thing. The emperor's so benevolent he banned slavery, so the traffickers just rephrased it and kept selling."
"Hey, Li Huowang, you're not that old, but you've got dry kids and real ones—quite the seniority! Heh."
As the two continued their pillow talk, a knock came at the bedroom door. "Miaomiao, time for dinner."
It was Xiaoman's voice, laced with shyness. She said her piece and fell silent—she knew exactly what they were up to inside.
"Oh, get this—lately Zhao Wu and Jian Dun have been at odds over Xiaoman. They've been buzzing around her like flies; it's driving her nuts."
Li Huowang rolled out of bed to dress, tugging at the skin on various parts of his body to check his recovery. "Sounds good to me. Let her choose. It's her path anyway—we can't meddle in personal stuff like that."
Once the two had changed into fresh clothes and taken their seats at the head table, the dozen or so tables erupted as one under Lv Zhuangyuan's lead, everyone raising their cups.
"Come on, a toast to the young Daoist! May everything go your way!"
Li Huowang drained his cup, and the banquet instantly livened up.
Even from several tables away, he could hear Gouwa's boastful bellow. "That's my senior brother Li! My bro! A living god! He flies, he vanishes, he turns beans into soldiers—nothing he can't do! Just the other day, while we were traveling, we ran into some river bandits..."
"How strong is this booze?" Li Huowang, brows furrowed, rubbed his throbbing head. His sensitive body just couldn't handle drink.
"Degrees? It's Zhuangyuan Red that Master Lv specially bought—should be top-shelf. Should've swapped it for tea. Just pick at the food and head to bed."
Li Huowang shook his head hard and promptly left the table, exiting the Bai family compound.
He bent over by a tree, jammed fingers down his throat, and vomited up all the liquor he'd just drunk—feeling clear-headed in an instant.
Just then, a hand offered him a face towel from the side. He took it and wiped the drool from his mouth.
But when he turned, he saw it was Ershen, her face veiled in red.
By the distant glow of the courtyard lamps, Li Huowang stared at her blood-red veil with a deeply complicated expression.
"Senior Brother Li." As he watched the shifting Ten Emotions and Eight Sufferings within her, it was as if the old Bai Lingmiao had returned.
After a long hesitation, Li Huowang finally pulled a new red-threaded gold ring from his robes and handed it over.
(End of chapter)