Chapter 505
Chapter 505
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 505
>Chapter Title: Zhuge
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“Success!” As Li Huowang excitedly opened his eyes, he, suspended in mid-air, plummeted sharply toward the unrecognizable ground below.
Looking at the ground rushing closer, Li Huowang abruptly shut his eyes. “So much water—good thing I know how to swim!”
With a splash, Li Huowang felt himself slam into the water’s surface. Water sprayed high, and he even swallowed a bit.
In the somewhat chilly water, Li Huowang paddled his hands and began to swim.
When Li Huowang opened his eyes again, he found he had swum to shore.
He turned back to look at the rippling, solid rock behind him and couldn’t help clenching his fist in excitement. “My cultivation abilities are getting stronger and stronger. If I keep pushing like this, that world over there... No! That world over there is real!”
“That world over there is already real! My cultivation now is actually to resurrect Zhuge Yuan!”
With that thought, Li Huowang excitedly looked toward Zhuge Yuan in the distance. “Brother Zhuge, come here for a moment!”
Seeing Zhuge Yuan standing before him again, Li Huowang gritted his teeth and tremblingly reached out to pat his shoulder. “Zhuge Yuan is still alive! Everything that happened in the capital before was fake! All illusions!”
This time, unlike before, Li Huowang didn’t pass right through his body. He could truly touch him!
And the sensation felt so real, just like the real thing.
But this state only lasted a few breaths. After that, the agonized Li Huowang let go.
“Danyangzi used the innate one qi in my body and became a half-immortal so easily. Why is it so troublesome when I use it myself?” Li Huowang said, lightly pinching his temples as his head throbbed painfully.
“Brother Li, that’s only natural. The innate one qi you borrowed before was like setting a fire—anyone can start a fire, but no matter how big it gets, it’s not under your control, and the bigger it burns, the more likely it is to harm others and yourself.”
“Now, this flame of yours is small, but it truly belongs to you. Lighting a lamp or steaming rice is all in your grasp.”
Hearing this, Li Huowang’s heart calmed a great deal. He didn’t need to rush—the innate one qi inside him was right there.
Though Zhuge Yuan’s body had only held for a short time, he had undeniably gained flesh. Once Li Huowang fully mastered this power within him, he could resurrect Zhuge Yuan just like Danyangzi had ascended to immortality.
“No, I can’t anymore, Brother Zhuge. I need to rest, or this innate one qi might destabilize again.” Li Huowang staggered toward the kiln cave. Without a chance to say even half a word to Bai Lingmiao, he collapsed and fell asleep.
When Li Huowang opened his eyes again, the crisp bird calls outside proved the rain had stopped, and the sunlight slanting through the cracks into the kiln cave showed it was good weather.
“Senior Brother Li, you seem to have slept really well this time—no nightmares. Are you okay now?” The delighted Bai Lingmiao scooped half a bowl of wild vegetable porridge from the iron pot over the campfire and brought it over with both hands.
“It’s only been a day; that doesn’t prove anything. We’ll see later.” Li Huowang picked up the porridge and gulped it down. He felt starving.
After finishing one bowl, while Bai Lingmiao was scooping more, Li Huowang continued, “Let’s see how it goes later. If that dice tries dream-divination again, I’ll have to find a way to stop sleeping altogether.”
“You can go without sleep?” Bai Lingmiao handed over the fresh bowl of porridge.
“Heh, in this mad world, even the dead can come back to life. What’s not sleeping compared to that? If the dice pulls any more tricks later, I’ll just deal with them as they come.”
“It had better not push me too far. If it does, I’ll go straight to the Bureau of Heaven Inspection and report it!”
As Li Huowang said this, he stared at Bai Lingmiao’s face. On the exquisite features’ left side grew a few white hairs.
Li Huowang’s expression hardened. He immediately drew a dagger from his hem and stabbed it viciously into his thigh.
Feeling no pain at all, Li Huowang’s face turned icy cold as he stared at the Bai Lingmiao before him. “Dice Boss, third time’s the charm—you’re going too far, aren’t you?”
Bai Lingmiao’s face flipped open from the white hairs, revealing a dice head that kept shifting in front of him. “Red Midsection, this was a real hassle, but since we’re fellow disciples, I’ll help out. But don’t forget—you owe me a favor, and you have to pay it back.”
“Fine.” Li Huowang, his heart filled with despair and dejection, nodded in agreement—though he didn’t know why he felt so despairing and dejected.
“By the way, why do you need my help?”
“Because... you’re Dice. Even if you told me the truth, I definitely wouldn’t believe you later...”
As he watched himself reach out and press a handprint onto the contract in Dice’s hand, Li Huowang suddenly snapped awake. It was as if he remembered something—these events had happened before. These were some tampered memories from earlier.
Every time Li Huowang tried hard to recall them, his body instinctively resisted!
“No, no... No!! Don’t follow Dice’s path! He’s lying to me! It’s all fake!!”
The entire scene before him tore apart like paper. A gaunt hand thrust out from the rip, gripping Li Huowang tightly and desperately trying to pull him back from the cliff’s edge.
“Brother Li!! Help me! Untie me! I’m really suffocating to death!” It was still Zhuge Yuan’s voice, his eyes filled with longing and pleading.
“I don’t want to disturb you in dreams either, but right now, you’re the only one who can help me! Untie it!! Untie the talisman!!”
“Fake! All fake!!” As Li Huowang flailed his arms madly, he finally broke free of Zhuge Yuan’s grasp and plunged toward the abyss.
But the abyss below wasn’t anything else—it was a surging sea where yin and yang intersected.
That was the Doumu who governed truth and falsehood. When it turned the Eye of the Ghost Mountain God, seized from the Bureau of Heaven Inspection, toward Li Huowang, “Hah!” His body felt cleansed as Li Huowang jolted upright, awake. The next second, he yanked out his dagger and stabbed viciously into his left forearm again.
The bone-piercing pain gave Li Huowang a slight sense of security. Only pain could dispel this hazy uncertainty between real and illusory.
When Li Huowang came to and looked around, he realized he was in the kiln cave. Everything nearby was in chaos. Bai Lingmiao and Li Sui stared at him in shock from the side, and the Spinebone Sword lay before him, its bandages undone.
“Senior Brother Li, was that person dream-divining you again? Did he control your body in the dream to do those strange things?” Bai Lingmiao’s eyes brimmed with deep worry.
“Strange things? What strange things? What did I just do?” Li Huowang asked urgently.
“Brother Li, just now you were thrashing on the ground. You even drew that bone sword, unwrapped the bandages, and seemed to want to remove the purple talisman from the little head on the sword hilt.” Zhuge Yuan spoke up from the side.
Hearing this, Li Huowang looked at the Spinebone Sword on the ground, at Zhuge Yuan’s shrunken head on the hilt, and at the purple talisman on his forehead.
“Talisman? Did Zhuge Yuan just tell me to remove the talisman?” As Li Huowang jerked his head up to look at Zhuge Yuan beside him, a chill ran down his spine.
“Could it be...”
When Li Huowang tremblingly reached out and peeled off the talisman, Zhuge Yuan’s shrunken head thrashed and grew with the wind. At the same time, blood, bone, and flesh rapidly sprouted along the spine.
Mutilated and deformed like fruits hanging from the spine, interspersed with peachwood talismans. “Ahh... Finally, Brother Li. Thank you.”
The instant Li Huowang heard this, the illusory Zhuge Yuan beside him flickered faintly and nearly vanished.