Chapter 744
Chapter 744
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 744
>Chapter Title: Real or Fake
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“Heh, you sneaky little brat!”
Liu Wan clutched his bleeding wound in agony, twisting his hand at the joint to grab the handle behind his back, trying to yank out the Vajra Pestle embedded in his body.
But no matter what he tried, he couldn’t pull it free. The Subduing Demon Vajra Pestle seemed utterly fused into his flesh.
“Don’t bother, Senior Liu Wan. Heh heh heh, you’re not getting it out. I’m from the Sitting Oblivion Dao myself—I knew exactly what tricks you’d pull. This is a ritual implement I went to great lengths to swindle. It’s made just for dealing with you.”
Li Huowang strolled casually over to Liu Wan’s side.
Liu Wan’s expression flickered uncertainly as he eyed the young man before him.
“You were faking it all along, weren’t you? Wielding non-gang so effortlessly—you’re no newbie. And I fell for your nonsense.”
“You played the junior in front of me just to set me up? You knew I had a trap laid, so you turned it back on me?”
At that, Liu Wan nodded approvingly.
“Good. Each generation outdoes the last. The Sitting Oblivion Dao truly teems with talent. You win, I lose. The Female Heart Tuo is yours! I won’t fight you for her!”
Li Huowang shook his head and slowly advanced toward him.
“Senior Liu Wan, you jest. What would I do with a Heart Tuo? You know what I really want, don’t you? Strictly speaking, I don’t even have an identity yet. I’m not truly part of the Sitting Oblivion Dao.”
Liu Wan seemed to grasp his intent, panic flashing across his face as he instinctively touched his own.
This cunning junior wanted his face!
Li Huowang drew a dagger and approached. Liu Wan tried to fight back, but it was too late—Li Huowang swiftly dismembered his limbs, leaving him writhing helplessly.
Looking down at Liu Wan, helpless on the ground, Li Huowang bent down and sat squarely on his chest. His right hand clamped around Liu Wan’s throat as he raised the dagger and began slicing along the edge of the skin.
“Do you know how long I’ve planned for this day? How long I’ve secretly watched you? I know all your hidden pawns. I know all your contingencies. And I know you even have a son.”
Li Huowang peeled off the old Daoist’s face and slapped it onto his own. His voice instantly shifted to match the old man’s authoritative, aged timbre.
“But none of that matters to you anymore. It’s all mine now.”
Li Huowang stripped off another face with a mustache and layered it over his own.
“Your hidden pawns are mine now. Your contingencies are mine. Even your son is mine.”
One face after another was peeled away and reapplied to Li Huowang’s face, until only a bloody, square slab bearing Liu Wan’s features remained. Li Huowang’s hand didn’t stop.
“Heh heh heh, don’t blame me. That’s the rule of our Sitting Oblivion Dao—if I can fool everyone into thinking I’m Liu Wan, then I am Liu Wan.”
Li Huowang pressed the final face of Liu Wan onto his own and slashed the throat of the faceless corpse before him.
“So now! You’re not Liu Wan. I am Liu Wan!”
Gazing into the man’s hateful eyes, Li Huowang grinned wide and laughed in pure satisfaction.
“You were right, Senior! You’ve got to fool ‘em big! Feels damn good! Hahaha!!”
As Li Huowang’s booming laughter echoed, the faces on his own flipped through like pages of a book, finally settling back into his true features.
He slowly closed his eyes, then just as slowly opened them, withdrawing his mind from the memories of the Sitting Oblivion Dao.
In the quiet upper room of the inn, Li Huowang sat on a stool, reviewing what he’d just experienced.
Through that memory, his understanding of the Sitting Oblivion Dao deepened further.
“Must deceive to obtain non-gang... then use non-gang to cultivate the Sitting Oblivion Dao techniques?”
Li Huowang pondered the recollection.
As a former Red In, he’d long mastered the Sitting Oblivion Dao’s various false divine abilities. The techniques weren’t the issue—he needed non-gang.
Unlike the innate primal energy of Heart Essences, non-gang had to be earned by fooling others.
To escape the side effects of cultivating truth, he had to cultivate the false. But how to deceive? He’d need to think carefully. After all, Li Huowang had no intention of truly becoming one of the Sitting Oblivion Dao.
Li Huowang glanced at Li Sui, sprawled spread-eagled on the bed, then headed out.
“Dad, where are you going?”
“Watch the place. I’ll be right back.”
Qingqiu’s capital reeked sharply, with cow and horse dung littering the streets. Yet it was one of Qingqiu’s rare cities. Even amid war with the Faith Sect, it bustled with people.
“Deceive people? How?”
Li Huowang looked around and crouched by a roadside stall.
The Qingqiu vendor, seeing Li Huowang’s unfamiliar face, stammered in official dialect,
“W-what you want?”
Li Huowang picked up a sheep or cow horn comb or trinket from the haphazard display, felt it, eyed the vendor’s honest, wrinkled face, opened his mouth... and set it down.
“Sigh.”
Acting against his nature felt deeply uncomfortable.
As Li Huowang pondered his next move, his sharp ears caught an odd voice amid the hawking cries.
Ordinary folk weren’t good marks. But evildoers? Deceiving them would ease his conscience—punishing evil, in a way.
Li Huowang followed the sound and soon spotted several Qingqiu youths in an alley corner, brandishing horn knives as they cornered a man.
The man’s skin was clearly lighter—not Qingqiu stock. A refugee from elsewhere, perhaps.
“Maybe... this is a chance to test it.”
Li Huowang approached.
“Ahem. Fire.”
At the cough, the Qingqiu youths turned to see flames roaring up from beneath Li Huowang’s feet.
With a light slap of the ground, the fire surged toward them. They wailed like ghosts and scrambled up the walls to flee.
Once they were gone, Li Huowang stood stunned for a moment. But no non-gang feedback came.
“What’s wrong? I clearly fooled them. Why didn’t it work?”
He realized it instantly. He’d scared them, yes, but those flames came from his truth cultivation—they were real. Real enough to burn them dead. That wasn’t deception.
“What if I use truth cultivation to create false phenomena? No—cultivate real fakes to fool them? Real fakes...”
Li Huowang’s brows furrowed. He’d tangled himself up.