Chapter 768
Chapter 768
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 768
>Chapter Title: Awakening
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
“You two are blood siblings? He’s surnamed Ba, and so are you?”
Li Huowang decided not to play along with their script. He planned to question them directly about who they were. If there was no important information, he’d make a break for it.
All that nonsense they spouted was meaningless if he listened too long.
Seeing Li Huowang change the subject, the other didn’t mind going along with it. “That’s right. I’m Ba Nanxu, and he’s Ba Shengqing. We’re twins.”
“Twins? You don’t look it at all. He’s so huge, and you’re so skinny.”
“That’s because we were conjoined twins. He absorbed all the nutrition, so of course I ended up skinny.”
Seeing Li Huowang staring at her in shocked wide-eyed disbelief, Ba Nanxu pointed to the thorny tattoo on her face.
“We were stuck together before. We separated later on, but these are just to cover the scars.”
Li Huowang immediately recalled the identical scar on Ba Shengqing’s face from earlier. He never imagined their facial tattoos had come about this way.
“That separation must’ve been incredibly dangerous, right?”
“No surgery. We didn’t have the means for that. Our parents died young, so we took scissors, cut a slit ourselves, and then forcibly tore apart.”
But upon hearing this, Li Huowang’s shocked expression gradually faded. “I don’t buy it. Even if you could endure the pain without dying on the spot, wounds that big would’ve caused you both to bleed out without a hospital.”
“Hahaha, you’ve got a point there.” Ba Nanxu put her cigarette back in her mouth and took a deep drag.
This woman’s way of talking always felt a bit off, like it lacked focus.
Li Huowang glanced around the uniquely styled tattoo parlor once more before standing to say goodbye and heading for the exit.
“Ji Zai, you’ve been robbed.”
A very familiar gaze made Li Huowang whip around, staring in shock at Ba Nanxu sitting there. “What did you just say!! Who the hell are you!!”
“Hm?” Ba Nanxu turned toward him in confusion.
“What did you just call me? Say it again!” Li Huowang rushed back and grabbed her arm tightly once more.
“Just now? I didn’t say anything just now. If you’re trying to hit on me like this, that’s a pretty unique technique.”
“Ji Zai!! Why did you just call me Ji Zai? What do you know? Why do both you and Qian Fu call me Ji Zai!!”
“Why does everyone know I’m called Ji Zai? Why do they all know the fake name Zhuge Yuan once gave me? Could it be...”
Some pieces of information he’d received recently began reassembling uncontrollably in Li Huowang’s mind.
Li Huowang tried desperately to shake off the terrifying idea forming in his head, but it took root and spread rapidly, like Zhao Lei’s words from before bubbling back up unbidden.
“Answer me! Why did you call me Ji Zai!!”
“Let go.” A cold voice came from behind Li Huowang. He didn’t know when Ba Shengqing had appeared there, tattoo gun in hand.
Li Huowang slowly released Ba Nanxu and looked very seriously at Ba Shengqing before him. Suddenly, a burning new question arose in his mind.
“You were conjoined twins. Why are you both surnamed Ba specifically? What gives you the right to be surnamed Ba?”
“Because our old man was surnamed Ba, so we are too. What’s the problem?” Ba Nanxu crossed her arms, looking at Li Huowang in puzzlement.
“No!” Li Huowang eyed the tattoos covering their bodies, their forked tongues, tongue piercings, lip piercings, nose rings, and the human skins painted with various designs all around the room. His eyes suddenly grew brighter and brighter.
“Pain! Agony!! I get it, I get it!! You... you’re...”
The words were right on the tip of his tongue, but Li Huowang just couldn’t spit them out. The frustration of being so close yet unable to say it was driving him mad.
At that moment, Li Huowang pulled out his military knife and viciously stabbed it into his own palm.
The trembling agony made Li Huowang instantly sharpen to crystal clarity. He pointed at the two of them with a quivering finger and shouted excitedly, “I get it! You’re Ba Hui!! You’re projections of Ba Hui! It’s all fake!”
As those words burst out, Li Huowang felt the pressure in his mind instantly vanish.
It wasn’t just Ba Hui. He immediately recalled Chen Hongyu, who had made him buy snacks earlier—that one was a Si Ming too, Quiet Heart Nun’s Si Ming.
Maybe everyone else was a Si Ming as well; he just didn’t recognize them because he wasn’t familiar enough.
But while he wasn’t familiar with the other Si Mings, Ba Hui? Li Huowang knew Ba Hui intimately.
He’d sensed something off about them from the moment they met today.
Seeing Li Huowang’s bizarre actions, the Ba siblings furrowed their brows and stepped back simultaneously. The customers in the booth were even more terrified by his blood-drenched hand; a shirtless one grabbed his clothes and bolted for the exit.
“So you two are actually one person! No—actually, you two are one Si Ming! I know you! I know you too well! No wonder it felt familiar! Ba Hui! I’ve recognized you!”
“Why do you call me Ji Zai? Why? Who is Ji Zai?” Li Huowang’s mind raced.
Clearly, this name was more than just a fake alias; it represented something far greater.
“You’re projections of Si Mings, so am I...” Li Huowang looked down at his own body. “Am I a Si Ming too? Am I a projection?”
“No way! When did I become a Si Ming? When? What Si Ming am I?”
As Li Huowang recalled, things he’d deliberately avoided before gradually surfaced in his mind.
“Was I cultivated out by my cultivation of the true path? Am I a Si Ming? Does that mean this whole world is fake? All of it... projections?”
A bone-chilling terror enveloped Li Huowang’s heart. Ignoring Ba Hui before him, he bolted out of the tattoo parlor and onto the sunny pedestrian street.
Yang Na came running up at that moment, asking anxiously, “Huowang? What’s wrong? What happened? What just went down?”
Li Huowang had no attention to spare for Yang Na’s questions right now. His expression panicked, his breathing rapid as he looked frantically around.
Suddenly, he dropped to a crouch and pressed his hand to the stone pavement, feeling its smoothness and hardness, even rubbing his face against it.
“So real—how could it possibly be fake? How could it be projections?”
With trembling pupils, Li Huowang suddenly sprang up and dashed toward a nearby pillar.
He looked at the posters plastered on it, tore off a huge chunk, and held it up close to his face, quivering as he tore it apart strip by strip with his fingers.
He felt the texture and sound of the paper ripping, watched the poster split open before him in vivid, slow clarity.
The contradictions twisted Li Huowang’s expression in agony. “Is it possible I’m overthinking it? Is it possible this is all real?”
He suddenly squatted down, picked up the torn strips of paper, stuffed them into his mouth, and chewed vigorously, tasting the flavor as his saliva soaked the poster through.
Suddenly, Li Huowang sensed gazes from all around. He jerked his head up to see people gathering, pointing at him.
“What are they? Projections? Other Si Mings? Or projections of other enemies? What do they want with me by surrounding me?”
Li Huowang’s expression grew increasingly savage as he reached back, gripping the handles of his two military knives tightly.
(End of chapter)