Chapter 83
Chapter 83
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 83
>Chapter Title: Pureheart
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"Going mad is the best outcome for a pureheart?" Is this my future?
Li Huowang had always thought that others calling him a pureheart just meant he was some kind of rare material. Like those rare spiritual roots in the cultivation novels he'd read before.
But the old nun in front of him was telling him that wasn't the case at all. The term "pureheart" itself carried a massive problem.
Li Huowang took a moment to calm his racing heart, drew in a deep breath, and spoke again. "Abbess Jingxin, I once used Black Tai Sui to treat my hysteria, and it worked pretty well. Have you ever tried it on your son?"
Li Huowang desperately wanted to hear the words "no" from her mouth, but he was disappointed right away.
"I've used it, of course I have. But Black Tai Sui isn't something you can just pop into your mouth willy-nilly. Once it's in there, it's hard to get it out. It just hunkers down in your gut, sucking your blood and eating your flesh."
"Eat a little, and you're fine. Eat too much, and it'll fill your entire belly, then burrow its way right out of you." Abbess Jingxin described it vividly, as if she'd seen it happen with her own eyes.
Li Huowang touched his stomach, his face growing even more grim. A writhing mass of tentacles from a Black Tai Sui was squirming inside him right now.
That bastard Danyangzi had never had any good intentions. Even the medicine he used on him came with severe side effects.
But these were minor issues that could wait. He had more important questions right now.
"Abbess Jingxin, can you tell me what a pureheart really is? And why do all purehearts end up descending into madness?"
Li Huowang pressed on anxiously, his voice urgent. He needed this answer more than anything—it concerned his very survival.
Abbess Jingxin, mid-swallow, heard him and looked up again, her two pitch-black eye sockets fixed on Li Huowang.
"What is a pureheart? You are one. Why ask me? Can't you tell how you're different from everyone else? Let me ask you this: where are you from?"
Li Huowang opened his mouth instinctively to answer, then stopped himself warily.
The fact that he had crossed over from the modern world was deeply personal and crucial. He absolutely could not blurt it out to this creepy old nun he'd just met.
Who knew what this fat old nun might do once she learned his secret.
"Heh heh heh, let me guess. You think you're not from here, right? That you're from some other vast world? A world completely different from this one?"
Abbess Jingxin's casual words shattered Li Huowang's mental defenses in an instant. "You know?!"
Unfazed, Abbess Jingxin lowered her head and kept eating the yellow sludge from her bowl.
"What's there to panic about? Kids these days have no composure. Why are you surprised I know? Didn't I tell you? My son was a pureheart too. He thought the exact same thing."
Li Huowang instinctively leaned in closer, his voice trembling as he asked, "Your son was from the modern world too? He crossed over as well?"
His heart pounded wildly. Discovering another like himself in this bizarre, dangerous world filled him with unprecedented excitement.
No matter who they were, man or woman—as long as they came from the same world, he wouldn't be alone anymore.
Finally, someone to share this crushing pressure with.
Most importantly, he couldn't remember how he'd come to this world. Maybe they did. Maybe he could find a way back through them!
But Abbess Jingxin didn't answer right away. She wiped the yellow goo from her mouth and "looked" at the young man before her with a smile.
"No, he wasn't. He came straight out of my womb—that's a fact. And young man, Zhuangzi dreamed of a butterfly, the butterfly dreamed of Zhuangzi. Don't take anything as certain, not even the things in your own head."
"What do you mean?" Li Huowang couldn't grasp what she was getting at.
"Why are you so sure you're from that other side? Why couldn't you be from this world instead? Maybe that garish, dazzling other world is the illusion. Maybe everything you remember is just your own fabrication?"
"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!! I know the stuff at Clear Wind Temple was hallucinations, but I definitely lived in the real world before! I crossed over from there!! I'm a traveler! I'm not some lunatic who imagined another world!!!"
Li Huowang's eyes bulged red, his fists clenched and trembling. Like a dragon whose reverse scale had been touched, he bellowed at the old nun.
Abbess Jingxin didn't argue. She tilted her head slightly, as if lost in memory.
"Heh, my son said the exact same things back then. Sane one moment, muddled the next, babbling nonsense to himself."
"But as his mother, I know the truth. He came out of my belly and never left my side. He never went to any other world. It was all in his head."
Her words hit Li Huowang like a body-bind spell. He froze in place, his breathing erratic.
Yang Na, his mother, the hospital, school—everything from his past flashed through his mind. None of it real? That world might not even exist? No modern world at all?
In that instant, everything around him felt unreal, illusory. "What’s real? What’s fake?!"
"I'm not a traveler? I'm from here all along? No modern world? Everything in my head about reality is my delusion? No, something's wrong! There has to be a mistake!"
Li Huowang's emotions spiraled out of control. His breaths came faster, his face twisting into a snarl.
With his sense of self shattered, Li Huowang desperately sought an outlet for the mountain of pressure in his heart.
Suddenly, his gaze sharpened. He glared viciously at Abbess Jingxin.
Before he could speak, the fat woman pointed her greasy finger at him and mimicked his voice in a pinched tone.
"No! You're lying~! You have ulterior motives against me!! Everything you say is fake! You want to harm me, don't you~! Not so easy!!"
After saying this, she looked at Li Huowang, frozen in place, and her bloated, obese face broke into a kindly smile once more.
"Heh, that's what you were about to say to me, right? My son said the exact same thing. Ah, thinking back now, it feels like just yesterday. I miss those days."
(End of chapter)