Chapter 96
Chapter 96
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 96
>Chapter Title: Agony
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“I really can’t tell... I really can’t tell... I really can’t tell.”
Li Huowang knelt in the kindergarten courtyard, clutching the little girl tightly, his eyes filled with utter confusion as he muttered to himself.
Was this reality or hallucination? Real or fake? For a moment, Li Huowang couldn’t distinguish anymore.
Back when Master Jingxin had said that all heart elements were filled with bewilderment, Li Huowang had once refuted her.
But when he saw Sun Xiaoqin kneeling toward him from beyond the fence, he finally understood the true meaning of Master Jingxin’s words.
Heart elements were heart elements. No matter which side they chose as reality, they were forever enveloped in bewilderment.
That was the fate of heart elements—inescapable for anyone.
Just then, a small hand reached up from Li Huowang’s embrace, clutching a tiny handkerchief.
It gently wiped the tears from his face.
Li Huowang trembled as he looked down, seeing the little girl’s adorable face. She was utterly focused on wiping his tears.
“Uncle, don’t cry.”
Seeing her cute face, Li Huowang suddenly realized—this little girl might be a living person.
The thought that he had nearly killed such a kind little girl made a wave of sheer terror surge through him.
“What if she’s disguised as the Twelfth Lunar Month Eighteenth? Kill her!”
The moment this thought surfaced in his mind, Li Huowang felt an intense disgust toward himself.
“Shut up! Shut up!! Have you ever considered that this child might be real? Is your life really worth more than hers? She’s at least a normal person! And you? Li Huowang! You’re just a lunatic!! A useless lunatic! What right do you have to trade her life for yours!!”
The glass in Li Huowang’s hand creaked under his grip. Even as the jagged edges tore his flesh bloody, he refused to let go.
His roar startled everyone around him, sending them stumbling back several steps.
Li Huowang’s mind felt like two little figures were brawling inside it—hallucination versus reality—tormenting his soul with excruciating pain, suffocating him under the weight of it all.
Li Huowang even considered death for a moment. If he just died, he’d be free from this torment forever.
A lunatic like him had no reason to live. His death would benefit everyone—his mother would be unburdened, and Danyangzi could never revive through his body.
“Put the guns away, young man. Mind if I have a word with you?” A new voice came from outside the kindergarten.
The speaker was a potbellied middle-aged man in plainclothes holding a megaphone. Li Huowang didn’t know who he was, but when the police actually lowered their pistols, he guessed the man held a high position.
As Li Huowang’s gaze shifted toward him, the man slowly raised his right hand, still holding the megaphone in his left.
“You see, young man, as the saying goes—”
Mid-sentence, the man’s raised right index finger inexplicably bent slightly.
“Whoosh~!” A high-velocity sniper bullet spun out from the barrel inside a half-open window far away, streaking straight toward Li Huowang’s brainstem.
In that instant, an extraordinarily peculiar sensation enveloped Li Huowang’s entire body. His muscles tensed instinctively, and he jerked his head to the side.
“Bang!” Li Huowang’s body shuddered violently. His head snapped back before crashing heavily to the ground.
“Son!!” Sun Xiaoqin’s agonized scream echoed far into the distance.
The brutal impact of his occiput against the ground made Li Huowang’s head buzz, stars exploding in his vision.
“Am I dying? If I’m already dead, why can I still think??”
And in that very moment, the brightness all around him rapidly dimmed. The surrounding buildings and crowds transformed into dim, grotesquely shaped bamboo stalks.
Right now, Li Huowang’s face burned with pain—he was injured.
But Li Huowang had no time to dwell on it, for he sensed that familiar presence. The Twelfth Lunar Month Eighteenth was still there, watching him from within the bamboo grove right now.
He scanned his surroundings. It was all bamboo; he was surrounded. His lower body was sunk into a muddy mire of rotting bamboo leaves.
“Li Huowang~! Li Huowang!!” Voices called out sporadically from the bamboo grove—Bai Lingmiao’s, Danyangzi’s, even Li Zhi’s.
Li Huowang had always assumed that over here, his fellow disciples were following his orders, attacking the Twelfth Lunar Month Eighteenth.
But now it seemed that wasn’t the case at all. Quite the opposite—he had been isolated for some unknown reason.
Just then, a familiar voice echoed from the woods. “Old bones, as the saying goes, at seventy-three or eighty-four, even the King of Hell won’t call you. You’re already eighty-four this year—why haven’t you gone yet?”
This voice of an old neighbor reverberated endlessly through the bamboo grove, growing stronger, gradually dominating Li Huowang’s mind and trying to twist his perception back into that of the dying old man.
Rustling sounds began to stir in the bamboo grove. Li Huowang spotted the little girl from that night—and even the Kitchen God she had spoken of.
The Twelfth Lunar Month Eighteenth wasn’t fighting alone; it even had accomplices.
Li Huowang still hadn’t recovered from what had just happened. His heart ached like it was being drilled, yet facing the crisis before him, he smiled.
“You know what? It looks like you’ve won, but your greatest mistake—your absolute worst mistake—was not killing me when you had the chance just now. Do you know how much my heart hurts right now?”
Li Huowang hunched over with a twisted expression, his trembling hand clutching his chest tightly as he bellowed through gritted teeth. “It hurts so much I want to die!!”
With that, Li Huowang yanked open the red bamboo slips behind him. The instant they unfurled, the excruciating agony in his heart came alive.
This emotion resonated with the bamboo slips. The inner pain that had been fading since his return began to intensify once more.
Then, the red bamboo slips underwent a wondrous change—they took root. Tendrils burrowed from the bamboo leaves below, dyeing everything blood-red.
Gradually, Li Huowang’s emotions crumbled. The pain in his heart surged back to its previous peak.
But it wasn’t enough yet. Roots must sprout buds. His inner agony was sufficient; now he needed physical pain.
As Li Huowang wailed in breakdown, his hands reached for the torture device at his waist.
The Twelfth Lunar Month Eighteenth and its allies clearly wanted to stop him, but it was already too late.
(End of chapter)