Chapter 1024: Extra 1

Chapter 1024: Side Story 1

"Master Dao, walk this way, mind the filth, don't step in it."

Wu Shuifeng, her face a mask of misery, muttered incessantly as she led Li Huowang forward.

"Oh, my life is truly bitter. He was a sickly child, and I raised him with my own sweat and blood. Just when he finally took a wife, no grandson was born, and now the daughter-in-law has gone and gotten possessed. Oh, the bitterness, the sheer misery of it all."

"She likely went to chop wood on the barren mountain the other day, got too close to that ruined temple, and offended something. You can't go there; they worship the Five Saints, and it’s a wicked, cursed place."

Li Huowang, two swords strapped to his back, furrowed his brow, listening to the old woman’s rambling while scanning the surroundings.

The village looked wretched—fences in tatters, walls leaning at precarious angles, and filth scattered everywhere, causing his frown to deepen. The people in these deep, isolated mountains seemed far from industrious.

Just then, Wu Shuifeng stopped at her doorstep. She turned, her eyes filled with desperate expectation as she said to Li Huowang, "Little Master Dao, look, this is my home. The girl is inside, being held by the spirit."

Before Li Huowang stood three dilapidated mud-brick houses, their dirty walls cracked but at least windproof.

Li Huowang said nothing, stepping inside. No sooner had he entered than he saw a simple-minded, bald man squatting in a corner, complaining bitterly to an old man.

A gaunt woman sat cross-legged on the kang, wrapped in a tattered red quilt, her expression listless. Before her sat three bowls of rice, each with three sticks of incense thrust into it.

"Daniu! Don't worry, Mother has found a Master Dao! No matter what spirit has possessed your wife, he will surely drive it out!"

After comforting the bald man, Wu Shuifeng hurried over to Li Huowang, who stood with his arms crossed.

"Master Dao, look, this is my daughter-in-law. Her name is Zhao E, born in the Year of the Rooster, her birth characters are..."

"Spare me the nonsense, get to the point!"

Li Huowang’s stern voice cut through her chatter. The others in the room recoiled, intimidated by his presence; this Master Dao, faintly smelling of blood, clearly had a volatile temper.

"She... she’s possessed! She was fine before, then suddenly she started acting like a wild beast, clawing and biting me and my son. Look at what she did to me—it’s a cat demon!"

Li Huowang strode to the kang and stared unblinkingly at the woman.

Yet, under his gaze, the pale-faced woman showed no panic, sitting there as if feigning sleep.

Even when Li Huowang pressed his copper-coin sword against her throat, she did not react.

The bald man behind him watched in terror. "Ma-Master Dao!! You mustn't! That’s my wife! I paid a fortune for her, and she hasn't given me a son yet; you can't kill her."

Just then, the woman on the bed stirred. Her body jerked, she let out a hiccup, and then, accompanied by rhythmic spasms and hiccups, she began to speak.

"...Hic! Still dare to find someone... Hic... The Chen father and son? Do you want the Chen line to end with you? Hmm?"

Hearing this, the bald man and his father were terrified, immediately kneeling before the kang and kowtowing to the woman.

"Oh, Great Immortal, have mercy! Spare our family, we are poor folk, we’ve never done a wicked deed in our lives!"

The disheveled Zhao E suddenly snapped her head up, glaring at Li Huowang. "Meat! I want to eat meat!!"

"Yes! There is meat, I’ll get it for you right now!!" Soon, a bowl of steamed bacon was brought forth.

Zhao E thrust her bruised hands from the quilt, snatched the bowl, and began to devour it with savage intensity, like a starving ghost reborn.

Halfway through, she pointed her right hand at her mother-in-law. "Wu! You are steeped in sin, you deserve to die before fifty!!"

Wu Shuifeng turned deathly pale; she was only a year away from fifty. If this powerful immortal said she wouldn't live past it, she surely wouldn't!

She knelt instantly, begging for her life, claiming she had been blinded by greed to seek out a Daoist.

The room was in chaos, but Li Huowang stood in the center like a spectator, observing it all.

When he saw the bald man, under Zhao E’s direction, beating his own mother, Li Huowang finally moved.

He sheathed his sword, grabbed the quilt covering Zhao E, and ripped it away, exposing her thin frame. But he wasn't finished.

Li Huowang reached out again, grabbing the front of her clothes and tearing them; with a sharp rip, her bodice was exposed to the air.

"Ah!!!" Zhao E shrieked, shielding her chest. The room fell into stunned silence.

"Heh, I didn't know the possessed were so modest." Li Huowang’s words shattered the illusion. Zhao E’s possession was a farce. There was no spirit here at all.

Realizing the truth, the bald man clenched his teeth, the memory of his recent suffering turning his fear into rage.

He stood up, grabbed his wife by the hair, dragged her off the kang, and slapped her so hard she saw stars and bled from the nose. "You bitch, you dared to trick me!!"

While his son beat his wife, Wu Shuifeng didn't stay idle; she took a needle and, gritting her teeth, drove it deep into Zhao E’s arm. "You dare say I won't live past fifty!"

Zhao E’s screams turned shrill and wretched, lasting until nightfall.

When it came time to sleep, they showed her no mercy, dousing the battered woman in cold water and locking her in the pigsty to reflect on her sins.

Rain began to fall. In the filthy pigsty, Zhao E shivered violently, pressing against a pig for warmth.

A flash of lightning illuminated a figure outside the sty. In the pouring rain, that red-clad silhouette stood like a stone statue.

Zhao E, her hands chained, stood up, straining her body, and glared with bloodshot eyes, screaming like a wild beast at the figure. "Ahhhhh!!!"

Yet her desperate cry was easily swallowed by the rolling thunder, drawing no response.

Broken, Zhao E wept in despair, but she had no tears left, and her voice was gone.

Li Huowang entered the pigsty and, with a swift stroke, slaughtered a black pig.

He peeled off the bloody, steaming hide and draped it over Zhao E, helping her frozen body regain some sensation.

As Li Huowang grabbed the pig’s heart, flames erupted from his palm, instantly roasting it until it smelled fragrant.

When he held the cooked heart before her, she took it and devoured it, not stopping even when she choked on the speed of her eating.

Swallowing the last of the meat with all her remaining strength, Zhao E shouted at Li Huowang: "Why! Why did you help them!!"

"You only know I was tricking them, but do you know how miserable I am in this house!!"

"Wu Shuifeng, once a daughter-in-law herself, has become a tyrant. She tortures me, denies me food, makes me work all day—feeding pigs, washing clothes, cooking—and if I make the slightest mistake, she stabs me with needles! I am treated worse than livestock! I have always been an outsider in this house!!"

"And your own family?"

"A married daughter is like spilled water! Their hearts have always been with their sons; they forgot me long ago!"

Li Huowang nodded. "So you faked the possession to take revenge?"

"I didn't fake it!! At least, the first few times, I wasn't faking it!" Zhao E, clutching the half-eaten heart, shouted back in grievance.

"Hmm?" Li Huowang paused, surprised. He hadn't expected that; it wasn't a performance after all. That was truly interesting.

"I don't know. I was just so stifled, my heart felt like it was going to burst, I wanted to die, and then... it just happened."

"But after it happened, I felt so much better! I don't know why!!"

Li Huowang nodded in realization.

"Oh, I see. That would be a standard case of hysteria. Suppressed mental pressure finding an unconscious outlet."

"Now that you mention it, I recall. This isn't an isolated case; there are many in remote villages. I understand. If you didn't release the pressure this way, you would only have two choices: self-destruction through hanging or poison to escape the pain, or... accepting it until you are driven mad."

"Mad... hehehe, driven mad..."

At this, Li Huowang seemed to find something amusing and chuckled.

After a moment, he clapped his hands in admiration.

"But I must say, even if it was unconscious, you played it better than any of them."

Zhao E opened her mouth and wailed in wretched agony. "The Chen family doesn't treat me like a person, my own family doesn't want me, no one wants me, no one wants me at all!!"

Looking at the utterly desperate woman, Li Huowang knelt on one knee, gazing intently at her bruised and swollen face.

"Do you feel that life is bitter? That there is no hope left? Do you want to find some joy? Do you want to be free from this suffering?"

The sobbing Zhao E gradually quieted, staring at the red-robed Taoist before her. "How... how do I get free?"

"By playing others for fools!"

Li Huowang reached out and patted her shoulder. A smile returned to his indifferent face.

"Your act of being possessed was not bad, but it wasn't enough. You need to play the game much more."

Li Huowang extended a finger, punctuating his words by poking her chest again and again.

"Think about it carefully. When you pretended to be possessed, you made them kowtow to you, you made them slap their own faces. Didn't that feel good? Hmm? Didn't you enjoy that feeling?"

"Do you want to escape this miserable life? Do you want your future to be filled only with joy and no sorrow?"

With every word from Li Huowang, Zhao E’s expression shifted, and she began to nod her head violently. "I—I don't want to live this bitter life anymore. I want to! I want to!"

"As long as I can escape all of this, I will do anything!"

Hearing this, Li Huowang smiled with satisfaction. "Very good, very good."

He then peeled back his own face, rummaging quickly through the various masks beneath until he finally found an Orchid tile.

"As long as you wear this, you can be free from it all."

Zhao E could no longer care about anything else; whether it was real or fake, she no longer cared.

She reached out to grab the face, as if clutching at the final straw of her life.

But every time her hand moved an inch forward, the Orchid face drifted an inch back, moving just out of her reach.

"Give it to me!!"

"No, no, no. You can't have this for free. We of the Zuo Wang Dao don't just take anyone. You need to prove yourself." Li Huowang reached out and pressed the Orchid tile back onto his own face.

"Just like when you were possessed—you must play the game, you must deceive. I need you to prove your talent."

"Remember, if you want to play others, you must be ruthless. Only then are you qualified to join the Zuo Wang Dao. You only get one chance. If you fail, we won't take you, and you can go right back to living this miserable life."

Li Huowang reached out and grabbed the iron chains binding her. Then, a miraculous sight unfolded before Zhao E: the chains twisted and deformed, eventually turning into a strip of white silk.

He slowly retreated a few steps, disappearing back into the pouring rain.

Zhao E stood up anxiously. "Then what should I do? What should I do!!"

By the time she chased after him into the downpour, there was no sign of anyone, nor was there any answer.

Following this, a matter of some significance occurred in Chen Village: Chen Niu’s wife, Zhao E, had run away. Before she left, she had slaughtered their pig.

The village immediately gathered a group of men to search for her. The villagers didn't take it seriously; the area was remote, she couldn't have gone far, and there were bloodstains on the ground to follow.

But after searching for a day and a night, when darkness fell, they still hadn't found her.

Chen Niu scratched his head, illuminated by the torchlight, and looked into the flickering woods. Frustrated, he snapped at his mother, "It’s all your fault! A beating was enough! Why did you have to prick her with needles? If you hadn't, she wouldn't have left!"

"Sigh, sigh, it’s my fault, it’s my fault. It was my doing. Don't worry, son, she can't run far. The money spent on her won't be lost."

Just as they were arguing, a scream echoed from the woods to their left. The family stopped bickering and rushed toward the sound.

Soon, in the torch-lit woods, the Chen family caught sight of Zhao E.

She was covered in blood, squatting by the roots of a tree, laughing softly. The scene terrified the other villagers, who dared not approach, pushing and shoving each other.

"She’s possessed! I told you, Big Niu’s wife was possessed, and they tried to hide it."

"That's right, it started a while ago. Last time she wouldn't even greet me. Who knew she was spirit-struck?"

"Possessed? Possessed again?" Wu Shuifeng looked at her daughter-in-law in the distance, her face turning cold. She reached up and pulled a sharp copper hairpin from her hair.

When she reached Zhao E’s side and sniffed, her suspicions were confirmed. "This girl is trying to play god and fool people again! The blood on her is clearly pig blood! She thinks she can trick me?"

Gritting her teeth, she gripped the hairpin and stabbed it hard into Zhao E’s waist. "I'll teach you to fake possession! I'll teach you! You’re a daughter-in-law, do you think you can defy your mother-in-law?"

To her surprise, the hairpin sank halfway in, yet the girl didn't react at all.

Zhao E slowly turned her head. Her face was pale blue, her expression hideous.

Wu Shuifeng recoiled in terror, then flew into a rage. "Son! Come here! This girl is trying to revolt! She's still faking it!!"

Hearing this, the others crowded around. Chen Niu rolled up his sleeves and slapped Zhao E across the head.

But the next second, Chen Niu let out a blood-curdling scream. When he pulled his hand back, he found only half of it remained; the other half was in Zhao E’s mouth.

With a crunching sound, Zhao E chewed on the hand and slowly stood up.

When the others saw that Zhao E’s feet were barely touching the ground, they finally realized something was wrong. This couldn't be an act—this was real!!

"Ahhh!!" Screams and shrieks erupted. The crowd, previously filled with righteous indignation, scattered like beasts. Those on the outside ran the fastest, while those closest to Zhao E had nowhere to go.

Zhao E moved. She pulled the hairpin from her waist and lunged at its original owner. Wu Shuifeng wet her pants in terror, kneeling and kowtowing for mercy, but it was to no avail; the hairpin pierced her skull, churning within.

This was only the beginning. More and more people died, and their deaths grew increasingly gruesome, most of them deliberate acts of torture.

Just as Zhao E, still hovering with her toes barely touching the ground, approached an old woman, the woman reached up and wiped her face, revealing an "Orchid" mask.

"Red-Center" nodded at Zhao E with satisfaction. "Not bad, not bad! To have the heart to let a Wutong spirit possess you just to play with people—well played!!"

With that, Red-Center peeled back his own face, tore off an Orchid tile, and flung it onto her face.

Zhao E, her face covered by the Orchid tile, began to shake violently, as if struggling against something.

"Get out!" As Red-Center opened his eyes, a mass of black smoke filtered out from behind the Orchid mask and vanished into the darkness.

The Orchid-masked figure stood there, slightly hunched, and began to laugh softly. She looked at the corpses of Chen Niu and Wu Shuifeng and laughed louder and louder.

"Is it fun?" Red-Center asked.

"Hahahaha!! It's fun!! Playing with people is so much fun! You really should have seen them just now, hahaha!!"

"That’s nothing, there’s even more fun to be had. Come with me! I have a scheme that needs hands!" Li Huowang waved his hand and turned to leave.

The Orchid-masked figure stumbled along behind him. "Boss Red-Center, who are we fooling??"

"I'm fooling myself."

"Fine by me! You're worthy of being Boss Red-Center! Well played! Even fooling yourself! But I need to go back to my maiden home first before I help you!"

"What are you going back there for?"

"To play with them!! Boss Red-Center, just now I suddenly had an idea, hahaha!! This is just too hilarious!!! Hahahaha!!!"

The Orchid-masked figure’s joyous laughter echoed far, far into the pitch-black woods.