Chapter 156: Peng Jiao

Chapter 156: Peng Jiao

Upon hearing Li Huowang's inquiry, their words struck him like lightning, leaving him frozen in place.

"Senior Brother Li, what two monks? There isn't a single monk in our cart formation! Hurry and help! Their crossbows are incredibly fierce."

"Not a single monk? All the monks were my hallucinations? How is that possible? At the very least, one of them had to be real!"

"No! That's absolutely impossible!" Li Huowang glared at the panting Yang Xiaohai.

"When we were delivering the ashes before, we clearly met a monk on the road, and that monk accompanied me the whole way! How dare you say you didn't see him!?"

Anxious Yang Xiaohai crawled on the ground, fearfully peering through the cart wheels at the enemies outside. Hearing the question, he turned to look at his Senior Brother Li, who stood there behaving bizarrely.

"Senior Brother, there really wasn't anyone. When delivering the ashes, there was simply no monk by your side."

"Impossible! The monk chatted with me for so long along the way. If he was fake, I was just talking to myself in thin air. Are you blind? You didn't react at all?"

Yang Xiaohai finally burst into tears, saying with immense grievance, "But Senior Brother Li, you often chat with invisible people for no reason. How would I know which times were real and which were fake?"

These words made Li Huowang stagger. "Often talking to myself... what exactly is real... and what is fake?"

He began to look around at everyone, his lips curling into an exceedingly bitter, dry smile.

Bai Lingmiao, Gouwa, Sun Baolu, Chun Xiaoman, Yang Xiaohai, Gao Zhijian, Lu Zhuangyuan, Lu Juren, Lu Xiucai, and so on, the faces of everyone flashed before Li Huowang's eyes.

"Or perhaps some of them are fake too? Is this world even real? Why is it so fake, or is the reality over there the real one, and this side is the fake?"

Li Huowang was lifted off the ground by the monk, who continued to persuade him earnestly, "I was right, wasn't I? So you are the delusional Peng Zhi. It's perfectly normal for anything to happen to you."

"If you think he's real, why not go touch him and see? Where is the hallucinated monk? Come! I'll go with you to touch him!"

With his head buzzing, Li Huowang pointed to the right, and the monk angrily dragged him over.

The monk in the distance was exactly identical to the monk beside Li Huowang, without any abnormalities whatsoever.

"Daoist, are you alright?"

Just as he approached with concern, Li Huowang gently extended his right hand, easily passing right through his body.

He was right; this monk, just like Danyangzi and Jiangyingzi, was entirely a figment of his own imagination.

"Then that means..." Li Huowang's face contorted in extreme agony.

"Well? Did you pass through? See? I am the real one, and what I say is true! You are Peng Zhi! You are not Li Huowang, we must join forces to—"

The monk's words suddenly halted halfway through. He slowly lowered his head, his eyes widening slightly as he looked at his abdomen, where a long sword was buried deep.

"Why?" The monk felt utterly shocked, glaring in disbelief at Li Huowang, who was right in front of him.

His voice trembling slightly, he said, "He was clearly fake! Was what I said unreasonable? I helped you so much along the way, and you actually kill me now?"

Gritting his teeth, Li Huowang thrust the sword deeper into the monk's belly with his single hand.

"You weren't wrong about anything, and he is indeed fake, but... I am not Peng Zhi, I am Li Huowang!"

"What gives you the right? What makes you think you are definitely Li Huowang? You clearly believed me just now!!"

Hearing this, Li Huowang's expression turned ferocious. Gripping the sword with both hands, he pushed against the monk, forcing him backward.

"I don't need any basis to be Li Huowang! I don't need any logic! Even if all the evidence proves I am Peng Zhi, I am still Li Huowang!"

Taking three rapid strides, Li Huowang gripped the sword tightly with both hands, pinning the monk entirely against the cart.

Red blood flowed down the monk's tattered robes onto the ground. As he grew increasingly weak, the monk looked at Li Huowang and asked with difficulty, "Did you... never consider that you might have killed the wrong person? Maybe what I said... was true?"

Li Huowang took a deep breath and screamed hysterically at the monk with all his might, "So what if what you said was true! So what if you are Peng Jiao!"

"I don't care! I am Li Huowang! I am the Li Huowang they care about! No one else can take that away!!"

As soon as these words left his mouth, the monk completely let his head drop. Looking at the dead man, Li Huowang's facial skin twitched slightly as he trembled and continued to mutter endlessly, "I am Li Huowang, I am Li Huowang, I am Li Huowang..."

With every shout, the killing intent in his heart grew stronger, and his mind flashed back to the birthday cake from earlier.

"If the Li Huowang that Yang Na and the others care about truly exists! Then I just need to find him and kill him! As long as I kill him! The identity of Li Huowang will be mine!"

Seeing this scene, Danyangzi's three faces revealed a look of disdainful contempt.

"Sigh... why are you acting like this, you madman? I was deceiving you perfectly well, why didn't you follow the script? Why did you suddenly attack? How annoying, it was so much fun just now."

The dead monk suddenly spoke. His round head quickly morphed and reshaped into a square, and the facial features and wrinkles swiftly transformed into two swirling circles hanging on that square head.

Seeing this sudden transformation, Li Huowang was first stunned, then ecstatic, followed immediately by a surge of furious rage.

"I knew I guessed right, you're a liar! You're a li—no! You're not a liar! You're from the Path of Forgetfulness! You're Er Bing!"

The moment he saw that mahjong-tile face, Li Huowang instantly realized that this person was the Path of Forgetfulness member that the Abbess had warned him to be extremely vigilant against!

"Ahhh! So annoying! You were already fooled, so why did you suddenly attack me? You act without any reason, a madman is just a madman!"

Er Bing's face rapidly changed, transforming into the visage of a stunningly beautiful woman. With a charming smile, she swiftly stepped on the ground and flipped herself up onto the roof of the cart.

Just as she landed on top of the cart, the people outside saw her, and the attacks from all directions instantly ceased.

By the time Li Huowang stepped on the cart wheel and chased up to the roof, Er Bing had already leaped out of the cart formation and reunited with the others outside.

Seeing that the people performing the Nuo opera and the bandits alike were not attacking Er Bing, how could Li Huowang not understand the situation? It was obvious that all these people were brought here by Er Bing! That bullshit about severing the three corpses was all fabricated by the Path of Forgetfulness!