Chapter 566: Searching

Chapter 566: Searching

When Li Huowang emerged from the well, he suddenly froze. Why had the sky grown dark again?

He looked up at the heavens and saw that the sun of Great Qi had become even more fragmented. Now, only its vague outline remained, consumed by blackness.

Suddenly, from an impossibly distant place, Li Huowang sensed a pair of eyes upon him. His mouth opened involuntarily, coughing violently as his voice transformed into a call for help. "Divine One!"

Li Huowang, his body taut with tension, drew his spine sword and slashed it forward with tremendous speed, diving into the rift. When he returned to Great Liang, only then did he have time to reposition his dislocated jaw.

Drenched in cold sweat, Li Huowang now understood what had happened. The calamity of Great Qi was about to begin anew.

The last disaster had lasted so long; he didn’t know if this one would wipe out every remaining survivor.

He recalled what Zhuge Yuan had once said to him and let out a deep sigh. He clenched his fists and struck the tree trunk before him with all his might.

Then, turning around, he walked toward where he had thrown the young emperor of Great Qi. He must find that child emperor!

Mounting a horse, Li Huowang rode back at full speed to where he had previously torn open the rift. Last time, he had casually asked Li Sui about it without paying much attention.

This time, however, Li Huowang began meticulously searching through the forest, not missing any trace.

Yet what surprised him most was that despite his keen senses, he found nothing.

"This shouldn't be! That emperor of Great Qi was pierced through and bled profusely. Even if a beast had taken him, there should still be traces of blood."

Just as he began expanding his search area, a faint footprint sent a jolt through his heart.

Great Qi could fall at any moment. There was no time to waste. Instantly, Li Huowang followed the shallow footprints swiftly.

His sharp perception proved equally effective in tracking. As the prints grew clearer, his hand was already gripping his sword’s hilt.

Soon, he spotted a half-bent figure among the bushes. With white hair tied on top of his head, he appeared to be an old man.

The man sat motionless like a statue, his behavior peculiar enough to raise Li Huowang's suspicions.

Drawing his copper coin sword, Li Huowang slashed it forcefully, instantly extending the blade and slicing off the old man’s tied hair.

"Ah! Mother!" The old man trembled and fell to the ground.

"A living person?" Li Huowang pressed his sword against his shoulder and stepped forward quickly. This man was no supernatural being—he was merely an ordinary old man terrified into wetting himself.

"Please spare me, great immortal! Please spare me!" Without even looking at Li Huowang's face, the old man knelt and kept bowing.

"Get up!" Li Huowang’s sword pressed firmly on his shoulder. "Tell me, within this past day, have you found an infant?"

"What? Child? I came into the woods to catch ginseng! I haven’t seen any children!"

"Ginseng? What kind of ginseng?"

Seeing the man trembling and pointing ahead, Li Huowang stepped closer, pushing through the bushes. He saw only a small hole and some red ropes tied with bells.

"Where is the ginseng?"

"This... it ran away because of you! I’ve been waiting here for six months! If I caught it and sold it to the city..." The old man complained bitterly.

"What nonsense is this? Tell me, do you know this area well?"

"Hmm hmm hmm!" The old man nodded frantically, as if one slow nod would make Li Huowang’s sword fall.

"Besides you, have others come here recently?"

"I don’t know. Only our villagers come here."

"Could someone from this village have picked up the emperor of Great Qi?"

Li Huowang remembered the emperor—no bigger than a palm, skin nearly translucent. It definitely hadn’t wandered off on its own.

"Come! Take me to your village!"

Of course, the old man couldn’t refuse. He led Li Huowang out of the forest.

But the more they walked, the more familiar the village seemed. It looked like the place where he had traded his jade pendant for a horse.

As soon as they reached the village entrance, Li Huowang saw a child around eleven or twelve years old, naked and hanging from a willow tree, whipped by branches until his whole body was swollen red. Snot and tears flowed down his face, crying out in terror.

Some villagers formed a circle, pointing and laughing, showing no intention of stopping.

"Oh my God! That’s my grandson! What’s going on here?"

The old man beside Li Huowang panicked and rushed over, placing himself between the bearded man and the whipping victim. "Son! You’re insane! You’ll kill your own son like this!"

"I’d rather beat him to death and have another one! Do you know what that damn fool did? He went to his own well and shit three days ago!"

"What!?" The old man snatched the whip from the bearded man and started whipping his own grandson like a spinning top.

Li Huowang watched the crowd watching the spectacle. After thinking for a moment, he leaped onto the willow tree in two quick bounds.

"Everyone! My sister gave birth early recently! I wanted to bury her baby far away, so I buried it in the eastern forest! But that fortune teller, Yang Banxian, said my nephew is still alive!!"

"So my sister sent me to find my nephew. Whoever helps me find him shall receive ten taels of gold as gratitude!"

Li Huowang’s words immediately sparked chaos among the onlookers. Even the old man forgot to whip his grandson and whispered urgently with his son.

Li Huowang’s eyes darted rapidly, observing everyone’s subtle expressions and the visible sorrows and hardships etched on their faces.

He wasn’t relying on a reward to find the emperor of Great Qi. He intended to use the transcendental power of his Seat of Forgetting Dao.

These were common folk. If one of them had found the emperor, their demeanor would surely change.

Yet disappointingly, after scanning the crowd, he saw nothing unusual. None of them had found the emperor.

"Ah, throwing a baby into the woods, it’s probably already been devoured by wolves."

"Yeah, how can you possibly find it now?"

"That Taoist seems quite compassionate. Even though he’s a monk, he still cares about his family."

"Hey, isn’t that the same red-robed Taoist who stole the horses from the Song family? They say he’s also a red-robed Taoist."

Hearing their words, Li Huowang’s disappointment deepened. Clearly, no one here had seen the emperor of Great Qi.

"Maybe someone kind took him in. Some people can’t even have sons, but when someone else has one, they throw it away. Back thirty years ago..."

As an old man smoking water pipe began repeating the same story he'd told countless times before, the crowd parted.

"Why won’t anyone listen? It was the New Year’s Eve thirty years ago. Old Yan at the eastern end of the village really found a bloody baby in the forest, like a monkey skinned alive, chest wide open. We all advised Old Yan to bury it. Who knows, if it died, it might become a ghost haunting you. But then..."

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(End of Chapter)