Chapter 62: Night Talk

Chapter 62: A Nighttime Conversation

"Is anyone there?" Li Huowang's shout echoed endlessly through the profoundly vast emptiness.

Utterly bewildered, he glanced left and right, only to find himself standing on a wooden bridge, surrounded by an abyss of pitch-black nothingness in every direction.

Taking a deep breath, Li Huowang lifted his foot and pressed on, the wooden planks beneath him groaning and creaking with every step.

After an indeterminate time, he sensed something stirring in the distance; a jolt ran through his body, and he dashed swiftly toward the movement.

Yet as he drew near and finally discerned the true nature of the thing, his body seized in shock and he halted abruptly—it was Li Zhi's guardian spirit.

The clay figurine, once no larger than a palm, had swelled to three times Li Huowang's size, and with the grating sound of grinding stone, it slowly turned its head toward him, its pupils devoid of any black, a terrifying, milky white.

"This is no wooden bridge! I'm standing on someone's roof beam!" Li Huowang realized in a flash.

With a sharp creak, the many layers of red cords binding the guardian spirit snapped open, and a dense thicket of clay hands reached out from within, dripping dust as they clawed toward Li Huowang.

Li Huowang turned to retreat, but a colossal red bridal veil instantly swept over him, enveloping his entire body completely.

"Don't look..." an exceedingly delicate and ethereal female voice whispered.

"Hah!" Drenched in cold sweat, Li Huowang jolted awake; he hurriedly scanned his surroundings, finding no guardian spirit, no red veil—it had merely been a dream.

Glancing down at Bai Lingmiao beside him, Li Huowang tugged the quilt up over her shoulders, then turned, rose from the bed, and opened the window to gaze outside.

The moon still hung in the sky, suggesting he had not slept for long.

Staring at the dark roof tiles outside, Li Huowang's mind drifted back to the events of the previous day.

The secondary spirit veiled in red had clearly seemed eager to tell him something, only to be inadvertently interrupted by Li Zhi.

"What exactly did she want to say? Why wouldn't she let me see the guardian spirit?" Li Huowang pondered, his brow furrowed in a tight knot.

This secondary spirit had remained entirely silent, neither eating nor drinking, and compared to the exceptionally easygoing Li Zhi, she appeared profoundly mysterious.

For such a person to suddenly speak to him must surely carry some special significance.

"What could she possibly need to tell me in secret, something Li Zhi mustn't know? Does Li Zhi mean to harm me?"

He had originally planned to ask Li Zhi to try a shamanic dance, but this sudden development gave him pause; after all, they were not particularly close.

He had considered seeking out other shamans, yet even if he found them, there was no guarantee they would be any more trustworthy.

Since he had to seek one out, it was better to choose someone somewhat familiar.

"I must ask the secondary spirit privately what this is all about," Li Huowang resolved silently.

Casting another glance at the pitch-black sky, he turned, donned his blood-red Daoist robe, and stepped out; the few single-story houses of Li Zhi's fellow villager were not far apart, and Li Zhi lived nearby.

In the pitch-dark room, Li Huowang walked in silence, feeling his way toward Li Zhi's quarters.

"Creak..." The door, pasted with an inverted blessing character, slowly swung open, and a small, faintly glowing pebble was gently flicked inside.

The dim luminescence illuminated the room, revealing the great shaman Li Zhi sprawled on the bed and snoring, while the veiled secondary spirit stood rigidly by the bedside, as still as a hung garment.

Hearing the disturbance, the secondary soundlessly turned her red veil toward Li Huowang, standing there as if awaiting something.

To witness such a scene in the dead of night was, truth be told, deeply unnerving.

"Do I really have to go out and be alone with this thing right now?" Li Huowang hesitated at this moment.

But recalling the words she had spoken to him, he finally steeled his resolve and gently beckoned with his hand.

To his surprise, the secondary spirit actually moved, drifting slowly toward the doorway like a phantom.

As she stepped out, Li Huowang stepped back, one advancing and one retreating, until they finally halted outside the courtyard.

The hazy moonlight cast by a half-moon in the sky slightly soothed Li Huowang's profoundly tense nerves.

The veiled secondary spirit slowly drifted close once more, so close that Li Huowang's breath made the red veil tremble slightly. "What did you want to say yesterday?"

Those exceedingly long, black nails slowly rose, and under Li Huowang's astonished gaze, gently slit the fingertip of her other hand.

Immediately after, using the dark crimson blood that welled forth, she began to slowly write upon her red veil.

"Be... ware... you... are... the... Heart... Su... Immortal..."

"What are you doing!" As a fierce shout suddenly exploded, the black blood on the red veil was swiftly absorbed.

Li Huowang had barely taken two steps back when he saw a gloomy-faced Li Zhi padding barefoot over to the secondary spirit, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist. "What are you doing? This is my wife!!"

Hearing the commotion from the house, Li Huowang thought quickly and said, "Nothing at all, I was merely curious about my sister-in-law's face."

Eyeing Li Huowang with deep suspicion, Li Zhi scrutinized him from head to toe, then, as if asserting his dominance, lifted a corner of the red veil, thrust his head underneath, and planted a flurry of loud kisses.

As the red veil swayed, Li Huowang caught a faint glimpse of something in the moonlight.

"Are those... scales?"

Immediately after, Li Zhi pulled his head back out from under the veil and noisily licked the yellowish-green mucus from the corners of his mouth.

"Remember this! She's my wife, and if you're a bachelor, who's to blame? Blame yourself for becoming a Daoist priest! If you're so capable, why not return to secular life!"

Without waiting for Li Huowang to defend himself, he took the secondary spirit's ghastly pale hand with its long black nails and turned back toward the house.

Scales, yellowish-green mucus—these two images flashed repeatedly through his mind; what exactly was this secondary spirit?

When the thoroughly baffled Li Huowang returned to his room, he found Bai Lingmiao already awakened, kneeling on the bed and sleepily rubbing her eyes.

"What's wrong? Did something happen?"

Li Huowang said nothing, simply blowing out the relit oil lamp once more. "Nothing, go back to sleep."

"Beware? I am a Heart Su Immortal?"

Lying in bed, Li Huowang began to mull over the secondary spirit's fragmented words. "What is a Heart Su Immortal? And what exactly was she warning me to beware of?"

The next day, when Li Huowang awoke and entered the main hall, he saw Li Zhi eating porridge.

His right hand firmly held the secondary spirit's as he spoke to his fellow villager.

"My friend, thank you for looking after us. How about this, let me invite a guardian spirit for you, I'll give you a discount, how about thirty copper coins?"

Li Zhi stopped speaking right there, for he had spotted Li Huowang, and his expression was no longer as amiable as before.

(End of Chapter)