Chapter 765: Awakening

Chapter 765: Awakening

“You’re brother and sister? He has the surname Ba, and so do you?”

Li Huowang decided not to follow their line of conversation anymore. He intended to ask these two directly about their origins. If there was nothing important to learn, he would make his escape.

The nonsense they kept spouting had no meaning after a while.

Seeing that Li Huowang changed the subject, the other party didn’t back down. “Indeed. My name is Ba Naxu. He’s called Ba Shengqing. We are twins.”

“Twins? I never would’ve guessed. You’re so skinny, and he’s so tall.”

“Because we were conjoined twins. He absorbed all the nutrients, so naturally I grew up thin.”

Noticing Li Huowang’s shocked expression, wide-eyed and staring at him, Ba Naxu pointed to the thorn-like tattoo on her face.

“We were joined together once, but later we separated. This is just for covering the scars.”

Li Huowang immediately recalled the similar scar on Ba Shengqing’s face earlier. He hadn’t expected the tattoos on both of their faces to be from such a past.

“So the separation surgery must have been very dangerous?”

“No surgery, no conditions. Our parents died young. We cut ourselves apart with scissors.”

But upon hearing this, Li Huowang’s shock gradually faded. “I don’t believe it. If you really did that, let alone the pain, it would kill you. With such large wounds, if you didn’t go to the hospital, you’d have bled out long ago.”

“Heh heh, well said,” Ba Naxu put her cigarette back in her mouth and took a deep drag.

There was something odd about how this woman spoke—something off-key.

After another round of scanning the unique tattoo parlor, Li Huowang stood up to bid farewell and walked toward the exit.

“Ji Zai, you’ve been robbed.”

A familiar gaze made Li Huowang turn sharply around, eyes wide in shock as he stared at Ba Naxu seated there. “What did you just say?! Who are you?!”

“Hmm?” Ba Naxu turned around, puzzled.

“What did you call me just now? Repeat it!” Li Huowang rushed back and grabbed her arm tightly again.

“Just now? I didn’t say anything. If you think this is how you flirt, your technique is quite special.”

“Ji Zai!! Why did you call me Ji Zai? What do you know? Why does Qian Fu also call me Ji Zai?!”

“Why does everyone know that Zhuge Yuan used to give himself a fake name? Could it be...”

Some information received recently began to reassemble uncontrollably in Li Huowang’s mind.

He tried hard to shake off the terrifying idea forming in his head, but it spread like roots, and Zhao Lei’s words from before resurfaced involuntarily.

“Answer me! Why do you want me to be Ji Zai?!”

“Let go.” A cold voice came from behind Li Huowang. When had Ba Shengqing appeared with the tattoo gun behind him?

Li Huowang slowly released Ba Naxu and looked intently at Ba Shengqing in front of him. Suddenly, a new doubt arose strongly within him.

“You’re conjoined twins. Why do you happen to bear the surname Ba? Why do you take the surname Ba?”

“Because my father has the surname Ba, so we take the surname Ba. What’s the problem?” Ba Naxu crossed her arms, looking puzzled at Li Huowang.

“No!” Li Huowang looked at the various tattoos on them, at their forked tongues, tongue rings, lip rings, and nose rings, at the people with different patterns drawn on human skin around them. His eyes suddenly lit up.

"Pain! Pain!! I understand now! I understand!! You... you are..."

He couldn't finish the sentence. The urge to speak yet inability to articulate nearly drove him mad.

At that moment, Li Huowang pulled out a military knife and stabbed it deeply into his palm.

The sharp pain sent shivers through his body, making him suddenly clear-minded. He pointed at the two before him and shouted excitedly, “I get it! You are Ba Hui! You are projections of Ba Hui! Everything is fake!”

With those words, the pressure inside his heart vanished instantly.

Not only Ba Hui, but Li Huowang remembered Chen Hongyu who had asked him to buy snacks earlier. That person was also a Guardian, a Guardian of the Zen Master Jingxin.

Perhaps others were Guardians too, but he didn’t know them well enough to recognize them.

But Ba Hui—he definitely knew him.

He felt something different right away when meeting them today.

Seeing Li Huowang's strange behavior, the Ba siblings frowned simultaneously and stepped back a few paces. Customers inside the shop were terrified by the bloodied hand and ran out shirtless, clothes in hand.

“So you two are one person! No, you're both Guardians! I know you! I know you so well! That’s why I felt familiar! Ba Hui! I recognize you!”

“Why do you keep calling me Ji Zai? Why? Who is Ji Zai?” Li Huowang’s mind raced rapidly.

Clearly, this name wasn’t just a fake—it signified more.

“You’re projections of Guardians. Then I...” Li Huowang looked down at his own body. “Am I a Guardian too? Am I a projection?”

“No way! When did I become a Guardian? When? What kind of Guardian am I?”

As Li Huowang recalled, things he had deliberately avoided began to surface in his mind.

“Was I created by my cultivation? Am I a Guardian? That means… this world is fake? All of this is... projections?”

A chilling fear gripped Li Huowang’s heart. He no longer cared about the Ba Hui before him and rushed out of the tattoo parlor into the bright, sunny pedestrian street.

At that moment, Yang Na ran over anxiously asking, “Huowang? What happened? What’s going on? What just occurred?”

Li Huowang had no time to listen to what Yang Na was saying. His expression was panicked, breathing heavily as he looked around frantically.

Suddenly, he crouched down and lay on the ground, touching the stone tiles, feeling their smoothness and hardness, even rubbing his face against them.

“So real, how could it be fake? How could it be a projection?”

Li Huowang’s pupils trembled as he stood up suddenly and ran toward a nearby pillar.

He looked at the poster stuck on it, tore off a large piece, brought it close to his face, and tremblingly tore it apart with his fingers.

Feeling the sensation and sound of paper tearing, watching the poster slowly split open clearly before him.

The contradiction made his expression increasingly pained. “Could it be... I’m overthinking it? Could it actually be real?”

He suddenly knelt down, picked up the torn pieces, and stuffed them into his mouth, chewing them greedily, tasting their flavor, feeling his saliva completely soak through the poster.

Suddenly, Li Huowang sensed gazes surrounding him. He raised his head abruptly and saw several people pointing and whispering at him.

“What are they? Are they projections? Other Guardians? Or enemies’ projections? What do they want with me?”

With a gradually sinister expression, Li Huowang reached behind his back and firmly gripped the handles of the two bayonets.

(End of Chapter)