Chapter 778: Secret

Chapter 778: Secret

It had taken such effort to finally meet the Fate Keeper, yet this was the outcome—Li Huowang refused to accept it.

After steadying himself slightly, Li Huowang saw that the figure before him remained motionless like a lifeless object, showing no response at all. He shifted his thinking then.

“I am Ji Zai’s heart coil! Do you know Ji Zai? Aren’t you two working together against the Goddess Yuer now?” As Li Huowang spoke, his left ear fell off his face. He reached out to pick it up and reattached it to his head.

Seeing that the other party would not respond in any way, feeling his head throb with pain, Li Huowang grew desperate. “What do you mean?! Why could Xuan Pin help you but not me?! What are you thinking?!”

Only then did Li Huowang sense movement from the other. In the next moment, something incomprehensible swept over his entire body. Then he felt his skin stripped away, bones peeled off, until nothing remained of his physical form.

“If you have the strength, kill me! See if Ji Zai doesn't come after you once I'm dead!” With every ounce of energy he had, Li Huowang attempted to reconstruct his body.

But in the next instant, everything vanished—the assimilation from the Five Wisdom Buddhas, his disintegrating organs—all disappeared completely, leaving only emptiness around him.

And so abruptly, the Five Wisdom Buddha departed.

“What the hell is going on?! I came here to help you! Have you all gone mad?! Can’t tell right from wrong?! Don’t even speak!!”

Just as Li Huowang was about to give up and think of another approach, he suddenly sensed something lingering where the Five Wisdom Buddha had been.

Something was coming—but he couldn’t perceive what it was or from which direction. This sensation was strange; there was no trace of celestial assimilation.

“Ji Zai? Is that you?” Li Huowang asked cautiously, preparing to retreat.

He didn’t know whether this place was Baiyujing—if it were, then whoever had arrived now needed careful consideration.

Suddenly, Li Huowang heard something fleeting—a very subtle feeling, tinged with familiarity, buried deep within memory.

“I’ve seen this thing before—I’ve seen it before!” Li Huowang tried hard to recall, trying to understand what it was, but the harder he concentrated, the more elusive it became.

At that moment, the entity appeared again. This time, Li Huowang sensed its size—it was odd, extremely odd, seeming both immense enough to cover the whole sky and tiny enough to be nearly invisible.

Li Huowang desperately wanted to see what it was—another Fate Keeper, or something else entirely? Unfortunately, his eyes were blind, so he could only rely on other senses.

If it were a Fate Keeper, it didn’t feel like one—there was no strong celestial assimilation pulling him in.

As Li Huowang stood bewildered, reaching out his hand, he touched strands as fine as hair.

When the entity appeared and disappeared for the third time, Li Huowang was suddenly yanked downward by an overwhelming force, plummeting rapidly.

"Dad! Dad?" Li Huowang struggled to open his eyes, seeing Li Sui beside his bed, gently patting him with worry.

"Dad, what happened? Are you okay? I shook you hard and you wouldn’t wake up," Li Sui said, wiping the cold sweat from Li Huowang's forehead with a towel.

"I... I’m fine!" Li Huowang clutched his throbbing head, walked over to the bronze basin, cupped water in his hands, and splashed it across his face several times.

The icy water sent shivers through his body, making him feel somewhat better.

"What exactly was that thing? What did it want to do?" Li Huowang frowned deeply, but just then, he caught sight of his reflection in the water—and froze. The Li Huowang reflected in the water had seven eyes on his forehead.

At that moment, Li Huowang finally understood what those hair-thin things had felt like—this was the Upper Gate of the Highest Auspiciousness! The Upper Gate of the Highest Auspiciousness, the secret of the foot-mind exchange!

Clearly, compared to the human-shaped Tang Sancai statue of the Upper Gate of the Highest Auspiciousness, whatever he’d encountered this time was far more exalted in status.

He hadn’t revealed any secrets, yet the entity had given him seven private parts outright.

"It gave me these... Could it be trying to make me trade for how Xuan Pin can assist the Fate Keeper?"

The more Li Huowang thought about it, the more likely it seemed. Otherwise, these seven private parts would serve him no purpose at all.

Though his goal had been achieved, doubt still lingered in Li Huowang’s mind: What exactly was that thing? Why was it helping him? If it were a Fate Keeper, it should at least oversee a celestial path.

"Upper Gate of the Highest Auspiciousness... Secret... Celestial Path..."

Li Huowang pondered. "A Fate Keeper who governs secret celestial paths? Speaking of fifty celestial paths, does one exist called the Secret Path?"

This question held no answer. Li Huowang strained to remember everything that had happened, hoping to find clues among the fragments.

But while searching through his memories, he suddenly realized something was wrong—he noticed his past memories were vanishing imperceptibly fast!

"What... what is happening?" Just as he tried to make sense of it, a knock came at the door.

"Who is it?!"

"It’s a monk—Chandu."

"Could the abbot of Zhengde Temple know anything? After all, I met that thing through his ritual." Thinking of this, Li Huowang didn’t even bother putting on his shoes, rushing straight to the door and opening it.

There stood Chandu, clad in robes, holding a purple golden bowl, accompanied by monks standing there, hands folded in reverence.

"May the Buddha guide us. The Jalanaka Assembly is about to begin. May I escort you?"

Li Huowang took a few steps back in shock. “What?! Are you joking?!”

Yet when he looked again at Chandu, he found him solemn, not the slightest hint of jest.

“All of that—it was just a dream, a lie?” Li Huowang recalled the hazy memories in his mind, unsure now what was real and what wasn’t.

But then he remembered something else, rushed quickly back to the water basin, and upon seeing the reflection of his forehead with seven eyes, he immediately understood—it wasn’t a dream! Everything had truly happened!

"Master Li, what’s wrong? Didn’t you say you wanted to meet the Buddha? Have you changed your mind?"

Hearing Chandu’s voice outside the door, Li Huowang suddenly seemed to grasp something.

"No! That wasn’t a dream! My experience—even that particular time—was hidden by Him! That thing is the Fate Keeper who governs secrets!"