Chapter 9: Black Tai Sui

Chapter 9: The Black Taisui

"Taisui, the Black Taisui," Danyangzi's icy voice echoed through the cramped ingredient chamber.

Li Huowang tilted his head up slightly, casting another glance at the repulsive mass in the man's hand.

Upon closer inspection, he realized it bore a striking resemblance to the substance inside the black cauldron; no, the thing in his hand was the very same man-devouring horror from that cauldron.

"This thing is called the Black Taisui? Could he be planning to use it to refine pills? What a grotesque taste," Li Huowang muttered to himself.

With a subtle flick of Danyangzi's wrist, the writhing mass of Black Taisui traced an arc through the air and landed squarely on Li Huowang's foot.

The slimy, squishy sensation made Li Huowang's scalp tingle, his legs trembling as he stumbled backward.

Staring at the dust-coated Black Taisui on the ground, Li Huowang looked up at Danyangzi in sheer bewilderment, utterly failing to grasp the man's intentions.

"A reward for you. Pick it up and swallow it. You were merely a medicinal primer before, so it didn't matter, but now you are this Daoist master's disciple, and such carelessness won't do. It will suppress your hysteria."

Li Huowang seemed not to understand his words, nor did he want to; the boy's face turned deathly pale as he kept retreating. "I won't eat it! I'm not sick!!"

"Won't eat it? Hmph, that is no longer up to you. Changming, Changren."

Danyangzi tilted his chin up slightly, and two sword-bearing Daoists at his side swiftly approached Li Huowang, each seizing one of his arms.

Immediately after, Danyangzi beckoned with his right hand, and the Black Taisui, which had been wriggling toward the corner, flew straight back into his grasp.

Watching Danyangzi approach with that nauseating object, Li Huowang's body began to tremble uncontrollably, a bone-chilling cold seeping through him from the inside out.

He instinctively wanted to struggle and flee, but the hands of his two senior brothers locked onto his shoulders like iron shackles.

Fortunately, he had one last resort; breathing rapidly, his chest heaving violently, the terrified boy clenched his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, and contracted his mind and body inward with all his might.

"Huowang? Huowang! What's wrong? Are you in pain?" Yang Na's gentle voice sounded like heavenly music to Li Huowang at that moment.

Opening his eyes to see the girl before him now wearing a white turtleneck sweater, he lunged forward in a surge of emotion, clutching her tightly as if she were a lifesaving straw.

A faint blush crept onto the young girl's cheeks as she struggled, her voice as faint as a mosquito's buzz. "Huowang, let me go, Auntie and the others are watching from behind."

Li Huowang looked up and finally saw his mother standing beside the attending physician, gazing over with a doting, affectionate smile. "Oh my, my son is doing so great."

Looking at the clean, tidy ward, the bright sunshine outside the window, and his dearest family, Li Huowang's fear-shrouded heart gradually found peace.

The attending physician pushed his glasses up his nose and stepped forward with a slight frown. "Xiao Li, what did you see in your hallucination? Your emotional fluctuations are quite severe. What's been going on lately? Have you really been following my instructions?"

Thinking of everything he had just endured, Li Huowang's heart clenched tightly. He spoke to his doctor with anxious urgency, "Doctor, is there any medicine that can temporarily suppress these hallucinations? I really can't take it anymore, I just want to rest for a while."

"Sigh, alright, I'll prescribe some haloperidol and perphenazine, but Xiao Li, medication can only play a supplementary role. To completely rid yourself of hallucinations, you must follow my methods," the doctor said, tapping the prescription into his tablet.

When the nurse brought over a few blue capsules, Li Huowang rushed forward, too lazy to even drink water, and tossed them straight into his mouth.

He didn't want to think about any master or elixirs anymore; he just wanted to sit in peace for a moment. That recent scene had truly terrified him.

The capsules felt slimy and gritty, disgusting to eat, but he forced himself to swallow them down despite the nausea.

"Xiao Li, tell me, what exactly frightened you in your hallucination just now?"

Feeling much more relaxed after taking the medicine, Li Huowang smiled and replied, "Nothing much, it's just that the folks over there spoke in a weird tone. From how they sounded, it was as if they were saying their side is reality and our side is the hallucination. Hahaha."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the surrounding air froze into a dead silence, the unusually vivid colors faded into dullness, and Yang Na, his mother, the attending physician, and the nurse all froze in place.

The sudden shift in his surroundings made Li Huowang's body tremble, his breathing growing increasingly rapid as he looked helplessly out the window. The bright, sunny sky had turned pitch black, and the safe, peaceful environment vanished.

A tangible dread enveloped him, panic overwhelming all his emotions; driven by instinct, Li Huowang grabbed Yang Na and threw himself toward his mother's embrace.

But the moment he touched his mother, her body burst apart like bubbles, and the reliable, strong mother who had always shielded him from the storms was gone.

"Huowang..." Li Huowang's body shuddered violently; he whipped his head around, watching helplessly as Yang Na's form completely dissolved before his eyes. His one and only love had vanished entirely.

At that moment, all the positive beauty Li Huowang cared about disappeared, leaving him with nothing but despair, oppression, and agony.

The pristine white walls of the hospital receded rapidly like an ebbing tide, and he was thrust back into the dim cavern deep within the mountains.

With bloodshot eyes and bulging veins on his forehead, Li Huowang wanted to scream, to howl, to pour out all the despair and suffering in his heart.

But he couldn't, for his throat was tightly stuffed with the Black Taisui, unable to emit a single sound, forcing all the despair and pain to rebound and crush him entirely.

Watching his disciple kneeling on the ground, trembling and dry-heaving, Danyangzi strolled toward the door of the ingredient chamber with his hands clasped behind his back, shaking his head.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, raving like a lunatic and still claiming you don't have hysteria? You're the sickest one in this entire chamber. Did you think this Daoist master just picked medicinal primers at random?"

"Enough, the hysteria is gone, now you can get to work properly. Remember, the Qingfeng Hall doesn't feed idlers. Come to me on the first day of every month to collect your medicine."

With that, Danyangzi's other disciples followed him out, leaving only Li Huowang on the floor and the other medicinal primers around the chamber.

The bizarre-looking primers, afflicted with various congenital or acquired diseases, glanced at one another, momentarily at a loss as to what to do.

After about half an incense stick's time, the Black Taisui in Li Huowang's mouth finally slid down, and his heart-wrenching wails echoed endlessly through the cavern.

"Why!! Why, even after I've ended up in this godforsaken place, won't this illness let me go!!"

(End of Chapter)