Chapter 83: Xinsu

Chapter 83: Pure Essence

"Is madness the best ending for the Pure Essence?" Could this truly be the fate that awaits me?

Li Huowang had always assumed that when others called him the Pure Essence, they merely meant he was made of some rare material, much like the rare aptitudes in the cultivation novels of his past.

Yet the old nun before him told him otherwise; the very name Pure Essence harbored a grave secret.

Li Huowang calmed his turbulent heart for a moment, took a deep breath, and asked again, "Abbess Jingxin, I once used the Black Tai Sui to cure my hysteria, and it worked quite well. Have you ever used it on your son?"

Li Huowang desperately wanted to hear the words "never used" from her lips, but he was soon disappointed.

"Used it? Of course I have. But the Black Tai Sui cannot be consumed carelessly. It is easy to swallow, yet agonizingly hard to expel. It nests in your belly, drinking your blood and devouring your flesh."

"A little is fine, but if you eat too much, it will consume your entire stomach and burrow its way out of your body from the inside." Abbess Jingxin described it vividly, as if she had witnessed it with her own eyes.

Li Huowang rubbed his belly, his expression growing even more grim, for a mass of tentacled Black Tai Sui was currently nesting within his own stomach.

That scoundrel Danyangzi had never harbored good intentions; even the medicine he gave him came with severe side effects.

But these trivial matters could wait; he had far more pressing questions to ask.

"Abbess Jingxin, could you tell me what the Pure Essence truly is? And why is it that the ultimate fate of all Pure Essences is to descend into madness?"

Li Huowang pressed on with a hint of anxiety in his heart; he desperately needed this answer now, for it concerned his very survival in the future.

Hearing the noise, Jingxin, who was swallowing her food, looked up once more, directing her two pitch-black voids toward Li Huowang.

"What is the Pure Essence? You are the Pure Essence, and yet you ask me? Can you not perceive how you differ from others? Then let me ask you, where do you come from?"

Li Huowang opened his mouth to speak instinctively, but stopped warily.

The fact that he had transmigrated from the modern world was a crucial and deeply private secret; he absolutely could not reveal it unguarded to this bizarre old nun he had just met.

Who knew what thoughts this fat old nun might harbor upon learning this secret.

"Hehehe, let me guess. You must feel that you don't belong here, don't you? That you are from another great world? A world entirely different from this realm?"

Jingxin's casual words instantly shattered Li Huowang's psychological defenses. "You actually know?!"

Unfazed, Jingxin lowered her head and continued eating the thick, yellow mush in her bowl.

"Why are you so flustered? Children lack composure. You wonder how I know this? Didn't I just say? My son was a Pure Essence, and he thought the exact same thing."

These words made Li Huowang instinctively step closer, his voice trembling slightly as he asked, "Your son was also a modern man? He transmigrated too?"

At this moment, his heart was beating furiously. When Li Huowang suddenly discovered that there were others like him in this bizarre and perilous world, he felt an extraordinary surge of excitement.

No matter who they were, no matter their gender, as long as they came from the same world, he would no longer be alone.

The overwhelming pressure that had been bearing down on him could finally be shared.

Most importantly, he could not remember how he had come to this world; perhaps they remembered, and perhaps through them, he could find a way back to his original world!

Abbess Jingxin, however, did not answer immediately. Instead, she wiped the yellow fluid from the corner of her mouth and once again "looked" at the young man before her with a smile.

"No, he was not. He was born from my womb, that is the absolute truth. And let me tell you, young man, Zhuangzi dreams of a butterfly, or a butterfly dreams of Zhuangzi. Do not be so certain about anything, especially the things in your own mind."

"What do you mean?" Li Huowang found himself unable to comprehend what she was trying to say.

"Why must you believe you are definitely from that other place? Why can you not consider that you belong to this very world, and that those bizarre and fantastical great worlds are entirely false, that everything about them is merely a figment of your imagination?"

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!! I know that what happened at the Qingfeng Temple was an illusion, but I definitely lived in the real world in the past! I transmigrated from there!! I am a transmigrator! I am not a madman who imagined another world!!"

At this moment, Li Huowang's eyes were bloodshot, his hands trembling as he clenched them into tight fists. Like a dragon whose reverse scale had been touched, he shouted his rebuttal at the old nun before him.

Jingxin did not argue. She tilted her face slightly, seemingly lost in reminiscence.

"Hehe, my son said those exact same words back then. Just like you, he was lucid one moment and confused the next, spouting nonsense and talking to himself."

"But I, his mother, know the truth. He came out of my belly and never left my side. He never went to any other great world; it was all just his wild imagination."

The moment these words left her lips, Li Huowang felt as if he had been struck by a paralyzing spell. He froze in place, his breathing growing erratic.

Yang Na, his mother, the hospital, the school—all of his past flashed rapidly through his mind. Did none of it exist? Could that entire world possibly not exist? Was there truly no modern world at all?

In that instant, Li Huowang felt everything around him become unreal and illusory. "What is truly real? What is false?!"

"I didn't transmigrate? I am fundamentally a person of this world, and there never was a modern world? Everything in my mind about reality is just my own delusion? No, this isn't right, something must be wrong!"

Li Huowang's emotions began to spiral out of control. His breathing grew increasingly rapid, and his expression twisted into a ferocious grimace.

With his self-perception severely shaken, Li Huowang needed to find a breakthrough to relieve the mountainous pressure in his heart.

Suddenly, his gaze hardened, and he glared viciously at Abbess Jingxin before him.

Before he could speak, he saw the fat woman point a greasy finger at him, pinching her voice to mimic his words.

"No! You're lying~! You have ulterior motives against me!! Everything you say is false! You're trying to harm me, aren't you~! It won't be that easy!!"

Having said this, and watching Li Huowang freeze in place, a kindly smile returned to Jingxin's fat and bloated face.

"Hehe, you were just about to say those words to me, weren't you? Actually, my son said the exact same things to me. Ah, thinking of it now, it feels like just yesterday. How nostalgic."

(End of Chapter)