Chapter 10: Steamed Bun

Chapter 10: Steamed Buns

Li Huowang curled into a tight ball, like an unborn child, huddled motionless and withdrawn in a corner of the ingredient room.

The other medicinal ingredients dared not, nor wished to, disturb him; they all went quietly about their own tasks.

Night fell unnoticed, the oil lamps on the walls all extinguished, and darkness draped over Li Huowang like a heavy quilt.

He lay there like a corpse, utterly unresponsive to the shifting world around him.

At the third watch, a faint candlelight flickered at the doorway, illuminating the nearby shelves and dispelling the darkness clinging to Li Huowang.

The timid Bai Lingmiao approached Li Huowang with a bundle of withered grass, carefully spreading it over him with the utmost caution.

Immediately after, she pulled a coarse-grain steamed bun from her bosom and placed it by his lips.

Seeing Li Huowang remain perfectly still, she pressed her lips together and gave him a gentle nudge. "Senior Brother, eat something. You haven't had a bite all day."

Li Huowang's eyes were open, staring numbly at the cold floor without a single blink for hours, not shifting even a fraction toward Bai Lingmiao.

Bai Lingmiao wanted to leave, but after a moment's hesitation, she ultimately drew a jade pendant from her bosom and placed it by his hand.

"Senior Brother, this belongs to you. Please take it back."

This time, Li Huowang finally reacted; he looked at the object and recognized it as the round jade pendant he had stolen from the previous Xuan Yang.

Li Huowang remembered giving this very item to Yang Na to pawn for money. The thought of Yang Na made his battered heart bleed anew. "This thing... how did it end up with you?"

"It was... you gave it to me, Senior Brother Li. I said I didn't want it, but you insisted on pressing it into my hands."

Li Huowang sat up slowly, examining the round, cloud-patterned jade pendant closely in the dim candlelight.

In this moment, he had never felt everything to be so profoundly real. Yet within this reality lay only genuine despair and authentic agony.

If he had the choice, how deeply he wished to remain forever lost in those beautiful illusions.

Seeing Li Huowang respond, Bai Lingmiao asked softly, "Senior Brother Li, where were you snatched from by the Master? I'm from the State of Liang. Where are you from?"

Li Huowang was stunned for a moment before shaking his head in dejection. "I don't know."

He truly did not know. He certainly had memories of the past, but after the day's events, even he could no longer discern how much of those memories were real and how much were phantoms.

Even here, he was still a madman, a lunatic incapable of distinguishing reality from hallucination.

As he shook his head, Li Huowang suddenly felt something odd about his scalp; reaching up to touch it, he found his hair matted with scabs—he had been injured earlier.

Seeing Li Huowang touch his head, Bai Lingmiao explained, "Senior Brother Wang did that."

Li Huowang knew this Senior Brother Wang was the hare-lipped fatty who had tried to lay hands on Bai Lingmiao earlier. "Where is the man surnamed Wang?"

"You... you... kicked him to death."

Hearing this, the image of Old Liu being kicked away in his hallucination flashed through Li Huowang's mind; he lowered his head and smiled soundlessly. He truly was mad enough.

Li Huowang reached into his robe and pulled out a gold anklet wrapped in red thread, holding it out to Bai Lingmiao. "This is yours, isn't it? Take it back."

Bai Lingmiao looked at her anklet and pushed it back with her open palms. "Senior Brother Li, you were right before. This thing is useless here. You keep it."

Li Huowang stared blankly at the gold ring, but it was of no use to him now either; everything he cared about had vanished.

"Um, Senior Brother Li, could I use this as payment and ask you for a favor?" Bai Lingmiao's words drew Li Huowang's gaze toward her.

"If you manage to get out of here alive, could you pass a message to my parents? They live at the foot of Niuxin Mountain in the State of Liang. Just tell them their daughter was unfilial and couldn't care for them in their old age or see them to their graves." As she spoke of her sorrow, Bai Lingmiao's voice grew choked with sobs.

"Senior Brother Li, I truly don't want to trouble you, but I really have no other way. I reckon they'll be taking me to the alchemy chamber soon, and I..."

Hearing this, the dejected and numb Li Huowang felt a tightening in his chest, and a light returned to his lifeless eyes.

He looked at the withered grass covering him, then at the steamed bun beside him, and with a tug of his hand, shoved the red-threaded gold anklet back into his robe.

"I keep my word. Since I took your thing before, I'll help you."

Bai Lingmiao's sorrowful eyes lit up instantly, but soon dimmed again. "Senior Brother Li, you can't do this. It'll get you into trouble too."

"Heh... do you think I'm still afraid of that?" Li Huowang had seen through it all now. He had thrown all caution to the wind; since everything he cared about was gone, what was left to fear?

"Well said, Senior Brother Li is mighty!" A male voice suddenly rang out from outside the ingredient room, startling them both.

As the candlelight illuminated the man, it revealed a grinning, sharp-featured face, its skin patchy with yellow and white spots, resembling vitiligo.

The man produced two coarse-grain steamed buns and obsequiously placed them beside Li Huowang.

"Hehehe, eat up, Senior Brother Li. During supper, I realized you hadn't eaten, so I specially saved these two for you."

"You might not recognize me, Junior Brother. I was raised by heaven and earth, no proper name to speak of. Just call me Gouwa, hehehe. Why, just yesterday, I offered you seventeen copper coins as a tribute."

Gouwa rubbed his hands together restlessly, his sycophancy practically written on his face; clearly, he wanted to use Li Huowang as a backer to avoid being sent off as a medicinal ingredient. Clever folks were everywhere.

Li Huowang said nothing, grabbing the three somewhat hardened buns and wolfing them down ravenously; he had been starving for a whole day.

Choking slightly from eating too fast, Gouwa sensibly dashed out at once to fetch Li Huowang a cup of water.

Washing it down with cold well water, Li Huowang stuffed the three coarse buns into his belly and staggered to his feet, his legs numb from lying on the ground for so long.

Bai Lingmiao reached out to support him, but Li Huowang pushed her away.

His gaze fixed dead on the pitch-black exit of the ingredient room in the distance, he staggered out.

His enemy was no longer his own mutating illness, but Danyangzi, the scabby-headed Taoist priest who refined humans into elixirs.

As Danyangzi's ugly, repulsive visage surfaced in his mind, a thick murderous aura gradually welled up in Li Huowang's eyes, his teeth grinding together with a gnashing sound.

He, who had just been utterly devoid of the will to live, was now brimming with drive; the only thing to do now was to figure out a way to kill him!

(End of Chapter)