Chapter 131: New

“Ssssk—” A large tongue licked Li Huowang’s flushed cheek, peeling off a significant patch of his newly formed skin.

The excruciating pain, as if his face were being scoured by a wire brush, compelled Li Huowang to open his eyes once more.

Li Huowang gazed around in a daze, realizing he was still in the dead town, though many of the houses had collapsed.

It seemed much had transpired since he lost consciousness yesterday.

The sky was bright now, and judging by the sun's position to the west, he appeared to have been lying there for an entire day.

Mantou barked incessantly around Li Huowang, appearing eager yet too timid to approach him.

Only then did Li Huowang belatedly become aware of the unusual condition of his body.

After being scorched by flames from the inside out last night, he should, by all accounts, have been utterly dead.

Yet, he was very much alive; the charred outer layer had peeled away, and his body was now covered with a thin, new layer of skin.

“It seems my regenerative capabilities have increased again. No, it’s not just regeneration; it’s a comprehensive amplification.” Li Huowang mused, looking down at his body, which was red and appeared scalded.

All his clothing had been completely incinerated.

Fortunately, neither the *Great Thousand Records*, nor his long sword, nor the iron torture implements had been damaged by the intense heat of the flames.

He staggered to his feet, the slightest breeze causing him sharp pain on his skin.

Li Huowang roamed through the entire dead town with his dog.

After circling for a while, he found new clothes in a secondhand clothing store thick with cobwebs.

Moving past the headless skeleton shopkeeper behind the counter, Li Huowang found a blue Daoist robe and draped it over himself. He then tore off a large piece of fabric to bundle up all his belongings.

His new, delicate skin was easily abraded by the fabric, and small "peach-blossom" bloodstains gradually spread across the Daoist robe.

His flesh and skin were still adhered, and every movement caused Li Huowang a searing, knife-like pain. Walking like this was nothing short of torture.

Inside the secondhand clothing store, he found a long bench, sat on it with trembling hands, and quietly waited for his skin to fully regenerate.

Li Huowang waited amidst the piles of clothing in the secondhand store. As time slowly passed, the entire shop gradually grew darker.

In the fading light, the old garments hanging from the beams within the room appeared like rows of suspended corpses.

A faint breeze, whose origin was unknown, drifted through, causing the clothes to sway gently and making the entire room feel particularly eerie and terrifying.

“Woof! Woof woof!!” Mantou barked at the swaying clothes, timidly shrinking beneath Li Huowang's bench.

“Shhh, don't bark,” Li Huowang murmured, gently stroking Mantou’s head. “There are no ghosts in this world. When people die, there's nothing left. Otherwise, they would have come for my life long ago.”

Mantou gradually quieted, then began to lick Li Huowang's palm.

When it unexpectedly and easily licked through Li Huowang's delicate skin, it immediately stopped, looking at Li Huowang with remorse in its eyes.

Li Huowang gently pressed its kicked abdomen with his hand.

Blood at the corner of its mouth confirmed Mantou was injured, but its ability to run from the mountain down to the town indicated the injury was not severe.

If Jiang Yingzi truly intended to kill a dog, it would have been effortless. There was only one reason Mantou survived.

It was because she was kind-hearted and chose not to kill Mantou, even though the dog considered her enemy its master.

“Yingzi...” In the dim secondhand clothing store, Li Huowang gazed blankly at the gently swaying garments before him.

In that moment, a flood of thoughts consumed him.

Suddenly, he stood up, ignoring the raw, painful abrasions on his skin.

Li Huowang walked over to the headless proprietor of the secondhand store, picked him up, and headed outside.

His long sword, capable of cutting iron as easily as mud, was once again used as a shovel to dig a pit.

After digging a large pit, Li Huowang carefully placed the skull he had found inside the store alongside the headless skeleton, straightened them, and reburied them.

He removed a door panel, intending to carve an inscription, but realized he had long forgotten how to write the characters.

Ultimately, he simply used the tip of his sword to carve a garment pattern and placed it before the burial mound.

Next, Li Huowang turned and entered another room, from which he carried out the bodies of a mother and daughter.

Skeleton after skeleton was interred, and grave marker after grave marker, each bearing a carved pattern, was erected.

With his skin still unhealed, the constant friction from the clothing quickly caused it to break down completely.

Combined with his heightened sense of pain, the sensation was undoubtedly akin to "death by a thousand cuts."

Yet, Li Huowang did not pause for an instant. The more his body ached, the more his tormented mind found a semblance of relief.

As Li Huowang continued his grim task, his Daoist robe progressively turned a dark crimson once more.

When Li Huowang stepped back into a bungalow, he froze. Inside stood a bamboo cradle, and at that moment, he felt a strange reluctance to approach it.

“Heh heh… Compared to you, am I not a saint?” A familiar voice boomed in Li Huowang’s ear like a clap of thunder.

He spun his head sharply, only to see Danyangzi, with his three heads, standing atop the rubble of the house opposite.

Staring at the three heads’ enigmatic smiles, Li Huowang instantly felt as though he were trapped in an ice cavern.

The next moment, Li Huowang moved. He ignored Danyangzi on the rooftop and instead slowly turned and began walking towards the distant mountains.

He started with a slow walk, then transitioned into a jog, and finally, gritting his teeth, broke into a run, leaving a trail of blood drops behind him.

“Explain this to me! What in the world is happening?! Why is Danyangzi still here!”

Inside the brightly lit cave, surrounded by a crowd of Zoroastrian followers, a breathless Li Huowang, with blood streaking his face, loudly questioned the several cave openings on the wall before him.

An aged voice emerged from one of the cave openings. “Young friend, everything between us is concluded. Your master's soul has long been scattered. We have not detected him within you.”

Just then, Li Huowang’s pupils contracted to pinpricks, and with a trembling hand, he pointed towards one of the cave openings.

“Then tell me what that is! Are you all blind? What nonsense about his soul being scattered! He has a greater influence on me now! He can appear at any moment! This thing has not been eradicated at all!”

Hearing this, Li Huowang sharply inhaled. “No! Even Jiang Yingzi is here! She’s right beside Danyangzi!”

The words had barely left his lips when Li Huowang himself sensed something was amiss. Danyangzi’s existence was attributed to immortal cultivation, but how could Jiang Yingzi be here?

Li Huowang’s gaze fixed on the woman in the distance, who had severed limbs and whose body was a bloody mess.

She continued to stare fixedly at him with an expression of intense hatred.

“Young friend,” the voice replied, “we stated beforehand that our task was merely to expel your master and address the peculiar illusions of your Xinsu. Those, we cannot control.”