Chapter 21: Becoming Immortal Through Attaining the Dao

Looking at the two fist-sized, metal-glossy red pills, the two squirming flesh pills that resembled living creatures, and the two rotten, acrid-smelling black pills before him, Li Huowang nodded with satisfaction. He had included everything he could think of; with so many ingredients, this would undoubtedly kill someone, leaving no trace of life.

An incense stick was placed nearby, symbolizing the remaining time of the year. According to the cultivation method he had fabricated, one had to practice precisely at the moment of the New Year's transition to absorb the spiritual energy descended from the Heavenly Dao.

Li Huowang sat cross-legged. He first picked up the fist-sized red pill, ready to act. He was about to die, yet he found himself unexpectedly calm.

Yes, he hadn't prepared any backup plan at all.

Li Huowang understood that he definitely had to eat these pills himself; if he didn't, Danyangzi would certainly not ingest them.

Despite having just eaten the New Year's Eve dinner and pretending to be kind, what Danyangzi said about ascending to immortality together was actually just a pretext to test the pills on him.

However, Danyangzi, despite all his calculations, never anticipated that Li Huowang didn't care about his own life at all.

Li Huowang had long since become indifferent to life and death; he didn't belong here in the first place.

His only purpose in living now was to watch disgusting trash like Danyangzi walk into their grave, guided by his deception.

At this moment, Danyangzi sat opposite him, also picking up a red pill first.

Under the gaze of both men, the incense stick gradually burned down.

Just as the incense stick was about to burn out, Li Huowang took a deep breath, put the pill in his hand into his mouth, and swallowed it whole.

However, Danyangzi's movement to eat the pill stopped, and he stared intently at Li Huowang's actions.

Li Huowang, whose expression was somewhat excited, seemed not to notice. After directly swallowing the remaining two pills, he closed his eyes and placed his hands, clasped in a ritual gesture, on his knees.

Sweat streamed down his face. Li Huowang's body, as he meditated, began to tremble, but an uncontrollable ecstasy gradually appeared on his face.

"So much primordial spiritual energy!" he exclaimed. "This... these are... so that's it, I understand, I understand! I'm going to become an immortal!"

Upon hearing this, a hint of anxiety appeared in Danyangzi's eyes. But he still didn't take the pills immediately. It was only when he saw wisps of white smoke begin to emerge from Li Huowang's head that he ravenously swallowed all three pills.

As Danyangzi, sitting cross-legged, closed his eyes and began to circulate his qi through the major and minor Heavenly Cycles, Li Huowang slowly opened his eyes. He looked at the master in front of him, his smile even wider than before.

When he saw white smoke also rising from Danyangzi's head, just like his own, and something black spread through his veins, covering his entire body, Li Huowang's cross-legged posture loosened. Clutching his incredibly painful stomach, he burst into maniacal laughter.

"Hahaha, baldy! Baldy!" he shrieked. "You can't become an immortal now! You can only become a ghost! Let's be companions on the Naihe Bridge, hahaha!"

Danyangzi seemed to have heard him, but he showed no reaction. His eyes were tightly shut, his teeth clenched, and he continued to sit cross-legged, frantically circulating his qi through the inner and outer great circulations.

"Are you still practicing?" Li Huowang mocked. "That's all made up by me! I copied it all from Wuxia novels, hahaha! Ow, my stomach hurts so much, hahaha."

Li Huowang sprawled on the ground and slowly crawled to Danyangzi's side. He looked at the other's pale face with a crazy grin. He tremblingly raised his right hand and slapped him across the face. "Hey, are you deaf?" he taunted. "Your grandpa's talking to you."

He slapped him again with the back of his hand, but Danyangzi remained motionless.

Li Huowang tremblingly pulled out another pill and popped it into his mouth. Afterward, his veins bulged all over his body, and he felt filled with strength.

"I told you to stop practicing! Didn't you hear me?" Li Huowang shouted, punching Danyangzi in the face, directly caving in his underbite and nose.

Danyangzi, his mouth full of blood, suddenly opened his eyes and glared fiercely at Li Huowang. With a flick of his Daoist robe, he sent Li Huowang flying.

"Get lost!" Danyangzi roared. "You demons of the mind, don't think you can hinder me from becoming an immortal! I'm about to become a god! The Grand Ancestor is coming to pick me up soon!"

Li Huowang, who had been sent flying and landed on the ground, didn't sit up again. He just lay there, watching Danyangzi, and muttered to himself, "He's gone mad. This guy has been completely driven insane by his obsession with becoming an immortal. Oh, my stomach really hurts."

With one person sitting cross-legged and the other lying down, time slowly passed. Li Huowang's abdominal pain grew increasingly severe. Driven by instinct, his body curled into a shrimp-like shape.

"Hiss, why does it hurt so much?" Li Huowang groaned. "How long will this torment last? I really regret not having a knife to slit my throat just now." Curled up like a shrimp, he writhed on the ground in pain.

Under the intense pain, Li Huowang's consciousness gradually blurred. In his confusion, he saw Yang Na's face again. "Yang Na," he murmured, "have you come to pick me up?"

Yang Na's face rapidly melted and reassembled into the face of his attending doctor. "Bed 14, consciousness blurred, preliminary diagnosis: food poisoning!" a voice shouted. "Quick! Get the electric suction device, perform gastric lavage!"

Li Huowang slowly closed his eyes, and a barely audible voice slipped from his lips. "Gastric lavage my ass..." he mumbled. "Don't forget, this is a psychiatric hospital... Where would there be... a gastric lavage machine... Can't you hallucinations... be more logical..."

After uttering this last sentence, Li Huowang's consciousness lost all sensation of his surroundings.

He felt very comfortable now because his stomach finally no longer hurt.

Li Huowang felt his body continuously falling downwards, but never reaching the bottom.

"Huowang, hold on, you promised me!" a blurry, urgent female voice exploded in his ear.

He didn't know how much time had passed. Suddenly, Li Huowang violently opened his eyes. Supporting himself with his hands on the ground, he began to vomit profusely.

A mass of deformed flesh, mixed with black water and some hair, along with fragments of dumplings and a few pieces of internal organs, was directly spewed out by Li Huowang.

The flesh lying in the black water stopped moving after a few twitches.

All of this happening so suddenly left Li Huowang stunned. *He was still alive?* How could this be? If he was still alive, then Danyangzi must be...!

At this thought, cold sweat immediately drenched Li Huowang. He instinctively turned his head to look. Immediately, his mouth involuntarily dropped open. "Holy cow," he gasped, "he's become a god... what?"

He saw that his so-called master's body had completely mutated. His grotesque head had split open, and three fleshy, gaping mouths extended from within. Each of these mouths contained three or four smaller, nested mouths, all tangled together, displaying disgusting yellow teeth, and gaping wide towards the ceiling.

"What is this?" he wondered. "Three Flowers Converging at the Peak, Ascension through Feathering?"

Just as this thought burst into Li Huowang's mind, the three mouths stretched to their widest, and simultaneously, Danyangzi's voice echoed from within, in three distinct tones—that of a youth, a middle-aged man, and an old man. "So that's it," the voices shrieked, "I understand, I understand! Hahaha!"

"Bang!!" Accompanied by a loud bang, Danyangzi's entire deformed body instantly exploded. Blood and flesh splattered throughout the alchemy room.