Chapter 229: Unexpected

"She's fake, I don't need you to tell me that! Yes, even if my mom is a hallucination, I still don't want to hurt her feelings!"

Li Huowang, bound tightly by chains, roared, his veins bulging.

The next moment, he slumped, deflated. Pain contorted his face as he knelt, repeatedly banging his head against the ground. Each impact left a larger dent in the ground.

Finally, Li Huowang stopped. He tried his best to control his emotions and calm himself down.

"Mom, could you step outside for a moment? Don't worry, I'll have a good talk with Dr. Wang. It's fine, I'm tied up. I'm tied securely, so I can't hurt him, and I won't."

Just then, Mantou, a dog, emerged from the crowd, carrying something in its mouth and heading towards Li Huowang. But Gao Zhijian quickly scooped it up. "No... don't... don't go there!"

"What exactly do you want? I'm telling you, if you dare to exploit them again, you'll pay!"

"What do you need to be responsible for? Just take your money! Is it so hard to just brush us off and tell my mom you can't do anything?"

"I told you, my situation is beyond help from someone like you!"

"Fine, I misspoke. Let me rephrase that! You, a mere hallucination, are utterly useless!"

"Try what? I won't! This side is fake! It's all fake!"

Li Huowang twisted his head, burying his entire face beneath the turf, completely submerging his head.

After a moment, with a sudden "Boom!", Li Huowang's head burst from the turf, his face contorted in a grotesque grimace. He screamed furiously into the air, "You think you're so great? All you do is stand there and flap your lips!"

"And you claim to understand me! What drivel do you understand?! Do you have any idea what I've been through?! How could you possibly empathize?!"

"Treat both sides as real! Easy for you to say! If you're so clever, try putting yourself in my shoes! Have you ever been in a situation where you're eating chocolate bonbons on one side, while on the other, someone is feeding you iron nails?!"

"I don't care about myself! I don't mind if you make me swallow nails! But I, Li Huowang, have people I care about, and I'm terrified!"

"I'm afraid that one day, I'll be using chopsticks to pick up food on one side, while on the other, I'll be jabbing those same chopsticks into Bai Lingmiao's eyes!"

"I won't give up! One day, I'll find a way to get rid of you hallucinations! I won't suffer like this forever! One day, I'll be normal again!"

Suddenly, as if seeing something, Li Huowang's face twisted into an expression of disbelief. His breathing grew shallow and rapid, his pupils trembling.

Li Huowang abruptly spun around again, his bound body burrowing into the dirt like a maggot, his mud-caked head shaking frantically.

"No! Li Huowang, you've been fooled twice already! You can't fall for it again! That has to be fake!"

"You absolutely cannot lose yourself in confusion again! They're still running for their lives over there! If you get lost again, what will happen to them?!"

Under the gaze of the others, Li Huowang continued to roll across the green grass, his movements churning the once pristine turf into an unrecognizable mess.

An hour later, Li Huowang stopped. He lay there motionless, his chest barely rising and falling, otherwise indistinguishable from a corpse.

"I'm ready. Untie me."

Deep exhaustion permeated Li Huowang's hoarse voice.

Just as the others were about to rush forward, Bai Lingmiao stopped them.

"Don't go, I'll go alone. Senior Brother Li doesn't want to see anyone else right now."

Once the crowd had gradually dispersed, Bai Lingmiao, disregarding Li Huowang's muddy state, knelt down and gently unfastened the chains. She cradled his head in her arms, softly massaging his temples with her fingers.

Li Huowang took a deep, shuddering breath, then slowly exhaled all the stale air from his lungs. Staring vacantly at the sky, he murmured, "Miaomiao, they're pushing so hard. I'm so exhausted from trying to hold on..."

Bai Lingmiao's heart ached so much she was on the verge of tears, but she knew there was nothing she could do at a time like this. She simply held Li Huowang's head, pressing it gently, repeatedly.

Li Huowang looked up at her, at Bai Lingmiao's delicate face, his expression hesitant. After a moment, he spoke softly again, "Miaomiao, be a little less kind to me from now on. If you're too good to me, it feels too illusory. I'm afraid this side might be a hallucination."

Bai Lingmiao's tears finally fell. She collapsed onto Li Huowang's chest, sobbing uncontrollably.

Li Huowang raised his left hand, holding it before him. With a powerful slash of a dagger, his pinky finger was severed directly.

He closed his eyes, quietly embracing the pain. The flicker of hesitation in his brows gradually vanished. "A joke," he muttered. "How could such intense pain be fake?"

Whimper? Mantou, something clutched in its mouth, cautiously circled Li Huowang.

Li Huowang picked up the severed finger and tossed it towards Mantou's feet.

"Woof!" Mantou dropped the black, snake-skin-like object from its mouth, then excitedly used a front paw to pin down the finger, meticulously chewing on it with the side of its teeth.

Li Huowang put his still-bleeding hand to his mouth, sucking the wound. Then he patted Bai Lingmiao's back. "It's alright," he said, "don't cry. Get up, everyone's secretly watching us."

When Bai Lingmiao, her eyes red-rimmed, rose from Li Huowang's chest, he untied a ribbon from the young woman's wrist and gently wrapped it around her eyes. "The sun is strong during the day," he explained, "remember to keep it tied, or it will hurt your eyes."

Taking the hand of Bai Lingmiao, who couldn't see, Li Huowang turned and walked towards his carriage.

After Li Huowang's outburst, the Qingqiu people throughout the tent village regarded him with odd expressions. Li Huowang didn't mind. He was leaving anyway and likely wouldn't see them again, so their opinions or whispers didn't matter to him.

"Baolu," Li Huowang said to Sun Baolu, standing beside the ox cart, who was embracing the Qingqiu girl, "until we meet again. We're leaving now. If you can, remember to write."

Sun Baolu looked somewhat helpless. "Senior Brother Li," he replied, "I don't know how to read."

Li Huowang was momentarily speechless. "Alright then," he conceded, "so be it. Take care of yourself." With that, he led the remaining group away from the encampment of tents. As for what Sun Baolu was hiding under his clothes, Li Huowang didn't bother to ask; he wasn't one for gossip.

Gouwa, Gao Zhijian, and others hugged Sun Baolu tightly. Many of their eyes were red-rimmed; after all, they were sworn brothers who had faced life and death together, and there was a chance they might never meet again. To claim they didn't care at all would be impossible.

As a dog, Mantou clearly didn't comprehend such emotions. It continued to circle Li Huowang, the object still clutched in its mouth.

When Mantou's tail brushed against his calf for the fifth time, Li Huowang sighed softly, looking down at the dog. "Spit out whatever's in your mouth," he commanded. "If you keep bringing me random things, I swear I'll stew you."

Mantou deposited the object from its mouth in front of Li Huowang, then squatted, wagging its tail and looking up at him.

"What is this? Is it shed snakeskin? Are there snakes this large in Qingqiu?" Gouwa used a knife to hook the object Mantou had brought, lifting it into the air.

The next moment, a black shadow darted out from the side, startling everyone present.

It was Li Huowang. Moments before, he had seemed indifferent, but now his hands trembled as he cradled the object, his face etched with intense excitement.

"This is... Black Tai Sui!"