Chapter 230: Source

"Senior Brother Li? What's wrong with you?" Dogwa's heart sank when he cautiously watched Li Huowang put the item into his mouth and chew it.

"Oh no, Senior Brother Li is having another episode."

Li Huowang completely ignored Dogwa's thoughts, meticulously savoring the taste of the thin skin. The more he chewed, the more excited his face became. "There's no mistaking this taste; it's the Black Suisui's skin! My hysteria can be cured!"

Although the skin was completely dried, Li Huowang, who had seen it once before, knew that after a Black Suisui died, it would dissolve into a puddle of water, leaving only this layer of skin. This transformation was entirely due to the Black Suisui's dehydration after death.

Currently, there was no clue on how to resolve Xinsu; it was a pipe dream, and the hope was extremely slim.

The Black Suisui could help him block out hallucinations, even if only temporarily, which would be incredibly useful!

"Mantou! Where did you find this?" Li Huowang turned and asked Mantou.

Whimpering, the scruffy dog, with its ears drooping, tilted its head left and right at its owner, clearly not understanding.

Li Huowang placed the Black Suisui's skin directly in front of its nose. "Smell this! Go find where it came from!"

"Woof woof!" This time, Mantou seemed to understand Li Huowang's command. After sniffing the black skin, it turned and ran towards the nearby grassland.

"Leave the ox cart with Sun Baolu for now! We're not moving! We'll leave once we find the Black Suisui!" With that, Li Huowang, leaning on his crutch, quickly gave chase.

Although they didn't know what Li Huowang was doing, the others still followed, genuinely worried he was having another episode given his current state.

Mantou ran a considerable distance, so far that Li Huowang's armpits began to bleed from the friction with his crutch.

"Clip-clop, clip-clop," dense hoofbeats sounded. Li Huowang turned to see Sun Baolu, who had ridden up with some Qingqiu people.

"Senior Brother Li! What are you looking for? Get on the horse! I'll take you!"

Li Huowang stepped into the stirrup, vaulted onto the horse, and pointed at the still-running Mantou in the distance. "Follow it!"

The horse was significantly faster than Li Huowang, so they finally weren't being left behind by Mantou.

Gradually, the sun climbed higher in the sky, and the air grew scorching hot.

"This far? Where did Mantou find the Black Suisui?"

Li Huowang pondered this while touching the long sword behind him. The Black Suisui might have been very dangerous to his past self, but to his current self, it was no longer a threat.

He shouldn't be thinking about whether the Black Suisui would threaten him, but rather how to capture it alive, how to imprison it, and then steadily consume its flesh piece by piece.

As Li Huowang pondered these questions, Mantou, who had been running wildly in the distance, suddenly disappeared.

When the horse caught up, Li Huowang realized Mantou hadn't vanished; it had simply run into a low-lying area in the grassland.

To the left of the depression was an irregular circular hole, resembling a common rabbit hole on the prairie.

However, the hole was clearly not dug by rabbits; it was too large, at least a zhang (approximately 3.3 meters) wide.

Li Huowang dismounted, approached Mantou, who was circling, and saw traces on the ground—traces of the Black Suisui.

The scattered black skin had been blown away by the Qingqiu wind, leaving only tiny fragments, but the traces of black water on the ground had not vanished.

Li Huowang recognized this black water; it was the black liquid the Black Suisui expelled from its body just before death. On the ground, any grass touched by the black water had withered and died.

The black water traces extended from inside the circular hole. From the scene, Li Huowang could deduce the circumstances of the Black Suisui.

It must have lived inside the hole, seemingly suffered a fatal injury, used its last bit of strength to crawl out, and finally died outside.

Subsequently, the skin left behind after its death was picked up by Mantou and brought to him.

"Hmm... I hope there's more than one Black Suisui inside this hole," Li Huowang thought to himself, then cautiously walked towards the dim circular opening.

"Wait!!" Sun Baolu, on horseback, immediately rushed forward, stopping his horse in front of the cave entrance and blocking Li Huowang's path.

Terribly frightened, he jumped off his horse and pulled Li Huowang, rushing away from the entrance. "Senior Brother Li! You can't go in there! You really can't!"

Sun Baolu's face was covered in cold sweat; he seemed to intensely fear the circular hole, not even wanting to glance at it.

"You... you've been here before?" Li Huowang could tell, even if he weren't blind, how terrified Sun Baolu was of the hole.

"Senior Brother Li! I beg you! Please leave quickly! This place is truly dangerous!!"

Sun Baolu was almost on his knees pleading with Li Huowang, but Li Huowang remained unmoved.

"What a joke," Li Huowang said. "After finally finding a clue to the Black Suisui, how could I let it get away?"

"Baolu, calm down. It's safe here now; no one can hurt you." Under Li Huowang's reassurance, Sun Baolu gradually calmed down.

Li Huowang asked Gao Zhijian for a water gourd, then handed it to Baolu. "Have a drink; your lips are so dry they're cracking."

After watching Sun Baolu gulp down all the water in the gourd, Li Huowang spoke to him again: "Do you know about this place? What's inside? I need to find something in there, and your information might be a big help to me."

"Senior Brother Li, you really can't go in there! Qingqiu doesn't have evil entities roaming freely, not because they've vanished without a trace, but because they're all hidden, all beneath the grass! That's their den!!"

Watching Sun Baolu's trembling finger point directly at the cave entrance, Li Huowang looked down at the lush green grass beneath his feet.

So, the entire vibrant Qingqiu was filled with evil entities beneath the surface? A sudden chill ran down Li Huowang's spine.

However, after thinking it over, he realized it made sense in this mad world; otherwise, the Black Suisui wouldn't have appeared here out of nowhere.

"That's it? Is that all? Do your people know anything else?"

"Senior Brother Li, please don't go! No one else knows what's inside! The Great Khan of Qingqiu even issued an order forbidding anyone from talking about the things in that cave. Some of those things, merely speaking their names or picturing them in your mind, can bring about misfortune!"

Hearing Sun Baolu's words, Li Huowang pondered for a moment before speaking again: "Alright, I understand."

With that, he leaned on his crutch and walked towards the hole behind the horse.

"Senior Brother Li! I've told you so clearly! Why are you still going in?! You'll really die!" Sun Baolu stamped his feet in exasperation.

Li Huowang looked at him, recalling the hallucinations he'd experienced that morning. He now desperately yearned for the Black Suisui, which could isolate his hallucinations.

"I've dealt with many evil entities myself; I'm not the novice I once was. Encountering an evil entity doesn't necessarily mean I have no chance of winning."

Given that even a Black Suisui had been killed, Li Huowang certainly knew the danger involved. But thinking of the Black Suisui, he felt the risk was worth taking.

He truly didn't want to experience that torment again. Li Huowang actually lacked confidence in himself, deeply afraid that after a few more hallucinations, he would fall back into them.