Chapter 270: Fear

Li Huowang's figure gradually surfaced from underground, under the astonished gazes of Scholar Lu and Luo Juanhua.

With a grave expression, he glanced at the silver in their hands and said, "It looks like he's being threatened. Alright, you're not involved in this."

With that, he turned, pushed open the door, and walked out.

Li Huowang pushed open the door, re-hid his ethereal form underground, and returned to the cook's room.

The cook was unchanged from before; he was still wrapped in his blanket, trembling and peering out of the paper windows.

Unlike the woman from earlier, the most significant difference about him was the complete absence of any bloody smell.

As Li Huowang watched, the cook suddenly raised his hands, plunged them into his cotton trousers, and began to rummage with a contorted expression.

Seeing this, Li Huowang frowned deeply, turned, and left.

This time, he found the waiter again, but the waiter was nervously wiping tables, all the while glancing towards the Lu Family Troupe's lodging.

The fat man had been right; the people of Pixian were indeed neurotic, and their complexions were visibly poor.

Realizing he couldn't find the information he needed in the inn, Li Huowang stepped outside into the pouring rain.

However, after only a few steps, he encountered an old man walking towards him, dressed in a straw cape, wooden clogs, and a bamboo hat.

When the old man looked in Li Huowang's direction, his eyes instantly widened to their fullest, and with a horrific scream, he passed out, eyes rolling back, falling into the rain.

"He can see me? How can he see me?" Li Huowang, taken aback, looked down at his body, finding it indeed empty and nothing there.

Suddenly, Li Huowang realized that although his ethereal form was hidden underground and invisible, his physical body was still present externally and could be touched.

It was raining everywhere, but precisely where he stood, there was a rain-free human-shaped outline. This was far too bizarre.

No wonder the old man was suddenly startled; if it were him, he probably would have jumped too.

When Li Huowang saw people on the street, having heard the scream, looking towards the old man, he quickly retracted his body and re-entered the inn. "This won't do; I'll wait until the rain stops."

Inside the Lu Family Troupe's room, even though Li Huowang had left, they were still discussing.

"Oh my goodness, the young Taoist priest can walk through walls!" Luo Juanhua's eyes widened instantly.

"Why are you so flustered? This has nothing to do with you! Calm down." Scholar Lu said with a stern face, then turned and walked towards his youngest son, who was cross-legged on the bed.

He reached out and cautiously stroked his son's head. "Xiu Cai, did you see how powerful that divine ability is? You must learn it well. If you truly master walking through walls, what couldn't you do in the future?"

Woken up, Xiu Cai glared at his father with man-eating eyes. If he hadn't seen his older brother approaching nearby, he would have burst out with harsh words.

"Old geezer! Don't bother me! I'm busy!" With that, Xiu Cai closed his eyes again.

Seeing his youngest son's completely changed personality, Scholar Lu sighed softly. His expression downcast, he sat beside him and lit his dry tobacco pipe.

In the past, he had always resorted to beating his youngest son to solve problems. But when that stopped working, Scholar Lu found himself at a loss, unsure how to teach his son.

The rain in Pixian fell all night. The next day, though the sky remained overcast, the rain had finally stopped.

Li Huowang, an early riser, walked out of the inn in his straw cape, passing among the few, grim-faced people of Pixian.

Upon seeing Li Huowang, the Pixian residents still showed fear, quickly moving out of his sight.

Though he appeared to be wandering aimlessly, Li Huowang was actually making his way, through a series of detours, towards the largest residence in the county, the Yamen where the county magistrate held court.

He had already chosen his target while sleeping the previous night.

If there was one place most likely to uncover what had truly happened in Pixian, it was undoubtedly the Yamen, which governed the entire county.

"I'm being watched," Li Huowang thought, unsurprised, as he rounded a corner and caught sight of two constables in blue robes behind him.

Their complexions were as poor as everyone else's, their lips frozen purple, and heavy dark circles hung beneath their eyes as they stared fixedly at Li Huowang's back.

Li Huowang pretended to notice nothing and turned the corner.

As the two constables quickened their pace and swiftly rounded the corner, they were astonished to find no one in the alley.

"Old Wu, we lost him. What do we do?" the younger constable asked, looking troubled at the older one.

The older constable looked at the unmarked ground, his expression shifting, thought for a moment, then waved his hand. "Let's go!"

Li Huowang, invisible on the wall, watched them leave. Once their backs were out of sight, he turned, dropped down from the wall, and cautiously made his way inside. The other side of the wall was his destination.

As Li Huowang knew, every county typically kept a county gazetteer, a record of major events. This was Li Huowang's target.

In his invisible state, Li Huowang moved through the Yamen as if in an unpopulated land, quickly finding what he was looking for.

"In the summer of the Zichou Year, fourth month, Xinsi day: Great disaster... people exchanged children to eat..."

"In the Wuwu Year, Shenhui, Jingzhe: Heavenly Dog Devours Sun..."

Li Huowang turned page after page until he reached the latest entries. To his surprise, the most recent record, from two years ago, stated a great harvest in the county?

"How is that possible? The entire county is terrified like this, yet the magistrate recorded nothing? Or did he deliberately conceal it?"

As Li Huowang pondered, he suddenly heard a child's agonizing scream.

Li Huowang's heart tightened. He closed the gazetteer, returned it to its previous spot, and cautiously followed the sound, slowing his steps.

His keen hearing allowed him to distinguish more clearly: the cries were mixed with a child's words. "Dad... it hurts... Mom... no..."

After walking for a while, Li Huowang reached the outside of the woodshed from which the sounds emanated. By now, the voices were perfectly clear.

"Dad!! Don't pull, don't pull!! Waaahhh~ Mom~ It hurts, it hurts..." The boy's voice was utterly miserable, as if he were being tortured.

"This must be what that old grain merchant meant by 'beating the child,' right?" Li Huowang secretly approached the paper window, dipped his index finger in saliva, and carefully made a hole in the window.

As Li Huowang peered through the hole into the room, his pupils immediately constricted.

He saw a boy, merely seven or eight years old, tied naked to a pillar, snot and tears streaming down his face—a truly pathetic sight.

A man and a woman stood nearby. Judging by their pained expressions and their resemblance, they appeared to be the child's parents.

Despite their reluctance, they were using an iron clamp to tightly grip the child's lower body, pulling outwards with trembling force.

Instantly, the boy let out an extremely sharp shriek, his bound body thrashing continuously.

This sight made Li Huowang's eyes twitch. The pain must have been almost comparable to torture.