Chapter 540: 灌口

Qiu Chibao, holding the child in her arms, swallowed continuously, her eyes fixed longingly on the red-robed Taoist priest who was chewing on dry rations. Her voice was almost a plea: "Please, sir, can you spare some food? I haven't eaten in three days. I'm so hungry."

Seeing the pitiful woman beside him, Li Huowang pulled another steamed bun from his clothes. When he saw it was completely soaked in blood, turning it into a "blood bun," he casually tossed it aside.

Qiu Chibao's eyes instantly gleamed. She pounced like a hungry tiger, trying to pick up the blood-soaked bun and put it in her mouth. But it was always in vain; the bun on the ground passed through her hands repeatedly, impossible to grasp.

Qiu Chibao lifted her head, her face etched with despair, and looked at Li Huowang. "What are you doing?" she cried pitifully. "You don't want this bun, so why won't you let me take it? A bun this big could save a life!"

"Wuwuwu! I'm used to hunger, I'm not afraid of it! But if I'm hungry, my body won't produce milk, and my son will starve to death! Do you have any conscience at all?!" she wailed, biting her finger and putting it into the swaddling clothes.

Watching Qiu Chibao cry in despair beside him, Li Huowang sighed in annoyance. He stood up and headed east. It had been so long since a new hallucination appeared that Li Huowang had almost forgotten his Xin Su's troublesome special ability.

"What exactly is going on? Why did she become my hallucination?"

"So many people have died in front of me, why did this crazy woman become my hallucination?" Li Huowang was destined not to find the answer to this question; even Zhuge Yuan didn't know.

"Why won't you let me eat! You villain!" Qiu Chibao, clutching a rusty knife, fiercely lunged at Li Huowang, plunging it into his left eye socket. But as Li Huowang continued to walk, his body simply overlapped with hers, and he emerged from behind her.

He had tried to communicate with her a few times at first, but Li Huowang soon gave up.

Whether he told her she was dead, her child was dead, or that she herself was a hallucination, she simply wouldn't listen.

This woman named Qiu Chibao was utterly mad; even as a hallucination, she remained insane.

Li Huowang, who suffered from a similar affliction, could understand her, but that didn't change the fact that she was perpetually lost in her own world.

Fortunately, there was a simple way to quiet her down.

Li Huowang pulled out his last portion of dry rations and threw it into Qiu Chibao's arms. The excited woman immediately calmed down, ravenously devouring the bun. As she ate, she glared fiercely at the other hallucinations around her, as if terrified they would snatch her food.

Peng Longteng, Jin Qian, Ge Yuan, the Monk, Qiu Chibao, Zuowang Dao, Jiang Yingzi—Li Huowang mentally reviewed the pattern of these individuals becoming his hallucinations.

It seemed these people became his hallucinations when they died near him and his emotions fluctuated violently. To prevent future hallucinations, he would need to avoid similar situations.

However, after some thought, Li Huowang realized that while some patterns fit certain hallucinations, they didn't apply to others. For instance, he still hadn't figured out whether the Monk's real body was truly dead or not.

Furthermore, not all of these people were closely related to him. This woman who just appeared, for example, hadn't said a single word to him when she was alive, yet she too had become a hallucination. "Could there be multiple ways for someone to become my hallucination?" Li Huowang muttered to himself.

"Brother Li," Zhuge Yuan said, "don't dwell on these non-urgent matters right now. Let's find the Supreme Confluence first. Once we do, we should hurry back. The Great Qi is unstable, and it's dangerous for you to stay here." Hearing this, Li Huowang nodded and immediately composed himself.

"That's right," he thought. "The problem with the dice is the most critical right now. With so many hallucinations, what difference does one more or one less make? 'Many debts, no worries; many mosquitoes, no itch.' Perhaps when my cultivation reaches mastery, I can simply turn all these people into real beings and send them away from me."

"No, no, no..." Jin Shanzhao's words made Li Huowang look at him.

Jin Shanzhao was standing there, his hands loosely supporting the ground, smiling as he looked at Li Huowang.

"Good, good, good!" Jin Shanzhao repeated, dragging his half-body towards Qiu Chibao. He gently patted her calf, silently comforting her.

Li Huowang said nothing, quickened his pace, and ran in the direction Zhuge Yuan had indicated.

The sun in the sky gradually shifted. As Li Huowang drew closer to the so-called Supreme Confluence, his expression grew increasingly solemn.

The skinned tree trunks around them became increasingly sparse. Li Huowang followed a dry riverbed, and as dusk fell, a sinkhole finally appeared at its end. Looking down into the sinkhole, a seemingly bottomless deep pool lay hidden at its lowest point, likely due to the drought.

Seeing Zhuge Yuan beside him, Li Huowang asked with a deep frown, "Is this the Supreme Confluence?"

"No," Zhuge Yuan replied. "Because it's midnight right now, the Supreme Confluence is concealed within this water. After midnight, it will move to a different location."

"It's actually like alchemy, with time requirements," Li Huowang remarked. Without daring to delay, he picked up a large stone nearby and, with a powerful plunge, threw himself into the sinkhole's pool. With two "plops," Li Huowang and Li Sui hit the water's surface. Before he could even take a deep breath, the stone in his arms dragged him down.

The water in the deep pool was bitterly cold, making Li Huowang's limbs go numb. It was pitch black all around. Li Huowang suddenly felt something slimy brush past the back of his neck, but he—

—didn't know what it was.

Gritting his teeth, Li Huowang freed a hand and pulled out a luminescent stone from his clothes.

As the pale green light illuminated their surroundings, the darkness and some things lurking within it quickly receded. Li Huowang, still clutching the stone, continued to sink. This pool was even deeper than he had imagined.

He gestured a question to Zhuge Yuan beside him. In the bitterly cold water, Zhuge Yuan spoke, "Brother Li, don't panic, relax. The Supreme Confluence's hiding place is exceptionally concealed; malevolent entities cannot fully reach here, so there's no danger."

Hearing this, Li Huowang finally felt relieved and continued to descend.

In the pitch-black, icy water, there was no other sound but Qiu Chibao's continuous, miserable screams.

"Ahhh! I'm drowning! I'm drowning!" she shrieked, desperately thrashing towards the increasingly distant surface above. Her hands clutched the swaddling clothes high, trying to keep them as close to the water's surface as possible.