Chapter 568: Finding

When Li Huowang emerged from the well, he was suddenly stunned. The sky was dark again.

He looked up at the sky, seeing that the sun of Great Qi had become even more incomplete, now so eroded by the blackness that only its rough outline remained.

Suddenly, from a great distance, Li Huowang felt a gaze. His mouth involuntarily opened, and he began to cough, the sounds gradually transforming into a crane's cry. "Yu'er God!"

Tense all over, Li Huowang drew his spine sword and swung it forcefully, burrowing in at an incredibly fast speed. Only when he returned to Daliang did he have time to reset his dislocated jaw.

Sweating profusely, Li Huowang now fully understood what was happening: the catastrophe of Great Qi was about to begin again.

The last catastrophe had lasted for so long; Li Huowang wondered if this time it would wipe out all remaining survivors.

Li Huowang remembered what Zhuge Yuan had told him. He let out a deep sigh, then clenched his fist and heavily struck the tree trunk in front of him.

Immediately after, he turned around and walked towards the spot where he had thrown out the young emperor of Great Qi. He had to find that young emperor!

Li Huowang mounted a horse and rode back at top speed to the location where he had previously cut the rift. Last time, he had only casually asked Li Sui about it and hadn't paid much attention.

This time, Li Huowang began to search the woods meticulously, not missing a single trace.

However, to his great surprise, despite his acute senses, he still found nothing.

"That doesn’t make sense," he thought. "The Great Qi Emperor was clearly stabbed through and bled so much. Even if an animal carried him away, there’s no way not a single trace of blood would be left."

Just as Li Huowang began to expand his search area, faint footprints made his heart pound.

Great Qi could fall at any moment, and he had no time to waste. Li Huowang immediately followed the faint footprints quickly.

Li Huowang’s acute senses made him excellent at tracking. As the footprints became clearer, his hand tightened on his sword hilt.

Soon, Li Huowang saw a half-bent figure in the bushes. From the coiled, greying hair on his head, it appeared to be an old man.

At that moment, the man was crouched there, motionless as a statue. Such peculiar behavior made Li Huowang wary.

Li Huowang drew his copper coin sword and swung it forcefully towards him. The coins, instantly extended, sliced off the old man's coiled hair.

"Oh, my God!" The old man’s body trembled, and he immediately fell to the ground.

"A living person?" Li Huowang tightened his grip on the sword hilt and quickly approached, realizing this wasn't some strange evil entity, but just an ordinary old man who had wet himself out of fear.

"Great Immortal, spare my life, Great Immortal, spare my life!" The old man didn't even look at Li Huowang's appearance, but prostrated himself on the ground, kowtowing repeatedly.

"Get up!" Li Huowang pressed his sword against the old man's shoulder. "I ask you, have you picked up a baby within this period today?"

"What? A baby? I came to the forest to catch ginseng! I haven't seen any baby!"

"Ginseng? What ginseng?"

Seeing the man tremblingly point forward, Li Huowang took a few steps, pushed through the bushes, and looked inside, finding no ginseng, only a small pit and some red strings tied with bells.

"Where's the ginseng?"

"Didn't you scare it away? I've been squatting here for half a year! If I had caught it and sold it in the city..." The old man said, feeling extremely wronged.

"What nonsense is this? I'm asking you, are you familiar with this area?"

"Yes, yes, yes!" The old man nodded desperately, as if a moment's hesitation would cause Li Huowang's sword to come down.

"Besides you, has anyone else come here recently?"

"I don't know that, but only people from our village come to this area."

"Could someone from this village have picked up the Great Qi Emperor?"

Li Huowang recalled the Great Qi Emperor, who was only palm-sized with nearly transparent skin; there was no way he could have left on his own.

"Let's go! Take me to your village!"

The old man naturally couldn't refuse and led Li Huowang out of the woods.

However, the further they walked, the more familiar the village seemed to Li Huowang. It appeared to be the place where he had traded a jade pendant for a horse last time.

Just as they reached the village entrance, Li Huowang saw a child, seemingly eleven or twelve years old, stripped naked and suspended above a willow tree. He was being whipped with willow branches, leaving swollen red welts all over his body. Snot and tears streamed down his face, and his wailing made him appear utterly pitiful.

Some villagers stood in a circle, pointing and gesturing, with no intention of stopping it.

"Oh dear! That's my grandson! What's happened?"

The old man beside Li Huowang instantly panicked, rushed over, and put his hand in front of the bearded man who was doing the whipping. "Son! Are you mad? Why are you whipping your own son to death like this?!"

"I'd rather whip him to death and have another one! Do you know what this bastard did? Three days ago, he defecated in our well!"

"What?!" The old man snatched the willow branch from the bearded man's hand and began to whip his grandson as if he were a spinning top.

Li Huowang looked at the onlookers, then after a moment of thought, he took a few steps and jumped onto the willow tree. "Everyone!" he announced. "Not long ago, my sister had a premature birth! We originally intended to bury the child far away, so we buried him in the woods to the east! But Yang Banxian said that my little nephew is still alive!!"

"So my sister sent me to find my little nephew. If anyone can help me find him, I will offer ten taels of gold as a token of my gratitude!"

Li Huowang’s words instantly caused a buzzing uproar among the onlookers. Even the old man stopped whipping his grandson and began whispering with his son.

Li Huowang's eyes quickly scanned, observing everyone's subtle expressions and their omnipresent human emotions and hardships.

Li Huowang didn't intend to rely on the reward to find the Great Qi Emperor; instead, he relied on his Zuo Wang Dao abilities.

These people were ordinary folk. If one of them had found the Great Qi Emperor, their demeanor would certainly show something unusual.

However, to Li Huowang’s disappointment, after scanning the crowd, he found no such signs. It appeared these people had not found the Great Qi Emperor.

"Ah, if you throw a baby in the woods, it’s probably long gone, carried off by wild dogs."

"Indeed, how could you find it now?"

"This Daoist priest is quite humane; even though he's renounced the world, he still cares about his family."

"Hey! Isn't that the person who stole Master Song’s family horse? I heard he was also a red-robed Daoist priest."

Listening to their words, the disappointment on Li Huowang’s face deepened. It seemed the people here genuinely had not seen the Great Qi Emperor.

"Ah, maybe some kind person picked him up," someone said. "Some people pray for sons and can't get them, while others have sons and just abandon them. Take, for example, about thirty years ago..."

As an old man smoking a water pipe in the crowd began to repeat a story he had undoubtedly told countless times, the people around him quickly dispersed.

"Why isn't anyone listening?" the old man continued. "Well, it was a little child about thirty years ago. Old Yan, from the east end of the village, really did find a bloody little baby in the woods. It looked like a skinned monkey, and its chest was still open. At the time, a few of us advised Old Yan to find a place to bury it, just in case it died and became a ghost to haunt him. But then..."