Mutated Tao

When he saw Li Huowang laughing hard, Xuan Pin realized he had been tricked.

“Do you think this is funny?” Xuan Pin revealed a rare unfriendly side of himself.

“Of course! You lost nothing and helped my cultivation a lot! Be proud of it.” Li Huowang held his stomach and laughed again.

Xuan Pin remained still and Li Huowang stood up. He changed his face back to his original one.

“Don’t be so stingy. You’ve been using others all this time, so why does it matter if I tricked you? How about this? Let’s say our grudge from when we fought the Earth Dragon has been settled.”

Li Huowang had obtained a lot with just a simple trick. He quite literally received an ocean of False Qi.

It was also payback since Xuan Pin had left him in the Earth Dragon’s stomach.

Ignoring LI Huowang, Xuan Pin explained his purpose. “I’m here to tell you that Taishan Shi has confessed.”

“Oh!” Li Huowang became serious. “Can I see?”

“Alright.” Xuan Pin waved his bone-like fingers and placed them on Li Huowang’s shoulder. Everything shifted around them.

Li Huowang blinked and saw that he was in a dark and humid dungeon. The lines around them were squiggling a lot, but soon became solid.

“Hm? Hm…” Xuan Pin looked around him in confusion.

“What’s wrong? Is there danger?” Li Huowang realized that this differed from the illusions Xuan Pin showed him in the past.

Li Huowang touched the metal fence and felt the coldness of rusted steel. He looked at Xuan Pin in amazement.

“Xuan Pin, you are truly wondrous! To think you could transport me from Qing Qiu to Si Qi. Why didn’t you do this last time?”

Compared to the Imperial Preceptor flying on his sword, teleportation was exceedingly more powerful.

“...”

Xuan Pin remained quiet for a moment before he nodded. “You know I prefer to be secretive. I don’t trust others, and there was no reason for me to show you this before.”

Li Huowang never thought someone could be shameless enough to say something like that.

“Let’s talk more about it next time. Where is Taishan Shi now?”

“Here.” Xuan Pin led Li Huowang into the depths of the dungeon.

They walked down a stairway plastered with talismans before Li Huowang saw Tai Shanshi. The latter was currently immersed in blackish water, with numerous talismans floating on the surface.

Compared to his previous self, Taishan Shi looked much more disheveled now.

His eyes were sunken and his face was pale. It was as if he would die at any moment.

More importantly, someone had removed Taishan Shi's scalp, leaving his brain missing and the interior of his skull exposed to the open air.

“Oh, to think we have rare guests here.” Zheng Boqiao was confused to see both Li Huowang and Xuan Pin here.

“So the Chief of Si Qi interrogated him personally. Is there any news?” Li Huowang said.

“You can see them yourself.”

Zheng Boqiao took out a porcelain bowl and dipped it into Taishan Shi’s exposed skull. He scraped the insides of Taishan Shi’s head against the side of his skull before scooping out a large jumble of his blood and brains.

He swallowed it as if he was drinking soup. Zheng Boqiao used his own body as a furnace to refine a pill.

Li Huowang frowned when he saw what was happening. “Uh… You can just tell me. There's no need to show me.”

Zheng Boqiao blinked before regurgitating the contents back into his mouth, then chewing and swallowing them again.

“There wasn’t much valuable information, but I did obtain a backup plan from him. They plan to summon a god into the mortal realm if they start losing the war. They are willing to put in a lot of effort into it.”

“Summon? Who? Is it god Yu’er?” Li Huowang frowned.

“No. If god Yu’er could be summoned, they would’ve done so already. There would be no need for them to fight and scheme so much. They shouldn’t be summoning a Siming, but something else—something just below a Siming.”

Something just below a Siming? Li Huowang recalled the beings waiting outside of Baiyu Capital.

“Something like the God of Happiness?” Li Huowang recalled how hard it was to fight against it.

“No. You don’t even need to summon them. You can just call for them here. It’s something stronger than a God of Happiness. Since Taishan Shi came from the Great Qi, he only knows this much. The others didn’t reveal anything to him.”

Li Huowang looked into the glowing mirror and checked the situation at the frontline. The war was not looking good for the Dharma Sect, so Li Huowang thought this would be when they sprung their plan.

The reinforcements from the Liang Kingdom had arrived at Si Qi. The Dharma Sect would fall if they failed to get their own reinforcements.

Li Huowang considered it and looked at Xuan Pin. “Do you have anything to fight against the thing they are summoning?”

“We shouldn’t even let them summon it in the first place. Since we know what they will do, we should stop them.”

He continued, “We can’t send the army to their location since that would reveal our intentions. We need to send a small group of elites to destroy their plans.”

“Why are you looking at me? Isn’t there anyone else?” Li Huowang frowned.

“The strong naturally get the most work. Don’t worry, others will accompany you. But I will only truly be at ease if you go. To be honest, you are stronger than me now.”

“Stop trying to place me on a pedestal. I don’t have time to do this. You need to figure out a plan yourself.”

LI Huowang actually wanted to go destroy the Dharma Sect, but he needed to cultivate ‘Lies’ first. He was just starting and didn’t want to stop.

If he couldn’t deal with the side effects of cultivating the ‘Truth,’ he would be in big trouble on the battlefield. No one would know what would happen to him.

“Don’t worry.” Zheng Boqiao stopped them. “We also need to send informants and spies to see if it's true. You can tell us when you’re ready. It would be best if you could make it, but if you can’t, then it's fine.”

Li Huowang took one last look at the half-dead Taishan Shi before he left the dungeon. “Xuan Pin, remember to take my daughter from Si Qi.”

Li Huowang left, and the dungeon was quiet once more. The two chiefs looked at each other and shook their heads.

“Working with him is not easy.”

“Don’t worry, his fate won’t be a good one. I have a feeling that we won’t be in contact with him much longer after this crisis is over.”