The Unruly Immortals

He suddenly stood up from his knees, grabbed his wife's hair, and yanked her off the kang onto the floor, slapping her hard across the face. Instantly, her sight became blurry with stars and blood streamed from her nose. "You damn dare lie to me!!"

While her son was hitting his wife, Lv Shuifeng wasn't idle. She took out a needle and, gritting her teeth, stabbed the entire needle into Zhao Er's arm flesh. "Dare you say I won't live past fifty!"

Zhao Er's screams turned into a miserable and piercing wail, echoing until night.

That night, they didn't let Zhao Er off easy either. They doused her battered body with cold water, locked her in the pigsty, forcing her to reflect on her mistakes.

It rained at night; in the filthy pigsty, Zhao Er shivered from the cold, trying to get as close to the pig as possible to stay warm.

A flash of lightning illuminated the figure outside the pigsty, the downpour casting the red silhouette like a statue standing there.

With her hands bound by chains, Zhao Er stood up, stretching her body as much as she could, glaring with bloodshot eyes at the figure, screaming like a beast from the depths of her heart. "Ahhh!!!!"

Yet her desperate scream was easily drowned out by the rolling thunder in the sky, causing no stir.

The collapsing Zhao Er cried out in despair, but she had no tears left, her voice hoarse.

Li Huowang walked into the pigsty, raised the knife, and slaughtered a black pig beneath it.

He peeled off the steaming, bloody pigskin and draped it over Zhao Er's body, restoring some sensation to her frozen limbs.

As Li Huowang grabbed the pig's heart, flames burst from his palm, roasting it to a savory aroma instantly.

When Li Huowang placed the cooked pig's heart in front of Zhao Er, she took it and began to eat voraciously, choking several times but not stopping.

Using all her strength to swallow the pork in her mouth, Zhao Er shouted at Li Huowang: "Why! Why are you helping them!!"

"You only know I'm deceiving them, but do you know how miserable my life is in this house!!"

"Lv Shuifeng turned the tables on me when she became mistress; she tortures me in every way imaginable, doesn't give me food, makes me work every day, feeding pigs, washing clothes, cooking, pricking me with needles for the slightest mistake! I live worse than an animal here! I've always been an outsider in this house!!"

"What about your family?"

"A married daughter is like spilled water! They've put their hearts on their son long ago, already forgotten me!"

Li Huowang nodded, "So you pretend to be possessed to take revenge on them?"

"I wasn't pretending!! At least I wasn't pretending the first few times!" Holding half a pig's heart, Zhao Er shouted aggrievedly again.

"Hmm?" Li Huowang was abruptly stunned; he hadn't anticipated this, that it actually wasn't pretend. This was indeed quite interesting.

"I don't know either; I'm just suffocated, stifled to the point of wanting to die, I didn't know what happened and it just happened."

"But afterwards, I felt much better inside, I don't know why either!!"

Upon hearing this, Li Huowang knowingly nodded.

"Oh~ I see, then you probably have classic hysteria, the accumulated mental stress unconsciously releasing this way."

"When you put it like that, it reminds me. It's not uncommon in remote villages of Da Qi, I understand, because if you don't release the stress this way, you only have two choices: self-destruction through hanging or drinking poison to escape the stress, or accepting the stress internally...driven insane."

"Insane... haha, driven insane..."

Saying this, Li Huowang seemed to think of something amusing and laughed aloud.

After laughing for a while, Li Huowang began clapping his hands in admiration.

"But I must say, despite being unconscious, compared to them, you played the best."

Zhao Er opened her mouth, crying out miserably, "The Chen Family doesn't treat me as human, my family doesn't want me either, no one wants me, no one wants me!!"

Looking at the utterly hopeless woman before him, Li Huowang knelt down on one knee, earnestly observing her bruised and swollen face.

"Doesn't life feel bitter? No hope whatsoever? Fancy a little joy? Want to escape this pain?"

Zhao Er gradually quieted down from her sobs, looking at the red-clad Taoist in front of her. ".....How to escape?"

"Play others!"

Li Huowang reached out and patted her shoulder. His indifferent face once again bore a smile.

"Your possession act was pretty good, but it's not enough; you need to play more!"

Li Huowang extended his right finger, accompanying his words, poking at her chest one after another.

"Think about it, when you pretended to be possessed, made them bow to you, made them slap themselves, didn't it feel great? Hmm? Didn't you enjoy that feeling?"

"Want to escape this bitter life? Want your future life to be only joyful with no sadness?"

With Li Huowang's words, Zhao Er became emotional, then powerfully nodded. "I... I don't want this bitter life anymore, I do! I want!"