The Unruly Immortals

The cold, rotting orange entered Li Huowang's mouth, and in addition to the unique strange taste of the fruit's decay, there was also the distinctive mustiness.

But Li Huowang, pushed to the extreme of hunger, couldn't care less about that. Right now, this orange was more important to him than any delicacy.

After swallowing a rotten orange, Li Huowang felt slightly better and suddenly stood up, shouting anxiously around him in the pouring rain, "Head of the Bai Family! Don't be afraid, I'm just sick, I'm ill, I am!"

A middle-aged person holding an umbrella saw the disheveled Li Huowang and quickly dragged his wife away in fear.

The reaction of others was the same: the street, which was already sparse due to the rain, cleared out at once.

Li Huowang utterly ignored these changes because he knew the situation back in reality was extremely urgent.

There, he was like pork laid out on a chopping board, and he had to figure out a way to save his own life!

However, the rain continued pouring down, giving Li Huowang no feedback, which made him feel extremely irritated.

According to the pattern before, the noise from reality should have been twisted into some change in the hallucination.

"Head of the Bai Family! Where are you exactly? Please give me some response! I can't see you right now!"

Just then, Li Huowang saw several men with umbrellas walking towards him, and his eyes suddenly lit up.

Li Huowang, in his worn-out leather shoes, charged through the puddles toward them. "Head of the Bai Family!"

The sudden appearance of Li Huowang from the rain obviously startled the man.

"Head of the Bai Family, do you remember I saved you before! Do you really plan to harm your savior?"

Feeling like this wasn't emphatic enough, Li Huowang added another sentence.

"Furthermore! Bai Lingmiao is carrying my child, whether you acknowledge it or not, I am now half a member of the Bai Family!"

"Where did this lunatic come from? He gave me a fright," said the man with the black umbrella, quickly retreating two steps and trying to bypass Li Huowang with apprehension.

How could Li Huowang let him go? He quickly stepped forward, spreading his arms to block the man's path.

"Head of the Bai Family, if you don't believe me! You can ask the second daughter to tell you to your face!"

Seeing Li Huowang acting this way, the man said with reluctance, "Brother, please let me go, okay? Have some pity on me too; I still need to go to work and pay off my mortgage."

"What did you say? I'm sorry, Head of the Bai Family, I'm trapped in a hallucination right now, and your words could be twisted into something else."

"How about this, Head of the Bai Family, I will stay right here and not go anywhere else. Just wait for me, I will be back to normal after a while."

Although the man did not understand the meaning of Li Huowang's words, he was shocked to hear he would be followed.

"Oh no, I've been stuck with a madman!" The man didn't care about anything else and immediately took to his heels.

Li Huowang, his face marked by urgency, lifted his foot to chase after him, but after running just a few steps, he staggered and fell to the ground.

The bodily sensations he had ignored while talking were rushing back to him.

"Cold," Li Huowang's lips turned purple, his teeth chattered uncontrollably, and he was so frozen he couldn't even feel his fingers anymore.

Li Huowang, lying in the rain, felt limp all over, utterly devoid of strength.

He wanted to disregard these false sensations, but the instinct to survive made Li Huowang struggle to his feet and move forward hunchbacked, with his hands clasping himself, sticking close to the eaves.

"Get lost! Lunatic! I'll beat you to death if you don't leave!"

"Hey! Oh no, don't dirty the carpet of my shop!"

"Mom! Hurry! There's a madman at our doorstep!"

Accompanied by these voices, Li Huowang, trembling terribly, stumbled forward.

Looking around, his anxious heart calmed down slightly. "Since I'm not dead now, the words I just made up must have had some effect."

But no sooner had one wave settled than another arose, and now his mind began to feel dizzy and heavy, as if he had a high fever from too much rain.

"If I die... If I die in this 'Huan Jue', then everything should be fine on the other side, right?" Li Huowang's weak voice carried uncertainty.

It was at this point that Li Huowang saw a small bridge shelter in the heavy rain off in the distance, just the right size for taking cover from the rain.

As Li Huowang gritted his teeth and dashed over, he narrowly missed a yellow school bus, and a delicate face pressed against the glass watched his retreating figure.

Upon arriving beneath the bridge, the previously noisy surroundings came to an abrupt halt, and Li Huowang, gasping for breath, leaned against the wall and slowly slid down.

Although he was no longer getting soaked, Li Huowang's body didn't feel any better. "Why is it taking so long this time? Why haven't I gone back yet?"

While Li Huowang struggled to wait for time to pass, he suddenly spotted something on the ground in the distance and hurriedly shuffled over.

In a corner of the bridge shelter lay a few plastic bottles with straws and several sheets of tinfoil, accompanied by an almost lifeless lighter.

Li Huowang stretched out his almost numb hand and picked up the red, transparent lighter.

"Click~" "Click~" Shivering, Li Huowang vigorously tried to light the lighter, but he couldn't get it to ignite.

As his head grew increasingly heavy, a small red flame gently flickered to life.

"It's lit." Li Huowang, his eyes reflecting the flickering flame, started smiling like a pure, innocent child.

Looking around, Li Huowang picked up a red plastic bottle with a straw from the ground and carefully placed it under the flame.

The red and white straw ignited and began to spread inside the bottle.

When the few bottles caught fire, forming a small bonfire emitting black smoke, only then did Li Huowang cautiously bring his frozen hands close to the fire.

The burning plastic gave off a foul smell, but it was warm.

The heat of the flame gradually transferred from Li Huowang's palms, warming his body. Slowly, his body stopped trembling, and his lips turned from black back to purple.

"Who's there!" Li Huowang, his scalp tingling, whipped his head around sharply and looked toward the mouth of the bridge, where a little girl wearing rain boots and holding an umbrella stood.

She was a very cute little girl who looked to be about seven or eight years old, with cherry hair clips in her pig-tailed hair.

Her big eyes first showed confusion and curiosity, but upon seeing Li Huowang, they completely turned to fear.

"December 18th?" Li Huowang, his mood fluctuating, blurted out upon seeing the little girl.

This girl was the one he had kidnapped when he was in kindergarten.

From the backpack on her back, he could tell that the little girl had graduated from kindergarten and was now in the first grade of primary school.

"No, she isn't December 18th anymore, she must be some other projection from reality on the other side; there's no one else in the Reed Marshes, it must still be the Bai Family," Li Huowang thought to himself, then started walking towards her.

But no sooner had he moved than the little girl, like a startled deer, quickly ran away screaming in panic.

When Li Huowang reached the bridge's entrance, he found a small piece of Dove chocolate that the little girl had dropped.

Li Huowang picked it up and put it in his mouth. The chocolate tasted good, very sweet, the special sweet flavor reminding him of Yang Na and the chocolate she had given him on Valentine's Day.

"Why was I abandoned on the streets? Could it be that my family has already given up on me?" A bitterness welled up in Li Huowang's heart, one that even the sweetness of the chocolate couldn't dissolve.

Li Huowang sniffed his slightly sour nose and turned back towards the bonfire.

He squatted down again, gazing blankly at the bonfire, and murmured to himself, "Since it's all an illusion anyway, this is fine, this is fine...."