The Unruly Immortals

The crazed Li Huowang flailed the food in his hands, leaping onto a nearby car and bouncing up with the sound of the car alarm.

"I'm insane!! I'm a lunatic!!!" Li Huowang's voice carried out far and wide.

Li Huowang's strange behavior caught the attention of others, and when the car owner came rushing over with a broom to beat him continuously, more and more onlookers gathered around.

Just as his laughter was getting more and more manic, Li Huowang saw a cute little girl, her mother leading her by the hand to wide berth, the red cherry hair clip among her hair strikingly familiar.

At the sight of her, the extreme excitement on Li Huowang's face gradually disappeared, replaced by pain.

Then he jumped off the car, ignoring the beating from the owner, and left with the food in his arms.

Inside the bridge tunnel, Li Huowang used the somewhat murky river water to refill the milk tea and started to drink numbly.

The bun tasted strange, probably spoiled, but he didn't care, nor did he care what he ate on the other side.

Li Huowang ate this little bit of food very slowly, as if savoring the taste carefully.

"Uncle?" Li Huowang turned his head and saw at the entrance of the tunnel, standing a girl in a small white dress.

Under the dazzling sunlight, she seemed to glow from head to toe.

Li Huowang gazed at her cute face and blurted out without thinking, "December Eighteenth?"

The little girl nervously and anxiously said, "I... my name isn't December Eighteenth, my... my name is Liu Yuhuan, my mom calls me Huanhuan."

When she saw Li Huowang stand up, Liu Yuhuan immediately took a few steps back in fear.

She quickly took off her backpack, first placing a piece of paper on the ground, then taking a packet of something from her backpack and placing it on the paper.

After finishing these things, the panicked girl glanced at Li Huowang again, and hurriedly ran away.

Li Huowang went over and looked down to see three buns in a white plastic bag, and they were the kind of Piggy Buns that only elementary school students would buy.

Li Huowang smiled knowingly, bent down to pick them up, unwrapped the plastic bag, and began to eat.

The buns were warm, appearing to have come out of the steamer not long ago; these weren't her leftovers, she had gone out and bought them especially.

Li Huowang sat there, carefully eating the meat-filled buns one bite at a time—they were really delicious.

As he ate, the surroundings of Li Huowang changed again, and he found himself sitting on a muddy road, munching on a ball of mud.

"Hehe," Li Huowang shook his head helplessly and continued to munch the mud ball clean, one bite at a time.

After finishing, Li Huowang returned to the temple and, under the scrutiny of other hallucinations, resolutely picked up the sword from the ground once more.

Just then, Li Huowang heard footsteps and the sounds of horse hooves, which were all too familiar,

"Miaomiao?!" Li Huowang grabbed the sword and rushed outside, but saw an unexpected person—a deity with a red bridal veil.

By now the rain outside had stopped, but the deity's red bridal veil was wet, with two streaks of water sliding down from where the eyes should be.

With a complex expression, Li Huowang stood in front of the temple watching it next to a horse-drawn carriage afar, "What are you doing here?"

"Woof, woof!" The tail-wagging Mantou emerged from behind the carriage, vigorously shook off the rainwater from its body, and excitedly dashed toward Li Huowang.

The wriggling Mantou jumped up, continuously stamping its muddy paw prints on Li Huowang's body.

That's when the deity lifted the side of the carriage, and the bound Black Taisui was presented before Li Huowang.

She led the carriage over and with her cold hand, adorned with sharp black nails, she took hold of Li Huowang and walked towards the ruined temple.

Once they reached the only dry spot inside the temple, the great deity took out a towel, dried off the rainwater and mud from Li Huowang's body, and then took a set of brand-new clothes and socks from the carriage.

She assisted Li Huowang in getting dressed, and then draped an old red Taoist robe over him.

As she bowed her head to tie his belt, Li Huowang stretched out his hand and pulled down the great deity's red bridal veil.

Suddenly, the deity's face, resembling a carnivorous flower, was exposed in front of Li Huowang.

However, the petals and buds of this flower were formed by snake scales, hedgehog spines, and some other similar materials.

In the very center of the flower, a tearful half-face of Bai Lingmiao looked sorrowfully at Li Huowang, directly opposite the other half of her face that resembled a fox-like beast.

And the organs on her face were not fixed; they shifted and changed slowly over time.

Sometimes the human face dominated, at other times the beastly one did, and the number of eyes also varied.

In such a state, the great deity opened her arms and gently embraced Li Huowang, hugging tighter and tighter, until he could barely breathe. "My lord..."

The hand reaching behind his back one by one pried Li Huowang's fingers open, allowing the Purple Tassel Sword to fall to the ground.

The white ribbon from her wrist was unwrapped and tenderly covered Li Huowang's eyelid-less eyes.

"My lord, ...we'll wait for you, for the day you are cured."

Hearing this, Li Huowang hugged her back, holding on tighter as he gazed into the large, elongated feline-like eyes.

Even though life was miserable and the world was full of despair, and every inch of Li Huowang's life had been forged with pain,

no one wishes to die, and sometimes, just a slight pull back is enough to avert a tragedy.

Eventually, the great deity left, but she left behind Mantou as well as the carriage that bound Black Taisui.

Li Huowang, sitting on the ground, stared blankly at the roofless hole in the sky for a long time before he picked up the Purple Tassel Sword again.

Looking at the fragment of his own reflection on the blade, Li Huowang's expression suddenly twisted, and he hefted the sword with a mighty swing towards the sky, aiming at a black pigeon perched on the beam.

"A pigeon?"

Just as Li Huowang had that thought, the pigeon flew down and landed on his shoulder. "Coo~coo-coo~coo~"

Only then did Li Huowang notice a small piece of paper tied to the pigeon's ankle.

It had a hieroglyph that looked like the character for "heaven" with an eye added underneath it.

Slowly unfolding the slip of paper, Li Huowang read its contents and was instantly alarmed, then he led the carriage out of the ruined temple.

It was a Pigeon Message from Tuoba Danqing, informing Li Huowang to come to Yinling City and meet at the old place.

This thing immediately reminded Li Huowang of his plan, his scheme to find Bei Feng through the Astrological Bureau.

A strong sense of unwillingness surged in his heart, pushing down the pain and desire for death in his eyes at that moment.

"Mantou, let's go! This damned place wants me dead, it won't be that easy!!"

"I have nothing left now, what's there to fear! Even if I die, I will punch a hole through it!"

"This identity as Xinsu, one day I'll be able to shake it off! One day I will! And when that time comes, when that time comes....."