The Unruly Immortals

"Senior Brother Li! What are you doing?!" Seeing Li Huowang self-harming, Bai Lingmiao ran over in distress, grabbing his continuously bleeding left hand.

Li Huowang, his face twisted in pain, shoved her away and began to scream hysterically, his eyes bloodshot.

"Why can't things just be quiet for once!! Why must something always happen in this damned place!!"

The dagger embedded in his palm was pulled out and then thrust in viciously again, this time piercing through entirely.

Bai Lingmiao was frozen in shock, but after a few seconds, she lunged forward, snatching the dagger from Li Huowang's hand and throwing it far away.

Then she spread her arms wide and firmly embraced the man in front of her. "Huowang, please don't do this! I'm begging you."

The moment Li Huowang heard her voice, he instantly quieted down, trembling as he closed his eyes and slowly buried this soft body into his embrace.

Gradually, Li Huowang regained his composure.

He slowly let go and looked back at Bai Lingmiao, took a deep breath, and said, "It's okay, I'm fine now. Where are the others? Have you seen them?"

Hearing this, Bai Lingmiao silently nodded, her eyes slightly reddened, and she led Li Huowang toward the edge of the island.

Soon, at the shore, he saw the other Medicinal Guides.

Initially, there were seven adults and five Taoist Boys, but now only six adults and three Taoist Boys remained, and not all of those left could move.

A shivering Bai Lingmiao, her lips turning purple from the cold, said, "Junior Brother Sun was a better swimmer than I. We desperately tried to retrieve people from the lake, but we could only find these few, and the fool... he also drowned."

Li Huowang stood before the people, looking at the fool's face, swollen and purple from suffocation. The same complexion was shared by another Medicinal Guide and a Taoist Boy.

Two were missing, and three had drowned. Out of the twelve, five were easily gone.

Li Huowang wasn't very familiar with these people, but still, they were companions who had shared life and death together in Qingfeng Taoist Temple.

During their rest times, he had heard them express their longing for home, dreaming of the days they could reunite with their families.

But now it all ended abruptly, their deaths utterly worthless.

Li Huowang's face clouded over as he paced the shore, looking at those who had drowned, the negative emotions that had been in his heart a moment ago vanished without a trace.

"Bang!" Li Huowang kicked a mangled head fiercely away. "Fuck!"

He had just lost his mind! To actually feel guilty for these murderers!

Li Huowang even wanted these human scums to come back to life so that he could personally kill each one of them again!

"These people deserved to die!! Their whole families should perish!!"

As Li Huowang's emotions started to become unstable again, a man who had been unnoticed in the crowd approached. With a voice filled with guilt, he said to Li Huowang, "Senior Brother Li, I tried to hold onto the fool, but he was too heavy; I couldn't hold on."

Li Huowang knew him; he was the Senior Brother Sun that Bai Lingmiao had spoken of, adept at swimming. His name was Sun Baolu.

Seeing the man in front of him drenched and miserable, a frown creased Li Huowang's brow as he said, "Stop staying here; let's go to the village and find the kitchen, get a fire started."

What was done was done; nothing else could be said. With so few people left alive, he couldn't let the cold claim any more of them.

A group of people, carrying and dragging the corpses of their companions, slowly made their way towards the village.

The Reed Village was awash in blood and flesh, with dark red blood flowing everywhere, making it sticky beneath the feet as one walked.

The others exchanged looks, it seemed they had questions, but Li Huowang wasn't in the mood to explain anything.

As they turned another corner between various buildings, Bai Lingmiao was so startled she quickly hid behind Li Huowang.

The previously dignified ancestral grandfather of the Yuan Family was impaled on a bamboo pole, his head thrown back with his mouth wide open, his eyes full of unwillingness to meet his end.

"Did I do this to him? When did I kill him?"

A puzzled Li Huowang recalled for a moment but found no memory of it. There were simply too many dead.

After searching for a while, they finally found the kitchen. The lid of the iron pot on the stove was lifted, and the firewood beside it was thrown in to create a bonfire.

A group of people gathered around to roast by the fire, attempting to let the heat of the flames drive away the coldness from their bodies.

Li Huowang did not join in to warm himself by the fire, standing quietly in the corner of the kitchen, looking at the corpses with faces purpled in rigidity.

In the end, his gaze stopped at the face of the simpleton, and Li Huowang hadn't expected that even he had died, this loyally foolish soul.

He was a simple character; in fact, even the Taoist Boy had seemed more mature than the simpleton.

"I shouldn't have always called you 'simpleton,' at least I should have given you a proper name, so it would be easier to write on your tombstone," Li Huowang murmured as he looked at the body.

Just as he was saying this, he suddenly saw the simpleton, his body stiffened in a purplish hue, suddenly widen his eyes.

"He's playing possum!!" Startled, Li Huowang took a quick step back and immediately drew his sword again.

While the others were frantically looking for weapons upon seeing this, the simpleton with a vacant face opened his mouth wide. "Ugh—"

He vomited out pungent black lake mud mixed with water in great heaving gulps.

When his stomach was empty, the simpleton lay there panting heavily, and his complexion quickly regained its color.

"Good heavens, Brother Li, can you resurrect the dead? How did you do it?" An overjoyed Gouwa ran over and helped the simpleton up.

Li Huowang didn't have time to respond, as he hurried to rescue the other drowning victims. Perhaps someone, like the simpleton, wasn't dead but just unconscious from choking.

Unfortunately, the simpleton's case seemed to be unique; despite Li Huowang's efforts, there were no signs of life from any of the other drowned.

Regardless, having someone come back to life was good fortune, and the people surrounding the fire attended to the simpleton with warm concern. The atmosphere in the kitchen was no longer as oppressive as before.

Regarding the concern from others, the simpleton struggled to force out a sentence. "I... I... I'm hungry!"

"Hungry? Alright then! Let's eat some meat! I saw that they were raising pigs here when I first came in!! I'll go slaughter one right now."

Gouwa grabbed a cleaver from the chopping board nearby and hurried outside.

Before long, the iron pot was put back on the wood stove, and once the water boiled, large chunks of fatty pork were tossed in to cook.

With a pinch of salt thrown in by Xiao Man, the aroma of the meat quickly filled the air.

After a night of busyness, not only the simpleton was hungry. Li Huowang drew his Longsword, speared a big chunk of mostly fat pork from the pot, and began to gnaw at it as if it were a piece of fruit.

While chewing on the pork, Li Huowang was still pondering other matters. "This huge bandit stronghold must have more to offer than just pork."