Helper

The moment Li Huowang swallowed the pill, he felt as though a ball of fire had ignited in his dantian, warm and blazing—and it showed every sign of burning hotter and hotter.

It burned so fiercely that he could not even spare attention for the nausea and urge to vomit rising within him.

"Xuan Yang, go back and rest. The medicine is potent; it will take some time to absorb it completely."

"Yes, Master."

Staggering back to his quarters, Li Huowang braced himself against the doorframe and retched violently. Yet all he could bring up was clear water. The entire pill had long since been fully absorbed.

"Crack, crack." Every joint in Li Huowang's body creaked as he convulsed uncontrollably.

By then, the fire in his dantian had spread through his meridians and into his limbs. He felt like he was wearing a thick cotton coat in the height of summer, as though his whole body had been boiled through.

The heat left his mind muddled. Lying on the bed, Li Huowang watched the ceiling spin above him and thought of everything that had just happened—of the terrified, despairing looks in everyone's eyes in the Material Room.

He had become Danyangzi's sickening accomplice, forcing upon others what Danyangzi had done to him.

Danyangzi might not have known how to read, but he was not stupid. Before absolute strength, anything Li Huowang did was nothing but empty show.

I have to kill him. I have to find a way to kill him!! Li Huowang roared madly in his heart.

His right hand unconsciously gripped the edge of the stone bed. As he shouted those final words in his heart, veins bulged across the back of his hand.

With a crack, he tore off a piece of the hard stone bed with his bare hand.

The change caught Li Huowang completely off guard. He looked at his hand, then at the stone chunk clenched within it. He immediately realized that this was the pill's effect.

It was not only his strength; other aspects had changed as well. Li Huowang even felt that his eyes could see a little farther. That pill made him feel as though he had been reborn.

But when he thought of what that power had cost, nausea welled up in Li Huowang once more.

"Senior Brother Li? Are you all right?" Bai Lingmiao cautiously poked her head in through the doorway.

Li Huowang looked up at her with a complicated expression, not knowing what to say for a moment.

Taking a step forward, Bai Lingmiao said, "Senior Brother Li, you do not need to blame yourself. We all know you had no choice. If... I mean, if Master sends me again, then do not trade someone else for me. Anyway, everyone ends up the same."

Li Huowang did not want to discuss this with her. Seeing the blood on her forehead, he took out one of the pills he had refined earlier and handed it to her. "Take it. It can stop the bleeding."

But when Bai Lingmiao saw the pill in Li Huowang's hand, she shook her head hard in terror. "I will not take pills. I absolutely will not take pills."

Li Huowang gave a dry laugh and casually tossed the pill onto the ground. "Yeah. Every medicine carries some poison. Taking them really is not good."

Biting her lip, Bai Lingmiao thought for a while before asking Li Huowang, "Senior Brother Li, do you want to deal with Master?"

Li Huowang's expression changed. He nervously looked toward the door, then hurried over and shut it securely.

"It's all right. Master cannot hear us right now. He uses Lord You to keep watch. Every Great Market day, Lord You has to go back to the market."

"What is Lord You?" Li Huowang asked in confusion. This was the first time he had heard the term.

"Lord You is Lord You. You cannot see or touch it. I heard my grandfather say that only masters with true cultivation can command them."

"Oh?" Li Huowang's heart stirred. He silently committed this point to memory; this information was crucial to him.

"When is the Great Market?"

Hearing that, Bai Lingmiao looked at him strangely. "The Great Market is on the first and fifteenth, Senior Brother Li. How can you not even know that? Did your parents never take you to the market?"

Li Huowang shook his head. Those memories in his mind, whether real or illusionary, proved that he had previously lived only in cities and had never taken part in a rural exchange fair like the Great Market.

"Senior Brother Li, back to the important matter. Do you really want to deal with Master?"

Li Huowang's expression hardened. "Of course. I want nothing more than to eat his flesh and drink his blood!"

Bai Lingmiao drew a deep breath and nodded firmly. "Then count me in, Senior Brother. I want to help with this too!"

Li Huowang looked at the girl before him and at the determination in her eyes. Perhaps Bai Lingmiao was not as fragile as he had imagined.

"All right, you're in." Li Huowang agreed. He truly did need helpers now.

After thinking carefully for a while, Li Huowang said to her with a grave expression, "The two of us are not enough. Go to the Material Room first and keep watch. See if there are others who harbor resentment."

Others might not dare resist Danyangzi, but the Medicinal Guides in the Material Room were doomed to die. There had to be people among them who were unwilling to accept it. This was a fundamental conflict, and there were surely people there whom he could win over.

"Mm." Bai Lingmiao nodded and turned to leave.

After sitting for a while, Li Huowang picked up the Round Jade Pendant tied around his waist. He thought of that senior brother whose escape had failed.

"Xuan Yang, Xuan Yang... back then, did your group gather together in the same way? I only hope I will not end up like you."

Over the following period, Li Huowang began wholeheartedly integrating himself into Qingfeng Temple. He organized the Material Room into perfect order, whether people or objects.

Faced with such an obedient disciple, Danyangzi naturally had to reward him. He taught Li Huowang about all kinds of basic pills, as though he truly meant to train him as a disciple.

The effects of those ordinary pills were nothing remarkable. At most, they could help Li Huowang treat minor colds and external injuries.

Moreover, Li Huowang did not know whether this was unique to Danyangzi's pills or true of pills in this world in general, but there was always a limit to them. Take too many, and medicine that cured illness would become something that harmed people.

There were taboos as well. They could not be taken together, since mixing them could easily cause trouble.

Rather than saying Li Huowang could now become a mediocre doctor, it would be more accurate to say that he had become a qualified poisoner.

The pills were not the key. The key was that through these interactions, Li Huowang's relationship with Danyangzi gradually warmed.

Sometimes, when Danyangzi refined pills, he would even have Li Huowang assist at his side.

When Danyangzi took another Daoist Child as his disciple, Li Huowang was no longer the youngest. He had thoroughly integrated himself into Qingfeng Temple.

Through such close contact, Li Huowang confirmed his suspicion: Danyangzi truly could not read, and he was extremely, exceedingly hostile toward anyone else being literate.

He would not allow his disciples to surpass him in anything, which was why the disciples he found were basically all illiterate.

This gave Li Huowang a faint sense that something was wrong. He still remembered what Danyangzi had once said to him.

"Because the method of becoming an immortal was written in Lord Lao's Heavenly Book, and Lord Lao personally delivered the Heavenly Book into my hands. Tell me, who else in the world could become an immortal? He said I could become an immortal. Then I definitely can become an immortal!"

Since the Lord Lao he spoke of had given him a Heavenly Book, while his other disciples could not read and he himself could not read either, then who exactly had read it aloud to him?