Qingfeng Temple

Li Huowang lay on the hospital bed in a straitjacket, silently staring at the IV hook above his head, as if waiting for something.

With a creak, the ward door opened. "Hey, Little Li, weren't you recovering pretty well before? What's this all about now?"

His attending doctor walked in, looking at him with disappointment.

Hearing this, Li Huowang, his head wrapped in white gauze, grew anxious and quickly explained, "Doctor, they made the first move on Yang Na! I was just protecting her when I fought back!"

The doctor crooked his index finger to push up his glasses. "That wasn't fighting back. That was a counter-kill. Liu Jianye is still lying in the ICU, and that kick of yours nearly sent him off for good. You've been here long enough—you know everyone's situation. Didn't you consider Master Liu's condition before you acted? I thought you were a sensible kid."

Thinking of Yang Na, who had been scared into a Rain-soaked Pear Blossom state, Li Huowang looked unconvinced. "So what if he's mentally ill? Does having a mental illness mean he can do whatever he wants? If I have to choose between Yang Na getting hurt and going to jail, I'd pick the latter."

"You—" The attending doctor was left speechless by Li Huowang's retort.

He finally sighed and shook his head. "Forget it, forget it. The Dean has already called both families. You don't need to worry about these things."

Hearing this, Li Huowang curled up slightly and turned to face the empty side of the bed, mentally calculating whether that jade pendant worth 400,000 would be enough to cover the damages.

But at this moment, he wasn't panicked at all. When he saw that the pills really worked, Li Huowang suddenly realized his life had gained many new options.

Sensing his young patient's low spirits, the doctor tried to comfort him. "Little Li, don't worry. You won't go to jail. The hospital can issue a certificate for you. Don't think about these things. Just rest and recover. We'll handle the rest."

Li Huowang caught the concern in the doctor's words. "Thank you, Doctor."

"What's there to thank? I'm your Attending Doctor, after all. And you're so young, of course I have to take extra care of you." Li Huowang felt the doctor's hand pat his shoulder.

"But, Little Li, tell me honestly—how did you manage to hurt him like that? That's not something just anyone could do. Were you in a normal state, or did you fall into some new stress-induced hallucination?"

Hearing this, Li Huowang's heart tightened, and his attention immediately focused on the pocket of his hospital gown. "Well... I..."

"I'm a psychologist, and I'm quite experienced in this area. Don't try to hide your condition. You'd better think carefully before answering. I really hate it when my patients lie to me."

Though the doctor's tone was gentle, Li Huowang felt an invisible pressure in the room. "What do I do? I can't let him know about the pills."

Just as Li Huowang was anxiously searching for a way out, everything around him began to destabilize, and the doctor's voice grew increasingly hazy.

Within seconds, he found himself back in a hallucination, lying on the stone bed in Xuan Yang's single-room Karst Tunnel.

Holding his head as he sat up, Li Huowang looked at the meager furnishings around him and laughed. "Heh, well, at least this is one way to deal with it."

He decided not to go back so soon this time, in case the doctor was still waiting by his bedside.

Stepping out of the room, Li Huowang watched the Fellow Disciples coming and going through the Karst Tunnel and began to plan his next moves.

Since those pills were real, he couldn't afford to be as careless as before. He had to run this place properly to squeeze as much benefit out of it as possible.

Luckily, his status had changed from a Medicinal Guide in the Material Room to Leper Head's nominal disciple, giving him much more freedom.

When he saw a bearded Daoist in a Daoist Robe walk past him, Li Huowang's eyes lit up, and he quickly chased after him. "Senior Brother! Senior Brother!"

The bearded Daoist turned his head and, seeing it was Li Huowang, responded with a flat tone. "Junior Brother Xuan Yang, what is it?"

Li Huowang imitated their way of speaking. "This junior brother has just become the master's disciple. I ask senior brother to enlighten me—what should I do next?"

"Don't take this the wrong way, but even though the master personally took you in, you have the least seniority. For now, you can only run errands around Qingfeng Temple."

"If you want the master to teach you the Dao of immortality, that's a privilege reserved for his closed-door disciples. You're not qualified yet. For now, come with me and wait outside the Pill Refining Room."

"Immortality...?" Li Huowang muttered to himself. He had never heard of any immortal achieving immortality by refining people into pills.

"Can the master really become an immortal?"

The bearded Daoist's face showed a hint of smugness. "Of course. The master is a man with great supernatural power. Just serve him well."

From this senior brother named Xuan Yin, Li Huowang learned the entire personnel structure of the cave temple. There were five nominal disciples, one personal disciple, and one temple master—Danyangzi himself.

Besides these, everyone else was peripheral staff—the Cook, the Medicinal Guides in the Material Room, the Daoist Children doing odd jobs, and so on. All together, there were about eighty to a hundred people.

This was Li Huowang's first comprehensive understanding of the entire temple. The numbers were small, even meager, especially after a large batch had died not long ago.

As they talked, the oppressive pill furnace appeared before Li Huowang again, thin white smoke drifting from within, as if something was being refined.

This time, besides Danyangzi, the furnace also had his closed-door disciple—a gloomy-looking young man.

After waiting by Xuan Yin's side for a while, Li Huowang received his task: take the material list to the Material Room and check the ingredients—the same job Xuan Yang used to do.

When Li Huowang, holding a white horsetail whisk, arrived at the Material Room, everyone working there looked up at him, their nervous eyes tinged with fear.

The Albino Girl bit her lip and stepped forward urgently twice, but in the end, she said nothing and slowly retreated in fear.

Her status had shifted from oppressed to oppressor.

Li Huowang looked at them, his mind working. Their roles had changed. Maybe he could get some benefit out of this.

"Hey, do any of you have money on you?" Everyone froze at his words. "Money, understand? Silver, gold, jade pendants—anything works."

To be honest, Li Huowang really needed money right now. He didn't know how much compensation Old Liu would need. His family was just ordinary. If the payout was big, his mom might have to sell the house. That was something he desperately needed.

"Since you can't spend it here anyway, just give it all to me. Think of it as protection money. From now on, I've got your backs."

He put it so bluntly that everyone understood. The people in the Material Room began searching themselves. They didn't expect Li Huowang to protect them—they just hoped handing over their things would keep him from bullying them.

Half a thumb-sized piece of blackened Silver Shard, a copper hairpin, and forty-some round-square copper coins—that was all he got.

Looking at these items, Li Huowang sighed. It seemed he had miscalculated. These guys had no money left. What he'd collected probably wasn't even worth as much as what was on his medical insurance card.