CH 1

Li Huowang lifted the pestle in his hand and aimlessly pounded it into the mortar, grinding the flowing blue stones mixed with mud into powder.

Although the cave was damp and cold, the young man only wore a rough cloth shirt, but he didn't seem to care, as if he didn't take any of it seriously.

He was not alone in the cave; there were other young men and women of similar ages, all tied up with coarse hemp ropes and with obvious external defects on their bodies, including albinism and infantile paralysis.

All kinds of congenital and acquired physical deformities could be found here, and the small cave room seemed like a museum of deformities.

Like Li Huowang, these people's job was to pound things, but they pounded different things, including minerals and drugs, but some of them were clearly not focused on their work.

"Ah!" A woman's scream of terror drew everyone's attention.

Next to the cave, a chubby boy with a cleft lip had a lewd smile on his face and was trying to pull a girl with albinism into his arms.

"Just a little bit, I promise, hehehe~"

Ignoring the noise, Li Huowang closed his eyes and continued to pound away at his work.

As the woman's crying became more and more pitiful, an angry Li Huowang muttered a curse under his breath and picked up the stone mortar with one hand, standing up.

"Clang!" The stone hit the bone with a dull thud.

The chubby boy with a split lip sat on the ground in shock, obviously stunned by the blow. After two seconds, his expression twisted in pain as he howled and clutched his wound.

The white-haired, white-skinned girl who had escaped her defiled fate cowered behind Li Huowang, holding her clothes.

"I'm telling you! You're dead, do you know who my master is? If he finds out, he'll kill you!" The chubby boy threatened angrily.

"He's nothing, not even a fart!" Li Huowang's words stunned everyone present.

Looking at the expressions of his so-called senior brothers, Li Huowang took a deep breath and suppressed his anger.

"What's wrong with me? Why am I getting angry with these things? My personality is not supposed to be so assertive. I can't let these things affect my personality. The me just now wasn't the real me. Stay calm, stay calm."

Just as Li Huowang was trying to calm himself down, someone called him at the door.

"Junior Brother Li, Junior Sister Wang, Master is calling for you to go over." The tall youth who called out was obviously of a different status from Li Huowang, wearing a blue Daoist robe.Although the robe looked very old, with the cuffs washed to a whitish color, it was far better than the tattered burlap on Li Huowang.

This person held a horse-tail whisk in one hand and looked at the juniors in front of him with a hint of arrogance in his eyes.

Seeing the young Taoist appear, the fat man with a head injury immediately showed a sinister expression. "Haha! You're done for today!"

But Li Huowang completely ignored him and turned to follow a woman with a crooked mouth and drooling towards the door. The woman's waxen face looked very unhealthy.

After taking two steps, he found someone pulling his sleeve and stopping him. Li Huowang turned around and found it was the albino girl he had saved.

With tears in her eyes, she shook her head repeatedly, her eyes full of fear.

The indifferent Li Huowang was unmoved, forcefully shaking off his sleeve and striding forward.

Coming out of the pantry was an even larger cave, with many other caves like the pantry serving other purposes. Judging by the pitted appearance, the people who built this place were obviously not very skilled.

The entire cave was very large, with tunnels of all sizes interconnected like an enlarged ant nest.

Decayed pieces of peach wood were nailed to each small cave, with the name of each cave deeply carved into it, such as Ling Palace, Old Law Hall, Qing Ancestral Temple, and Four Imperial Temples.

A natural cave was actually transformed into what looked like a Taoist temple.

As the two continued walking along the cave, the woman with a crooked mouth pulled out a black object from her pocket and suddenly handed it to Li Huowang, saying in her foolish voice, "Do you want to eat... sweet candy?"

Li Huowang's brow furrowed slightly, seemingly aware of the other's foolishness, impatiently taking it and stuffing it into his own sleeve.

Seeing Li Huowang take it, she also took out one from her pocket and put it in her mouth, foolishly continuing to say, "Master is good... have candy with Master..."

Li Huowang had no intention of saying anything about it. The two continued walking, and after about fifteen minutes, a tall and ancient-looking alchemy furnace, completely black, appeared in front of him.

The smoking furnace pierced the roof of the cave, and the huge furnace looked like a small mountain of metal.

Looking at the furnace from far to near, it gradually grew larger, and the shadow of the furnace eventually engulfed him, which made Li Huowang feel oppressed.

What made him feel oppressed, besides the huge five-layered furnace, was the figure in front of the furnace.

Looking at him from the back, he wore a blue and green Taoist robe, with hairpins and a crown, with white hair on both temples, looking very immortal.Sitting on the ground, he seemed to be doing the same thing Li Huowang did before, pounding with a pestle, but the pestle in his hand was obviously much larger, like a giant pillar.

As the sound of the collision of gold and stone echoed in the cave, the woman with a crooked mouth awkwardly pinched her left thumb with her right hand, placed the four fingers of her left hand on top of the fingers of her right hand, bowed to the back figure with respect in her eyes and said, "Master... master!"

As soon as she spoke, the ear-piercing sound of the collision stopped.

The back figure turned around, and although Li Huowang was already prepared, his pupils still shrank slightly in surprise.

The front and back of the Taoist were completely different. From the back, he looked like a fairy, but from the front, he was a disgusting old man with a pockmarked face, and a few yellow teeth were exposed in his mouth.

"Here? Good disciple, you made me wait."

Find the original at bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

With a wave of his dirty Taoist robe, the old Taoist rose into the air, grabbed the crooked-mouthed woman's neck with one hand, and retreated.

Before the foolish woman could say half a word, she was instantly thrown into a half-height stone urn. The next moment, the master with a fierce expression lifted a pestle the size of his fists and smashed it heavily on her head.

As the screams abruptly stopped, a squishing sound of something stepping into mud came from the stone urn.

This was not the end. The previous collision echoed again, accompanied by the heavy lifting and falling of the pestle. The woman's body ended up like her head.

With each hit, Li Huowang's right cheek muscles trembled violently with his rapid breathing.

Flesh and blood splattered on the old Taoist's face and body, but he was not moved and recited something with an excited expression.

"Ding Chou extends my life, Ding Hai protects my soul, Jia Zi protects my body, Jia Xu preserves my form, Jia Shen secures my destiny, Jia Wu guards my soul, Jia Chen is my true spirit!"

After completely smashing it into a pulp, he lifted the stone urn weighing hundreds of pounds with one hand and poured all the mud he had pounded into the alchemy furnace in front of him. Then, with an extremely excited expression, he raised his hands in the air.

"Start the furnace, refine the elixir!"

Two Taoist boys with exaggerated rouge on their cheeks walked out of the shadow, fanning and pouring various ingredients into the furnace, including various gold and stone powders and many living and wriggling things.

In a short time, a strange and strong fragrance filled the air.

At this moment, the pockmarked master closed his eyes and took a deep breath, stroking his chin that had few whiskers. A satisfied expression appeared on his dirty and ugly face when he slowly opened his eyes and turned to look at Li Huowang. "I heard that you called me a fart? Is that true?"In an instant, the air around seemed to have frozen.

Looking at his so-called master who could kill without blinking, Li Huowang remained unmoved. He slowly closed his eyes to calm his rapid breathing, silently repeating to himself, "You cannot fool me. It's all fake, all fake."

"Speak up! Are you mute? Hm?!" As the footsteps of his master drew closer, the stench of blood mixed with his body odor hit Li Huowang like a wall.

Trembling, Li Huowang gritted his teeth and suddenly opened his eyes with all his strength.

The dim and oppressive cave temple that was just there had disappeared in an instant, replaced by a bright, clean, and fresh-air hospital room in front of him. His lower body was tightly bound to the bed with bandages.