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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 21
Chapter Title: Achieving the Dao and Becoming an Immortal
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Chapter 21: Achieving the Dao and Becoming an Immortal
Staring at the two fist-sized red pills gleaming with a metallic sheen before him, the two wriggling meat pills that seemed alive, and the two decayed black pills that reeked pungently.
Li Huowang nodded in satisfaction. Everything he could think of was in there. With so many ingredients packed in, these would absolutely kill. Not a shred of life left.
Beside him, an incense stick was lit, representing the remaining time of the year. According to the cultivation method he'd made up, it had to be refined at the exact moment the year turned to absorb the spiritual energy descending from the heavens.
Li Huowang sat cross-legged and picked up the fist-sized red pill, holding it at the ready. He was about to die, yet he found himself surprisingly calm.
Yes, he had no backup plan at all.
Li Huowang knew he had to eat these pills himself. If he didn't, Danyangzi wouldn't touch them.
Sure, he'd just eaten New Year's dinner acting all kindly, but his talk of ascending together was just a ploy to make Li Huowang the guinea pig.
But Danyangzi, with all his scheming, never calculated that Li Huowang didn't care about his own life.
Li Huowang had long since grown indifferent to life and death. He didn't belong here anyway.
The only reason he was still alive was to watch this repulsive scum walk into the grave under his own guidance.
Danyangzi sat across from him right now, picking up a red pill just like him.
Under their gazes, the incense stick's flame slowly burned down.
Just as the incense was nearly spent, Li Huowang took a deep breath and shoved the pill in his hand into his mouth, swallowing it whole.
At that moment, Danyangzi's motion to eat his pill halted. He stared intently at Li Huowang's actions.
Li Huowang, his expression somewhat excited, acted as if he hadn't noticed. He swallowed the remaining two pills as well, then closed his eyes and placed his hands in a mudra on his knees.
Sweat dripped from his face. Li Huowang's body trembled as he sat in meditation, but a wild, irrepressible joy spread across his features.
"So much innate spiritual energy! This… these are… I get it now, I get it!! I'm becoming an immortal~!"
Danyangzi's eyes flashed with urgency at those words, but he still didn't swallow his pills right away. Only when wisps of white smoke began rising from Li Huowang's head did he hurriedly gulp down all three pills.
As Danyangzi, sitting cross-legged, closed his eyes and began circulating the Greater and Lesser Heavenly Cycles, Li Huowang slowly opened his eyes. He looked at his master before him, his smile even broader than before.
When Danyangzi's head too began emitting white smoke, and black things crawled along his veins to cover his entire body, Li Huowang's crossed legs came uncrossed. Clutching his agonizing belly, he burst into mad laughter.
"Hahaha, baldy! Baldy!! You won't become an immortal! You'll become a ghost instead! Let's keep each other company on the Bridge of Helplessness, hahaha!!"
Danyangzi seemed to hear him, but he showed no reaction. Eyes squeezed shut, teeth gritted, he sat there frenziedly circulating his inner and outer Greater and Lesser Heavenly Cycle techniques.
"You're still cultivating? It's all bullshit I made up! Copied straight from wuxia novels, hahaha! Ow, my stomach hurts so bad, hahaha."
Li Huowang crawled on the ground, inching over to Danyangzi's side. He cackled maniacally at the man's ashen face, then shakily raised his right hand and slapped him hard across the cheek. "Hey, you deaf? The young master's talking to you."
A backhand slap followed, but Danyangzi remained motionless.
With trembling hands, Li Huowang pulled out a pill and shoved it into his own mouth. His veins bulged, and he felt power surging through him.
"I said stop cultivating! Didn't you hear me?" Li Huowang smashed a fist into Danyangzi's face, caving in his protruding underbite and nose.
Danyangzi's eyes snapped open, blood filling his mouth. He glared viciously at Li Huowang and flicked his Daoist robe, sending Li Huowang flying.
"Get lost! You heart demons won't stop this Daoist from becoming an immortal!! I'm about to become a god! The patriarch is coming to fetch me!"
Lying on the ground where he'd been flung, Li Huowang didn't get up. He just watched him and murmured, "He's gone mad. His obsession with immortality has driven him completely insane. Ow, my stomach really hurts."
One sat cross-legged, the other lay sprawled. Time ticked by. Li Huowang's abdominal pain grew ever more intense until, driven by instinct, his body curled into a shrimp shape.
"Hiss, why does it hurt so much? How long do I have to suffer like this? Really regret not bringing a knife to slit my throat," Li Huowang rolled on the ground in agony.
Under the excruciating pain, Li Huowang's consciousness blurred. In his daze, he saw Yang Na's face again. "Yang Na, you here to pick me up?"
Yang Na's face melted and reformed into his attending physician's. "Bed 14's consciousness is fading! Suspected food poisoning! Quick! Get the electric suction and prep for gastric lavage!"
Li Huowang slowly closed his eyes. A faint whisper slipped from his lips.
"Gag your fucking stomach. Don't forget, that's a psych ward, no gastric lavage machines. Can't you hallucinations… at least be logically consistent?"
With those final words, Li Huowang lost all sensation of his surroundings.
He felt good now—his stomach finally didn't hurt.
Li Huowang sensed his body plummeting endlessly, never hitting bottom.
"Huowang, hold on! You promised me!" An urgent, hazy female voice exploded in his ear.
He didn't know how much time passed before Li Huowang's eyes snapped open. Propping himself up with his hands, he began vomiting violently.
A clump of malformed bloody flesh mixed with black water, strands of hair, bits of dumplings, and scraps of organs spewed from Li Huowang's mouth.
The bloody mass in the black puddle twitched a few times, then stilled.
This sudden turn of events left Li Huowang stunned in place. He was still alive? How was that possible? If he was alive, then Danyangzi—
The thought sent cold sweat pouring down. Li Huowang whipped his head around. His jaw dropped wide. "Holy shit, what the hell is that… a god?"
His cheap master's body had completely warped. Three ferocious mouths protruded from his head, their foul yellow teeth gnashing and intertwining as they gaped toward the ceiling.
And it wasn't just his head—his body had changed drastically too. Feathers glued with tar pierced out from his flesh like spikes.
"What the hell is this? Three Flowers Crowned at the Summit, Feathering into Immortality?"
As the thought flashed through Li Huowang's mind, the three mouths gaped widest, and three voices—youth, adult, and elder—emanated from Danyangzi simultaneously. "I see now! This Daoist gets it, I get it!! Hahaha!!"
"Boom!!" With an explosion, Danyangzi's entire malformed body burst apart. Blood and flesh splattered across the entire pill refinery room.
(End of this chapter)