004 The Black Cauldron
Seeing Xuanyang covering Li Huowang's mouth, the others holding fire torches quickly rushed forward. They surrounded Li Huowang in a menacing way, their eyes full of hostility.
"Not leaving, huh? Then you'll die here today! We'll never let you go and tip off that bald guy!"
Despite his life hanging in the balance, Li Huowang wasn't the least bit panicked. He rolled his eyes in annoyance, silently cursed the plot development of this hallucination in his heart, then simply closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself tied to the hospital bed with wide leather belts. The senior and junior brothers who had surrounded him had vanished.
"Aunt Wang, I'm awake. Can you untie me?" Li Huowang shouted at the microphone beside the head of the bed, calling for the night-shift nurse. He was eager to check if the jade pendant was still in his clothes.
However, after shouting for a long time, there was no response. Li Huowang knew that Nurse Wang was probably secretly binge-watching a cheesy romance drama during her night shift again. She was always so lazy.
Li Huowang looked down at his chest wrapped in the blue-and-white hospital gown. He wriggled desperately, trying to feel if the jade pendant was there by squeezing his chest.
But his body was tightly bound. He couldn't be sure if it was there or not. After trying several times, he gave up helplessly.
Yawning, Li Huowang could only lie in bed now, praying that Nurse Wang would be kind enough to glance at the camera after finishing her drama.
In the dead of night, even the second floor where the critically ill patients were kept was extremely quiet. Li Huowang dozed off in a daze. When he woke up again, he found himself lying on the cold ground of a karst cave.
He was still in the same place, but those who had attempted to escape were nowhere to be seen.
"Pfft, you NPCs think you can deal with me?" Li Huowang took out the jade pendant from his bosom, tossed it gently in his palm, and then put it back into his bosom.
When he returned to the large dormitory where he lived and lay in the haystack, he patiently waited for dawn. Just thinking about the value of the jade pendant made him so excited that he couldn't fall asleep.
Without a clock, Li Huowang had no idea how much time had passed. When he saw the senior and junior brothers on both sides waking up, he also sat up.
"It's dawn here. Maybe Aunt Wang's shift is over. Should I go back and check? Nurse Ai is much more dedicated than her."
Just as Li Huowang was hesitating, there came a rush of footsteps at the door.
A young Taoist boy in a black Taoist robe with his hair tied up on his head rushed in in a panic.
"Hurry up! Master wants everyone to gather in Huian Hall!"
This sudden news left everyone bewildered. But since it was an order from their master, they had no reason to refuse.
Soon, in the largest karst cave, which served as Huian Hall, all the disciples had assembled. The light of the torches clearly illuminated the confusion on everyone's faces.
Li Huowang keenly noticed something. Some people were missing from the crowd. Besides Xuanyang, several direct disciples of the bald-headed master were also gone.
"Oho, did they run away together?" He thought with a sense of schadenfreude. The scene in front of him made him feel like he was watching a drama.
When a head emerged from the dark, wriggling tunnel, all the young Taoist boys except Li Huowang instinctively lowered their heads.
It was their master, Danyangzi.
"Ahem!" A cough made everyone tense up.
"Last night, around the second watch, some people tried to escape, including two of my direct disciples. I'm extremely heart-broken!"
Although he said he was heart-broken, the malevolence on his face was so intense that it almost seemed tangible.
"So they've been found out? Xuanyang and those guys are so useless." Li Huowang curled his lips.
"As the saying goes, no rules, no order. Those who make mistakes must be punished. This is the rule of our Xishan Donghua Sect! Follow me."
All the disciples didn't even dare to breathe loudly and silently followed Danyangzi.
They passed through karst caves of various sizes and crossed a rushing underground river. Soon, they arrived at a damp karst cave about the size of a classroom.
Li Huowang saw that all those who had tried to escape last night were tied up and piled up in the corner.
Looking listless, they became excited and struggled when they saw their master, as if they wanted to say something. But the rags in their mouths prevented them from uttering a single word.
Danyangzi didn't seem to want to hear their excuses either. He flipped his hand to form a Taoist seal and pointed forward. "Open!"
A large hole suddenly appeared in the smoothly-washed ground of the karst cave, and those who had escaped fell into it instantly.
The next moment, hysterical muffled shouts, screams, the sound of flesh being torn, and bones breaking came from the hole continuously.
Facing this terrifying scene, many young Taoist boys' legs began to tremble, and they wished they could just close their eyes.
"Get closer! This is the consequence of their escape!" Danyangzi's words made everyone's faces turn several shades paler.
No one dared to disobey their master's order. They jostled and walked to the edge of the hole.
It was very dark inside the hole, pitch-black.
The black circular hole was like a whirlpool, as if it was going to suck everyone in.
After careful observation, Li Huowang saw that there was a large black cauldron inside the hole. Some distorted talismans were pressed on the edge of the cauldron's mouth.
There seemed to be something moving inside the cauldron, but Li Huowang couldn't see clearly. The only thing his senses picked up was the pungent and nauseating smell of blood.
No matter what was inside, it was definitely very dangerous.
"Things in hallucinations shouldn't harm me according to reason. Nothing like that has ever happened before."
Even though he said so, his heart was in his throat, and he was ready to retreat back to the hospital at any moment.
"Whoosh!" A wriggling black shadow suddenly emerged from the hole, wrapped around a junior brother beside Li Huowang, and quickly retracted.
Everyone was terrified by this scene and retreated to the smooth wall of the karst cave. If Danyangzi hadn't been standing there watching, they might have already run out.
Almost everyone's expression at the scene had become extremely panicked, and they were tremblingly guessing what that thing was.
But Li Huowang wasn't among them. Since he had been standing the closest, he had seen clearly.
It was a mass of black substance with fleshy textures. There were clusters of short, constantly-twitching black tentacles on its slippery and sticky skin!
Based on this alone, Li Huowang was certain that what Danyangzi was keeping in this hole was definitely not something that existed in the real world.
As for what it exactly was, Li Huowang couldn't guess and didn't want to go closer to take another look.
Although he knew these things were all from his own imagination, Li Huowang really wanted to understand why such things would appear in his hallucinations.
Looking around at the incredibly real surroundings, Li Huowang suddenly had a terrifying thought. "Could this terrifying and strange world be real?"
This thought made Li Huowang's body tremble. He thought of those who had died before. If they were real and not just his hallucinations, would he also die if he was grabbed by that thing?
Li Huowang was almost crushed by this suffocating fear. He took several deep breaths and immediately followed the self-consolation method taught by Dr. Li.
"These are all hallucinations. No matter how real they seem, they're just hallucinations. Li Huowang, you mustn't get lost in these hallucinations again. They're created by you. What are you afraid of?"
"Yang Na is still waiting for me. I can't let her down. I can overcome all this! I definitely can!"
After his self-consolation, Li Huowang's emotions gradually stabilized, and he was able to face everything in front of him calmly.