Mutated Tao

“Senior Li! What are you doing!” Bai Lingmiao shouted as she ran over worriedly upon seeing Li Huowang attempting to harm himself. She held his bleeding left hand.

Li Huowang was in pain, but he pushed her away. His eyes were red as he shouted from the depths of his heart, “Why can’t you remain quiet?! Why do all these things happen to me in this shitty place?!”

He pulled out the dagger before stabbing it once again, this time piercing straight through his palm.

Bai Lingmiao was shocked by his behavior. After a few seconds, she rushed over, pulled the dagger out from Li Huowang’s palm, and threw it far away. Then, she extended both her arms and hugged the man in front of her tightly. “Huowang! Please stop it! I beg you!”

Hearing her voice, Li Huowang immediately grew quiet. Then, he gently closed his quivering eyelids and embraced her soft body, slowly calming down.

After a while, he gently let go of her and stared at her, sighing deeply. “Alright, I’m fine now. Where are the rest of our people? Did you see any of them?”

Hearing his words, Bai Lingmiao nodded. Her eyes were slightly red as she led Li Huowang toward the edge of the island.

Soon, they spotted the rest of the guiding drug ingredients and assistants near the shore.

Originally, their group consisted of seven adults and five children, but now, only six adults and four children could be seen on the shore. Also, some of them were already dead by the time they were pulled up onto the shore.

Bai Lingmiao’s lips were purple, and she shivered from the cold as she spoke in a chilly voice, “Junior Sun is a better swimmer than me. We pulled out as many people as we could from the lake, but we still lost some of them. Even Simpleton drowned.”

Li Huowang looked at the people lying in front of him. Simpleton’s face was purple from asphyxiation. He was not the only one who had drowned; another guiding drug ingredient and one of the assistants had the same look on their faces as well.

Two people were still missing within the lake, while three had drowned. In just a single moment, their group of twelve had dwindled to seven.

Li Huowang might not have been very close to them, but they were still his comrades from his time at the Zephyr Temple. Often, while they were all resting on their journey, he would listen to them talk about reuniting with their families if they managed to return to their homes.

But now, all that seemed worthless. They had died.

Li Huowang’s face was gloomy when he walked closer to the shoreline. At the same time, looking at his drowned comrades, all the guilt in his heart disappeared.

Bam!

Li Huowang kicked a bloody head out of spite as he shouted, “FUCK!”

He felt like he was crazy! To think that he had just been pitying these murderers!

Now, Li Huowang desperately wanted the water bandits to come back to life just so he could kill them all over again!

These fuckers deserved to die! Their entire lineage should be wiped out!

Just as Li Huowang’s emotions were going through a massive upheaval, one of the guiding drug ingredients who usually kept a low profile walked up to him. His voice was filled with guilt as he said, “Senior Li, I wanted to pull Simpleton out, but he was too heavy for me and I couldn’t do it.”

Li Huowang recognized him. It was Sun Baolu, the one Bai Lingmiao had mentioned was a better swimmer.

Looking at his soaked clothes, Li Huowang furrowed his brow and said, “Let’s go inside one of the huts and start a fire. There’s no need to linger around here.”

There was nothing else to be said. They were the only survivors left, and he couldn’t let them die from hypothermia.

Some of them carried the bodies of their fallen companions as they all slowly made their way into the village.

The entire village was covered in blood, flesh, bones, and viscera. Dark red blood flowed everywhere, causing the ground to feel sticky to walk on.

Everyone was looking at their surroundings and had many questions, but Li Huowang had no desire to explain anything.

At that moment, they turned a corner among the huts, and Bai Lingmiao was shocked as she instinctively hid herself behind Li Huowang.

The one in front of them was none other than that of the great-grandfather of the Yuan family, or at least what was left of him. He was impaled on a bamboo rod, his eyes unresigned.

Did I impale him here? When the heck did I do so?

Li Huowang tried to remember but nothing came to mind; there had been far too many deaths here.

After navigating through the village for a while, they stumbled upon a communal kitchen. They removed the pots from the fireplace and threw in some firewood before lighting it up. Then, the remaining survivors huddled near the fire as they tried to ward off the chill inside their bodies.

However, Li Huowang did not go near the fireplace. Instead, he stood in a corner of the communal kitchen and silently stared at the purple faces of those who had drowned, looking at them one by one.

His gaze finally stopped on Simpleton’s face. Li Huowang had never imagined that even the loyal Simpleton would end up dead. He was simple and straightforward, to the extent that even the assistants, who were mere children, were more mature than him.

“I shouldn’t have called you Simpleton. At the very least, I should’ve given you a proper name. That way, at least your gravestone would look much better,” Li Huowang stared at Simpleton’s corpse and mumbled to himself.

However, just as he said that, Simpleton suddenly opened his eyes even though his entire body had already turned purple and rigid.

“The corpse reanimated itself!” Li Huowang was surprised and jumped backward as he drew his sword.

At the same time, everyone else also took out their own weapons when they saw this scene.

Then, Simpleton opened his mouth in a daze, and began to vomit. “Blegh~”

Foul smelling black mud and lake water was being expelled from his lungs and his stomach. Once he had vomited all of it out, he laid sideways and panted heavily, color gradually returning to his face.

“Heavens! Senior Li! You can revive people?! How did you do it?” Puppy was overjoyed as he helped Simpleton up.

However, Li Huowang paid him no mind and focused his attention to try and resuscitate the others who had drowned.

Maybe they are also alive, and are simply unconscious, just like Simpleton!

Unfortunately, Simpleton was the only one who was still alive. Li Huowang worked as hard as he could, but the others continued to remain dead.

Regardless, Simpleton coming back to life after going through all that was excellent news. Everyone huddled around him and asked him if he was alright.

The atmosphere in the communal kitchen was no longer as heavy as it had been.

In the face of everyone’s sympathy, Simpleton remained quiet for a long time before spouting out a few words. “I’m… I’m… I’m hungry!”

“Hungry? Hell yeah! Let’s eat some meat! When we just entered the village, I saw that they were rearing pigs! Let’s go kill one!” Puppy took the meat cleaver and ran out.

After a moment, a metal pot was once again placed on the fireplace. After the water was boiled, large pieces of pork were thrown into the pot. As Xiaoman threw in some salt, the fragrant scent of meat filled the kitchen.

After going through so much, Simpleton was not the only hungry one.

Li Huowang used his sword to pick up a big and fatty piece of meat, munching on it like it was a fruit.

As he ate, Li Huowang was thinking about something.

This is a very large water bandit settlement. There’s no way that their riches only include some pigs.

Chacha and Char's Thoughts

Hell yeah Simpleton is still alive!