Chapter 48: Huang Huo-tu Gives In

I am the Lesser Yang and Greater Yin, the one responsible for the dissolution of the physical form?

Huang Huo-tu’s facial expression finally crumbled, his eyes filled with shock. Hearing an ancient story was one thing, but having real-world cases dragged into it was already absurd enough; never did he expect that he, a foreign affairs officer from the Taipei Police Department, would also be implicated.

He felt a physical discomfort washing over him, his voice losing its strength as he asked, "What does the dissolution of the physical form mean?"

Li Xuan replied, "It means that those who are about to attain immortality must endure one final trial to shed their mortal flesh and ascend. That trial requires you—the person of the Lesser Yang and Greater Yin—to kill them! Perhaps out of gratitude, they will also take you away from the mortal realm to ascend... which, to ordinary people, simply means death."

Death!

Huang Huo-tu was not yet ready to die. His daughter still could not speak, and his ex-wife had not yet mended the rift between them.

He still had too many things to do; he could not just throw his life away because of something so preposterous.

Sensing the drastic emotional shifts in Huang Huo-tu, who had been prematurely exposed to the truth, Li Xuan noticed that the dejected aura around him was vanishing, replaced by a surging, formidable desire to survive.

Huang Huo-tu said every single word with deliberate force, "You just said that those two wealthy tycoons from Taiwan went across to the mainland to transport a Taoist temple back. No matter how discreetly they acted or how well they hid the temple, it must have a name! As long as it has a name, I can find them!"

Li Xuan said, "They are not reincarnated Taoists from a millennium ago; they are merely the disciples of those Taoists, having their past-life memories awakened by the 'Taoist' in this present lifetime."

"I am telling you all of this not to make you do anything, but to urge you to hide so you won't be found!"

Huang Huo-tu was stunned for a moment. "Impossible," he protested. "As a police officer, how can I sit idly by and watch these so-called reincarnated Taoists run amok and kill people? The previous human ghouls—those greedy, lustful, treacherous, and hypocritical wretches—I could tolerate. But why on earth are even 'those who do not believe in ghosts and gods' included in this? Belief in such things should be free!"

Li Xuan thought to himself, *You'll have to ask the screenwriter about that kind of setting...*

With his right hand, he formed a Taoist incantation seal, gently tapped Huang Huo-tu on the back, and silently recited the Cleansing Body Mantra.

Cough, cough, cough!

Achoo!

Huang Huo-tu felt an itch in his throat and broke into a violent fit of coughing. His nasal passages also began to itch, and covering his mouth and nose, he let out a heavy sneeze. Instantly, his entire body felt refreshed, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

He noticed a considerable amount of black "dust" on his palm. Looking closer, he saw that the powdery substance faintly gleamed with an eerie luster, frightening him into frantically shaking his hand to brush it off.

"This... why is there this kind of stuff inside my nasal passages?"

Li Xuan extended his left hand, feigning the motion of calculating on his fingers, and said, "Those two Taoists from a millennium ago successfully descended into incarnation in Taiwan sixteen years ago as twins. However, the elder sister died while still in the womb. Although her physical body never entered the world, her primordial spirit had already cultivated immortality, leaving only the younger sister to be born..."

"This younger sister awakened the memories of her past life and mastered a sort of 'gu sorcery,' using her own body as a nest to cultivate insect-born fungi. As long as these fungi are introduced into a person's mouth and nose, they induce hallucinations. If victims believe they are drowning in water, they will truly 'drown'; if they believe they are in a fire, they will truly 'burn to death.' Liao Chen-fu and Chiu Miao-fang met their ends precisely this way."

"The elder sister has already 'attained immortality,' yet she truly exists within a 'space' invisible to you, influencing everything in reality."

"Officer Huang, did your daughter once suffer a tremendous shock, after which she stopped speaking altogether?"

Huang Huo-tu fell into a daze, staring blankly at Li Xuan. "You... have you been investigating me, or did you calculate all of this through divination? My daughter... right, a long time ago, I reported my own brother-in-law for corruption. In a frenzy, he took my daughter hostage, held a gun to her head, and it went off. By some miraculous stroke of luck, the bullet grazed the top of my daughter's head. She was frightened into fainting, but ever since she woke up, she hasn't uttered a single word..."

He began to wonder if he was losing his mind, as the things he was hearing grew increasingly twisted and bizarre.

Seeing that Huang Huo-tu was nearly being brainwashed by his "spoilers," Li Xuan continued, "This elder sister has already attained immortality. To shelter her newly descended sister in this world so she can successfully slay the five ghouls and dissolve her physical form to become immortal, she must ensure the safety of you—the key figure, the 'Lesser Yang and Greater Yin'..."

Huang Huo-tu’s hands were trembling.

He felt as though a bomb was about to drop.

Li Xuan said, "Oh... I see. You might find this hard to believe, but back then, when the handgun went off, the bullet's trajectory was dead-on, yet it was altered by the 'elder sister,' turning it into a mere graze. That is how your daughter escaped that fatal doom! Because you love your daughter so much, this elder sister feared that if you witnessed your daughter's tragic death, you would commit suicide."

Huang Huo-tu walked over to a roadside bench and sat down, his legs refusing to obey him. An invisible "immortal" had set its sights on him, and had even saved his daughter's life.

He did not know whether to rejoice or to weep.

Because the elder sister’s actions clearly implied that she needed him to "dissolve" her younger sister's physical form in the future—in other words, to commit murder.

The sheer volume of information was overwhelming.

He pulled out his phone, looked at the contacts on the screen, flipped through a few pages, and lingered on one named [Ching-fang]. His thumb hovered over the call button, hesitating and repeating the motion several times without the courage to press down. Letting out a faint sigh, he said, "I understand what you mean. The younger sister is a living person, but she commands wicked sorcery and bizarre methods; I am no match for her. And her elder sister is an 'immortal,' against whom I have even less ability to fight."

"What... what should I do?"

Li Xuan sat down beside him and said, "It is normal for cultivators to desire immortality, but to resort to any means necessary and slaughter lives for the sake of immortality violates the Heavenly Principle of valuing life. That elder sister has already transcended the realm of humanity, and I cannot divine her karma (I can't see the script), but the younger sister remains within the realm of 'humans.' Knowing that she has fallen into the evil path, she can only be eliminated..."

"Officer Huang, you have only two choices: commit suicide immediately to disrupt the younger sister's grand design! Or else, allow me to specially arrange a cover for you to leave Taiwan and hide away on the mainland for a period of time until I have dealt with this matter."

Huang Huo-tu thought of his ex-wife, Ching-fang, and a wrenching pain gripped his heart. Because of the incident with her brother, she was deeply disappointed in him...

Yet now, with such events unfolding, leaving Ching-fang behind in Taiwan would make her an easy target for retaliation. What if something happened to her and she died?

His head began to throb, and grabbing handfuls of his hair, he tugged hard, his eye sockets turning red. "I'll try."

Li Xuan nodded in satisfaction. Huang Huo-tu’s willingness to cooperate was the best possible assistance!

Hsieh Ya-li was no benevolent saint.

When the police arrived, her two disciples had unhesitatingly begun a slaughter, taking all the criminal karma upon themselves afterward precisely to keep their master untainted by "karma"...

Who could possibly believe that Hsieh Ya-li had not hinted at or orchestrated this?

What unsettled Li Xuan the most were the rules of this world. Through such maneuvers, Hsieh Ya-li had successfully executed the slaying of the human ghouls and the dissolution of her physical form, genuinely transcending mortal flesh to enter the realm of "immortality"...

Currently, he faced three adversaries.

The first was Hsieh Ya-li!

The second was her elder sister.

The third was the protection of this world's rules.

If the nether-rules deemed Hsieh Ya-li's actions legitimate and granted her success in achieving immortality...

Then, even if he had to risk being strung up by Marshal Tianpeng for a hundred consecutive gacha pulls on day one, Li Xuan would have no choice but to set up an altar, harness the Dark Laws, and summon the ghosts and deities of Fengdu to put up a fight...