Just when Li Huowang felt he was about to lose consciousness, he reached into his waist and pulled, and the moment the extremely piercing sound of the bell rang out, that uncomfortable sensation rapidly receded.
With a "thud," the back of Li Huowang's head crashed heavily onto the ground, making his head buzz.
Ignoring the pain in his head, Li Huowang gritted his teeth and continued to vigorously shake the copper bell in his hand, almost getting outsmarted by this creature.
The edge of the Eight Immortals table, the bamboo poles used for setting up the stage, the edges of the Hu Family ancestors' plaques—now all the lines began to twist and rapidly coalesce into bizarre conglomerates.
As the splitting headache overwhelmed him, Li Huowang pointed with his hand, and Lord You charged at the retreating imposter Top Scholar Lv.
Seeing that the creature had assistance, it tried to escape, but it was already too late; Lord You had reached its side.
However, it did not approach Top Scholar Lv's body, but instead dove directly into the black shadow cast by the lantern on the ground.
When Lord You's lines sliced through the shadow of the woman with bound feet like sharp knives, shredding it into pieces, the creature screamed like a wild beast and fell to the ground, struggling desperately.
"So its real body is the shadow on the ground? No wonder cutting its body in two halves was useless," this thought flashed through Li Huowang's mind.
Under Lord You's assault, the imposter Top Scholar Lv, whom the creature had transformed into, deflated rapidly like a leaking balloon, and the humanoid shadow on the ground swiftly spread out, eventually forming a pool of foul-smelling, sticky black liquid.
Just when Li Huowang thought everything was over,
with a "swoosh," Lord You swiftly returned, spinning rapidly around him.
"What's happening? Could there be more?" Li Huowang, who was just about to slow down his bell-shaking, began to shake even more vigorously.
Seeing that hiding was futile, the woman with bound feet emerged from a writhing line in the distance and stood there, staring gloomily in this direction.
"The one that transformed into Top Scholar Lv just now wasn't this one; there are two of them." As Li Huowang thought this, another woman with bound feet split off from her and began multiplying, becoming more and more numerous and smaller with each division.
Not just one; several women with bound feet leapt out from the twisted lines surrounding them, also dividing smaller and smaller.
As Li Huowang pointed with his hand, Lord You charged forward, starting to attack the women with bound feet that were now only the size of a palm.
But no matter how quickly he attacked, they divided faster, and these identical bound-footed women encircled Li Huowang, continuing to split apart while they opened their blood-red cherry lips slightly and began to twist their strange bodies, singing a nursery rhyme with their extremely shrill voices.
"God of Happiness plays, God of Happiness laughs, donned in robes and bows, kindness draws them near."
"God of Happiness jumps, God of Happiness causes trouble, red paper smeared with fresh ink at our door."
"God of Happiness rages, God of Happiness mourns, with a head like fragrant incense, they light up the sea."
"God of Happiness hungers, God of Happiness starves, left hand holds the liver and right hand the guts, come to welcome the God of Happiness to our village~!"
The moment they finished singing, their bodies exploded instantly, and some black substance splashed out from within them, entirely staining the squirming, twisting everything surrounding them in black.
Although Li Huowang did not know what the other party was doing, he sensed something wasn't right at that moment, and stopped the bell in his hands, preparing to retreat first.
But the next second, his feet were nailed to the ground like a nail, a faint and weak guidance from an unknown source made Li Huowang look straight up at the sky.
It was pitch black, with nothing visible, but Li Huowang sensed something, something enormous moving within the darkness.
"God of Happiness?"
No sooner had the thought occurred to him than he saw silhouettes large and small begin to emerge from the darkness, "No, that thing sensed my thoughts! I must leave immediately."
That's what Li Huowang thought, but his body didn't respond accordingly, instead it became uncontrollably excited, his breathing turned rapid, veins on his face bulged, and he tore open his Taoist robe with both hands, raising them high to welcome whatever was in the darkness.
The black silhouette became sharp and twisted, Li Huowang could see it now! The blood vessels in his eyes were bursting from excitement, and two trails of blood-tears slid slowly from his eyes.
"I can't look anymore! I absolutely can't keep looking!! Close your eyes right now!!" Li Huowang struggled with all his might, but to no avail.
Li Huowang could already see the head of the God of Happiness, if the stringy, viscous mess could actually be called a head.
Just as the thing was about to fully emerge from the darkness, a very peculiar "clatter clatter" sound suddenly rang out.
Then, the thing in the darkness suddenly stopped, retracting a great deal back into the pitch black sky, as if something within the darkness was pulling it back.
Suddenly, an extremely loud crowing of a rooster shattered the darkness in the sky like a mirror cracking.
Along with the sound of bones cracking, Li Huowang regained consciousness, he quickly lowered his head and placed his hands on the ground, panting heavily as he stared at the stone tiles beneath him.
"What on earth did those women with bound feet summon? What just happened?!" A barrage of unanswerable questions flashed through his mind.
Propping himself up using the nearby Eight Immortals table, Li Huowang struggled to sit up, looking up to find nothing in the air, as if everything that had just happened was an illusion.
Dawn was breaking, the fifth watch of the night had passed, and it wouldn't be long before the Hu Family came to collect their ancestors.
In the distance, the opera stage was still resonating, Top Scholar Lv and the others had indeed sung all night long, and even though they looked unsteady from the bell's influence and their voices had grown hoarse, they did not dare stop for a moment.
Looking at the various black ancestral tablets beside him, Li Huowang belatedly recalled the clattering sound that seemed to coincide with the spirit tablets tapping on the table.
Li Huowang looked at the ancestral tablets of the Hu Family in astonishment, "Could it have been them who came to my aid just now?"
After thoughtful consideration, the more he thought about it, the more possible it seemed, so he promptly stood straight, and performed a Qingfeng Taoist Temple bow towards the Demi Immortal table bearing the tablets, "Thank you for your assistance."
No sooner had he finished the bow, the tablets began to tremble slightly, and the trembling and sound increased in intensity, "clatter clatter clatter clatter."
Looking at the eerie scene before him, Li Huowang grasped the Taoist Bell in his hand and cautiously stepped back.
"What's going on? Could my thanks have brought about some misfortune? Dawn is upon us, what are you waiting for if you're not going back?"
But just as Li Huowang was entertaining these thoughts, "swish," all of the tablets on the Eight Immortals table in front of him neatly fell backward,
Followed by a familiar yet ethereal voice that resonated next to Li Huowang's ear, sending a chill through his body as if he had fallen into an icy cavern, "My child..."