Li Huowang lay on the bed in the hospital's special binding clothes, silently staring at the hook for the IV bag above his head, seemingly waiting for something.
"Creak," the door to the sickroom opened, "Hey, Li, weren't you recovering quite well before? What happened now?"
Li Huowang's attending physician walked in, looking at him with a face full of disappointment.
Hearing this, Li Huowang's head, wrapped in white gauze, became anxious and he hurriedly explained, "Doctor, they started it with Yang Na! I had to fight back to protect her!"
The doctor's index finger curled and pushed up his glasses on his face, "You call that fighting back? You committed manslaughter! Liu Jianye is now lying in the ICU and hasn't come out; your kick nearly sent him off directly. You've been here for quite a while, you know everyone's situations. Couldn't you have thought about Master Liu's condition before acting? I thought you were a sensible kid."
Thinking of Yang Na, who had been frightened to tears, Li Huowang appeared a bit defiant, "So, what if he's mentally ill? Does having a mental illness allow him to do whatever he wants? If I have to choose between Yang Na getting hurt and going to jail, I'd rather choose the latter."
"You—" The attending physician was at a loss for words due to Li Huowang's retort.
In the end, he sighed and shook his head, "Forget it, the hospital director has already called the families of both parties. You don't need to worry about these things."
Upon hearing this, Li Huowang curled up slightly and turned to the other side of the bed where no one was, beginning to estimate whether his jade pendant, worth 400,000, would be enough to cover the compensation.
However, at this moment, he wasn't panicking at all. When he saw that the elixir really worked, Li Huowang suddenly found that there were many new choices in his life.
Sensing his young patient's low mood, the doctor spoke up to comfort him, "Li, don't worry, you won't go to jail. The hospital can issue a certificate for you. Stop thinking about these things and focus on your recovery. We'll take care of the rest."
Li Huowang sensed the doctor's concern in his words, "Thank you, Doctor."
"Thank what? I'm your attending physician. Plus, you're so young; of course, I have to take extra care of you." Li Huowang felt the other person's hand patting his shoulder.
"But, Li, tell me the truth, how did you manage to hurt them like that? That's not something an ordinary person could do. Were you in a normal state, or did you fall into some new, stressful hallucination?"
Hearing this, Li Huowang tensed up, his focus immediately shifting to the pocket of his shirt. "That... I..."
"I specialize in psychology, and I have a good understanding of these matters. Don't think about hiding your condition. You'd better think carefully before answering; I really dislike it when my patients lie to me."
Though the doctor spoke amiably, Li Huowang could feel the invisible pressure in the room, "What should I do? I can't let him know about the elixir."
Just as Li Huowang was anxiously looking for a way out, everything around him started to become unstable, and the doctor's voice grew more and more vague.
Within a few seconds, he found himself falling into a hallucination again, lying on a solitary stone bed in a Xuan Yin cavern.
Sitting up and holding his head, Li Huowang looked around at the simple furnishings and started laughing. "Heh, no matter what, this is a kind of solution."
He didn't plan to return so quickly this time, not wanting to face the doctor waiting by his side.
Stepping out of the room, Li Huowang looked at the Taoist disciples coming and going in the cave tunnels, beginning to calculate his next moves.
Since those elixirs were real, he couldn't be as careless as before. He had to manage this place well in order to sheathe more wool from it.
Luckily, his identity was no longer that of the medicine guide in the storeroom but had become the named disciple of the leper. This gave him much more freedom in his actions.
When Taoist Boy saw a fellow Taoist in robe walk by, his eyes brightened, and he hurriedly chased after him. "This brother, this brother!"
The bearded Taoist turned his head and saw it was Li Huowang speaking; his attitude was neither warm nor cold. "Xuan Yang junior brother, what is it?"
Li Huowang, imitating their way of speaking, answered, "Junior brother has just become Master's disciple, and I ask senior brother to enlighten me; what should I do next?"
"Don't take it badly if brother speaks frankly, although you have been personally accepted by Master himself, you are the most junior among us. For now, you can only run errands within Qingfeng Taoist Temple."
"If you want to be taught the Immortality Cultivation Technique by Master, that's a privilege reserved for closed-door disciples. You're not yet qualified. For now, come with me and wait outside the Pill Room."
"Immortality...?" Li Huowang muttered to himself; he had never heard of any Immortal who achieved their state through alchemy.
"Can Master truly become an Immortal?"
The bearded Taoist's face showed a trace of smugness. "Of course, Master is a man with Divine Skills, just serve well."
From his conversation with this senior brother named Xuan Yin, Li Huowang also figured out the personnel structure within the entire cave heaven—an academy with a total of five nominal disciples, one personal transmission disciple, and one Temple Master, who was Master Danyang.
Beyond these people, the rest were peripheral personnel, such as cooks, medicinal guides in the provision room, and Taoist boys handling miscellaneous tasks; all together, they numbered around a hundred and eighty or so.
This was Li Huowang's first comprehensive understanding of the Taoist temple; its staff was small, even austere, especially since a large number had died not long ago.
During their conversation, the oppressive pill furnace reappeared before Li Huowang, with faint white smoke wafting from it, seemingly working on something.
This time, at the pill furnace—aside from Master Danyang—there was also his closed-door disciple, a young man with a gloomy expression.
Following Xuan Yin and waiting to the side for a while, Li Huowang received his task, holding a list of ingredients to check in the provision room, much like what Xuan Yang had done before.
When Li Huowang, dusted in white, arrived at the provision room, everyone working there turned to look, their nervous gazes tinged with fear.
The albino girl pursed her lips and eagerly stepped forward two steps, but ultimately said nothing and slowly retreated with fear.
The identity of the person in front of them had shifted from one who is oppressed to an oppressor.
Li Huowang, looking at them, had active thoughts; his status had changed on both sides, and perhaps he could find some benefit through this.
"Um, do you all have money?" As soon as he said this, everyone was taken aback. "Money, do you not understand? I mean silver, gold or jade pendants would do as well."
Truthfully, Li Huowang was in need of money at that moment; he didn't know how much he would have to pay Liu Jianye, and his family was just ordinary; if the compensation was large, his mother might have to sell their house, which he urgently needed to avoid.
"Since you can't spend it here anyway, you might as well give it all to me, consider it protection money. From now on, you're under my care."
With such blunt words, the others understood as well; the people in the provision room began to search themselves. They didn't expect Li Huowang to protect them, they just hoped that after handing over their items, he would not bully them.
A blackened silver fragment the size of a thumbnail, a copper hairpin, and more than forty square-holed copper coins—these were all his gains.
Looking at these items, Li Huowang sighed regretfully; it seemed he had miscalculated after all, as where would these poor folks have any money? The little they could provide probably wasn't even as much as the balance on his health insurance card.