When he confirmed that the candy on his chest was indeed real, Li Huowang's heart pounded violently; the first subconscious thought appeared in his mind. "I have to tell Doctor Li!"
But as he lifted his right foot, it hung in midair, and other thoughts surfaced in his mind.
He knew that his hallucinations contained more than just candy, but also other things, things of greater value!
While savoring the sweetness dissolving in his mouth, Li Huowang slowly wandered around the ward.
"This is an opportunity! An opportunity that might make Yang Na and me rich overnight! It could even be my chance to reach the pinnacle of life!" he quickly became convinced of this in his excitement.
"I can't tell Doctor Li; I don't want to be sent to the lab for dissection, and besides, it's not his business to handle such matters," Li Huowang thought to himself.
"However, I shouldn't jump to conclusions about this so quickly; I need to thoroughly understand what's going on before anything else," he resolved in his mind what he wanted to do.
Just as he was thinking this, the surroundings began to distort, and the clean and tidy ward started to fade away.
Accustomed to this kind of situation, Li Huowang quickly stuffed his papers and books into his satchel and threw it into a distant corner to prevent them from being torn up by his hallucinating self.
Then, he pressed the red button beside his bed, and after a few seconds, the last thing he saw was several nurses entering and strapping him to the bed with restraints.
When he opened his eyes again, the crude and icy cave environment returned, with the "junior brothers and sisters" bearing bodily defects curiously looking at him.
Rising from the cold stone surface, Li Huowang once more surveyed his surroundings with his special perspective, everything appearing incredibly real to him.
Though this place was a hallucination, it now seemed to him like a treasure trove filled to the brim with riches.
He might not be sick after all, but rather have developed extremely rare special abilities, which were simply undetectable by those quacks.
"Maybe I'm not sick at all, right, that's it, I'm not sick."
Over the years, he had truly grown weary of the label of mental illness, the odd looks from everyone.
It felt as though the very moment he fell ill, he ceased to be human and became a freak instead.
Excited at the thought of potentially shedding this label in the future, Li Huowang couldn't contain his exhilaration.
In high spirits, he reached out to twirl the shiny bald head of a junior who approached, laughing merrily. "Haha, this is really interesting."
"What are you all gathering here for? Get back to work! If you don't prepare the medicinal guide required by Master, and he flays you alive for ruining his grand ascension, you'll be in big trouble!" An extremely annoying voice came from the entrance of the cave.
Turning his head, Li Huowang saw that the speaker was the aloof Taoist who had carried the message earlier, still wearing an arrogant expression as if talking with Li Huowang and the other medicinal guides would soil his eyes.
Li Huowang remembered this fellow's name; this hallucinatory guy's Taoist title seemed to be Xuan Yang.
Faced with Li Huowang's unabashed scrutiny, Xuan Yang clearly felt challenged and approached him with a flick of his horsetail whisk. "Junior Brother Li, it's truly regrettable that you weren't chosen as Master's medicinal guide this time."
Li Huowang couldn't be bothered with his sarcasm, his attention fully focused on the round jade pendant hanging from his waist.
"This thing should be an antique, right? If I sold this in the real world, it would surely be worth a lot of money, wouldn't it?"
"But how should I go about it? Like the candy, just snatch it and place it on my chest?"
After speaking a few sentences and seeing no reaction from Li Huowang, Xuan Yang assumed the other was scared and contemptuously turned his head to leave the place where only medicinal guides belonged.
Watching his retreating figure, Li Huowang made up his mind. That jade pendant would be his next experiment subject for attempted teleportation.
As for how to acquire it, that was too simple: steal it at night. "That jade pendant is nice, but soon it'll be mine."
A small hand, pale to the point of reflecting light, reached over from beside and gently tugged at Li Huowang's coarse hemp sleeve. A soft, glutinous voice rose up by his ear.
"Elder Brother Li, you better get to work. If you don't finish, there won't be any food,"
Li Huowang turned his head to look and discovered it was the young girl with albinism he had helped before.
After a moment's thought, he reached into his bosom, took out the remaining half-melted brown sugar, and placed it in her hand before turning around to his own spot to pick up the medicine pestle and start working.
Under the current circumstances, whether it was here or at the hospital, he decided not to do anything too outrageous.
Such shocking and appalling deeds were inappropriate to share with anyone. He had to slowly understand the rules here before making other plans.
The day's work ended amidst the monotonous sound of pounding medicine. In the dead of night, amidst the sounds of snoring and teeth grinding around him, Li Huowang, lying on the communal bed, slowly opened his eyes.
Inside the windowless cave, where one could not see his hand in front of his face, Li Huowang fumbled his way towards the entrance.
He first came to his workstation and picked up a piece of green stone he had ground himself. Its faint luminous glow kept Li Huowang from walking in the pitch-dark cavern completely blind.
Though carrying such a stone in the dark might seem too conspicuous, Li Huowang didn't care at all.
"If someone discovers me, I'll just go back to the hospital. I have a way out, so what is there to fear?" he said arrogantly to himself as he walked alone through the caverns.
The entire illusion had appeared because of him; would he even fear an illusion that he created, even if he couldn't control it yet?
The cavern had been expanded greatly, and Li Huowang had been here long enough to know his way around well.
Soon, he made his way to Xuan Yang's cave. Although still quite rudimentary, the solitary large bed inside was enough to tell that he was fundamentally different from Li Huowang and the other medicinal guides.
But to Li Huowang's surprise, Xuan Yang wasn't in the cave. His clothes were there, but Li Huowang couldn't be bothered with that now; he reached into the Taoist robe and pulled out the jade pendant.
After sneaking out of the cave, Li Huowang examined the circular jade pendant in his hands, using the glow from the luminous stone.
The pendant was clear and transparent, smooth and round, with elaborately carved cloud patterns—that even someone ignorant about such things could tell was high-quality jade.
The more Li Huowang looked at it, the happier he felt in his heart. If he could really take this item back to the real world, this jade pendant alone could probably cover his and Yang Na's four years of college tuition.
"Hehehe~ Yang Na, oh Yang Na, get ready to be a little rich lady," Li Huowang said, then stuffed the jade pendant back into his robe and started to walk back.
Everything had gone smoothly, but some things can't always be so smooth. Just as he was about to reach the entrance, at a turn on the stone steps, he bumped into a group of people face-to-face.
They were a group of young men and women about the same age as Li Huowang, their terrified faces flickering under the light from the fire baskets they were holding.
Both parties were startled by each other and stood frozen in place for a long time without a word.
Eventually, Li Huowang was the one to speak up, pointing with the luminous stone in his hand at Xuan Yang, who was dressed in a hemp garment among the crowd, and asked, "Elder Brother Xuan Yang, with that outfit, have you been sent down to work in the provisions room?"
Among these people, there wasn't just Xuan Yang; there were also the Taoist Boys responsible for other tasks, including one who had been fanning the alchemy furnace before, among the group.
But no matter what their previous duties had been, now all of them wore nothing but hemp garments and trousers, bringing nothing else with them.
At this moment, Xuan Yang didn't have his usual arrogant and complacent demeanor; his expression shifted rapidly before he walked up to Li Huowang, lowered his voice and said.
"Let's go! Join us and escape from this godforsaken place! The brother guarding the door has been dealt with."
"Escape? Oh! So this is what you're planning to—"
Before Li Huowang could utter the word "escape," Xuan Yang clamped his hand tightly over Li Huowang's mouth.