**Chapter Translation: Alchemy of Flesh and Delusion**

Li Huowang brought the stone pestle down with mechanical boredom, crushing luminescent jade shards into iridescent powder within his mortar. The cavern's chill seeped through his hemp robe, yet his face remained impassive - a mask of detachment amidst this grotesque workshop.

Around him labored humanity's castoffs: albinos grinding cinnabar, a hunchback pulverizing mercury ore, a girl with twisted limbs separating nightshade berries. Their deformities glistened in the phosphorescent fungus light, turning the limestone grotto into a living cabinet of curiosities.

A scream shattered the rhythmic pounding. Near the sulfur pools, a hare-lipped youth had cornered an albino girl, his sausage-like fingers tearing at her tunic. **"Just a taste, yeah? Won't spoil the merchandise for Master's cauldron..."**

Li Huowang's jaw tightened. Three strikes of his pestle later, he stood abruptly, mortar clutched like a barbarian's mace.

***Thunk.***

The would-be rapist crumpled, blood mingling with powdered lapis lazuli on the cavern floor. **"Y-you're dead meat!"** he slurred through split lips. **"Master's my third cousin's wife's—"**

**"Your master's a pustulent rat who fucks corpses for jollies."** The blasphemy echoed through suddenly silent chambers. Even the ever-weeping girl behind him froze mid-sob.

Control yourself. Li Huowang inhaled sulfur-tainted air. They're not real. None of this—

"Junior Brother Li." The nasal voice carried aristocratic disdain. A gaunt Taoist in faded indigo robes stood at the cavern mouth, jade hairpin glinting. "Master requires your...services.

As they navigated the honeycombed tunnels, Li Huowang's companion - a drooling woman with facial paralysis - offered him a lump of black resin. "Candy?" she lisped. "Master gives candy..." He pocketed the ooze without breaking stride.

The Central Cavern loomed.

Before them rose a ziggurat of corroded bronze - Master's Fivefold Alchemical Furnace, its vents spewing hallucinogenic vapors. At its base knelt a figure of apparent grace: flowing white hair, immaculate Daoist robes, hands rhythmically wielding a pestle the size of a temple column.

"Disciple greets Master!" The drooling woman executed a lopsided bow.

The figure turned.

Reality curdled.

What should have been a face was a topography of weeping sores and jagged yellow teeth. The "immortal" floated upward, rancid robes billowing as he seized the woman's neck.

"甲子护我身! 甲戌保我形!" The incantation thrummed with wrongness as Master hurled his victim into a basalt mortar. The pestle descended—

Crunch.

Li Huowang's nostrils filled with copper and bile. "My dear disciple," crooned the monstrosity, licking gore from his fingers. "Rumor claims you compared this humble Daoist to flatulence?"

The cavern's walls pulsed like a giant's esophagus. Li Huowang shut his eyes, chanting his mantra: Not real. Not real. Not—

Rotting meat and sandalwood overwhelmed his senses as the abomination loomed closer. "SPEAK, LITTLE MADMAN!"

Li Huowang bit through his tongue.

Light exploded.

White tiles replaced dripping stalactites. Heart monitors beeped where alchemical fires had roared. Leather restraints bit into his thighs as nurses rushed in, responding to the blood dripping from his mouth.

Yet in his clenched fist - unnoticed by the shouting orderlies - oozed the black resin candy