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Li Huowang raised the pestle in his hand and pounded it up and down in the mortar absent-mindedly, slowly grinding the glowing stone mixed with mud into powder.           Although the cave was damp and cold, the boy was only wearing a rough linen cloth. However, he didn't seem to care at all, as if he didn't pay attention to all this.           He was not the only one in the cave. There were also other boys and girls of similar ages with tied hair and rough linen ropes.           The only difference between them and Li Huowang was that they all had obvious external defects, including albinism(白化病)and polio(小儿麻痹).                      Various congenital and acquired physical deformities could be found here. The small material cave was like a museum of deformities.           These people's jobs were the same as Li Huowang's, pounding things, only the things they pounded were different, including gold and stone as well as medicine. However, it was obvious that some people were not working steadily.           "Ah!" A woman's horrified scream attracted everyone's attention.                  I saw that in a corner of the cave, a fat teenager with a harelip(兔唇)had a wicked smile on his face, trying to pull an albino girl into his arms.           "I'll just do it for a while, I promise just once, hehehe ~"                     Li Huowang ignored the noise and closed his eyes to continue pounding.           Listening to the woman's cry getting more and more miserable, the annoyed Li Huowang cursed in a low voice. He picked up the stone mortar with one hand and stood up.           "Du", the stone and bone collided with a muffled sound.                     The harelip fat man sat on the ground in a daze, apparently stunned by the blow. After two seconds, he clutched his wound and started crying in pain.           The albino girl with white hair and white skin, who escaped the fate of being defiled, hid trembling behind Li Huowang, clutching her clothes.           "I'll tell you! You're in big trouble. Do you know who my master is? When he finds out, he'll kill you!" The harelip fat man threatened with an extremely angry expression.           "What is he? He's nothing!" When Li Huowang said this, everyone was shocked and speechless.                   The others present had never imagined that the man in front of them would dare to say such a thing.                    Looking at the expressions of these so-called senior brothers, Li Huowang took a deep breath and suppressed the anger in his heart. "What's wrong with me? Why am I angry with these things? My personality is obviously not so assertive. I can't let these things affect my personality. The me just now wasn't the real me. Calm down, calm down."          Just as Li Huowang was calming down, he heard someone calling him at the door.           "Brother Li, Sister Wang, Master calls you over." The tall young man who shouted obviously had a different status from Li Huowang. He was wearing a blue Taoist robe.              Although the Taoist robe looked very old, the cuffs were washed white, which was far better than Li Huowang's ragged linen cloth.                    This man hugged a horse tail whisk in one hand, looking at his juniors with a trace of arrogance in his eyes.                   Seeing the young Taoist appear, the harelip fat man suddenly showed a gloating expression. "Haha! You're in big trouble! Today it's your turn."             However, Li Huowang completely ignored him. He turned around and walked towards the door with a woman with a crooked mouth drooling. The woman looked very unhealthy with a waxen complexion.           He had only taken two steps when he found someone pulling his sleeve to stop him from leaving. Li Huowang looked back and found that it was the albino girl he had saved.                     She kept shaking her head with tears in her eyes, full of fear.           The indifferent Li Huowang was unmoved. He shook off his sleeve hard and strode forward.           Coming out of the material room was a larger cave. There were also many caves like the material room on the cave walls serving other purposes. Judging from the uneven appearance, the craftsmanship of the people who built this place was obviously not very good.           The whole cave was huge with large and small tunnels going in all directions, like an enlarged version of an ant nest.                     Rotten peach wood was nailed to the top of each small cave, with the name of each cave engraved on it with a depth of three inches, Lingong Palace, Lao Lutang, Qingzu Palace, and Siyu Palace.           A naturally formed cave was decorated to look like a Taoist temple.                   As the two walked forward along the cave, the crooked-mouthed woman next to them took out a black thing from her pocket and suddenly handed it to Li Huowang, saying in a silly voice, "Eat...rock sugar?"                   Li Huowang frowned slightly, seeming to know her foolishness. Impatiently, he stuffed it directly into his sleeve.             Seeing Li Huowang take it, she also took out a piece from her pocket and stuffed it into her mouth, foolishly continuing, "Master is good...has sugar to eat with Master..." Li Huowang did not intend to say anything about this. The two continued walking and walked for about an hour. An ancient, all-black, tall alchemy furnace appeared in front of them.            The steaming tripod pierced straight through the top of the cave. The huge alchemy furnace looked like a small metal mountain.            Seeing the alchemy furnace gradually getting bigger from a distance, its shadow eventually overwhelmed Li Huowang, making him feel extremely depressed.            In addition to the huge five-story alchemy furnace, what made him depressed was a back silhouette in front of the alchemy furnace.    Judging from the back, he was wearing a blue Taoist robe(青蓝色道袍), with his hair pinned up(簪发)and wearing a crown (戴冠), and white hair on both sides, looking very immortal (仙风)and with an aura of Taoism (道骨).    Sitting on the ground, he seemed to be doing the same thing as Li Huowang before, pounding up and down with a pestle, only the pestle in his hand was obviously much larger, looking like a huge column.       With the rise and fall, the sound of metal and stone colliding echoed continually in the cave.    "Master...Master!" The woman with a crooked mouth(斜嘴) awkwardly pinched the thumb of her left hand with her right hand, placed the four fingers of her left hand on the fingers of her right hand, and bowed to the back silhouette with her hands on her chest, her eyes full of respect.    As soon as she opened her mouth, the harsh colliding sound stopped.    When the back silhouette turned around, although prepared in his heart, Li Huowang's pupils still shrank slightly.    The front of the Taoist was completely different from the back. Looking immortal and with an aura of Taoism from the back, but from the front, he was a disgusting leprous(癞子头) old man, with a few yellow teeth exposed in his dirty mouth.    "You're here? Good apprentice, I've been waiting for you."    With a flick of the dirty Taoist robe, the old Taoist rose into the air and grabbed the crooked-mouthed woman's neck with one hand and flew back. Before the foolish woman could say another half sentence, she was instantly thrown into a half-man-high stone jar. The next moment, the grimacing master slammed a pestle the size of a fist heavily on her head.     With her scream suddenly cut off, a squelching sound came from the stone jar, as if someone was stepping into mushy mud.    And that was not all. The crashing sound echoed again, accompanied by the pestle rising high and falling heavily. Every part of the woman's body suffered the same fate as her head.    With each pounding, Li Huowang's right cheek twitched violently, as if pulled.    Flesh and blood splashed onto the old Taoist's face and body, but he was unmoved, chanting something excitedly in a certain rhythm.    "Dingchou extends my life, Dinghai protects my soul, Jiazi protects my body, Jiaxu preserves my form, Jiashen consolidates my life, Jiawu guards my soul, and Jiachen truly spiritualizes me!”    After pounding it into mush, he lifted the stone jar weighing several hundred kilograms with one hand and poured all the mush he had pounded out with his own hands into the alchemy furnace in front of him. Then he raised his hands high into the air with an extremely excited expression.    "Fire up the furnace and alchemize!"              Two Taoist boys with exaggerated rouge on their cheeks(化着夸张腮红的道童) came out of the shadows, fanning the fire and pouring various ingredients into the alchemy furnace, including various powdered gold and stones as well as many wriggling living things. Soon, a strange and strong fragrance filled the air.           At this moment, the leprous master closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Rubbing his chin with only a few whiskers, a satisfied expression appeared on his dirty and ugly face.            When he slowly opened his eyes and put his hands behind his back, he turned to look at Li Huowang. "I heard you called this Taoist father a fart? Is that true?”           Instantly, the air around seemed to solidify.               Looking at the so-called master in front of him who killed without blinking an eye, Li Huowang remained unmoved. He slowly closed his eyes to calm his slightly rapid breathing, chanting in his heart, "You can't fool me. This is all fake, all fake."              “Speak! Are you dumb? Huh?!” Accompanied by the sound of the master's footsteps getting closer and closer, the stench of blood mixed with his body rushed to smell, like a wall.                       The trembling Li Huowang suddenly clenched his teeth tightly and opened his eyes with all his might.           The dim and oppressive cave temple just now disappeared instantly, and a bright, clean ward with fresh air appeared before him, while his lower body was tightly bound to the bed by cloth strips. 

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