Chapter 427 Lotus Terrace Lotus Township

Wang Yansheng was naturally not afraid. He gestured to lead the way and followed Li Shu down, with Bai Qiu Shui following at the end.

It was unknown how deep the pit was. There were stone steps inside, so it was a bit crowded for one person to pass through. Li Shu was in front, and he took out a tinderbox from his arms and lit it up: "This pit is called the bottomless pit. It was originally a place where beggars and beggars stayed."

He pointed at the dark holes on the stone wall beside him and said, "The bottomless cave leads in all directions, almost connecting half of the underground of Jizhou City. If an ordinary person enters, he will get lost in this place after just a few turns."

As he spoke, he changed the subject and said, "Originally, this bottomless pit was home to countless beggars who specialized in kidnapping children and women. It was a place full of filth and dirt."

"Therefore, the cave is interconnected, stretching from north to south, with many entrances on the ground. All they need to do is take good children and bring them into the cave when no one is paying attention. Those children are either sold elsewhere, or their limbs are broken, their organs removed, and they are made into disabled children to beg for money. Eighty percent of the cases of missing children in the city are related to this bottomless cave."

Li Shu shook his head and said, "As for those decent women, they are even more miserable. They are abused and molested by beggars one after another. Even if they are rescued, they are tortured to the point of dying and mental disorder."

"When I, the Red Lotus Sect, entered this city, the first thing I did was to drive the beggars in this cave up, convict them and kill or bury them. Most of those left behind were young people who had not done many evil things. As for this bottomless cave, it also became a gathering place for my sect in this city."

"arrive!"

Li Shu reminded them, and Wang Yansheng and the others suddenly saw the light in front of them. In this dark underground, there was a large open space, and people were coming in and out of the caves from time to time.

Wang Yansheng took a quick glance and saw that most of the people coming and going had young faces. The older ones took care of the younger ones. There were men, women, old and young. However, most of them had defects, either with an arm missing or an eye gouged out. The most serious ones had lost both legs. They were kept in a large jar, and at a glance, there were few intact people to be seen.

Seeing Li Shu coming, a group of people gathered around him, looking excited and not pretending.

"What delicious food did Brother Li bring again?"

"Father!"

"Brother Li is here, are you bringing new believers with you?"

Li Shu responded one by one, took out a few dark-colored sugar cubes from his arms, crushed them and smeared them on the mouths of a group of teenagers, sweetening their mouths.

The one who called him father was the child in the jar. Although he was not very old, he had experienced several times more hardships than an ordinary person. When he opened his mouth, Wang Yansheng discovered that there was a layer of shadow over the child's eyes, and his eyesight was probably not very good.

Li Shu picked a large piece of candy and put it into the child's mouth. He turned to Wang Yansheng and said, "He has no father and no mother. A black-hearted beggar broke his legs and planted him in a jar. Some dignitaries like to see this strange thing and rewarded him with a lot of money. I felt sorry for him and he was still young, so I adopted him as my son."

He nodded to the middle-aged man who had asked the question just now, then dispersed the crowd and led Wang Yansheng and the other two forward.

Walking all the way inside, the three of them stopped in front of a stone wall, on which were carved countless lotus petals, smeared with cinnabar, and looked somewhat like red lotus.

"This is the sacred object of my Red Lotus Sect, the Tongxuan Stone Wall." Li Shu reached behind the stone wall and took out a stone lamp, which also had a lotus base. "This is the sacred artifact of my sect, the Holy Fire Lotus Lamp."

Looking at the ordinary stone wall and stone lamp, Bai Qiushui was a little unconvinced. Without magical powers and precious light, two pieces of stone were considered as treasures of the sect? That's it? That's it?
Li Shu smiled slightly, "I was wrong to use magic to confuse you guys before. I saw a stranger entering the city, maybe I could get some money for incense." He looked at the children in the distance, "After all, I am now a wealthy family with many children and blessings. I can't live without money for food and clothing."

After saying this, he bowed deeply to Wang Yansheng and the other man, then raised his head with a carefree look on his face: "I am lucky to meet a good brother. I really want to invite you to join the sect."

"Why?"

Wang Yansheng asked, he had long realized that Li Shu's target was him.

"Everything is guided by destiny and the will of the Red Lotus Saint Emperor."

Li Shu finished speaking in a mystical manner and made a prayer gesture. "I was lucky enough to meet the Red Lotus Saint Emperor in a dream. He did not think I was vulgar, but taught me a lot of magic. I got the illusion technique because of him. He did not ask me to believe in him, nor did he allow me to kowtow to him, but because of this, I became more devout."

He held the lotus lantern in both hands: "Because he showed me a beautiful world, a world where everyone is equal. It was also him who gave me hope when I was in the darkest time."

After saying that, Li Shu lifted up his clothes, causing Bai Qiu Shui to scream. She saw that his body was covered with marks from stitches, and wounds and acnes of varying sizes were all over his body, as if it was a mass of rotten meat that was stitched together.

"I should have died, but the Emperor of Heaven wanted me to live. He wanted me to witness the birth of a new world," Li Shu said calmly, "I once had a family, but my old father killed countless enemies on the battlefield. After his death, his pension was embezzled by his superiors. When I went to ask for it, I was beaten half to death. I just want to get back what I deserve, my father's ashes, instead of letting him disappear with the stigma of a deserter."

"I have a daughter, but because of her spiritual light, she was accepted as a disciple by an immortal. But I didn't know until later that the immortal was actually a demon. He wanted my daughter to sacrifice herself and become a part of his Taoism as a human pill." Li Shu became calmer, but there was something in his eyes that was hard to explain: "My beloved daughter, for my incompetent old father, was willing to jump into the alchemy furnace, and she was only twelve years old."

"Even so, the demon didn't intend to let me go. He made the elixir made by my beloved daughter, and said that the elixir needed the heart and liver of the closest relatives as the medicine. So I was cut open and my heart and liver were taken out alive. I couldn't do anything because I was just a mortal, and those immortals never cared about the life and death of mortals."

"I am just a mortal," Li Shu repeated, "Even if a book of immortal techniques was placed in front of me, I would not be able to enter the Dao, simply because I am a mortal without spiritual roots and cannot build a foundation for the Dao."

He slowly stretched out his hand, and a little bit of weak magic power appeared in his palm. Wang Yansheng saw it clearly. The magic power was slightly red, like a ball of fire, or a ball of blood. It was very weak, but very pure. Such pure magic power could not be condensed by people without spiritual roots and Taoist foundation.

"I am very fortunate to have met the Red Lotus Saint Emperor. It was he who gave me, a dust-like ant, another choice. It was he who allowed me to have a new life, and I also crawled out of the quagmire of suffering."

Li Shu looked at Wang Yansheng: "The Li Shu of the past is dead, and what is left is a resentful spirit called revenge. I am very grateful to the Red Lotus Saint Emperor for everything he has done for me, even if for him, it is just occasionally lowering his deep gaze."

His voice became lower and lower and weaker. Bai Qiu Shui looked at the somewhat crazy Li Shu and wanted to go forward to greet him, but was stopped by Wang Yansheng.

Wang Yansheng had excellent hearing, so he could naturally hear what Li Shu said. He was praying, praising, and saying: And now, it is time for me to dedicate myself to the merciful Holy Emperor!

An inexplicable emotion emerged, and Wang Yansheng had a premonition that something was about to happen. As Li Shu finished his last word, he suddenly looked up and looked at Wang Yansheng.

"Yes, I'm right. You are the one I'm looking for, the holy child in the story, the destiny in the legend. I finally found you!"

He laughed loudly, and the weak magic power in his hand flowed into the lotus lamp. Suddenly, the lotus wick was ignited, and a red flame floated in the lamp, illuminating the surrounding lotus petals red, as if it was a real red lotus.

The next moment, Li Shu held up the lotus lantern: "Burn my body, the raging fire. What is the joy of life, what is the pain of death. Do good and eliminate evil, only for the light. Joy, sorrow, and sadness, all return to dust. Pity us, the world, we have so many worries!"

The flames floated, and a ring of fire suddenly appeared on the lotus lamp, which stained Li Shu's body, sleeves, and broken body. His whole body was set on fire by the red flames, but he seemed to be unaware of the pain. While being wrapped in the flames, he kept chanting those instructions.

The voices grew louder and louder, and gradually an accent appeared. Wang Yansheng looked back and found that the people in the large open space were chanting along with Li Shu, while more and more people continued to pour in through the bottomless pit and join in the chorus.

Bai Qiu Shui had been unconscious when Li Shu was reciting, so she did not see this bizarre scene. However, Wang Yansheng felt a force gradually emerging from his body as Li Shu chanted.

More and more people arrived here. Although the open space was large, it was far from being able to accommodate so many people. But they did come in and their number continued to increase.

Wang Yansheng raised his head and what he saw were no longer real people, but phantoms. Some of them overlapped with each other, and some were connected together. They had no real bodies, so they could be accommodated by this open space.

Wang Yansheng suddenly understood that what he had seen before was not real, and these people, including Li Shu, were not living people, nor were they ghosts or souls.

He remembered what his teacher once said: when a ghost dies, he becomes a demon; when a demon dies, he becomes a Xi; when a Xi dies, he becomes a Yi. Those who cannot be heard are called Xi, and those who cannot be seen are called Yi. These people exist like this.

And what he could see was probably due to some personal factors, destiny, and the nature of the magic pill. After all, he was just a demon.

A huge fire suddenly broke out, enveloping everyone inside. Red lotuses blossomed, and figures chanted loudly in the red lotuses. Wang Yansheng raised his head and saw scenes in the lotuses.

There were foreigners breaking into the city and they fought bravely, there were bandits breaking into the houses and they resisted desperately, there were also soldiers and their heads were chopped off, and more often than not, there was a fire, a fire that swept everything, and the place where it burned was Jizhou City.

Then, a bunch of flaming red lotuses carrying human figures rushed in and entered Wang Yansheng's body. Endless flames shot up into the sky and were taken into his dantian.

After an unknown amount of time, Wang Yansheng woke up, with the unconscious Bai Qiu Shui beside him. He was in a ruined area, like the remnants of a fire, and these remnants were so big that they looked like a city.

He stood up, and something suddenly appeared from the scorched earth beneath his feet. Wang Yansheng took it out carefully. It was a broken lamp stand. After being burned by the fierce fire, only most of the base and a lotus petal were left.

He wiped the charred marks left by the flames, and two lines of small words appeared on the lotus petals.

Even if you fall into the gate of death, you will still feel hatred, and the suffering in life will never forgive you.

Lotus Township.

(End of this chapter)