Chapter 428: Fire Ghost Soldier, Yu Huo Xin Wang

Wang Yansheng stared at the lotus lantern. There was nothing here, no city, no bottomless pit, and no people. There were only huge ruins. It was as if he just happened to pass by a fantasy paradise, a lotus fairyland. Everything was like a dream.

He stood up, but did not look at the lotus lantern. Instead, he walked around the dilapidated ruins, vaguely showing the prosperous scene of the past.

Under the ashes and black soil, some ruins of houses and pavilions could still be seen. Wang Yansheng's sword flew out and slashed the ground, revealing a large pit. The original underground tunnel had now collapsed. He raised his head and looked at this city washed by fire, and at this huge lonely grave.

"This is Jizhou City. So this is what it looks like," a faceless shadow appeared behind Wang Yansheng, full of fire. Wisps of red flames flowed through his body. From time to time, large chunks of ashes broke away, turning into scattered sparks before turning back into a charred shadow.

The shadowy voice sounded very familiar; it was Li Shu. Wang Yansheng could hear it and recognize him. He could even feel what he was thinking. Beneath his calm tone, there was endless resentment and hostility.

Li Shu's life, which was not very eventful but full of suffering, slowly flowed through Wang Yansheng's mind. He could see clearly the parents, beloved daughter, tenderness and sorrow from childhood to adulthood mentioned by Li Shu.

Wang Yansheng's mind moved, and figures appeared behind him. They were all like charred corpses, and everything they had experienced remained in Wang Yansheng's mind.

It is true that this is Jizhou City, but a catastrophe has come, not a natural disaster, but a man-made disaster, an invasion by foreign races. The barbarians from the grassland attacked the city. Half of the soldiers guarding the border died in the first wave of fighting, and the other half fled back to Jizhou City and defended the city until it was broken. Then there was a ten-day massacre.

There are countless secret passages and vast underground pits under Jizhou City, but even if Li Shu took some people to hide in the bottomless pits at the first moment, they could not escape death.

Because they were not facing paid officers and soldiers, if these soldiers wanted to go deeper into the bottomless pit, they could only divide into teams to sneak in and search. If they made any big moves, the bottomless pit would only collapse, and the Jizhou City above the bottomless pit would also have holes due to the collapse of the pit. This heavy responsibility was enough to make the officials' hats and feathers lose their titles. Moreover, the silver reserves in the city were not enough for the officials and gentry to divide among themselves, so how could they have the money to repair the collapsed houses?

The plunderers on the grassland would not care about these things. Anyone who dared to resist with weapons would be killed. The magnificent government offices were broken into, and gold, silver and treasures were taken away in boxes. The first to die were the unarmed civilians. The irony was that those masters who were just sitting in their positions and doing nothing died after the people they were supposed to protect. After all, the lives of those peasants were not as noble as theirs. Naturally, the soldiers who could be mobilized and the men in charge would give priority to protecting the safety of the masters.

But all these were no match for the barbarians who were skilled in archery and horsemanship. In the end, after the foreigners indulged in pleasure, the women were abducted, and all the men taller than the wheels were killed. The group of people hiding in the bottomless pit also found the entrance. After losing several warriors after testing it, the barbarian leader waved his hand, poured in tung oil, and burned the bottomless pit that caused headaches for the Jizhou officials and gentry with an evil method. The people of the city were also buried with them.

The fire set the entire Jizhou city on fire, leaving behind ruins. The ashes left after the flames became a group of wandering ghosts trapped there, which were not even ghosts.

"That group of barbarians came from the grasslands. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but judging by their attire, they should be from the Mongol tribe. The leader had a golden sword on his waist, and I recognized the totem on it."

Li Shu said, sparks flying off his body: "I once preached secretly in Jizhou City. Perhaps it was because of the protection of the Holy Emperor that it revived after my death."

He turned to face the ruins: "When I opened my eyes, I saw the prosperous Jizhou City. There was no massacre, no fire, as if everything was fake. Jizhou City still exists, and I live here and continue to do what I should do."

Li Shu's dark face moved, as if he was laughing. "Until one afternoon, I recalled everything. When I saw myself, who looked like a charred corpse, and other ordinary people who looked normal, I realized that all of this was a dream. We were just living in a dream woven by the Red Lotus Saint Emperor, and I was the first one to wake up. Then I was sometimes lucid and sometimes confused."

"I remember very clearly that the Mongol army was accompanied by an old man in a luxurious gray robe, a shaman. It was he who used witchcraft to kill the officers guarding the city, which led to the loss of the city gate. Then he arranged a strange ritual to contain the entire city. After that, there was a massacre, and the blood of the city gathered into a river, which was absorbed by the ritual, and finally a fire burned everything." Li Shu turned to Wang Yansheng: "I took a look through the secret method passed down by the Holy Emperor. He was using the blood of the people to sacrifice to the totem. Judging from its appearance, it was a wolf."

"I know I am not qualified to ask you to do anything, and I don't know what the Holy Emperor wants me to do, but if those alien races have offended you, please kill a few more barbarians for us."

Wang Yansheng looked at Li Shu. Those people turned into red lotuses in the flames and poured into his body without causing any abnormal changes. However, he knew that some things were buried and settled deep in his body. He was now an active volcano accumulating power and he didn't know when it would erupt.

These... let's call them fire ghosts for now. These living ghosts merged into Wang Yansheng's body and gave him everything they had. Wang Yansheng could sense their existence, emotions, and see all their memories.

And these things became a gift, allowing Wang Yansheng to obtain the last thing he lacked - emotion, or desire.

He was called the Demon Pill by Gu Qingyuan, but in fact he was a demonic thought. He was not a human being and had no emotions, let alone empathy, because he had no idea what the so-called joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness were. His words, deeds, emotional feedback, and even all external behaviors were actually imitations.

An imitation of the universal values ​​of the outside world. Wang Yansheng would imitate how ordinary people would react to everything, and his control over people's hearts was enough to leave no flaws, as if he was wearing a human skin.

But now it is different. Star-studded memories flow through his heart. He can feel the so-called warm love, and also the burning hatred. Even though he still cannot empathize with the actions of those aliens, that is due to his indifference to emotions. He can clearly know what indifference is, rather than the lack of emotion that highlights the external nothingness - he has himself.

As soon as the thought came to his mind, Wang Yansheng stretched out his hand and pointed under the gaze of many phantoms, and Li Shu's body suddenly solidified, revealing his true face, that of a human, but with a faint red fire flowing on this body.

"Now, everything about you is taken over by me and controlled by me, and this secret method of body shaping has also appeared in my mind."

Wang Yansheng looked at the newly born Li Shu standing there naked and threw a piece of clothing at him: "I can understand your hatred, but to be honest I don't care. This has nothing to do with me."

He turned around, and a series of figures gradually solidified and appeared, rolling to the ground. Wang Yansheng said softly:
"And I will not take over your unfinished business or unrevenged vengeance. You have to settle everything by yourselves."

"From now on, you will serve as my subordinates. In the magic and supernatural powers, you can be called Taoist soldiers."

The last person appeared, and Wang Yansheng continued to speak.

"You are my weapons, my tools, and my Red Flame Army."

(End of this chapter)