Chapter 26
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When the ghosts with tears of blood heard Ning Chen's words, they really stopped in their tracks.
They paused for a moment, then began to slowly retreat, leaving Ning Chen some space.
The village chief and his wife were also among them. Their pale faces showed no expression at the moment, but Ning Shen could still see some vague emotions on their faces.
The blood holes on Ning Chen's chest and shoulders were still gushing with blood. It might be because of their different races. Ning Chen's plundering talent had the highest absorption and conversion rate for crystal cores of his own race, but it was just average for other monsters or others. A demon pill from a Mahayana demon cultivator could not even heal half of Ning Chen's injuries.
It was actually quite a pity for Ning Chen. That Mahayana demon pill would have been worth a lot if it had been sold, but Ning Chen ate it as a tonic, and it didn't even help heal much of his injuries.
It's not that delicious, not even as good as the consciousness of that demon lord.
At that time, the dragon's hand was blocking his chest, and it couldn't squeeze in.
However, before Ning Shen could feel anything, the ghosts around him started moving.
Not sure if it was an illusion, but Ning Chen always felt that the ghostly aura around them seemed to be a little weaker than before. The ghostly village was now filled with sunlight and was no longer gloomy and dark.
The eerie ghostly aura of the villagers was gradually fading, and the translucent threads faded from a light blood red to an almost colorless state. The entire ghost was in a light and transparent state, with only a beating fire in the heart visible.
The villagers surrounding Ning Chen carefully held out the soul fire from their hearts. It was the only pure thing left after the resentment and obsession dissipated.
Ning Chen didn't know these villagers. He only met a few of them at the door when he entered Pingjing Village. Even though the souls who had lost their ghost aura were surrounding him, Ning Chen couldn't recognize many of them who looked familiar.
However, these ghosts, with their empty eye sockets filled with tears of blood, still looked at Ning Chen. They carefully and hopefully held the soul fire taken out from their hearts in front of Ning Chen. Seeing that Ning Chen was stunned and did not move, they continued to send the soul fire in his direction. Some ghosts were afraid that Ning Chen did not understand, so they quietly sent the soul fire to the wound on Ning Chen's chest.
Ning Chen was really stunned this time.
These ghosts may not be able to speak, but Ning Shen still subtly understood what they meant——
They wanted to use their only remaining Pure Soul Fire to have Ning Chen consume it so that he could recover from his injuries.
Ning Chen was the most seriously injured. He attracted the firepower of three high-level demons outside the formation. At this time, half of his body was covered in blood, and there were a few not-so-conspicuous drops of blood splashed between his sharp eyebrows. After all, the gilded black robe was an outer robe purchased in the mall, and it was barely kept in its original state.
Ning Chen had just treated them as a bunch of scary ghosts and threatened them, but now that he saw them repaying evil with kindness, no matter how bad they were, he felt a subtle sense of guilt.
He looked away uncomfortably and said impatiently, "...Alright, alright, I won't send you to see that dead dragon. Take these... these fires away quickly. They are not enough for me to fill my stomach. What are you doing bringing them here?"
The village chief still had the sullen look that Ning Shen was not used to seeing, but he had changed from a normal human form to a ghost with pale skin.
He was standing next to Ning Chen, and instinctively wanted to slap the uninjured part of Ning Chen's back. However, when his hand passed through Ning Chen's body, the village chief suddenly remembered that he had been dead for a long time and had no retrospective state, so he could not touch any living person at this moment.
Ning Chen saw the transparent hand passing through his chest, and realized belatedly that the village chief was about to slap him again. He could not help but said angrily: "You old bastard, you have turned into a ghost, why are you still thinking of slapping people? How dare you!"
Village Chief: “…”
The village chief snorted heavily, pointed at Ning Chen's wound that was still bleeding, and transformed his own soul fire. When he spoke, his voice was a little stiff and awkward: "Fire, hurry up... take it, you little brat."
Ning Chen: "You asked me to take it and I took it. How much face do you have?"
Village Chief: “…”
The village chief was so angry that he slapped his opponent several times.
Xie Tingyun maintained the defense formation in the rear, but his spiritual power was depleted a lot, but he still received the treatment of sending soul fire. He declined with a smile and said softly: "I am not injured, why should I use your soul fire? What's more, I don't have the talent of plundering, so I can't use your soul fire."
When he saw the soul fire, Xie Tingyun finally recognized it.
This is a kind of earth-bound spirit. After death, because of its deep and heavy obsession, it is trapped in the place of obsession and cannot leave.
The earthbound spirits lingered in a corner for a long time. The strong resentment and obsession at the time of death turned into threads that trapped them, tying them firmly to one place.
Ah Chao crawled out of the cellar. He was the only survivor in the village and the only one who was not shedding tears of blood.
This was the first time that after he came out of the cellar, what he saw was not a devastated homeland, nor a bloody and silent scene.
Aunt Xu who starts selling rice cakes before dawn, the neighbor sisters who go to the stream to wash clothes together, Brother Li who chops firewood with an axe in his bare chest, his father who wakes Ah Chao up before dawn to dry the medicine, and his mother who puts down the work and quietly lets Ah Chao go back to sleep.
For the first time, they stood in front of Ah Chao in intact form. Even though those faces, whether familiar or unfamiliar, were now empty and pale, and even though they could not speak because they had become earthbound spirits, Ah Chao could still recognize their faces, and recognized the look on their faces with narrowed eyes every time they saw him rubbing his head while smiling.
After the ghostly aura from the villagers faded a lot, Ning Chen finally felt that they were not so scary anymore.
He did not take any soul fire, but passed through the numerous ghosts. He leaned over and grabbed Ah Chao, who was wiping his tears, and in two or three steps he carried him to the middle of the ghosts, saying, "Little brat, can you come over and take care of your father?"
Ah Chao was carried among the ghosts, and finally Xie Tingyun caught him.
Ah Chao was having difficulty breathing. He sobbed as he grabbed Xie Tingyun's hand, which was trying to wipe his tears. At the same time, with red eyes, he activated his innate skill - backtracking.
His backtracking could only last about a day at a time. It was not until Ah Chao used the backtracking that Xie Tingyun could smell the scent of the demon bloodline from him.
Achao's family should also be half-demons, but their blood is mixed and their aura is not obvious.
The moment his talent was activated, Ning Chen looked back thoughtfully. He was the only high-level demon here. Ning Chen felt it almost the moment the aura of the Achao demon clan was revealed.
There is no such thing as high or low bloodlines in the demon world; they only differentiate between demons based on how powerful their talents are.
In just a blink of an eye, the scene in front of Ning Shen suddenly changed into the lively scene they saw during the day.
Except for Achao, all the people in Pingjing Village lost their ghostly appearance. Their tears of blood gradually dried up and disappeared. Their eye sockets were no longer pitch black, and they regained their lively and energetic appearance.
At first, this was just a desolate land with no human habitation and only the endless forest standing silently.
The status of half-bloods has always been very low. Not only are they not welcomed by most of the tribesmen, but they will be hunted down and killed if they are not careful. This is true in all three realms. The two half-demons secretly escaped from the demon realm and eventually found the Endless Forest, a dangerous and remote place.
There are no demons who discriminate against half-bloods here, and no one will bully or oppress them just because they are inferior half-blood half-demons.
Since the two half-demons knew a little about medicine, they began to cautiously go in and out of the edge of the Endless Forest to look for valuable herbs to sustain their livelihoods, and to take in other half-demons and half-monsters who were being oppressed and squeezed out.
They often encounter people or demons who are injured because they accidentally enter the endless forest, so they often temporarily take in and treat injured passers-by and provide some help as much as possible.
The half-bloods who were taken in began to learn medicine from the two half-demons, and went into the Endless Forest to explore separately.
The two half-demons who stayed behind at the beginning got to know each other and stayed together for half their lives, and finally became a couple. When the baby was born, it was still a group of half-bloods who hurriedly helped to deliver the baby.
They presented the longest and most beautiful feathers from the bird tribe, small jackets made of freshly plucked dry fur from the cat and fox tribes, and the hardest scales on the seven-inch body of the snake tribe as gifts, wishing the newborn babies to grow up safely and happily.
Then, when the beast tide was led to Pingjing Village by an unknown half-demon, this child used his scales to block the fatal blow in the extreme chaos. The clothes made of fox and cat fur on his body blocked the splattered blood, and the feathers completely concealed his breath. He was hidden in a secret cellar by his parents, and with the blessings of the whole village, he became the only surviving half-demon.
The half-demon who led the beast tide was praised ostentatiously by the high-level demon cultivator who led the group. However, the high-level demon cultivator did not purify his blood as promised, but waved his hand and killed the half-demon with contempt and indifference.
Pingjing Village was razed to the ground by the beast tide under the "legitimate reason" of clearing out the gates, and became an inconspicuous purgatory on earth, unnoticed by any existence except the beast tide.
Good intentions are exchanged for misery, and the obsession that good intentions do not lead to a good ending makes everyone die with regrets, and they can only become earth-bound spirits, trapped for a long time in the place where they died miserably in their lifetime.
The village chief and his wife could not change the fact that mixed-bloods had a low status, so they tried to live in seclusion and take in more mixed-bloods with the same experience. However, they were eventually killed by the mixed-bloods.
The obsession of not having a good end made the earthbound spirits linger here for a long time. They couldn't understand why they ended up like this when they were just helping an ordinary half-demon as usual.
Backtracking can reproduce the status and events of a certain period of time in the past, so in the next hundred years, Ah Chao was begged by the earthbound spirits to use backtracking again and again.
At first, Ah Chao could still convince himself that going back in time could allow his parents and the entire village to return to the time before everything happened. If they just chose to turn a blind eye, perhaps none of what happened later would have happened.
However, the results of the past have become settled, and every time you look back, it will only lead to this moment, and the final result is that the tragic cycle will be repeated again and again.
The earthbound spirits began to be unable to tell whether they were in a flashback and were experiencing something that had happened in the past or something that was actually happening.
While in the retrospective state, they are still able to communicate and interact with the outside world like normal people, can shelter injured passers-by and half-demons, and can also be wary of and refuse people who ask for help.
However, no matter how vigilant or soft-hearted the earthbound spirits are, whether they choose to help or not, when the retrospection is about to end, there will always be a half-demon who wants to abandon his humble bloodline and bring disaster here.
Until Ning Chen saw that this "half-demon" who had caused countless beast tide disasters used his body as an eye to suppress a large defense array, and another "half-demon" stepped out of the defense array and single-handedly stopped three high-level demons in the beast tide.
At this point, Ah Chao and all the earthbound spirits finally knew what the ground looked like after the beast tide receded and was not covered in blood.
The sky will part the layers of lead clouds, and the sunlight will fall all over the ground. The sunlight will shine on the sharp eyebrows stained with dried brown blood, and then from the dark red eyes that seem to be adorned with stars to the white-robed monk who is unable to escape the clutches of the devil, allowing the earth-bound spirits to see clearly what the person who has eroded all their stubborn obsessions looks like.
They had nothing left, so they had to offer the only pure soul fire and pray for peace and safety for the two of them.
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The author has something to say:
Ghost: (Wants to get close to the cat)(Scares the cat so much)(Backs off)(Suppresses the soul fire)(Cat doesn't want it)(Tries to suppress it)(Threatens to slap the village chief)(Threatened to fail)(Turns up)(Cat still doesn't want it)(Cries)