Chapter 215 Soul Refining

Jiang Wu did not respond to his apology, but simply waved away the hand that was covering his eyes.

His force was not strong, but Han Zhong's eyes dimmed instantly. After a moment, he explained patiently as if nothing had happened, "The jade ring only contains part of my soul, it is not me."

"I will not die. It will take a long time for you to absorb the spirit soul. I can still be with you for a long time. When I am old and dead, you will use my body to reincarnate. In the next life, you will not remember all this, nor me. You will not have to guard my life star anymore. You will spend every life like an ordinary person, happy and healthy, until the spirit soul is worn out and the life of the Siming family ends."

This was the best ending he could think of in his previous life, and it was also the only gift he could give to Jiang Wu.

Jiang Wu pretended not to hear anything. He reached out and lifted up the bright yellow prayer flag, and saw the intact corpse.

It was still the same black jacquard brocade robe with cloud pattern that he had personally put on Yan Zhong that year. Although it had been worn by the years, it was not much torn and still wrapped the corpse inside.

But in fact, that one could no longer be called a corpse. Normally, a corpse that had been dead for a thousand years should have turned into debris long ago, but the one in front of him was a gloomy black from the head to the neck, with a faint layer of blood red, as if it was soaked in blood, exuding a sinister aura and full of traces of curses.

Jiang Wu had seen these traces before. At that time, Emperor Ling of the Great Zhou, Yan Xuan, was in power. Wars broke out frequently and the people were living in misery. Those in power sought endless enjoyment, and ordinary people wanted to escape from the sea of ​​suffering. They all sought ways to practice Taoism and ascend to heaven, but because too many people did not have natural talents, they could only give rise to many unorthodox methods.

At that time, some people thought that the biggest difference between ordinary people and monks was the strength of their souls. As long as they could make the souls of ordinary people strong and transform them into divine souls, they could become monks. So someone came up with a very sinister and vicious method, the soul-refining technique.

The so-called soul refining is to cast a curse on the soul of an ordinary person, trapping the soul in darkness for decades of painful torture. Eventually the curse ends. If the soul does not collapse and perish, it can be transformed into a powerful divine soul and embark on the path of cultivating immortals.

At that time, there were many people who died from soul-refining, either voluntarily or under duress, but their fate was extremely miserable. After death, the bodies of those people would be placed in coffins, and their souls would be forcibly restrained in their bodies by magic, and then they would be tortured by many curses. There was no concept of time in the afterlife, and there was no escape, so there was no end to the darkness and pain. One could only rely on obsession to maintain sanity, but no one could survive, even monks could not survive more than seven days, and their minds would collapse, their souls would fly away, and in the end, only a black corpse covered with traces of curses would be left, showing the pain its owner had experienced.

At that time, he just thought that ordinary people overestimated their own abilities and ended up hurting others and themselves, and he didn't take it seriously. But now, looking at the bloodstains on the corpse in front of him, he felt as if his heart was being cut by a knife.

He thought about how he had always come here over the years to tell Yan Chong bad things about Yan Cong, about the annoying ministers, about the declining fortunes of the Great Zhou, about the purple iris flowers outside the Wujiang Palace, about the wind in the Zhaixing Tower, and about the new stories of the storytellers in the Mingyuebugui Tower. He had thought that they were separated by life and death, but it turned out that there was only a wall between them.

It was obvious that he could save Yan Chong by just walking over the wall, but he found nothing. He didn't realize that Yan Chong had done so many things in secret, he didn't realize that Yan Chong looked at him with eyes full of heartache and reluctance before he died, he didn't realize that when he was alone in the Zhaixing Tower looking at the dim destiny star, Yan Chong was also trapped in a bronze coffin, enduring pain and loneliness that had no end in sight.

What kind of torture would make a person afraid of darkness in his subconscious even if he was reincarnated as another person and lost all memories of his past life?

From the sixty-sixth year of Tianxu to the thirty-second year of Changli, he was trapped in the palace of the Great Zhou for one hundred and seventy years. How many years had Yan Chong been trapped and tortured in this small bronze coffin?

"I would rather you were greedy for immortality, I would rather you were one of the ordinary people in the world, so that I can turn around and kill you now." Jiang Wu turned his back to the people behind him and said slowly, "But you are not."

Han Zhong's fingers were clenched so tightly that they turned white, but he still tried his best to suppress the emotions surging in his heart. He walked up to him and soothed him, "You will miss more people in the future, and you will--"

The rest of the conversation stopped abruptly, and Han Zhong could no longer pretend nothing happened because he saw Jiang Wu's tears.

A little bit of transparency, like the dewdrops in the early morning, slowly slid down those calm eyes. There was no sad expression, just tears flowing quietly and silently.

Yan Chong once wondered when Jiang Wu would shed a tear for him. Would it be when he was dying? Or when he knew he had been tortured in the bronze coffin for eighty years?

Later, Han Zhong also thought, when will the little fool cry for me, even for the sake of her bereaved husband?

Now that he has the memories of two lives, he finally saw Jiang Wuwei crying for himself. What he thought was, damn it, I actually made him cry.

He was completely panicked, and he went forward to hug him helplessly, but he stopped right there when he was about to raise his hand, and said in a low voice, "...I'm sorry."

Jiang Wu continued to cry silently, his tears dripping onto the edge of the bronze coffin, soaking it. He stared at the corpse in the coffin and asked, "Why don't you let me purify my soul?"

Since achieving a body of accumulated evil is the only way for the Siming clan to achieve "ascension", why not let him lie in the coffin himself and use the soul-refining technique to achieve a body of accumulated evil?

"I'm not sure if the soul-refining technique can achieve the reincarnation of the evil body, and..." Han paused, "It hurts too much, you can't bear it."

Jiang Wu had heard this sentence before. It was after Yan Zhong blocked a poison arrow for him on the battlefield. He asked Yan Zhong why he blocked it for him, even though he could recover faster than Yan Zhong. At that time, Yan Zhong just smiled and shook his head, saying, "Forget it. It hurts too much. You can't bear it."

At that time, Jiang Wu could not understand why he said this. In his opinion, Yan Zhong was more fragile and more afraid of pain than himself, so why would he worry about him?

Obviously everyone prayed to him for protection, but only Yan Chong thought he was so weak and fragile, and treated him as a delicate flower. Even the immortality that the world coveted became his pain in Yan Chong's eyes, and he was willing to endure the torture of the curse for him, just to find a way to get rid of it.

How could there be such a person in the world who values ​​himself more than his own life, as if I were everything to him?

Such a special person appeared before him in the third year after his master left, as if he was specially sent to him by God.

Jiang Wu turned his head to look over, and then Han Zhong returned the imperial black jade to him with a somewhat bewildered look. Han Zhong's expression froze, and he was about to speak when he was interrupted by Jiang Wu.

"When we break up, you send me off. By then I won't love you anymore, so I won't be reluctant to let you go."

“…”

Han Zhong was choking back all the words he had to say. He looked at Jiang Wu's serious face and his face turned blue, then green, then green, then black. After finally confirming that he was really serious, he squeezed out a sentence from between his teeth, "Just wait until I die."

Jiang Wu looked at him, blinked, and a remaining tear slid down from the corner of his eye.

Han Zhong's heart ached, and he pursed his lips, "...I'm sorry, I was self-righteous."

Jiang Wu walked up to him, leaned his head into his arms, and whispered, "If you lie to me again, I will kill Rong Anzhou."

Han Zhong: “…”