Shushan: Extinction

Chapter 2: Immortal Gate Service

Lelang State, Maoshan County, Shimen Village.

Cold night,

The houses in the village are dilapidated, withered and desolate.

The sound of waves hitting the rocks could be heard faintly in the distance.

In a dilapidated house at the entrance of the village, a man lying on the bed opened his eyes with difficulty!
It can be seen that his eyes were quite blank and blank at this time, and then he suddenly covered his chest, gasping violently, twitching, and his eyes began to focus rapidly:
"huh, huh"

"I'm not dead?"

"No, where is this?"

At this time, the man had seen the surrounding environment and found that it could only be described as bare. At the same time, he smelled an indescribable musty and stinky smell in his nose.

At this moment, the man felt that his mouth was so dry that it seemed like it could spit fire, and his mind was in a daze. He staggered to the water tank next to him, scooped some water from a half-broken bowl, and started drinking it all in one gulp. As a result, he was so cold that his mouth grimaced.

However, after drinking this half bowl of cold water, a lot of information began to emerge in my mind.

"Oh my god. Is he resurrected again?"

The man's name is Gong Tianwu. He has been resurrected twice inexplicably so far. After each resurrection, he can clearly remember the events of his previous life and even the previous life before that.
What’s more important is that every time he was reborn, it was near this small village called Shimen!
Gong Tianwu's memory began thirty-two years ago.

In his first life, he was called Gong Tianwu. He was born in Shimen Village. His family was wealthy enough for him to attend a private school. However, he never expected that his father would be chosen to perform labor service in the Xianmen Sect and would never return.

In this world, the relationship between the spiritual world and the human world is not separated, but inseparable:
The spiritual stones needed by practitioners need to be dug by mortals.
The cultivation and maintenance of spiritual food is very complicated and requires the efforts of mortals.
The raw materials for the cultivators' instruments must be collected by mortals.
Even the souls of mortals are a kind of cultivation resource for some sects.
More importantly, where do the foundation of the cultivation world, new blood, and disciples with cultivation potential come from? Aren't they from ordinary people?

To put it bluntly, the cultivation world is just sucking blood from the mortals.
Immortal labor service is one of the means used by the cultivation world to exploit mortals.

Ahem, it is said that the entire village went to a spiritual mine thousands of miles away to perform the service, but they encountered a major landslide and were unable to return.

When Gong Tianwu was nineteen years old, he was killed by typhoid fever and lost consciousness.

Soon, he began his second life and possessed the body of a child named Li Yong from the same village. He lived to the age of 26 and was beaten to death in a fight over water in the village.

After being reborn through another corpse, Gong Tianwu let out a long sigh. Now that he was 32 years old mentally, he could face everything more rationally.

After lying down for a while and sorting out the sudden extra memories in his mind, Gong Tianwu stood up, weakly opened the door and walked out.

He stood at the door for several seconds like a sculpture, with only the white mist exhaled from his mouth and nose curling up.

It was late at night and the cold wind was howling, greedily robbing the body temperature from the skin.

There are twinkling stars in the sky, and occasionally there are magnificent and magical auroras that pass through the sky like ribbons. In the distance, the sound of waves hitting the reefs can be faintly heard.

Gong Tianwu entered his third life a year and a half after losing consciousness.

He was still reborn in Shimen Village.

Shimen Village is only three thousand miles away from the famous Xiankong Island!
***
Its daybreak,
But there was no movement in the entire Shimen Village.
It was more than an hour later that wisps of smoke began to emerge from the chimneys in the village.

The bleak sunlight shines on the barren and deserted village, making it look even more lonely, depressed and indifferent.

At this time, Gong Tianwu walked out of the village. There seemed to be a woman behind him pointing at him and scolding him, but his mind was empty at this time. He had no time to care about these things and continued to move forward.

After returning to life last night, he drank some water and felt his head was still dizzy and painful. It should be the sequelae of returning to life again. He fell back on the broken bed and fell into a deep sleep.

During his sleep, Gong Tianwu could feel waves of heat surging from the void and flowing into his body drop by drop. It seemed that in the distant darkness, there was a person who was connected to him by blood and life, and who was replenishing his vitality.

Gong Tianwu didn't know when he fell asleep. When he woke up, his head didn't hurt anymore, but he was hungry and thirsty. He searched the house for a long time but couldn't find anything to eat. He even drank up the entire water jar.

When Gong Tianwu walked outside, he came to his senses: he was no longer the previous Li Yong. The body that had been resurrected was called Tian Dachun, a despicable, aggressive and ruthless scoundrel in the village.

Stealing and cheating are his nature, bullying the weak and fearing the strong are his labels, and Tian Dachun's character is not only lazy, but also a bit reckless, his reputation can be said to be stinking for miles.

Tian Dachun was able to do bad things without being punished, entirely because he had an uncle who worked as a yamen clerk in the government.

Of course, it was only after Gong Tianwu obtained most of Tian Dachun's memories that he realized that his uncle was actually unreliable. His nickname was Tian Paopi. He would call you nephew when there was benefit, but would turn against you directly when there was no benefit.

After surviving for more than thirty years, Gong Tianwu has discovered the darkness of this world, where ordinary people are exploited and their blood is sucked out! !
Be it the smiling tiger-faced headman in the village, the ferocious yamen officials in the county, or the rare patrol officers, they all directly form a dense and large net, skinning and pulling out the tendons of these poor people at the bottom of the society, leaving them with only the means to linger on.

The most terrifying thing is that there are huge monsters at the top suppressing everything:
All major immortal sects!

To be more specific, they are Emei, Qingcheng, Kunlun, Wudang, Wutai, Huashan, Kongtong, and Wudu.
The immortal sect that rules the Lelang Kingdom here is a branch of Emei: the Yunling Sect.

Its founder is the distant nephew of Xun Lanyin, the orthodox master of Emei. Of course, with the name of Emei, Yunling Sect also needs to pay tribute to the sect every year.

Suddenly, Gong Tianwu was blocked by two people.

The short middle-aged man in the lead always had a smiling expression on his face, but he always liked to look at people with his eyes narrowed, and his eyes were full of observation and calculation. The young man, on the other hand, had a look of provocation and disdain on his face.

Gong Tianwu also knew these two people. They were the village head Zhou Lu, nicknamed Zhou Dunzi, and next to him was his son Zhou Zhizhong.

When Zhou Lu saw Gong Tianwu, he said with a fake smile:

"Dachun, I was looking for you. Your family hasn't performed any corvée service for more than 20 years. The higher-ups have questioned us several times. I've always said good things for you, but this isn't going to work in the long run."

Gong Tianwu was still thinking about Li Yong's identity for a while, so he didn't realize that "Dachun" was calling him, so he didn't reply in time.

However, Zhou Lu must have a different meaning in his eyes, so he said with a fake smile:

"This morning, Zhao Tou from the yamen came to tell me that after winter comes, our village needs to find two people to perform the Xianmen labor service. I heard that the work this time is relatively easy, so I signed you up." The three words "Xianmen labor service" suddenly felt like a red-hot iron poking into his ear holes, causing a chill to rise up Gong Tianwu's spine, and even his bones seemed to be chilled.

For most ordinary people, this thing is the gate of hell.

Its essence is infrastructure construction: bring your own dry food or money and go to the designated location to perform voluntary service.

Normally, they are either digging spiritual mines, reclaiming spiritual fields, or dredging water conservancy projects and repairing city walls.

Please note that doing these things is mandatory! It's free!

Just take care of the accommodation, not the food.

Not only do they have to live in straw huts, but those who are infected have to provide their own food. It takes two or three months of hard work before they can return. It's really a painful experience, even if they don't die.

Gong Tianwu’s father in his first life died in a foreign land because of performing labor service for the immortal sect, and even his body was never found!
So Gong Tianwu immediately stepped forward and said angrily:

"What did you say?"

Before Gong Tianwu could finish his words, Zhou Zhizhong walked up to him with his head held high and pushed him directly in the chest.

To be honest, Zhou Zhizhong looked thin and was at least a head shorter than Gong Tianwu, but his push was so powerful that Gong Tianwu could not stand steadily. He took two or three steps back and lost his balance, sitting on the ground.

As soon as Gong Tianwu got up, Zhou Zhizhong grabbed his neck and made it difficult for him to breathe. His vision went dark and he was completely unable to resist.

Then Zhou Zhizhong sneered at him:

"Yesterday, Tian Shajun offended the county magistrate and was dragged away and beaten to death. The person who beat him said that if he didn't die, he would be disabled. Without this vicious dog backing you up, what else can you do?"

"I'm telling you, you have to go on this trip to the Immortal Gate! Otherwise, who in our village will go for you?"

Tian Shajun is none other than Tian Dachun's backer in the eyes of others, and a yamen official working in the government office: Tian Paopi.

After saying that, Zhou Zhizhong spat at him, and the two of them walked away.

At this time, Gong Tianwu, who was pushed to the ground, had a distorted face and was trembling all over. His ten fingers pressed on the ground were deeply dug into the soil.

***
Ten hours later,
Gong Tianwu gasped for breath and threw the last heavy sack into the sampan.

At this moment, he felt as if something heavy was pressing on his chest. He jumped onto the boat with difficulty and lay there, not wanting to move.

For Gong Tianwu, he had never thought that he would have to face such a terrible situation after returning to life, and even to the point where he would have to wait for the immortal sect to do the corvée if he didn't fight! It would be better to just cut his neck and die more easily.

Therefore, after weighing the pros and cons, he had no choice but to take the risk.

The only thing to be thankful for was that the resurrected person, Tian Dachun, still had some spare money, which gave him some start-up capital. However, it must have been mostly spent now, so this sampan and the big rooster in the sack were all taken away by chance.

Ahem, Gong Tianwu was very familiar and skilled at doing this kind of thing. It must be the rich experience that this body possessed that was taking effect.

As the sky gradually darkened, a bright moon slowly rose into the sky. Gong Tianwu had almost rested enough, so he ate something and set sail.

Thanks to God, the sea was calm. Gong Tianwu rowed the sampan and soon discovered a large and thick layer of ice in front of him. Under the moonlight, it was coated with a layer of light silver and stretched into the distance. However, there was an indescribable fishy smell in the air.

After arriving here, Gong Tianwu simply took out a small cloth bag from the side, and then quickly sprinkled the light yellow powder in it on his body.

This powder has a pungent smell of sulfur, which is very unpleasant, but Gong Tianwu does not dislike it at all, because it can block out the human smell on his body.

After doing this, Gong Tianwu carefully observed the surrounding environment, then found a place to climb onto the ice, took the oars with him, and carried a large sack on his back and moved forward laboriously.

After gazing far away in the moonlight, Gong Tianwu discovered a huge iceberg in the distance, which appeared as a blurry black shadow under the moonlight.

He walked slowly towards the direction of the iceberg, counting silently in his mouth. After walking a thousand steps, he stopped, then found a sheltered place to rest, eat and replenish his strength, and took out the things in the package one by one.

After some observation, Gong Tianwu began to sprinkle some white powder on the ice surface, which was refined salt.

Salt was extremely precious at that time, and was a daily necessity strictly controlled by those in power, so just sprinkling a few ounces of salt on the food made Gong Tianwu gasp in pain.

Then Gong Tianwu mixed some gray powder into the salt. After the two interacted with each other, a slight "cracking" sound began to be heard on the ice surface.

After waiting for a while, Gong Tianwu took out his tools and dug into the powdered ice surface. He easily dug more than three feet deep. Then, there was a flash of light below, and sea water was gushing out.

Gong Tianwu then continued digging, expanding the ice pit to about one square meter. He was so tired that he was panting and sweating.

After drinking a few sips of wine, eating something and resting for a while, Gong Tianwu started to work.

He first chiseled a two-inch deep hole in the ice, and then took out an egg from his trouser pocket.

Then quickly crack the eggs and pour them into the ice nest. While the egg liquid is not frozen yet, insert a piece of stick into the ice nest.

The tree stick was as thick as a wine glass and about one foot long. The temperature was at least ten degrees below zero, and soon the tree stick was frozen solid in place, and it wouldn't even move if kicked.

Gong Tianwu then did the same thing and froze out another tree stick more than two meters away. He then tied a strong straw rope between the two tree sticks, about half a foot off the ground.

Strictly speaking, the thing he made was actually quite similar to the lasso used in the military.

This "tripwire" is about two meters away from the ice pit, right facing the ice pit.

　New books, please read and collect them

　　
　
(End of this chapter)