The world is like a prison, my body is holy

Chapter 118 Lifelike
"Da Chuan, that's enough for you. I can walk the rest of the way by myself."

Wang Wen gazed steadily at the gray, foggy world at the edge of his vision, so thick with leaden clouds that even the midday sun couldn't penetrate it, and calmly said, "Erniu, you're fast on your feet, take Dachuan to the village where we stayed last night; Dachuan, after you return to Hangzhou, don't wait for me, pack your things, take a boat directly to Yangzhou, find Huang Xingde, the leader of the Qinghe Gang, and tell him that I sent you there, and he will take care of you."

Hu Dachuan secretly sized him up, feeling somewhat hesitant, but still gritted his teeth and said, "Brother, you are a hero destined for great things, but I, Hu Dachuan, am not a coward who clings to life. If we run, we run; if we perish, we perish. I may not be able to help you with other things, but I can certainly take a couple of blows for you..."

His heart was pounding as he spoke, but he still tried to stand tall and straight, not wanting his new sworn brother to look down on him.

Wang Wen smiled gently: "We are all fine sons born of mothers and fathers, don't say such worthless things... Alright, stop dawdling, you can't help me here, if you stay I will have to take care of you, you will only be a burden to me, go back in peace, I know what's important!"

As he spoke, he took the fine steel silver spear from Hei Erniu beside him and held it in his hand, then patted Hei Erniu's forehead.

Hei Erniu blinked his big, dark eyes and stared at Wang Wen for a while before saying in a muffled voice, "Then you take good care of yourself. I, Lao Hei, will be right back."

Wang Wen nodded and gave a soft "Mmm." Only then did Hei Erniu reluctantly walk to Hu Dachuan's side, jiggling his muscular physique as he said, "Come on up, just this once..."

Hu Dachuan remained hesitant, his eyes flashing with struggle.

Seeing this, Wang Wen smiled and patted him on the shoulder: "If you want to help me, go back and improve your martial arts. There will be plenty of opportunities in the future. There's no need to waste your life here... Go back!"

Hu Dachuan then hesitantly climbed onto Hei Erniu's back, turning back every few steps to walk the way they had come: "Big Brother, you must be careful, don't force it, I'll be waiting for you in Hangzhou..."

Wang Wen smiled and waved at him, watching the man and the ox gallop away.

By the time the man and the ox disappeared from his sight, the smile on his face had vanished completely.

He regained his senses expressionlessly, picked up the fine steel silver spear and slung it over his shoulders, striding towards the gray, foggy world that resembled a black-and-white photograph.

As he approached, a cold, gust of wind suddenly swept across the plain, whipping his long hair and clothes into a fluttering gust. The withered, decaying, and menacing vegetation around him rustled, as if this world did not welcome this uninvited guest.

Wang Wen glanced at the swaying, menacing vegetation, chuckled, and then, with a wide grin, passionately launched into a tirade against the howling wind: "The great river flows eastward, the stars in the sky point to the Big Dipper..."

Despite his off-key, hoarse voice, he added a touch of unrestrained, brave, and fearless spirit to the heroic and intense "Heroes' Song".

The soaring song echoed through the mountains and forests, drowning out the rustling of the grass and trees.

This seemed to enrage the will in the darkness, and the gale became even faster, whipping up and swirling the dense clouds that enveloped the gray fog world, and at a visible speed, it condensed into a huge, terrifying ghost face that roared angrily.

"Roar……"

A chilling, bone-chilling wind howled, its sound like endless venom and mournful howls echoing repeatedly in Wang Wen's ears.

In Wang Wen's eyes, this scene was truly like an old lady crawling into bed, making the old man laugh!

You're just a local thug, trying to intimidate me, a proper government official?

It's against you!

"clang!"

With a heavy thud, Wang Wen struck the ground with his steel spear, then stood before him, silently chanting, "Heaven and Earth are boundless, Huangshan borrows the power," and slowly released his Yin spirit.

A dark golden phantom emerged from above his head, condensing into a majestic deity clad in red sleeves and golden armor, surrounded by dark golden yin energy. He held a pure gold court tablet in his hands, glaring angrily at the ghostly face in mid-air, and roared with his beard and hair bristling, "Imperial decree: Exterminate evil!"

As soon as the words fell, a heart-wrenching scream rang out from mid-air. The terrifying ghost mask formed from the clouds and mist instantly turned into a mess, as if it had been slapped hard by an invisible hand.

In an instant, the wind stopped and the grass and trees ceased swaying.

Even that dim world seemed a bit brighter!
The Yin God glanced at the countless faces floating and sinking, layer upon layer, within that gray mist world with its ghostly eyes, then closed its eyes with pity and sank into its body.

Wang Wen opened his eyes, and the words "Virtue -100" and "Merit Points +26750" appeared in his vision at the same time.

He raised his head with a somber expression, casting his gaze once more upon the gray, misty world, a profound heaviness weighing on his heart.

The depletion of his virtuous deeds was the depletion of his power to invoke the law through his words outside of Huangshan.

Within the territory of Huangshan, as long as he does not violate the rules of Heaven, he can freely use the power of words to follow the law without any expenditure; this is the authority of his divine position as the God of Huangshan.

However, once outside the jurisdiction of Huangshan, if he wants to use the power of words to follow the law, he has to expend his own good karma to ask the Heavenly Lord for help. This is similar to how cross-provincial law enforcement requires the cooperation of relevant local departments, which is a necessary procedure.

The merit points he gained were naturally from his power of words becoming law, which shattered the ghost mask.

This is quite a harvest...

But looking at this sum of money, which seemed to come in small amounts, Wang Wen couldn't tell from any angle that it was given to him by a single criminal suspect. Instead, it seemed like it was a sum of money from multiple criminal suspects pooled together for him.

What does this mean?
This suggests that his earlier use of the "words become law" technique likely did not successfully execute the audacious gang leader who dared to organize a criminal organization to intimidate him, an official of the imperial court.

This suggests that the leader of the largest criminal gang in Kuaiji City has most likely completed the epic task of unifying Kuaiji, becoming the underground emperor of Kuaiji City, and binding the entire criminal organization to himself. He can even distribute the power of the gods' words to his criminal organization members to reduce the harm to himself.

If this deduction is correct, then Wang Wen received both bad news and good news.

The bad news is that there are probably not many law-abiding citizens left in this city that can be saved.

The good news is that he might not have to rack his brains to save anyone anymore; he can just kill them all as achievements...

It's true that Wang Wen went south with the intention of accumulating merit points.

But at this moment, faced with this deduction that was clearly very favorable to him, he only felt depressed and breathless, and could not feel happy at all.

With a gloomy face, he picked up the fine steel silver spear, slung it over his shoulder, and walked step by step toward that world of despair.

The closer you get, the more the gray fog becomes, obscuring the sky and stretching as far as the eye can see.

The closer he got, the smaller he appeared, like an ant crawling towards a towering anthill.

But he remained silent, focusing intently on measuring the earth with his own two legs, step by step walking into the gray fog.

The temperature was extremely low and visibility was extremely low in the gray fog, with tiny particles that were hard to tell whether they were dust or snowflakes drifting in the air.

Even when Wang Wen released his divine sense, he could only barely see the scenery within three or four zhang around him. He could clearly sense the suppression of his divine sense by this gray mist space.

But this suppression was very light, as if he could tear the suppressive force apart with just a little effort.

Suspecting a trap, he silently unleashed a burst of crimson lightning from his right index finger behind his back, extinguishing the gray mist in front of it. Then, he focused his divine sense on his index finger and immediately felt the suppressing force disappear completely.

Relieved, he continued walking and soon came to see corpses strewn everywhere. Some of these mummified bodies were pushing wheelbarrows, some were carrying bundles, and some were large families huddled together...

They lay quietly on the ground, their black mouths and black eyes staring silently at the sky. Their bodies were covered in dust, and their clothes were old and faded, just like the mummies in the desert that had been dead for hundreds or thousands of years.

As Wang Wen walked through it, he subconsciously held his breath, a sense of terror lingering in his heart that he was the only living being left in the world.

The further you go into the center of the gray fog, the more corpses you see, and there's almost no place to put your feet.

Soon, he saw the horse path paved with bluestone slabs.

Following the horse trail, he found the city gate...

The city gate was wide open, but at the end of the dark gate opening, only a single light could be seen, not the scene inside the city.

The city gate was also filled with countless corpses, so densely packed and layered that they raised the ground by two or three feet.

Wang Wen glanced at the terrifying city gate, then looked up at the city wall shrouded in gray mist above. He considered scaling the wall, but suddenly the lifeless, numb faces of the people at the execution ground that night flashed through his mind...

He pondered for a moment, then finally took the fine steel silver spear from his shoulder, held it in his hand, and lightly jumped onto the wall of the city gate. He walked along the wall step by step towards the light as if walking on flat ground.

However, even though the city gate was clearly visible at a glance, he walked along the wall for the full time it takes for an incense stick to burn, and could only see a distant glimmer of light at the end of the gate.

This made him a little angry.

"Crack."

Amidst the deafening roar of the thunder in the Crimson Palace, he spoke calmly and expressionlessly: "I'm giving you face, so you'd better keep it to yourself. Annoying me won't do anyone any good."

After saying that, he continued walking forward.

This time, he only took a few steps before reaching the light, and with his eyes open, he stepped across it.

In an instant, he felt a bright light flash before his eyes, causing him to instinctively raise his right hand to shield his eyes.

Then, a cacophony of noise suddenly filled his ears.

"Steamed buns, freshly steamed buns!"

"Crispy pears, fresh crisp pears!"

"Offal soup, it's piping hot..."

Wang Wen slowly lowered his right hand, which had been blocking his eyes, and saw a patch of golden sunlight, unique to early autumn, falling from the sky and illuminating a clean, antique street. Countless figures dressed in short, thin shirts walked leisurely or hurriedly among them, giving him a sense of déjà vu as he used to stroll through the grass market in Yangzhou.

He twitched his nostrils, took a slight breath, and caught a faint scent of osmanthus blossoms...

'interesting!'

He thought to himself.

He suppressed the urge to use his supernatural eyes to see through all the illusions before him, and slowly walked into the crowd, holding his spear upside down, wandering aimlessly along the long street.

"Sir, do you want to stay in a hotel or stay in a hotel?"

A quick-witted waiter walked out of his inn's main gate, seemingly oblivious to the murder weapon he was carrying, and greeted customers with a beaming smile.

Wang Wen gave him a deep look, and his Ghostly Eyes automatically pierced through the illusion, revealing a disheveled, blood-stained ghostly face that still wore a smile and showed no trace of resentment.

He withdrew his gaze, smiled and nodded slightly, saying, "I have just arrived in this wonderful place. Please allow me to wander around a bit more before returning to rest and stay at an inn."

"Ouch!"

The waiter quickly bowed and gestured to the other end of the long street, saying, "Then I'll reserve a superior room for you. You must come back... Sir, Changqing Temple in the south of Kuaiji City is a famous ancient temple with a history of hundreds of years. If you have time, you might as well go and visit it."

"Changqing Temple?"

Wang Wen nodded thoughtfully and said with a smile, "If I have enough time, I will go and take a look around!"

The waiter withdrew his hand, clasped his hands in a fist and said, "Then please take care, sir!"

Wang Wen strode past him, saying, "See you later."

He continued walking forward, his left hand tightly gripping the fine steel spear, seemingly glancing around casually.

As he approached a crossroads, a bamboo ball woven from bamboo strips suddenly rolled to his feet.

Wang Wen turned his head and saw a group of children with pigtails sticking up in the air, laughing and swarming over.

He stepped aside, making way for the group of children kicking the ball past him.

Suddenly, a chubby-faced little boy stopped in front of him, tilted his head up, and stared at him with his big, blinking eyes: "Sir, are you going to Changqing Temple to worship Buddha and burn incense? Changqing Temple is that way!"

The little boy reached out and pointed to the road to the south.

Wang Wen lowered his head, focused his gaze, and saw a ghostly face with no chin, a tongue dragging on the ground, covered in lividity, but with eyes that remained clear.

He pursed his lips, squatted down, gently stroked the little boy's head, and asked softly, "Son, does it still hurt?"

The little boy stared at him blankly, as if he thought this strange uncle had lost his mind.

After a long while, he suddenly laughed and said, "It doesn't hurt anymore, it's just a little cold..."

Wang Wen pursed his lips tightly and forced a smile, "Don't worry, Uncle's here, it won't be cold soon... Go play!"

"Hey!"

The little boy waved at him and ran after his companions like a gust of wind, shouting, "Wait for me!"

Wang Wen got up and strode towards the south of the city.

(End of this chapter)