All the evil beasts in the world, I feed on demons and monsters

Chapter 397 Willing to Die as If It Were Sweet (Part 2)

Chen Anan originally had no name.

He was born missing an arm. When his family saw him, they almost fainted, thinking it must be a sin he committed in his past life.

However, Chen Anan was lucky; at least it was a boy. If it had been a girl, she would have drowned in the bedpan.

His family didn't even give him a name. He was disabled, so naturally, he didn't have any breast milk. He only had three bushels of millet. His own mother went to work as a wet nurse at the home of the local gentry, Liu.

Fortunately, Chen Anan was tough and survived on leftover rice porridge. As he grew older, he worked as a farm laborer year after year.

Gradually, because he was strong and could do more than a normal person, his grandfather and father slowly began to treat him as a junior.

Chen Anan didn't think it was bad; he had food to eat, work to do, and a place to sleep.

Very down-to-earth.

Until the military governor of Nanzhou passed by their village, he saw the lush wheat fields outside the village and with a wave of his hand, he turned the entire village into "military rations".

The village head also earnestly persuaded everyone to go out and help harvest the grain, explaining that the military governor was suppressing the rebels and needed everyone's help.

It wasn't until the village head's pregnant daughter-in-law was put into the soup pot that everyone realized they were also considered military rations.

Chen Anan was missing a hand, so the shackles couldn't hold him down; the Han soldiers only bound his body. He seized an opportunity and dashed into Fuxianliu, escaping for his life.

After that, because all he knew was farming, he became a tenant farmer and worked for the Qingcheng Sect. The inner disciples who managed the land saw that he had good potential and tried to get him into the outer sect, but unexpectedly, things took an unexpected turn for the better.

His master's surname was Chen, and knowing that he came from the south, he named him "Chen Anan".

now.

The old man, who had been holding a bowl and drinking thin porridge, paused slightly.

He watched as his wife's figure slowly faded away on the earthen bed, and saw his grandson, who was playing with his son in the yard, also slowly turn into smoke.

The small house in the border town twisted into a towering behemoth, the mound in front of it turned into expensive rosewood, and the thin porridge in the hand became expensive sparrow-borne incense.

slam-la-

Purple rain poured down, blooming crimson ice flowers on the neat bluestone slabs of the courtyard.

Chen Anan paused only briefly before bringing the teacup to his lips again.

"Chiliu——"

He took a large gulp of tea, his profile silhouetted against the open doorway, appearing gaunt and sharp against the backdrop of the rain. The refreshing, bittersweet taste gradually cleared his clouded eyes.

Stab it!

His large, well-defined hand gripped the unsheathed sword on the table, and with his single arm, he lifted the broadsword, which was as thick as an ordinary man's upper arm, with one hand!
"Where did these demons and monsters come from?!"

"You're using this trick to deceive me!"

Zheng!
Chen Anan suddenly raised his sword, its sharp edge cleaving the wooden table in two! The sword's edge pointed straight out of the courtyard!

This is his old house, the house he lived in when he fled!

Now that he has already left the Southern Han with his family and fled to the Tang Dynasty, how could he still be in the old house!
creak!

At that moment, the courtyard gate was suddenly pushed open.

A servant poked his head out: "Master—"

Bang!

The next moment, the servant's entire body was revealed! Chen Anan's pupils contracted! This servant had wood growing out of his arms, and his upper arms were stuck to his chest!
There is something wrong.

Chen Anan's heart skipped a beat, as if he had forgotten something. But he wasn't afraid. He immediately strode towards the servant and asked, "What's wrong with you?"

Raindrops fell on his skin, but Chen Anan did not notice anything unusual. At this moment, his internal energy surged, causing the purple rain to evaporate, and as he walked, a thin layer of mist enveloped his body—a manifestation of his internal martial arts reaching a state of perfection.

He is already a top-notch internal martial arts master in the martial arts world, having cultivated to the third rank!

"The rain... the rain is poisonous!"

The servant trembled and said, "There are people, lots of people!"

"The rain from the south is even more toxic; it has killed many, many people. Now, it has already reached our Shiqiao County!"

"In the city... many wealthy families... have already had their homes broken down and their entire families wiped out..."

"The person...the person is outside the door—uh!"

As the servant was speaking, his face suddenly twitched, and he collapsed to the ground with a thud, lifeless. His entire neck was fibrotic, like a piece of wood, unable to breathe—he suffocated.

Chen Anan gently stroked the servant's face, closing his eyes. Then, carrying his broadsword, he strode out of the courtyard. A surge of intense internal energy caused warm mist to rise from his body.

At his level, he'd dare fight even real monsters! Those weaklings and demons wouldn't dare approach him!

He walked through the purple rain and arrived at the vermilion gate of the mansion!
"master!"

"grown ups!"

"Father!"

"Master!"

……

As familiar relatives, their faces pale, greeted him, Chen Anan's sense of foreboding grew stronger.

What have I forgotten?
This should be a very important matter.

But at this moment, seeing the servants and attendants holding up the gate in fear, the huge vermilion doors swaying with the noise outside, he had no interest in investigating further.

"Open the door."

His calm voice reassured the servants, and they immediately opened the gate!
boom!
When the crimson liquid was poured out, the first thing that rushed in was the scent.

The stench of sweat, blood, and the earthy smell of the turbid current instantly shattered the elegant incense burning within the high walls.

Following closely behind are people.

Perhaps they can no longer be called human beings; they are more like a group of skeletons wrapped in human skin.

Their eyes were deep-set, and their eyes burned with a greenish light—not human eyes, but wolf eyes.

Their exposed skin was covered with mud and purplish-black sores, and parts of their bodies had merged with stones, wood, fur, and all sorts of strange things.

"food!"

Someone let out a howl first, the voice as hoarse as a broken gong, but it instantly ignited everyone's passion.

"food--!"

The crowd exploded.

Like a pack of hyenas that had discovered carrion, they charged toward the ornately decorated pavilions and towers with bloodshot eyes.

At first, Chen Anan didn't react.

After all, this was the front yard; where would they find any food? But the next moment, as a refugee struck a servant with a hoe, he thought of that autumn sixty years ago.

Boiling porridge, a woman's hair, a naked person, golden millet...

"court death!"

bass!
Chen Anan let out a low roar, like an enraged beast rising up, his beard and hair bristling! With a single swing of his longsword, the sharp blade sliced ​​off the heads of several people!

Bang!
Although he was getting old and his martial arts skills had declined, he was still practicing the internal martial arts of the Qingcheng School, and his level was still high. It was not like the external martial arts that were declining after the prime of life.

At this moment, Chen Anan's sword moved like a nimble snake, its movements forming a rainbow!
He was like a crimson streak; with just two turns, the dozens of people who had rushed into the mansion were all killed!
The Qingcheng sword technique, like the Qingcheng Mountain itself, is deep and winding, shrouded in mist, and seemingly ordinary yet harboring deadly intent.

The journey was treacherous, strange, dangerous, and swift!

However, Chen Anan was stunned when he saw what was outside the door.

The refugees were densely packed, like a tidal wave, as vast and endless as the ocean!
"How can it be!"

There was no time for Chen Anan to react; an endless stream of refugees swarmed in!

They roared and howled, their eyes bloodshot!
"Get out of here!!"

Chen Anan's broadsword whistled as it slashed down like a river! He was like a gust of north wind, tearing through the crowd rushing towards the gate!

He was like a fierce tiger, with the sword as his fangs, slaughtering the mad mob as if cutting rice!
But it couldn't be stopped.

There's no way to stop it!
Refugees gradually filled the entire dream, from the walls, the back gate, and the side courtyard!
"master--!"

"Grandpa! It hurts...!"

Chen Anan's eyes were bloodshot, his family and everything behind him swallowed up by the crowd. He was like an isolated island, surrounded by a sea of ​​heads as far as the eye could see.

However, his pupils became clearer and clearer as he trembled.

He remembered.

He didn't manage to escape to the border with his family at all. His wife, children, grandchildren... were all swallowed up by the purple rain during that mass exodus that affected the entire Southern Han.

slam-la-

Suddenly, a dark cloud swept across the sky, and a torrential downpour began!

A rain of purple water extinguished the raging crowd. Countless people screamed and fled, only to fall and merge together, sticking together into bizarre, monstrous masses.

"Father-"

"Master..."

Bang!

The broadsword crashed to the ground. Chen Anan didn't turn around; he remembered everything. He didn't have the courage to look, and he didn't know how to explain his survival.

His figure, in the rain and among the struggling crowd, resembled a deflated balloon, slowly withering away. He stood there, covered only by tattered rags rotting with time, a figure barely shrouded in human skin—he was about to wake up, and would soon see his true appearance.

His body, after a year of hunger, had become almost nothing but bones.

But now, if the purple rain in his dream continued to pour down, he would soon die. The golden, python-like incense burned ever closer, like a vulture waiting for its prey to breathe its last.

Whoosh!
At that moment, a golden light came from afar!

The surging gold stirred up a storm in the cold rain, and all the strange and twisted figures turned to ashes when they came into contact with the gold!
It's not too late!
At this moment, Ji Ran's primordial spirit made a hand seal in the sky, and below, the Fire-Washing Cloth spewed out surging golden flames of the sun from the Heavenly Demon Sword Embryo!

Where the flames passed, all the people, houses, streets, and even the purple rain that appeared were like a painting that had been set on fire, twisting, burning, and finally turning into nothingness ashes in the brilliant yet terrifying gold.

call--!
Flames roared past Chen Anan.

The old man stood frozen, his pupils reflecting the magnificent, all-consuming flames. As the destructive gold swept over him, the illusions receded like a tide—before him lay emptiness, a chaotic black and white expanse. In the distance, the jagged boundaries of a dreamscape stretched out.

Hey.

Li Hanzhang, panting heavily, stood on a street corner in the distance, staring blankly and shocked at the scene before him.

Is this... this the divine power of a great demon?

The power to annihilate everything with a single sword strike is just like the legendary saying that one sword can break through all laws!

He mustered his strength and ran quickly to Chen Anan's side, saying, "Senior, you're awake?"

"here it is?"

"A dream."

Chen Anan nodded and said, "A dream?"

"Hehe... I've wasted sixty years cultivating internal energy, and I can't even distinguish a dream."

"You can't say that."

Suddenly, a faint voice came, and Chen Anan looked up sharply, only to see a blood-red phantom figure appear behind Li Hanzhang.

"spirits?"

"You can understand that."

Ji Ran didn't explain. Although martial arts masters at the third rank were already capable of fighting ordinary demons, their perspective was limited, and their understanding of cultivation was mostly no different from that of ordinary people.

"Now, you can try to wake up."

"Don't worry, I can restore you to your original condition."

However, the body's deficiencies can still be recovered by itself.

"recover?"

Chen Anan didn't even look at his own condition; he just stared blankly around.

"Thank you both."

"So what if it's recovered?"

"It can stop the demons!"

At this moment, Li Hanzhang sensed the old man's dejection and hurriedly said, "This dream is a demon's dream!"

"If you die in this dream, the demons will devour your merits!"

"is it?"

Chen Anan raised his head and said, "The people in this city..."

"It's all in my dreams."

Ji Ran's calm voice came through, saying, "You never left Southern Han; you were just imprisoned in a dream."

"Only when you wake up can you return to the real world."

Only by waking up can the feast of merit end, allowing these tens of thousands of people to be reborn.

just.

At that very moment, amidst the ruins of annihilation, a patch of snow appeared beneath Chen Anan's feet; he was standing on a winter wheat field.

"Master?"

Chen Anan suddenly trembled, looked down, and saw that what his one arm was holding was no longer the broadsword, but the warm little hand of a two or three-year-old boy.

"Sir, with this heavy snow, is the wheat still ripe?"

Chen Anan looked at the snow under his feet and at the familiar county town in the distance. He gently kicked away the snow, revealing the stubble of wheat underneath. His eyes reddened as he said, "Okay."

"After the New Year, once the fertilizer is applied, all the wheat will be good."

"When the time comes, they'll all rise up, one hill after another."

"Then, after that year, we'll eat big white steamed buns."

The boy grabbed a handful of snow, rubbed it on his face, shivered from the cold, dropped the snow, and gripped the old man's hand even tighter.

At that moment, his rosy cheeks appeared, and he said, "Eat Big White! Big White!"

A smile appeared on Chen Anan's face, and his thin body became plump and full again.

Ji Ran frowned. This was... a sign that he was about to enter her dream again!

Li Hanzhang had clearly noticed as well, and immediately tried to go over, saying, "Senior! You—"

Unexpectedly, when he lifted his foot, he was unable to step into the snow.

Chen Anan squatted down, tightened his grandson's collar, and said, "Alright, I'll make you another flower cake, okay?"

"Row!"

The little boy nodded vigorously, grinning broadly.

Chen Anan stood up, grasped his grandson's little hand tightly, and said, "Come on, let's go to the riverbank."

The boy's voice was childish and sweet: "What are we doing up to the riverbank?"

"Go up to the riverbank and look at the water. See if there are any small fish, and scoop them out."

"Oh~!"

The boy ran around excitedly, grabbing Chen Anan's strong hand, jumping up and down, saying, "Let's catch a big fish, boil it up and eat it!"

"Let's make another chicken, stew it, and eat it!"

The cold wind made the boy's cheeks flush red, and now he stared at the old man with his big, dark eyes.

"Row."

Chen Anan held his grandson's hand tightly as they slowly walked towards the riverbank. The child, wrapped in a thick cotton coat, looked like a warm mushroom sprouting from the snow. His small hand was firmly grasped by the old man's large, bony hand, and he followed step by step.

In the wheat fields along the river, covered in snow, some wheat of varying shades, some large and some small, grow close together, as if representing a continuation of life, etched onto the vast earth.

Chen Anan stopped by the riverbank and gazed into the distance. His breath condensed into a brief mist in the cool air, as if containing the sighs and unspoken words of his entire life.

"All I've ever known since birth is farming."

"My master is too."

“My great-grandfather, my grandfather, and my father have always made a living by farming. I have never considered myself a江湖人 (jianghu person, a person from the martial arts world).

"I never considered myself a swordsman."

Li Hanzhang, who was trying to figure out how to get into the wheat field, was stunned and his eyes widened!
He...he didn't enter the dream!?

He is fully conscious!
"I cultivated all the way to the third rank, just so that no one could stop me from leaving the mountain."

"I am just a farmer who was forced to learn a few martial arts skills."

Chen Anan did not turn around, but said in a relaxed tone, "So, when the Qingcheng Sect invited me to go to Guanchao Mountain to destroy Buddhism for the sake of the martial world, I refused."

"That time will delay spring planting."

"Today, I still don't want to agree. Demons, then demons it is."

"I'm afraid that if I miss this dream, I'll never be able to be buried in the yellow earth of my hometown again."

After speaking, Chen Anan trudged through the snow, step by step, towards the river. Two lines of brownish-gray footprints were left beneath his feet in the thick snow. The cold sunlight illuminated the wheat field, and in the distance, steaming smoke rose from the low earthen walls.

"1929 - No action taken!"

Chen Anan sang as he walked, his voice carrying a theatrical accent, interspersed with the giggles of children—

"Three nines, four nines, oh~!"

"Ling Shang Zou—!"

A high-pitched, aged voice was carried by the north wind into the frozen Fuxian River, and the incense in the sky rose up suddenly, carrying a wisp of merit!

At this moment, a wisp of talent and sword intent was about to be absorbed into the dream by a force, but suddenly it turned and drifted towards Ji Ran!
[Turbid Immortal Body - Obsession, increased by 5%]

Current progress: 8.57%

[You have obtained a wisp of Qingcheng sword intent, which allows you to comprehend master-level sword techniques and increase your proficiency at levels below master level by 10%~30%]

"This old man..."

Ji Ran sensed everything he had acquired and understood that it was a gift from the old swordsman. He hadn't participated in the siege of the Mahayana Maitreya Sect a year ago, but he must have provided support.

He didn't say it, but Ji Ran knew. If he hadn't contributed to that battle, and hadn't gotten involved in the karma during the siege of Maitreya and the dragon, he wouldn't have had the merit of a [C] level.

At this moment, he rejected the suggestion to awaken himself, but also gave himself the last bit of legacy he could control.

If it weren't for the circumstances of his life, and if he had lived a peaceful and stable life, he would have been an excellent farmer.

"Senior, let's continue..."

"Do not."

Ji Ran let out a soft breath, her gaze deep and thoughtful.

This Dream-Eating Spirit Lord is probably far more powerful than he imagined. It didn't make a move; it simply let Chen Anan sketch out his dream, and then he willingly died for it.

Ji Ran understood that while he could use his Yang Flame to vanquish all evil spirits and nightmares in his dreams, he could not burn away the warmth in people's hearts.

Faced with a hopeless reality, they willingly drown in their memories.

A knife of passion is hard to withstand, and a broken heart is hard to heal.

At this moment, Ji Ran's primordial spirit landed lightly, no longer chasing after the dream.

……

real world.

In the kitchen, Ji Ran put away his knife, stood up indifferently, and strode out, facing the dense array of ferocious beast eyes outside the window paper.

This feast promises to break the deadlock, not just a dream.

Outside of a dream!
(End of this chapter)