Devouring Evil Martial Arts, Eliminating Demons from All Heavens

Chapter 127 A mere candle, how much light energy does it contain?

Principal Feng, carrying a cat, led the way, guiding Chu Tianshu across a small bridge on campus.

This bridge is much more stylish than the small bridges in Chu Tianshu's hometown.

In my hometown, some bridges didn't have railings at all, some just had bamboo tied to them as railings, and only a few had a set of hollow stainless steel railings.

Even though the bridge at the martial arts school was partially covered by snow, you could still see that every railing was meticulously carved.

Each little lion, in a different pose, crouches atop the railing, some raising their paws, some scratching their faces, and some pressing on a ball.

Some have stone swords in their mouths, while others have lotus flowers curled around their tails.

Some have thick eyebrows and turn their heads, looking adorably naive; others have protruding teeth, exuding a touch of authority.

Chu Tianshu raised his hand and wiped the snow off the head of a small lion, taking a second look at it.

The movements of these lions all possess a unique charm.

At first glance, he thought it might contain the essence of some kind of boxing technique. But upon closer inspection, he felt that many of the elements did not conform to the principles of generating power in boxing.

Principal Feng glanced back and smiled, "This is a feng shui talisman for the internal energy cultivation lineage."

"Those who cultivate internal energy cannot learn most spiritual spells, but they have their own unique insights into the art of feng shui."

Most spiritual spells rely on a mysterious and indescribable ethereal connection to generate unique, colorless, and intangible fluctuations that manifest their power.

The principles of Feng Shui emphasize the interaction and balance of auspicious and inauspicious energies.

Tiny specks of dust, when gathered into streams, have acupoints and veins, sometimes still, sometimes moving, sharing many similarities with internal energy cultivation.

Chu Tianshu nodded slightly.

The so-called other method seems to be mostly related to internal energy cultivation and feng shui.

After crossing the bridge, there was a building. Feng Jianhua took out his key and opened the mahogany door on the first floor of the building.

When the door was closed, the wind was gentle, but when the door opened, it was like drilling a hole in a wooden bucket full of water.

The cold wind from all around rushed in here, howling as it blew into the doorway.

The wind speed was much stronger than before, making people's clothes and trouser legs flutter.

As soon as Chu Tianshu entered, the principal quickly closed the door.

"When the building was designed, it was deliberately arranged in a layout that allowed airflow to easily enter."

Feng Jianhua said, "Sometimes, people will sit here quietly and breathe in the air to cleanse themselves."

Chu Tianshu surveyed the interior environment.

My first thought was that it was white.

The ceiling is white, the chandelier is white, the four walls are all white tiles, and the floor is paved with square tiles, all of which are pure white.

Several large windows were covered with thick frost.

The room was very empty, probably meant to be a place for people to get some fresh air, so there wasn't a single piece of furniture.

Only on the east wall, near the south wall, is there a small door painted in cold white.

On either side of the small door, there was a small potted tree.

In this pale room, the small tree had brown bark, gnarled branches, and deep green leaves.

Each color is exceptionally pleasing.

"Behind that door is a staircase leading to the second floor, where my studio is located."

Feng Jianhua gave a gentle gesture, and Bai Mei jumped out of his arms.

"I'm going upstairs to get some things, please wait a moment."

Chu Tianshu didn't stand on ceremony. Seeing that the tiles were indeed clean, he took two more steps and sat down cross-legged in the center of the large tile.

Bai Mei walked up to him and saw him extend a finger and stroke the cat's chin.

"cat!"

Chu Tianshu laughed and said, "Quickly transform into that respectable person and show me another set of punches."

White Eyebrows wasn't intimidated at all; with a backflip, he transformed into a cat-like figure.

On its fluffy black head, two white eyebrows appeared serious. It took a lunge stance, raised one arm and spread the other out, assuming a fighting posture.

call! !

Compared to when he had just escaped from the cage, he looked like he had used up a lot of energy.

Now, Bai Mei is clearly well-rested and full of energy, and his punches and kicks are more powerful and forceful.

It spun around, swept its leg, threw a series of punches, then suddenly spread its legs wide, pressing them completely to the ground. One of its punches almost slammed into the ground, then instantly transformed into a cat's paw.

With a gentle yet firm press, the cat bounced into the air.

During its descent from the sky, it unleashed more than twenty rapid punches and kicks, leaving afterimages in its wake.

The fact that a cat could shrink its bones and twist its muscles to resemble a human and could exert tremendous force was what intrigued Chu Tianshu the most.

Under the influence of the Insight Technique, Chu Tianshu seemed to have gained some insights as he watched the kitten finish its entire set of fist techniques.

"Bone-shrinking kung fu, in the end, is just about controlling muscles and bones."

Chu Tianshu stretched out his right hand and suddenly trembled.

The gentle, wave-like strength of the hand is merely a basic skill.

With this shake, he also created a spiraling twisting motion, turning his foremost palm from middle finger upwards a full circle.

The middle finger is still pointing upwards and the palm is facing forward, but the feeling of the whole arm is indescribably strange.

Bai Mei stood on the ground, having finished a set of punches, and was now performing the final fist salute.

Suddenly, a dark shadow descended from the sky, wrapped around its body, from its waist to its neck.

The dark shadow was as agile as a python, and had already coiled around its body twice.

The finger acting as the "snake's head" gently pecks at the kitten's ear tip.

Bai Mei was a little stunned, and saw that the "python" wrapped around him had its tail extending to Chu Tianshu's shoulder.

Chu Tianshu smiled, his arm lashed out like a whip, retracting into his sleeve, and his palm rested on his knee.

The cat-man spun around in place several times before finally stopping.

"I've learned a little about how to make muscles and bones still generate powerful force even in abnormal conditions."

Chu Tianshu thought to himself, "Unfortunately, although I can control the bones in my arm, they are temporarily as flexible as bamboo strips."

"But I haven't fully mastered the Guanyin Bone technique yet. In this state, my muscles are putting a lot of pressure on my bones, which is wasting a lot of energy."

The cat-man's tail reached out and hooked Chu Tianshu's hand.

Chu Tianshu snapped out of his daze, pinched Bai Mei's tail between his fingers, and saw the expectation in those cat eyes.

"expect?"

Chu Tianshu felt something was off and tried to shake his hand.

Meow! !

White Eyebrows transformed back into cat form, lying on the ground with its limbs supporting it, its fur standing on end.

The long fur at the end inevitably droops slightly downwards, making the whole cat fluffy and imposing, with a deep, muffled growl echoing from its body.

Chu Tianshu understood.

"You like it when I pinch your tail and give you a little shockwave from my palm?"

The white-browed cat nodded repeatedly.

"So that's how it is. Although you have gained wisdom and learned to shrink your bones, you are already considered old among cats, and your muscles and bones are gradually weakening."

"When I grabbed you, I only subconsciously used a bit of palm strike force, but afterwards you felt the benefits."

Chu Tianshu also found it very subtle.

The practice of "Toad Skill Palm Thunder" is said to be able to purify the blood and qi and rejuvenate, but this effect is mainly for the practitioner himself.

If you use the force of a palm strike to hit someone, even if you don't intend to hurt them, it won't do much good.

The white-browed cat is not only an intelligent and clever cat, but it has also mastered the art of shrinking bones, which allows it to create a coincidence that makes the palm lightning beneficial to it.

Chu Tianshu shook the cat's tail a few more times.

The white-browed cats all opened their mouths, showing their teeth, and were full of energy.

But after shaking a couple more times, its legs went weak, and it collapsed to the ground, letting out a dizzy cry.

"It seems that even with this method, there's a limit to the number of times you can handle it each day."

Chu Tianshu pondered, "You seem to have such a strong affinity with Palm Thunder, and you've even managed to learn the fist technique. I wonder if you could learn Palm Thunder on your own?"

As he thought this, he heard footsteps on the stairs.

Feng Jianhua carried down a large pile of things.

He carried a dozen rolls of fine cloth, a large pile of candles, and a bag of suction cup hooks in his right hand, while holding a large floor-length mirror between his left and right hands.

"Place the full-length mirror facing south."

Feng Jianhua muttered to himself, seemingly measuring the distance with his footsteps.

The candles were all piled up in front of the full-length mirror, and the fine cloths were temporarily placed on the ground. Suction cup hooks were used to press them high up on the four walls.

"Two meters off the ground, with a half-meter interval."

He walked around the entire room, making sure the hooks were firmly attached to the tiles.

Then he picked up the fine cloth.

The white, yellowish fabric was rolled up in bundles, each with a wooden stick running horizontally through the center.

When Feng Jianhua hung the two ends of the wooden stick on the hook and pulled it down, the whole piece of cloth unfolded, and only then did the onlookers see that it was covered with various images.

These fabrics were originally paintings.

Chu Tianshu stood up and looked at the canvases. He saw that each canvas was very large and contained many figures.

The first painting depicts a blood-red setting sun in the sky, with wild grass covering the ground below.

On the hillside, a group of bandits, wearing hats askew, carrying rifles and ammunition belts, were charging toward a village below.

A fire has broken out in the village, houses have been burned down, doors have collapsed, and many people, young and old, are fleeing for their lives.

Some people also took up broadswords, spears, and hunting bows to fight back against the bandits.

Chu Tianshu could tell that the painting was done with ink of various colors.

Ink inevitably flows along the fibers of the fabric, creating some horizontal and diagonal lines that make the outlines of objects appear somewhat rough.

This type of fabric is not suitable for painting.

However, the villagers' blood from being shot, their tears during their escape, the bandits' arrow wounds, and their shocked and angry expressions all looked too real at first glance.

Chu Tianshu almost thought he had returned to the world of the Republic of China, standing on a mountaintop, watching such a fierce battle.

He saw a burly man, incredibly fierce, wielding a long sword, charging into the ranks of the bandits.

The heads of the surrounding bandits were chopped off by the man's broadsword, and a few drops of blood splattered on the man's body. There was also a bandit leader hiding behind the bandits, aiming his gun not far away.

Chu Tianshu twitched his finger and frowned slightly.

Even though he knew it was a painting, he had just had the urge to slap the bandit leader to death.

But this is just a painting.

Chu Tianshu calmed himself down and looked at the other scenes.

On a dark and windy night, a large group of soldiers were making hand gestures as they moved and lay in ambush through the mountains and forests, approaching the brightly lit village on the mountaintop.

Flustered figures stood on several small boats at the ferry crossing. Some had already been detained on the shore, and boxes of antique bronzes lay overturned on the ground, gun barrels spitting fire.

Inside the pharmaceutical factory with its blurry signboard, a man with slicked-back hair leisurely watched the groups of thin workers below, pointing to the leader among them.

In the ruins of the demolished houses, mangled limbs were exposed, and people were kneeling beside them, crying out. There was also a knife that had cleaved the car behind the excavator in two.

Upon seeing this, Chu Tianshu suddenly recalled the previous paintings.

Sure enough, the middle-aged man who wielded the knife and chopped down the car had appeared in previous footage, only younger.

A young man hiding in the corner of the pharmaceutical factory, a young soldier carrying a gun and a knife, and a mud-footed boy from the village running away with a child in his arms.

That looked just like Feng Jianhua when he was young.

After the middle-aged man, there are many more paintings.

Against the backdrop of the exploding speedboat, the battlefield on the riverbank is illuminated, and he is throwing a long knife.

Inside a crowded, old-fashioned green train, he strangled a woman holding a dagger and a child to death...

The last few paintings seem to depict the same event.

It was inside a large shopping mall, with shattered shop windows everywhere and ribbons broken off from mid-air.

Swarms of bats, like zombies, swarmed through the sky, lunging at the well-trained soldiers.

The soldiers fought bravely in groups of three or five, while on either side were people who were not in uniform, carrying cold weapons, or even holding prayer beads and wooden swords.

The enemy they faced had firepower no weaker than the soldiers', and there was an eerie, malevolent aura everywhere.

In every corner of the mall, tiny skeletons formed altars, and a blind man wearing sunglasses sat cross-legged on one of them.

The pregnant corpse was buried in a cement pile, and a strange man with a right claw like a blue ape's paw reached out and plunged his hand into the cement pile.

"These are some of my experiences from back then. When you get old, you either sleep or have random thoughts."

"When I thought of some particularly memorable things, but couldn't find anything around me to commemorate them, I had the idea to draw them myself."

After hanging the last painting, Feng Jianhua took a few steps back, clapped his hands, and looked around.

“I paint a lot, but when I paint, the ones in front of me are the ones where I use the most murderous intent and focus the most.”

Chu Tianshu did not answer.

Feng Jianhua laughed and said, "We've just met, so I doubt you're interested in listening to this old man's old stories. But at least you should take a close look at these paintings. I'm about to unleash my killing intent..."

Chu Tianshu suddenly pointed to a painting and asked, "Whose work is that?"

Feng Jianhua looked over and pressed his finger on the painting.

"You mean this?"

That was outside the mall, where a group of wounded soldiers were receiving emergency treatment.

Chu Tianshu was referring to the person next to the stretcher.

Feng Jianhua recalled for a moment: "This was our team doctor at the time, named Chu Guodong, a very energetic young man. Hmm?"

The principal, as if struck by a thought, looked at Chu Tianshu and asked, "You both have the surname Chu, could you be related to me?"

Chu Tianshu stared at the scene and smiled.

"They even have the same name, so it's most likely my grandfather."

Feng Jianhua was a little surprised: "So the spiritual medium in your family is actually a ghost doctor."

"That's right. In the great battle to destroy these ghost markets, almost everyone in the Jianghuai region with a bit of courage and reputation participated."

Feng Jianhua looked at the canvas, his voice low.

"Unfortunately, many people got involved because they were people who deserved to be killed."

Chu Tianshu asked curiously, "My grandfather only briefly mentioned these things. Could you tell me more about them, Principal?"

Feng Jianhua hesitated and said, "Ah, although I have a good impression of your grandfather, I'm not particularly familiar with him."

"It doesn't necessarily have to be about what happened to my grandfather. I also want to know about the people and events he witnessed back then."

Chu Tianshu said sincerely, "Let's talk about the great battle in the Ghost Market."

Feng Jianhua met his gaze for a few seconds and then laughed.

"Okay, although it's about doing business, if you're willing to listen, I'll tell you about it."

Feng Jianhua looked at the canvases and began to tell the story from the perspective of Grandpa Chu.

"If you were to ask what your grandfather witnessed back then, he would definitely have a deep impression of this guy with the wine gourd."

"He was more casual than many of us, but he was the official representative at the time and later became a veteran of the Special Arrest Division."

"After a drunken night in the capital, I parted ways with my best friend. That guy later went to the capital to take charge, and we lost contact for many years. I wonder if he has become more mature since then."

"These are the three Mo brothers. They are incredibly coordinated and highly skilled. They charged forward the most fiercely at the time, and many people have a deep impression of them."

"And then there are these evil cult leaders who run the ghost market..."

Each time Feng Jianhua spoke a passage, the scene he pointed to would change to a different one.

As the old headmaster moved slowly, he recounted the scenes on the canvas piece by piece.

Chu Tianshu listened quietly, as if the people on the drawing paper had come to life.

Although Feng Jianhua's paintings all feature himself.

But he wasn't alone with his enemies.

In fact, he is not even the main character in many scenes.

However, the murderous aura gathered by different characters, along with Feng Jianhua's growth, runs through one scene after another.

As Chu Tianshu listened, he looked at each painting in turn, starting from the first one.

When the old principal put pen to paper, he drew different characters, and the emotions in his heart must have been different as well.

But the killing intent that ultimately formed was so pure.

That murderous aura couldn't be described as growing stronger or more intense.

Or should we say it's becoming increasingly...bright?

It wasn't as desolate and decadent as becoming blind, nor as aloof and extravagant as Hai Donglai, indifferent to reputation.

This radiant killing intent carries with it a tenacious spirit born of shared ideals and beliefs, making them indomitable in the face of adversity.

Because it is so hard to come by, there is a sense of cherishing and loving oneself.

Feng Jianhua has finished explaining what can be contained on those canvases related to the ghost market.

He remained silent for a long time amidst the lingering emotions.

Chu Tianshu murmured to himself, "Why can killing intent also be luminous?"

Why did Grandpa become dejected and miserable after such a glorious and victorious campaign?

Is it just because Grandpa wasn't one of the most prominent people? Well, that's just a bit of a shame, isn't it?

"Killing intent can also be a source of light."

Feng Jianhua repeated these words and laughed, "It's probably because we, who carry knives and guns, have really accomplished a great deal."

"We have created many things that are better than before."

"It is a cause deeply rooted in reality, openly displayed under the sun, making even the sunlight more beautiful. Why can't it be bright?"

The sunlight from the snow outside the window shone on the old man's face.

Chu Tianshu looked at his face and saw a touch of desolation in his impassioned words.

"Unfortunately, if our killing intent were truly pure and bright, these paintings alone would be enough to dispel your distracting thoughts, and we wouldn't need these incense candles and mirrors to add to the light."

Feng Jianhua sighed, "You'll feel it soon enough; there's still a dark and powerless part to our killing intent."

"Even though we once had the most precious unity and determination, and were willing to clash with many things, there is still so much darkness in our lives, which will likely...definitely...absolutely be the case for most of our lives!"

"There's no way we can kill them all!"

Feng Jianhua said with a smile, "Sometimes, even things that have been done are treated as if they haven't been done at all."

Chu Tianshu raised his eyelashes and looked at the young doctor in the canvas.

So, is that the most important reason?

Grandpa, there are so many things to do in the world, why take on such grand ideals for yourself?

You people, what's wrong with that...

"But I refuse to accept this."

Feng Jianhua uttered these words and waved his hand.

The pale blue internal energy surged out like a stream of air, yet it combined both strength and gentleness.

The pile of candles in front of the mirror all bounced into the air and fell down, perfectly arranging themselves into a unique pattern.

Immediately, the azure energy swept past like a flowing stream.

With a hissing sound, all the candles were lit.

Chu Tianshu turned his gaze in that direction and was surprised to find that the candlelight was reflected in the mirror.

It's exactly the character for "kill"!
"As long as I'm not dead, I'll keep killing. Otherwise, these canvases will think I'm a disgrace to them."

Feng Jianhua strode towards the door and pulled open the wooden door with both hands.

"Xiao Chu, look, if I weren't here, would the killing intent here be enough to help you practice your skills?"

A cold wind rushed in, making the canvas on the wall tremble. The wind blew all the way to the south wall, and although it was much weaker, it still made all the candles flicker.

Looking at the ever-changing "kill" character reflected in the mirror, Chu Tianshu couldn't help but take a step to the side, blocking the doorway between the mirror and the mirror.

He wanted to preserve that passionate writing.

The gloomy, powerless aura of killing intent seemed to be dispelled by the candlelight.

Chu Tianshu smiled helplessly, closed his eyes briefly, and then suddenly opened them again.

"enough."

You've done enough. It's not your fault we can't kill them all; it's just reality, and...

Don't we still have each other?

This is our world too!
(End of this chapter)