Food gives me an entry, I will be invincible if I stay alive

Chapter 136 Ghost King, I command you to be my firewood!

All changes happen in an instant.

In an instant, stars flash and lightning bolts fly, swift as the wind and thunder.

The hunting envoy's body flew out of the bamboo house and disintegrated into several black shadows.

Chen Xu made his move at this moment.

He didn't test the waters or hesitate; he used all his strength from the very first move.

"Here comes the water!"

Although it was just a simple "water come," what was summoned was far more than just a simple flow of water.

Rather, it was the waterfall that cascaded down from the sky when Chen Xu crossed this place.

This is also the stream that runs across the bamboo forest at this moment.

This water may seem ordinary, but it actually contains an immense amount of nether energy, and endless sorrow and hatred flow within it.

When Chen Xu first stepped across it, he already guessed that the waterfall and stream must have an extremely strong connection with the Ghost King himself.

At this moment, the intense connection with the water control technique struck Chen Xu's very soul.

But what Chen Xu wanted was precisely this kind of connection.

At the same time, he gave the Ghost King an order: "Ghost King of Pufeng Mountain, I command you to remain silent and to sever all use of magic and supernatural powers."

【Meat-like spirit bells, when stewed, can bewitch ghosts, making them obey your commands for two hours.】

The Ghost King also drank the meat and mushroom soup, which allowed Chen Xu to exert some control over him.

The reason Chen Xu didn't directly order the Ghost King to commit suicide was because he could sense that this control was extremely fragile.

The Ghost King was constantly resisting and struggling. When Chen Xu gave the order, he even felt as if he was using delicate silk threads to bind a fierce tiger!

Fortunately, Chen Xu never expected to completely control the other party.

If he can disrupt the Ghost King even for a moment when issuing orders, he will gain a huge advantage.

The surging waterfall and stream, carrying a deep sorrow and resentment, splashed up endless fragments of jade and starlight, which were then guided to Chen Xu's water control technique.

The primordial Qi circulated rapidly within his body, permeating heaven and earth.

Although he appeared as a little devil, at this moment, his every move seemed to possess the power to control the sea and freeze the waves.

A resounding chant, like a surging tide, flowed from his mouth:

"When I control the water, all the waters in the four directions obey my commands."

"Vast sorrow and boundless resentment ultimately lead to nothingness."

"They came under a clear sky, they left in the still of night, time flows on like this..."

The surging waves, like a celestial river, poured down, bursting open the bamboo curtains and shattering the thatched roof.

At the same time, we must also wash away the overwhelming resentment that the Ghost King has suppressed for ten years.

At this moment, the Ghost King's figure was trapped in the surging waves, seemingly separated from Chen Xu by an unknown distance, but in reality, the two were already engaged in close combat in that instant.

Amidst the surge of resentment, Chen Xu seemed to glimpse the Ghost King's lifelong grudges and entanglements in an instant.

His name was Xie Huaizheng. He also came from a poor family and studied diligently for thirty years before finally passing the imperial examination with flying colors.

The difficult experience of studying did not diminish the ambition he set in his youth.

He once said: "In this world there are immortals who are ethereal and mysterious, powerful and wealthy families, scholars who wield their pens like heroes, and great generals who stand tall with swords drawn."

But how many people are willing to stoop down and take a look at the real suffering of ordinary people?

Why are the evil spirits and demons in the world so hard to eradicate? It's all because of the grievances that exist among humankind!

I study not for wealth or fame, but to do my best to bring peace and tranquility to the people when they are wronged.

Even if a hundred thousand twists and turns occur, even if my literary works are burned, what then?

When they passed the imperial examinations, they flocked to visit masters, build connections, and curry favor with the powerful in hopes of advancing their careers.

That was during the twenty-third year of the previous emperor's reign.

The late emperor was old and frail, and the treacherous minister Liu Shao controlled the court and the country, attracting both new and old officials to his side.

Only he remained steadfast in his belief that he would never conform to the corrupt ways of the world.

Later, by chance, he was appreciated by the late emperor and promoted to become a close minister of the late emperor.

He experienced all sorts of perilous storms, and went through ups and downs in his official career, reaching the pinnacle of success and also suffering demotion.

Many people came and went around him, but because the road was too treacherous, most of his close associates died, while his traitors rose to prominence.

Despite experiencing various ups and downs, he has always held onto the beliefs he held in his youth.

He quelled demons and bandits, repaired water conservancy projects and built roads and bridges, fought against powerful families and suppressed local tyrants... Even when condemned by thousands, he never forgot his original aspirations.

Until that year, the late emperor passed away, and the new emperor whom he had supported ascended the throne.

The thousand-mile-long dike of Yuancang River in Tiannan Road collapsed in an instant, and the raging floodwaters swept across plains, cities, and mountains.

That great flood was like the wrath of the heavens; it killed both humans and demons in its path.

Half of the once prosperous seven prefectures in the south were ravaged, and millions of living people were turned into vengeful ghosts.

The catastrophic disaster shocked the world, and the new emperor dispatched him with a thousand armored soldiers as an imperial envoy to the south to investigate the breach of the Yuancang River dike.

He arrived, staggering across the land where the water had receded.

Countless corrupt officials have been beheaded, and countless granaries have been forcibly opened.

They invited Taoist priests to treat the plague and investigate its root cause.

Until he uncovered a shocking secret and obtained evidence of the corrupt minister Liu Shao's massive corruption and his destruction of the Yuancang River embankment.

That night, his secret letter had just been stamped with the seal and transmitted thousands of miles to the distant Jade Capital via a secret method.

The following day, the Imperial Guard, authorized by imperial authority, dispatched a skilled individual with a secret decree.

He was arrested on dozens of fabricated charges, including "abuse of power, arrogance and despotism, contempt for divine authority, and collusion with evil spirits."

He surrendered without resistance, hoping to return to the capital and clear his name.

Unexpectedly, just as the large ship carrying him and his thousands of accompanying soldiers reached the Broken Jade River that very night, thousands of civilians rushed towards them in a dense, dark mass.

Holding torches high, they shouted names like "corrupt official," "traitor," and "sinner," and rushed onto the large ship that was trapped by layers of runes.

The flames ignited the helpless ship, and its hull was breached.

A colossal wave surged forth, engulfing Xie Huaizheng and his thousand armored soldiers in a world of water and fire.

Amidst the flames and towering waves, those figures who had once been grateful to him now appeared ferocious.

A series of distorted sonic waves crashed down, his last impression of the human world:

"It was you who secretly released grain from the granary and colluded with unscrupulous merchants to smuggle it away, leaving us with no food to eat!"

"Don't think that cooking a few pots of grain mixed with sand and gravel is disaster relief. If you've been doing disaster relief, why did my child still die?"

"We were just robbing a few wealthy and heartless landlords, and you ordered your soldiers to beat us with sticks and throw us into the prison!"
You keep claiming to be an imperial envoy, but what kind of imperial envoy could be so incapable of distinguishing right from wrong?

"You said you would invite a Taoist master to cure the plague for us, but your final solution was to imprison my mother, my father, my wife, and my children in Yi City."

The fire in the city burned for three whole days, and they were burned alive in the city.

You said you saved whom? Who did you save?

The cries and screams converged into an endless stream of sharp arrows.

They pierced Xie Huaizheng, leaving him riddled with holes, his Dao heart shattered, and his literary bones broken.

Later, after an unknown amount of time, Xie Huaizheng, with only a handful of broken bones remaining, was swept away from the Broken Jade River into the Cloud Water River by the surging river.

Finally, it was carried by the waves of the Yunshui River to Pufeng Mountain, under the locust trees.

He didn't know which day he woke up, only that overwhelming resentment fueled his unwillingness to simply extinguish his consciousness.

For ten years, he endured thousands of days and nights of resentment and pain.

How could we possibly be defeated by the cunning tricks of a junior at this very moment?
Xie Huaizheng, his white robes stained with blood, walked across the waves, holding a shattered official seal, his laughter a mixture of tears and joy.
"In my entire life, have I ever wronged Heaven and Earth?"

You are nothing but mediocre people, ashamed to face me, so you find all sorts of excuses.

All people in the world are foolish and idiotic; none of them are exempt from being killed.

"You brat, if you want to kill me, you'll have to die first! Kill—"

He finally broke free from Chen Xu's verbal commands, and the official seal in his hand emitted a sharp red light, piercing through the long river that surrounded him like a jade belt in the sky.

With lightning speed, they instantly attacked Chen Xu.

Chen Xu had just clashed with him and glimpsed his various experiences during his life.

But the glimpse at that time was precisely another kind of confrontation.

It was the endless resentment in the raging flood that clashed with Chen Xu's will, and it was Xie Huaizheng's life of ups and downs and sorrows that clashed with Chen Xu's Daoist heart.

Even though Chen Xu's heart was as hard as stone, he couldn't help but be drawn in at that moment and fell into that world of dust and smoke.

For a few moments, Chen Xu even seemed to transform into Xie Huaizheng.

Feel what they feel, grieve what they grieve, and hate what they hate.

When Xie Huaizheng released the aura of the official seal in his hand and shot it toward him, he seemed to be stunned.

Xie Huaizheng couldn't help but sneer. But unexpectedly, the green-skinned brat vanished in a flash.

what happened?

The Ghost King's heart skipped a beat; he suddenly sensed something was wrong.

However, just as the warning signs began, a chill ran down his back.

Holding the Ghost Blood Blade, Chen Xu traveled through the Netherworld and instantly appeared behind Xie Huaizheng.

He then displayed his long-practiced wood-chopping technique.

Xie Huaizheng's life had no effect on him; it only strengthened his resolve to eliminate this evil spirit!

The blade flashed.

【Chop Firewood Level 2 (976/1000)】

Dongwei: to perceive the subtle changes in the universe within a small space.

Once the fire in one's heart is ignited, everything becomes fuel.

He shouted, "Xie Huaizheng, I command you to be my firewood!"

Xie Huaizheng was shocked, never expecting such an order.

This strange instruction caused Xie Huaizheng to freeze for a moment once again.

The knife then fell.

Impartial and unbiased, it strikes down from the center.

Chen Xu felt as if he had struck a stubborn rock as hard as black iron.

The body of the Ghost King can dissipate like smoke and clouds, or be as hard as metal.

Chen Xu commanded him to be like firewood, and he was indeed a piece of ironwood.

The knife chopped the firewood, making a clanging sound.

Like a flash of lightning and morning dew, Chen Xu shouted, "Xie Huaizheng, you may have lived a life without shame before heaven and earth, but after your death you have devoured countless people. Can you still say you have a clear conscience?"

The blade flashed, slicing not only Xie Huaizheng's ghostly body, but also his soul at this moment.

Xie Huaizheng laughed heartily: "Everyone deceives me, so what if I deceive the world?"

The two sides engaged in a verbal battle, each vying for the upper hand in a fierce exchange of words.

Chen Xu said, "Every wrong has its perpetrator, every debt its debtor. Instead of seeking revenge, you devour innocent people. How dare you call yourself a 'ghost hero'?"

Xie Huaizheng sneered: "Who in this world can be called innocent? Even an infant in swaddling clothes will suck its mother's blood in order to survive."

The saying goes, "The craftsman makes the coffin, not hating the dead; where there is profit, he forgets the shame!"

I have wasted my time studying the classics, only to discover the evil in human nature at the moment of my death.

You're a ghost too. Since you've become a ghost, why pretend to be human?
"Kill me if you want, but unfortunately... you can't kill me. Hahaha!"

His ghostly aura was actually mostly damaged, and he was in an extremely weak state.

However, at the same level, he possessed an indescribable aura of authority and a masterful command of ghostly energy, surpassing even Cai Laozhuang or the Imperial Envoy.

This makes his actual combat strength far superior to the other two.

But then he heard the little green-skinned devil behind him say, "You say I'm a ghost? Then take a closer look and see who I really am."

"What?" Xie Huaizheng turned around involuntarily.

Turning around, he saw that the little devil's green skin had been peeled off like a cicada's pelt.

What was revealed was the extraordinary figure of a young man. Xie Huaizheng was caught off guard and suddenly felt a majestic aura, like a surging tide of clouds, coming towards him.

He was greatly alarmed, and then he heard the man say, "Since you don't talk about good and evil, but only about strength and weakness, I also have a poem to offer for this situation."

The young man gazed at the surging clouds around him, the waves like furious roars.

The sky was filled with scattered light like a galaxy, and the surrounding bamboo forest swayed like a thousand small boats.

He recited:
"The sky meets the clouds and waves, and the morning mist blends in; the Milky Way seems to turn as a thousand sails dance."

It was as if my soul had returned to the Emperor's abode. I heard a heavenly voice earnestly asking me where I was going.

The clear voice carried a sense of vastness and romance, depicting a scene of celestial stars in mythology.

Combined with the long river of clouds that he summoned with his water control technique, he seemed to be writing about reality even though he was writing about the abstract.

It seems both real and unreal, like a dream or an illusion.

In the dream, the Heavenly Emperor even solicitously inquired about his destination.

Chen Xu spoke with an elegant demeanor, yet his surging literary talent, at this moment, flowed down like a cascading river of stars, merging with the waves around him.

"I lament the long road ahead and the approaching dusk, and my attempts at poetry, though impressive, are in vain."

The roc is soaring high on a wind that will carry it for 90,000 miles.

"May the wind not cease, but blow this small boat to the three sacred mountains."

What a wonderful line! The roc soars ninety thousand miles on the wind.

The wind is coming!

A new poem, generating a raging storm, combined with the surging literary energy at this moment, transforms into a cloud of green smoke that soars into the sky.

And all of this power ultimately converged into the Ghost Blood Blade in Chen Xu's hand.

Xie Huaizheng lost his composure, and the knife finally fell.

As the blade struck, he cried out in pain and alarm, "Who are you?"

"You want to eat me, yet you don't even know who I am?"

"Are you Chen, the scholar from Yunjiang Prefecture?" Xie Huaizheng didn't even remember Chen Xu's real name.

He was incredulous and utterly bewildered: "How is that possible? Scholar Chen only passed the examination for a mere prefecture or academy."

Even if a bookworm were to strike a bell, it shouldn't possess such profound literary talent.

"You speak such beautiful poetry so readily; how can you be so young?"

Chen Xu said, "Senior Xie, you've been a ghost under the locust tree for so long, have you forgotten that most of the world's geniuses achieve fame at a young age?"

I had no intention of judging you, but you insisted on eating me.

Just as you said, when profit is involved, one forgets all shame!

The elders despised the ugliness of the world, but little did they know that you yourself are now displaying the same ugliness.

You only remember where the benefits lie, forgetting the ugliness.

But they forget that what has dimensions cannot be differed by length, and what has rules cannot be obtained through trickery or deception!

Human nature is inherently superficial and should be restrained by rules and laws.

Otherwise, why would you and I read books? Why would we study the law?

His words were forceful and resounding, like thunderclaps.

The frying left Xie Huaizheng's ghostly body weak and powerless to resist.

The Ghost Blood Blade finally broke through all obstacles, cleaving the blood-stained white-robed Ghost King in two.

boom!
Xie Huaizheng's body was split in two, but he did not die immediately.

Instead, these two bodies passed through the surging waves surrounding Chen Xu and were about to fall to the ground.

Xie Huaizheng's voice echoed from the left and right, reverberating in two directions.

"The spirits of the trees, all, unite with me!"

He roared and laughed loudly: "You brat is still young, allowing this old man to stall for time. Little do you know that the thousands of locust trees on Pufeng Mountain have long been one with me..."

But then two loud "bangs" were heard.

Xie Huaizheng's two bodies fell to the ground.

However, the anticipated "taking root, sprouting, and growing into a towering locust tree"—

This never happened.

Xie Huaizheng finally panicked: "The spirits of the trees, all of you, merge with me!"

He chanted the incantation several times in succession, each time more urgent than the last, yet each time lower and more subdued.

But Chen Xu said, "Your tree spirit already obeys my commands, so how could it possibly obey you again?"

"Senior Xie, you've been tormented by resentment to the point of being confused, forgetting everything. You've forgotten, you're stalling for time, and so am I..."

"Our ancestors carried three feet of water in their caskets, and once entered Wutan to slay the dragon's son."

Alas, alas, now the precious sword is covered in dust.

"If that's the case, then I might as well use the sword..."

Finally, Chen Xu said it again: "Ghost King, I command you to be my firewood."

boom!
A raging fire rose from the fallen ghostly body.

The Book of Culinary Delights opened, and a prompt appeared:
You used the Ghost King as firewood, burning away the bones of those you now resentful before you.

(End of this chapter)