Gou Zai, a corpse sewn into a spirit in a mortuary during the Republic of China era, became a spirit

Shen Molan is dead.

Yet she still stared at Xie An with wide, lifeless eyes. There was bewilderment, resentment, disbelief, and... endless regret.

But there's no going back in this world.

puff!

Xie An pulled out his dagger, dragging along some fragments of skull, which splattered all over the ground.

He used Shen Molan's clothes to wipe the blood off the dagger, then sheathed it back into the leather scabbard on his arm. The wounds on his ribs and abdomen were still bleeding profusely from the previous exertion, emitting a pungent smell of blood.

He stood up despite the soreness and numbness in his body and looked around.

The burning tents howled and roared, then one corner collapsed with a crash, sending sparks flying that illuminated Xie An's cold, sweat-drenched face.

Panting heavily, Xie An took two larger fragments of the spies and stuffed them into his pocket. He then picked up the holster, pistol, and rifle from the ground and dragged his exhausted body out of the tent.

Although I killed Shen Molan... I felt no joy at all. Instead, I felt a sense of relief and lingering fear: looking back on every detail of fighting Shen Molan, it was extremely dangerous... If I had made one wrong step, I would have been the one to die!

This made Xie An feel an unprecedented sense of solemnity and clarity:

In this world... the law is like a piece of paper, trampled on at will. Human hearts are more wicked than demons; a perfectly healthy person... can be gone in an instant.

The only thing I can rely on... is my own two fists!

Ultimately, I'm still too weak!

"If we survive this ordeal, I will diligently practice martial arts and spear skills. Shen Qianjun is already on his way with his men; we should not linger here."

Xie An, disregarding his injuries, stumbled out of the barbed wire fence and went to the location of the patrolman's body. He collected all the patrolman's weapons, bound them together with rattan, and carried them away on his back.

Instead of rushing back to the cave, he stopped by a clear river a couple of miles away, sat on a rock by the river, unwrapped the bandages from his wound, and washed it with the cold river water.

"The bullet is still stuck in the flesh; it needs to be removed immediately..."

The conditions here are rudimentary, and Shen Qianjun outside needs to lead people into the mountains at any time...

Xie An knew that time was of the essence and he could not hesitate any longer. He immediately found some dry wood, struck some matches, and started a fire. He then took out his dagger and sterilized it by burning it over the fire.

Then, gripping the dagger tightly, he aimed at the bullet wound in his abdomen and plunged it in hard.

hiss!

Even though Xie An was prepared, the process of removing the bullet from his flesh still made him wince in pain and almost cry out. He quickly found a piece of wood and put it in his mouth.

He endured the excruciating pain, squeezing the wound in his abdomen with one hand while using the other to insert a dagger into it, slowly digging out the bullet.

Whoosh!

As the bloodied bullet was dug out, it slid into the water. Xie An could no longer hold back, collapsing onto the rocks, nearly exhausted, gasping for breath, veins bulging on his forehead, his face contorted.

pain!

A heart-wrenching pain!

Before Xie An could even catch his breath, he felt blood gushing from the wound in his abdomen. He quickly tore off a relatively clean piece of his inner lining, wrapped it around his abdomen twice, and then tied a tight knot.

Only after completing all this did Xie An breathe a slight sigh of relief.

The bullet wound in the abdomen wasn't large, just rather deep. Stopping the bleeding wasn't difficult.

The difficult part is the knife wound on his chest. It was inflicted by Shen Molan with a bayonet; it's deep enough to expose the bone, and the wound is a full four inches long. It's still bleeding profusely.

Even in a well-equipped hospital, this kind of wound would require stitches.

But here... no matter how Xie An pressed the cloth against the wound, he couldn't stop the bleeding.

"If I don't bleed quickly, I'll eventually lose too much blood and faint into shock... How will I then deal with Shen Qianjun's impending arrival?"

In desperation, Xie An came up with an extremely barbaric and cruel method to stop the bleeding: cauterization.

This involves directly burning the wound with fire or branding it with a red-hot iron.

High temperatures instantly denature and coagulate the proteins in the wound, while simultaneously carbonizing and sealing the severed ends of blood vessels, thus achieving rapid hemostasis. This is a makeshift method used in field or extreme environments where tourniquets, gauze, and medications are unavailable.

There are indeed records of using red-hot knives, branding irons, or even gunpowder to burn wounds and stop bleeding in emergency situations during ancient or modern warfare.

The immense pain it causes is enough to cause shock and unconsciousness. Even when veterans on the battlefield use this folk remedy, someone needs to hold the wounded person down.

But now the blood loss is getting bigger and bigger, and I'm feeling a bit dizzy.

"I can't worry about that now, there's no one to hold me down... I'll do it myself!"

Xie An hardened his heart, picked up the dagger again, and slowly burned it over the fire.

The blade gradually changed from dark red to a dazzling orange in the flames. The flames licked the steel, making a faint crackling sound, and the surrounding air was distorted by the intense heat.

"I'm a modern person... and I'm being forced to do this..."

Xie An cursed inwardly, then took several deep breaths and bit down hard on a piece of hardwood he had prepared beforehand. Then he picked up the red-hot dagger and pressed it hard against the wound on his chest.

laugh--! ! !

The scalding metal suddenly forced its way through the cold flesh, like a red-hot iron rod being inserted into the body, making a crisp "sizzle" sound.

A thick, bluish-white plume of smoke, mixed with the smells of burnt blood and the distinctive odor of burning protein, suddenly burst from the gap where the wound met the blade, heading straight for Xie An's face.

what! !

Like thousands of red-hot steel needles, they exploded through every nerve in the body in an instant, traveling along the blood vessels!

Xie An's muscles tensed to their limit in an instant, and the veins on his neck and forehead bulged as if they were about to break free from the skin's restraints and explode.

The hardwood he was biting creaked under the strain, and his mouth was full of wood chips. He was like a bow stretched to its limit, his back arched backward, with only his left and right hands as support points remaining still.

Sweat burst from his pores, instantly soaking through his already drenched inner garment, and then steaming up in white vapor under the intense heat of his body and the heat of the flames.

He could "feel" the flesh beneath the blade contracting, carbonizing, and sticking together...

I don't know how much time passed, it felt like two or three breaths, yet also like an eternity...

The gruesome four-inch-long gash had now become an ugly, charred, slightly concave carbonized "weld," with dark red congealed blood scabs and burnt flesh at the edges.

The blood finally stopped gushing out, with only a little dark red serum seeping from the edge of the charcoal crust.

"Uh...ha..."

Xie An suddenly spat out the wooden stick that had almost been bitten through his mouth, and fell backward onto the reef as if his spine had been removed, breathing heavily and letting out hoarse groans.

After a long while, Xie An felt his tense body slowly relax and sat up to check the wound on his chest.

The bleeding has indeed stopped.

Instead, the abdominal wound reopened due to the spasms and convulsions.

"grass……"

Xie An knew that Shen Qianjun was about to arrive, and he didn't have much time to rest. So he heated the dagger again until it was red-hot and used it on the wound in his abdomen.

Having learned from my previous experience, this time... it didn't hurt as much.

Only after completing all this did Xie An breathe a sigh of relief.

He looked at the pale dawn breaking in the eastern sky, at the rushing river, and at the dozen or so rifles tied together with vines beside him. He began to ponder how to deal with Shen Qianjun.

To be honest, Xie An was somewhat frightened afterward.

He was able to kill Shen Molan only because of the convenience provided by Shadow, and also because Shen Molan was only at the Bronze Tendon Realm. Shen Qianjun, then, is likely much more powerful…

As he pondered, he stroked the conspicuous wounds on his body, his eyes gradually turning cold and resolute.

"I've already sacrificed so much to survive in this chaotic world. I can't die..."

"But the problem is how to deal with Shen Qianjun... We can't really hide in Laojun Mountain for the rest of our lives, can we? Besides... who knows if it's even more dangerous in Laojun Mountain."

Just as Xie An was racking his brains for a solution, a mental connection wave came through his mind.

It was Radish who sent the message: There's some great news...