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

The forest had returned to silence, and the dawn was growing ever brighter, making the dust particles floating in the countless beams of light clearly visible.

Before Xie An's physical pain had subsided, he was enveloped by a bone-chilling cold.

It's a feeling of lingering fear that makes your scalp tingle and your hair stand on end.

He thought that when he crushed Shen Qianjun's head, he had finished off his prey and won the day's hunt.

But when the cloaked man lifted his hood to reveal his face and uttered those words, Xie An suddenly realized... he had underestimated Shen Qianjun's terrifying power.

However, Xie An did not give up the struggle, but immediately gave Luo Bosi an order...

Then, Xie An stared wide-eyed, following the dawn light:

Two identical faces

A blurry image lies in the pool of blood.

A picture shining in the morning light.

In this mountain forest that even ghosts fear, the most terrifying thing is—

You killed it with all your might

It was just a shadow.

Dong-style corpse refining technique...

This is the Dong-style corpse refining technique!

No wonder Shen Qianjun always hid in a secret room when he was refining corpses, never letting Shen Molan know.

It turns out he was never refining anyone else, but himself!

Shen Qianjun didn't rush to attack Xie An. Instead, he looked regretfully at the corpse on the ground and sighed deeply.

"I fed it little by little with my own flesh, my own blood, and my own bones. It lived for me for seven years."

He lifted his foot and gently kicked the epaulettes of the headless corpse on the ground. The bronze badge of the Special Affairs Section of the Governor's Office was stained with mud and blood on the dark green wool fabric.

"The black dog is my life... a layer of skin, a bit of flesh, and a portion of my soul. The real me will never be more than three feet away from my 'dog'."

He turned his head and his gaze fell on Xie An, who was leaning against a tree trunk a dozen meters away, blood gushing from his mouth and nose.

"I guess you are Xie An, the young master of Qinghe Mortuary."

"You killed Mo Lan. You killed Li Zhonglin, those patrolmen, and these twenty soldiers of mine."

He spoke in a very flat tone, as if he were stating something that had nothing to do with him.

"You're quite capable. You know how to hide, how to wait, and how to set traps. You're also very bold, bold enough to pull the trigger on an officer in the governor's mansion."

He walked slowly toward Xie An, his footsteps so light that they made almost no sound as he stepped on the fallen leaves and weeds.

"But do you know where you went wrong?"

He stopped five steps away from Xie An.

This distance was enough for him to reach out and crush Xie An's throat with a single stroke.

"You're wrong to think that killing a few people and blowing off a few heads will create a hole in this world." He tilted his head slightly, his pale face showing a cold indifference mixed with pity and mockery.

"When I was thirteen, I learned corpse refining from a master of Dongdong. When I was twenty, I went down the mountain. I saw the dragon flag of the previous dynasty fall, I saw the warlord's cannon fire turn half a city into rubble, I saw foreign iron ships sail into Dagu Port, and I also saw starving people exchanging children to eat."

"That's how the world has always been—for every person who eats meat at the top, someone else has to eat dirt at the bottom. If someone who's eating dirt wants to climb up, they can, but they have to pay with their life and their blood, and they still have to see if the people at the top are willing to give them a sip of leftover soup."

"Who...do you think you are?" Shen Qianjun's voice was as cold as ice. "A lowlife who carries coffins and sews up corpses, guarding a dilapidated manor on the verge of collapse, relying on some shady, underhanded methods, and you dare to point a gun at people in military uniforms?"

"You think you're getting revenge? Fighting for your life?" He shook his head. "You're just courting death. And you'll die a horrible death."

He raised his left hand, his five fingers slightly spread.

In the morning light, the skin of those fingers had an unnatural bluish-gray tint, and the nails were sharp and long, like the claws of some wild beast.

"In my life, I only believe in two things."

One is a corpse I created myself. The other is the gun barrel and the seal of office I hold in my hand. I've seen plenty of people like you—unable to survive, so you try to bite. No matter how hard you bite, you're still a stray dog. And stray dogs aren't served at the table.

"I will take you back. You won't even need to say a word; I have a hundred ways to make you spill everything you know. Then, you'll be hung at the gate of Jinmenwei, with a sign around your neck that reads, 'Bandits who attacked the army, beheaded and displayed publicly.' Your estate will be burned to the ground, and your father, along with all those other foolish bastards in the estate who are just as reckless as you, will be sent to the mines to the north. They'll dig themselves to death in the dark, sunless mines, and their remains will never be recovered."

He paused, then added as a final sentence:

"This is what happens to lowly people like you who resist warlords."

He remained expressionless throughout his speech.

It was as if he wasn't talking about the fate of dozens of lives, but merely stating something trivial like it would rain tomorrow.

"Young man, die!"

The moment Shen Qianjun finished speaking, the bluish-gray hand suddenly reached out towards Xie An.

Five fingers pierced the air, creating a hissing sound; wherever the fingertips passed, the dust floating in the morning light was sharply cut apart.

too fast!

Xie An's pupils contracted sharply, and all the muscles in his body tensed like a fully drawn bowstring in that instant. His right arm lashed upwards with a sudden upward thrust—

Bajiquan - Subduing Dragon!

Five Sacred Mountains Facing the Sky!

This was a movement he had practiced countless times, a technique he had corrected countless times under Zhou Fu's guidance, and a deadly move he used to pry open Shen Molan's defenses when he was fighting for his life.

The fist transformed into the edge of the palm, starting from the waist and abdomen, twisting the waist and sending the shoulder forward, the power flowing through each joint, like a red-hot iron shovel, fiercely crashing into that claw!

"Bang!"

The dull thud of flesh hitting flesh.

Xie An felt as if his palm had struck not flesh and blood, but a solid bronze bell cast with molten iron! The force of the recoil surged up his arm bones like a venomous snake, instantly numbing his entire right arm, and causing his bones to groan under the unbearable weight.

Shen Qianjun's hand only paused slightly, without even breaking the skin.

"The iron corpse I forged with my own flesh and blood can't even be penetrated by rifle bullets." Shen Qianjun's voice was full of sarcasm. "Your farming skills are too weak to even scratch an itch. At least, only a master of Ming Jin who has entered the gate can hurt me."

He flicked his wrist slightly.

A tremendous force suddenly erupted!

Xie An was thrown backward like a kite with a broken string, crashing hard into the tree trunk behind him again. He spat out another mouthful of blood and slowly slid down the tree trunk to sit on the ground, each breath accompanied by a burning pain.

Pooh.

Xie An coughed up blood.

The blood at the corner of his mouth stained his teeth red, but his mouth stretched into a wide grin as he let out a hoarse, blood-frothy laugh.

Shen Qianjun looked at his prey, who was now cornered and had nowhere to run, with suspicion and disbelief. "You can still laugh when you're about to die?"

Xie An wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his eyes no longer filled with fear, but instead gleamed with a strange light. "Cough cough... Well said. In this world, some people eat meat, and some people eat dirt."

"You think you were born to sit at the dinner table?" Xie An coughed and chuckled. "Go back three generations, weren't your Shen family ancestors also toiling in the soil? Decades before that, those high-ranking officers now sitting in the Tianjin Guard Building issuing orders... weren't they all climbed up from mountains of corpses and seas of blood, from the dust of the ground, one sword and one spear?"

"You look down on the lowest of the low, you despise stray dogs that bite..." Xie An's smile turned cold and sharp, "But in this chaotic world, isn't it just that stray dogs kill domestic dogs, then put on human skin and become the new masters?"

Shen Qianjun frowned for the first time.

It's not because these words are profound, but because they come from the mouth of a dying ant, which carries an unpleasant sense of blasphemy.

"Sharp-tongued." Shen Qianjun raised his grayish-blue hand again. "After I send you on your way, I'll cut off your tongue, soak it in a jar, and see how it can still..."

Xie An was not intimidated at all; instead, he smiled even more broadly and pointed to Shen Qianjun's left: "Look to the left."

"Don't try such tricks..." Before Shen Qianjun could finish speaking, he felt a huge threat coming from his left, and immediately turned his head sharply.

Less than thirty meters to his left in a clearing in the woods, a skeleton was standing there, seemingly out of nowhere.

It wasn't the withered skeleton whose legs had been broken by Mr. Qing.

This skeleton had a thicker frame, and its bones gleamed with a dark, metallic luster that had been refined over countless lifetimes. In the empty eye sockets, two clusters of pale soul fire burned quietly.

It stood with an extremely stable posture, its arms holding the Maxim water-cooled heavy machine gun that should have been mounted behind the sandbag fortifications on the riverbank!

A thick canvas ammunition belt hung down from one side of the gun, the other end connected to a heavy ammunition box placed at his feet. The cooling water tank reflected a cold glint in the morning light.

"Hahaha~"

Xie An suddenly let out an almost ferocious laugh: "Didn't you claim that corpses aren't afraid of rifles? Then let's see how powerful this Maxim machine gun is. Radish, give it your all!"