Ghost Immortal

"Feng'er, drink this. Drinking it will help you grow spiritual roots. Once you have spiritual roots, your master will guide you in cultivating immortality, granting you eternal life, and taking you to see the celestial palace in the heavens."

A head covered in sores came closer.

The hand, with black grime tucked under its fingernails, held a wooden bowl filled with green, black, and red broth, in which floated the remains of unknown insects.

Li Feng believed his nonsense when he was a child.

He believed it when he was six, he believed it when he was eight, but he stopped believing it when he was ten.

He discovered that the other children who were adopted with him were disappearing one by one.

The first one to disappear was a boy named Dazhuang, who was three years older than Li Feng, the tallest, and had the biggest appetite. He was always the first to complain of being hungry after taking his medicine.

One day, Li Feng had just climbed out of the medicine cauldron, his body burning hot, and was panting on the straw when he discovered that Da Zhuang was not there.

He asked his master, who said that Dazhuang had been chosen by a passing immortal and taken to the mountain gate to cultivate.

Li Feng was nine years old at the time. He felt that when his master spoke, the sores on his face seemed to fade a little.

Then it's Afu.

Afu was a year younger than him, and he didn't like to talk. He would cry every time he was thrown into the medicine cauldron.

On the night Afu disappeared, Li Feng was half-conscious from being soaked in the medicine. He vaguely heard a short scream coming from behind the temple, like something being crushed to pieces.

The next day, the master's bald head was mostly healed, and a few sparse gray hairs grew on the top of his head. He looked at the broken pottery jar for a long time, and when he grinned, he revealed his sparse yellow teeth.

Later, several more children were brought in, and they all mysteriously disappeared one after another.

After watching Li Feng drink the medicine, the old man smiled kindly: "I have to go on a long trip today. There is one last good medicine in Huangshi Town. I have been waiting for three years. Finally, the owner of the pharmacy has announced that he will sell it. I have to go there in person. It may take three months."

Li Feng's heart skipped a beat, thinking that this should be his last chance, but he dared not show any change in expression.

The old man seemed to have been observing his reaction. Seeing that he didn't seem to be acting strangely, he continued, "I'm worried about you being here alone. If you wander off and fall and hurt yourself in the back mountain, all my efforts over the past sixteen years will be wasted."

He pointed at Iron Guard and chuckled, "So, I'll leave Iron Guard here to look after you."

Iron Guard is an armored corpse.

The old man tapped his wooden cane on the ground three times.

A series of heavy footsteps suddenly came from above the stone steps, as if something huge was moving.

A moment later, a figure appeared in the backlight at the top of the stone steps.

It was about seven feet tall, so burly that it didn't look like a normal human. Its shoulders were almost as wide as its height, and its two arms were as thick as tree trunks, hanging motionless at its sides.

Its entire body was covered in a layer of dark iron armor, with the plates connected by cowhide ropes, but the cowhide was already dry and black, as if it would break at any moment.

The skin exposed outside the armor was a bluish-gray color, dry and taut, clinging tightly to the bones like a layer of parchment pasted onto a clay sculpture.

Its face was covered by a rusted iron mask, with only two eye sockets and a mouth hole visible.

His eyes were empty, there was nothing in them.

There were no eyeballs, no pupils, and not even soft tissue in the eye sockets; there were only two deep black holes.

It stood motionless on the steps, like a cast-iron statue.

Li Feng not only recognized it, but also witnessed its transformation from a living person into what it is now.

Three years ago, there was a tall man named Zhao Yuanshan, two years older than him, who was the tallest of all the adopted orphans.

Zhao Yuanshan was a man of few words, always keeping his head down and working quietly.

They volunteered to do everything from chopping wood and carrying water to drying herbs.

"Li Feng".

One night, Zhao Yuanshan suddenly called Li Feng's name.

"Don't you feel that Master...?"

Before he could finish speaking, the old bald man's footsteps came from the stone steps, forcing their conversation to an abrupt end.

Zhao Yuanshan later escaped.

He chose a full moon night, taking advantage of the old man's absence while he was out gathering herbs, pushed aside the bluestone slab at the entrance of the cave, and ran barefoot into the night.

He ran much farther than Li Feng had back then, all the way to the official road at the foot of the mountain.

According to what the old man later inadvertently revealed when he was drunk, Zhao Yuanshan almost stopped a passing caravan.

It was just a tiny difference, yet it was the distance between life and death.

After finding him, the bald old man chuckled and brought Zhao Yuanshan back, then locked him in the stone chamber.

That small room was specifically used for "forging iron guards".

On the morning of the fourth day, the bald old man opened the door to the small room.

The armored corpse walked out on its own. It was three inches taller than Zhao Yuanshan, and its muscles were swollen more than a circle larger.

It only obeys the bald old man's commands.

"Iron Guard!"

The bald old man stood beside the armored corpse, stroking its bluish-gray arm as if it were a loyal hunting dog.

"From today onwards, you will stay here."

The bald old man gave instructions to the armored corpse, pointing at Li Feng.

"Kill anything that enters this ruined temple except him."

The armored corpse nodded slightly.

After explaining everything, the bald old man smiled kindly at Li Feng and said, "Feng'er, when your master returns, you will have spiritual roots, and then your master will guide you in cultivating immortality."

After the old man left, Li Feng did not rush to the door.

He turned and walked toward the medicine cauldron, deliberately making some noise, bent down to pick up a herb from the bamboo basket, sniffed it, and then threw it back.

The armored corpse's head slowly turned as he moved, but its feet remained still.

Li Feng immediately understood.

The armored corpse was given the order to "keep an eye on Li Feng," but the bald old man did not give it the order to "kill Li Feng."

This means that as long as he doesn't try to escape, the armored zombie won't attack him.

But this realization did not comfort Li Feng, because the fact that the bald old man dared to leave him alone in the temple with the armored corpse meant that the old man had absolute confidence in this guard.

In other words, the armored corpse must have other abilities that Li Feng had not seen before.

He retreated to the edge of the haystack and sat down, pretending to sort through the straw, but his mind was racing.

This is the first time in all the time that the bald-headed old man has been away from home.

In the past seventeen years, the old man has left the dilapidated temple only a handful of times, and each time he has never stayed away for more than two hours.

The most recent time was three months ago. The old man went to the town at the foot of the mountain and brought back two medicinal herbs with soil on them, as well as a lacquered wooden box.

When the old man opened the box, Li Feng glanced at it unintentionally and saw a dark red thing lying inside, which looked like the tendon of some kind of animal, dry and rough.

The old man's face, covered in festering sores, revealed a look of wild joy, and his cloudy eyes shone with light.

"Heaven is helping me!"

The old man closed the box, muttered to himself, and looked at Li Feng with a gaze more intense than ever before, as if he were looking at a fish on a chopping board.

Li Feng couldn't sleep that night. He lay on the ground pretending to close his eyes, but only one thought kept running through his mind: he had to find a way to escape.

Now the old man has finally left, and he'll be gone for three months. This is my last chance!