Chapter 1: The Wind Rises
The north wind was bleak, the winter was chilly and the city of Liangzhou was deathly silent.
Perhaps the word "generally" should be removed.
At this moment, the city of Liangzhou was littered with corpses, blood flowed like a river, and the stench was overwhelming. The city was like a huge tomb, and even the sound of breathing was too harsh.
A crow flew from afar and landed on the eaves. Its hoarse low crows tore through the silent night. Then came the second, the third, the fourth... They came in groups, covering the sky and landing on the streets and alleys of the city, stepping on the corpses that filled the streets and alleys. I don't know which crow fell when a pair of light apricot cloth shoes stepped on the ground of the main street of Liangzhou City and were instantly stained with blood.
The owner of the cloth shoes was a girl in a white dress, who looked to be about seventeen or eighteen years old. Against the bleak red background, she looked like a white lotus blooming in a pool of blood.
She held a jade pendant in her hand, her index finger hooked on the pendant string and kept turning it, and the pendant emitted a bright blue light.
"It looks like a massacre in the city..." The girl's tone was quite calm.
An ordinary girl would probably faint from fright when seeing such a bloody and horrific scene, but unfortunately He Simu is not an ordinary girl.
She is an evil ghost.
When a person dies, if he is stubborn and refuses to realize his wrongdoings and has unfulfilled wishes, he will turn into a wandering soul and be unable to be reborn. The wandering souls will eat each other for a hundred years and become evil ghosts.
Evil ghosts eat people.
He Simu, unfortunately, was an evil ghost looking for food.
The night was pitch black, and one could not see one's hand in front of one's face. The whole city was filled with corpses piled on top of each other. He Simu's movements were not hindered at all. She moved flexibly between the torsos of the corpses, always able to step into the most suitable gap. Unfortunately, she had just taken six steps when her feet were hugged by someone.
“Help…Help…”
He Simu looked down and saw a man with a knife cut on his stomach, his flesh flying around, holding her feet. His features were stained with blood and his eyes were blurred, but he pointed to one side tremblingly.
"Save...my son...save...Chen Ying..."
He Simu glanced in the direction he pointed. There was a child of seven or eight years old, who was pressed under several corpses, with only a pale face exposed. He was still breathing vaguely, but his eyes were tightly closed, probably fainted.
She turned her gaze back to the dishevelled, dying man and said, "Your son is in much better condition than you are. It's you who is dying."
"Help..." The man seemed to be unable to hear He Simu's words and just kept begging stubbornly.
He Simu then squatted down, put his hands on his knees, and looked at the dying man levelly: "I will eat you and then save your son, are you willing? You have to think carefully, those who are eaten by evil spirits will lose a ball of soul fire, and will suffer many disasters in the next life. I don't know how many reincarnations it will take to recover."
The man seemed confused and thought for a while before he understood what she meant. He opened his cloudy eyes wide in horror and his hands trembled a little.
"Don't want to?" He Simu turned his head.
The man shivered for a while, tears welling up in his eyes. He whispered, "...willing...willing..."
He Simu narrowed his eyes and smiled with some pity: "Okay."
Then she grabbed the man's hair, forced him to look up, and bit his neck. Her sharp canine teeth pierced deeply into his blood vessels. Blood gushed out and splashed all over He Simu's face. The jade pendant in her hand shone brightly and then dimmed.
The man's hand holding her right foot fell into a pool of blood. A ball of light rose from the man's body and slowly rose into the dark night sky.
People originally have three soul fires, located on the shoulders and top of the head respectively. They merge into one at the time of death, like a bright lamp rising into the sky or a shooting star moving in the retrograde direction - this is the death that only evil spirits can see.
High-level evil spirits like He Simu feed on the soul fire on top of people's heads.
Without a soul fire, the soul light of a man in his later life would be much dimmer than that of others. To suffer for several lifetimes for the sake of one lifetime of father-son affection, isn't it not worth it? But mortals love to do this losing business.
He Simu simply let go of his hand, and the man's heavy body fell to the ground with a thud. Along with this heavy muffled sound, the dawn began to appear, and the pitch-black darkness was diluted. It seemed that the sun was about to rise, and the crows also became restless one after another.
She clapped her hands, stepped over the corpses lying on the ground, followed the bloodstains left by the man as he crawled over, and walked towards where the man's son was.
To be honest, with He Simu's strength, he would not be able to resist even if he ate the man directly. However, a guy who has done such a thing as a ghost always has his own rules. He Simu has a high respect for his food and always keeps his promise of equal exchange.
After she stood in front of the pile of torsos, she reached out to lift the body that had fallen on the child. Unexpectedly, the body was injured in the neck, and when she lifted the head of the body, the head was directly separated from the torso, and the bloody torso fell back on the child again.
The child's face turned even paler after being hit.
He Simu was quite helpless. He held up the dirty head, frowned, and stared at the head owner's eyes wide open with fear.
"The Daliang army is coming!" A shout came from the distant city gate. It was a slightly old voice, as if it had used up all its strength to shout out such a sentence, and the voice was trembling and close to tearing.
Noisy voices and the sound of horse hooves could be heard from afar. The strong breath of living people like a storm dispelled the air of death. Cries of joy could be heard from all around. The survivors in the city ran out from their hiding places one by one, and the grieving crowd gathered on the long street.
The city gate at the end of the long street slowly opened, the sky was getting light, and the morning light was just beginning to appear. Countless horse hooves and military boots stepped into the blood-stained street, and the procession was endless.
He Simu turned his eyes and saw the man at the front of the team.
He looked very young, still a teenager, riding a tall white horse, wearing silver armor, facing the gradually clear morning light. This man was slender and strong, with high eyebrows and nose bridge, and a pair of exceptionally bright and clear, slightly upturned almond eyes.
This is an extremely handsome and noble young man.
He came towards the morning light, like a sharp blade splitting the darkness.
This was the first time He Simu saw Duan Xu. It was dawn and everything was waking up. It was a good time, but there was no beautiful scenery - after all, she was standing among the corpses scattered all over the ground and the people crying and grieving, and she was holding a dead person's head in her hand.
The young man glanced at the miserable situation in the city, frowned slightly, and looked up along the long street into the distance.
He Simu, covered in blood, looked no different from the other survivors and did not attract the boy's attention. She threw away the head in her hand and looked at the boy inquiringly.
——To be precise, He Simu was looking at the slender black sword at his waist, with silver carvings on both sides and waist.
The evil ghost had good eyesight, and she could see the details of the sword clearly at a glance. He Simu thought that this sword looked so familiar, where had she seen it before?
She searched through her long memories for a long time before she suddenly realized, wasn't this the sword that her uncle had forged more than three hundred years ago when he was still alive?
Poluang is a spiritual sword second only to Buzhou Sword. It is a benevolent sword and is coveted by immortals. This young man looks like an ordinary general and does not look like a cultivator. How could he have Poluang?
"General! You finally came to save us!" A crying and wailing man ran out from He Simu's right, knocking her to the ground and causing her to stumble. Seeing the man running to the street and kneeling down to kowtow, He Simu glanced at the people around her who were either grieving or surprised, and realized that it seemed a bit out of place for her to be standing here.
Should she at least cry a little?
She thought for a moment, then bit her tongue hard, and the body she possessed immediately burst into tears.
With tears in her eyes, she smiled as if she had seen a savior. She lifted her skirt and pushed aside the man who was kneeling in front of her. She ran straight to the young man's horse and shouted, "General, the Huchies massacred the city before retreating. There were countless casualties in the city. Are you here to save us?"
The young man reined in his horse, and the soldiers behind him stopped one after another. He looked around at the people around him, with a calm face that did not match his age. He said clearly: "I am Duan Xu, the commander of the Daliang Tabai Army. The bandits have retreated to the north of Guanhe. Today, Liangzhou has returned to Daliang.
After a pause, he said, "As long as I am here, the Huqi people will never set foot in Liangzhou again."
The surviving people burst into tears of mixed joy and sorrow. He Simu followed suit and shouted twice, pretending to be extremely sad, and reached out to pull the boy's sleeve.
The guards around the young man were about to draw their swords. He Simu shuddered and his eyes turned red. The young man waved his hand to signal them that it was not necessary. Then he took out a handkerchief from his arms, bent down and handed it to He Simu: "Wipe the blood."
His fingers were so slender and white that the blue veins were very obvious. It was obvious that they were once a pair of noble hands, but now they had many purple and blue scars and looked weathered.
He Simu held back tears and touched his hand as she took the handkerchief. The moment she lowered her head, a smile appeared in her eyes.
As expected, he wanted to find a beautiful and delicate girl to possess him. Her delicate crying made people feel soft-hearted. Not only did they not drive her away, they even gave her a handkerchief.
But she just felt the pulse of this young man, and he was indeed an ordinary person without any spiritual power. Strange, would the Sword of Delusion Breaking be used by such a person? Is he the master of the Sword of Delusion Breaking?
While thinking, He Simu suddenly felt that the scene in front of her began to become erratic. She thought to herself that this body she depended on might faint. She hurriedly pointed at the child in the pile of corpses next to her and shouted, "Help me save that child!"
Then he saw his body tilt and fall limply in front of the young general's horse.
...The disadvantage of possessing a delicate little girl is that her body is too fragile and she will faint if she doesn't sleep for a night.
