Since the day of engagement, the heavy and brooding life of the oldest kid of elder Yu began to shift into the best moments of his life. Under the layers of dark clouds in the sky, he seemed to find that everything was filled with hope.
He was still working tirelessly every day. Only when the little girl named Dong Er came to visit him, did he reveal his genuine happy smile.
He wanted to use both hands to create a beautiful future for his family; he wanted to use his shoulders to carry all the weight of this miserable world for his family.
Sometimes, before the world was completely enveloped by the darkness, he would climb up to the top of Chu Yunsheng’s pumpkin house with Dong Er and sit next to Chu Yunsheng. However, they would not have any conversations with Chu Yunsheng. They would just gaze at the hazy shimmer looming at the distant horizon, feeling the soft wind blowing towards their smiling faces…
The second kid of the Fang family had recovered his injury completely. He was a human that had awakened the fire elemental energy. The fire elemental energy was so obvious around him that Chu Yunsheng could feel it from very far away. However, never once had he attempted to talk to Chu Yunsheng. Every time when he looked at Chu Yunsheng, his eyes were filled with anxiousness and concerns. It seemed like he wanted to keep his distance away from Chu Yunsheng.
Chu Yunsheng knew why he was doing this. It was that bloodstained paper. Although to Chu Yunsheng, the things that were written on that piece of paper had many flaws, to that young man, it was the thing that he got by risking his life, and that thing was the only hope of this village.
Since he recovered from his injury, he has started to gather all the kids in the village and taught them all the knowledge that he had learned from the bloodstained paper. He hoped that he would be able to help those kids awaken their powers.
However, there was only one child who awakened his power in the entire village. He was the second son of elder Yang. That child had already become the disciple of the Fang family’s second kid. He was forced to practice the cultivation method non-stop all day every day by the Fang family’s second kid. Fortunately, he didn’t need to work. The village chief would always give one big share of food to him.
Although village chief Gao didn’t like the second kid of the elder Fang’s family, if there were more awakened people in the village, he would also be happy. It was just that kid would always bring troubles to the village.
The eldest kid of the elder Yu’s family also wanted to learn as well. But his family was too poor, and there were too many things he needed to do. Not only did he need to feed his family, but he also needed to give some food back to the village. Despite that, he had forced his younger brother and sister to stop helping him. He wanted them to spend most of the time learning knowledge from the second kid of Fang’s family.
Chu Yunsheng didn’t plan to intervene in whatever the people in the village were doing. Apart from practicing cultivation methods, all he did all day was try to find the method to transfer his life force. It was like this until one day, he suddenly decided to temporarily stop thinking about the solution for a while.
Having failed to come up with a useful solution, Chu Yunsheng got down from top of the pumpkin house and surprisingly decided to take a short walk while enjoying the quiet and peaceful evening.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!…”
As he walked further and further from his pumpkin house, he vaguely heard some noises, as if someone was practicing something.
Following the noise, he walked into an unknown bush, and soon, he found the person who was making the noise.
“So, it is him.” A faint smile appeared on his face.
Under the small fire torch that was tied onto a tree, the eldest kid of the Yu family was secretly practicing the movement and incantation that he had learned from his younger brother and sister.
Chu Yunsheng didn’t interrupt him. He was standing in the bush quietly watching his movement.
He still remembered that in the papers he gave to Edgar, he had also categorized the cultivation stage of the awakened humans that with different elemental attributes into Yuan Tian stage one and Yuan Tian stage two; because although they could not cultivate pure Heaven and Earth Yuan Qi like him, the changes that different elemental energies did to their bodies, in some respects, had many similarities.
However, in order to stabilize their less stable elemental energies, Chu Yunsheng had sorted out some methods and added them into the cultivation methods. So in total, there were seven sub stages in Yuan Tian stage one.
However, the paper that the second kid of the Fang family brought back only contained a small part of the seven substages. Moreover, the methods on that paper seemed to have been intentionally altered by someone.
Chu Yunsheng had seen the methods on that paper. Despite it being full of flaws, he still admired other people’s intelligence. In merely twenty years time, they were able to create a set of movements to speed up the energy circulation inside the practitioner’s body and speed up the quenching process of the practitioner’s body.
However, without any energy, no matter how hard the eldest kid of Yu’s family was practicing, he would not be able to awaken any power.
Looking at the kid who was sweating but still practicing harder than him, Chu Yunsheng was touched. Originally, he didn’t want to intervene. But from this kid, he saw something that he used to persist in.
“You will not become stronger even if you are doing this,” suddenly said Chu Yunsheng as he walked out of the bush.
The kid didn’t expect that someone would be watching him. He was startled and almost fell on the ground. Only when he realised that the person was Chu Yunsheng, did he finally calm down.
“Listen, don’t ask me anything, and don’t tell anyone what I am about to teach you. You are not awakened, the thing you learned won’t help you,” Said Chu Yunsheng.
The kid’s eyes suddenly became bigger. He quickly nodded his head while looking at Chu Yunsheng.
“Pay attention,” Said Chu Yunsheng as he began to demonstrate the nine diagrams of body movements.
…
Since that night, Chu Yunsheng didn’t go to the place that the eldest kid of the Yu Family used to practice once. In fact, that kid was very smart. Chu Yunsheng had only shown him three times, then he was able to do the movement alone.
Maybe it was because of his quiet nature that gave him a great observation skill, or probably it was due to the years of hard work making him more mature than other kids.
Regardless of what it was, Chu Yunsheng had already done what he could to help that kid. He was now focusing on finding the methods of transferring Life force, and began to enter deep into the forest very frequently. Sometimes, he might even stay in the deep forest for a whole day.
Time slowly passed in the forest, the village’s pumpkin houses construction work was also coming to an end. The date of the wedding ceremony of the eldest kid of the Yu Family had also been pushed forward. However, Chu Yunsheng still couldn’t find the methods to transfer his life force.
The senile girl didn’t look like she was not able to make it through the cold winter. She was sick, and there were no signs of getting better.
Chu Yunsheng was quietly sitting next to her while holding her withered little hands. He had tried to use the healing talisman to heal her, however, it still couldn’t heal her gradually fading life force.
During the last few days of the little senile girl’s life, Chu Yunsheng told her many stories about the age of light. He told her that kids were used to going to school, adults were used to working for money. He also told her that she would go to a place like that after she left this world, and she would no longer suffer.
He also gave many tasty foods to the little girl and used some spare fabric to make a stuffed toy for the little girl.
But all of this still couldn’t stop the little girl from dying.
In the last few moments of her life, she told Chu Yunsheng that those few days were the happiest days in her life. She really wanted to live like that forever, but she also wanted to see the world that Chu Yunsheng had told her about.
She made a small request before she died. She said that she had never seen her own face before. She wanted Chu Yunsheng to show her what she looked like.
Chu Yunsheng hesitated for a long time. He was scared that she would be scared by her own look. However, he couldn’t bear to look into the girl’s pitiful eyes. Eventually, he gave in. He asked the girl’s mother to wash her clean and help her to dress up the best clothes Chu Yunsheng could find from his storage talisman.
…
The next day, Chu Yunsheng sat on top of his pumpkin house feeling gloomy while smoking cigarettes. He had promised the girl a future. However, he failed to fulfill his promise. Although the little girl was holding a mirror when she passed away, she finally knew what she looked like, and she was smiling even after she closed her eyes.
At the moment she closed her eyes, Chu Yunsheng seemed to have faintly understood the meaning of life force and the reason why the owner of the seven Divine nails was fighting the senior practitioner.
He then began to frequently enter the deep forest again to look for the methods to transfer life force. Sometimes he might not even be back to the village for several days…
……
Calculating the days he had spent in the deep forest, Chu Yunsheng realised that today was the eldest kid of the Yu Family’s wedding ceremony. Thinking that he had spent enough time in this place and he also needed to visit Zhiwu forest, he decided to return to the village to say goodbye to everyone.
Through the dense woods, heading towards the pumpkin field, he was moving fast.
However, when he returned to the pumpkin field, the blood in his body began to freeze. He stood there for a very long time without moving a step.
In front of him was not the noise wedding ceremony, it also wasn’t the bustling village scenes, it was dead silence, and the bodies of villagers were scattering all over the ground.
Through the dried rattans, the fire had already spread to the tops of many pumpkin houses. It caused many thick smokes to rise into the dark sky.
Stepping on the cold ground that had been covered with blood, Chu Yunsheng looked at the scattered bodies on the ground.
All the bodies had been cut into halves…
Raising his head, Chu Yunsheng noticed that the second kid of the Fang family was nailed onto a burning pumpkin house, facing the ground that was covered with many half bodies. His eyes were wide open and one of his hands was still grasping a piece of black coloured fabric tightly.
“Yao Xiang, is this really you?” Chu Yunsheng murmured. But he didn’t feel sad, he had experienced so many things, this would no longer affect emotions.
As he carried on walking, soon, he realized what happened. There was a body of an old man, who was supposed to be left behind in the village near the broken mountain. Perhaps, someone had gone back to pick up this old man. But the person didn’t realise that they had been followed.
Chu Yunsheng had already warned village chief Gao. But he still didn’t expect that they still couldn’t escape their fate.
Turning around, he walked towards the elder Yu’s house. There were a few tables that were made of dried roots outside of the elder Yu’s house.
Elder Yang’s head was on the table, but his body fell on the ground. His second kid, who he was proud of the most was split into halves from the middle.
Elder Yu’s head had already fallen to the ground, but his body was still trying to protect his fourth kid.
The fourth kid was a girl; she was wearing the clothes that Chu Yunsheng gave to her sister, holding the stuffed toy Chu Yunsheng made. However, there was a big hole in her chest.
Chu Yunsheng’s heart suddenly twitched. She was the first kid he saw when he woke up. He still clearly remembered her panicked and terrified expression.
“Yao Xiang, do you know she was just eight years old?” Chu Yunsheng sneered coldly and picked up the girl.
Taking out the newly made sword, Chu Yunsheng unleashed a round of sword Qi to make a hole on the ground. He then began to move all the bodies into the hole one by one…
When he moved the eldest kid of the Yu Family, his body twitched for a second. Then he began to open his eyes.
There was a sword wound in his stomach, however, probably because he had used the method that Chu Yunsheng had taught him, he had avoided the fatal injury. However, both of his legs had been cut off.
Looking at Chu Yunsheng, his eyes were first filled with confusion for a few seconds, then as if he suddenly remembered something, he began to use his both hands to crawl on the ground while shouting desperately, ” sis… ter… mom… da… d.. Dong… Er…”
He kept crawling on the ground, despite that he was bleeding. However, he was only able to find half of Dong Er’s body.
Holding half the body of Dong Er, the body of the eldest kid of the Yu Family was shaking violently. His lips were twitching and tears running down from his face. But he couldn’t make any sounds.
“If you want to cry, then cry it out loud. After crying, it won’t be that painful anymore.” Chu Yunsheng said to the kid.
‘Is the old me the same as him?…”‘
Soon, the sound of a kid shouting and crying hysterically appeared in the mushroom forest.
When the kid finally quietly down, Chu Yunsheng threw two things in front of him and said,
“Kid, there are two things in front of you, the toy and the broken sword. If you choose the toy, I’ll help you to end your suffering. If you choose the sword, I’ll heal you, but whatever the suffering you have in the future, you will need to bear it yourself. Now choose!”
The eyes of the kid were filled with burning hatred as if he wanted to lit up everything in this world on fire. He slowly reached his hand out to grab the bloodstained stuffed toy.
Chu Yunsheng closed his eyes, let out a long sigh, and raised the sword in his hand. However, just when he was about to hack down, he saw the kid reach his other hand to grab the broken sword…
…
The next day.
The entire village was burning brightly, sending a huge thick black smoke into the sky…
From the fire walked out two people, a kid and an old man; both of them were wearing a cloak, and carrying a sword on their backs.
At the moment they appeared, Chu Yunsheng’s voice also began to waft through the hot wind.
“From today, your name is Yu Hanwu. Yu is your family name. Hanwu means Cambrian. It is what started this…”
“Your master’s name is Chu Yunsheng, in the future, you will know more about him. I won’t ask too much from you. But there are two things you have to remember.”
“The first thing is: act with a clear conscience; the second thing is: you can kill, but don’t become someone who sinks and obtains pleasure and joy in killing. Otherwise, the first person you ruined will be yourself.”
