Start with a red name

Chapter 78: Something Not to Do
Geng Xuan did not take action, but asked: "Brother, are you hurt?"

"It doesn't hurt... I don't feel anything." Master Peng narrowed his eyes slightly and opened and closed his mouth gently.

"Well, it's okay to wait a while, right?" Geng Xuan also lowered his voice.

Upon hearing this, Master Peng opened his eyes again and looked at Geng Xuan, seeming a little surprised.

"Why...why?"

"I want to talk to my brother." Geng Xuan said.

"Why?" Master Peng asked again.

"We are already brothers, but until now, we have never had a serious conversation."

Master Peng was startled, looking at him steadily, with the corners of his mouth twitching as if he wanted to smile, but the change in his expression was so slight that outsiders could not notice it at all.

"say what?"

"Just say anything."

Master Peng blinked and murmured, "Just say it casually?"

He suddenly let out a breath and stared fixedly at the darkness at the top of the tunnel, as if recalling something.

After a while, he slowly said:

"Do you know my full name?"

"I don't know."

Master Peng's lips moved and he began to speak in a delirious voice.

“My name is Peng Shun, and it was given by my grandfather. At that time, he had already established himself in Kangleji, but he also encountered many dangers and paid a great price.

They named me Pang Shun because they hope I can live a smooth life.

I lived up to this name. My life was going smoothly until my father passed away.

...After he passed away, things were actually quite smooth. I became the head martial artist naturally. There were people who took care of all the specific matters, whether it was related to the martial arts school or the Kangle Group, so it was very easy for me.

But my senior sister told me that until my death I would be just a rich boy who had never suffered any hardship or loss, and that I did not have the character that a true practitioner should have.

I was actually quite unhappy when she said this.”

At this point, Pang Shun paused for a long time before continuing:

"This time, I have suffered all the hardships and losses in my life, I think it's time to make up for it... huhuhuhu"

After making what he thought was a funny joke, Pang Shun seemed to want to laugh, but ended up blowing air out of his mouth.

“This time I said I wanted to have a fight with the guy named Fan, but actually I didn’t have that intention at first.

I didn't even think about it that much, and I didn't know that many of the things that Mr. Fan did were premeditated. He said he wanted to drag the people in the surrounding neighborhoods into fighting against Wuyou Palace, so he just did it.

Speaking of which, I have a pretty good relationship with the surrounding neighborhoods. Over the years, many people from the neighborhood have come to practice martial arts in the martial arts school!

But why did I have this thought again?

…Let me think, let me think…”

"I remember now, it was those two old fellows named Jing and Gu who instigated this!
They came to me and told me that Fan Qi had ambitions and wanted to use the lives of our Kangleji people as a stepping stone. The elders of our Kangleji could not just sit there and wait for death...

At first, I didn't really care. Who doesn't have ambitions in this world? But I couldn't resist their constant nagging, so I agreed.

I also arranged for the provision of a venue, and used some of the connections that my grandfather had built up in the market..."

"Senior sister is right, I am just an idiot!

The family business that my grandfather and my father worked so hard to build was squandered by me!
~~~Woo woo woo——"

At the end of his speech, Pang Shun made a soft whimpering sound, as if he was about to cry.

But now he can no longer shed tears, only because his marrow refining was successful and his brain marrow was not seriously damaged, and the remaining life energy in it has not yet dissipated completely.

This allowed him to hold on to his last breath and to be able to speak and think.

It is also for this reason that when facing a strong man in the Marrow Refining Realm, even if you behead him or separate his head from his body, you cannot kill him immediately.

However, the method to put an end to it is very simple. You just need to inject force into its brain while beheading it.

Whether this external force collides with the endogenous force in the brain, or explodes deep in the brain without any obstruction, it can turn the brain into a mess in an instant and cause complete death.

In order to be able to reap the good fortune after the death of Master Duan as soon as possible, Geng Xuan naturally used this technique when he cut off his head.

While Geng Xuan marveled at the powerful vitality of the practitioners in the Marrow Refining Realm, he quietly listened to Peng Shun's confessional last words.

At this moment, his heart suddenly trembled and he turned his head to look at a tunnel on the left.

He clearly saw that about fifty or sixty steps away, at the end of the curved tunnel, a striking red gas appeared.

somebody is coming!

Geng Xuan lifted Peng Shun with one hand and prepared to rush into another tunnel.

Pang Shun, who was originally sobbing softly, immediately stopped. There was no breathing, no heartbeat, no blood flowing, and he was as quiet as a real corpse.

However, just as Geng Xuan was about to take action, he suddenly stopped.

Because he could clearly see the outline of the person who appeared, and as he took a few steps forward, he could see his face more clearly.

It was not the great hall master Fan Qi, but an unprepossessing middle-aged woman, the senior sister who had been guarding the Dharma Teaching Building for many years and was able to confront Fan Qi without being at a disadvantage.

Walking in the dim tunnel, the woman was not walking very fast. She seemed to be identifying something while walking.

When she was about ten steps away from Geng Xuan and the other man, she seemed to have discovered something and suddenly stopped.

The next moment, he was two steps away from Geng Xuan and the other man.

Her eyes immediately fell on Peng Shun, who was already a pile of rotten meat in Geng Xuan's hands. After a moment, she looked at Geng Xuan.

"Why are you still here?"

Before Geng Xuan could say anything, Peng Shun, who was in his hands and was no different from a corpse, with only his brain still slightly active, spoke again, and seemed quite excited.

"Senior sister? Senior sister? Are you a senior sister?"

As he spoke, he tried hard to open his eyes which were as cloudy as those of a dead fish.

The woman was shocked and walked directly to Geng Xuan, reaching out to grab Peng Shun.

The woman gently placed Peng Shun on the ground, and a fire-starting stick appeared in her hand. She waved it gently in the air, and a ball of warm red flame ignited.

The flames illuminated Peng Shun's cloudy and dead eyes, and also illuminated her face.

"You are my senior sister... It's so good to see you before I die, so good..."

Peng Shun murmured.

In fact, at this moment he could only barely see an outline and a warm red light, and nothing else.

Moreover, even this state is disappearing at a visible speed.

It wasn't long before he couldn't see anything.

The woman looked very calm. She just reached out and gently stroked Peng Shun's cheek, like a mother caring for her child who was about to fall asleep.

He was also saying some harsh words.

"Why aren't you dead yet? With your character, shouldn't you ask someone to send you to death right away?"

Pang Shun grinned, seeming a little proud.

"I've suffered so much this time, my character should have grown a little bit... I just wanted to talk more with my junior brother, but I didn't expect to wait for my senior sister, it's great."

"What did you say?" the woman asked softly.

If you just listen to her tone and the questions she asked, ignoring everything else, you would really think this was just an ordinary family conversation.

But Peng Shun did not continue to follow her words, but said:
"Sister, I'm sorry."

The woman said:
"Save this for when you meet your father and grandfather down there. You are sorry to them, not me.

But don't blame yourself too much. I've saved the martial arts school for you.

As long as I am alive, Fan Qi will not do anything to the martial arts school. "

"Thank you, Senior Sister...Are you leaving Kang Le Ji?"

"Ah."

"where to?"

"Yuan Jing."

Peng Shun was silent for a while before he asked softly, "Are you going to find your senior brother?"

"Ah."

"If you see him, please say sorry for me."

"it is good."

The woman responded.

After a while, seeing that Peng Shun stopped talking, she whispered, "Junior brother?"

"……Um……"

"Do you want to say anything else?"

"……Gone……"

Peng Shun managed to utter only two words before falling silent again. It seemed that opening his mouth had become very difficult, almost impossible.

The woman reached out and pressed her hand on the top of Peng Shun's head, feeling that there was still some activity left in his brain.

He asked Geng Xuan beside him for help: "You come on, I can't do it."

Having said that, he stood up and moved aside.

Geng Xuan squatted down, put his hand on the top of Peng Shun's head, and gently exerted force from his palm. The last bit of life that was stubbornly remaining in Peng Shun's brain was completely extinguished.

Geng Xuan saw a ball of red gas flying towards his forehead.

[Capture the remaining energy, do you want to refine it? ]

For the first time, Geng Xuan made another choice.

"no."

Then, Geng Xuan seemed to see a ball of red air lingering deep between his eyebrows slowly dissipating.

Judging from the size of the red energy, if it is refined, it would probably yield more than twenty points of red luck.

Geng Xuan actively refused, but he did not feel regretful, and even felt a little happy.

After knowing what kind of abilities he possessed, Geng Xuan began to think about a most basic question.

If he follows the principle of maximizing his own benefits, he would like the world to have as many people with red names as possible, and the more red names per capita, the better. It would be great if a person with very weak strength could provide him with considerable red luck!
Once you are short of good luck, you can get a lot by just moving your fingers.

Days like that are beautiful just thinking about them.

If you are considering "sustainable development" and do not want to "drain the pond to catch fish", you can also secretly design a set of Gu-raising cultivation methods.

Cultivate the human population into a field of leeks and harvest them when needed.

Starting from the principle of maximizing personal benefits, Geng Xuan easily came up with a whole set of behaviors that were most beneficial to himself.

But without any hesitation or struggle, he cut the road himself.

He is not a germaphobe and does not reject the idea of consuming the "residual energy" of the dead Red Named Ones and turning it into nutrients for his own evolution.

However, he would not create a world that is more chaotic and hellish than the current one.

Even if he lacked good fortune, he would not just pick a bunch of people and kill them. If he only thought from the perspective of gaining good fortune, he actually didn't need to plan and think as much as he did now. Except for children who had not been "polluted" by this world, almost everyone had a bad name, just with different degrees of severity.

Even ordinary people without any cultivation can provide him with good luck. Even if the amount provided by a single person is less, as long as he kills enough, the income from good luck will still increase rapidly.

It’s much easier and more worry-free than it is now.

Killing a thousand ordinary people would not cause half as much noise as killing Duan Tianpeng.

It is also easier and you will gain more luck.

And as long as he expanded the scope of hunting, not limited to Kangleji, but dispersed it to the entire Yuanzhou, he could kill as he went along, and there would not even be any ripples.

No one will ever bring "disaster backlash" on these ordinary people.

Pick the softest persimmon and pick the easiest target to attack, this is the correct way to obtain good luck.

The current approach of tackling tough problems by force is actually a "wrong path".

But for Geng Xuan, this is not a multiple-choice question either.

He naturally took the "wrong path" and ignored the "right way".

He believed from the bottom of his heart that as someone who possessed such incredible power, he had the responsibility and obligation to make the world a better place.

This is my mission.

Because of this intention, Geng Xuan naturally felt that he had not the only choice to consume all the captured "residual energy".

Occasionally, I also have the right to choose not to eat.

The key is "I want" or "I don't want".

Now, Geng Xuan used his right to say "no" for the first time.

In his opinion, the significance of this matter even surpassed giving up the red gas itself.

……

The woman held Peng Shun's body in her hands and said to Geng Xuan, "Leave it to me."

As she said this, she was about to walk into the tunnel she had taken.

Seeing that she was about to leave, Geng Xuan hurriedly called out:

"Senior sister!"

The woman's body stiffened for a moment, and she seemed to be hesitating whether to accept the title. In her opinion, everything Pang Shun had done during this period was too frivolous, including the act of accepting a disciple on behalf of his father.

However, she thought of "Su Ruiliang's" performance today, and finally stopped, turned to look at Geng Xuan, and asked:

"Anything else?"

"I still don't know what to call you, Senior Sister?"

"Xu Jiao."

"From what I heard from your conversation with Senior Brother Peng just now, we have another senior brother?" Geng Xuan asked again.

Xu Jiao frowned and asked, "What do you want to ask?"

Geng Xuan said frankly:
“I just want to know who my senior brothers and sisters are.

...You have seen my situation. This time I have offended Fan Qi badly.

I no longer have a place to stand in Kang Le Ji, and all my previous relationships are ruined..."

Having said this, he did not continue speaking, but Xu Jiao roughly understood the mentality of this "Junior Brother Su".

To put it more pragmatically, the most valuable identity for him right now is probably the identity of "direct disciple of a martial arts school".

Now that he has the opportunity, he certainly wants to know more about it in more detail.

Xu Jiao, who saw through Su Ruiliang's thoughts, was not disgusted. Instead, she liked the "junior brother" who came up to her more.

She didn't mind saying a few more words.

“Our master, Pang Shun’s father, has accepted many disciples, but the only ones who are truly recognized by Pang Shun are me, his senior sister, and another senior brother… and now you, his junior brother, should also be included.

That senior brother’s name is Han Jian. He left Kangleji more than ten years ago and went to Yuanjing…”

Xu Jiao left.

Geng Xuan was still thinking about what she had told him about his master's sect.

From her story, Geng Xuan got a rough understanding of his "master" whom he had never met, that is, Pang Shun's father who had been dead for more than ten years.

That's a ruthless person.

The “ruthless” in Chinese means cruel and ruthless.

He accepted many disciples, but his real purpose was not to accept so many disciples, but to accept a group of "tools" who were talented, capable, and with whom he had close relationships.

His purpose of recruiting so many "tools" was neither to train more high-end martial arts nor to better manage the martial arts school.

But there is another reason, to try out the technique.

In a corner invisible to outsiders, when Pang Shun's father was the owner of the museum, he shouldered an important mission that outsiders did not know.

That is to replace the most core marrow refining technique, the "Burning Power" passed down from Grandpa Pang Shun, with the newly acquired "Wanjun Power".

For Pang Shun’s grandfather and father, the “burning power” that can help them get started faster and become stronger faster is the most suitable in the early stages of their business.

Being short-lived and overdrawn potential cannot be considered as disadvantages. They can only be said to be the price that must be paid for “getting started faster and becoming stronger faster”.

But by Pang Shun's generation, this shortcoming has become fatal.

They no longer want the price.

So they tried every possible way and finally helped them acquire the "Wanjun Jin".

But this technique also has its shortcomings.

One of the biggest disadvantages is that it is extremely difficult to get started. If you fail, it is very likely to endanger your life or cause fundamental damage to the practitioner.

The safest approach is to have a guide who has already entered the marrow refining realm with the power of ten thousand jin to lead the way.

Here comes the problem.

There was no such "guide" in the martial arts school at that time. There was only a book that told how to practice "Wanjun Jin".

To solve this problem, Peng Shun's father used a very simple method.

He recruited many disciples, and then gave them the "Wanjun Jin" without the "risk warning", and let them try it with their lives.

Thus, these disciples became "pathfinders" without knowing it.

Some died, some were disabled, and some were useless.

Mathematical principles have shown that as long as there are enough samples, no matter how low the success rate is, someone will eventually succeed.

When enough disciples died, became disabled, and became useless, someone finally succeeded in reaching the "other side".

This person is Han Jian, the "senior brother" mentioned by Xu Jiao and Pang Shun.

Han Jian, who successfully reached the "other side", quickly did two things. The first was to guide Xu Jiao to master the basics of Wanjun Jin.

Secondly, after completing the guidance of Xu Jiao, we also completed the guidance of Pang Shun.

From then on, the plan was completed.

After doing all this, it can be said that Han Jian, who made great contributions and was nominally the senior brother but actually played the role of master in the cultivation path of Xu Jiao and Pang Shun, left Kangleji.

Xu Jiao didn't tell the specific reason, and she really didn't know. She could only guess that this was an agreement reached between Han Jian and Pang Shun's father.

Just a few years after Han Jian left Kangleji, Pang Shun's father passed away and Pang Shun took over the martial arts school.

Xu Jiao gave a general introduction to the situation of her "master's sect", but she did not mean to be shy about anything for the venerable master.

In her words, her master, Pang Shun's father, was a villain so evil that his bones were oozing with pus.

She said frankly that although she felt a little regretful and sad about Pang Shun's death, she actually felt a sense of relief.

Geng Xuan recalled these "master's" stories in his mind as he walked into a dark tunnel.

The tunnel network under Kangleji is intricate and complex. It is easy to get lost if you enter an unfamiliar area for the first time.

But for Geng Xuan, there was no need to do it deliberately, he knew which direction and which tunnel to choose to approach Changpingfang.

Before I knew it, I had encountered many forks in the road and came to an unfamiliar area that I had never been to before.

At this moment, Geng Xuan caught a glimpse of red gas gathering in the distance.

Seeing this, Geng Xuan wanted to retreat.

In this dim underground tunnel, his eyesight advantage is already huge, and the red name above each person's head has the effect of a guiding lighthouse.

Geng Xuan, who saw this scene from afar, hid in a secluded place at a fork in the road at the back.

Although this group of people would most likely not pose a threat to him, Geng Xuan just wanted to avoid trouble at the moment.

Just as he was hiding in the dark, preparing to wait silently for the group of people to pass by and leave, Geng Xuan was stunned when he caught a glimpse of these people's faces from afar.

——These people did not hold torches, nor did they communicate, but in Geng Xuan's eyes, he could see them passing by dozens of steps away quite clearly.

This group of people were none other than the practitioners who had appeared in the stone chamber of the martial arts hall yesterday and had been summoned by Peng Shun and the other two masters.

Luo Qing, Liang Jun, Wang Xi and Xu Lin were all here without any one left behind.

Geng Xuan compared the number of people and faces with what he remembered at the time and was surprised to find that there was no more or less people, and there was no mistake on the faces.

Geng Xuan's first feeling when he saw such a group of familiar people in such a ghost place was very strange.

His thoughts raced in his mind, and he vaguely realized the reason.

Just as this group of people were about to pass by and disappear at the other end of the tunnel, Geng Xuan, who was hiding in another tunnel, spoke softly.

"Luo Qing."

Although the sound was light, it was like a thunderclap in the silent underground tunnel, ringing in the ears of everyone around.

The crowd, which had been barely orderly, suddenly became extremely turbulent and chaotic.

Some people were running around, apparently trying to find cover.

Some people were like being possessed by evil spirits, wandering around, looking around, and mumbling something.

"Who?"

"who is it?"

"Who's talking there?"

"..."

Seeing the messy and panic-stricken look of this group of people, Geng Xuan deliberately lowered his voice to avoid scaring them.

He shouted to the closest "old acquaintance":
"Luo Qing, it's me."

This time, Luo Qing was obviously stunned for a moment, and then he shouted: "Quiet, don't make noise!"

After everyone else shut up, he strode towards the tunnel where Geng Xuan was hiding.

Soon, he was not far in front of Geng Xuan. Looking at the vague silhouette of a person in front of him, he whispered, "Su Ruiliang?"

"It's me." Geng Xuan said.

"Why are you here?"

"Why are you here?"

The two asked almost at the same time.

(End of this chapter)