The Little Demonic Cultivator in the Courtyard: Borrowing 100,000 Japanese Pirates to Heal

Xu Jiande arrived in Jingzhou City at night. When he was two or three kilometers away from the city gate, the wind was blowing from the north.

A thick, pungent stench wafted over from afar, like an invisible wall, crashing directly into his face.

That's the smell of a corpse.

He'd smelled it before. The corpses left unattended after being stabbed to death in Beijing would smell like this after two days.

The smell is overwhelming, like the whole sky has been rotten by something.

He stood up and continued walking forward.

Because at this time, there were basically no other ordinary people, so they were more relaxed as they controlled the gates of Jingzhou.

Of course, they didn't expect that someone would attack at this time.

The closer you get to the gates of Jingzhou City, the stronger the smell becomes.

Moreover, the closer you get to the gates of Jingzhou, the more bomb craters you can see, and you can even find some incomplete corpses.

A few pieces of charred wood and scraps of cloth lay scattered beside the mound. Several crows perched on withered branches; seeing someone approaching, they moved aside but did not fly far.

Xu Jiande finally saw the city walls of Jingzhou. The gray walls still stood under the sky, the city gates wide open, like a gaping mouth.

He stopped and stared for a long time.

The city walls were almost entirely intact, but sandbags and abatis were piled up at the city gates. The wooden spikes on the abatis were charred black from fire. One of the two city gates was missing, and the other hung askew on its hinges, creaking and groaning in the wind like someone was crying.

Xu Jiande naturally did not go through the city gate.

He went around to the southeast corner of the city wall and climbed up through a gap blasted open by a cannonball.

The opening wasn't big; you had to turn sideways to squeeze in.

The wall bricks were covered in dried blood and bullet holes, and some bricks were loose, crumbling at the slightest step. He grabbed a clump of withered grass growing from a crack in the wall and climbed onto the city wall.

Xu Jiande froze the moment he stood on the city wall.

Inside the city.

Jingzhou City.

He had seen photos of the Jingzhou Massacre online before, but he had never imagined what it would feel like to actually stand here and look out over the city.

At first glance, it looks like a gray-white sea.

Most of the houses in the city were burned down, and the ruins were a continuous stretch of broken walls, with very few intact roofs to be seen.

The streets were completely buried in broken bricks and dust, with only occasional slabs of bluestone peeking out, which were blackened as if they had been scorched by fire. Not a single person could be seen in the entire city.

nobody.

Xu Jiande stood on the city wall and closed his eyes for a moment.

The wind blew out of the city, carrying with it the suffocating stench of corpses.

He opened his eyes and saw clearly what those grayish-white things were: piles of white ash everywhere—at the base of walls, on street corners, and in ditches.

That's not lime; it's the ashes left after cremating a corpse, hastily swept into a pile, and hasn't been removed yet.

Further afield, towards the Qinhuai River, a layer of dark substance floats on the riverbed, drifting slowly with the current.

Xu Jiande saw clearly that it was a bloated corpse.

There were not just one bodies, but many, men, women, old and young, all crowded on the water, piled on top of each other, drifting with the current towards the mouth of the Yangtze River.

In the darkness, Xu Jiande stood on the city wall for a long time.

He felt as if he were standing in the middle of a huge graveyard.

Although the city of Beijing was also ravaged by the Japanese invaders, at least there were still survivors: people queuing to buy grain, Jia Zhangshi cursing, and He Daqing chasing after his child at the alley entrance.

No, Jingzhou is not. Jingzhou has been completely wiped out.

He slowly walked down the city wall and into a street half-buried in broken bricks.

The soles of my shoes made a very fine rustling sound as they stepped on the ash heap. Occasionally, a gust of wind would blow by, stirring up the ash on the ground, making it swirl in the air, and then fall back down.

He walked two streets before he saw the first living creature.

It was a dog. A mongrel, so thin it was just a skeleton, with most of its fur gone, lying under a pile of collapsed roof beams, something dangling from its mouth.

Xu Jiande walked closer, and the dog raised its head, glaring at him fiercely, making a low growling sound in its throat.

It opened its mouth, and the object fell to the ground. Xu Jiande saw clearly that it was a severed human finger. The dog's mouth was covered in blood.

Xu Jiande stared at the dog for a while, but didn't make a move. He didn't have the energy to argue with a dog.

He walked around it and continued forward.

At this moment, Xu Jiande heard footsteps, and there were quite a few people.

He slipped behind a half-collapsed screen wall and listened intently, counting his footsteps.

There were six of them. Some were humming Japanese ditties, while others dragged shovels, the shovels scraping the ground with a harsh screeching sound. They all smelled strongly of the Japanese.

It was a chilling murderous aura, the kind that comes from killing countless people.

Xu Jiande, holding a bayonet, waited until the last person walked past the screen wall before sticking it up from behind.

With his bayonet reversed in his hand, Xu Jiande first plunged it into the lower back of the last Japanese soldier, then flicked the tip upwards. Before the man could even go limp, Xu Jiande had already drawn his sword and lunged at the one in front of him.

The second Japanese soldier turned around upon hearing the commotion. Xu Jiande pressed his left hand against the soldier's face and stabbed the tip of his knife under the soldier's chin with his right hand.

The remaining few then erupted in chaos; some drew their guns, while others ran forward.

Xu Jiande chased after him and slashed the other one on the back of the neck. The one who ran the furthest hadn't even gone ten steps before Xu Jiande caught up from behind and stabbed him through the neck.

In less than a minute and a half, all six Japanese soldiers fell to the ground in the street.

Eight portions of blood energy flowed into Xu Jiande's body through the hilt of the knife and the shaft of the gun. It was warm and thicker than that of the patrolling soldiers in the north, like pouring a ladle of water into a dried-up riverbed.

Xu Jiande crouched down and quickly rummaged through the body, unloading the bullets from several guns and putting them in his bag. He then pulled a relatively clean military jacket from the corpse and put it on.

He glanced at the corpses on the ground, then didn't bother dragging them away. He simply put away his gun and continued walking westward along the shadows of the street corner.

They hadn't gone far when they heard someone shouting in Japanese, "Who are you?"

His tone was wary, but he didn't raise his gun.

Xu Jiande turned around and saw three Japanese soldiers standing in front of a half-collapsed doorway, staring at him.

He replied in a low voice, raised his hand, and walked towards them nonchalantly without stopping.

The three Japanese soldiers clearly mistook him for one of their own, and even moved aside for him.

Xu Jiande walked up to the Japanese soldier and, before the other man could speak, grabbed him by the back of the neck with his left hand while his right hand held the knife to his side.

The Japanese soldier slid down as if his tendons had been pulled out. Xu Jiande drew his knife and slit the throat of the second Japanese soldier with a backhand.

The third Japanese soldier finally reacted, and just as he reached for his gun, Xu Jiande kicked him in the back of the knee, forcing him to his knees, and then inserted the knife tip into the back of his neck.

Within two breaths, all three people fell silent.

Three more portions of blood and qi entered his body, and the vortex of qi in his dantian throbbed slightly, as if something had plucked a string.

Xu Jiande dragged the three people into the ruins behind the doorway and hastily covered them with bricks.

He stood in the darkness and slowly exhaled.

Then continue walking forward.

Two hours later, Xu Jiande had killed a total of seventeen Japanese soldiers.

My arms felt a little swollen, and the demonic energy flowed slowly through my meridians, carrying a heavy feeling like I had just eaten.

He knew he couldn't wander around this neighborhood any longer; it was getting light, and he needed to find somewhere to hide.