But Chu Wanning did not stop, nor did he turn his head.
He could not turn his head.
He gritted his teeth and endured, but his tears still fell.
He felt so wronged.
But even if he felt wronged, what could he do?
Explain?
Rebuke?
Things had already come to this point, how could he still have the face to tell Mo Ran the truth? Could it be that he had to painstakingly explain when Mo Ran resented and mocked him? Or did he want to make a fool of himself and then say that he had "taken over the magpie's nest"?
He left.
That night by the Bridge of Helplessness, by the Yellow Spring, the conversation between the master and disciple, it was unknown whether or not it flowed along the surging river, down the mountains, into the rivers, and into the netherworld.
And that gentle youth, if he knew and heard this conversation in the netherworld, it was unknown whether or not he would feel sad and sad because of the discord between the master and disciple.
Mo Ran stood alone by the riverside for a while. He thought that perhaps this was fate.
— — Chu Wanning suspected others, but he did not suspect him.
Speaking of which, that day was a coincidence. Chu Wanning's Heaven's Inquisition had been patrolling the back of the mountain, because he had encountered a little ghost, he had summoned it and used it. After that, he did not take it back, and just like that, it hung around his waist.
The golden Heaven's Inquisition glittered and flowed on Chu Wanning's white clothes. This vine whip that could extract the truth from him and strangle the later Emperor Ta had always shone brightly.
But Chu Wanning did not take it off, did not interrogate him.
Mo Ran escaped the Heaven's Inquisition, and slowly left alone. He walked into the depths of the swaying bamboo forest, walked into the thickest part of the night, and finally was completely swallowed by the darkness.
From then on, he began to secretly refine chess pieces. Two, four, ten.
More and more.
He planted them one by one into the bodies of the disciples at the peak of life and death, and made them his eyes and ears, claws and teeth, and secret arrows.
After the initial joy, Mo Ran gradually began to become irritated and gloomy. He became more and more irritable, more and more irritable, more and more unsatisfied.
It was too slow.
He felt that it was not enough.
He was afraid that Chu Wanning would notice something, so he didn't dare to do the same thing as the first time, consuming all of his energy to make the Precious Dragon Chess. He only did one at a time, leaving half of his energy behind. He was no longer at daggers drawn. Instead, he finally retracted his claws and returned to Chu Wanning's seat to cultivate with Chu Wanning.
He calculated, thinking that Chu Wanning could help him improve his cultivation in the shortest time possible, laying down the bricks for him to take the first step to tread on the bones of the human world. What's not to like?
On this day, he cultivated too hard and was exhausted. He accidentally lost control of himself from the slender treetop and fell straight down.
In just an instant, Chu Wanning's white clothes flashed past. He hugged Mo Ran, but he couldn't free his hands to summon the enchantment. The two of them fell under the tree together. Chu Wanning was pinned down by Mo Ran, groaning in pain. Mo Ran opened his eyes and saw that Chu Wanning's hand was scratched. There was a bloody wound, and the flesh was exposed.
Mo Ran stared at the wound. His heart was actually cruel and excited. At that time, his heart was already beginning to distort. He didn't feel much gratitude or guilt. He only felt that the blood was really beautiful. Why not, bleed a little more.
But he knew that it wasn't time yet. He still couldn't reveal the sinister face under the hood. So he helped Chu Wanning wipe the wound and helped Chu Wanning bandage.
Neither of them spoke. They each had their own thoughts. The pure white gauze was wrapped a lot.
In the end, Mo Ran said meaningfully, "Shizun, thank you."
This sudden thank you made Chu Wanning feel very surprised. He raised his eyes and looked at Mo Ran's face. The sun shone down, illuminating Mo Ran's face. The brown color was faintly illuminated by the light.
At that time, Mo Ran was actually a little curious. What did Chu Wanning think of his thank you?
Was the prodigal son finally turning over a new leaf?
Was he finally starting to ease up?
But Chu Wanning didn't say anything. He only lowered his eyelashes and pulled down his sleeves.
The wind picked up, and the sun was just right.
In his previous life, he couldn't see through his Shizun. Just like how his Shizun also misunderstood him.
After that, Mo Ran's Fa Li became stronger and stronger. He had a shocking talent. After using half of his Ling Qi, the chess pieces he could make changed from one to two, and then to four.
But it wasn't enough.
What he wanted was a million soldiers, a powerful force that could take down the peak of life and death in one fell swoop, and trample Chu Wanning under his feet.
Mo Ran wasn't good at math. This person who was about to become the Emperor Ta was holding an abacus. He was currently in front of the table calculating beads.
When Xue Meng came to see him, he just happened to see this scene. He curiously went over and asked, "Hey, what are you doing?"
"Calculating."
"What kind of calculation?"
Mo Ran paused for a moment. His eyes were dark, and then he laughed, "Guess."
"I can't guess." Xue Meng walked over, picked up the book in front of him and looked at it carefully. He muttered, "One … three hundred and sixty-five days … three hundred and sixty-five days … four … three hundred and sixty-five days … what kind of nonsense is this?"
Mo Ran calmly said, "I want to buy candy."
"Candy?"
"One piece of the best candy from the Rising Moon Temple costs one copper coin. If you save one copper coin every day, you can buy three hundred and sixty-five pieces of candy in three hundred and sixty-five days. If you can save four copper coins every day, then … "He lowered his head and counted with his fingers. He couldn't figure it out, so he shook his head and calculated," Then it's one thousand … "
Xue Meng calculated faster than him. He neatly said, "One thousand four hundred and sixty pieces of candy."
Mo Ran raised his head. After a moment of silence, he said, "You calculated really fast."
Xue Meng was rarely praised. He was stunned for a moment, and then he laughed, "That's not true. After all, I helped my mother weigh medicine when I was young."
Mo Ran pondered for a moment, and then said with a smile, "I can't calculate clearly. Why don't you do me a favor and help me calculate?"
After Shi Mei passed away, Mo Ran hadn't been so calm for a long time. Xue Meng looked at him against the sun, and his heart felt a little bit of pity.
So he nodded, pulled out a chair, and sat down next to Mo Ran.
"Come, tell me."
Mo Ran warmly said, "Ten pieces of candy a day, how much can you save in a year?"
"Three thousand six hundred and fifty. You don't need to calculate that. It's too simple."
Mo Ran sighed, and said, "Add a little more. Fifteen pieces a day …" After thinking about it, he felt that it was too much to make so many pieces, so he asked, "Twelve pieces a day. How much? "
"Four thousand … four thousand three hundred and eighty."
"I want five thousand pieces. How many more days do I have to wait?"
"You still have to …" Xue Meng scratched his head. He was having a hard time thinking, so he asked, "Why do you need so much candy? It's not like you can eat it all. "
Mo Ran lowered his eyes, hiding the sinister look in his eyes, and said, "Next year, the Peak of Life and Death will be thirty years old. I want to give everyone a piece of candy to eat, so I have to save from today onwards."
Xue Meng was stunned, "You actually have such thoughts …"
"Yes." Mo Ran smiled, "Are you surprised? You have a share too. "
"I don't need it." Xue Meng waved his hand, "I don't need candy like you. Come, I'll help you calculate. Let's see how long you'll need to save before you can buy five thousand pieces of candy."
As he spoke, he took an abacus, and under the shadow of the flowers and trees by the window, he earnestly helped Mo Ran calculate. Mo Ran rested his chin on his hand, his eyes shining. After a while, he chuckled and said, "Thank you."
Xue Meng humphed. He was very focused on calculating, and didn't pay much attention to him.
In his eyes, there were only those crackling black beads. One by one, they were like black chess pieces, stacked up one by one, increasing little by little.
At that time, Xue Meng probably would never have thought that what he was calculating wasn't candy at all, but human lives, human lives that overturned the Peak of Life and Death.
He also wouldn't have known that it was probably because of the way he helped by the window that faintly stirred the last bit of kindness in Mo Ran's heart.
That was why Mo Ran didn't give him a share of those five thousand black chess pieces in consideration of their old friendship.
"You need this long?" In the end, looking at the number Xue Meng wrote down, Mo Ran shook his head, "Too long."
Xue Meng said, "Do you want me to lend you some money?"
Mo Ran smiled. "There's no need."
After Xue Meng left, he thought over and over again, and flipped through some scrolls. Gradually, he had a plan in his heart — and this plan became the prototype of the "Formation of Unity" that the Emperor Ta later created.
That night, Mo Ran refined ten chess pieces. Those chess pieces were all incomplete. Without using all of their strength, they couldn't control living people, and they couldn't even control relatively strong corpses.
He took these ten chess pieces and went down the mountain to Wuchang Town. Humming a little song, he came to a place on the outskirts of the town.
The crane returns to the slope.
When people die, they ride the crane to return to the Nine Heavens. This was a beautiful and simple illusion of mortals. To put it bluntly, this hillside was a cemetery. Whoever died in Wuchang Town would be dragged to this hill to be buried. This was the burial place of the town's people.
Mo Ran didn't delay much. He walked through the rows of tombs, glancing at the words on the tombstones. Soon, he stopped in front of a new grave with bright handwriting and fresh fruits and steamed buns in front of the tombstone. He raised his hand and clenched his five fingers in the air. The seal cracked open, revealing a simple coffin in the gravel.
Because of a certain experience when he was a child, Mo Ran was not afraid of corpses at all, and he had no reverence for corpses. He jumped down from the raised mound, summoned the Mo Sword, and used his strength to pry open the coffin nails. Then, he kicked the thin lid open.
The moonlight shone on the corpse's face. Mo Ran leaned over and looked at the body lying inside as if he was measuring the quality of pork.
It was an old thing, newly buried, wrapped in shrouds. His face was shriveled and his cheeks were sunken. Because the burial environment was not good and there was no money to preserve it, the coffin was filled with a strong stench. Some of the skin and flesh had begun to rot and maggots had grown.
Mo Ran frowned and endured the stench. He neatly put on metal gloves, grabbed the old man's neck, and lifted him out of the coffin. The old man's head hung down stiffly. Mo Ran's eyes were cold. With a flash of light in his hand, he had already inserted the black jewel into the old man's chest.
"Good boy." Mo Ran seemed to intimately touch the dead man's face. Suddenly, he slapped the corpse and said with a smile, "Why are you so listless? Stand up straight, my precious little grandson. "
Although the incomplete black jewel couldn't control the strong corpse, it was more than enough to control an old man whose legs were as thin as sticks.
The corpse began to move, and a pair of tightly closed eyes suddenly opened, revealing a pair of eyes that were covered in a layer of gray.
Mo Ran said, "Tell me your name."
"My name is not up to me."
"Where are you?"
"My name is not up to me."
"What time is it?"
"My name is not up to me."
Mo Ran narrowed his eyes and weighed the remaining nine pieces in his hand. Sure enough … if it was only to control a corpse of this level, he wouldn't need to spend so much spiritual energy to make such pure black pieces.
He grinned, revealing his deep dimples, and an extremely handsome smile. Slowly, he asked his last question.
"What do you want?"
The old man said with a hoarse voice, "What I want is to be the king's chess piece. I will not hesitate to sacrifice my life."
Mo Ran laughed. He was very satisfied with this result. He used the remaining pieces to make another nine corpses. He picked out fresh corpses that had just been buried. At least there was still intact skin and flesh that hadn't been eaten away.
These corpses were old, weak, sick, and disabled. They fell when the wind blew. They didn't have any strength at all. But when Mo Ran looked at them, his eyes flashed with a crazy and excited light.
He took out ten small boxes from his Qiankun Bag and opened one of them. He saw two small blood-red insects curled up inside. The male and female were biting each other's tails, unwilling to part.
"Okay, I've had enough fun. I'll have to trouble the two of you to stop now. It's time to put them to use." Mo Ran said lazily. He fiddled with his fingers and pushed the two insects apart. He took out the male insect and said to the first old man who was made into a chess piece, "Brother, please open your stinky mouth."
The old man obediently opened his mouth, revealing the rotten tongue inside. Mo Ran threw the male insect into his mouth and said, "Eat it."
There was no resistance, no hesitation.
The corpse obediently ate the Soul Devouring Insect into his stomach.
Mo Ran did the same. He fed all the male insects in the boxes to the corpses. Then he said, "Okay, lie back down and rest."
The next day, Mo Ran made another ten black chess pieces. They were also damaged and didn't consume too much spiritual power. After he finished, he cast a spell on the remaining female Soul Devouring Insects and attached them to the chess pieces. Then he quietly inserted them into the bodies of some low level disciples.
At first, those disciples only felt a slight itch on their backs, but they didn't feel anything special. Mo Ran wasn't anxious. He was waiting — —
Waiting for the female Soul Devouring Insects to lay eggs. In the hearts of these disciples, they left behind larvae that corresponded with the male insects.
In this way, the two unrelated chess pieces, through the adult and larvae, became the corresponding mother-child puppet.
This was like flying a kite. Those weak corpses became the string of the kite. One end of the string held Mo Ran, and the other end held the more valiant Exquisite Black Chess. Mo Ran only needed to give the order to the corpse that hid the adult insect and the other corpse that wrapped the corresponding larvae. Then they would do the exact same thing.
This was called unity.
This trick was figured out by Mo Ran himself. Before him, those who could come into contact with the Exquisite Chess Game were all Great Grandmasters. Those people didn't lack spiritual power, and they weren't crazy enough to want to make thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of Exquisite Chess Pieces. So they didn't need to think of this kind of opportunistic method.
At that time, Mo Ran, who was obsessed with the Evil Arts, didn't realize that he had already done a terrible thing that no one in the Cultivation World had done for tens of thousands of years — —
He turned an Evil Art that could destroy the heavens and earth into something that anyone could use.
Everyone could do it.
"Brother!"
Suddenly, he heard a shout by his ear.
Mo Ran suddenly woke up. A bloody light flashed in front of his eyes.
The Evil Phoenix Spirit that was buried in the core of Phoenix Mountain had turned into more vines than before. They quickly attacked. The Phoenix was a beast that was good at flying. Its speed was extremely fast. Mo Ran couldn't dodge in time. His shoulder was suddenly cut open, and blood spurted out in an instant.
Xue Meng was shocked. "Are you okay?!"
"Don't come over!" Mo Ran gasped for breath. His eyes were cold. He stared at the tentacle-like blood vines on the ground, ready to pounce at any time to launch a second wave of surprise attacks. He sternly stopped Xue Meng. "Quick, go to Shizun! Tell him to stop! Tell everyone to stop! "
Blood dripped down. He tightly grasped the heart in his hand, and the chess piece.
His mind was spinning rapidly. Thousands of thoughts surged into his mind.
This was the Unity Array. It was even better than what he used in his previous life. But no matter how much he improved it, the principle was still the same. Only by maintaining the main body on one side could the subsidiary body on the other side unleash its power.
Mo Ran held the precious chess piece in his hand. His entire body was still trembling. It wasn't because of the pain in his shoulder, but because of the coldness and fear that spread up from the soles of his feet.
There was no doubt that someone was reborn.
Then, did that reborn person know that he was also a ghost that was reborn? If he knew, then …
Suddenly, a chill ran down his back. Mo Ran suddenly felt despair.
The Emperor Ta's pale face seemed to appear in front of him. His crown rustled. His face was sinister, and he grinned coldly.
He was high and mighty, sitting on the dragon throne. He was cold and mocking.
"Grandmaster Mo, run. Where can you run to?"
Phantom images spread like a tide. They were all the people he killed in his previous life. They were the debts he owed in his previous life.
He saw the bloody Shi Mei. He saw the pale Chu Wanning. He saw the hanged woman dragging three feet of white silk. He saw the man with his intestines all over the floor.
They were all coming to claim his life.
"You won't be able to escape sooner or later."
"Someone already knows what kind of filthy spirit is in your body. You will never be reborn."
Mo Ran closed his eyes.
If the person behind the scenes really knew that he was reborn, if that person revealed his past, then … what should he do?
He didn't dare to think about it anymore.