novelraw Chapter 156: Telling They Weren't Human at a Single Glance
Chapter 156: Telling They Weren't Human at a Single Glance
That evil spirit was at a loss for what to do.
It didn't understand, nor could it comprehend, why Chen Huangpi wouldn't let it eat humans.
If evil spirits didn't eat humans anymore, could they still be called evil spirits?
Wouldn't that mean there was no difference between them and humans?
"If His Majesty doesn't let you eat, then you cannot eat!"
An evil spirit shouted loudly, "Your Majesty, let me eat them. I like eating humans the most. Human meat is fragrant and smells so good, and they scream tragically when being eaten. It sounds so lovely to listen to."
With a boom.
Chen Huangpi delivered another fist to this evil spirit too.
The latter's look in its eyes also immediately cleared up.
"You are not allowed to eat either."Chen Huangpi said earnestly, "Not just you guys, but the other evil spirits as well, none of you are allowed to eat humans."
Saying so, he looked at the shopkeeper who was shivering from fright, as well as the rest of the crowd.
The complexions of all these people were deathly pale, and some had even fainted on the spot from terror.
Not all mortals could become cultivators.
Nor had all mortals seen evil spirits before.
However, they still knew that evil spirits ate humans; they had grown up hearing such phrases from childhood to adulthood.
Naturally, they were extremely terrified.
At this time, the brass oil lamp spoke up, "Chen Huangpi, an evil spirit is an evil spirit. An evil spirit for a day, an evil spirit for a lifetime. Evil spirits are inherently born to eat humans. By doing this, you are suppressing their innate natures."
An evil spirit said, "Your Majesty, evil spirits eating humans is justified by heaven and earth!"
"I just like eating humans."
"Your Majesty, do you eat them or not?"
"I don't eat them."
Chen Huangpi shook his head and said, "The medical books say human meat is sour. Eating it replenishes qi and can be used as medicine. I never fall sick, so I have no need to take medicine."
"Are you guys sick?"
The evil spirits were blankly at a loss.
They didn't know whether to nod or shake their heads.
Because the concept of getting sick fundamentally didn't exist for evil spirits.
Furthermore, they couldn't even understand what taking medicine meant.
However, they stubbornly clung to their single rigid principle.
"Evil spirits should eat humans!"
"Why should they eat humans?"
Chen Huangpi pointed at an evil spirit and said, "Will eating humans make you stronger?"
That evil spirit said, "Your Majesty, since the moment of my birth, the concept of a human has existed in my mind. I want to eat humans; I want to eat them every day. Eating humans won't make me stronger, but I just want to eat them."
"What about you then?"
Chen Huangpi pointed at another evil spirit and asked, "Do you also feel that evil spirits should eat humans?"
That evil spirit didn't have a mouth and couldn't speak, so it could only nod its head.
"Your Majesty."
The shadow evil spirit said with a complex tone, "Evil spirits are supposed to eat humans. Since the moment I became an evil spirit, there has been an instinct urging me to eat humans, as if by eating all the humans clean, I would obtain monumental good fortune."
The fact that it could maintain its sanity now was purely because of that Seven-Orifice Soul-Suppressing Nail inside its head.
If it didn't have it, then if it saw humans right now, it would also want to eat them.
"So that's how it is."
Chen Huangpi said thoughtfully, "The reason you guys eat humans isn't because you yourselves want to eat humans, but rather it's the Heavenly Principles that demand it; the Heavenly Principles make you eat humans."
A very long time ago, Chen Huangpi once had a sudden whimsical thought.
Evil spirits dormant during the day and came out at night, acting entirely opposite to humans nowadays.
Yet in reality, the heavens and earth had mutated, completely inverting day and night.
The daytime nowadays was the night of the past.
The evil spirits were actually the ones working at sunrise and resting at sunset.
Humans, on the contrary, were the ones who became the anomalies.
Now, listening to the evil spirits put it this way, a bold thought couldn't help but pop up in Chen Huangpi's mind.
"Perhaps, the evil spirits are the humans."
The moment these words came out, the evil spirits looked at each other in dismay one after another, throwing scrutinizing and vigilant gazes at each other.
What His Majesty said was definitely correct.
There was actually a human among the evil spirits!
A despicable human actually put on the skin of an evil spirit.
But looking left and right, the evil spirits couldn't figure out exactly which one that mingled into the evil spirit group was the human.
Consequently, all the evil spirits cast their gazes onto Chen Huangpi.
Chen Huangpi ignored these evil spirits.
He just minded his own business and said, "If evil spirits are humans, then what are humans? If evil spirits eating humans is the Heavenly Principle, then do humans deserve to be eaten?"
The brass oil lamp said, "Naturally, humans shouldn't be eaten. Therefore, there are deities and cultivators protecting mortals."
Chen Huangpi said, "But ever since I came to Xuzhou City, I have only seen deities eating humans and cultivators eating humans. Moreover, they didn't treat humans as humans, not allowing them to walk the human path, but instead making them take the ox path and the horse path."
"They said, humans are oxen and horses."
The paths walked by those cultivators were both wide and large. Even if a dozen horse carriages advanced side by side, it would still appear extremely spacious.
The human path was meant for humans to walk.
But the moment the cultivators appeared, those humans automatically became oxen and horses, and couldn't walk the human path anymore.
Because the human path was meant for humans to walk.
The shadow evil spirit looked at Chen Huangpi somewhat uncomprehendingly and asked, "Your Majesty, are you dissatisfied with the ways of this world?"
"What does this have to do with the ways of the world?"
Chen Huangpi said strangely, "What I mean is, evil spirits eating humans is the Heavenly Principle. However, these people aren't humans, they are oxen and horses. Why should evil spirits eat oxen and horses? Just eating more cultivators and deities will do."
The evil spirits were stunned.
The people in this restaurant weren't humans?
They were oxen and horses?
How come these oxen and horses look exactly like humans?
At this very moment.
The mortals inside the restaurant had already been thoroughly dizzied by everything happening before their eyes.
First, the Fox Mountain God opened the doors.
Then, a pile of evil spirits drilled in.
The leading evil spirit even spoke human language—what Heavenly Principles, what oxen and horses—these words were bizarre and weird.
Listening to it gave people a massive headache.
"Are you a human?" An evil spirit abruptly asked the shopkeeper out of the blue.
The latter frantically shook his head: "Lord Evil Spirit, what are you saying? How could I possibly be a human? I was born to be an ox and a horse. Only the lord cultivators are humans."
"Then why do you look exactly like a human?"
The evil spirit said strangely, "The human scent on your body is so heavy. You are definitely a human, not an ox or horse."
"Oxen and horses are ordered around by humans every day, so of course the human scent is heavy."
The shopkeeper was so terrified he was about to piss himself. Wiping his sweat, he said, "Lord Evil Spirit, there truly are no humans here; there are only oxen and horses here. Did you see the roads outside? The road on the left is called the ox path, the road on the right is called the horse path."
"The ox and horse paths are full of mud."
"With so much mud on my shoes, I am definitely a genuine, authentic ox and horse."
Saying so, he took off his shoe and handed it over to the evil spirit to look.
The evil spirits only took one glance before breaking into sudden enlightenment one after another.
Subsequently, they said angrily, "Although we evil spirits eat humans, we never eat oxen and horses. You oxen and horses are too bad; you almost tricked us into eating humans."
If it were other evil spirits.
They would definitely have been fooled by now.
Good thing His Majesty saw through at a single glance that they weren't humans.
At this time, Chen Huangpi spoke again, "Got it memorized? Those who look just like humans and smell just like humans, but have no cultivation base, are all oxen and horses. Only the cultivators who cultivate using human qi are humans."
"Those humans, as well as the deities, are the ones you can eat."
"As for these oxen and horses, they cannot be eaten."
The evil spirits successively nodded their heads.
They had thoroughly memorized it.
Only the shadow evil spirit remained silent without uttering a word.
It had seen many people in its lifetime, of all sorts and varieties, shaped in every kind of way.
As the saying goes, there are thousands of types of people, and every type is different.
But this kind of person like Chen Huangpi, it was seeing for the very first time.
It couldn't understand what exactly was going on inside Chen Huangpi's mind. Was he worried about the evil spirits eating humans, so he spouted this nonsense to bewilder the evil spirits, or was this truly what he thought inherently?
If this was truly what he thought, then wouldn't it mean he didn't treat humans as humans either.
But treated them as oxen and horses instead.
If so, then what was the difference between this Chen Huangpi and those cultivators and deities?
...
After a short moment's time.
Within Xuzhou City, the shadow evil spirit hoisting the 'Huang' character banner was leading the numerous evil spirits, fighting their way towards the outside of the city gates.
Along the way, whenever any evil god appeared.
They would be slain by these evil spirits.
It was just that their marching speed wasn't considered fast.
Because gray fog was everywhere, and the earth had split open who knows how many gashes, unceasingly geysering out fog.
Xuzhou City had become a city of fog.
That gray fog could not be touched.
The brass oil lamp said, "Chen Huangpi, why are you bringing these people out of the city?"
Chen Huangpi corrected, "They are not humans."
"Between you and me, let's skip saying such words."
"I am not a human, and they aren't humans either."
"Can they compare with you?"
"Why can't they?"
Chen Huangpi said earnestly, "My head is worth one string of coins, but I owe that shopkeeper three taels of silver. If we really compare, my head isn't even worth as much as his."
"You rescued them because of this small matter?"
"That's not it."
Chen Huangpi said in a low voice, "I don't know why, but ever since coming to the outside world, to this Xuzhou City, I've always felt very uncomfortable. These people are clearly humans, yet they are called oxen and horses. It never used to be like this in the mountains."
"So what?"
"So I am going to ruthlessly exploit them."
Chen Huangpi snickered and said, "I am too familiar with Granny Tang and those remnant people. Although I am the Emperor, I can't bring myself to exploit them. But these people are different; I don't know them well."
"Now that I've saved them, they don't have the ability to repay me."
"But they have their lives."
"I only need to provide them with three meals a day, and I can make them work for me, building me a house bigger than the Song family's."
"Furthermore, they will have children, and their children will have grandchildren, going on infinitely."
Chen Huangpi pinched his fingers to calculate, "In a few hundred or a few thousand years, my house will be built. If Master finds out, he will definitely praise me for being smart."
He said it like this because this was what he thought.
But aside from this, there was another reason.
It was just that Chen Huangpi couldn't quite put it into clear words, nor could he articulate it properly.
Because he genuinely felt that ever since taking his first step upon the outside world.
He always felt he could hear some faint, indistinct voices.
Those voices were very weak, so weak that they couldn't be heard if one wasn't paying attention.
At his age, his personality was inherently a bit impetuous.
Previously, he didn't take it seriously.
But when that shopkeeper was almost eaten by the evil spirit, those faint, indistinct voices Chen Huangpi heard suddenly grew somewhat louder.
Therefore, Chen Huangpi stopped the evil spirit.
He wanted to know what exactly those voices were.
And right at this moment.
Chen Huangpi and the rest of the evil spirits had already arrived at the city gates of Xuzhou City.
At this city gate, there were no numerous evil gods.
But there was a City God—a County City God with a green face and prominent fangs, boasting a massive physique taller than the city gate itself.
A huge mouth split open at the neck of that County City God, and a head peeked out from inside. On top of that head, there were blood vessels and meridian networks closely resembling tree roots connecting to that painting scroll with a black background and gray face in the sky.
"Halt your steps, comers."
Listening to that evil god's words, Chen Huangpi slightly shook his head and directly gripped the Void-Piercing Sword.
Following closely, an extremely resplendent sword light cleaved outwards.