Xie Lian couldn’t help but stare in amazement. Pei Ming asked, “Is this okay?”

Hua Cheng said, "Why not?"

Several people looked at him. Hua Cheng said, "Isn't selecting generals just to select mortals to go up to the sky? He just needs to select all the people of Wuyong near the imperial city to go up to the sky temporarily, and then put them back after the volcano erupts and the dust settles. Why not?"

Pei Ming said: "Don't make it sound so easy to be the Blood Rain Scholar. You know that selecting generals also consumes mana. How many people does he have to select?"

To appoint a general is actually to use one's own magic power to "raise" the mortals appointed by oneself and use them for one's own purposes. Otherwise, if there were no restrictions, wouldn't the various priests be desperate to appoint and bring people from heaven? The emperor appointed all the civil and military officials in the three palaces and six courtyards, and the general appointed his entire army.

Hua Cheng said: "Judging from the remains left behind, the entire Wuyong Kingdom had a population of about 100,000 people. There are only a few tens of thousands of people near the imperial city."

Xie Lian whispered, “Although it’s hard, but…if we try hard, it may not be impossible.”

Pei Ming said: "Even if there are tens of thousands of people, no priest would dare to order so many. If so, it is hard to say whether he is courageous or extremely stupid. This is unprecedented and will never be repeated."

Xie Lian stared at the bridge on the mural. The faces of the white-robed prince and the four guardian gods under the bridge looked more and more strange to him. The more he looked at them, the more they looked like his own and the four imperial masters. He thought of the image of Mars guarding his heart. This story, which seemed like a reincarnation, made him eager to know what would happen next, but he also felt as if he already knew it vaguely.

He didn't dare to look at the mural anymore, turned around and asked, "Did you find water?"

Ban Yue dragged Pei Su and said, "That brother went to find him."

She was talking about Yinyu. Xie Lian looked at Pei Su who had his eyes closed, and after a moment of hesitation, he said, "I think we should go to the copper furnace next, and General Pei will stay here."

Pei Su is still a human being, so there are many inconveniences. Moreover, they don't know what is waiting for them ahead. Pei Ming squatted down and looked at Pei Su, and said, "Okay, I agree. But please don't tell him the reason in front of him, the child will understand. I will tell him about this matter."

Xie Lian said, “Don’t worry, General Pei. I won’t bother with this. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have told him before he woke up.”

After all, Pei Su was once a young martial god with a bright future in the heavens. Now, if he was to be placed here because he could not keep up with the team, it would be unavoidable that he would feel bad. However, if you do something wrong, you must accept the punishment. This is the feeling of exile, and you can only endure it.

The few of them stayed in the temple and discussed for a while. Xie Lian asked curiously, “Where’s Yinyu? Why hasn’t he come back in so long? Has he not found any water?”

Hua Cheng was staring at the several dead butterflies perched on his fingertips. Those silver butterflies had been put to great use just now, and now they had returned to him and were being stored to store energy. He raised his head slightly and said, "It won't take that long."

Xie Lian became alert, stood up, and said, "I'll go take a look. General Pei will watch here. Sanlang will come with me?"

Naturally, she would go with him. So, Xie Lian left Ruo Xie behind, letting it form a protective circle, and the two of them left the temple and headed deeper into the underground city.

There were many houses and miscellaneous things on the road. Xie Lian picked up a jar that looked pretty good. Hua Cheng seemed to find it funny and asked, "Why did you pick this up?"

Xie Lian said, “If you find some water later, you can bring some back to General Pei.” After all, he was used to collecting junk, so he couldn’t help but pat the jar in his hand and said, “Come to think of it, this is a thousand-year-old antique.”

Hua Cheng laughed and said, "If you like this kind of thing, come back to my place. I have a few too, take a look and see if you like them."

After an incense stick of time, the two of them could faintly hear the sound of flowing water. Not long after, Xie Lian said, "Here!"

There was indeed a hidden river underneath. Xie Lian put the jar he had picked up into the water and began to scrub it vigorously. The dirt from the millennia had formed a thick layer of dirt that could not be washed off, but brushing off the dust on the surface would do the trick. He filled the jar with water, lowered his head, and was about to take a sip himself, but Hua Cheng, who was observing his surroundings carefully, turned around and saw him, and said, "Don't drink it."

Xie Lian had already put his face close to the jar, and when he heard him stop him, he asked in confusion, “What?”

At this moment, a voice suddenly said: "It's so hot."

There were only two of them present, so where did this third voice come from? Xie Lian subconsciously looked towards the direction where the voice came from, and the voice actually came from the jar in his hand!

He looked down sharply and saw a pair of tiny scarlet dots in the jar, lurking in the water and staring at him.

No matter how you look at it, this is also a pair of eyes! Is there someone hiding inside? !

The moment he met those eyes, the thing suddenly rushed towards Xie Lian's face. With a splash of water, Xie Lian was quick-witted and threw the jar several feet away, hitting the wall. With a clang, the thousand-year-old antique was smashed to pieces, and the thing hidden inside fell to the ground and instantly disappeared into the darkness. In his haste, Xie Lian could not see clearly, but only thought it was a large black mass, and asked, "What is that?"

Hua Cheng stopped him, and Xie Lian said in frustration, "There wasn't this thing in the jar before, right?" And why did he say "it's so hot"? Shouldn't it be cool in that water?

Hua Cheng said, "No, it swam in from the water on purpose. There are often groups of creatures swimming in this underground river, so tell brother not to drink this water."

Xie Lian thought to himself, “Then let General Pei drink as much as he wants…” Suddenly, he felt a chill on his back and shouted, “Who is it?!”

Just at that moment, he heard someone coughing in the distance.

That was definitely not his illusion, and he immediately became alert. Soon, a wave of whispers spread like a tide. All around the two of them, pairs of red dots lit up, surrounding them in the center. Hua Cheng said, "Don't worry. It's not a human."

Xie Lian thought, “It’s not the people who need to worry, okay…”

Listening carefully to the whispers, he could discern what the voices were saying:

“Cough cough cough…”

“It’s so hot…”

"It burned me to death..."

"woo woo woo woo……"

"I'm suffocating... Is there anyone here..."

"I can't move, I can't move!"

Although these sounds were small, they were clear and painful, like little ants, drilling into people's ears. Xie Lian was about to put his hand on his heart when he heard a voice saying in a shrill voice: "Your Highness, where is Your Highness?! Save me, save me!!!"

Hearing the last sentence, Xie Lian felt a chill down his spine, and instantly thought that the voice was calling him. Hua Cheng waved his hand, and hundreds of undead butterflies suddenly scattered and flew towards those pairs of red, glowing eyes!

The silver light of the silver butterfly illuminated the countless things whispering in the darkness. They were not humans, but mice!

Hua Cheng took him and said, "I told you, there are a lot of rats here. Let's go!"

Xie Lian said in astonishment as he walked: “Is that a mouse? It looks more like a cat to me…”

Really, each of those mice was bigger than a kitten, with black fur all over their bodies like steel needles, and a pair of small red eyes flashing fiercely in the darkness. Many of them climbed on the wall, staring at them, and spoke human language, which was extremely weird. After Yindie pounced on them, she started fighting with them. The red and silver lights flashed randomly, and it was unclear what was going on, but it was clear that the battle was fierce and brutal. Xie Lian said, "Could Yinyu have been dragged to somewhere by them?"

Hua Cheng said, "He's not that useless. He must have been held back by something else."

Xie Lian was relieved after hearing the first half of the sentence, but the second half brought him back to his senses. He asked, "It's okay if the mice are this big, but why are there so many of them? What do they eat to grow so big?"

Hua Cheng said: "Simple. Of course they are dead. These are corpse-eating rats."

It turned out that when the city was covered by volcanic ash, people and large livestock such as cattle, horses, and sheep had nowhere to hide, but the rats burrowed deep underground and survived by relying on the air deep in the caves and stored food.

After the dust settled, they came out of their holes again and ran around the city, which had become hell, looking for food. However, everything was destroyed, either buried by lava or covered by volcanic ash, which had gnawed many things and they could not find food for a long time.

Until one day, they smelled something rotten.

The stench came from the petrified humanoid statues. Some of the bodies were wrapped in thin shells of volcanic ash and began to rot, emitting a foul smell and leaking corpse fluid.

So, the hungry mice circled around the fossil statue, bit a small hole in the surface of the statue, drilled in through the hole, and ate the corpse inside.

The most humble things are often the easiest to survive. The bodies of the dead were wrapped in fossils, and their fear, anger, unwillingness and other strong emotions were also wrapped in them. The mice ate their bodies and ate these emotions together, and began to speak human words, saying what they wanted to say but couldn't say at the moment of death.

Xie Lian suddenly realized, “So that’s why they said those words. I was wondering why they said that…”

Unexpectedly, Hua Cheng suddenly asked: "What did you say?"

Xie Lian was startled and asked, “What did I say?”

Hua Cheng stared at him and asked, "What did they say? What did you hear?"

Xie Lian was surprised and asked, “Sanlang, didn’t you hear it? It was something like ‘it’s so hot’, ‘it’s suffocating’, ‘I can’t move’, ‘help me’…”

However, before Hua Cheng could respond, he reacted.

wrong!

Those corpse-eating rats were repeating the mumblings of the Wuyong people before they died, which was naturally the Wuyong language.

Then why can he also understand Wuyong language? !