Chapter 92 Xiao Yifei
Xiao Yifei was born into a wealthy family of officials. He learned literature and martial arts since he was a child. He was chivalrous and righteous, and valued his promises over life and death. He longed for the pleasure of revenge in the martial arts world. In addition, he had an elder brother who could inherit the family business and younger siblings who could take care of their parents. Xiao Yifei gathered a group of like-minded friends without any worries and went out to travel the martial arts world.
For most people, the word "jianghu" is full of sadness, bitterness, and is far from being as cool and interesting as it seems on the surface. But for a wealthy idler like Xiao Yifei who has money, leisure, good looks, and talent, he was born to choose a simple and difficult life, whether in the court or in the rivers and lakes.
After a few years, Xiao Yifei grew from a teenager to a young man, and also gained a lot of fame in the martial arts world, and had many friends around him. Then at a banquet to celebrate the birthday of an elder in the martial arts world, they heard about the book.
At this time, in the legends of the people, the "divine book" has become the "devil book", and all those who have anything to do with it will die a miserable death. However, there is also a lot of evidence that some people who got the "devil book" went from being penniless to having countless gold and silver, some originally had terminal illnesses but recovered immediately, some went from being mentally retarded to being extremely smart, some went from being ordinary people to masters who could defeat hundreds of people, and some were already old but returned to youth in the blink of an eye... Countless temptations are in front of you, no matter what you want, it can provide you with it.
Wealth and power are already something that many people are born with, and it is not enough to tempt them. But what if you add immortality? What if you add the power to move mountains and seas? What if you add the prospect of breaking through the void and becoming an immortal?
So some people are hoping for luck, while others think it is worth it even if they die. The more owners of the "magic book" die tragically, the more people are tempted.
Xiao Yifei was originally skeptical about the legend of the magic book and was very curious. After being encouraged by several friends around him, he formed a small team and joined the ranks of fighting for the "magic book".
At that time, it was said that the owner of this "magic book" was the emperor's favorite brother, Prince Kang. Prince Kang originally kept the book very well, but one of his personal guards was resentful because his love was taken away by the prince, so he deliberately spread the news, which attracted countless jackals and tigers. The prince's palace was attacked every night and could not sleep. At the same time, the palace was heavily guarded and the attackers also suffered heavy casualties.
Then, at the elder's birthday banquet , hundreds of people from the Jianghu who were summoned reached an agreement on an offensive and defensive alliance. Xiao Yifei didn't know that they were going to attack the current prince. When he found out the truth, he couldn't get away. At the agreed time, everyone attacked the palace at night with black cloth on their faces. In the chaos and screams of the night, King Kang died. Most of the attackers were killed by the officers and soldiers who came after hearing the news. Only a few managed to escape. Xiao Yifei was one of the escapees, and he also had a book in his arms.
It was impossible to expect that all the people in the martial arts world who had temporarily formed an alliance would be hard-core and keep their mouths shut. Not long after, arrest warrants for Xiao Yifei and the people who had escaped were issued all over the country. He had no way to return home, so he could only hide from place to place with a few friends in disguise.
Then the friends were surprised to find that Xiao Yifei seemed to have a brain burnt out, and he was full of kindness along the way. Whenever he saw someone in trouble, he would lend a hand even if his identity was exposed. When they couldn't find food for days and nights and were starving, Xiao Yifei could always get food by going out alone, sometimes it was hot steamed buns, sometimes it was fat rabbits and pheasants that had just been slaughtered, and sometimes he could even get a few bottles of wine, which tasted no worse than the most famous Xianghe Hotel in Beijing.
Gradually, although no one said it explicitly, everyone knew it - Xiao Yifei had obtained the magic book.
Everything changed at that time.
The group traveled westwards, crossing the border of the Sugar Country and entering the Western Regions. A few years later, Xiao Yifei walked out of the desert alone, without a single friend by his side, with pain in his eyes and his back no longer able to stand straight as before.
Xiao Yifei began to trace the experiences of the past "Merit Book" contractors, and the first "Merit Record Notes" was written by him. Because it was basically hearsay, many things were not entirely true, but after tracing the source for a long time, Xiao Yifei still found out a lot of things.
At the beginning, the Merit Book had only two rules:
First: If the contractor's merit value is negative, he will die;
Second: Doing good and punishing evil will gain merit, while bullying the good and tolerating evil will lose merit.
When Xiao Yifei got it, he saw more than a dozen rules, all of which were gradually evolved from the Merit Book in the later period. Behind each newly evolved rule, there was the death of at least one contractor.
Because too many contractors died due to leaking secrets, the Merit Book began to strictly prohibit contractors from revealing their existence in all aspects; because too many people were directly wiped out when signing a contract because they scrambled for the Merit Book but had negative merits, the Merit Book evolved the difference between initial merits and exchange merits, giving contractors a second chance; because contractors' self-confidence swelled after owning the Merit Book, and when they had enough merits, they killed ordinary people at will based on their likes and dislikes, the Merit Book evolved the function of heavenly punishment against contractors; ...
The rules of the "Book of Merits" are becoming more and more numerous and detailed. Because of the restrictions of these rules, Xiao Yifei was able to stop in time several times when he almost went astray, and did not fall into the abyss of desire like many contractors in the past.
At that time, he was very dependent on the "Book of Merits" and also trusted the spirit of the weapon - the latter was guessed by Rong Yuan, because when Xiao Yifei recorded it, there was already a rule of "forbidden to tell others", so he wrote very obscurely in many aspects. The text repeatedly mentioned a "little friend" who was always by his side and never left him in a trusting and intimate tone. Rong Yuan guessed that it was referring to the spirit of the weapon.
In that era, there was no Internet, and accumulating merits was not as convenient as Rong Yuan. Xiao Yifei had to do almost every merit he earned, which led to very low efficiency. It was not until he was Xiao Yifei accumulated enough merits to exchange for a copy of the "Xuan Tian Jue" technique. He practiced hard in seclusion for many years, and once he broke through the seclusion, he felt that he was invincible in the world. He was not afraid even if the emperor sent 100,000 troops to capture him. He laughed and returned home in glory.
However, Xiao is dead.
His affair implicated his father and brothers, making it difficult for them to move forward in the court, and everyone added insult to injury. Within half a year, Xiao's father and his eldest brother were caught, thrown into prison, and beheaded in the market; the women were deprived of their official positions and became slaves, and all the men over the age of fourteen died during exile.
With the help of the "Book of Merits", Xiao Yifei traveled far and wide to find the few remaining relatives. However, his mother had passed away long ago, and several distant relatives were afraid and hated him. His son, who was born after he left home, had no impression of him at all, because he had watched his mother cry day and night, and watched all the relatives die because of this father. He had only hatred for Xiao Yifei, and claimed that he wanted to eat his flesh and sleep on his skin when they met. Xiao Yifei covered his face and fled, and he had no face to see his son again. Only the youngest sister still had some attachment and dependence on him.
Xiao Yifei looked at the young girl who was as delicate as a flower when he left home. Now she was old and haggard, with wrinkles all over her face and most of her hair turned white. He regretted it so much that he held her hand and cried bitterly. When he found her, Xiao's little sister had already run out of energy due to years of torture and suffering. She was also seriously ill and was lying in a corner of the cold woodshed, waiting to take her last breath. After saying a few words, Xiao Yifei looked at his sister's increasingly difficult breathing and hurriedly exchanged a marrow cleansing pill for her to take.
He thought his sister would be like him, although the pill made her feel so painful, the impurities in her body were completely removed, her bones were greatly changed, and she was reborn. She looked several years younger. But he didn't know that the little sister of the Xiao family couldn't bear the power of the pill, and she died after a painful scream with blood coming out of her seven orifices.
Xiao Yifei was shocked and angry, with a lot of resentment but nowhere to vent, and his anger leaked out and collapsed the entire woodshed. The owner of Xiao Xiaomei heard the noise and came to check, but he beat them to death with one palm. "Xiaoyou" appeared to persuade him, and Xiao Yifei remembered that all this was because of the "Book of Merits". It was this magic book that made him lose his parents, clansmen, friends, and killed his sister. The more he thought about it, the more hateful he became, and he cut "Xiaoyou" in half with a knife.
Later, for several years, he was chasing "enemies" all over the world. In order to avoid his merits becoming negative and being wiped out, he practiced hard and saved some people. But many of the people he saved found out that he was a contractor of the "Book of Merits", and they either tried to harm him or tipped off other forces in exchange for some money. For a long time, Xiao Yifei was killing people whenever he was awake.
After the emperor was assassinated by him, Xiao Yifei looked around and found that no one who had opposed him was still alive. He became a world-famous villain. Everyone was afraid of him and hated him. Even if they didn't dare to confront him in person, their eyes were full of resistance.
Also, he lost his Book of Merits.
——Maybe he used it as a pillow when sleeping in the wild and forgot to bring it with him, maybe he left it on the counter when he was shopping and forgot to take it, maybe it fell out of his backpack due to a hole... Ever since his sister died, he hated the Merit Book from the bottom of his heart and rarely looked at it. He didn't even know when it was lost. But even if the Merit Book was lost, he was still its contractor, and others couldn't use it.
So it was lost, and Xiao Yifei was too lazy to look for it. He wandered around barefoot and with no interest for several years, and once he came across a family holding a funeral on the road. He mixed in with a group of beggars to ask for a bowl of rice, and suddenly found that the person being buried was his son.
Xiao Yifei was deeply saddened.
The next day, Xiao Yifei's grandson, a simple and heroic young man, picked up a book in front of his house. The title of the book was "Merit Record Notes". After that, Xiao Yifei disappeared without a trace, and no one heard about him again. Soon after, a new contractor was born.
Fifty or sixty years later, Xiao's descendants found the "Book of Merits" again based on the "Book of Merits" and the characteristics of the contractors recorded in the notes, and then soared to the sky and became a high-ranking official. He died while hunting with the emperor; his son signed a contract again, not only revitalizing the family's style in just a few years, but also being more versatile and skilled than his father, and everyone disliked him. As a result, he died in a dark room at home at a young age; after that, several generations of contractors died in accidents, and the contractors' relatives often died suddenly. Xiao was very frightened by this, and at this time the family was prosperous, and there was no need for a magic book to add bricks and tiles, so he sealed up the "Book of Merits". But whenever the Xiao family encountered a crisis, they would select a family member to sign a contract with the "Book of Merits". Even though many family members would die suddenly in various accidents during this period, as long as they could lead the family to glory again, it would be worth it.
For hundreds of years, the Xiao family has been collecting all kinds of rare books. As long as they find any hint of the existence of the "Book of Merit", they will find ways to list the book as a banned book. Not only will they prohibit the printing and circulation, but they will also search the country and burn all the books they find. Gradually, the "Book of Merit" that once set off countless bloody storms is no longer even a legend - no one has ever heard of it. Only in the Xiao family's library, the "Book of Merit Records" that records the stories of generations of contractors can prove that it really exists.
To an uninformed bystander, these notes looked like mood diaries written by ancient people, boring and brief, with often confusing words. But as a contractor, every word here was meaningful to Rong Yuan. He read it for a whole night, imprinted all the words in his mind, and then deleted all the files.
He has found the answers to all his questions.
