12: The Master Said: Since You've Come, Rest Here. Translation: Since You've Come Here, Be Buried Here

"I-I choose the candy."

The Barbecue Shop Owner had no idea what Xiao Qiang was planning. He did not know whether that candy was poison or something else, but he knew choosing the knife could not lead to anything good.

"Candy? You're a deeply calculating man. I can't let you live."

Xiao Qiang frowned, then swiftly picked up the knife he had thrown to the Barbecue Shop Owner. With a flash of blade light, the man's right ear was sliced off in an instant.

"Ah! No, no, no! I won't choose the candy! Not the candy! I choose the knife! I choose the knife!"

The Barbecue Shop Owner clutched the place where his ear had been cut off, but he could no longer spare any attention for the pain. Driven by his will to survive, he hastily made a new choice.

"You want to choose the knife?"

"Yes, yes, yes! I choose the knife! I won't choose the candy, not the candy! Spare me!"

The moment the Barbecue Shop Owner finished speaking, Xiao Qiang swung his blade again, severing all four fingers on his left hand except the thumb. "Choosing the knife? Looks like your killing intent runs deep. I knew I couldn't let you live."

"Ah! I won't choose! I won't choose! I won't choose either the candy or the knife!"

Xiao Qiang slashed out, ruining his right eye. "I gave you a choice, yet you chose neither. You really are rebellious to the bone. Just as I thought, I can't let you live!"

"Ah! I'll choose both! I'll choose—"

The Barbecue Shop Owner stopped halfway through his words. Seeing Xiao Qiang staring at him with a smile, looking as though he were considering where to cut next, he suddenly understood.

"Because I'm too greedy, you think I can't be allowed to live, right?!"

"You said that yourself this time. I didn't say anything. But since you put it that way, I can only do as you wish."

"You *********"

In some place far from any village or town, Xiao Qiang tossed the sack he had been carrying onto the ground.

"You helped those people from Shrek nearly get me killed, but I'm the kind of person who... is kind!"

"What I like most is convincing people with virtue. Now that you've been convinced by my virtue, we can write off our old debts."

"Look at this lovely landscape. The Master said: since you've come, rest here. It means that since you've come here, you might as well be buried here."

"Don't worry. Tang Wulin has his Thousand-Day Dragon Burial; today, I'll bury you within a thousand seconds and let you enjoy the treatment of a dragon."

As he spoke, Xiao Qiang rapidly dug a pit, tossed in the sack, and filled it with dirt. Only after firmly stomping down the earth did he leave.

Underground, the Barbecue Shop Owner, who should have breathed his last once the dirt had been packed in, had not yet died.

Because he had been stuffed into the sack, coupled with his powerful survival instinct, he had competed with Xiao Qiang in compressing the soil, barely leaving himself a little air.

But before long, as Xiao Qiang gradually packed the earth down, the air inside his sack also gradually reached its limit.

"Why?! Why did this happen?! Why did things turn out like this?!"

"I was supposed to join Shrek City, open a barbecue shop, marry a Shrek Soul Master, and reach the pinnacle of life!"

"Why?! Why did it become like this?! Why could a Soul Elder kill Shrek's Six-ring Soul Emperor?! Why was that Soul Emperor so weak?! Why?!"

As oxygen grew scarce, his powerful desire to survive and unwillingness gradually turned into strength. Strands of black aura slowly appeared around him. If an Evil Soul Master had seen him now, they would have recognized that he was awakening a Spirit with an evil attribute.

This was a Spirit mutation brought about when unwillingness and resentment reached their extremes. As the oxygen was completely exhausted, the mutation gradually finished under his powerful will to survive. His strength began to increase, and when it finally reached a certain critical point, he gained the power to break out of the ground.

As a blue hand stretched out from the soil, his mutation was complete.

"Zombie Spirit, hahahaha! Is this the power brought by Spirit Awakening?!"

"Just wait! Shrek, the one that set me up and nearly got me killed! And that bastard who tortured me! You'll all pay the price!"

"My former self suffered failure and was schemed to death by others. But from now on, I will control everything!"

"This is the true Zombie Spirit, the true Wang Xiaodong, the true... me!"

After awakening his Spirit and sensing that abundant Soul Power, Wang Xiaodong felt as though heaven was first and he was second. But...

"Wang Xiaodong, Zombie Spirit. Well, well. You accused me of being an Evil Soul Master, but you're the real Evil Soul Master."

A voice Wang Xiaodong least wanted to hear sounded behind him. When he turned around, he found that its owner was none other than Xiao Qiang, the one who had made him choose between candy and a knife, then told him that since he had come, he should rest here.

"Y-you... Why are you here? Didn't you leave?!"

His newly awakened Spirit had brought his Soul Power to level ten. Normally, this should have been the moment for him to become arrogant. Yet remembering Xiao Qiang's terrifying strength, killing a Six-ring Soul Emperor in a single blow, Wang Xiaodong could no longer summon that feeling of heaven being first and himself second.

"Oh, that. After leaving, I thought about it. Maybe I went a little too far. You only nearly got me killed, after all. How could I directly bury you here? So I came back to dig you out."

"And then grind my bones to dust?"

Xiao Qiang shook his head. "That won't be necessary."

It was just that halfway back, Xiao Qiang suddenly remembered that this was, after all, a supernatural world. While there would normally be no "just in case," the reason it was called "just in case" was because one out of ten thousand might actually have an accident.

Xiao Qiang did not want a moment of carelessness to result in someone with a mutated Spirit suddenly appearing behind him someday in the future and delivering a fatal blow.

There was no medicine for regret in this world. Once he died, he probably would not come back to life. Even if Xiao Qiang was fortunate enough to awaken memories of his previous life again next time, he would most likely no longer have the status of a Soul Master. After all, there were far more ordinary people at the bottom.

Therefore, Xiao Qiang did not want to gamble at this moment. He did not want to regret one decision someday in the future, so the moment he sensed that something might go wrong, he quickly returned.

"I'm telling you, my Spirit has already awakened! It's the Zombie Spirit, a top-tier Spirit that can't be killed! Even though I don't have a soul ring yet, you still can't kill me!" Wang Xiaodong shouted. He sounded forceful before Xiao Qiang, though his words carried more than a little timidity.

"Oh, it doesn't matter. Anyway..."

Xiao Qiang silently pulled a three-meter-long iron rod from his Storage Soul Tool. "The Master did not speak of strange phenomena, brute force, chaos, or spirits. That is to say, as long as my strength is great enough, even if you're a ghost or god, I can still beat you to death, you ghost bastard."

Wang Xiaodong: "..."