Flames roiled.
Shen Le felt that he had never seen such ferocious flames before.
Not even in the Secret Realm of the Vortex, when he watched the firebird spread its wings and swoop straight at him; not even when he was Mending Heaven beneath the sea, watching a volcano erupt and drag those foreigners' great black fish down to fill the hole.
In an instant, the house before him began to melt. First came the beam—the beam from which countless women had hanged themselves. It twisted and warped, collapsing limply like a rain-soaked mud brick.
Then came the illusory white silk hangings, cloth strips, and ropes dangling from the beam. Some were white, some red; some were brand-new, some tattered; some seemed to bear bloodstains along their edges.
They burned without cease. One rope burned away, and another grew out; then that one burned away, and still more strips of cloth dropped from the beam.
That beam seemed to have become some kind of centipede-like monster, the cloth strips growing from it endless and inexhaustible.
Each time one burned away, thick black vapor rose into the air and swiftly fed into the flames, becoming fresh fuel.
What gave Shen Le a little comfort was that amid the black vapor, specks of white spiritual light kept drifting upward.
Within those white motes, he could vaguely make out smiling faces—faces relaxed and relieved, finally freed from sorrow and resentment. They nodded and smiled softly as they rose away.
Once every strip of cloth had burned away, the flames finally licked at the roof tiles.
The tiles curled and burst apart, raining down. The patch of sky hemmed in by the four corners of the roof gradually receded outward at its edges, bit by bit revealing brilliant daylight.
Then the elaborate carvings, the