He didn’t have any particular respect for the dead. Although this red-robed general had been awe-inspiring in life, now that he was dead, Grace Walker naturally began to wonder if there might be any valuables left behind.

He first reached out and picked up the long spear. The blazing tassel on the spear let out a mournful, piercing wail, almost as if it were alive, which startled Grace Walker so much that his heart pounded wildly for dozens of beats.

When he realized there was no danger, he reached out to touch the spear. This weapon had clearly killed countless enemies; its fierce aura carried a heavy scent of blood, and it was exceptionally heavy to the touch. Grace Walker gathered his inner energy and only then managed to barely lift it.

“God damn it, this thing is as tall as three of me! Clearly, it wasn’t made for someone my size. I can’t use it right now anyway.”

He let go and tossed it to the ground, but Grace Walker was already thinking of something else.

“This fine bronze chariot can preserve this great spear and the red-robed brother’s corpse, so it can surely keep other things safe too! I have nothing at all right now—might as well use it as a junk storage.”

With that thought, he ordered the two corpse soldiers, who were standing there dumbly, to go scour the battlefield and bring back anything of value.

Without the support of the great spear, the red-robed general toppled onto the bronze platform of the chariot. Grace Walker carefully undressed him, inspecting closely next to the skin, and stripped off a set of armor, a treasured saber, and a bow with arrows. As for the underclothes, after thinking for a while—though he used to draw nudes often back in school—he knew that stripping someone bare was truly disrespectful to the dead.

“Sigh, one should be decent. Coming and going naked through life may be carefree, but I doubt this red-robed brother was as avant-garde as me. Better respect his habits!”

Leaving the valuables, Grace Walker was just considering whether to put in a bit more effort and dig a pit to bury the red-robed general.

Suddenly, from the general’s body, now clad only in underclothes, two faintly glowing lights appeared. Two strange orbs of light floated out from within the body.

A small, transparent pagoda and a pale white pearl.

Grace Walker was shocked and instinctively wanted to retreat, but he found that something on his own body seemed to attract them. The two treasures, shrouded in radiant light, suddenly flew over and entered his body.

Already somewhat attuned to the flow of energy within himself, Grace Walker immediately sensed that the tiny pagoda, after transforming into a mass of fluctuating energy and entering his dantian, settled there. The pale white pearl, however, followed his meridians upward, turning into a faint, indescribable aura, and only stopped when it reached the center of his brow.

Chapter Seven: The Exquisite Pagoda of Water and Fire

Grace Walker looked at his own hands, his eyes filled with disbelief.

This child’s body he’d been reborn into was structured completely differently from a human body on Earth. The icy energy within him had to pass through eight meridians and eighty or ninety acupoints, but based on the knowledge of meridians he’d gleaned from martial arts novels, these acupoints and meridians were nothing like the twelve main meridians or the eight extraordinary vessels of humans, nor did they have anything to do with the three channels and seven chakras of esoteric Buddhism.

Originally, his cultivation was shallow, and the icy true energy stored in his body was much weaker than that of the corpse soldiers he’d taken under his command. But after the strange light from the tiny pagoda merged into his dantian, every time he circulated his icy true energy, he could feel the flow increase more than tenfold, and the speed was several times faster than before.

“A treasure, a real treasure! This thing can actually amplify my true energy—how marvelous…”

Grace Walker shouted and hollered, flipping over seventeen or eighteen times in a row before finally collapsing to the ground and bursting into tears.

Beaten to death with an iron pipe, then waking up to be reborn in the body of a six- or seven-year-old street urchin in a chaotic, unknown world where human life was worth less than a dog’s. He lived every day in constant fear.

Even in a civilized society with strict laws, his life couldn’t be guaranteed. In this world where law was nearly meaningless, it was as if he’d been thrown naked into a pack of beasts, terrified that a stroke of bad luck would bring disaster.

Death!

He was terribly afraid of it.

If he hadn’t picked up the corpse-controlling bronze ring and clung to it as a psychological lifeline, Grace Walker would probably have broken down long ago.

He usually didn’t show much fear, but this terror was always buried deep in his heart. In fact, Grace Walker vaguely suspected that the bronze ring appearing on a blacksmith probably meant it wasn’t much of a powerful artifact.

The five corpse soldiers’ combat strength was, at best, equal to what they’d had in life—not much of a guarantee.

Watching the red-robed general’s fierce battle with the Xidi army just now, it was as if a bottomless abyss had opened in his heart, slowly swallowing something inside him. Only at this moment did Grace Walker truly feel how hard it was just to survive.

After venting his emotions, Grace Walker wiped his tears, finally composed himself, bowed deeply to the red-robed general’s corpse, and said loudly, “Red-robed brother, even after death you’ve blessed me. If I manage to keep my life and ever meet your family, I’ll find a way to repay you. For now, let me at least bury you!”