From that cacophony of wails, he recognized the voice of the tall, thin youth—the student whom Li Simin had punched to death while he attempted a robbery.

  So, he was a scholar? Gensheng sneered inwardly. No wonder his resentment comes with such flowery, pedantic variations.

  He ruthlessly increased the intensity of the Corpse-Fire. He intended to thoroughly refine and crush this final, most stubborn obsession. The flames roared, and the cauldron began to hum under the strain.

  The chanting of poetry stopped abruptly.

  In its place, illusions began to swarm before Gensheng’s eyes. He saw a frail youth huddling under a dim oil lamp, reading the Sages' books until his eyes bled red. He saw the youth presenting his essays to the local magistrate, only to be kicked out by the guards like a stray dog. He saw him kneeling before a wealthy merchant’s estate, kowtowing until his forehead was a bloody mess, just to buy medicine for his dying mother.

  Then, he saw the hope ignite in the youth’s eyes when he heard of the Immortals recruiting disciples. Finally, he saw himself.

  He saw his own handsome face emerging from the darkness. He saw how the hope in the youth’s eyes turned into terror, then despair, and finally into a towering, ocean-like resentment.

  "Why won't you let me have my Immortal Chance!" "I was only one step away! One step from escaping this man-eating world!" "You destroyed me! You destroyed everything!"

  Following him, four other phantoms emerged. They wept, they laughed, they hissed venomous curses. Five distinct memories, all saturated with agony and indignation, slithered like five venomous snakes into Gensheng’s six senses. They clawed at his mind, desperate to tear his sanity into tattered shreds.

  Gensheng sat cross-legged, his six arms steady against the cauldron. His face remained void of joy or sorrow.

  He was a Roach that had crawled out of the filthiest corners of existence. The malice he had witnessed in the mortal world was a hundred times more potent than anything these "greenhouse flowers" had ever known. To him, their pain and resentment were like the buzzing of summer gnats—annoying, yes, but far from fatal.

  He simply turned up the heat.

  No matter how the five vengeful souls shrieked or struck at him, they couldn't budge him an inch. He was a jagged reef in a storm; let the waves crash as they might, he remained unmoved.

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  But if he wouldn't move, Li Simin would.

  Standing at the island's edge, she suddenly turned. Her hollow Void-Watching Eyes locked onto the vibrating Myriad Insect Tripod. She felt it—the massive, soul-fouling resentment that was viciously attacking the master with whom she shared a heart-link.

  Without a command, she walked to his side. She reached out with a hand as white as jade yet harder than steel and pressed it against the scalding cauldron.

  Ssssss!

  Black smoke rose from her palm. Streams of pure resentment, reeking of death and decay, were forcibly siphoned from the cauldron by her arm, merging into her own frame. She was sharing his burden, and in doing so, forging her own destiny.

  The Eighty-First Day.

  The final trace of resentment was absorbed into Li Simin. The cauldron’s vibrations ceased. The thick stench of scorched flesh and acrid herbs that had hung over the island began to dissipate.

  Gensheng withdrew his Corpse-Fire. He stood up, all six arms exerting force to push open the heavy lid. At the bottom lay a single pill, the size of a longan fruit.

  It was a ghoulish grey-black, with five faint wisps of black qi swirling on its surface like five imprisoned souls struggling to escape.

  The Human-Pill was complete.

  Gensheng picked it up with two fingers. "If one day you ascend to the heavens, do not forget my soul within this hearth..." The scholar’s voice still echoed in his ear.

  Gensheng smirked. "Don't worry. If I remember you for a year, I’d consider you impressive."

  He brought the Foundation Establishment Human-Pill close to his eyes. "Simin, look. Isn't it a beauty?"

  Without hesitation, he opened his mouth and swallowed the pill—a condensation of five lives, saturated with curses and venom.

  The pill slid down his throat.

  Pop!

  An unimaginable, pure medicinal power exploded in his gut! The five vengeful souls, suppressed for eighty-one days, burst forth like demons breaking their chains. They shrieked within his meridians, his dantian, and his sea of consciousness.

  "Kill him!" "Hehehehe!" "Tear his soul apart!" "Take his body!" "This is mine!"

  Gensheng’s internal world turned into a ghost realm. Any ordinary Qi-Condensation cultivator would have seen their mind shatter instantly under such a spiritual assault.

  However, Gensheng laughed.

  His laughter echoed through his consciousness, physically crushing the wails of the five souls.

  "This is all you’ve got?"

  "Where were you when I was gnawing on rotting rat carcasses in the sewers? Where were you when I was being hunted by fireballs, scrambling through the dirt just for a mouthful of sour water? Your little bit of indignation, your tiny drop of resentment—you aren't even qualified to pick the scraps from my teeth!"

  His laughter evolved into a dark, sinister cackle.

  "Why struggle? Why the resentment? I am but a cockroach. Your pain, your despair... what difference is there between that and a piece of moldy bread on the roadside? No, there is a difference."

  "The bread could at least fill my stomach. But you..."

  "You aren't even enough for a snack!"

  Jie! Die-die-die-die!

  Gensheng’s true self, dormant in the depths of his soul, finally revealed its monstrous face.

  It was a titanic, pitch-black Roach Phantom, shimmering with an oily luster. Its six legs were hooked and terrifying, its mandibles snapped, and its compound eyes held nothing but pure, unadulterated greed and hunger.