Wufeng in Xiawan is quiet at night. Except for the tribesmen on duty, most people have fallen asleep.
Wisps of faint blue smoke curled up from the chimneys of the houses.
In a wooden house, the orange flame in the fireplace burned dead wood as thick as a wrist, and sparks burst out from time to time, making a "bang" sound.
Next to the fireplace, more than twenty Xiawan tribesmen were sleeping.
The snoring sounded like thunder, one after another.
These enslaved tribesmen never dreamed that one day they would be able to sleep in a warm room in the cold winter.
Although some teenagers frequently remind people to prevent fires at night every day and arrange for people to keep vigil.
In the first few days, some people still followed this rule, but after a few days, the warm environment was so comfortable that this rule was forgotten.
At this time, several tribesmen who were closer to the fireplace were sweating faintly on their noses and temples. One of them couldn't help kicking his feet in his sleep, and kicked the animal skin covering his body near the fireplace.
A few minutes later, a piece of dry wood in the fireplace cracked and shrank while burning.
"Baba~!"
Dozens of sparks burst out from the dry firewood, and a few landed on the animal skins by chance.
After a while, traces of smoke floated from the animal hide.
Because too many people gathered in the house, the smell was mixed. Although a few people raised their noses in their sleep, they just muttered a few words in a daze and then turned over and continued to sleep.
"Huh~"
After a few breaths, a flame burned from the animal hide.
A tribesman was sleeping soundly, but he felt his legs getting hotter and hotter, until a burning pain reached his brain. He instinctively bounced his legs and woke up.
"Ahem~~Ahem~~!"
Before he could open his eyes, he felt as if he had inhaled smoke in his throat, which made him cough repeatedly.
But when he opened his eyes, he found that the room was filled with gray-white smoke.
I felt a fire flickering not far away. I looked up and saw that on the pile of firewood in the corner, a burning animal skin had ignited the dry firewood.
At this time, more than a dozen people around him also woke up one by one, coughing non-stop.
The tribesman who woke up first had no time to think about anything else, so he jumped up and went to the woodpile, grabbed the burning animal skin and threw it aside.
But his movement was too big, and he directly lifted up the burning firewood pile below.
"Wow~!"
Sparks were flying all over the sky, directly igniting the smoke in the air.
"Boom~~"
An orange-red flame appeared in the room and instantly enveloped the entire house.
"Ah~ah~!"
Dozens of people were ignited by the raging flames and made miserable screams.
The silent night was broken by the explosion of flames and the screams of people.
The tribesmen in other houses were awakened, and regardless of the cold wind, they rushed out with weapons in hand.
But what he saw was a house burning in raging flames. Through the gaps in the wooden house, he could faintly see several burning figures screaming and rushing around in the firelight.
"Bang~"
The simple wooden window was smashed, and a fire shadow fell out, screaming and rolling on the ground.
Neighbors around him hurriedly stepped forward to help, but looking at the weapons in their hands, they didn't know how to start.
A tribesman who had awakened the magical power of water clasped his hands in front of him, and a stream of water instantly gathered in his palms, and then fell on the man.
"Chichi~!"
A puff of white smoke rose up, and the flames on the man's body were immediately extinguished.
Before the man could relax, he heard someone shouting in fear:
"Look! The fire... the fire is burning."
Everyone who heard the sound quickly looked up and saw that the burning house had been completely engulfed in flames.
But what frightened everyone was that countless flames had begun to spread to other houses, and in the blink of an eye, several adjacent wooden houses were ignited.
At this time, several tribesmen who had awakened the magical power of water summoned water flow, frost, and hail towards the burning house.
It was a drop in the bucket, but instead of suppressing the fire, it caused flames to explode and fly all over the sky.
The houses were covered with sparks, and traces of green smoke rose from the thatch on the roofs.
Shixiong was on duty today. After seeing the fire here, he led people to come from a distance, but when he got closer, several houses were already on fire.
Turning his eyes slightly, the first thing he saw was the countless houses lined up around him.
Once the fire spreads, how many of the thousands of newly built houses will survive, and how many of the hundreds of thousands of people will survive.
‘Buzz——!’
At this moment, his brain seemed to explode.
"Quickly put out the fire!"
The stone bear let out a horrified cry.
After receiving the order from him, the clansmen didn't care much anymore and took action randomly regardless of whether their magical powers were used up or not.
Water mist, strong wind, flying rocks...
Everyone's intentions were good, but such random actions brought even greater disasters.
The wind helps the fire, and the fire borrows the power of the wind!
In the blink of an eye, dozens of houses around him were ignited by sparks flying in the sky.
House after house gradually burned, looking around, there were other houses spread by the flames, and everyone's eyes showed a look of despair.
"Dang Cang——!"
The weapon in the hand of a tribesman fell to the ground.
'It's over!'
This is the only thought in the hearts of all those surrounded by flames at this moment.
Just when Shi Xiong was feeling desperate, he suddenly saw a golden-red figure flying from a distance.
Looking closely, it was the little girl who looked dazed next to Zhang Ke every day.
At this time, everything was no longer as loose as usual, and his eyes were as wide as lychees.
She flew to the fire and stopped in mid-air. She curled her right hand in front of her mouth and raised her head to make a gesture of inhaling through her mouth.
"Hiss~~!"
The next second, Shi Xiong saw the blazing flames burst into flames, and then turned into a stream of flames and threw it into Wanxiang's mouth like a 'dragon sucking water'.
Immediately afterwards Wanxiang's head swung from side to side a few times, and the flames burning in all the houses below turned into streams of flames and flew up.
In the shadows, Stone Bear vaguely saw a beautiful firebird with a golden crown and colorful feathers gathering behind Wanxiang.
'Hiccup~!'
As the last ray of flame was thrown into her mouth, Wan Xiang couldn't help but burp, sparks burst out from her mouth, and she quickly reached out to cover her mouth.
Seeing that no more flames appeared below, Wanxiang yawned, shook his shoulders, and turned into a golden-red stream of light and flew away.
Everything lasted only ten seconds, but all the burning houses below had no sparks left.
If it weren't for the fact that many houses were scorched black and smoke was still rising, Stone Bear would have thought that the fire that just burned was just a dream.
Shi Xiong looked around with dull eyes, and everyone he saw had a look of panic on his face.
"咵咵~咵咵~"
Bursts of rapid footsteps were heard, and the Xiawan tribe members headed by Yanhong Silkworm all came forward.
"what happened?"
The Flame Red Silkworm looked at the charred ruins around and asked solemnly.
Shi Xiong stared blankly at the house that was constantly smoking, and after a while he said:
"It must be that the tribesmen in the house accidentally set fire to the dry wood in the house!"
This was a guess he made based on some clues.
The somewhat nervous expressions of Flame Red Silkworm and others relaxed slightly, as long as there was no monster causing trouble, that would be fine.
But then the Flame Red Silkworm frowned and said:
"how so?"
The Fire Snake awakened his fire power and walked around the house that was first burning without saying a word.
After coming out, he whispered to the flame red silkworm:
"It was indeed an accident. It seemed that the flames in the fireplace ignited the firewood pile, and the tribesmen did not notice it in time while they were sleeping, which resulted in this consequence."
At this time, Shanqiao, who had been inspecting the area nearby, approached a few people.
"Chief, forty-six people were burned to death, and nearly a hundred people had their eyes damaged by the smoke."
The Flame Red Silkworm's heart contracted violently.
So many people were hurt in a short period of time. In the past, this would have been equivalent to 10% of the clan members.
At this time, Shi Xiong's mind flashed from time to time, the scene when everything gathered in the flames, and he couldn't help but sigh:
"Alas! If Wanxiang hadn't helped contain the fire, once the fire spread, I don't know how many people would have perished in the flames today."
Everyone looked at the ruins of the wall in silence, with only the smoke lingering.
I don’t know what means Wanxiang used. Despite the curling smoke and the howling north wind, no sparks appeared in those charred houses.
"Alas! I didn't expect that a little spark could cause such a big disaster. We must learn from this terrible disaster."
Under Shan Qiao's command, hundreds of tribesmen were summoned to collect the tribesmen who had been burned to coke one by one.
In the next few days, these dozens of burnt corpses and the tribesmen whose eyes were smoked out were led by the tribe to every corner of the tribe under the command of the Flame Red Silkworm.
The charred corpse shrunk to half, was twisted, curled up, and hideous. Its horrific shape made all tribesmen who saw it shudder.
When they learned that the fire broke out because there was no one watching at night, almost all the tribesmen broke out in a cold sweat.
This situation happens in almost every house.
If there were no examples of dozens of people in front of me, might the same thing happen to me one day?
After being frightened, half of the people did not dare to light a fire in the fireplace at night for a short period of time. Even during the day, once there was no one in the house, they would extinguish the fire in the fireplace.
learn from mistakes!
No one dares to ignore the fire prevention regulations that many teenagers usually tell many tribesmen.
...
That night, in a cave on Qianfeng.
Yan Hong Can, Feng Jiu Shu and dozens of other high-level officials from Xiawan gathered together. Surprisingly, Zhang Ke was not among them, and he was not in the Zhongfeng cave.
What they want to discuss today is the fire that happened a few days ago.
Shi Xiong first described what he saw in detail, including when he discovered the fire, how the house ignited, and how everything contained the flames.
After a short silence, Feng Jiushu suddenly said:
"Everything can fly and can contain flames, so why didn't she find out the house was on fire at the first time?"
They have all awakened their magical powers, and they know that once they awaken a certain magical power, they will be able to react immediately when encountering relevant situations.
For example, people who are good at magical powers such as water and fire will be able to detect it immediately if there is any disturbance of the water and fire elements nearby.
Since Wanxiang can absorb such terrible flames, it means that its control over flames is far better than ordinary people. It should discover the fire earlier instead of waiting for the fire to burn before coming to put out the fire.
The question raised by Feng Jiushu at this moment is actually the doubt in the minds of everyone else.
It is precisely because of the suspicion of Zhang Ke that Zhang Ke was not notified of today's gathering, and the gathering was not held in the Zhongfeng Cave.
As the eldest person in the clan, Bu Chan also has the deepest understanding of celestial phenomena.
Looking at the unintelligible expressions on everyone's faces, I couldn't help but sigh slightly.
"Alas! This is a lesson taught to us by a layman named Ruyi!
You can’t even see this, can you?”
Shan Qiao is the youngest among the dozens of people, and he is also the one who admires Zhang Ke the most. Zhang Ke is a god-like existence in his heart.
After hearing what Di Chan said, he couldn't help but retort:
"Elder, why did you say this? Maybe the layman was just sleeping and didn't notice the fire.
Moreover, when Wanxiang came to put out the fire later, it must have been sent by the lay people. If we say this, wouldn’t we be disrespectful to the lay people?”
The fire snake said from the side:
"The layman has great supernatural powers. He can hide every disturbance in the tribe from him. How could he not notice such a huge fire that night?"
"this..."
Shan Qiao couldn't help but be speechless. In fact, he had doubts in his heart, but he just didn't want to think in this direction.
Feng Jiushu pondered for a moment and said slowly:
"If I say that the layman's move was a good intention, I don't know if you would believe it."
As soon as these words came out, everyone present was stunned, except Bu Chan nodded slightly.
The flame red silkworm's eyes were fixed on Feng Jiushu's face.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! "Why?"
Feng Jiushu frowned, and the somewhat chaotic thoughts in his mind were gradually sorted out. He was also inspired by the words of Divination just now and suddenly came up with this idea.
After a while, Feng Jiushu said:
"I remember that after the house was built, the layman ordered Shan Qiao to warn the tribesmen how to prevent fire every day, right?"
He turned to look at Shan Qiao, who responded:
"That's right, I asked the youths in the tribe to recite the six fire prevention regulations to the tribe every day, but no one seemed to pay attention..."
Speaking of this, Shan Qiao changed his mind and blurted out:
"Could it be that the layman turned a blind eye to the fire because he saw that his tribe did not take his words seriously?"
Feng Jiushu shook his head and said:
"What kind of person is a layman? How can he care about what you and I think? According to my speculation..."
After a brief pause, he said one word at a time:
"The layman wants us to experience firsthand the terrible harm that fire will bring to us, so as to force us to pay attention to fire prevention from our hearts."
Feng Jiushu's words made everyone's hearts tremble.
Could it be that just to achieve this goal, Zhang Kecai would sit back and watch dozens of casualties without caring, but is this true?
At this time, another clan member, Bai Su, suddenly understood the meaning of Feng Jiushu's words and couldn't help but say:
"You mean the layman deliberately delayed rescue in order to let us see the horror of fire?"
"Um!"
"No...it can't be! The layman doesn't look like such a cruel person!"
Fengli sneered from the side:
"Hmph! How can people outside the world be of the same mind as me? How can they care about our life and death? Have they forgotten the purpose of their coming here?"
This is the first Xiawan tribesman to publicly express dissatisfaction with Zhang Ke.
As for the reason, everyone present knew it clearly.
Shan Qiao's eyes straightened and he murmured:
"No...no way, a layman would not be such a person."
Feng Jiushu ignored Feng Li's resentful words and said seriously to Shan Qiao:
"The mountain is steep. As I said, the layman did this out of good intentions."
Seeing Shan Qiao's dull eyes turn around, he continued:
"I remember that day when I first met the layman, there was a little girl named Wanxiang beside him.
Later I learned that this girl had never appeared in the past period of time.
Then why would the layman introduce this girl to everyone?
I remember what the layman said at that time..."
Shi Xiong and others were slightly startled, secretly recalling the situation when everything appeared.
Feng Jiushu continued:
"The layman said: Her name is Wanxiang, and in the future everyone will need her help in some places.
I wonder if you still remember this sentence?"
Following Feng Jiushu's reminder, Shan Qiao suddenly had a memory and shouted:
"Yes, that's what the layman said."
Feng Jiushu said "hmm" and then said:
"From that day on, everything began to wander around the tribe every day.
I know that many people in the tribe are speculating about the relationship between this little girl and the layman, and even whisper some very unpleasant things.
Haha, talking about other people, even I secretly wondered why the layman would send a confused girl to help.
But..."
Feng Jiushu spoke, and his expression became solemn.
"But, that day, this little girl easily contained the burning fire. From this, we can see that this little girl is definitely not simple.
Everyone, think about what the layman once said.
Is this little girl named Wanxiang specially sent because the layman expected that a fire would break out in the tribe?"
As soon as these words came out, everyone couldn't help but be shocked.
Shan Qiao stammered:
"You...are you saying that the layman foresaw the fire in advance, or..."
At this moment, a terrible thought suddenly occurred in his heart, and he could no longer continue talking.
But the meaning behind his words was guessed by everyone, and their expressions changed greatly.
Feng Jiushu thought for a moment, shook his head and said:
"This fire was probably not caused by the layman. I guess the layman may have encountered similar things and guessed that a fire would break out, so he specially sent a servant who was good at controlling flames to help."
After a brief pause, Feng Jiushu said again:
“Layers have passed down fire prevention regulations to alert us to fires, but no one, including me, takes it seriously.
That's why after the fire broke out this time, he didn't put out the fire immediately. Instead, he waited until we fully understood the terrible consequences of the fire's spread before letting Wanxiang put out the fire.
This time the tribesmen have witnessed the horror of fire with their lives, and I believe we will never slack off in this regard in the future.
I think this is what the layman really thinks."
After some analysis, everyone agreed with Feng Jiushu's statement.
After a period of silence, Shi Xiong sighed and said:
"But isn't this lesson too scary? That's dozens of lives!"
At this time Bu Chan Fang Youyou spoke.
"Haha, if you hadn't learned this lesson, have you ever thought about other consequences?
If a fire breaks out and there is no Wanxiang to rescue it, how many people will die in the flames?
How many of those houses that have been built with so much hard work will be left?
If you have never experienced the bite of a wild animal, how can you understand how painful the wound torn open by the wild beast is.
I think this is a good thing, and those dozens of tribesmen should be regarded as the price we paid for this lesson!"
This explanation solved everyone's dissatisfaction with Zhang Ke, but there was a grudge after all.
Flame Red Silkworm looked at the people with complicated expressions and said in a deep voice:
"This matter ends here and no one is allowed to spread the word."
Then she looked at Fengli and said in a stern tone:
"Fengli, I know you are dissatisfied because the layman doesn't like you, but if you dare to spread this matter and stir up trouble, I will personally kill all your relatives. Do you understand?"
Feng Li's face turned pale and he muttered:
"Fengli understands!"
The flame red silkworm then said to everyone:
"The layman likes peace and quiet, and he told me that day that he would retreat into seclusion to learn the method of cultivation for his people.
I have seen lay people in seclusion. In order not to be disturbed by the outside world, they would isolate themselves from the inside and outside.
Therefore, we have no way of knowing what the situation is, and what we said before is just speculation.
However, please keep one thing in mind: the hundreds of thousands of people in this tribe did not starve or freeze to death because of the help of lay people.
Everyone in the Xiawan tribe, including us and Feng Jiushu, is alive until now because of the laymen’s rescue.
I hope everyone can really understand this."
The hearts of everyone present were shocked, and the trace of dissatisfaction in their hearts gradually dissipated.
Yes, without the Ruyi layman, the people of the Xiawan tribe would have been killed by the attack of Steller-headed Swallow-tailed Wasps.
At this moment, hundreds of thousands of people like Feng Jiushu may still be enslaved by the ‘Heavenly Demon’, living in a life worse than death.
In the final analysis, the fire was caused by the clan members themselves and had nothing to do with Ruyi layman.
And if Wanxiang hadn't come to his aid, I'd probably be dead in the fire now, so I wouldn't have the right to blame others.
Now, the life of being well fed, warmly clothed, and living comfortably all comes from the help of Ruyi layman.
But even so, when something happens, everyone can't help but feel resentful towards Zhang Ke.
Desires are hard to satisfy and self-righteousness has always been the human race.