I still took the smelly yellow booklet, but I didn't look through it. I just stuffed it into the cloth bag on my body.
I think the yellow booklet should be disinfected. Of course, this is a joke, but I am not impressed by the art of raising corpses. But I think the art of controlling corpses is pretty good.
Just like the three zombies I saw in the bamboo forest before, they were attracted by Niu Dalong’s whistle, and he was able to control their movements. I thought it was very unusual.
And later I learned that although Zhang Guizi raised and controlled corpses, he would not harm the corpses themselves. Moreover, after a period of time, he would bury or burn the zombies, allowing the corpses to reincarnate.
Zhang Quezi and I chatted a lot in the bamboo house, and more than two hours had passed.
When we talked about the Miao girl, Zhang Quezi became very angry.
He told me that he was also trying to find out the whereabouts of the Miao girl, and if he got any information, he would let me go with him. But he reminded me that I needed to stabilize myself and improve my Taoism during this period.
Just like that, the matter of helping Zhang Chu, the Lame Man, to avenge his father was decided.
Afterwards, Zhang Quezi told me some stories about catching ghosts and exorcising monsters. He was very powerful in his time and knew a lot of things I didn't know. Having him explain it to me saved me some detours.
I looked at my watch and it was already past three in the morning.
I had lost a lot of blood because of the amulet's automatic protection. After a few hours of rest, my face slowly became a little rosy. Seeing that my body could move freely, I slowly got off the bamboo bed.
I just told my cheap master Zhang Quezi about Shan Daye’s wife Yan Huanhuan.
When Zhang Quezi heard that Yan Huanhuan had offered her body to some ghost fairy, he smiled and said to me, "Disciple, Master is not criticizing you, but do you think that woman really offered it to some ghost fairy?"
I had some doubts in my mind before, but the word "ghost fairy" was also obtained by Shan Daye through his wife's name for the ghost. So I subconsciously thought that it might also be a ghost fairy.
I shook my head and said, “I’m really confused about this!”
Zhang Quezi laughed strangely and explained, "That ghost is not a ghost fairy at all. Ghost fairies are not something you can invite just because you want to. Generally speaking, ghost fairies will only bless their family members or people who have done them a favor. How could they be so nosy as to protect a completely unrelated woman!?"
"Besides, that ghost can absorb the Yin essence of women, which is obviously harming people. Ghost fairies are recognized by the underworld. They can practice in the world of the living, but they cannot harm people, otherwise the underworld will know it immediately."
"If my guess is correct, that ghost fairy is actually a fake, and it might be a '**' raised by someone to suck the essence of women!"
The more I listened to Master Zhang Chu's analysis, the more it made sense to me.
I was wondering how that ghost fairy could harm Yan Huanhuan, who worshipped it. Now, if that ghost fairy was raised by someone and obeyed someone else, then it would be obvious that he was harming women and taking away their Yin Yuan.
I have also learned a lot about ghosts in the world of the living from the Yin-Yang Soul Crossing Notes. They are strange and varied.
As long as there is resentment in a person's soul after death and the obsession has not been resolved, it is easy for it to become a ghost.
Different times, different environments, and various things that happened in life all determine the category of the ghost.
From what I learned about ghosts from the Yin-Yang Soul-Ferrying Notes, there are no less than hundreds of kinds.
There are many common ghosts, such as hanged ghosts, big-headed ghosts, echo ghosts, bloody ghosts, air-eating ghosts, naughty ghosts, etc. "**" is relatively rare.
A kind of ghost.
Zhang Quezi said to me, "Tianyi, it won't be easy for you to find the monster. Although you have collected some of the monster's ghost energy in the soul-collecting barrel, it is difficult to find the monster or the person who raised the monster with just a little ghost energy."
I asked hurriedly, "Master, what can you do?"
Zhang Chu did not shy away from saying, "The best way is to use the body fluids of the woman who was defiled by the ** to find the **. Although the ** has removed the ghost energy from the woman, there must be more or less of its original ghost energy left in the woman's body fluids."
"Using the original ghost energy, it will be easy to find that **!"
"Although monsters can absorb vital energy, their abilities are generally not very strong. With your current level of Taoism, dealing with that monster should be a piece of cake!"
"Um!"
I nodded and thought, fortunately I got Zhang Chu's advice, otherwise, even if I saved Yan Huanhuan's life, I wouldn't be able to find the monster. If that were the case, the monster would definitely continue to harm others.
Time passed quickly and I chatted with my cheap master Zhang Quezi for more than half an hour.
Afterwards, perhaps because he was worried that it would affect my recovery, Zhang Chu let me rest first.
I didn't hesitate and fell asleep on his bamboo bed.
I slept very soundly and was not awakened until the morning when I heard the clear singing of birds in the woods.
But I only slept for a few hours, which was still a bit of a sleep deprivation for me.
When I woke up in the morning, I found Zhang Chu sleeping in Niu Dalong's room, while Niu Dalong and Master Jiang were still guarding outside the bamboo house.
This makes me feel a little bit amused and helpless.
After eating the breakfast prepared by Niu Dalong, Zhang Chu did not go to the underground space to study corpse raising. Instead, he took Master Jiang and me to a valley deeper behind the bamboo house.
There was a cave in the valley. It looked plain and ordinary, with broken stones everywhere. It was a bit damp outside.
But when I entered the cave, I couldn't help pinching my nose.
Why? Because the moment I stepped into the cave, I smelled an extremely strong bloody smell, several times stronger than the bloody smell in the bamboo house. There was no rotten smell in the bloody smell, but it was still choking.
And the further you go inside, the stronger the smell of blood becomes.
I also found red blood oozing out on the ground.
A thin layer of ice condensed on the surface of the blood, which made a crackling sound when stepped on.
It wasn't long before we reached the innermost part of the cave.
When I got inside, I was stunned.
I saw that there was light in the innermost part of the cave, and the light was shining in through an opening at the top.
In the center of the deep cave, there grows a small red thorny tree.
The trunk of the small tree was about as thick as my arm.
But this is not what surprised me the most.
What surprised me the most was that the tree actually grew in blood. Yes, blood. The tree was surrounded by a small pond, and the pond was filled with the smell of blood. If it wasn't blood, what was it?!
When Master Jiang saw the blood, he was so shocked that his mouth grimaced and he said in a trembling voice: "This... This is too scary. How many people must have died to create such a pool of blood!"
And I also found pieces of white skeletons in the blood.
The skeletons were scattered everywhere, and the flesh had long been gone.
Seeing that we were both in shock, Zhang Chu explained with a strange smile: "This is a cold, bloody and humid place. The skeletons you see are indeed human skeletons. But those people are not modern people, but some dead prisoners from ancient times!"
At this point, Zhang Chu raised his hand and pointed to the hole above the cave where light came in, and said, "Look there. Back then, these prisoners were beheaded first, and then their bodies were thrown down from there."
"Speaking of which, this place can be considered a burial site where the ancients dealt with corpses!"
"The blood pool formed here is naturally the blood left behind by those prisoners. Over time, it has accumulated so much. As for the cold and gloomy air here, it is the condensation of the resentment of those prisoners back then."
"When I discovered this place more than 20 years ago, there were at least hundreds of ghosts here. Later, I used the Rebirth Mantra to liberate them and led them to the underworld to be reincarnated!"
"However, although their souls have left here, they have lived here for who knows how many years, so this place has become a cold and gloomy place. And the black-bearded fruit can only grow in a cold and gloomy place with blood tides. So I planted a black-bearded fruit seed I got here!"
"After so many years, the Wuxu fruit tree has grown up, but the Wuxu fruit is of little use to me. Since you need Wuxu fruit to save people, go pick them."
"But I want to remind you that once the Wuxu fruit is picked from the branch, it must be consumed within 24 hours, otherwise the vitality in it will dissipate!"
To be honest, I never thought that there is such a magical fruit tree in this world. Not only does the Wuxu fruit tree grow in cold, bloody and wet places, but its fruit can also replenish vitality. If I hadn't discovered the Yin-Yang Soul Crossing Notes and became another Taoist priest, how could I have experienced all this!
The world is so big that there is nothing strange in it. This statement is not empty talk.
Although the black-bearded fruit tree is not big, Zhang Guizi said that it is already the limit of its growth.
Indeed, according to the records in the Yin-Yang Soul Crossing Notes, the black-bearded fruit tree would grow into this shape, a tree this big.
The black-bearded fruit tree is red all over, whether it is the trunk, branches or leaves, it is full of red and filled with blood.
The fruit on the tree is green. As the notes say, the black-bearded fruit is the size of a longan and has white hairs on the surface.
And those white hairs look like an old man's beard.
Although Master Jiang was somewhat excited to see the black-bearded fruit tree, there was no greed in his eyes. He knew that I was looking for the black-bearded fruit to save people.
Master Jiang didn't move.
I slowly approached the blackberry tree.
The blood pool was not deep, only about half an inch in depth.
There were some protruding rocks in the pond. I stepped on them and moved closer to the black-bearded fruit tree.
When I got close to the fruit tree, I swallowed and prepared to pick the nearest black-bearded fruit.
But just as I was about to pick the black-bearded fruit, I suddenly remembered that black-bearded fruits are divided into male and female. How can I distinguish them? The Yin-Yang Soul-crossing Notes didn't say so, so I didn't know.
Then I looked at my cheap master Zhang Chu who was standing behind me with an embarrassed look on my face.
Zhang Chu saw me turn around, looking embarrassed, so he asked me with a strange smile, "What's wrong? Tianyi boy, why don't you pick it?"
I smiled bitterly and said, "Master, it's not that I don't want to pick them, it's that I don't know how to distinguish between male and female black-bearded fruits. That woman's Yin essence was sucked away, so I should pick a female black-bearded fruit. But these fruits all look the same to me!?"
Zhang Chu put away his smile, curled his lips, and said unhappily: "You are so righteous, you don't even know how to distinguish the black-bearded fruit, and you dare to help others find it... It's a good thing that your master is here, otherwise, if you found this kind of fruit tree somewhere else and picked the male black-bearded fruit for that woman to eat, I'm afraid that woman will directly become a monster that is neither male nor female!"
(to be continued)
(End of this chapter) (End of this chapter)