The next day.
The entire Chang'an city, from the imperial palace to government offices, from high-ranking officials' residences to ordinary people's houses, all the streets and alleys were hung with white lanterns, and the whole city was in mourning.
During the entire day, no fireworks were allowed, and no one in the city was allowed to make fires or cook, and they would hold a Cold Food Festival.
At the evening hour of Xu, evening bells rang out in the city. All the towns and markets were closed in advance and a curfew was imposed. Citizens could only move around in the towns and were not allowed to step onto the main roads in the city.
In the square in front of the imperial city, hundreds of monks from Xiangguo Temple sat cross-legged on the ground, each of them had a lotus-shaped oil lamp lit in front of them, and they held wooden fish in their hands, beating them while chanting the Mantra of Rebirth.
On the altar in the center of the square, there was a wooden altar, three meters high. Six eminent monks from Baoxiang Temple, Huasheng Temple and Jinshan Temple stood on it, also twirling Buddhist beads in their hands and chanting scriptures.
Among them, the young-looking Zener also changed into a brocade cassock. Because of his young age, he stood out among the others.
This kind of chanting lasted for a full hour.
The ritual was not concluded until the hour of Hai, when the monks began to parade on every main road in the city, holding lotus lanterns, summoning the souls of the common people who had died tragically in various parts of the city.
As lights lit up in various parts of the city, terrifying figures of vengeful spirits began to emerge. Some had already lost consciousness and were floating dazedly behind the monks, while others were still wailing and crying, their voices as dense and numerous as human whispers.
In addition, some resentful souls have transformed into wandering evil spirits and wanted to attack the monks, but were repelled by the light emitted from the lotus lamps.
These lotus lamps were all eternal lamps brought from Baoxiang Temple, burning with lamp oil added by thousands of believers. The evil spirits attacked several times, but not only did they fail to harm the monks, but instead they were purified by the light of the lamps. The black evil spirits on their bodies gradually peeled off, slowly revealing their true appearance.
However, in some places where the evil energy was already strong, such as near wells and ice cellars, some evil spirits were born that could not be purified even by the eternal lamps. In the end, they were all killed by the monks arranged by the government.
Nearing midnight, Shen Luo, Bai Xiaotian and some court officials stood on the top of the north gate and looked into the city from afar.
Although the people in the city were not allowed to leave the town, there were still some lights on inside the town. These were the people spontaneously commemorating their relatives and neighbors who had died in the disaster.
From somewhere unknown, a paper lantern first rose into the sky, followed by lanterns one after another expressing the grief of the living flying up from various towns and cities.
White lights leaped into the sky, scattered high and low, echoing the stars in the sky, as if a bridge of communication between heaven and man was connected to each other, and also slowly drifted towards the north of the city.
Shen Luo's eyes slowly dropped down, and he saw monks parading near the city gate, holding lotus lanterns and standing on both sides of the road. On the main road in the middle, there was only a small lonely figure, wearing a cassock, holding Buddhist beads, and chanting scriptures with his head down.
Behind him, hundreds of thousands of ghosts and spirits were floating densely, following his footsteps towards the outside of the city.
Tens of thousands of ghosts gathered in one place. Even if they were just ordinary ghosts without evil thoughts, the evil energy condensed by them had already reached an appalling level, which ordinary people could not withstand at all.