I stood up and looked around and asked, "Village Chief, have there been people like us who have come to the village before, or any exploration or archaeological teams?"
Wang Fugui shook his head and said, "I don't think so! I vaguely heard from the elders that a group of people came here to explore for iron ore. Oh, right..."
Wang Fugui said: "A few years ago, a group of experts from the Cultural Relics Bureau came and said they wanted to see the Songlong Stele. After seeing it, they said it was a fake cultural relic. I was so angry that I didn't even give them a good face and drove them away directly."
"Fake cultural relic?" I turned around and looked at the Songlong Stele. "How did that old Liu die?"
Wang Fugui pointed at the big tree behind me and said, "He hanged himself on the branch behind you."
I looked up at the tree branch behind me. When the weak sunlight shone through the branches and leaves to the ground, I vaguely saw a ray of Yin Qi wrapped around the branch.
Is the old man's ghost still attached to the tree
I said calmly, "Has there been any strange incidents in your village recently?"
"What else?" Wang Fugui shouted, "It's deadly enough that a dead ghost is causing trouble. If there are other things, how can I not survive? If I weren't the village chief, I would have run away with the villagers. Who the hell is still guarding a dead ghost?"
I frowned and asked, "Did all the villagers run away?"
"Most of them have fled, and only Xing'er and his family are left." Wang Fugui said, "Why don't you all go to my house to have some food first, and then after you've had enough..."
I waved my hand and said, "No need to eat. Master Zhihui, send half of your people to go with the village chief to Old Liu's house to pray for the souls of the dead. I will stay here to guard the Songlong Monument."
Zhihui thought for a moment and said to the monks behind him, "You all go ahead. I will stay with Mr. Wu."
After I sent the people away, I immediately squatted in front of the Songlong Stele and said, "This stele is only half broken. Help me dig it out."
Ye Jin, Shi Heshang, and I all pulled out our daggers and started digging along the edge of the Songlong Stele. After digging about two feet, a round plate appeared under the Songlong Stele, and the whole Songlong Stele was inserted in the center of the round plate.
I pushed the Songlong Stele with my hands and shook it twice: "Can the stele move?"
Ye Jin whispered, "Zhao Zi, do you think this stone tablet looks like a key?"
I suddenly realized: "If the stone tablet is the key, then the disk below is the keyhole? What is locked underneath?"
Ye Jin said in a deep voice: "How about we try to open the lock?"
"No!" I shook my head. "The village's affairs have not been resolved yet. If we rashly open the Dragon Song Monument, we might run into some trouble. Let's wait until we have settled the village's affairs first."
I filled the soil near the Songlong Monument back and sat there waiting for nightfall. Soon after nightfall, Ye Jin built a bonfire in the yard.
Not long after, the sound of chanting came from the direction of Old Liu's yard. Ten monks chanted scriptures at the same time, one louder than the other, and finally it was like thunder covering the sky above the village.
Zhihui stood up and said, "Oh no, something happened over there, I have to go check it out!"
"Don't move!" I raised my hand and said, "Can't ten monks deal with a ghost?"
"This..." When Zhihui was hesitating, Wang Fugui rushed over from outside: "Something happened! You guys go and take a look!"
I said in a deep voice: "What happened?"
Wang Fugui said: "When those masters came in, they were fine. They even opened the coffin to look at Old Liu's body. But at night, Old Liu's body disappeared. We searched for a long time but couldn't find it. Then..."
Before Wang Fugui finished speaking, I saw a figure appearing at the gate of the courtyard. He was looking sideways at the courtyard from the shadow of the wall. From our angle, we could only see his body but not his face.
Wang Fugui asked in a trembling voice: "Who? Who's outside? What are they doing?"
The man slowly turned around and stood at the door with a dignified manner. Suddenly, a white cloth appeared on his left shoulder. When the white cloth, as wide as a palm, flowed down his left shoulder to his waist like water, he shouted loudly: "With a three-foot white cloth hanging on my body, I can speak in the Yin and Yang worlds!"
"Old Liu!" Wang Fugui jumped up as if he was on fire and hid behind us.
What Old Liu said just now is a phrase often used by funeral emcees, meaning that wearing a white cloth is to lead the dead soul into the underworld.
When I looked at the man carefully, I saw a piece of red cloth sliding down his right shoulder: "With a three-foot red cloth on my body, I am not afraid of any demons or monsters!"
According to convention, after the MC finished saying these two sentences, he would shout, "We respectfully send off Mr. So-and-so and Mrs. So-and-so on their way." Whose name did he want to shout
"Go!" I raised my leg and kicked a stick of firewood in the fire. The firewood with the flames slid in the air, leaving a red line of sparks, and hit the old man with a thud. The sparks bursting from the man's chest instantly illuminated most of his face.
I only saw a layer of waxy yellow skin on his face, and he fell to the ground with his head raised. When Ye Jin and Shi Heshang rushed to the door at the same time, the man's figure suddenly seemed to seep into the ground like a drop of water, and was pressed to the ground level.
"Be careful!" I just warned him, and Monk Shi picked up a piece of yellowish leather from the ground with a copper stick: "It's a human skin!"
Monk Shi rushed to the fire and spread the human skin on the ground. I touched the human skin twice in the light of the fire and said, "This human skin has been processed. Is there a leatherworker in your village?"
“No… no…” Wang Fugui was so scared that his whole body was shaking, “That… that’s not Old Liu’s skin. Old Liu is bald…”
The skin was peeled off completely, and there was indeed hair still stuck on the top of the head.
I turned around and asked, "Who is this person?"
"I don't know... I really don't know!" The village chief was so scared that he couldn't even speak clearly. "I... I think... I don't think he is from the village."
As the other party was speaking, the sound of chanting in the distance suddenly stopped, and the whole village once again fell into a heart-wrenching silence.
Zhihui walked forward, gathered his inner energy and chanted the Buddha's name: "Namo Amitabha."
Zhihui's voice rolled down the mountain like thunder, but there was no response from the mountainside. Zhihui said in surprise: "Something happened down there, I have to go down and take a look!"
I stretched out my hand to stop him, "No! Wait a minute!"
"What are you waiting for?" Zhi Hui said angrily, "The people down the mountain are clearly in danger, what are you waiting for? Get out of my way, or I will be rude to you!"
"Wait a minute..." I just said that when Zhihui suddenly slapped me. I dodged sideways, but Zhihui's palm turned into a claw and grabbed my shoulder. There was no killing intention in the opponent's move, it was just to force me aside. While dodging sideways, I signaled Ye Jin and Shi Heshang not to join the fight.
Because of my gesture, I was a step slower, and Zhihui's palm landed on my shoulder. I instinctively struggled outward, and Shi Heshang, who did not listen to my advice, swept his stick towards Zhihui's armpit. Zhihui pulled off my backpack with a palm and blocked Shi Heshang's copper stick.
Before I could stop it, the long stick and the backpack made a dull sound, and the backpack that Zhihui had been holding in his hand flew out of his hand and hit the direction of the fire.
"Magic Box!" One of the magic boxes was placed in the backpack.
When Ye Jin and Shi Heshang tried to stop the backpack from falling, the canvas backpack was torn into pieces by a force from the inside out. As the torn strips of cloth flew in all directions, the airflow from the backpack whizzed in all directions like a hidden weapon, and the two people who had already rushed forward were blocked by the airflow at the same time.
By the time I caught up, the magic box had already fallen into the blazing bonfire.
At this time, I no longer cared about the burning fire snake in front of me and reached out to grab it in the fire.
Before my fingers touched the flame, Ye Jin pulled them back, and Monk Shi used his stick to pick up the magic box. The magic box weighing several kilograms flipped into the air under his long stick, rolled and whistled, and smashed into the tree trunk behind the stone tablet.
I only heard a loud "bang" and then the magic box was flipped back by the rebound force, rolled several times on the ground, and stopped near the Songlong Stele.
Before I could even check the box, the compass on the lid started to spin automatically. At the same time, there was a sound of a mechanism in the backpack behind Monk Zhihui. I turned around and shouted, "Throw away the backpack!"
Monk Zhihui had no time to think about anything else, and reached out to take off his backpack. Unexpectedly, before he let go of the backpack, a burst of energy burst out of the backpack. Monk Zhihui was so close to the magic box that he had no way to avoid it. He was immediately hit by the energy bursting out of the backpack and flew into the air, rolling around for a few rounds before falling to the ground.
"Wu..." Monk Zhihui had just said one word when blood spurted out of his mouth.
I quickly supported him: "Ye Jin, medicine for the wound!"
When Ye Jin put the medicine into the other person's mouth, the two magic boxes on the ground started to rotate at the same time. The two compasses turned in front of us with a sound like counting seconds. The three of us pulled out our weapons at the same time and looked in the direction of the magic boxes. However, the two compasses stopped after only turning a few times, and the direction pointed by the compass needles was exactly the "Xun" character.
Xun, wind
These two words had just popped out of my head when a sudden strong wind blew near the courtyard. The bonfire that was originally piled on the ground was blown into the air by the whistling wind, like a fire dragon flying in the wind, dancing with its horns and claws and roaring towards us.
"Open—" I raised my palms together, and the Xuanming Qi immediately pressed towards the flames in the air. As the two forces collided in the air, the flames in the sky were instantly extinguished, and the surroundings around us fell into darkness again. (To be continued)