Over there, Lan Sizhui and the others had found nothing in the ancient tombs, and had already turned to the Temple of the Goddess to look for clues.
In Dafan Mountain, in addition to the ancestral tombs of the townspeople of Buddha's Foot Town for generations, there is also a Temple of the Goddess. The worshiper in the temple is not the Buddha, nor the Guanyin, but a "dancing goddess".
Hundreds of years ago, a hunter in Buddha's Foot Town entered the deep mountain and found a strange stone in the grotto. It was nearly 100 feet high. What's even more amazing is that the facial features on the head of the stone statue are vaguely recognizable, but it is a smiling woman.
The townspeople of Buddha's Foot Town were very surprised, thinking that it was a sacred stone that gathered the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and they also spontaneously made up many legends. What is there about an immortal who had a crush on Jiutian Xuannv, and carved a stone statue according to Xuannv's appearance to comfort the pain of lovesickness. Xuannv was furious when she found out, and the unfinished stone statue had to be left to nothing; what else did the Jade Emperor have a favorite? Daughter, died early, the Jade Emperor's thoughts for his beloved daughter condensed into this stone statue. The variety is astonishing. These legends from their mouths convinced them themselves, so some people changed the grottoes into shrines, the stone platforms into shrines, the stone statues as "Dancing Goddess", and the incense is offered all year round.
The interior of the grotto is open like a two-entry temple, with the statue of the woman standing in the center that day. At first glance, it really looks like a person, and even the waist can be said to be beautiful. If you look closer, it will be rough, but it is amazing that natural creatures can be human-like to such an extent.
Lan Jingyi held Fengxie up and down, but the pointer remained unmoved. There were messy candles and a thick layer of incense ash on the offering table, and the offering fruit dish was rotting sweet. The people of the Gusu Lan Clan are more or less obsessed with cleanliness. He fanned the air in front of his nose and said, "I heard from the locals that the Nv's Temple is very spiritual in making wishes this day. How could it be so dilapidated. I don't ask a few people to clean it up."
Lan Sizhui said, "Seven people have lost their souls in a row. It is rumored that Tianlei split the evil spirits in the ancestral tomb of Buddha's Foot Town. No one dares to go up the mountain. If the incense is broken, no one will clean it."
A disdainful voice sounded outside the grotto: "A broken stone, I don't know who has been named a god, and dare to put it here to be worshipped by incense!"
Jin Ling walked in with his hands behind his back. The duration of the silence spell is not long, and his mouth can already be opened. However, when he opened it, there were no good words. He looked at the statue of the girl that day and hummed: "These villagers in the countryside don't know how to work hard when they are in trouble, but they burn incense and worship Buddha all day long to ask gods and ask ghosts. There are thousands of people in the world, and gods and Buddhas can't take care of themselves, so who cares? Get them here! Not to mention that he is still a wild god with no name and no share. If he is so smart, then I make a wish now that this soul-eating thing in Dafan Mountain will appear in front of me immediately, can it be done?"
A group of monks from a small family followed behind him. Hearing the words, he immediately agreed, laughing and saying yes. The originally silent shrine suddenly became noisy and narrowed due to the influx of people. Lan Sizhui shook his head secretly, turned around and glanced unintentionally, and swept to the face of the statue of the goddess, with vaguely visible facial features, which seemed to be a sympathetic smile.
However, he felt that this smiling face was indescribably familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere.
Where have you seen it
Lan SiZhui felt that this must be a very important matter, and involuntarily approached the altar, wanting to take a closer look at the face of the goddess. At this moment, someone suddenly bumped into him.
A monk who was standing behind him suddenly fell silently. The others were startled and immediately alerted. Jin Ling asked cautiously, "What's wrong with him?"
Lan Sizhui grasped the sword and observed it. The cultivator was breathing fine, as if he had just fallen asleep suddenly, but he would not wake up no matter how he slapped and called. He got up and said, "He looks like..."
Before he could finish speaking, the originally dark cave suddenly lit up, filling the cave with red light, as if a layer of blood was pouring down the walls. The incense candles in the corners of the offering table and the grotto all started to burn spontaneously.
Clanging several times, the people in the caves drew their swords, and the people who held the talisman held the talisman. At this moment, a person suddenly rushed in outside the shrine, carrying a medicinal wine gourd and splashed the statue of the goddess. The grotto was suddenly filled with a strong and choking alcohol smell. On the stone statue, a raging fire instantly ignited on the altar, reflecting the grotto like daylight.
Wei WuXian used up all the things in the Qiankun bag he had picked up, threw the bag and shouted, "Get out of there! Be careful of this soul-eating goddess inside!"
Someone exclaimed: "The goddess's posture has changed!"
Just now, the statue was clearly raised with both arms up, one arm pointing straight to the sky, one foot raised, and the figure was graceful. At this moment, in the red and yellow fire, he put his hands and feet down. It's true, it's not dazzling!
The next moment, the statue raised another foot - stepped out of the flames!
Wei WuXian shouted, "Run, run, run! Don't chop! It's useless!"
Most of the monks ignored him, and the soul-eating monster that could not be found after a thousand searches finally appeared, how could he let it go! However, with so many immortal swords slashing and stabbing together, and throwing out talismans and various magic weapons, it just didn't stop the stone statue from taking a step. It was nearly ten feet high, and it moved like a giant with a strong sense of oppression. It lifted the two monks up to their face, and the stone mouth seemed to open and close. The soul was also sucked away.
All kinds of attacks were completely ineffective, and now the others were finally willing to listen to Wei Wuxian’s words, swarming out, and scattered around desperately. There were so many people, the more anxious Wei WuXian was, the more he couldn’t find Jin Ling, he rode his donkey and ran into a bamboo forest. When he turned around, he bumped into the Lan family juniors who were chasing after him. Wei WuXian called them, “Children!”
Lan Jingyi said, "Who are your children! Do you know who we belong to? Do you think you can be an elder just by washing your face?!"
Wei WuXian said, "Alright, alright. Brothers. Send a signal and call your family... that Hanguang-Jun to come up!"
The juniors nodded again and again, turning over as they ran. After a while, Lan Sizhui said, "Signal fireworks... Mojiazhuang was finished that night."
Wei Wuxian was startled, "You didn't make up for it later?!"
This signal fireworks won't be used once in eight hundred years, Lan SiZhui said ashamed, "Forgot."
Wei WuXian said intimidation, "This is also something you can forget? Let HanGuang-Jun know, I want you to look good!"
Lan Jingyi's face turned ashen: "It's over, I will be punished to death by Hanguang-Jun this time..."
Wei WuXian: "Punishment. It should be punished! If you don't get punished, you won't have a long memory."
Lan Sizhui: "Young Master Mo, Young Master Mo! How do you know that the one who sucked the soul was neither the Soul Eater nor the Soul Eater Beast, but the statue of the goddess?"
Wei WuXian ran and searched for Jin Ling's figure: "How did I know? I saw it."
Lan Jingyi also chased after him, and ran between him, "What did you see? We've seen a lot."
"I see, then what? What's near the tomb?"
"What can there be, there is a dead soul."
"Yes, there are dead souls. So it's definitely not a soul-eating beast or a soul-eating evil. Obviously, if it's these two types, with so many dead souls floating there, will it not eat it? No."
This time more than one person asked: "Why?"
"I said you guys from the Gusu Lan Clan..." Wei WuXian couldn't help it anymore, "Let's teach less about the etiquette of the Immortal Sect and the historical origins of the Xiuzhen family lineage, which are stinky and long to memorize, and teach more practical ones. Can't things work? What's not to understand. Dead souls are much easier to absorb than living souls. The flesh of a living person is a barrier, and if you want to eat a living soul, you must break this barrier. It's like..." He glanced and gasped. The flower donkey rolled his eyes as he ran, "Like one apple is placed in front of you and the other is placed in a locked box, which one do you choose to eat? Of course the one in front of you. This thing only eats raw souls, and There is a way to eat it, it is very picky, and it is very powerful."
Lan Jingyi said in shock, "Is that so? It seems to make sense! Wait, you're really not crazy!"
Lan SiZhui explained as he ran, "We all thought it was the landslide and Tianlei splitting the coffin that led to the loss of the soul, so naturally we thought it was the Soul Eater."
Wei Wuxian said, "Wrong."
"What's wrong?"
"The sequence is wrong, and the cause and effect are wrong. I ask you, which is the first and the last, the cause and the effect?"
Lan SiZhui said without hesitation, "The landslide comes first, and the soul-eating comes after. The former is the cause, the latter the effect."
Wei WuXian said, "Completely wrong. It was the soul-eating first and the landslide behind. The soul-eating is the cause, and the landslide was the fruit! On the night of the landslide, there was a sudden torrential rain, the sky struck thunder and split a coffin, remember this The first lost soul, that lazy guy who was trapped in the mountains for one night, married in the past few days."
Lan Jingyi said, "What's wrong?"
Wei WuXian said, "It's not right anywhere! A pauper who is idle, where does he get the money to get married and make a big deal?"
Several teenagers were speechless. It is no wonder that the Gusu Lan family was originally a family that did not need to consider the issue of rich and poor. Wei WuXian added, "Have you seen all the dead souls floating on Dafan Mountain? There was an old man whose head was beaten to death, and the workmanship and material of his shroud were excellent. Wearing such a gorgeous shroud, his coffin couldn't be empty. , there must be a few pieces of the coffin buried in the coffin. The coffin that was split open by a thunderbolt was probably his, and the person who collected the bones later did not find the funeral objects, so they must have been taken away by the lazy man. Explain his sudden wealth. That lazy man suddenly got rich and got married after a night of landslides. Something unusual must have happened that night. It rained heavily that night. The Temple of the Goddess. And if ordinary people go to the Temple of God, they must do one thing."
Lan Sizhui said, "Make a wish?"
"That's right. For example, let him have good luck, make a fortune, get married with money or something. The goddess fulfilled him, sent down thunder, split the tomb, and let him see the treasure in the coffin. And his wish was fulfilled, as At the price, the goddess descended on his wedding night and sucked his soul away!"
Lan Jingyi: "You guessed it?"
Wei Wuxian: "It's a guess. But if you keep guessing, everything can be explained."
Lan Sizhui: "How do you explain Miss Ah Yan
Wei WuXian: "Good question. You should have asked before you went up the mountain. Ah Rou just got married during that time. For all the newly engaged girls, they must have the same wish."
Lan Jingyi said ignorantly, "What wish?"
Wei WuXian said, "It's nothing more than, 'I hope my husband will love me and love me for the rest of my life,' or something like that."
All the young people are stunned: "Can this kind of wish really be achieved..."
Wei WuXian spread his hands and said, "It's very simple. As long as her husband's 'this life' ends immediately, wouldn't it count as his 'only one person in his life'?"
Lan Jingyi suddenly realized and said excitedly, "Oh, oh! So, so, so after Miss Ayan got engaged, her husband was killed by a wolf in the mountains the next day, because it is very likely that Miss Ayan went to Tiannv Temple to make a wish the day before. !"
Wei Wuxian strikes while the iron is hot, "It's hard to say whether it was the jackal who killed him or something else. There is another special thing about Ah Rou: why is only her soul back among all the people? What's the difference between her and others? It's different. The place is that one of her relatives has lost her soul. Or to put it another way, there is a relative who has replaced her! Zheng Tiejiang is A Yan's father, a father who loves his daughter. In that case, what can I do?"
This time Lan Sizhui took it very quickly: "—He could only send his last hope to heaven. So he also went to the Temple of Heavenly Maiden to make a wish, 'I hope my daughter Ah Rou's soul will be found back'!"
Wei Wuxian praised, "That's why only A Ro's soul has returned, and it's also the reason why the third lost soul, Zheng Tiejiang, lost his soul. Although A Ro's soul was spit out, it was inevitably damaged. After the soul returned to her place, she began to imitate the dance and even smile of the statue of the goddess involuntarily."
What these lost souls have in common is that 80% of them made a wish before the statue of the goddess. The price of a wish coming true is the soul.
This stone statue of the goddess was originally just an ordinary stone, but it happened to look like a human being. It has been enshrined for hundreds of years for no reason. But it is not greedy enough, and with a single thought, it wants to speed up the increase of mana by sucking the soul. The soul absorbed in the form of wish exchange is equivalent to the soul voluntarily offered by the wisher. The two parties trade fairly and seek benevolence, which seems to be a reasonable and reasonable way. Therefore, the pointer of the wind and evil plate does not move, the flag of summoning yin cannot be summoned, and the sword cannot be summoned. All the talismans are invalid, just because the things in Dafan Mountain are not monsters at all, they are gods! This is a wild god that has been enshrined in incense and enshrined for hundreds of years. To deal with it with the things that deal with ghosts and monsters is equivalent to fighting fire with fire!
Lan Jingyi said loudly, "Wait! But in the shrine just now, a person was also sucked in his soul, and we didn't hear him make a wish!"
Wei WuXian suddenly mentioned it, and stopped: "Someone was sucked in the soul at the shrine? You tell me the situation just now, word for word."
Lan Sizhui repeated it clearly and quickly, and heard Jin Ling's words, "It's so smart, then I make a wish now that this soul-eating thing in Dafan Mountain will appear in front of me immediately, can it be done?" At that time, Wei WuXian said, "Isn't this making a wish? This is making a wish!"
When the others agreed with Jin Ling, it was assumed that they all made the same wish. And the Soul Eater was in front of them at the time, so the wish had been fulfilled, and then it was time to ask for a replacement!
Suddenly, the donkey stopped and ran in the opposite direction. Wei WuXian caught it off guard and pulled it down again, grabbing the rope, only to hear a "crunch" and "snoring" chewing sound from the bushes in front of him. An incomparably tall figure crouched in the bushes, with a huge head moving around on the ground, one person's abdomen, when he heard a strange noise, he raised his head suddenly and met their eyes.
This soul-eating goddess originally had a blurry face, with only about eyes, nose, ears and mouth. After sucking the souls of several cultivators in one breath, she has transformed into a clear facial features. It is a smiling woman's face. With a torn arm, he was munching.
Everyone immediately retreated with Hua Donkey.
Lan SiZhui broke down and said, "That's not right! The Yiling Patriarch said that high-level people eat souls, and low-level people eat meat!"
Wei Wuxian said helplessly, "You are superstitious about what he does, and he makes a mess of his own stuff! No rules are set in stone, you are just a baby, when you don't have teeth, you can only drink porridge, soup, soup, and water. Of course, when I grow up, I want to eat meat with my teeth. Now that her mana has soared, she naturally wants to try something new!"
The soul-eating goddess stood up from the ground, tall and big, using both hands and feet, dancing in ecstasy, seemingly very happy. Suddenly, an arrow roared and hit her in the forehead, and the arrow went out from the back of her head.
Hearing the sound of the string, Wei Wuxian followed the sound, and Jin Ling was standing on a high slope not far away. He had already attached the second feather arrow to the bow, and the string was fully drawn. The strength was so strong that the Soul-Eating Goddess stumbled back a few steps.
Lan Sizhui shouted, "Young Master Jin! Send out your signal!"
Jin Ling turned a deaf ear and was determined to take down this monster. With a sullen face, he took three arrows at once. Being shot two arrows in the head, the soul-eating goddess was not bothered, she still had a smile on her face, and attacked Jin Ling. Although she danced as she walked, her speed was terrifyingly fast, and the distance was shortened by half in an instant. A few cultivators flashed out, fighting with her, stumbling her footsteps. Jin Ling's arrows kept moving, and it seemed that he was determined to shoot the feathered arrows first, and then fight with the Soul Eater Goddess. The hand is quite stable, and the shooting is accurate, but unfortunately all the magic weapons of the fairy gate are useless to it!
Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji were both waiting for news in Buddha's Foot Town, and they didn't know when they would notice the change and catch up. Water is needed to put out the fire, and the magic weapon of Xianmen will not work.
Wei WuXian pulled out the sword from Lan SiZhui's waist, chopped off a piece of thin bamboo, made a flute with his flying hands, brought it to his lips, and took a deep breath. The sharp flute sound was like a sharp arrow, piercing the night sky and going straight to the sky.
He shouldn't have done this unless he had to. But now, it doesn't matter what is summoned, as long as the evil spirit is strong enough and the hostile spirit is strong enough to tear this soul-eating goddess to pieces!
Lan Sizhui was completely stunned, but Lan Jingyi covered his ears and said, "It's already time, why are you still playing the flute! It sounds awful!"
Three or four of the monks who were fighting with the Soul Eater in the arena had already been sucked out of their souls. Jin Ling pulled out his sword and was less than two feet away from the Soul Eater. His heart was beating wildly, and blood was surging in his brain: "If I can't cut her head off with this sword, I'll die here—die, die!"
At this moment, there was a tinkling sound in the mountain forest of Dafan Mountain.
Jingle, Jingle. Fast, slow, and loud. Echoes in the silent mountain forest. It's as if chains hit each other and ropes drag the floor. Getting closer and louder.
For some reason, this voice gave people an extremely uneasy sense of threat, and even the Soul Eater stopped dancing, raised her arms, and stared blankly into the dark depths where the voice came.
Wei Wuxian put away his flute and looked at where he came from.
Although the ominous feeling in his heart is getting heavier and heavier, since he is willing to be summoned by him, at least he is willing to listen to his words.
The voice stopped abruptly, and a figure emerged from the darkness.
After seeing this figure and this face clearly, the faces of several monks were distorted.
Even in the face of the stone statue of the goddess who would suck their souls away at any time, this group of people did not flinch, nor did they show any timidity. However, at this moment, the voices they shouted were full of fear that could not be concealed.
"... 'Ghost General', it's 'Ghost General', it's Wen Ning!"
The title "Ghost General", like the Yiling Patriarch, is notorious and notorious, and usually the two appear together.
The word only represents an object. It was under the seat of the ancestor of Yiling, Wei Ying, the number one who helped Zhou to abuse, stir up trouble, fight for tigers, turn the sky into the ground, and the murderous corpse that should have been smashed to ashes long ago, Wen Ning!