The lights in the bedroom were brightly on. Inside the curtains, the quilt on the bed rose and fell gently. Chen Jing was sleeping peacefully, occasionally scratching his face and turning in one direction to breathe lightly.
call…
The moment the curtains fluttered, the burning lights went out and the bedroom fell into darkness. A huge black shadow seeped in from the gaps in the window frames, meandering along the wall and coming to the top of the bed.
The shadows of tentacles and mouthparts danced and opened and closed, leaning down from the wall, staring at the sleeping face of the boy below.
hiss~~~
There was a sound of air sucking through teeth, and the curtains seemed to be sucked towards the black shadow. Perhaps feeling the cold, Chen Jing moved uncontrollably in the quilt twice, and his head swayed from side to side on the wooden pillow, as if he was in a nightmare.
On his body, wisps of light yellow air slowly emerged from the boy's body into the air, leaving his body, passing through the light gauze of the curtain, and entering the moment of the black shadow outline -
Something hanging on the corner post at the end of the bed lit up, and a green light burst out. The emerald jade pendant suddenly twisted a few times, and the two jade carps on it moved their eyes, and their tails swayed along with it.
laugh!
A sound like water pouring into boiling oil exploded in the hall. The green light hit the dark shadow on the wall at the head of the bed, and a foul smell filled the air.
'Um... uh...'
On the bed, Chen Jing frowned and struggled hard. Suddenly, he shouted "Ah--", opened his eyes, and sat up from the bed.
A fishy wind blew back into the hall, rolling up the curtains. The window opened with a bang, and a dark shadow quickly spread out. In the room, the cold green light dimmed and fell to the ground along with two carps swimming in the air.
Outside the palace, a series of footsteps were heard and the guards pushed open the palace door and rushed in.
"Prince!"
Immediately afterwards, more people ran around the bedroom, shouting loudly.
"Quick, protect the prince!" "Check the windows on the side of the palace!"
"I saw something running out—"
"Chase!"
Amidst loud shouts, the clanging of armor plates and scabbards, the East Palace guards and the imperial guards ran with torches. Someone had discovered something unusual and was chasing after them with his companions. Faint Buddhist chants could be heard coming from a lighted attic not far away.
"Gone..."
"Am I seeing things? This seems to be the place where the Dharma Master who protects the country is located. Outsiders are not allowed to enter."
"Then... let's look somewhere else."
Several guards with swords on their shoulders looked around for a while and then went to investigate elsewhere.
There was a light in the attic, and the lanterns hanging under the eaves were swaying. In the light, a black shadow moved up along the wall, slipped in through the window gap, and turned into a puff of smoke and drilled into the old monk's back.
"Lu Liangsheng!"
Pu Du Ci Hang opened his eyes and an extremely eerie voice came out from his lips. The windows were shaking. Soon, a maid in a black skirt spoke outside the door.
"Your Excellency, one of the civil and military officials is missing."
"who?"
"Min Changwen."
"Send someone to capture him and bring him back. I, the Dharma Master, will personally help him to pass away the evil spirit in him."
…
In the East Palace bedroom, the lights were lit again.
Chen Jing's face was covered in sweat and he was breathing heavily. His panicked eyes moved around, scanning the guards standing around with swords in their arms, and his gaze finally fell on a double fish pearl pendant on the ground.
"This is Mr. Lu's jade pendant, it just saved me..."
As the murmur came out, the jade pendant made a soft bang, as if it had completed its mission, and broke into two pieces in front of everyone.
The mana above dissipated.
Hundreds of miles away in the south, in a small courtyard of a mountain village among the mountains surrounded by darkness, a sleeping young man suddenly opened his eyes, sat up from his bed, and looked towards the north through the window.
“Hahahaha…”
On the side of the pillow, the Toad Taoist was snoring with his mouth opening and closing in a sound sleep. He scratched his white belly with his webbed feet, sat up, and saw the figure standing in front of the window. He yawned and smacked his lips.
"Liangsheng, what's wrong?"
"That centipede has taken action."
Lu Liangsheng said softly, waved his hand across the oil lamp on the desk, and a bean-sized flame lit up, illuminating the entire room, and then he continued the unfinished painting.
Nie Honglian poked her head out of the scroll on the wall, rubbed her eyes, and looked curiously at the scholar who set up the easel in the room, then floated over and sat down next to the Toad Taoist.
"Master Toad, what is the young master going to do?"
The toad yawned again, lay down, turned over his belly, and waved his flippers: "Get ready to fight that little centipede monster... Go to sleep."
"Oh." Hong Lian stood up and walked gently to the desk to help grind the ink. The scholar over there pulled open the white cloth covering the bed and hung it at the end of the bed.
Lu Liangsheng sat down in front of the painting. Even though he felt uneasy, he was too far away from the painting and it would be of no use. He heard a voice of "Young Master," and Hong Lian handed him the pen and ink.
He took a breath, suppressed his annoyance, reached out to take the wolf hair brush, dipped it in ink, and continued to write on "Soul Burial in the Underworld", embellishing the details of the background.
Different from the previous painting with mana.
This time, Lu Liangsheng infused his spiritual energy and magic power into the painting with almost every stroke, as if he was in a small world inside his own body.
The dark red and sticky river of blood wiped out the green grass and instead added strange-shaped stones. I waved at the dead woods in the distance, and dead birds with bald hair and bloodshot eyes stood on the treetops, making a hissing sound.
'Ghosts!'
Lu Liangsheng stretched out his fingers from his wide sleeves and drew the seal character "ghost" in the air. As he thought of it, cold wind blew in gusts. As the chill gathered, the blood-yellow mud on the ground surged up little by little, and densely packed arms and heads broke out of the ground.
"Hiss... Roar..."
"Woo woo..."
Ghosts were howling in the withered trees and old forests. Illusory silhouettes floated out from them, circling around Lu Liangsheng. A chilly wind blew...
'It's time for the next step.'
Resisting the uncomfortable feeling as if he was in the underworld, Lu Liangsheng quickened the speed of his fingers. Seal characters appeared in the air and flew into the hands of incomplete evil spirits, skeletons, and ghosts. The light of Dharma condensed and transformed into things that were completely out of place with the surroundings.
—Musical instruments.
Suona, gong, cymbals, snare drum, flute, pipa…
"It's done."
Lu Liangsheng exhaled a breath and regained consciousness in the room. He didn't know how much time had passed, but the sky outside was already getting light.
The scholar put down his pen and looked at the evil ghost skeletons in the painting, which were holding various musical instruments. He flicked his fingers and the magic power flew into the painting in an instant!
The dark clouds in the painting began to move, and in the light of the blood-red sun, the strange bird on the dead tree spread its wings, let out a hiss, flew off the branch, and circled in the air.
The densely packed skeletons and ghosts screamed, raised their instruments, and then... blew them.
Sad and mournful music came out from the painting and echoed in the room. The Toad Taoist priest in his sleep seemed to be reminded of the past and suddenly burst into tears.
Hong Lian covered her ears and quickly floated into the painting. She reached out and grabbed the bottom of the painting, pulled it upwards, and rolled up and closed the entire painting.
A mournful and sorrowful voice came out of the room, as if bewitching one's mind. There was a loud crash from the roof, and the Taoist climbed down from the roof, staggering in the yard.
Seeing this scene, Lu Liangsheng hurriedly withdrew his magic power from the painting. The underworld in the painting became still, and the sad and disturbing vocal music also came to an abrupt end.
**The Toad Taoist opened his eyes, sat up, blinked in confusion, and touched the corner of his eyes.
"Why am I crying..."
Hurry up and use your webbed feet to rub away the tears. If someone sees this, they will laugh at me.
The Taoist in the courtyard also looked around in confusion, not knowing how he came to the courtyard. He raised his eyes to the roof and broke out in a cold sweat.
… Damn it, am I suffering from sleepwalking
In the other two rooms, Li Jinhua came out wearing a dress, and seeing the Taoist priest in the courtyard, she asked:
"Whose family died?"
Lu Laoshi followed behind and poked his head out of the door frame: "How much is the gift?"
…
Inside the room, Lu Liangsheng collected his thoughts. The music in the painting had no effect on him. He was just a little shocked by this painting, which he had put a lot of effort into for the first time.
"Can a little bit of Jindan stage magic power have such power?"
If I could do it, maybe I could really compete with that Dharma master's soul-demanding Sanskrit chant. But, just painting is not enough.
Thinking of this, Lu Liangsheng picked up the scroll, blew on it, and the ink dried instantly. Then he quickly rolled it up in his hands and said to his parents in the yard, "If you have anything to do, go out for a walk." He walked straight out of the fenced yard and climbed up the Qixia Mountain to the west of the village in one breath.
After paying his respects to his teacher's tombstone and avoiding the eight magic swords that were still resonating, Lu Liangsheng walked to the old pine tree, facing the wind, shook out his sleeves, and bowed down with the scroll in his hand.
"I'll lend you two branches. I'll return them to you someday when the time comes."
In the mountain breeze, the old pine trees swayed their branches gently, making a rustling sound. Leaves floated around the scholar who was bowing his hands like snowflakes.
Snap… Snap…
There were two consecutive crisp sounds, and two pine branches dragging leaves fell in front of the scholar.
This old pine has stood on the cliff of Qixia Mountain for hundreds of years. It looked like this when Lu Taigong was still a child. Moreover, it was within Lu Liangsheng's expectation that the spiritual energy here would give the hundreds of years old tree some consciousness.
“Thank you so much!”
After another bow, Lu Liangsheng picked up the pine branches on the ground, wiped the fine leaves on the side branches with his fingers, removed the extra branches, and then spread them on the palm of his hand. The two pine branches began to spin in the air, and the rough bark on them peeled off inch by inch. The scholar twisted round heads at both ends and threaded them through the scroll to make a painting scroll.
"Almost there, but it's a pity that it's not my magical power or my own life treasure..."
Lu Liangsheng tossed it in his hand and said, "Let's deal with the centipede monster first."