In the desolate mountains and wilderness, the night wind squeezes through the cracks in the sky, and in the direction it blows, the village is brightly lit.
The bonfire burned in spots, swaying and illuminating the figures of a group of bandits. They had hideous and rough faces, drinking wine and eating meat, making noises, laughing and cursing.
Roasted on the fire were the captured chickens and ducks, which were turned over in the rough big hands and roasted to an attractive color. The fragrant fat dripped into the red firewood, making a sizzling sound.
Someone cut half a duck and put it on a plate, then brought it to the front building and carefully placed it on the long table at the first place. Liu Erlong directly pulled off the duck leg, chewed it, and looked at the small leaders on the side.
"It's just a small village like Lujia, but I didn't expect there would be several hundred taels of silver. It's really easy to get. If there is such a good job again, I would be willing to make another trip tonight, hahahaha!"
The three leaders also burst into laughter.
There was not only silver, but also a lot of chickens, ducks, pigs and sheep, enough to feed the more than 30 people in the village for two or three days.
Someone wiped the grease from his mouth and said with a smile: "It's that Lu Erlai. It seems that he didn't come back with us."
Next to me, there was a sound of laughter and slapping of the table.
"Of course he was caught, but I'm not worried that he will reveal our place to everyone. He doesn't have the guts to do that!"
Liu Erlong sucked the meat on his fingers, grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth, and sneered.
"We are not afraid of confessing. Those villagers don't have the courage, and the nearest Fushui County Captain Zuo will not intervene rashly. We are under the jurisdiction of Tongling County... If those villagers want to sue, they can only go to Tongling County, and they have to pass through our mountain."
"Ha ha… "
"So, this is a good place, no one cares!"
"I'll do it another day. I want to retire in these mountains."
In the hall where flames flickered, people were talking and laughing at the same time. Liu Erlong stroked the wolf fur on the big chair under him and listened with a smile on his face. He was quite satisfied with his men.
Among the three leaders over there, one of them suddenly turned his head.
"Second Master, I suddenly remembered that the Taoist priest who was captured at the foot of the mountain a few days ago is still in prison. Do you think you should release him? He is just a wandering Taoist priest and he has no money on him."
Liu Erlong almost forgot about this person. Fushui County suddenly searched everywhere for alchemists and Taoists for questioning, forcing some of them to live in the mountains. As a result, a Taoist fell into his hands that day and was imprisoned for several days. No one mentioned him just now, and he almost forgot about him.
Thinking of this, he smiled and raised his wine bowl to toast his brothers below.
"Then let him go tomorrow... A stinking Taoist priest is really not worth much money. Come on, continue eating meat and drinking!"
The three of them burst into laughter.
They all raised their wine bowls and toasted back. The noisy sound faded away outside the village. The bandits guarding the gate yawned, and a white color rolled in their field of vision.
"Why is it foggy?"
Outside the village, mist gradually filled the air, and the leaves in the woods on the top of the cliff rustled.
Faintly, there was a sound coming.
Several bandits guarding the entrance of the village looked at each other, and one of them asked his companion to take the torch and asked, "Did you hear any sound?" As everyone nodded, he held the torch and walked forward a few steps. The flickering flames illuminated the exit of the narrow gap.
In the thin mist, a figure was staggering towards them.
With dirty feet and wearing only one straw sandal, he walked across the valley with a swaying step. His head was lowered, and his slightly stubbled lips kept moving, as if he was whispering something, or humming a tune.
It gave the bandits holding torches over there a weird feeling.
Wow! Wow!
An old crow suddenly cried at the top of a tree, flapped its wings and flew up. A swaying figure stepped into the range of the fire, and when its face was revealed, the bandit breathed a sigh of relief.
"Lu Erlai... you're trying to scare me to death."
On the opposite side, the swaying figure stopped, and the slightly drooping face slowly raised up. The bandit who was coming over showed fear, and the torch in his hand fell to the ground with a bang. He staggered back half a step, yelled "Woo Wow!", turned around and ran back to the gate in a hurry.
The face that slowly lifted up was pale and blue, its mouth was crooked and wide open, its eyes were rolled up so that the pupils could not be seen, and the area around its eye sockets was completely dark.
It is obvious that Lu Erlai has been dead for a long time.
"Mother... ghost-"
The men retreated again and again, the torches on the ground flickered and emitted a faint blue color, and the bandit who ran away first suddenly fell to the ground, his limbs twitching, his face distorted and hideous, with blood gushing out of his seven orifices.
A stream of evil energy came out from its open mouth, chased after the running bandits, and quickly spread around. More than a dozen bandits sitting by the campfire heard the screams and turned their heads to look. Several of their running companions fell to the ground one by one, without a sound.
They felt a chill all over their bodies, and their vision was covered by a thin layer of white gauze.
The next moment, the burning bonfire went out.
Even the pair of big red lanterns under the eaves of the village building were extinguished in an instant, and the entire camp fell into darkness. Liu Erlong and three small leaders who were sitting in the hall stood up and looked at the pitch-black outside.
An eerie deathly silence was crawling on their backs like an ant. Liu Erlong grabbed the steel knife beside the chair, stared at the darkness outside, and swallowed.
"What's going on outside?"
"Is there a ghost? When I came back, some friends told me that they encountered a female ghost."
“…Don’t talk nonsense.”
… clang clang clang…
There was an eerie sound of cymbals in the darkness ahead, and a faint female voice accompanied by the cymbals echoed faintly outside the door.
"… There are crows on the grave, wailing and crying, and a tribute table… Incense is burning… Burning the paper clothes of the man and woman… For… You…"
The sound fell silent.
Several people in the hall looked at each other. The three leaders in the front quickly waved their hands to let the nearby men block in front and carefully retreat.
In the silence, a sudden shrill scream was heard outside.
One of the leaders who retreated in fear kicked over the brazier, sparks and burning wood rolled around, and Liu Erlong yelled, "What are you afraid of?!"
“Second Master, what if it really is a ghost? We are not Taoist priests who catch ghosts… Dao Dao…” The leader who spoke suddenly shouted to the two bandits, “Go and bring up the Taoist priest in the dungeon! Quickly!!”
The two of them hurried into the back hall, and the people in the hall quickly rushed to the door, closed it, and propped it against the door. Then they heard a series of rapid and strange knocks on the door, which sounded crazy and chaotic.
After a while, the two bandits in the back hall came back, followed by a young Taoist priest with a pointed chin and monkey face. His Taoist robe was tattered and had several big holes in it, and he was also yelling.
"I'm telling you, if my master hadn't forbidden me to fight with ordinary people, you bandits, would you want to catch me? Don't even think about it... Where is that ghost?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the door of the hall burst open, and several people at the door were knocked over and slid half a foot away. Mist and negative energy surged and rushed in directly.
The Taoist opened his eyes wide, flipping through the cloth bag he had brought back while cursing the bandits over there.
"This evil spirit... Rakshasa ghost... I say to your mother, how could you provoke such a powerful character."
Liu Erlong had already cursed in his heart, and ran behind the Taoist priest with a knife in hand, "How should I know? I came here without knowing anything."
"Young Taoist, what are you still doing? Hurry up!" Seeing someone entering the house, he shouted again.
Over there, the Taoist priest pulled out a few yellow talismans from his cloth bag and pushed Liu Erlong away with his elbow: "Don't talk, you're in the way!" But his hands were not slow, and the talisman paper between his fingertips burst into flames as he chanted something.
"go-"
Five pieces of burning talisman paper shot out from the Taoist's fingertips, lined up in a row, and hit the surging Yin Qi. There were several "hissing" sounds in succession, and black smoke rose.
The negative energy swirled and retreated out of the door. A sharp female voice, "Ahh...", became piercing. The surging mist was like a woman's long hair, turning into thousands of threads and coming back in. On the rows of paper windows, there were all twisted silk threads, some of which seeped in through the gaps and spread to the hall.
"Fortunately, this evil ghost has only recently become a Rakshasa, so there is still a way!"
The Taoist hung the cloth bag on his shoulder, pulled out a bronze mirror, bit his index finger, and wiped it upwards, "Fortunately, the things my master left for me were not ruined by you."
The bronze mirror flipped in his hand.
"Imperial decree, all gods and spirits in the eight directions will be warded off!"
A beam of apricot-yellow light shot out from the bronze mirror and hit the gloomy energy at the door, passing right through it. In an instant, a cold wind howled, causing the window frames to rattle.
A ghost figure appeared in the rising and surging mist, and was held up in the air by the apricot-yellow light. Its hands and feet were struggling, and its face was distorted as it screamed miserably at Li Erlong and others in the hall.
"Still not being honest!"
The Taoist held the bronze mirror with one hand and took out the cloth bag with the other hand. He took out the yellow silk cover, made a gesture with his fingers, and threw it at the female ghost outside.
The struggling ghost was instantly covered and wrapped up. The moment the Taoist took away the bronze mirror, he rushed over and tightened the cloth, ignoring the female ghost who was running around inside, and wrapped it up into a ball.
"That's all right now. Now that everything is packed, I'm going down the mountain!"
Liu Erlong and the others also breathed a sigh of relief and followed him out of the hall. The fog outside gradually dissipated, revealing a field of pale corpses.
"This evil ghost has killed so many of my brothers. Taoist priest, why don't you just kill the female ghost here and let us vent our anger."
The Taoist threw the ball of cloth in his hand and said, "You wish for that. I haven't even counted the fact that you guys tied me up on the mountain before..."
While he was speaking, a leader following Liu Erlong suddenly spoke and pointed forward.
"The fog... why is it back again?"
"Um?"
Not only Li Erlong, but even the Taoist was stunned for a moment. The fog that had disappeared appeared again while they were talking, and it became much thicker.
"No... there is no Yin Qi..."
The moustache on his pointed mouth trembled, and the Taoist looked quickly in the direction of the narrow gap in the sky, where he could clearly hear the clanging sound of copper bells.
An old donkey slowly appeared at the entrance of the village, with a man sitting horizontally on it. He was wearing a scholar's robe and holding a pen, painting on a scroll with great concentration.
The handsome face turned slightly and looked at the Taoist priest, Liu Erlong and others under the village building.
He coughed twice and said slowly and softly, "Open the yellow silk in your hand and release the female ghost inside."
"Haha, this is what I caught. If you want to let it go, then..."
Before the Taoist priest finished speaking, there was a sound of rocks rolling down from the surrounding mountain walls. In the surging mist, a huge green shape slid past in the mist.
"What is this..."
The fleeting color frightened Liu Erlong and several other leaders and bandits so much that they stepped back behind the door.
The Taoist standing under the eaves felt his heart pounding. He shone the bronze mirror in his hand again, penetrating the mist and shining it onto the cliff. He saw a long body and dark green scales the size of a human head, which were sliding and unfolding in dense ups and downs.
In the apricot-yellow beam of light, the next moment, a snake's tongue as thick as a wooden beam of a house flashed by, and a vertical pupil completely blocked the beam of light. Even the huge pupil visible to the naked eye shrank in the light.
The Taoist priest and even the people at the door felt their scalps tighten in an instant, and the former even screamed.
"I say to you old mothers... what on earth have you provoked!!!"