Recalling the dark expression on Li Wei’s face during the game last night, Zhang Xianyu figured this must be the so-called punishment.
Li Wei was like this, and the situation of the other two girls couldn’t be much better, otherwise there wouldn’t be such a strong stench of corpses.
Zhang Xianyu pressed the phone screen off and curled back into the sleeping bag.
He was a bit curious—what exactly was it that could make Li Wei and the others, who had already turned into corpses, appear like living people, and even during the day, it was impossible to see any trace of ghostly aura on them?
Zhang Xianyu gently turned the prayer beads on his wrist and asked Lin Wushui if he knew anything.
Lin Wushui was silent for a moment, then said he didn’t know either.
On WeChat, Xie Dingxin was also completely confused.
Since no one could guess, they might as well wait for Li Wei to take them to see for themselves.
With a bit of curiosity and a bit of anticipation, Zhang Xianyu closed his eyes again.
Those three corpses were indeed smelly, but after all, it was unlikely they’d get up at midnight and bite him.
Besides, maybe tomorrow they’d get to meet the thing’s master.
Yawning from drowsiness, Zhang Xianyu drifted off to sleep again.
Sleeping outside made it hard to rest deeply.
As soon as dawn broke, Zhang Xianyu woke up with a vague sense of alertness. Crawling out of the sleeping bag, he saw the other four were still asleep.
Zhang Xianyu instinctively glanced at Li Wei—
Li Wei had returned to his normal appearance.
The hair at the back of his head was thick and lush, with no sign of the hole that had once been there.
The sound of getting up startled Xie Dingxin.
He hadn’t really slept much either, so seeing Zhang Xianyu up, he also got up and began to pack his sleeping bag and luggage.
Zhang Xianyu, meanwhile, rekindled the fire and set up a small aluminum pot to cook instant noodles.
The aroma of the instant noodles lured the remaining three awake one after another.
While cooking, Zhang Xianyu secretly observed the three.
Li Wei was alright—other than becoming even quieter, there was nothing unusual.
But the two girls’ faces carried a faint trace of Black Aura.
They seemed completely unaware, simply washing up with bottled water, then lively gathering around Zhang Xianyu, gazing longingly at the instant noodles.
Two packs of instant noodles filled the small aluminum pot.
The five of them each took some in disposable cups.
After breakfast, they cleaned up the trash and set off again.
Today’s journey was much more tedious than yesterday.
Li Wei was silent the entire time, never speaking, and never took out that map again.
He just kept his head down, leading them deeper into the mountains.
Ji Huanhuan and Chen Xiaomei were surrounded by Black Aura, like deflated balloons, with wisps of Black Aura leaking from their bodies and swirling around them.
Zhang Xianyu guessed that once all the Black Aura had leaked out, they’d turn back into corpses.
So naturally, there was no way they’d be as lively and playful as yesterday.
The atmosphere was oppressively tense, yet all five of them acted as if nothing was wrong, heads down, focused on heading deeper in.
Xie Dingxin was the most restless.
After walking for a while, he took out his phone to message Zhang Xianyu.
The mountain signal was poor, so the loading circle spun for a long while before the message finally sent: [Where do you think they’re taking us?]
Zhang Xianyu’s phone vibrated softly after a while.
He glanced at it and quickly replied: [To that thing’s lair.]
Speaking of lairs, he remembered the chat log he’d seen on Sun Han’s phone.
The other party had said that there was a temple in Jiuhuan Mountain where praying for marriage was very effective.
This could have been an excuse to lure Sun Han and Zhou Qian.
But it was also possible…that there really was a temple in the mountains.
It was just hard to say what exactly was worshipped in that temple.
Glancing at the three who were no longer pretending, Zhang Xianyu thought to himself that this thing was pretty bold.
Yesterday’s game hadn’t managed to trick them, so today it simply stopped hiding at all—was it that confident it could deal with them?
As he walked forward, Zhang Xianyu lowered his eyes, a trace of vigilance appearing in his gaze.
The eastern sun gradually climbed into the sky.
The blindingly hot sunlight was filtered layer by layer by the forest canopy overhead, leaving only scattered fragments falling through the gaps in the leaves.
After passing through a patch of lush, overgrown underbrush, the path suddenly opened up ahead.
Zhang Xianyu twitched his nose and caught a faint whiff of incense.
He was all too familiar with this scent—he’d often burned incense and candles during rituals with Zhang Jianguo in the past.
“We’re almost there.”
Li Wei, who had been silent all along, suddenly spoke.
His head rotated 180 degrees on his neck to look back, a strange smile on his darkened face.
He no longer bothered to hide his abnormality, and then turned his head back as if nothing had happened.
Behind him, Ji Huanhuan and Chen Xiaomei’s bodies had begun to emit the stench of decay.
Beyond the open clearing stood a tall, imposing temple.
The vermilion outer walls were dazzlingly bright, and in front of the gates was a steady stream of worshippers.
The worshippers brought offerings, chatting as they went to pay their respects at the temple.
From afar, Zhang Xianyu could already see the plaque above the temple gates, with the three gold-embossed characters
“Dizang Temple” glaringly eye-catching.
Zhang Xianyu’s brows twitched slightly.
He subconsciously touched the warm prayer beads on his wrist and exchanged a glance with Xie Dingxin before following the endless stream of worshippers.
Dizang Temple was so lively, it was hard to believe it was deep in the mountains.
The worshippers carried offerings, smiling and laughing as they came and went.
The temple was filled with the heavy scent of incense.
Just like when he’d met Li Wei and the others at the Jiuhuan Mountain station, there was not a trace of ghostly aura here—nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Zhang Xianyu had a strange feeling as he looked toward the main hall.
Beyond the high steps, he saw the compassionate, smiling Dizang Statue.
The Dizang Statue was gilded, dignified in appearance, with kind, gentle features.
In its left hand, it held a monk’s staff; in its right, a precious jewel.
Seated cross-legged atop Tingting, it seemed to gaze down at the masses with a gentle smile.
Li Wei and the others, having completed their task, mingled with the worshippers and left.
Zhang Xianyu noticed that the Black Aura around the three had vanished completely—they looked no different from living people now.
“Want to go in and take a look?”
Xie Dingxin asked with interest, surprised to find such a place hidden in Jiuhuan Mountain.
Zhang Xianyu quietly reminded him to be careful, then stepped inside.
The moment they crossed the threshold, all the worshippers stopped in their tracks.
It was as if someone had pressed the pause button on their faces.
Their heads turned at bizarre angles, all staring at the two of them in unison.
“Damn!”
Xie Dingxin’s scalp tingled under the stares.
He glanced again at the solemn temple, his brows knitting tighter as he muttered under his breath,
“What the hell is this?”
When they reached the main hall, the worshippers returned to normal, each one devoutly kneeling and burning incense.
Zhang Xianyu inhaled the familiar scent of incense, his gaze fixed on the towering Dizang Statue.
He was considering what to do—should he stay put and wait, or strike first?
After a moment’s thought, he snatched two sticks of incense from a worshipper, handing one to Xie Dingxin and keeping one for himself.
The worshipper, whose incense had been taken, acted as if nothing had happened.
With empty hands, he still mimed holding incense, devoutly performing three kneels and three bows, then mimed placing the incense in the burner.
Zhang Xianyu saw a few faint wisps of Black Aura drifting from the worshipper’s body.
After a moment’s thought, Zhang Xianyu, holding the incense without a trace of sincerity, stepped forward to place it in the burner before the Dizang Statue.
Before he could insert it, a worshipper beside him suddenly turned his head, his eyes as black as dead fish, and stared at him, saying,
“You haven’t performed the Incense Ritual.”
His words were like oil thrown onto a blazing fire. Instantly, all the worshippers turned to look at him, countless pairs of pitch-black eyes silently watching her, all reciting the same sentence in unison.
“You haven’t performed the Incense Ritual.”
The stick of incense in Zhang Xianyu’s hand quietly burned, white smoke curling upward.
Zhang Xianyu withdrew his hand, which had been about to offer incense, and calmly asked,
“How do you perform the Incense Ritual?”
The worshippers revealed eerie expressions, slowly surrounding them, chanting in unison: “Incense Ritual! Incense Ritual!”
Xie Dingxin cursed under his breath and edged closer to Zhang Xianyu, whispering,
“Are we about to fight?”
He gritted his teeth, regretting coming here—his injuries hadn’t healed yet, and he’d thought he was just here for some excitement and a bit of spring sightseeing.
Zhang Xianyu looked up at the sky.
At some point, the once-bright sky had become shrouded in clouds.
Without the brilliant sunlight, the worshippers’ faces grew even gloomier.
On closer inspection, one could see threads of Black Aura seeping from their bodies.
He vaguely understood what “Incense Ritual” meant now.
These ghosts used their own souls as incense, offering them to the Dizang Statue in the main hall.
Their ability to appear no different from ordinary people was likely thanks to this Dizang Statue.
Zhang Xianyu glanced back.
The golden Buddha’s eyes were cast downward, the corners of its mouth raised high—it seemed compassionate, yet also mocking.
Narrowing his eyes slightly, Zhang Xianyu’s lips pressed into a cold line.
He swiftly formed hand seals, chanting softly,
“Thunder Invocation!”
A clap of thunder resounded from the cloud-filled sky.
Then came a second, a third…
The sky grew ever darker, dazzling lightning tearing through the tranquil sky, striking toward the looming temple.
The worshippers within the temple scattered in panic.
But the chaos lasted only a moment.
Suddenly, haunting Buddhist chants echoed from the main hall.
The panicked worshippers calmed down, their faces growing serene and peaceful as they walked in unison to kneel on the open ground before the hall.
The Black Aura spilling from their bodies grew thicker.
Zhang Xianyu and Xie Dingxin, standing before the Dizang Statue, felt a moment of dizziness.
Zhang Xianyu was the first to recover, pulling out tissues to plug his ears.
Xie Dingxin instinctively took a step forward, then shrank back, raising a hand to cover his ears.
“What the hell is this thing?”
Frowning at the unmoving statue, he muttered,
“This is seriously messed up.”
In all his twenty-odd years, it was the first time he’d seen such a sinister Buddha statue.
Whether Buddhist or Daoist, the golden statues of gods and Buddhas were supposed to drive away evil by nature.
Any evil spirits or ghosts would avoid them at all costs.
Yet here, the greatest evil was the Dizang Statue itself.
“We’ll know if we split it open.”
Zhang Xianyu’s gaze was cold as he looked at the Dizang Statue.
His fingers changed form again and again, and as he shifted his steps, the thunder in the sky grew louder, the lightning nearly tearing the heavens apart.
Bolt after bolt of lightning struck the Dizang Statue, but it remained unmoved.
Not only did it not split open, not even a bit of its gilded surface was scratched.
It still wore that compassionate smile, gazing down.
Zhang Xianyu’s gaze shifted to the worshippers kneeling on the open ground.
Amid the deafening thunder, the worshippers were no longer panicked.
All of them prostrated themselves, devoutly bowing, chanting under their breath.
As Zhang Xianyu’s thoughts raced, countless bolts of lightning fell again.
This time, however, they weren’t aimed at the Dizang Statue, but at the worshippers kneeling on the ground…
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