Chapter XXXVII

"It's all right!"

"But what do you mean by 'it's okay'?" Bao Datong asked.

"This means that the Xitou store has not been 'obviously' harassed since then." Ruan Zhan pondered the words and didn't know how to describe the situation in Xitou.

In fact, on the surface, it seems that nothing has happened, and no children knock on the door in the middle of the night to call for their mother, but since then, the whole village has never been able to regain its previous health, just like a person who has been seriously ill and has been drained of his yang energy. In the past, it was just poverty, but now the whole village is shrouded in a gloomy and fragile atmosphere, without the slightest exuberance, a little wind and grass can silence all the people, and the people in the village are also very fragile, including the domestic animals and dogs, they are sick twice in three days, and I don't know if they were too frightened at that time, or if the three plague gods have sent some disaster.

Ruan Zhan saw all this in his eyes and understood what was going on in his heart. You must know that there are a total of three yang lamps on the top of people's heads and shoulders, so there are always old people who say that when walking at night in the middle of the night, don't look back, because as soon as you turn around, the yang lanterns will go out, and when the three lights are all extinguished, people will not have the innate breath to resist the evil spirit. But even if you encounter evil when walking at night and the yang light goes out, as long as you can survive the dangerous moment, during the day the next day, the yang energy rising from the earth will still naturally give enough replenishment to human beings, just like adding lamp oil, at night, the yang light will light up again!

But the people in Xitou Store are not like this, they only have one yang lamp on each shoulder, and the yang lamp on their heads is nowhere to be seen, not extinguished for a while, but disappeared at all!

This gave him a deeper understanding of the strength of those two little demons, their yin power was too strong, and they actually ate the villagers' yang lanterns for their own use at the moment of birth. They have been buried underground for hundreds of years, storing endless power, and as spirits, they can adopt the technique of yin and yang neutralization, which not only increases their strength, but also allows them to move around without being limited by the place of bones and the difference between day and night.

It's really, really, really hard to deal with.

As far as the villagers of Xitoudian are concerned, if they want to completely eradicate this situation where the yang fire is weak and there will be an invasion of external evil at any time, it is possible to destroy these two demons. He can't do this, he needs Bao Datong, an authentic Taoist heir. When the time comes, as long as the human yang energy devoured by these two demons is separated, and then the spell is cast back on the villagers.

"It seems that they are not interested in the backwoods like Xitoudian." Bao Datong said, "In fact, from their birth to today, there is a five-year incubation period. So what have they been doing for the past five years? And why don't you come out and cause trouble? Is it because they are cultivating themselves? Or do they want a quiet 'life'? And what motivates them to run out and commit crimes? ”

"Zhang Zixin is considered an inducement, right?" Wan Li said, "At least he came to Xitou Store and let the pair of demons feel the outside world." I think that they have been buried for so many years, and they were not very old when they were buried, and they may be very curious about the world, and maybe that's why they didn't harm humanity for five years. But from another point of view, maybe they have done something bad, but they have not been exposed because they are secret or have not done much harm. And the recent panic of losing a child may have prompted them to do so for something we don't understand. ”

"Maybe there's no reason at all, just do whatever you want." Xiao Xia shuddered when she remembered Xiao Tong's eyes, "You also said that they were only five or six years old when they were buried, so although after hundreds of years, their intelligence may have grown to be more cunning and cruel than that of ordinary adults, but their minds may still be children." As you know, it is difficult to guess what a child thinks, and what he does is based on his own momentary likes and dislikes, and there is not necessarily a reason or a rule to follow. ”

"I agree with Natsu's statement. Maybe after Zhang Zixin came here, his own situation or the place he came from aroused the interest of this pair of demons, so they ran out, maybe wandering around for a while, maybe just lurking in our city. Bao Datong said, "Think about what a terrible thing this is, for most people, every day we may have something unusual watching around us, danger is all around us, but we don't know it." ”

His words silenced everyone for a while, and then he continued, "What I don't understand is why this matter didn't become known to everyone, and even if Zhang Zixin's friend didn't reveal anything to the police, didn't the police find anything suspicious?" He continued.

"It's simple." Wan Li spread out his hands, "Either the people in the village are too timid to speak, or they are suppressed by the local government as a feudal superstition, or they have done something to the demons." However, since Zhang Zixin knows, it proves that this matter is still circulating in the local area, and besides, didn't Ah Zhan say that the local tabloid has a record? I guess it wasn't widely noticed, and then it was suppressed. Now the question is, how did Zhang Zixin set himself on fire, and what happened on the other side of the river? As he spoke, he looked at Ruan Zhan again.

According to the villagers, not long after the incident, a reporter from a big city surnamed Zhang came to their village to inquire about the incident. Probably because the countrymen were more in awe of the identity of reporters, so although they were afraid of provoking the 'three immortals' again, they still told Zhang Zixin about it. Of course, Zhang Zixin didn't believe it, and he was bent on finding the flaws, so he went to the land where the reservoir was dug to investigate, and then went to the ancestral temple to search for physical evidence, and finally he went to the place where the three dry bones were reburied. ”

"Nothing happened in the village across the river, did you?" Xiao Xia asked.

"It's fine." Ruan Zhan said, "The villagers of Xitoudian were afraid that they would be buried next to someone else's village, and they would not agree, but they also had a conscience and did not want to bring disaster to other villages, so the place they chose was a wasteland in the upper reaches of the river, with no villages and towns nearby, and a barren mountain at their back." ”

"Wow, the villagers of Xitoudian are really good, if I were a demon spirit, I wouldn't harm them." Bao Datong sighed exaggeratedly, "Dig me out again, let me see the light of day again, and give me a piece of feng shui treasure land with mountains and rivers for me to breathe spiritual energy, even if I am a moody child, I will not take revenge." ”

"I said it was back then." Ruan Zhan reminded him, "With such rapid economic development, that cemetery was leveled as an ownerless cemetery three years ago, and now that place is a flat road, and countless vehicles pass through it every day, and they can't cultivate in that environment." ”

"It's not going to be a highway of death or something, is it? It's the kind of car that gets into an accident as soon as it gets there. Bao Datong said.

Ruan Zhan shook his head, "There haven't been any major accidents there, don't forget, Zhang Zixin disappeared five years ago, if those two demons left Xitoudian because of him, and they are so powerful that they don't have to be restricted by the place of bones and the sun, moon, yin and yang, that so-called tomb was empty five years ago, just a pile of dry bones, how can it cause trouble to passers-by?" ”

Everyone nodded when they thought about it.

"Now the question is Zhang Zixin, what happened to him after he came to Xitou store? How did he go missing? Wanli led the topic back.

According to the village chief, after Zhang Zixin tossed around the village for a few days, he was ready to go to the other side of the river to investigate. At that time he was staying at the village chief's house, and the village chief tried to dissuade him from going, but he was very stubborn and went alone the next morning. He had no means of transportation, and he didn't know how he walked on the dirt road for 500 miles, and it took him a week to walk when the villagers buried the three dry bones, and if he came back for a round trip, it should have been at least two weeks, but he came back at midnight on the seventh day. On the night he returned, several villagers came back late from going to town, and as soon as they entered the village, they saw a man running around the village in a panic, as if he wanted to hide somewhere. One of the villagers recognized him as Reporter Zhang from the city, so he called him, but when he turned his head, he almost scared the villagers to death, because his body and neck did not move, but his whole head turned one hundred and eighty degrees, and his face was pale, and his facial features were blurred so that he could not see clearly. And just when everyone was so frightened that they couldn't move their feet, two children, a man and a woman, suddenly appeared, one of them held him by one hand, and dragged him away! And since then, he has not been seen again. Therefore, although he was only legally missing, it can be concluded from the oral accounts of the villagers that he must have died, otherwise it would not have been possible to travel back and forth within seven days, and it would not have been in that state. ”

"And his soul—" Wan Li said with some concern, "is it gone, or is it trapped somewhere, or is it eaten?" These two demons have sucked the blood of many dogs since they were born, so are they taking so many children now as food? ”

"This will not reveal the mystery until this matter is completely resolved." Ruan Zhan said, "However, the village chief gave me a notebook, which was left by Zhang Zixin back then, maybe he left too quickly and forgot to be at the village chief's house." ”

"Huh? Got notes? Where, where? Bao Datong jumped up, "What did you say?" ”

"I'll put it away, it will be useful later." Ruan Zhan said lightly, "As for what I said above, it is the situation he investigated in the past few days. ”

"What did he say?" Wanli was curious to see how an atheist reporter explained this strange thing.

He believes that the place where Xitoudian was going to dig the reservoir was once a monk's tomb. The large vat in the middle is an elderly Taoist priest, which is evident from his emanation, teeth, and the little clothing that remains; The painting on the lotus pot that has not faded for many years is a long-lost craft that is of great research value; The wire mesh in the cylinder block is also mixed in when making the cylinder, probably to prevent cracking; He also dug up the fragments and rubble of the jar that had been buried by the villagers, and found a black charm written on it with strange paint, which he believed to be a kind of funerary custom, similar to the funerary scriptures; The two children whose faces were lifelike when they were dug up were also the most cruel way to bury boys and girls in ancient times. The tops of their heads and the palms of their hands were pierced and filled with mercury while they were alive, which, together with some strange but esoteric embalming techniques of the past, allowed the boys and girls to survive a hundred years without decaying, and when the villagers dug them up and exposed them to the air, the bodies quickly decomposed; As for the most terrifying phenomena of knocking on doors in the middle of the night and killing large and small dogs in the village, he believes that the former is a collective hallucination of the villagers under terror, and the latter is the appearance of a ferocious beast. ”

"Dogs are the most sensitive animals, and no beast can kill them all without alarming them." Bao Datong said, "It doesn't make sense. ”

That's right, he explained that in his notes. He thought that it must be a rare creature that could secrete a special substance that could emit something similar to a psychedelic agent, which made the dogs obediently go to the ancestral temple with it, and then let it kill it. ”

"Well explained, but how can there be such an animal?" Wan Li said, "If there really is, then the state will not immediately arrest and protect the research!" ”

"After this question, he drew a huge red question mark, probably to make a hypothesis first, and then slowly verify it, but unfortunately he didn't have a chance." Ruan Zhan sighed lightly and looked out the window, "Actually, in my opinion, the first few items he guessed were all right - after the death of the old Taoist priest, because of his relatively high status, he buried the boys and girls, and those charms, the dust in his hand and the golden bell in his mouth were all used to suppress the spirits, but his judgment of the pair of boys and girls was wrong. The boy and girl were just ordinary children before the burial, but after being buried alive, it is possible that things have changed for some reason that we don't know.

The reason why there are those charms and magic weapons is probably so that the souls of these two children cannot leave after they die, and accompany the old Taoist priest to be his permanent slave. However, this old Taoist priest obviously does not have that much mana to make him still able to cultivate after becoming a soul body, or his soul after death does not even have innate ferocity. But you know, the smaller and weaker the person, the greater the resentment after Heng's death, and it is possible that the pair of boys and girls may have developed great abilities after death, thus devouring the soul of the old Taoist priest, and may even have obtained the spells he had cultivated before and took them for himself. But they were crushed into the ground by the dust, the golden bells, the spells full of jars, and even the unknown nets, and they stayed for hundreds of years, until the people of Xitoudian inadvertently dug them up. And by taking away what could suppress them, and freeing them completely.

Their cultivation may have been carried out unconsciously, after all, they were so young back then, but it was precisely because of this unintentional and distracting thoughts that the spells they inherited from the old Taoist priest were pure and high-end. Considering the darkness and loneliness of these hundreds of years, and considering their intellectual growth, if they practiced diligently in order to break the ground, you can imagine how powerful they are now! ”

After Ruan Zhan's words were finished, everyone didn't speak for a long time, everyone was imagining in their hearts the savage torture that the pair of demons had suffered at that time and their magic power was so profound that they could do whatever they wanted.

Who is to blame for this? Maybe they are the victims, but what about the people who are hurt when they become powerful victims?!

"That—that is—" Xiao Xia guessed, "although three dry bones have been unearthed, in fact, the old Taoist priest has no soul left, and it is only this pair of boys and girls who don't realize that they are harming people." So if we speculate, it's Xiao Tong and Zhang Jialin! But what about Lu Yan? What role is she playing? Is Zhang Zixin gone? ”

"Take your time, don't rush, there are still a lot of questions." Ruan Zhan tugged at the corners of his mouth and smiled at Xiao Xia, "For example, why did they find us, was it unintentional or intentional?" Also, they seem to have a grudge against Master Bao. Have you forgotten? The boy once said that I remember what he had become. So, who is our Master Bao? ”