"There are ghosts!?" Hu Yan felt a chill down his spine, and looked back at the chain bridge shrouded in thick fog, a trace of unease flashed on his face. "This chain bridge is so good, how can there be ghosts?"

Uncle Li shook his head and sighed: "It's not because the Water Dragon King was angry this time that he sent out this big flood that has not been seen in a hundred years. Don't you know, this flood has made many people become unjust ghosts in this river. Just a few days ago, many women in the village who had gone to the river to wash their clothes and fetch water were dragged down the river and never got up again. ”

Hearing Uncle Li say this, the old Taoist priest frowned deeper, stepped forward and said, "Is this true?"

Uncle Li has been immersed in the joy of reuniting with Hu Yan, and his eyes are not very good, so he didn't notice the two people behind Hu Yan at all. Uncle Li looked at the person clearly, and turned back to Hu Yan with some surprise: "Brother Qiao, who are these two?"

Uncle Li knows that Hu Yan has no relatives and friends since he was a child, and the only one who can play with Hu Yan is the second baby of the Wang family, and now the second baby of the Wang family has been arrested by the Water Dragon King, so it stands to reason that Hu Yan should not know anyone.

Hu Yan smiled and said, "Uncle Li, these are the two I met on the way to find Wang Qi...... Two Taoist leaders. ”

The old Taoist priest and Wuqiu stepped forward at this moment and said to Uncle Li: "Old good man, the poor Dao is shaking his hands. ”

When Uncle Li saw that this old man and young man were indeed dressed as a Taoist priest, he immediately felt respectful and hurriedly replied: "The Taoist chief is polite." I don't know where the two Dao Masters came from?"

Wu Qiu raised his nose and said, "Hey, old good man, we are from Qingyuan Palace to subdue demons and subdue demons to save the common people!"

"No request, no rudeness!" The old Taoist priest glared at Wu Qiu, and arched his hand: "Old good man, I am a Qing monk of the Qingyuan Palace in the stone toad field. ”

When Uncle Li heard the old Taoist priest say this, he was immediately shocked, and hurriedly bowed down and said, "It turned out to be the old immortal of Qingyuan Palace." The little old man was rude. ”

The old Taoist priest hurriedly supported Uncle Li and said, "I can't help it, the old good man is serious." ”

After the old Taoist priest and Uncle Li exchanged a few words, they returned to the previous incident of the ghost bridge.

Originally, the bridge was a little old, but after this flood, it was not very peaceful. It was not until one day that a group of greedy women went to the river to wash their clothes and were pulled down by something in the river, and they believed that there were ghosts in the river. There were five of them, and only one climbed up. According to Uncle Li, he saw with his own eyes that the woman who climbed up still had five clear bruised finger prints on her ankles.

Because of this incident, the people in the village regard this place as a forbidden area, and would rather go around more mountain roads than this chain bridge, and some people who have to cross the bridge in a hurry will also choose to walk away at noon, when the sun is at its strongest. In order to prevent ignorant children from going into the water and some outsiders passing by here, the village specially arranged for Uncle Li, who was a hunter when he was young, to build a thatched shed in the woods on the bank of the river to keep vigil.

"It must be those unjust ghosts who drowned in the flood who have come back to find a substitute. Uncle Li stared at the foggy chain bridge, his eyes were a little complicated, and he suddenly turned his head to the old Taoist priest and said: "Old immortal, I have long heard that the immortals of Qingyuan Palace have profound humane methods, and they seek good fortune to avoid evil and subdue demons and eliminate demons. You see if there is any way to exorcise the ghosts and restore peace to the village. ”

The old Taoist priest pondered for a moment and nodded: "It is the responsibility of the people in my Dao sect to subdue demons and exorcise demons and eliminate demons. It's just that I'm afraid things are not as simple as they seem. ”

Hu Yan on the side said in a deep voice: "Old immortal, do you see any clues?"

The old Taoist priest nodded and said: "According to the observation of the poor Dao all the way, I found that the yin qi here is very heavy, and it is not like the miasma that ordinary ghosts and evil spirits can make. The person who pulled people underwater was just a new ghost who had just drowned, and he wouldn't have such a demonic aura. ”

Hu Yan frowned, and said in a deep voice: "The old immortal means that these little ghosts are just driven by people. There's a better guy behind them?"

The old Taoist priest stroked his beard and said, "This is just my guess. I'm not sure if it's or not. ”

Hu Yan pondered for a moment and said, "Old Immortal, what should I do now?" He knew that if they didn't solve the matter in front of them, they wouldn't be able to cross the bridge at all, and if they couldn't cross the bridge, they wouldn't be able to catch up with the evil dragon who killed their good friend. So they're going to cross the bridge anyway.

The old Taoist priest was silent for a long time and said: "It's getting late today, it's better to find a place to stay overnight, and then find a way to investigate before dawn tomorrow." ”

Uncle Li heard the old Taoist priest say this, and couldn't help but be overjoyed: "Very good, very good, old fairy, I see that you must be tired from running around for days, if you don't dislike it, you and Brother Qiao will go to my thatched shed tonight to rest for a night." As for the exorcism of evil spirits, I will talk about it tomorrow when I have enough spirits. ”

"That's a good feeling!" Wuqiu's feet are sore and his legs are weak, and he has long wanted to find a place to rest. When I heard this, I couldn't help but rejoice. Pulling nonsense, he left: "I've been on the road for so long, I'm almost tired, let's rest for one night first, and then talk about it." ”

Although Hu Yan was thinking about tracking down the evil dragon in his heart, since the old immortal said so, he naturally complied. He was dragged by Wuqiu to the thatched hut on the shore.

Although Uncle Li's thatched hut is a little simple, it is not small, and it is neatly cleaned.

Uncle Li is also a hospitable person, and he is naturally very happy to reunite with Hu Yan. A freshly pickled salted fish hanging from a beam was steamed for cooking. It can be regarded as washing the dust of nonsense. As for the old immortals, they naturally can't eat meat, but there are not many other things in the mountains, and wild vegetables are all over the mountains. In this year of catastrophe, these wild vegetables are a good thing to survive, a bowl of wild vegetable soup, sprinkled with green onions, not to mention how fragrant.

A bowl of hot soup is in the stomach, and there is no need to dance. These days, when I came out of Qingyuan Palace, I haven't had hot food in my stomach. At this moment, the stomach and intestines were finally warmed, and the originally tired body instantly felt a lot more comfortable.

"Uncle Li, your wild vegetable soup is really delicious. ”

Hearing Wuqiu's praise, Uncle Li smiled and said: "There is nothing to entertain everyone in this barren mountain and wild village, this fish was picked up on the bank of the river when the water receded a few days ago, and you can't eat it, so you can only make some wild vegetables to entertain you." ”

The old Taoist priest said with a smile: "We cultivators have long been accustomed to coarse tea and light rice. What's more, it is rare to have a bowl of fragrant wild vegetable soup in this great wilderness year. Thank you so much for the hospitality of the old and kind people!"

Uncle Li smiled and said, "Old fairy, you use it slowly, I'll go and spread more hay for you, it's cold at night on the bank of this river." ”

The old Taoist priest nodded and said, "There are old and good people." ”

When Uncle Li went out to make the bed with hay, he silently drank the wild vegetable soup without saying a word, and then gently put down the soup bowl in his hand and said in a deep voice: "Old fairy, do you say that there are really water ghosts in the river?"

Seeing Hu Yan's cautious face, the old Taoist priest also put down the dishes and chopsticks in his hand, nodded and said, "What Uncle Li said should be true." However, it stands to reason that this newly drowned man would not have turned into evil so quickly and harmed others. There must be some secret behind this. ”

Although Hu Yan had never seen ghosts before, he had heard a lot about ghosts. But he has always thought that these are the old people's after-dinner conversations, and he doesn't know if there are fairies, demons, gods and demons in the world. So he was skeptical all along. It wasn't until he met Wuqiu's master and apprentice that he believed a little.

"Old fairy, what do you say the ghosts in this world are like this, and why do they want to harm people?"

The old Taoist priest stroked his silver beard and said, "There are too many things in this world that are unclear. Buddhism has a saying that 'everything has a cause and effect, and what you plant has a cause and what you get', but in our Taoist view, this is just a Tao, everything has a Tao, and since it exists, there is naturally a reason for its existence. People have three souls and seven souls, one is the heavenly soul, the second is the earth soul, and the third is the life soul. There are seven spirits, one is the sky, two are the wisdom, three are the qi, four are the force, five are the center, six are the essence, and the seven are the Ying. When people die, the seven spirits disperse first, and the three souls leave again. The Heavenly Soul returns to the Heavenly Road and arrives at the Space Heavenly Road. Because the Heavenly Soul is only a conscience and an immortal 'Wuji', because of the causal involvement of the physical body, it cannot return to the origin of the sect, so it has to be taken away to the sustenance of the Heavenly Path of the Upper Space, and temporarily taken into custody by its main god, which is the so-called 'Heavenly Prison'. The earth soul wanders between the cemeteries, because the earth soul was originally the body of the 'Zude' surname passed down from generation to generation. With the courage of the seven spirits in the body, after death, the cemetery is to the god, and the place of sustenance for people to come and go. The soul returns to the underworld and reaches hell, because the soul can know all the karma of the main soul, and can also instruct the good and evil of the body in the world, so after the death of the body, the soul enters the land of cause and effect. It wasn't until they reincarnated again that the three souls were reunited. ”

Seeing that Hu Yan was listening carefully, the old Taoist priest took a sip of soup and continued: "The three souls are divided into yin and yang, the heavenly soul is yang, and the earth soul is yin. It is often said that the yin soul does not disperse, and the yin soul does not disperse because of the unremitting courage, and the unremitting strength is because the soul before the bardo body is persistent, and the habitual situation is dictated, resulting in the remnant of the yin and yang that are not exhausted, supporting the yin soul in the bardo state. That is to say, if a person has obsessions and resentments before death, he will remain ghostly and turn into a wandering ghost. However, this ghost can't harm people, unless it's the kind of ghost with great resentment. ”

Listening to nonsense as if he didn't understand it, although he didn't fully understand it, he more or less understood the origin of this ghost. I also know that not everyone will become a ghost after death, and not all ghosts will harm people. It's just that he doesn't understand why there are so many water ghosts in this river who pull people into the water. Even if they were killed by the evil dragon and had a grudge, they would not come to find a substitute and kill the village. This must be like what the old fairy said, there must be some unknown secret behind it. Wait until dawn tomorrow to find out.