Chapter 77: Escape from the village

A lively lunch. In such an environment, there are not many opportunities to find joy in suffering. Everyone at the meal showed a hopeful look, as if the crisis of the village surrounded by ghosts could be solved as long as we went out. However, I could not help but see the heaviness and sadness of this hope.

“This farewell meal is a bit simple, with only preserved meat and eggs. When you return safely, I will cook for you myself and we will have a good meal,” Zheng said to us.

Someone was already setting up the formation over there, and it would be personally presided over by Zheng Laoda, Zheng Erda, and Grandma Yun to ensure our safe exit from the village. What we would face next was our own business.

In this situation of being besieged, the preserved meat and eggs are already not simple. Grandma Yun did not forget to tell me, “Little girl, you are lucky. In his whole life, besides Taoism, the most proficient thing for Zheng Laoda is cooking. He once said that if he were not a Taoist, he would definitely be a cook. When you come back, try his cooking.”

I was already full and ready to go. After all, I was going on an adventure, and I couldn’t drink anymore.

But I was still a little dazed by what Grandma Yun had said. Once upon a time, someone else had also said to me that if I wasn’t a Taoist, I would definitely be a racing driver. But that person had already gone, and only the name Lao Hui was still engraved in my heart.

Such a sacrifice makes me heartbroken, almost unbearable in my life. I don’t know if there will be such a sacrifice again in this operation.

Everyone was ready. We were accompanied by ten of the village’s elite. They would not go deep into the natural formation, but they would repair it, and the danger they faced would not be any less.

“The boat is anchored in the old place. Jifeng, you are in charge of leading the way.” Zheng didn’t waste any words. He was straightforward when he sent us out the door, and Jifeng was the leader of the villagers.

Jifeng nodded calmly, and I pushed open the door.

The moment the door opened, a thick fog rushed into the house. The talismans stuck in every corner of the house moved automatically without the wind. Then the fog dispersed, and the formation took effect.

Mr. Zheng looked at the fog with some concern and said loudly, “As long as I, Zheng, am alive, I will definitely defend this place! You, go! Second Brother, Xiaoyun, come with me to preside over the formation.”

The first to step out of the house was Ji Feng, followed by me. The thick fog outside the house mixed with the dust from the calamus, temporarily forming a “stuck” state within a 50-meter radius. Within this 50-meter radius, it was only a feeling of gusts of wind, but because it was not nighttime, there was no presence of ghosts.

The visibility here is very poor. The blood grass mixed with the fog to form a special smell that permeates the sky and earth, and it is a bit choking.

I looked around to see which direction the fog had dispersed to, and then led everyone in that direction.

The fog dispersing does not mean that there is no danger. In the place where the fog has dispersed, there are many ghosts and spirits wandering around. It is just that that direction is special, it is a separate direction. Those ghosts and spirits want to wander in the fog on this side, they must pass through the houses where people are stationed. Maybe some ghosts succeeded at night, but most of them are still left on that road.

“Chengyi, we are two miles from the Lake of a Thousand Ghosts. The road out of the village is not easy to traverse, but on weekdays, it only takes an hour or so! This time, the road is full of vengeful ghosts and spirits, and I don’t know how long it will take, but we must get to the boat before nightfall, or else…” The monsoon was by my side, whispering to me, and I knew what he was trying to say.

I put the bright red calamus in my backpack and said, “I know what I’m doing. Don’t use the calamus unless you have no choice. You know how precious it is. We have almost all the calamus in the village.”

Ji Feng nodded, but he didn’t say anything else. He also put the blood grass in his hand into the backpack behind him. At this time, we had already passed the 50-meter safety distance. A wandering ghost with a strange smile rushed at us, or it had noticed us long ago.

“Get lost!” Xiao Chengqian swung a strange knife-shaped magic weapon in his hand, and the bell on the handle of the knife rang strangely. The ghost was actually caught in the bell on the handle of the knife with a strange roar.

Xiao Chengqian looked at me with a satisfied expression, gesturing with the strange-shaped knife-shaped magic weapon in his hand, and asked me, “Do you know what it is?”

I looked helplessly at Xiao Chengqian, holding the Three-Pristine Bell in my hand, and said, “A magical weapon that raises ghosts, using a magical knife to injure ghosts. There should be a very powerful ghost in the bell.”

Xiao Chengqian smiled and said, “I wouldn’t dare to take it out unless it was an emergency. The bell is the soul I want to cultivate.”

“Ah?” I looked at Xiao Chengqian and didn’t know what to say. In fact, the soul should not be a ghost, but it’s not the time to explain this. Just a short conversation, a large group of ghosts have already wandered over to us. Without the protection of the ghost fog, they are strange, as if they have lost their sense of autonomy, as if they only have the instinct to attack humans, and at the same time, they have lost the agility of ghosts.

This situation is really too weird, and it really makes me puzzled. If it weren’t for the close-up observation, I would never have known that these ghosts were not ghosts in the “complete” sense. This made me even more curious about everything in the Lake of Ghosts.

However, although I was confused, I didn’t stop moving my hands. I began to shake the three-pronged bell in my hand, a special way of shaking the three-pronged bell, just to drive the ghosts together.

The sound of the bells echoed down the road, and everyone standing next to me began to protect me automatically.

Although the Sanqing bells can drive away ghosts, a large-scale expulsion like this is definitely the most soul-consuming thing. Not to mention that you have to pay attention to concentration at all times, the complicated shaking method cannot make a single mistake.

The control of the three-clear bell is limited, and it cannot guarantee the perfect expulsion of every ghost, so everyone must protect me by standing by my side.

As the Three-Pronged Bell was shaken, I felt my spiritual power flowing out like water. I didn’t expect a small magical instrument to consume so much of my spiritual power, but I couldn’t afford to be careless. I still remembered what Zheng had told me.

“Chengyi, if you can’t hold on, I’ll take over the Three-Purification Bell.” Xiao Chengqian was beside me, saying anxiously. Perhaps it was the fine beads of sweat on my forehead that irritated Xiao Chengqian.

I shook my head. I felt that I could still hold on. I was afraid that the moment the Three-Pronged Bell was handed over to Xiao Chengqian, the ghosts would disperse. If that happened, it would be a problem!

Gradually, more and more ghosts gathered around our group. I was too lazy to see if there were hundreds of them!

At this time, the wind began to blow, and the thick clouds began to gather rapidly. It was coming! Zheng and the others’ formation was finally about to be completed.

A loud thunderclap pierced the gloomy and calm sky, and the thunder array presided over by the three Zhengs finally let loose the first bolt of lightning!

I wiped the sweat off my head, stopped shaking the three-pronged bell, and shouted to everyone, “Run!”

Yes, that was Zheng’s plan. The thunder array was activated to protect our way out of the village. Such a thunder array is not very effective when protected by the ghost mist. Zheng and his friends had already tested it in the village surrounded by ghosts, but it still had a great restraining effect on ghosts wandering outside the ghost mist.

The range of the thunder array is limited. A formation of this scale can only cover a distance of about 500 meters, which happens to be the distance we ran out of the village.

The thunder rumbled, and the countless ghosts were turned into puffs of blue smoke by the power of the thunder and lightning. They didn’t care if their souls were scattered, and they were already fierce ghosts, so there was no way to help them! Moreover, these ghosts were weird and abnormal, but unfortunately I couldn’t convey this abnormality to Master Zheng, so I could only take things one step at a time!

With the thunder, the rain began to pour down, and our group of more than ten people ran frantically in the rain. After all, the lightning only covered a limited area and could not accurately kill every vengeful ghost. We could only rely on speed to rush out.

Xiao Chengqian, I, and a few others from the Shan family ran around the perimeter. Whenever a “fish that slipped through the net” pounced on us, we would use our magic weapons to temporarily drive them away.

This time, Hui Gen took up not a sword, but a strange-looking rosary in his hand. Every time the rosary was raised and lowered, it would always hit the ghosts and cause them to be “seriously injured,” or even disappear directly. Accompanying this was Hui Gen’s compassionate “Amitabha” every time.

I witnessed all of this, and the rosary beads in his hands shocked me!

We ran out of the village a few hundred meters away, and we made it through without any problems. After running past the tree with the large white flowers, we ran down the hill and were completely out of the village.

According to the monsoon, as long as we climb over that hill, we will see the Lake of a Thousand Ghosts!

I thought there would be a gathering of ghosts here, and I was prepared for a tough battle to break out of the siege and rush to the Lake of a Thousand Ghosts. But I didn’t expect it to be so quiet and scary here, not even a ghostly mist!

What is the reason for this? My brows were tightly furrowed. At this time, the rain and wind had stopped, but the sky was not a bit clearer than it should have been!