Chapter 42: Meeting Qi in the Underworld

Everything had settled down, and the black mist in the clearing slowly dispersed. There was a moment of silence in the field, and only the sound of the chanting of the compassionate monk could be heard. I think he was chanting for the poor angry mother and the infant spirits, even though their final fate was to be scattered to the four winds.

There was a large patch of blood on the master’s chest. He stood in the middle of the field at this moment, his expression somewhat sad. The other three Taoist priests who followed my master were the same. They had personally destroyed these vengeful spirits, but they did not lack compassion in their hearts.

People say that the Dao is ruthless, and this is the word that is most often used in matters of slaying demons and exorcism. My master never said this, and even in many cases, he would leave a glimmer of hope.

In the days when I yearned for chivalry, my master always said to me, “The Dao is cold, but the heart is warm. To be able to preserve a glimmer of life is to plant a seed of kindness. This glimmer of life is not always about life and death. In many cases, it is about relationships with others. When things are at their lowest point, you must always leave a little room for tolerance. It is not always fun to kick someone when they are down. Do you understand?”

At that time, I didn’t understand. Love and hate were always very clear-cut. But now I have long understood that sometimes a hint of tolerance from you may be another window for others. If this is the case in the world, there will be fewer and fewer people who become extreme.

The wind seemed to be crying for the innocent mother and child who had died. I walked quickly to my master and reached out to help him up, but he glared at me and said, “Sanwa, do you think I’m too old to walk?”

“Master, you’ve hurt your roots!” I said sadly and anxiously.

“So what? This time, let me fight to my heart’s content.” After saying this, the master just wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, put his hands behind his back, and then said to the people behind him, “Let’s go.”

I looked at the back of my master and found that the once upright back was now somewhat stooped. I felt a little sad. How could the most ruthless thing be the Dao? The most ruthless thing is time, which always takes away your precious moments and precious people, and tells you that in time, you have no way to turn back…

“This is why burials in trees are done. It is possible that the corpse that has turned into a vampire is buried in the tree, so it does not touch the ground and cannot rise. I understand now. This is why the human skin puppet is hidden in the tree. It does not touch the ground and does not come into contact with living people. It is in a state of deep sleep. You walk over…” The one who kept talking to me was Guan Xige.

From the time we left the open space and walked all the way to this underground passage, he has been analyzing the spirit of the baby and the angry mother. I have never seen anyone so chatty. Finally, I couldn’t help but say, “I said, Brother Xi, why do you keep analyzing this? Are you also interested in black magic?”

Guan Xige probably realized that he was being too wordy and felt a bit embarrassed. He scratched his head and said, “My master said that in the field of magic, you shouldn’t just memorize everything, but you should also think about it and learn from one example to reach a high level.”

I smiled. This Guan Xige is really an interesting person.

I was about to chat with him again when I heard Grandma Lingqing say, “Li Chun, it’s so quiet in this tunnel. Could there be a trap?”

Yes, we are now in the tunnel. This tunnel is much more ornate than the one Gao Ning took me through before. The floor, the tunnel walls, and the ground are all covered with blue stone slabs, with strange carvings.

I saw this kind of relief a lot when I was in the Black Rock Miao Village. Many of the totems on the buildings were like this. At the time, I couldn’t see what they were, but now I understand that they are the abstract demon bugs.

As I walked through the tunnel, I knew clearly that this was the new tunnel that Gao Ning had mentioned. It was precisely because of its existence that Gao Ning and I took advantage of the abandoned old tunnel to escape.

Facing Ling Qing’s question, the master pondered for a moment and said, “What other traps could there be? The puppet that defied the heavens must have exhausted the power of the Black Rock Miao tribe’s shamans. What remains is nothing more than a duel.”

Grandma Ling Qing frowned slightly and said, “That thing that defies the heavens is probably going to require the sacrifice of several shamans to complete, otherwise, according to the rules, the heavens will bring down divine punishment here. The power of the shamans has been exhausted, but I haven’t seen a single gomu.”

The master said, “Since the Black Rock Miao Village has had the evil insect, what kind of gus can still exist? Under the pressure of the evil insect, what kind of gus can still exist?”

As soon as the master finished speaking, I knew something was wrong. I immediately said to the master, “No, master, they do have the seeds. Don’t they have a secret army of young people underground? Then there are the seeds inside.”

The master said, “I know about the secret army. There are about 50 people in it, and they are dedicated to training the younger generation of witches and demons. But they are far from being successful. The older generation of witches and demons in the Black Rock Miao Village are the real masters of using witches and demons. They are the most innocent group of people who were sacrificed because they refused to succumb to the demon worms and took the demon worms’ strange eggs as their life-long demons. So… in short, there are no real witches and demons here.”

As he spoke, the long tunnel came to an end. At the end was a magnificent-looking hall. In this hall, the most obvious thing was a tall altar. Behind the altar were four small doors. It was obvious that these four small doors led to four mountain bellies, where the female worms were hidden by the people of the Black Rock Miao Village.

I knew that one of the four small doors was abandoned because the female worm in the mountain was stolen by Gao Ning, and there should be three female worms left, but the exact number had to be carefully investigated before I knew.

I heard my master say that this is the biggest secret of the Black Rock Miao village. So many people have secretly investigated for so many years, but they have never come into contact with this real secret. Gao Ning seemed to have mentioned to me that there were four female worms, but after so long a time, and in the circumstances at the time, with my excellent memory, I can’t quite remember clearly.

But now, it doesn’t matter which passage we take. The key problem is that this hall is full of people, and they seem to be waiting for us.

The man at the head of the group was an old acquaintance of mine, the great shaman of the Black Rock Miao village, Qi Shou.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” It was my master who spoke up at this moment.

Qi Shou’s face twitched, and finally he laughed nervously and said, “It hasn’t been long at all. You’ve come sooner than I expected.”

My master glanced at the people behind Qi Shou. In addition to the 50 people from the secret army, who were all dressed in the same uniform, there were also a few shamans, and the remaining 7 or 8 people were probably the so-called guxiao in the village.

It is already a remarkable thing to have several shamans in a village, and seven or eight guxiao. Even in the isolated villages of the guxiao, not all of them can be called guxiao. The guxiao must have at least one of their own guxiao.

Such power may seem very powerful in the eyes of others, but in front of our group, it is not enough. The master looked at Qi Shou with a smile and said, “I will give you two choices. One is to move aside and wait for us to come back after we have dealt with some things and take you away. In this way, most of you may have a way out. The second is to fight, but we will not show mercy. Most of you will die, or all of you will die. Which one do you want?”

Qi Shou looked a little “sad,” and didn’t speak for a long time. After a long time, he sighed and said, “I, Qi Shou, have received the greatest gift from the village, and I have been given 20 years of life for nothing. I am still the most useless one, and I only have this opportunity because of the love of the ancestors. How can I betray the ancestors because of a few words of threat from you? We always have to fight a battle.”

“You have 20 years to live, which means that even if you surrender, you will not live. Because your crime is unforgivable! Then let’s fight a battle. I will leave most of the people to fight with you, and only take a small number of people away. You know that we can’t stop you from rushing at us, and the loss may be even greater. It depends on your ability to keep these people for a long time.” The master looked at Qi Shou and said seriously.