My Years in the Folklore World

Chapter 459 Mourning Hall
Hiding a knife in the sleeve is a force-generating technique.

There is no need to mobilize the true Qi in your body, so when you perform it, it is difficult for your opponent to detect your attack moves based on the flow of your breath.

Jiang Xinghuo could even imagine that the Martial Lord had used this sword when fighting with someone, but there was a gap in strength between him and his opponent.

This sword strike might have injured the opponent, or it might have been ineffective, and the opponent might have seized upon the flaw and broken the Gengjin long sword in the Lord's hand.

Of course, Jiang Xinghuo felt that the Martial Lord should have hurt the other party as well. After all, the Martial Lord was one of the thirteen masters of the Dao in the secular world. Even if he was not their match when facing those ancient strong men, he would not sit there and wait for death like a lamb. He could at least inflict some injuries on them.

At least, if Master Wu chooses to escape, it shouldn't be too difficult.

The reason why the Yellow River King and his wife died in the battle in the ancient city was probably that they had the mentality of accepting death and never thought of escaping, otherwise the Yellow River King should have been able to escape.

Jiang Xinghuo understood the method of hiding a knife in the sleeve, and the broken arm of the martial master's remains disappeared and could no longer be integrated into his body.

Then, the new game text popped up on the phone.

"Where are you planning to go next?"

"Do you want to leave Red Light Town, or go to the town's square market, or go shopping in other places in the town?"

There are still three options. Jiang Xinghuo took a quick look and decided to go back and continue exploring. It is still early, so he will try to explore the rest of the map.

Because tomorrow is the night of the full moon, according to the prompts given by the game, as long as you devour the moonlight with the Law of Disaster when the moon is at its zenith on the night of the full moon, you will have a chance to know the address of Qianjie Village.

This map has been delayed for too long, so it is better to open it up as soon as possible to see what is inside. Anyway, it is all in the Jiangnan area and should not be too far away.

"You chose to return to the town to explore."

"You have come to the market square of Red Lantern Town. This is where Red Lantern Town conducts external transactions. During the day, it is just an ordinary market, and the lanterns sold are mostly ordinary lanterns. But at night, there will be more people here, specializing in selling all kinds of weird leather lanterns."

"Most of these lanterns are made from the skin of various races and have all kinds of bizarre and strange abilities."

"You come to a stall and see several lanterns on the ground. Through the vision of Tathagatagarbha, you understand the functions and effects of these lanterns."

"The Bewitching Lantern (excellent item), a lantern made from the skin of a bewitching ghost. When lit, it can make people see what they are thinking about, and thus fall into confusion and find it difficult to extricate themselves."

"The Guiding Lantern (excellent item), made from the skins of the underworld's demons and monsters. Once lit, it can attract the spirits of the dead within a ten-mile radius, and has a small chance of opening the portal to the underworld, connecting the life and death passage between the Yin and Yang worlds."

"Zou Ma Lantern (Excellent Item), a lantern forged using a special method. As long as it is lit next to a corpse, one can see the corpse's experiences in the last half hour of its life. However, it can only be used once a day, and after use, there is a 24-hour cooldown period."

"Please note that due to the special material used in the revolving lantern, there is a one in ten chance that the scenes of life reflected in it are false. The user needs to distinguish them by themselves."

"Will you pay for these three lanterns?"

When Jiang Xinghuo saw the description of the zoetrope, he thought that this thing was interesting. There was a one in ten chance that it was false, so the time when this one in ten appeared was questionable.

It is possible that you will get this one-tenth on the first use, or it may be the last time. The key is that it is difficult to tell what is real and what is fake. It all depends on your luck.

Jiang Xinghuo thought for a moment and bought all three lanterns.

He can use the Bewitching Lantern on the Toad God in Lingshen Village. If combined with the Moon Dew Recording Lantern, the chance of success might be even greater.

The soul-guiding lantern can be used as a prop for collecting incense and may also come in handy on specific occasions.

As for the last revolving lantern, Jiang Xinghuo planned to use it as a tool to summon spirits. Maybe it could trigger some unexpected plots. Whether it was true or not was not important to him. The worst that could happen was that he would just die once.

"You have lost, incense -2000."

"You have obtained the Lantern of Enchanted Soul."

"You have obtained the soul-guiding lantern."

"You have obtained the revolving lantern."

After getting the three lanterns, Jiang Xinghuo continued to stroll around the square market. After a while, another new text popped up.

"You found a narrow, dilapidated temple in a dark corner of the square market. Do you want to go in and take a look?"

"You walked to the gate of the dilapidated temple and found that it was out of tune with the outside environment. It was like an illusion, as if it had existed for many years, but it also seemed like it would disappear at any time."

"You walked into the dilapidated temple. There was an oil lamp in the narrow and dim temple, and no other decorations. There were some simple murals painted on the walls. Do you want to take a closer look?"

"You held the old, dim oil lamp and shone it carefully on the murals on the wall. You discovered that the murals painted on the wall seemed to be what happened on the night of Dawn."

"According to the records on the murals, that night, thirteen Dao masters joined forces to fight their way into the depths of the Forbidden City, nailed the Lord of the Secular World to death on the throne, and broke the Lord of the Secular World's golden law."

"But in just a blink of an eye, the content of the mural changed. Although the Lord of the Secular World was nailed to death on the hall, the murderer who killed him had changed. It was no longer the thirteen Dao masters, but nine tall figures hiding in the darkness. The thirteen Dao masters were like puppets, allowing those people to manipulate them at will in the dark."

"Although the thirteen Dao masters were unwilling, they had no choice but to do so because they had no ability to resist at all."

Immediately afterwards, Jiang Xinghuo felt his phone vibrate, and a picture popped up on the screen, exactly the same as the description in the game text. He wanted to take a screenshot and save the picture.

However, the picture only appeared for a moment before disappearing again, including the game text, which also disappeared from the record without leaving any trace, as if the author was afraid that others would discover this record.

Jiang Xinghuo's expression gradually became solemn. He remembered what the old man in the ancestral hall in Taiping Ancient Town said, which corresponded exactly to the nine figures in the picture.

The True Lord of Mountains and Rivers, the Goddess of Heaven, the Earth Lord, the Immortal Master of Fortune and Destiny...

These are the four powerful men he currently knows. Jiang Xinghuo has no clue about the names of the remaining five or the powers they hold.

“You have learned some secrets of the secular world. When you encounter something related to this secret, your participation in the event will be greatly improved, and you will also get more options and plot branches.”

This is where the game text ends.

Jiang Xinghuo seemed to have never triggered this plot before. The subsequent plot that appeared next also asked him where he wanted to explore. "You choose to take a quick look around the town."

Jiang Xinghuo controlled the game character to wander around the town, occasionally triggering some inconspicuous branch plots, but there was no particularly significant gain.

Moreover, after he killed the Red Lantern Fairy, the entire Red Lantern Town became lively, and the followers of the Red Lantern Fairy began to search for the murderer in the town.

This made Jiang Xinghuo feel a little strange. The loyalty of these believers was too high. The Red Lantern Fairy was already dead. Logically, they should be busy escaping or looting property. Why were they still so diligently hunting down the murderer?

Is there someone in charge of the Lantern Shop?

We can't just miss it like this.

Jiang Xinghuo hid in an empty corner for a while, and then triggered a new text interaction option.

"Where are you going next?"

"Do you want to take advantage of the chaos in the town and leave here in time, or go back to the Lantern Shop to see what happened?"

There were two options, and Jiang Xinghuo didn't think too much about it. He just chose the latter option and went back to Lantern Shop.

"You used the secret technique of the wind sickle to hide your body in the wind, avoiding the patrolling red lanterns on the street and returning to the Lantern Shop away from all eyes."

"You went around to the back of the Lantern Square and climbed over the wall to enter. Although the square was heavily guarded and noisy, it looked orderly. It was obvious that someone was mobilizing people behind the scenes."

"You came to the outside of the secret room with ease, but the door was already full of red lanterns, and dozens of white lanterns were specially lit."

"You have discovered the Lantern of Delusion-Breaking."

"Delusion-Breaking Lantern (Excellent Item), a lantern made from the skin of a hundred-eyed demon. Within the fixed range covered by the light, most methods of invisibility and escaping will be ineffective."

"What are you going to do now?"

"Would you choose to use the Wind Scythe Secret Technique to sneak over and test whether the Delusion-Breaking Lantern has any effect on you, or would you rather hide in a dark and deserted place and use the Kitchen God's Eight Trigrams Cave Spirit Ears to eavesdrop on what the people in the house are saying?"

There are two options, either go over and try to see if the Delusion-Breaking Lantern can detect the Wind Scythe Secret Technique, or hide a little further away and use the Kitchen God's Eight Diagrams Ears to eavesdrop on what's going on inside the house.

Jiang Xinghuo chose the latter. Since there were other ways to solve the problem, there was no need to take the risk. Besides, the situation was still unclear and he didn't know if there would be any gains or benefits. It would not be worth it to die here.

"You found a place where the wind was blowing, listened attentively to the conversations between the people in the house, and learned some fragments of their conversations."

"It turns out that the Red Lantern Fairy is not really dead, or rather, it died once but came back to life again."

"And the reason why it was able to come back to life was all thanks to a treasure. Many years ago, the Shouchi Patriarch of Guandong found the Red Lantern Fairy and wanted it to help make a set of soul-catching lamps. He also promised to give the other party a life-extending hall as a reward for making the soul-catching lamps."

"This treasure resides in the heart of the Red Lantern Fairy. As long as it senses that the Red Lantern Fairy's vitality has been exhausted, it will regenerate its life half an hour after the other party's death. Even if the corpse has been destroyed, a new body can be derived from the mourning hall."

“However, what secrets and mysteries are hidden in this? I’m afraid only Patriarch Shouchi himself knows.”

"You found out about this matter outside the house with your gossiping ear. What are you going to do next?"

"Do you choose to stay here and look for an opportunity to trick the other party again, or do you choose to keep quiet and leave this red-light town as soon as possible?"

Jiang Xinghuo pondered for a while and had no idea how powerful the Red Lantern Fairy was. He was able to kill the Red Lantern Fairy so easily because the Golden-Haired Rat gave him a pot of Songjiang water.

Now that Songjiang Water is no longer in hand, it may not be an easy task to get rid of the Red Lantern Fairy.

Jiang Xinghuo thought for a moment, left the Lantern Shop, and returned to the Niangniang Temple, wanting to see if the Golden-Haired Rat had left. If not, he would ask for another pot of Songjiang water.

But when he rushed over, he found that the Golden-Haired Rat had already left.

"The Golden Rat left the Niangniang Temple without leaving any trace. You just left the Niangniang Temple and continued to wander around the town. If you happened to run into a mob, would you like to go up and ask about it?"

"Walk up to that rabble and ask them if they have any way to deal with the Red Lantern Fairy."

"The rabble looked up at you, said nothing, and closed his eyes again."

Jiang Xinghuo understood that the other party wanted money, but it was normal. The mob was originally information dealers. If they wanted to get information without paying, the other party would naturally not agree.

"You gave the other party 500 incense sticks as a reward."

"The crowd looked at the incense in their hands, and suddenly changed their indifference, and greeted you with a smile on their faces."

"According to the crowd, the Red Lantern Immortal is most afraid of the cold things in the water, especially the refined essence of river water. Even if you get just a little bit of it, your strength will be greatly reduced."

Jiang Xinghuo took a look and realized that was the case. He thought that only the water from Songjiang River would work. If that was the case, then things would be much easier.

So Jiang Xinghuo went to the niche shop again and bought an item that met the requirements from a player named Fisherman.

"Three Rivers and Four Seas Water (consumable item). The exile 'Fisherman' collects water from the three rivers and four seas in the secular world and extracts and condenses the essence of the water. It can be used to deal with monsters with fire attributes, and can also be used as raw materials for refining elixirs."

"Price: 500 incense sticks."

"Number of uses: 2/2."

A pot of Three Rivers and Four Seas water only required five hundred incense sticks and could be used twice. Jiang Xinghuo bought it without much hesitation.

"You have obtained the three rivers and four waters."

"Do you want to go to the Lantern Shop immediately, find the Red Lantern Fairy, and send it away with this pot of water from three rivers and four seas?"

Today is the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, which is the Little New Year here. I wish everyone a happy Little New Year, all the best, and may your family be healthy and well!

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(End of this chapter)