My Years in the Folklore World

Chapter 464: Qianjie Village

Jiang Xinghuo gradually fell into a deep sleep, but he could feel that his consciousness was still somewhat clear, and he seemed to be immersed in a very deep dream.

He walked in the confusing fog, with mosquito larvae walking alone. Under his feet was a damp and cold path, and there was endless thick fog and miasma all around.

The limited field of vision was filled with sick rats and plague insects, and behind the miasma above heads, the hoarse cries of old crows could be heard continuously.

Not far away there was a big river, flowing with dim yellow water, and on the river was soaked the shrouds of corpses that had floated from who knows where...

Withered trees stand on both sides of the river, souls of the dead are drowning in the river of death, and the wailing sounds fill the wilderness for a long time. The road to the underworld is also filled with bright red flowers of the other shore.

Countless pieces of paper money were flying in the sky, and coffins were scattered all over the ground.

Hidden in the dim shadows and mist are graves in the wilderness. The tombstones rise up into the sky, towering nine hundred feet into the clouds, with countless ancient characters engraved on them.

Jiang Xinghuo looked at the words and felt a strange feeling in his heart, as if he had seen this kind of inscription somewhere before.

Moreover, he seemed to know the meaning of the inscriptions on the tablets, but he was unable to express it aloud. Only endless confusion and bewilderment filled his mind.

He walked forward in a daze for an unknown period of time, and suddenly saw a low grave in the wilderness.

A broken stone tablet stood in front of the grave. This time, he recognized the inscription on it. It was his own name.

"Am I...dead..."

An idea suddenly flashed through Jiang Xinghuo's mind, but because his mind was in a daze, his entire thinking was in a state of confusion, and his reaction was much slower than usual.

At this moment, Jiang Xinghuo suddenly discovered that the low grave had cracked at some point.

A pair of pale, rotten, and yellowish ghost hands suddenly stretched out from the cracks, grabbed his body and dragged it into the grave.

Jiang Xinghuo wanted to break free from the restraints of those rotten ghost hands, but found that he had become an ordinary person, and all his spells and abilities had disappeared.

He was unable to stop the actions of those rotten ghost hands, and could only watch himself being dragged into the grave and finally buried by the endless darkness...

"what!!"

Jiang Xinghuo suddenly woke up from his dream, looking at the sunlight outside the window in shock. It took him a long time to gradually come back to his senses from the nightmare.

At this time, the sky outside was already bright, and from the breakfast shops outside the commercial street, bursts of fried food wafted from time to time.

"It turned out to be a dream..."

Jiang Xinghuo let out a long sigh and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, but the next moment he stood there in a daze.

He discovered that there were more than a dozen dark blue handprints of different sizes on his arms.

Jiang Xinghuo was startled and immediately took off his clothes. He walked to the floor-length mirror and looked carefully. He found the same marks on his strong body.

This reminded him of the dream he had last night, in which he was dragged into a grave by countless pale and rotten ghost hands.

Wasn't that a dream?

Jiang Xinghuo carefully identified the palm prints on his body, trying to find a reason to convince himself that perhaps he had made them on himself in a nightmare.

But the palm prints on his body were all different sizes and shapes, and there were even some hand prints of a three or four-year-old child. There was no way he could have caused them himself.

Fortunately, the spells and abilities he practiced did not disappear. The Thunder Ancestor's Treasure Scroll glowed brightly between his internal organs, giving him some confidence and a sense of security.

"What exactly is going on?"

Jiang Xinghuo sat on the bed and fell into deep thought. The dream he had last night seemed so real. He could even feel those pale and rotten ghost hands, the cold feeling when they came into contact with him, and the stench of the yellow soup.

Is it related to the burial laws?
After Jiang Xinghuo thought for a long time, the only thing that could be connected to that dream was the law of burial.

But he didn't dare to be completely sure, so he could only hold a skeptical attitude. In the end, he simply stopped thinking about it.

It's not that he doesn't care about this matter, the key is that he doesn't know where to start. Instead of thinking about it, it's better to go with the flow. Sooner or later, he will know the truth of the matter, and then he can think of a solution. There is no need to put so much psychological pressure on himself now.

It is a good thing to plan ahead, but it may not be a good thing if it puts too much pressure on yourself.

"Don't think about it now."

Jiang Xinghuo washed his face with cold water and changed into clean clothes. After the blue and black marks on his body came into contact with the sunlight, they faded from his skin quickly like ice and snow melting away.

Afterwards, Jiang Xinghuo walked over and unplugged his phone that was charging, opened the game and saw that after a night of travel, he had arrived at his destination.

"You have arrived at the ruins of Qianjie Village."

"Once upon a time, Qianjie Village was a prosperous place. But after the death of Master Lingguan, Qianjie Village lost the protection of the powerful and became a target of those ambitious people. The villagers also gradually moved away with the help of the secular Taoist sects, leaving behind only a deserted and dilapidated empty village."

"The ambitious monsters in the secular world have tried more than once to find the secrets hidden by the Spirit Official, but in the end they all returned empty-handed and even lost their own lives."

"You stood at the entrance of the village and looked around for a while, and found a shrine entangled by vines. Do you want to go over and take a look?"

"You walked to the shrine and cleared away the vines wrapped around it, revealing the Fengdu shrine hidden underneath. Do you want to light it up?"

"You squatted down and brushed off the dust, lighting up this shrine that had been dim for many years."

"You have lit up the shrine of Qianjie Village."

"You opened up the teleportation shrine in Qianjie Village. When you die, you can choose to resurrect here. Now you can explore without worry."

"Do you want to go into the village and explore?"

Jiang Xinghuo took a deep breath and chose to enter the village. He finally opened the map. He didn't plan to do business today and was ready to explore this Qianjie Village carefully.

The law of disaster that Lord Lingguan controls is one of the few laws without a master, so there is no need to worry about it becoming a puppet of the ancient powerful.

More importantly, the Law of Calamity can mobilize the power of extraterrestrial bodies. This is the true power of the Law of Calamity.

This is also related to a hidden mission that Jiang Xinghuo has on hand.

At the beginning, Jiang Xinghuo accidentally opened a hidden mission called "Starry Sky Journey". As long as more than half of the nine pieces of the Skyfire are found, the game will automatically reveal the gate to the Land of the Waxing and Waxing.

According to the game, as long as you bring the fragments of skyfire to the place of waxing and waning moon, you will be rewarded with immortality.

Jiang Xinghuo has found three of the nine Skyfire fragments, and has also found some clues about the subsequent Skyfire fragments. It can be confirmed that there is a Skyfire meteorite in the mining city in the northwest of the secular world.

However, he never dared to get involved in related tasks, for fear of encountering people or things related to Zhusui Xingjun.

Coupled with the remains of Zhusui Star Lord found in the ancient tomb under the Jingyun River, he is now almost certain that this mission of the starry sky journey is inextricably linked to Zhusui Star Lord.

Zhu Sui Xingjun is the mortal enemy of mortal humans, so before finding a way to deal with him, Jiang Xinghuo tries his best not to take the initiative to join in the fun.

Jiang Xinghuo believes that the Law of Disaster is the best way to deal with the Yearly Star Lord. Although it cannot kill him outright, it can at least counter the Star Law that he possesses.

However, Jiang Xinghuo did not have a definite answer as to what Zhusui Xingjun's current condition was.

All we know is that Lord Ling buried part of the remains of Zhusui Xingjun in a distant place called Yinqingyuanque.

As for whether the remains of the corpse have developed a new consciousness, no one will know until they see it with their own eyes.

"You walked into the deserted Qianjie Village."

"Although this village has been abandoned for many years, you can still vaguely see its prosperity and bustle in the past."

"You also found many traces left by Lord Yin Yang and Lord Zhen Wu on the surrounding houses and buildings. With the marks left by these two powerful men, this village is probably not immune to all evil, but it is not far from it. Ordinary wandering ghosts may be saved by the talismans on the door before they even get close."

"Where do you plan to go first?"

"Are you going to go to the ancestral temple in the center of the village first, or to the Earth Mother Cave behind the village first, or just walk around the village?"

The game provides three options: Ancestral Temple, Earth Mother Cave, and Quick Sightseeing.

Jiang Xinghuo looked at them one by one. The game did not give a specific description, so Jiang Xinghuo could not make a choice among them, but it didn’t matter much.

Regardless of whether the game gives a specific description or not, Jiang Xinghuo will never give up on a certain place, so he still follows the old rules and goes one by one in order.

"You chose to visit the ancestral temple in Qianjie Village first."

"You walked along the weed-covered path and came to the center of the village. A wide temple stood in front of you. Two clay statues of spiritual officials and heavenly generals stood at the entrance of the temple."

"This temple has existed since Lingguanye can remember things. Even the elderly people in the village can't tell how long this temple has existed."

"What's even more surprising is that the temple enshrines a faceless statue. Its appearance is like a mass of chaos, with no facial features or orifices. No one knows who the deity enshrined is, but generations have been worshipping that statue."

"You are standing at the temple gate, looking at the eerie ancient temple. Do you want to go in and find out what's going on?"

Jiang Xinghuo chose to enter the temple.

"You walked into the gloomy ancestral temple of Qianjie Village. The furnishings in the temple revealed the vicissitudes of time, and were covered with a thick layer of decaying dust. On the altar was a faceless statue, covered in a long robe. Not to mention the appearance, it was difficult to tell whether it was a man or a woman with the naked eye."

"You explored the temple, but unfortunately you found nothing. The only thing that seemed to be of some value seemed to be the faceless statue on the altar."

"You have triggered the Tathagata's talent."

"You observe the faceless statue through the vision of Tathagatagarbha, hoping to find out the secrets hidden beneath its appearance."

"But your Tathagatagarbha has not observed anything. This faceless statue looks like an ordinary statue. There is nothing special about it."

"However, you suddenly felt a slight itch in your left eye, and the Great Treasure God living in it seemed to have discovered something and jumped out from the depths of your pupil."

"The God of Treasures looked at the faceless statue on the altar, and suddenly turned around and called out to you a few times. You had a brief conversation with the God of Treasures and learned that the faceless statue was hollow, and it seemed that there was some special treasure stored inside."

"What are you going to do next?"

"Will you follow the advice of this treasure-holding god and smash this faceless statue to find out what's going on, or will you stay away from it and leave this gloomy ancestral temple as soon as possible?"

There are two options: smash the statue and leave the ancestral temple.

Jiang Xinghuo directly chose the former. If he really violated any taboo, it would only be a waste of a life. If he gained something, then he would make a lot of money.

"You chose to smash the faceless statue on the altar."

"You take out the Dragon King's Taoist weapon from your magic bag and wave it vigorously in the air. The faceless statue on the altar shatters and a bamboo scroll falls out of the hollow body of the statue. Do you want to pick it up?"

"You went forward and picked up the bamboo scroll. When you unfolded it, you found that it was an ancient book left by the Great Yan Immortal."

Dayan Immortal?

When Jiang Xinghuo saw the flashing red font, he subconsciously clicked on it, and the entry related to Dayan Immortal popped up.

"Dayan Immortal, in the ancient and long history of the secular world, there was once a Dayan Immortal who was born. He was in charge of the legendary Dayan Law. He not only knew everything about the past and the future, but also knew how to hide and escape."

"Dayan Law, this is a very ancient law in the secular world, which is a combination of the 'Law of Seclusion' and the 'Law of Knowledge'."

"The Law of Knowing the World can allow the Great Yan Immortal to know the past and the future, and the Law of Escape from the World can allow him to transform into thousands of incarnations and hide in the torrent of the secular world."

"So, no one in the secular world has ever seen his true form or appearance. They only know that there is such a powerful person with great magical powers."

"Moreover, the opponent is also recognized as the most disgusting master in the secular world. Even the notoriously tough guy, Shimuxian, must be inferior to him."

After reading the specific information provided in the text, Jiang Xinghuo finally understood why this Dayan Immortal was recognized as disgusting.

It's like there is a famous paparazzi who knows all the private affairs of all celebrities, and everyone knows that there is such a person.

But the key is that we can't find this paparazzi, and even his appearance and gender are difficult to determine.

Someone is holding your privacy and secrets in his hands, but you can't find that person and you can't do anything to him. Even if you want to bribe him, you have no place to start. It's really disgusting to think about it.

(End of this chapter)