The copy has 0 error tolerance, and the last words on the ground are all wrong for me.

Chapter 40: New Year's Eve

Liu Shan paused and continued, "The so-called welcoming the new year is actually to strip away and seal the power in the evil spirit's body."

"We must start preparing for the New Year after the New Year's Eve ceremony of the previous year. We must use formations to extract the source of power from the evil spirits suppressed by the Stone Buddha and seal it in the body of the mountain-guarding beast."

"Only a dragon species born with divine powers can withstand such a large amount of evil energy without losing control."

Wu Chang glanced at the captive mountain guardian beast and asked, "Now that the mountain guardian beast has absorbed enough evil spirits, what will happen next?"

"Then comes the second step, giving New Year's money," said Liu Shan.

When talking about New Year's lucky money, Wu Chang's brows moved and he unconsciously thought of red envelopes.

However, judging from Liu Shan's solemn tone when he mentioned the New Year's gifts, it seems that there is no such thing as red envelopes except for the New Year's gifts during the New Year's sacrifice.

"New Year's money?"

Liu Shan said, "The New Year's gift is to select three town beasts that have absorbed the most evil spirits, cut open their stomachs and dig out their hearts, then select three strong and energetic young villagers to eat the hearts of the town beasts that are full of evil spirits."

"Using one's own blood and energy to suppress evil spirits is called 'Ya Sui'."

Wu Chang: “…”

The New Year's gifts in Huaigu Village are too hardcore.

With such a New Year's gift, it's no wonder that the mountain guardian beasts reacted like that when they saw Liu Shan.

"After the New Year's money, the third step is to stay up all night. For this step, we need the square palace lantern that Wu Daxia just retrieved."

"During the New Year's Eve, a huge bonfire is lit using the New Year's fire from the palace lanterns. Three New Year's Eve winners sit around the fire for a day and a night, using the New Year's fire to help exorcise the evil spirits."

"Then it's New Year's Eve. The village will select fifteen villagers to dress up as ghost messengers, holding locust tree branches and whipping the New Year's Eve recipient until the recipient spits out black ash and the evil spirit is completely dissipated."

After listening to the entire ceremony of the New Year's Eve ceremony, Wu Chang wondered at which stage the ceremony might have failed.

First, exclude the New Year’s greetings and New Year’s money.

Although the mountain-guarding beast looks extraordinary, it is ultimately just an ordinary wild beast, not a divine beast.

Being kept here by the villagers of Huaigu Village and having experienced many New Year's Eve festivals, it should be unable to resist.

During the New Year's Eve watching phase, the Sui Fire and the Elimination of the New Year formation work together to protect the people watching the New Year's Eve around the Sui Fire from death, so surviving a day and a night is not a problem.

What may go wrong is the final New Year's Eve.

"If the people who keep watch during the New Year's Eve celebration don't spit out the black ash and the evil spirits are not refined, what should we do?"

Liu Shan was silent for a moment, and finally said:
"In the fight against monsters, people may be sacrificed at any time. Those who volunteer to be lucky charmers are the best guys in the village. If they can't refine the evil spirit..."

"They will be thrown into the fire of the year and the evil spirits will be directly refined by the fire of the year."

Wu Chang asked, "How can I help you?"

Liu Shan flattered, "We are just country folk, we don't understand those magic arts, you sitting in the ceremony will be the best help."

Wu Chang sorted out the current intelligence and completed the main task two, "Protecting the village and completing the New Year's Eve ceremony". There are two ways of thinking.

One is to achieve the goal and get rid of the evil spirits.

As long as you find a way to lure out the evil spirit and eliminate it with the Soul-Cleansing Flag, it will be automatically considered as completing the New Year's Eve.

But he was a little unsure whether getting rid of evil spirits was the same as completing the New Year's Eve ceremony.

Another method is to ensure that the four steps of welcoming the new year, expressing pressure on the new year, staying up all night and getting rid of the old year are all carried out perfectly.

The actions in this mode are relatively rigid, but the criteria for determining task completion are relatively loose.

If we look at the wording of the task, the main task is to let him complete the New Year's Eve ceremony, and it does not require him to really kill the evil spirit.

The ritual can be completed in form, but it poses no threat to the evil spirit itself.

But as a copy on the verge of getting out of control, whether it is method one or method two, can everything really go according to plan?
The whole village of Huaigu accelerated its efforts and prepared for the New Year's Eve Festival in just one day. In the evening of that day, the three animals were prepared in the village, and Liu Shan and two elders chanted blessings and offered sacrifices to the ancestors.

After the sacrifice, three young men who were chosen as New Year's lucky charmers walked out of the crowd.

They were shirtless, wearing only light shorts and head guards made of animal skins.

The villagers formed three circles, which were like three simple arenas, where the lucky charmers and the selected young mountain beasts fought each other.

This step is not necessary, but the villagers believe that hunters have an innate suppression of prey they catch themselves, and this relationship between hunter and hunted helps to refine evil spirits more easily.

With their nimble movements and superb martial arts, the three of them quickly killed the three young mountain beasts.

Liu Shan and two other old men performed the surgery, and amid the cheers of the villagers, they cut up the three young mountain beasts.

After drinking the wine with drops of blood of the mountain guardian beast, the three people's eyes turned slightly red, and heat was steaming from the surface of their skin.

Then they took the heart of the mountain-guarding beast and tore and bit it like wild beasts. In just a few bites, they swallowed the bowl-sized black heart that was tainted with evil aura.

The New Year's greetings and New Year's money-giving activities have come to an end.

After swallowing the evil aura, the three people who received New Year's gifts had their faces changed drastically, with dark energy flowing between their brows.

Seeing that something was wrong, Liu Shan shouted, "Fire!"

Liu Wei held the square New Year fire lantern and quickly came to the giant bonfire prepared in advance. Without any control, the New Year fire in the lantern stretched out like a snake and ignited the huge bonfire.

Three lucky charms were placed in the shape of a "品" (a Chinese character for lucky money) and sat cross-legged around the bonfire.

Bathed in the fire of the year, the dark energy on the three people's faces was alleviated and their brows gradually relaxed.

Seeing that everything was back on track, the villagers breathed a sigh of relief.

Except Liu Wei.

As the person who most supported holding the New Year's Eve festival in advance in the whole village and the one who personally lit the bonfire with a palace lantern, Liu Wei had the most embarrassed expression at this moment.

As the eldest brother, he could naturally guess what Liu Wu was going to do when he left the village.

But he didn't expect that as soon as Liu Wu left the village, Wu Chang returned with four New Year's lanterns. The experience of Chenjia Village accelerated the progress of the New Year's Eve festival to this extent.

Now even if Liu Wu could return safely from Chenjia Village, he might not be able to make it to the New Year's Eve celebration.

As the most radical advocate of early celebration, it was too late for him to change his position and demand the postponement of the New Year's Eve celebration.

All he could do now was to pray that there would be no problem with the ceremony and postpone it for two or three days until Liu Wu came back.

The huge bonfire burned from sunrise to sunset, and in a blink of an eye it would burn for a full twelve hours.

The New Year's Eve ceremony went very smoothly, and the unexpected event that Liu Wei hoped for did not occur.

Fifteen burly villagers have taken their positions. They hold three-meter-long locust tree branches in their hands and have their faces painted with black, white and red oil paint, looking like ferocious ghost officials.

Seeing that the time was almost up, Liu Wei completely gave up and no longer expected anything unexpected to happen.

However, just as the fifteen ghost officials raised their whips and were waiting for Liu Shan's order to start whipping, the three people who were keeping watch with their eyes closed opened their eyes ahead of time.

The clarity in their eyes had disappeared, and was covered by a layer of dark mist.

Black air overflowed from their eyes, covering their entire bodies and transforming into a body of hard scales. As the three people wailed, their limbs turned into sharp claws and fangs grew in their mouths.

Before the villagers could react to what was happening, three beast-like New Year's Eve presents had already appeared next to the "ghost messenger".

With the waving of the sharp claws, in just a few breaths, the fifteen ghost officials were cut into forty or fifty pieces.

Liu Wei, who was praying on the side, widened his eyes and slapped himself hard.

The pain is not a dream.

His prayer worked, what a surprise!
(End of this chapter)