Mythology

Chapter 135: Immortal's Transformation of Human Disasters
On the official road leading to Xiqi, scattered refugees were walking with difficulty.

The refugees were both old and young, all from villages near Xiqi. After being possessed by evil spirits, they would naturally tend to evacuate towards Xiqi.

Qingbo stood beside the official road and let out a long breath.

"We are not far from Xiqi. I hope the plague has not completely gotten out of control. As long as we can contact the Xianjiao Immortal Master in the city, we may be able to rescue Master and Brother in Yanqu Town."

Her eyes were bloodshot and she staggered along following the refugees.

Qingpo then noticed that the refugees were behaving strangely.

The refugees covered their skin with rags, their expressions filled with fear. No matter who tried to approach them, they would stay away from them immediately.

"It's a pity that we can't communicate, otherwise we can find out the current situation of various places in Xiqi."

The next half day was calm.

Qingbo's cultivation was too low to control the paper horse. He only released a few paper birds occasionally and spent the rest of his time adjusting his poor condition.

By the time the sky grew gloomy, they had already walked twenty miles along the official road.

The refugees built a fire and rested on the spot. They removed the rags covering their skin and checked each other carefully, only eating their food after confirming that everything was fine.

Qingbo leaned against the tree trunk exhausted.

I hadn't slept for several days, and I was frightened by the vortex. At first I just wanted to meditate, but I fell into a deep sleep without realizing it.

In a state of half-awakeness, I could vaguely hear the refugees on night patrol whispering.

He seemed to be worried whether the plague in Xiqi would become more serious.

The refugees called the plague a human plague.

The specific reasons are unknown, and they seem to be very secretive about talking about the man-made disaster.

Qingpo vaguely heard some noise made by the refugees in the second half of the night, but it only lasted for a moment and soon stopped.

When it was dawn, she woke up with a splitting headache.

“It’s a mistake!!”

Qingbo's face changed drastically. The refugees not far away had disappeared.

The bonfire still had some warmth left, and it was clear that the refugees had left an hour or two ago, in a hurry, as if they had encountered danger.

"If it is an evil spirit, why doesn't it kill me?"

"Could it be related to the human disaster?"

suddenly.

A cry was heard in the bushes.

Qingpo looked closely and saw a girl of about six or seven years old squatting in the grass, trembling with fear and scratching her hands.

After she confirmed that the little girl was not evil, she slowly approached her.

"Don't be afraid. I am a Taoist priest from Qianyuan Mountain passing by. Can you tell me..."

Before she could finish her words, the little girl suddenly raised her head. Although there were tears on her face, her expression was calm.

"itch."

The little girl only said one word, Qingpo broke out in a cold sweat and turned away.

Qingpo remembered how the mortals infected with the plague scratched their heads and even got bruised all over their bodies when the plague broke out in Xiqi.

"itch."

"Aren't you itchy?"

Qingbo paused.

The moment she looked away, the little girl suddenly appeared on the other side of the official road.

The little girl still had no expression on her face and stood stiffly, as if she had no bones in her body. She kept scratching her arms, dandruff flew everywhere, and there were scars all over her arms, but no blood was seen.

Qingpo's pupils trembled and his eyes fell on the little girl's hand.

Its arms are strange.

In theory, blood will be seen if a thin layer of skin is broken.

But it was different for the little girl. The scars from the scratching were so deep that they could embed into her fingers, but Qingbo had no flesh or blood at all, only dozens of layers of... skin.

That’s right, the skin is actually stacked in layers.

The entire statue is made of skin, with no bones or internal organs.

"Aren't you itchy?"

The little girl tilted her head, scratched the skin between her eyebrows with her fingernails, and then used both hands to pull away twenty or thirty layers of skin in an even manner.

Qingpo was horrified and tried his best to stay away from the little girl.

She ran along the muddy mountain road for more than ten minutes, and in the blink of an eye, the little girl appeared again by the stream ten meters away.

The little girl had peeled off her skin to her knees.

Qingbo's eyes were dull as he saw the little girl's body hidden deep under her skin.

The comparison between before and after is not obvious, it's just a little thinner.

But there is a kind of weirdness that goes against common sense everywhere. Although he looks no different from ordinary people, there is an inexplicable awkwardness.

Especially the facial features.

The face seemed to be put together randomly, the eyes were unusually large, the pupils were pure black, without a trace of white.

"Transformed into a human disaster? Could it be that you are referring to the monsters that were born from the refugees' bodies?"

"What kind of plague can turn people into humans?"

Qingbo looked devastated, but the little girl just kept repeating "Aren't you itchy?" over and over again, and in just a few moments she scratched off another layer of skin.

Her face was filled with fear.

The little girl's skin will not grow, which means that sooner or later it will be completely peeled off. What will exist in the deepest part of her body?
"I'm not itchy, please stop bothering me!!"

"So... you don't itch."

After the little girl said this, she stepped back with a smile and disappeared into the rushing stream.

While Qingpo was stunned, the little girl had been washed away by the stream and disappeared inexplicably in the wilderness, as if everything was just a dream.

She stared at the stream for a long time until she was sure that the little girl was gone.

Qingbo returned to the official road in a daze and continued walking with his head down. However, after he had walked only three or four miles, the paper bird sensed a familiar scent.

"Master and the others..."

She turned around and saw blood-red eyes light up in the shadows. The black cat carried Master Mingshan and his apprentice out, with the Immaculate Buddha statue sitting at its neck. The two of them felt relieved when they saw Qingbo.

Qingbo's first reaction was to check the skin of the two people. The scabbed wounds were bleeding slightly.

"Master, Senior Brother, how come you are all right?!"

Mingshan smiled and said, "Thanks to the intervention of Nuwa's disciple Wujiu Buddha, otherwise at least 80% of the mortals in Yanqu Town would have died from the snail disease."

The black cat threw Qingbo onto its back and continued to move towards Xiqi.

Qingsong helped Qingpo up, "Junior sister, fortunately the Immortal Buddha is willing to take us for a ride."

Mingshan frowned, noticing that the refugees traveling on the official road only showed their eyes, "Qingbo, didn't you encounter anything unusual along the way?"

"I……"

Qingbo opened his mouth slightly, and his memory of the human disaster gradually became blurred.

"Master, if there was an evil spirit, the refugees would have died."

"Too."

Mingshan warned: "Although the plague in Xiqi will not affect the monks before we leave, we must be careful. After more than half a month, the plague will inevitably get worse."

"If Xiqi is in danger, I will be the only one to escort Immortal Buddha."

"Yes, Master."

Qingbo scratched his arm unconsciously, and a subtle cut appeared on his skin, but no blood flowed out. Instead, it looked... layered.

The Taoist robe covered her skin, and her expression returned to normal.

.........

The black cat ran faster and faster against the wind, and the three of them were silent.

There was a flash of uneasiness in Mingshan's eyes. As Xiqi got closer, he seemed to be able to foresee a scene of mountains of corpses and seas of bones.

With the power of the plague array, more than half of the millions of mortals in Xiqi would probably die.

Master Nezha does have great magical powers, but he is not good at setting up formations. Facing Lu Yue, he can only run around in a hurry, let alone break the plague formation.

It’s hard to imagine how to deal with hundreds of thousands of corpses?

Mingshan's breathing was heavy, and the mountain of corpses and sea of ​​bones could not be burned away. If he was not liberated in time, a postnatal Yin meridian would be formed in minutes.

"If this happens, it will be like the ghosts from the underworld have descended upon us. How many evil spirits will be bred?"

"There have to be ghost soldiers passing through in broad daylight, right?"

"Master, it's Xiqi!"

Mingshan looked up towards the end of the official road, then froze in disbelief. A bustling capital of the Great Zhou came into view.

The city gates were open and people walked through the streets with smiles on their faces.

The peddlers' cries were extremely loud.

Candles were lit in every household, uneaten bacon from before the New Year was drying in the windows, and lyrics from operas sung in the teahouses lingered in the air.

The officers and soldiers did not stop the refugees and brought them into Xiqi in an orderly manner.

"Master."

Qingsong asked in an absurd tone: "Is there a plague in Xiqi? Or has the plague in the city been completely eradicated?"

"I... don't understand either."

The two looked at each other, and at this time the stone statue flashed a warm light.

The black cat stopped.

The stone statue came to life.

Yang He's Niwan Palace no longer made muffled sounds, and most of the three yang fires were extinguished. In order to refine the insect ghost, he only had two or three months of life left.

"Immortal Buddha, do you think there is still plague in Xiqi now?"

"Of course."

Yang He looked around at the three masters and disciples, and stayed on Qingbo for a few breaths.

Qingpo had been meditating with his eyes closed on the way, looking a little listless. He only came to his senses when he saw Xiqi.

"But we can only know how serious the plague is by entering the city."

Yang He couldn't help but repeat several times that millions of mortals became immortals. What were the immortals that Li Qi mentioned?
"Mingshan, whether you plan to enter Xiqi or not, I won't force you. After all, once you set foot in Xiqi, it will be difficult to get out."

"go."

Mingshan said firmly, "The plague array is causing chaos in Xiqi, what's the point of living outside? Besides, the station of the Chan Sect in Xiqi is very hidden, and it is difficult to find the exact location just by oral description."

"Qingsong Qingpo, you guys..."

Qingsong said quickly: "Master, we both want to do our best."

Mingshan was in a dilemma and wanted to ask Yang He.

"Let's go together. If you are alone in the post-natal realm, you will definitely die."

Yang He nodded slightly.

He still couldn't figure out the plague in Xiqi. The symptoms shown by Qingbo were likely related. The most important thing was that it was indeed unsafe outside the city.

Yang He took a quick look outside the city and saw dozens of mass graves of various sizes.

The mass graves were very cleverly distributed, forming special life-raising piles, where tens of thousands of corpses and ghosts had already been conceived.

The plague array is linked together, and Yang He definitely has no ability to break it.

Jiang Taigong should be able to detect the clues.

Yang He turned into a stone statue again, and the black cat burrowed into the shadow under his feet.

Mingshan immediately understood, and dressed up as a stone statue sculptor. He and Qingsong carried Yang He one in front and one behind, while Qingpo followed behind in a daze.

Yang He's eyes were as sharp as torches, and he focused his attention on refining the copper coin sword that had been transformed.

The copper coin sword shuttled through flesh, blood and bones, and the whole thing looked no different from a living thing. The 108 copper coins were like scales, and the red lines were like blood vessels.

"My cultivation is still not enough. The Pseudo Yin Treasure is the limit of what I can control at the moment."

The copper coin sword raised its tip, and its behavior was somewhat similar to that of the insect ghost.

"hehe."

"I wonder if we can trick the other plague messengers out."

(End of this chapter)