Infinite Puzzle City

Chapter 414 Beginning and End
Just as the black shadow fell to the ground, an old man's face appeared from the gloomy and ghostly aura. He raised his head with resentment on his face, and the hatred in his eyes was so great that he wanted to tear Xiao Ran into pieces.

"Do I have a grudge against you? Are you looking at me like that?"

"Hehe, it doesn't matter whether there is a grudge or not. Hell has no gates to break in. All of you, one alive is not too many, and one dead is not too few. You deserve to die, all of you deserve to die!"

The old man's face was filled with hatred, and he had no rationality at all. His body was bound by the [God-Locking Whip], but he was still twisting his limbs continuously, and his body was covered with dense tumors as big as grapes.

Xiao Ran looked at the old man's face. The illusion that just appeared before him should be the scene that the old man encountered before he died.

However, the young man who was stabbed in the face in the picture made Xiao Ran think of the owner of the hat shop.

"It seems that the owner of the hat shop is the son of this family who was killed."

"Kill, kill! You all deserve to die, you all deserve to die!" The old man's emotions became more and more agitated. If it weren't for the restraint of the [God-Locking Whip], he would have pounced on Xiao Ran and fought to the death by now.

Xiao Ran carefully examined the old man in front of him: "It doesn't look like an evil ghost, but it is a bit similar to those things in Yin Yang Dao."

I have seen some Yin-Yang Taoist monsters in the underworld. According to the Yinshan Taoist, they have all forgotten their own natures, and rubbed against each other in the netherworld, and finally turned into evil spirits.

I guess the old man in front of me is in about the same state.

However, this place is not the underworld, but a dark and evil trap. People in the trap have become flags and have long lost their self-awareness.

Seeing this, Xiao Ran's heart moved, and he thought of the "Hell Money to Overcome Disasters" in the Eight Gates of the [Soul Crossing Sutra] (from Chapter 367.)
This technique is one of the eight techniques in the Duling Sutra, and is also the core technique of the Duling Sutra.

Even the name of the Soul-Duling Sutra is derived from this technique.

Xiao Ran took out a [Yin Banknote] from the space, pinched his fingers, held the Yin Banknote in his hand, and silently chanted a spell.

"Yin and Yang are in order, Qian Kun has its own rules, all things are born and die, ghosts are governed, Tian Qi Da Sheng Ren Sheng Great Emperor urgently issues an order, pardon!"

As Xiao Ran chanted the spell, the Yin Banknote in his hand turned into wisps of green smoke and went into the old man's head.

Suddenly the old man's body couldn't stop shaking, and a black gas emanated from his eyes, ears, mouth and nose.

The tumor on his body began to crack and eventually fell off his body.

"I..." The old man's eyes gradually became clear, and he raised his head to look at Xiao Ran: "Who are you? What do you want to do?"

Xiao Ran took out the [Yin Note] from the space and handed it to the old man: "Can this be exchanged for red cloth?"

Seeing the Yin banknotes in Xiao Ran's hand, the old man curled his lips and said, "You can keep this little money to wipe your butt."

Seeing this, Xiao Ran was not angry. He took out a stack of books from the space and threw them in front of the old man: "Is that enough?"

The old man looked at the thick stack of Yin banknotes in front of him, and his eyes of hatred began to become hesitant.

"I'll give you another stack for your son. Is that enough?"

Xiao Ran took out another stack of Yin banknotes.

This time, the old man gradually showed joy on his face, and he just tilted his head and looked at Xiao Ran: "You can't leave. No matter what, don't even think about leaving. The king won't let you go."

"Your king? Who is he?"

But the old man refused to say another word.

Xiao Ran didn't make things difficult for him. He took back the [God-Locking Whip] and let the old man go.

After getting free, the old man immediately picked up the Yin banknotes on the ground and looked through them carefully.

To be honest, this old man has never seen such a thing as Yin Banknote.

But there is the mark of [Tongyou Yin] on the Yin banknote, so it is better to say that this thing is Yin virtue rather than money.

Yin De is just a concept for the living, but it is of great use to the dead.

Apart from anything else, just the present moment can wash away all their resentment, free them from pain, and resolve their obsessions.

It can even allow them to escape from this hellish place and successfully enter the underworld.

As for the underworld, these ghost money can also buy them a chance to reincarnate.

Unfortunately, this thing cannot be obtained by ghosts and monsters, it can only be accumulated when people are alive.

This is why we often say that we should do more good deeds and accumulate more good karma. (Note: This is feudal superstition. I am writing a novel, so don’t take it seriously!)
The Zhou family holds the [Tongyou Seal] by constantly accumulating good karma, printing Yin banknotes, and then using the Yin banknotes to continue doing good deeds and accumulating virtue, forming a virtuous circle.

If it weren't for what happened back then, Zhou Shang was forced to borrow a huge amount of merit in order to save the lives of his brothers, the Zhou family would not have declined so quickly.

After making sure that these two thick stacks of [Yin Banknotes] are enough for him to take his son away from here.

The old man reluctantly took out a piece of human skin and stroked it with reluctance on his face.

"Those bandits peeled off my skin and hung it on the door as a lantern. They deserved to die, but they are living better than us."

"Tell me, why is this happening? We are just honest farmers. The bandits bullied us, and now these beasts are going to bully us too?"

"So, the people who killed you weren't bandits?"

Xiao Ran heard the hidden meaning in the old man's words and asked curiously what was going on in this village.

"The robbers only robbed money and food, but those beasts wanted to take our lives. It was supposed to be a happy event, but after they came..."

At this point, the old man's eyes turned red again, and the Yin banknotes in his hand floated up one by one, hanging around and spontaneously combusting, turning into wisps of green smoke that fell on the old man, which prevented the old man from losing his mind again.

When his vision regained clarity, the old man never mentioned what had happened again.

Instead, he said in a gloomy voice: "Afterwards, in order to cover up the truth, they opened the floodgates and flooded the entire village. These beasts are the royal relatives and dignitaries..."

"So that's how it is. No wonder."

Although the old man didn't tell us what happened exactly that day, Xiao Ran could basically guess the outline of what happened.

The Red Evil is a bride who dies tragically on her wedding night, while the White Evil is a groom who drowns on his wedding day. The two do not necessarily have to occur in the same period, but they must not occur together, otherwise they will become the most troublesome Red and White Evils.

On the day of the wedding in this village, the entire village was massacred, and then the village was flooded.

It just so happened that the white evil in the water and the red evil in the village became entangled with each other, thus forming the current evil situation, and those who died in the village were also trapped here and could not be reborn.

After knowing the situation of this village, Xiao Ran roughly understood how to break this evil situation.

Why do I say "probably"? Because there are still some things Xiao Ran doesn't understand.

"The trouble is with the Red and White Devils, no wonder they want to get married, but why marry the groom?"

"It seems that the problem lies with the king mentioned by this old man."

Thinking of this, Xiao Ran reached out and took the human skin from the old man's hand: "Old man, let me ask you one more question. In addition to you and your son, how many other wronged souls are trapped in this village?"

"A lot, hehe, too many. The village originally had only 72 households, and with the deaths in recent years, there must be at least 500 people, if not 800..."

The old man said this, raised his head and looked at Xiao Ran, smiling and saying: "Why, are you planning to bribe them all with... this thing?"

As he spoke, the old man shook the Yin banknotes in his hand.

“I don’t have that much spare money.”

Xiao Ran shook his head. Paying money to extradite ghosts was actually just hard-earned money.

For example, if one extradited a ghost, the price would be ten taels of Yin notes, and the merits one would obtain would be at most twelve or thirteen.

People like this old man are already doing business at a loss.

If it weren't for the human skin and red cloth in his hand, Xiao Ran had no intention of doing such a loss-making business.

This one example alone is enough. If the rest were to happen in the same way, not only would one not be able to pay off the debt, but the good karma one owes would only grow bigger.

Therefore, Xiao Ran didn’t plan to use this method again in the future.

The Zhou family’s methods are not limited to this.

He put away the red cloth covered with human skin and bowed: "Thank you for your guidance, old man. Please go on your way soon. I won't bother you anymore. Goodbye."

After saying that, Xiao Ran walked out without looking back.

Just before reaching the door.

"and many more!"

The old man looked up and called out to Xiao Ran, asking, "Who are you?"

Xiao Ran did not stop, but just threw a handful of guide money into the air.

Accompanied by the huge amount of money for the guide, Xiao Ranren had already walked out the door.

As soon as the guide money fell, the old man looked carefully and saw that the guide money was arranged on the ground to form a plum blossom.

"Master!!"

As soon as Xiao Ran left the house, the second in command couldn't wait to run over and looked at Xiao Ran with great surprise: "God bless you, you are fine after all."

Xiao Ran rolled his eyes and thought, "What does this have to do with Bodhisattva?"

"take it."

Xiao Ran handed the human skin to the second in command. The human skin turned into red cloth and was held in the second in command's hand. The originally thick word "death" on the head also slowly faded away.

Xiao Ran glanced around but did not see Hang Sui and others.

"Where are they?"

"They! Haha, they are almost dead."

The second in command curled his lips and briefly explained the situation. Most of the people who rushed into the door died soon after. Several pieces of red cloth were thrown out from the door and were collected by Hang Sui and the others.

The red cloth was covered. Seeing that Xiao Ran didn't come out, Hang Sui thought that he had also died in there, so he took his men and left.

"Sir, they seem to be going to look for geese. There were geese calling over there just now, and it sounded like there were quite a lot of them."

The second in command pointed forward.

"Oh, I see. Let's go and take a look."

Xiao Ran said as he and the second in command walked forward.

I didn't walk far before I saw Hang Sui and others walking back, each carrying a goose.

After seeing Xiao Ran, several people were also surprised. Hang Sui didn't expect that Xiao Ran was actually fine.

After being surprised, he hurried forward and said with a smile on his face: "I said that you have magical powers and all evil will retreat. It turned out to be true."

"lucky."

Xiao Ran responded simply and looked at the big goose in the hands of Hang Sui and others.

Looking around, they saw big white geese struggling up and down in the hands of the crowd, shouting "ga ga ga ga".

"Oh, these geese are quite fat."

The second in command looked at the big white geese and said in surprise, "How can there be such fat geese in such a ghost place?"

Xiao Ran stood aside without saying anything, but there was a faint light flashing in his eyes. He did not see the goose in his eyes, but only saw the heads of the escorts being held in the hands of other escorts, screaming in pain...

(End of this chapter)