Devouring Evil Martial Arts, Eliminating Demons from All Heavens

Chapter 36: Temple Keeper, Miao King Funiu
The sky is green and the grass is lush.

Abang hummed the songs of the village all the way to the ancestral hall.

Abang means flower in Miao language. According to the rules of Wujiazhai, her full name is actually very long.

But because she happened to love flowers since she was a child, the people in the village were used to calling her by this part of her name.

The brothers went hunting in the mountains, and the sisters went to the woods to pick fruit. Sometimes when they saw lovely, elegant, beautiful, or even a little strange flowers, as long as they were not so common, they were happy to bring them back to her.

Some are picked, while others are dug up whole and can be transplanted.

Abang planted all the flowers next to the ancestral hall and often came to visit, asking his mother-in-law who was in charge of the hall to take care of them for him.

If any flowers are sick, she can ask her mother-in-law to find someone to inform her.

When Abang came over today, my mother-in-law was sitting on a bamboo chair outside the ancestral hall.

My mother-in-law is very thin, with a dark yellow complexion. She looks to be in her sixties. Her hair is wrapped in a blue embroidered cloth. She has light eyebrows and long eyes. There are many wrinkles on her forehead and corners of her eyes, but she is in good spirits. Her back is relatively straight, and she is stroking a bamboo flute in her hand.

Hearing A Bang's cheerful greeting, she raised her eyes and said slowly, "I'm here. The flowers are all in good shape today. None of them are particularly wilted."

"Why is there a bit of noise halfway up the hill this morning? They were noisy all night yesterday, and now they're noisy again today?"

As she spoke, my mother-in-law shook her head, looking a little unhappy.

My mother-in-law likes quietness and doesn't like to join in the fun. Last night at the bonfire singing and dancing, Abang came to invite her, but my mother-in-law only listened to half of his words and sent him away, refusing to go.

Abang didn't come to disturb her about what happened this morning, but when her mother-in-law asked her about it, she couldn't stand it anymore.

"Today we're going through three levels. Grandpa asked Brother Zewa to compete with someone from outside. That old man is amazing. He doesn't look very strong, but he can create such a huge whirlpool on the water..."

Grandma suddenly raised her eyes and interrupted her: "Letting outsiders pass through the three gates? Is someone here to borrow treasure? What is it?"

A Bang replied, "The Colorful Cloud Flute."

The wrinkles on the grandmother's forehead deepened. After a pause, she said, "Our ancestors' belongings were lost for so long, and they were only found a few years ago. How can we lend them out?!"

A Bang smiled and said, "The flute was originally found by Uncle Shanjun. We don't use it much, so Grandpa and Zewage agreed to lend it to us if we can pass the three levels."

"Nonsense!"

The old lady guarding the temple cursed and stood up from the low chair, but stopped after taking a few steps and her eyes flickered.

"Forget it, since the clan leader and the others have agreed, let's see if these people can pass the three levels."

"Abang, from what you said, the outsider has already won today's round?"

A Bang nodded and said, "Yes, that uncle's boxing skills are amazing, like dancing, but it's completely different from any dance I've ever seen."

"I wonder what new things will be in tomorrow's competition. Mother-in-law, do you want to go with me to watch it?"

Grandma sat back in her chair, her fingers pressing the holes on the flute one by one, her head lowered, her tone a little stiff: "Hmph, I won't go. The ancestral hall keeper should guard the ancestral hall."

Ah Bang knew that his mother-in-law had a strange temper, but he didn't take it seriously. He went to the flower field to look at the flowers he had planted, and said with a crisp laugh, "Then, mother-in-law, can I stay here tonight?"

The old lady guarding the temple said quietly, "It's up to you."

The house of the keeper of the temple is made of the best materials in the village, and is similar to the house of the village chief.

The only difference is that the village chief's house is decorated with deer head skins, which makes it look very rough.

The house of the keeper of the temple is much more exquisite. Every inch of the wood board in the house is carved with patterns. The jars and pots are also more lovely than those elsewhere. The silver pots are neatly arranged and the bottles are full to the hand. Most of them are good things brought in from outside the mountain by ancestors of some generation.

Abang especially likes to stay here overnight.

But my mother-in-law goes to bed very late. The older she gets, the later she goes to bed. She always makes some small noises in the first half of the night. In recent years, she has become more and more fond of playing the flute in the middle of the night.

The sound was not particularly loud, but Abang, who lived in the same room, had already prepared cotton earplugs for himself.

At midnight, Abang tossed and turned in the house.

For some reason, she couldn't sleep well today even with earplugs.

My mother-in-law sat on the doorstep, playing the flute, looking at the ancestral hall not far away. Her expression was complicated, her eyes raised, and a cruel look gradually revealed itself, but the sound of the flute was so low that it was inaudible.

The night gradually brightened.

The morning glow first rose from the mountains, covering half the sky. Roosters crowed from several households in the village, and the sound of people's voices gradually became noisy. Smoke from cooking fires was everywhere.

Then the sun finally came out.

Amidst the clouds, the huge red fireball in the sky was flat like an orange.

Chu Tianshu stepped onto the bamboo corridor of the stilt house and began his first thing every morning, holding the jar and drinking water like a cow.

After drinking a whole jar of water, his eyes were misty and he burped.

"The morning sun in the mountains is so soft."

Looking at the sun through the mist makes one wonder whether the flat sun will be pierced by the mountain peaks if it deviates a little bit?
Chu Tianshu could feel that after drinking a jar of water just now, his stomach felt like the sun.

At first you feel full, then soon a heat rises and spreads from the stomach, and the water is rapidly converted and absorbed.

The feeling of heaviness in the stomach and intestines is alleviated, and the dryness and discomfort between the skin and flesh are also greatly relieved.

This extraordinary ability to replenish water can only be achieved after achieving remarkable success in both the "food as immortality" and "dragon-haunted" paths.

Before the battle with the old eunuch, Chu Tianshu's Dragon Possession had already reached 90% of the maturity, and Food for Immortality was about 40% of the maturity.

These days, he recalled the urgency of his fighting, his inner and outer insights, and felt the different forces exerted by his muscles with every step he took.

"Dragon-Haunted" has finally reached full strength and truly reached this level.

On the contrary, on the path of "food for immortality", the effect of Lingyang Gallbladder medicine has been exhausted, and the time of combined training with witch doctor's acupuncture is short, so there is no obvious improvement in realm.

However, with the guidance of "Toad Power Palm Thunder", he, who has reached the same 40% level of Food for Immortality, can now use his internal organs to generate power much more delicately than before.

After breakfast, Chu Tianshu met up with Cai Shanjun and others, and was led by the people in the village to see the venue for the second level.

It was a big earth pit on the other side of the village.

The entire pit is about 30 meters square and about 3 meters deep. The bottom of the pit is very flat and there are drainage ditches on the edge, which can divert water from the bottom of the pit during the rainy season.

It was unknown how much manpower and time the ancestors of Wujiazhai had used to dig this pit. When Chu Tianshu arrived here, dozens of men were trying to find a way to get a cow down.

First, two long ladders were used to let people go down, and then eight men lifted a large thick wooden board from the bottom.

The people above worked together, lifted the cow with a lever, and slowly lowered it down.

It took a lot of effort for everyone to put the cow into the pit.

The cow looked very docile from beginning to end, with its eyes covered with a coarse cloth and lying motionless.

However, looking at the movements of those men, they still looked a little frightened.

Chu Tianshu and others also understood the caution of those men.

Because the cow is nearly three meters long. If it stands up, its shoulder height would probably be about 1.78 meters, and its weight must be more than 1,000 kilograms.

Compared to the yellow cattle and buffaloes that can be ridden by children, the cow in front of him looked like a huge monster with bulging muscles.

The huge, sharp horns, the shiny black hair, the white limbs and hooves, and the snorting and growling sound are all heart-wrenching.

"It's a bison."

The Wu village chief stood by the pit, his voice becoming more subdued as he spoke to the crowd, "Legend has it that a mountain god, feeling disturbed by the children of the Three Miao, transformed himself into an ox and descended the mountain to knock down houses and trample crops. A Miao king bravely stepped forward, bare-handed, and with unparalleled bravery, overwhelmed the mountain god's incarnation."

"From then on, the mountain spirit not only stopped harming people, but also pointed out fertile, arable land on the hillsides, turning it into terraced fields to feed the people."

"The second stage of Wujiazhai is to reenact the scene of the Miao King Funiu."

Yizhou has a warm environment and abundant jungles. There are thousands of wild animals in the mountains, including elephants and bison.

The bison in Wujiazhai is the strongest among the herd and its breed is also quite special.

If you blindfold it, it will be very docile, but if you remove the blindfold, it will stare at the first living thing it sees and chase it relentlessly.

In order to make the cow look more like the incarnation of the mountain god, the men were still tying cloth strips and covering the cow with leaves.

The wood was cut into the shape of antlers and placed on the cow's back, with five or six sharp antlers spreading out in all directions.

"When a warrior competes with a bull, he must be unarmed and is not allowed to pull the antlers on the bull's back. He is only allowed to dodge ten times. If he still cannot overpower the bull after dodging ten times, he will be considered a failure."

After the Wu village chief explained the rules, Wutugu took off his outer coat.

His attire today was similar to that of the legendary Miao King. His face was painted with several strips of colored dye, and his arms and stomach were tied with a lot of colorful cloth strips as if he was wearing a skirt.

Also because he was dressed up as the Miao King, Wutugu, who was usually talkative, said nothing today. He just nodded in the direction of Chu Tianshu and the others, then went down the ladder and into the pit.

On the other side, the men who were transporting the bison all climbed out with ladders and made sure that Wutugu was ready before using a long bamboo pole to try to remove the blindfold of the bison.

The bison opened its eyes, its eyelashes were long and thick, and its eyes were round like copper bells, reflecting the figure of Wutugu.

The crowd watching by the pit were relatively quiet, and the leader of the Wu village did not shout "start".

The battle between man and beast began from the moment the bison opened its eyes.

"Moo!!!"

The bison supported its body on its four hooves, its eyes staring intently.

Wutugu opened his arms, shook his body, and moved closer to the center of the field, staring back in response.

The bison began to paw the ground with its hooves, shook its head, and all the antlers tied to its body swung around.

Wutugu took a deep breath and suddenly patted his stomach with his hand.

Roar! !

The bison suddenly roared and charged forward, the sound of its hooves like a war drum.

The bigger and heavier the object, the harder it is to accelerate initially.

Given the size of this cow, it can actually accelerate into a smooth running state in just over ten meters.

Chu Tianshu caught this scene and immediately realized that the bison's physique was even better than he had expected.

Such a head-on collision must have exerted a force of several thousand pounds.

Wutugu stretched out his hand to grab the bull's horns, but suddenly realized that the distance and the posture made it inconvenient for him to exert force. Fearing that he could not hold on, he quickly jumped and dodged to the side.

The bison didn't hit him. When it was about to reach the edge of the pit, it slowed down and circled around, turning a corner along the wall of the pit and hitting him again.

Wutugu tried twice more.

Once, he tried to grab the cow's horns with his right hand and tried to grab the cow's belly with his left hand.

Because he had long arms and legs, the deer antlers were a bit of a hindrance to him, but if he stretched out his left arm as far as he could, he could still get under the cow's belly without touching the antlers.

But his right hand was pulled by the bull's head, and he could not hold the bull's horns tightly, so he retreated hurriedly.

Including this time, he has dodged three times.

Just a few moments into the game, one-third of the opportunities were gone.

Chu Tianshu asked in a low voice: "Do you usually not use deer antlers in New Year performances?"

The leader of the Wu village nodded, without taking his eyes off the pit.

In the past, when there were no antlers, Wutugu only needed two or three times to find an opportunity to knock the cow over from the side.

But given the situation today, even the leader of Wu Village couldn't say how many chances he would have to use.

The bison reached the edge of the pit again, ran along the wall and turned a corner. When it turned its body around, it was about to charge towards the center of the venue again.

"drink!!!"

Wutugu actually took the initiative to rush in front of the bison.

The bison's butt was less than five meters away from the pit wall, and before it could finish accelerating, Wutugu's big hands were already stuck on the buffalo's horns.

(End of this chapter)