American variety show world begins with subduing Jason

"I'm quite certain, young sir, I've been working in this town for over a decade, and I've never heard of any climbing team going missing in a cave, let alone triggering a large-scale search and rescue operation..."

...If your description is accurate enough, then it should be Old Vic. He has no relatives and has lived alone in the abandoned gold mine for decades. He usually hunts and occasionally pans for ore from the mine to sell in town. He lives a meager life... Come to think of it, it seems like it's been a while since I've seen him..."

Sheriff Anthony scratched his receding hairline, a sign of middle age, and answered Zhu Mingyao's question with some doubt.

The questions asked by this so-called exorcist were completely baffling to him.

After listening to the other party's answer, Zhu Mingyao pondered for a moment, then smiled:

"Please don't mind it, I was just asking around, maybe I've got it mixed up..."

He suddenly raised his head as if sensing something, looking out into the deep night, his expression shifting slightly.

"We can put other matters aside for now; let's deal with those beasts first!"

Before the words were finished, several sharp gunshots shattered the tranquil night sky.

……

The open space in front of the forest farm was brightly lit by searchlights. Forest rangers and several young men from the local area, armed with hunting rifles, formed two rows and took turns firing, calmly shooting down the pale monsters that rushed out of the woods.

Just as Zhu Mingyao estimated, once they left the dark and complex environment, these weak cave-dwelling monsters were completely powerless against modern firearms.

Seeing this, he quickly waved his hand, and several gusts of cold wind carried the little yellow paper figures away.

The friendly NPCs are too capable, which is also a problem. Look at how brave they are in battle. If you are slow to act, you will have made a wasted trip.

The ghostly soldiers did not reveal their forms, but instead transformed into invisible gusts of wind that howled back and forth in the field. With each swirling motion, a pale, short monster would tremble and fall silently to the ground, after which a handful of lead pellets would be scattered, turning it into a honeycomb.

Under the combined attack of modern firearms and ancient magic, the cave monsters fell in large numbers in an instant, like wheat being harvested in autumn.

The battle went extremely smoothly, but a hint of doubt appeared on Zhu Mingyao's expression.

Why are these guys acting like they're on drugs? They're just mindlessly charging forward like pigs.

As the saying goes, even ants try to survive. Any intelligent being will feel fear when faced with life-threatening danger, regardless of its strength; this is a biological instinct.

But these monsters don't seem to show much fear. Could it be that their intelligence is so low that they are like single-celled organisms?

He gave a soft shout, stopping everyone from continuing to shoot. Then he commanded the ghost soldiers to swarm forward, enter the bodies of the last two monsters, and possess them, freezing them in place.

After whispering a few words to Sheriff Anthony and instructing him to ask everyone to leave for the time being, Zhu Mingyao strolled over to the two stiff, standing monsters, tilted his head, and revealed a slightly cruel smile.

……

Silent all night.

It seemed that the battle the previous night had wiped out all the monsters. As the sun rose, the group escorted the wounded down the mountain without any further incidents.

Everyone looked at Zhu Mingyao with a strange expression as he declined the forest rangers' offer to accompany him and went up the mountain alone for the second search.

—Last night, a few daring young people couldn't contain their curiosity and wanted to know why the exorcist left behind the two monsters. Then, they witnessed a near-professional level of autopsy in a truly horrifying way…

Before the group even returned to town, the "necromancer's" reputation had already spread far and wide.

It has to be said that spreading rumors is truly in the nature of humankind!

Meanwhile, a young sorcerer who was cosplaying as a Naruto ninja and leaping through the branches of a large tree was unaware that his glorious image had already suffered a major blow.

He was reflecting on the results of yesterday's "research".

Contrary to his expectations, the reason why the monsters attacked so fiercely and relentlessly was not because some mastermind had given them bloodlust or anything like that.

The truth is very simple.

They were hungry!

I'm so, so hungry!

Zhu Mingyao found nothing that could be called food scraps in the stomachs of the two monsters, not even Lao Ba's favorite secret seasoning, which shows how long they had been starving.

Considering the opponent's pathetic strength, the possibility of hunting animals in the forest empty-handed is almost zero, so its strange behavior can be understood.

Compared to the swift deer and hares in the mountains, these blind men probably thought the big, healthy people in the forest would be easier to catch. Driven by hunger, they staged a dramatic scene of birds dying for food.

If it were someone else, they would say that the mission has been successfully completed by investigating to this point, with the cause, process, and result all clearly documented; it's just an ordinary monster attack incident.

But in Zhu Mingyao's view, the matter is not over yet!

He's read the original novel!

These blind and weak second-class cripples, who can't even beat an ordinary person, can't even feed themselves on the surface. What do they rely on to fill their stomachs underground? Cockroaches?

This is Jinzhou, not Guangdong!

Unless someone keeps feeding them, they would have starved to death long ago, given their abilities!

Zhu Mingyao already had a clear idea of ​​who he suspected.

At the end of the original movie, an old man grabs a survivor who has escaped from the cave, knocks him unconscious with a shovel, and throws him to the monster, clearly indicating that this man and the cave monster are in cahoots.

Based on the information obtained from Sheriff Anthony, Zhu Mingyao quickly identified the suspect as a reclusive old man who guarded the mine, named Vic!

A gold mine was once mined in this mountainous area decades ago. Although the rich ore has been exhausted, some gold can still be panned out with hard work. It is said that the old Vic made a living by doing this.

……

Leaving aside the rugged and winding forest path, Zhu Mingyao strode forward, heading in a straight line.

Now, four of his five internal organs have been formed, and his true qi is several times more abundant than it was a few months ago. With a little leverage from the tree branches, he darted away a long distance with a whoosh. His speed might be slightly slower than that of the inexperienced Erzhuzi, but it was no less than that of a recent graduate who was considered a failure.

After crossing four or five hills and walking for another ten minutes or so, Zhu Mingyao's view suddenly opened up.

Between the two mountains lies a flat slope about the size of a football field, upon which remain some dilapidated mining buildings. Most of them have been reduced to ruins over time, with only a handful still standing.

On the opposite side of the building, on the mountainside, a fairly intact mine entrance is hidden under lush, verdant vines.

Before the main body arrived, the ghostly soldiers went ahead, manipulating their summoned creatures to wander around the abandoned ruins. Only then did the cautious young man step into the mine and slowly approach a brick and wood hut in the residential area.

A rusty, gray-white pickup truck was parked on one side of the hut. Several strings of brownish-red dried rabbit meat hung on the wall, with the skinned pelts draped over the side. A dirty thin quilt was drying on a wire strung up nearby, clearly indicating that someone had lived there for many years.

However, the interior was found to be empty during the reconnaissance by the ghost soldiers, as if it had long been deserted.

Chapter 126 Gold Miner

Even though the house was empty under the ghostly gaze of the Yin soldiers, and there was no spiritual light emanating from any living being, Zhu Mingyao still did not rush forward. Instead, he first walked half a circle to the pickup truck, frowned, sniffed it, and then lifted the thick canvas covering the back of the truck bed to take a look.

Then he returned to the front gate, lightly waved his peachwood staff, and sent a fist-sized boulder flying.

With a bang, accompanied by a cloud of dust, the stone smashed open the door, revealing the scene inside.

The cabin wasn't very big; from the doorway, you could see almost everything inside—aside from a few wooden beds and chairs, there wasn't a soul in sight.

Zhu Mingyao remained on guard as he slowly entered the room. His gaze quickly swept around the room before landing on the wooden round table beside him.

He stretched out a finger and touched the peeling, mottled surface of the table, his eyes flickering thoughtfully.

Judging by the thickness of the dust, it couldn't have accumulated in just ten days or half a month.

After carefully searching through the area again, Zhu Mingyao finally confirmed that the old man, Vic, who lived there and guarded the mine, had left at least a month ago and had never returned.

It's just unclear whether they left voluntarily or were forced to leave...

He weighed a glass bottle about the size of a thumb in his palm. Looking through the thick walls of the bottle, he could see grains of dark gold sand, shimmering with a metallic sheen, lying quietly inside.

This was an unexpected find he made from a hidden compartment in the floorboards under the bed.

At first, Zhu Mingyao thought it was gold ore that the old man had found, but when he felt the strange spiritual energy fluctuations in it, he immediately realized that it was clearly the essence of the five metals, such as gold spirit and gold essence.

With the corroboration of some potions and powders also found in the hidden compartment, he deduced that the old Vic was most likely a wizard or some other superhuman!

The truth of the matter has been basically solved. The cave monsters in this underground cave were most likely raised by Old Vic. The old bloodstains, animal hair, and bits of meat left in the back of the pickup truck outside were probably caused by the meat brought from the outside.

The film differs slightly from the original novel in that, judging from the fact that no missing persons cases have occurred in this area, he covered up this matter very well and did not engage in any indiscriminate acts, so no one discovered it.

Some time ago, he suddenly left for some unknown reason and never returned. The monsters, having lost their food source, were starving and had no choice but to risk crawling out of the ground to find prey. However, before they could even get a taste of food, they were beaten to a pulp by the rescue team that arrived on the scene. The original plot has now ended before it even began.

Zhu Mingyao walked outside, looked down at the small glass bottle in his hand, hesitated for a moment, and then walked into the deep mine.

……

In the long underground mine tunnel, two balls of white light, each the size of a soccer ball, floated in mid-air, moving with Zhu Mingyao and illuminating the originally dark environment with every detail.

As he went deeper, drag marks and messy claw prints gradually appeared on the dusty ground.

It seemed he hadn't made a mistake. Zhu Mingyao nodded to himself; this place indeed led to the underground cave where the monsters lived in the movie.

Before him, a yellowish-brown greyhound made of sand and gravel was looking down, sniffing here and there, as if searching for something.

Summoning the [Hound General] to track him down wasn't because Zhu Mingyao was bored and wanted to eradicate evil completely. Old Vic had obviously been on the run for a long time, and he could just report back to the authorities. As a lazy worker who came to grind monsters, there was no need for him to waste his energy chasing after him.

What finally made him decide to investigate was the small bottle of gold concentrate he had found.

If his guess is correct, Old Vic has been living in seclusion here for decades, raising a group of cave-dwelling monsters, all in order to secretly mine this precious spiritual material. In other words, there should be a hidden mineral vein here.

If I were to discover an entire vein of gold essence, I would have enough resources for the rest of my life's cultivation.

After venturing deeper into the mine tunnel, Zhu Mingyao shattered an illusion at the end of the tunnel, revealing a large, dark hole about two meters wide in the wall. As he entered, a chilling aura immediately enveloped him; it was a natural underground cave.

Directly in front of him was a wide and deep ravine, and the place where he stood was the edge of the ravine, with a stone slope that was half naturally formed and half man-made, slowly descending to the bottom of the ravine.

"It must be at least two or three hundred meters deep. Such a huge undertaking must have taken a lot of effort." The boy manipulated the ghost soldiers to float down and explore, then threw in a stone. It took a while before he heard a barely perceptible echo. He muttered to himself.

While remaining vigilant, Zhu Mingyao descended the rocky slope. His honed skills made him far more agile and swift than the average person. Even without any handrails or guardrails, he managed to land steadily on the bottom of the ravine a few minutes later.

He could smell a faint, fishy stench, like rotting fish and shrimp, in the air, and he knew that the monster's lair must be nearby.

He rummaged over the jumbled rocks of all sizes at the bottom of the ditch, and slowly made his way in the direction from which the stench was coming. The animal bones that gradually appeared on the ground guided him to the right path.

After turning two corners, a tall, square rock wall with protruding sharp corners came into view. Under the light of the [Flying Light] spell floating overhead, the phosphorescent rock wall seemed to have some golden spots. Below, there was a row of dog kennels made of rags and dry grass. The surroundings were filled with a stench, and among the leftover scraps and bones, there was a large pile of pickaxes, hammers, and chisels.

We've found the place where the monsters live, which is also where the earth's veins are formed!

Zhu Mingyao's spirits lifted, and with a wave of his hand, he created a gentle breeze to sweep away the filth on the ground. He leaped forward a few times, placed his palm on the stone wall, and excitedly began to examine it, using the ability of [Lung Spirit Bright Radiance] to summon the golden evil energy.

A moment later, he looked up, his face a mixture of joy and disappointment, and sighed softly.

The disappointment is that the spiritual energy in this cave has dissipated, and it is clear that the gold essence it contained has been completely depleted.

The good news is that a lot of gold ore remains in the rock face, and the purity is extremely high. According to the weight reflected by the golden energy, the gold content is probably at least 80 kilograms, if not 100 kilograms. Not to mention now, even 20 years from now, it will be a huge fortune.

But how to get it out of there has become another problem...

Frustrated, Zhu Mingyao touched the specks of gold on the rock face and looked at the rusty pickaxe lying nearby. Suddenly, he realized a problem he had overlooked earlier:

This old man has been holed up in the deep mountains and forests for decades, and even recruited a bunch of monsters to work for him. He should have extracted a considerable amount of gold and gold, but judging from the furnishings in his house, he still looks miserable.