Bodhisattva, please help me in my spiritual practice!

Unlike the villagers around him who were happy to see the temple, Ao Peng's heart skipped a beat when he saw the dilapidated ancient temple.

Ordinary people in this era receive too little information, making them easily deceived.

However, Ao Peng came from the information explosion era. Seeing this half-dilapidated ancient temple, he immediately realized that it was most likely a ghost's lair, where ghosts had set traps, waiting for ordinary people to go in and die at dusk when they were far from home.

"etc!"

Ao Peng shouted loudly.

The villagers who had fled around him stopped and looked at him.

The village head, the same uncle who had just pulled Ao Peng along, asked, "Pengzi, is there a problem?"

Ao Peng voiced his guess.

Although ordinary people may lack experience, they still possess basic logic. Upon hearing Ao Peng's words, they immediately felt worried. The village head, who was leading the group, also looked troubled. Finally, he gritted his teeth and said, "If we camp in the wilderness, we will not only face ghosts but also wolves. Ghosts can reason, but wolves will not."

Seeing Muramasa's eyes bulging with tears, and combining this with the information he had gleaned from this body, Ao Peng roughly understood what was going on.

At this time, humans and ghosts lived together in Chengdu. Ghosts often caused trouble in the human world. However, the law of cause and effect still existed, so even if many ghosts killed people, they would follow some kind of cause and effect.

For example, they might impersonate a beautiful woman or a wealthy person, planting seeds of evil that will naturally lead to bad consequences.

Of course, there are also reckless ghosts who disregard everything and want to devour living people. Once the county government discovers this, it will first send troops to eliminate them.

If it were Ao Peng's choice alone, he would be far better off leaving the group and hiding in the wilderness by himself than with this bunch of people. He would be a smaller target, and he still had some useful items in his backpack.

For example, when his younger brother Ao Wu had just learned the proper method of refining treasures, he gave him a string of Five Emperor Coins. Ao Peng usually didn't care about these, but since they were given to him by his younger brother, he didn't throw them away. They just sat in his backpack collecting dust. Now, in this desolate wilderness, as long as he doesn't encounter any vicious ghost generals, these Five Emperor Coins can still protect him.

Unfortunately, he has more to consider than just himself.

His entry into this Journey to the West world five hundred years ago was due to the karma of Nagarjuna Bodhisattva. If he had thought about how to protect himself as soon as he lost all his magical power, then he would probably have no chance with Nagarjuna Bodhisattva in the future.

Even if he had obtained that priceless Vedas, he would never have been able to understand it in his entire life.

It's not a skill to uphold one's principles when one possesses great supernatural powers; true skill lies in upholding one's principles even after losing all supernatural powers! Thinking this, Ao Peng instantly gained true enlightenment. After a moment's thought, he said, "Fellow villagers, you may hide inside the temple, but you must follow my instructions!"

"Pengzi, have you received some kind of revelation?"

Nowadays, culture and learning are not thriving in Sichuan. If you try to preach any grand principles to the villagers, it's better to say that you have received divine revelation.

Ao Peng nodded in agreement, "Just now, in a daze, I entered a temple. Inside the temple was a General Wu Gong, a star descended from heaven, who enlightened me!"

"Talk is cheap. You don't actually think everyone believes your nonsense, do you?"

As he spoke, a burly man from the village reached out and grabbed Ao Peng by the collar.

Muramasa did not immediately speak up to stop it.

Because this had happened before, suddenly the villagers said they had received divine revelation, but it turned out that the "deity" was actually an evil spirit. After luring the villagers to welcome it into the village, it slaughtered hundreds of people.

Although Ao Peng's strength had decreased to the level of an ordinary person, his past cultivation insights, temperament, and eyesight remained. He suddenly moved with the speed of a dragon, precisely seizing the tendons in his opponent's palm. With a flick of his fingertips, four different sensations—aches, numbness, swelling, and pain—instantly spread from his arm throughout his entire body. "Let go! Let go!"

The burly man was pinched by Ao Peng and immediately begged for mercy.

The next moment, a long sword appeared out of thin air in Ao Peng's hand, held against the burly man's neck. Ao Peng calmly stared into the man's eyes, "If you want to die, I'll grant your wish now, so I don't have to bother saving a fool later and unnecessarily embolden the demons!"

With a sharp blade held to his neck by Ao Peng, and his tendons aching and numb, the burly man no longer dared to mess with Ao Peng. Especially when those eyes looked over, the burly man instantly understood that if he dared to say another word, Ao Peng would really dare to kill him on the spot.

"Pengzi, I'm your sixth cousin!"

The village was full of relatives, so the burly man quickly played the family card.

Ao Peng looked at Muramasa, "Uncle, General Wu is a righteous god. If he really wanted to harm you, you're all pale and emaciated now. I alone could kill seven or eight men around here. Why bother with all this?"

It was only then that the village head realized what was happening and quickly said, "Pengzi, it's a good thing that you received divine revelation from General Wu Gong. We believe it, we believe it!" It was getting late, so after quickly establishing his authority, Ao Peng led the villagers into the dilapidated temple.

This dilapidated temple has four bays. There isn't much weed, but all the statues in the temple have disappeared. Even the two statues that remain are in the shadows, facing away from everyone.

Ao Peng glanced at the two statues with their backs to the crowd, but didn't make a fuss. He told the ordinary women to light the firewood they had gathered along the way and start a fire.

Then he picked up a piece of charcoal and went to draw on the walls around the temple.

Although the supernatural power of the "Return to Truth of All Things" painting has temporarily disappeared, Ao Peng's painting skills have made great progress. When the night was completely dark, a giant painting of immortals was already on the wall.

"Beautiful painting! Beautiful painting!"

Two sudden exclamations of praise rang out, stirring up a gust of eerie wind. The bonfires lit by the villagers in the temple turned into a ghastly green flame, reflecting the surrounding ghostly atmosphere.

Following Ao Peng's instructions, the ordinary villagers huddled together, their jaws chattering, but none of them uttered a word.

The air around Ao Peng quickly turned cold and gloomy. Suddenly, a crimson demon about two meters tall appeared behind him. This demon could move freely after sunset, but it was also attracted by Ao Peng's painting on the wall.

Ordinary people's drawings are naturally not very good, but Ao Peng only used charcoal pencils to sketch a complete picture of gods enjoying themselves on a dilapidated wall. The picture was full of spirit and form, majestic as mountains and seas, and wonderfully beautiful.

Ao Peng put down his charcoal pencil, cupped his hands, and said, "Brother Ghost, you also understand the ways of painting?"

As soon as Ao Peng finished speaking, a blue ghost claw suddenly lifted him up, opened its blood-red maw, and was about to put him in its mouth.

The blue demon sneered, "I don't know anything about painting, all I know is eating people. You're such a good painter, you'll definitely taste delicious when you're eaten." Ao Peng was being held by the blue demon, with a huge mouth at his feet that could swallow him whole. He wasn't flustered at all, and sneered as he asked, "Eating people is easy, but becoming a ghost is not! Let me ask you, what do people become after they die?"

The blue demon paused for a moment, then said, "People naturally become demons after they die."

Ao Peng laughed, "Please swallow me now. After I become a ghost, I will stay in your stomach. Everything you eat will go into my belly. Even if you eat a thousand or ten thousand people, you will suffer from hunger and thirst every day and never be reborn!"