I consulted a feng shui master in Hong Kong.

The Eight-Faced Buddha finally turned around, squinting as he looked him up and down.

"Esteemed benefactor, you've come so late at night; is there anything I can offer?"

Chen Qinghe looked at the Eight-Faced Buddha with a calm expression and said, "I wouldn't call it guidance; I just heard that there is a high-ranking monk in the city, so I came here specifically to seek his advice."

"Seeking guidance?" The Eight-Faced Buddha chuckled, the prayer beads on his wrist slowly turning a full circle, but his tone betrayed no kindness. "It's rare to find someone venturing into my little temple in the dead of night seeking guidance. What do you wish to ask?"

Chen Qinghe's gaze was calm. He first glanced at the gilded Buddha statue on the altar, then looked at the dark incense burner in front of the Buddha statue.

I have two questions.

"First, was the Five Ghosts Transporting Wealth technique the work of a high-ranking monk?"

"Secondly, was the altered talisman beneath the Pei family ancestral portrait designed by a high-ranking monk?"

As soon as those two sentences were uttered, the air in the temple seemed to suddenly sink.

The Eight-Faced Buddha's back immediately tensed, and the smile on his face gradually faded until only a layer of cold skin remained.

"So you didn't come to ask for advice, you came to interrogate me."

Chen Qinghe said, "If you consider yourself a sinner, then I'm not wrong."

The Eight-Faced Buddha's face turned ashen: "What arrogance! Do you even know where you are?"

"I know." Chen Qinghe's gaze swept over the temple gate, incense table, offering table, and lamp positions. His tone was unhurried. "A place that uses Buddha statues to raise evil spirits and uses shady dealings to make money by taking lives."

His words carried a hint of disdain.

How dare they cause trouble at a temple like this?

The Eight-Faced Buddha's eye twitched slightly.

This sentence has already hit the nail on the head regarding the root of his temple.

He slowly stood up, his monk's robe hanging down, and the string of prayer beads in his hand swayed gently, producing a dull clinking sound.

"Young man, I know who you are."

"If I'm not mistaken, you're the feng shui master who broke the Huo family's feng shui formation before, right?"

He slowly took a step forward. "You can dismantle a few formations and break a few feng shui rules, but that doesn't mean you can trespass on my temple. Young man, you'd better not be too arrogant."

"As for those things you mentioned...hehe, if you want to know the answers, you might as well come in and ask."

Suddenly, the Eight-Faced Buddha raised his hand and slapped the incense table.

"Snapped!"

The incense burner on the table suddenly shook, and the incense ash inside rose up without wind, rushing towards Chen Qinghe's face.

The ash wasn't ordinary incense ash; it was mixed with fine bone powder and black cinnabar. If it got into the eyes or disrupted breathing, it could cause dizziness at best and shortness of breath at worst.

Chen Qinghe, however, had already raised his hand and flicked an old copper coin from his sleeve.

"Ding!"

The copper coin struck the edge of the incense burner, causing the opening to tilt and the cloud of ash to disperse almost entirely.

Chen Qinghe shifted his foot and moved half a foot to the side. The remaining wisp of dust grazed his shoulder and hit the door frame, leaving a black mark.

The Eight-Faced Buddha, instead of being angry, laughed and said, "That's interesting."

He pulled a black card from his sleeve with his other hand. The card was shiny and had several twisted engravings that were faintly visible. It looked like a Buddha but not a Buddha, and like a ghost but not a ghost.

Chen Qinghe frowned slightly.

But then the eight-faced Buddha held the black plaque horizontally in front of his chest and chanted a few indistinct Southeast Asian mantras. The two ever-burning lamps in the temple immediately flickered, their flames turning from yellow to blue.

As soon as the blue flame appeared, the temperature in the entire small temple seemed to drop suddenly.

Huang Shouzhou isn't here; if he were, his legs would probably go weak.

This is a typical feng shui technique used to harm people.

Chen Qinghe's expression remained unchanged, only his brows furrowed slightly.

"Nanyang brand," he said. "You dare to put any dirty thing in front of the Buddha."

The Eight-Faced Buddha sneered, and with a sudden flick of his wrist, the black plaque emitted a sharp buzzing sound.

It wasn't the wailing of ghosts, but it sounded like something was being forcibly trapped inside the wood, making one's eardrums go numb.

That's the way of the gods.

It's not about summoning ghosts, but rather borrowing the accumulated negative energy and corpse energy from the talisman to first disturb people's spirits and then suppress their courage.

When ordinary feng shui masters encounter this, they are initially intimidated, and the subsequent arrangement becomes difficult to undo.

But Chen Qinghe simply raised his hand to press down on his sleeve and slowly took out the old compass from his bosom.

The compass was old, its edges worn smooth and shiny, and it looked unremarkable.

But when he pressed his finger on it, the needle trembled slightly, as if it were being drawn by something, and quickly shifted to a different angle.

Chen Qinghe glanced down and said indifferently, "Borrowing the deathly aura of the southeast to suppress the spirits, you're taking advantage of the stagnant, foul air of this fortified village. The tangled wires outside are oppressive, and the altar inside is rather yin; you certainly know how to pick a location."

As soon as he finished speaking, he flipped his wrist and slammed the compass horizontally onto the corner of the table.

A crisp "click" sounded.

The lamp that had been sitting steadily on the corner of the table was shaken and tilted slightly by an inch by the tap, and the shadow of the lamp immediately changed.

The stagnant energy that had been pressing in from the black plaque in the temple was suddenly cut off, and the black plaque in the hand of the Eight-Faced Buddha also sank.

This move wasn't a direct confrontation; it was using the temple's own feng shui to break the evil influence within it.

The Eight-Faced Buddha's expression finally changed.

"You dare touch the place in my temple?"

Chen Qinghe looked at him: "Your temple? You dare to talk about temples?"

After he finished speaking, he raised his hand and flicked the edge of the compass, sending another copper coin flying.

"Ding!"

The copper coin struck the base of the green lamp on the right, and the lamplight suddenly dimmed.

As the two lamps shifted, the path of yin energy that had been created in front of the incense table immediately dissipated.

The black amulet in the Eight-Faced Buddha's hand suddenly made a muffled sound like tearing silk, and a fine crack appeared on the surface of the amulet.

"Even now, you're still unwilling to confess?" Chen Qinghe asked calmly.

The Eight-Faced Buddha ignored him, a fierce look rising in his eyes. Suddenly, he took a step forward, pressing the black tablet straight at Chen Qinghe's chest.

This wasn't a battle of magic; it was a close-quarters fight to the death.

Before the black card even arrived, the pungent, fishy smell emanating from it already pressed down on you.

Chen Qinghe's eyes turned cold. Instead of retreating, he advanced, raising his left hand and unfurling the roll of yellow paper from his sleeve between his fingers.

He didn't use fire; he simply used his index and middle fingers together to draw a line on the talisman, then slapped it onto the front of the black card with his other hand.

"Snapped!"

Yellow paper labels are affixed, and vermilion dust is shaken.

Eight-Faced Buddha felt as if his wrist had been scalded by boiling oil. He almost instinctively tried to shake it off, but Chen Qinghe's right hand had already slipped under his elbow, grabbing and twisting, and his entire arm was instantly bent backward.

The black card slipped from his hand and fell to the ground. Chen Qinghe flicked it with his toe and kicked it under the incense burner.

The next moment, he took a half-step closer, and with a simultaneous exertion of force from his shoulder and elbow, he slammed heavily into the Eight-Faced Buddha's chest.

"Bang!"

The Eight-Faced Buddha staggered backward, slamming his lower back hard against the edge of the incense table, knocking over the fruit, incense burner, and divination sticks, which rolled all over the floor.

"I also know a little about martial arts; you're probably no match for me."

He pushed hard.

The Eight-Faced Buddha staggered and fell to the edge of the table.

The Eight-Faced Buddha leaned against the incense table, his chest heaving, and for the first time, genuine shock and anger appeared in his eyes.

He originally thought that Chen Qinghe was only good at understanding the situation and had dismantled a few of his unorthodox techniques. Who knew that the other party not only understood the situation but also dared to enter the temple and take action, and did so without any hesitation.

"You…" he gasped, staring intently at Chen Qinghe, "Who exactly are you?"

Chen Qinghe walked over step by step, his voice not loud, but so steady it sent chills down one's spine.

"The Three Mysteries Sect, Chen Qinghe."

The Eight-Faced Buddha is now obsolete.

No matter how much he wanted to fight Chen Qinghe, he was ultimately powerless to do so.

He thought Chen Qinghe was just a reckless young man, how could he possibly be his opponent in terms of martial arts?

But reality dealt a heavy blow to the Eight-Faced Buddha.

He was certainly no match for Chen Qinghe.

The Three Mysteries Sect transmits feng shui secrets, but the sect has never said that they only teach you how to look at mountains and rivers, not how to protect yourself and save your life.

Chen Qinghe had been following his master since childhood. He learned to memorize texts, draw talismans, and set up a compass quickly, and he was just as fast at martial arts and body techniques.

While he might not be able to take on ten men single-handedly, it wouldn't be easy for three or five strong men to get close to him.

At this moment, the small Buddhist temple was in a complete mess.

The incense table was tilted, the lamps were broken, and the prayer beads were scattered all over the floor.

The eight-faced Buddha had blood at the corner of his mouth and a pale face. He leaned half of his body against the gilded Buddha statue, his breathing coming in fits and starts, as if he had a breath in his chest that was about to stop at any moment.

Chen Qinghe found him an eyesore and kicked him again.

The kick, though not too heavy, landed squarely on the ribs of the Eight-Faced Buddha, slamming him hard against the base of the statue.

With a crisp "crack," the Buddha statue suddenly shifted its center of gravity, and the stagnant energy that had been suppressed in the base could no longer be contained.

With a series of soft cracking sounds, a crack broke open along the chest of the Buddha statue, and the gold paint fell off in a cascade, revealing the blackened wooden core inside.

The eight-faced Buddha seemed to have been struck in the chest by something, his eyes widened suddenly, and he vomited a mouthful of dark red blood.

He staggered back two steps, trying to regain his balance, but ultimately couldn't hold on, his knees buckled, and he fell heavily to his knees.

The blood trickled down the corner of his mouth, dripping into the cracks between the bricks, carrying a faint, sweet, metallic smell.

"You...you actually dared..." He looked up at Chen Qinghe, his voice hoarse, the ferocity in his eyes mostly suppressed by pain and fear, "...to break my root..."

Chen Qinghe looked down at him, his eyes cold.

"You're not a Buddha at all," he said. "You rely on Buddha statues to support your operation and trade human lives for money. Your core has been rotten for a long time."

The Eight-Faced Buddha opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something more, but the yin energy that surged back from his chest had completely dissipated his aura.

He swayed twice, then finally collapsed to the ground, like a snake whose spine had been removed, unable to get up for a long time.

The temple was eerily quiet for a moment.

Chen Qinghe stood in front of the incense table and glanced around.

This place is indeed a mess.

The Buddha statue is placed under a talisman to suppress evil spirits, and the incense table is used to cultivate yin energy. The ever-burning lamp is not for worshipping Buddha, but for using fire to nourish yin. Even the black pottery jars in the corner do not contain pure water or incense ash, but a dirty mixture of bone fragments, cinnabar, and dead ashes.

Staying in such a place for even one day will only cause more harm to people.

He turned back to look at the Eight-Faced Buddha, his tone calm: "Tell the truth. If you confess honestly, perhaps I can spare your life."

The Eight-Faced Buddha lay prostrate on the ground, his chest heaving, barely managing to lift his head, a bitter smile appearing on his face: "Spare me? Are you all so hypocritical? I know nothing."

"Even if you don't tell me, I can investigate slowly," Chen Qinghe said. "It's just that if you tell me now, you'll suffer less."

The Eight-Faced Buddha turned his head away.

Chen Qinghe raised his hand, picked up the cracked black plaque from the ground, weighed it in his palm, then looked at the widening crack in the Buddha statue's base and said calmly, "The foundation of your temple has been severed. If you delay any longer, the deathly aura growing beneath will turn against you. Even if you don't speak then, I have plenty of ways to make you talk."

This statement is not intended to intimidate.

The Eight-Faced Buddha knew better than anyone that the situation in this small temple had already collapsed.

The Buddha statue was cracked, the base was loose, and Chen Qinghe had also tampered with the return air path of the eternal lamp.

If this drags on, the murderous aura I've cultivated over the years through taking lives and making ill-gotten gains will eventually come back to haunt me.

He remained silent for a long while, then finally spoke in a hoarse voice: "What do you want to know?"

"Is the Pei family's scheme entirely orchestrated by you?" Chen Qinghe asked.

The Eight-Faced Buddha shook his head: "The talisman you want wasn't made by me. I just happened to receive it. It cost 500,000 baht, and I don't know its origin..."

After listening, Chen Qinghe stood up and didn't ask any more questions.

That's enough.

He could tell that what the Eight-Faced Buddha said was true.

That would actually prove that the Eight-Faced Buddha doesn't know much.

The rest, in most cases, will have to be found and explored on their own.

Chen Qinghe didn't feel regretful; on the contrary, he had a stronger expectation for what would happen next.

He looked up and glanced around again.

Half a lamp wick lay overturned on the incense table, still flickering with embers.

The Buddha statue's chest was cracked open, and a dark, fishy, ​​damp smell seeped out of the crack.

It smells awful.

Chen Qinghe didn't like it.

The black pottery jars in the corner were also shaken and tilted, with fine cracks appearing at the mouths. The smell inside, a mixture of bone ash, cinnabar, and sesame oil, became even more unpleasant.

"It's better to destroy this place," Chen Qinghe said calmly.

After he finished speaking, he kicked over the incense burner in front of the Buddha statue.

The embers in the furnace were scattered and landed precisely on the oil-soaked wood chips around the base of the Buddha statue.

The sawdust was originally intended for fueling lamps and continuing fires. Soaked in sesame oil, it ignited upon contact with fire, and with a flicker of flame, it even managed to seep into the crack in the base.

The Eight-Faced Buddha's expression changed drastically: "You—"

Chen Qinghe ignored him and turned to walk away.

The fire started very quickly behind them, first burning wood chips, then rolling up Buddhist banners, and finally leaping up along the old paper, rags and oil lamp holders piled up in the corner.

The walled city is most afraid of fire. Once it starts, it's like wild dogs fighting over meat; in the blink of an eye, it can startle half the alley.

Strangely, although Chen Qinghe set the fire...

However, the fire only burned near the small Buddhist temple.

It doesn't spread outwards at all.

The mournful cries of the Eight-Faced Buddha echoed from the small Buddhist temple.

Chen Qinghe knew in his heart that these fires and smoke were not the problem.

They won't kill the Eight-Faced Buddha.

It only damaged his foundation and caused him to lose his essence and blood.

Chen Qinghe thought about it and even found a public phone to call the police.

We, the members of the Sanxuan Sect, travel the world and keep our word.

I said I wouldn't kill you, so I won't.

But what happens if the police catch him is none of Chen Qinghe's business.

……