What do you mean by saying that the corpses I sew are all ominous creatures?

However, what's most bizarre isn't their appearance, but their movements.

These mummified corpses are moving.

The martial arts performer slowly raised his withered arm, his movements stiff.

He slowly raised the large sword in his hand above his head, making a "ready to strike" gesture.

The kneeling female lead raised her head slightly, her empty eyes staring straight at the male lead, her body trembling in an extremely unnatural way, as if she were crying out or begging for mercy.

The entire process was completely silent.

There were no drumbeats, no singing.

Only a few mummified corpses dressed in brightly colored costumes were performing this silent pantomime on stage.

I squinted, a glint of light flashing deep within my pupils.

In my view, this was no stage at all; it was clearly a huge altar.

Countless wisps of black smoke emerged from the cracks in the stage floor, penetrating the soles of the mummified corpses' feet, knees, spines, and backs of their heads.

"It's 'Zhanjingtang'," I suddenly said.

"What?" Lu Yan seemed not to have heard clearly and asked in return.

"This play is called 'The Execution of the Scriptures'."

Lu Yan turned her head and looked at me with a complicated expression: "At a time like this, you still have the mood to watch a show?"

"It's not that I want to see it, it's that someone wants us to see it."

I spoke calmly, my voice standing out clearly in the deathly silent square.

"This is an old play in Han Opera, telling the story of Wu Han killing his wife."

In order to fulfill his loyalty, Wu Han had no choice but to kill his own wife.

"Look at that martial arts actor, he's playing Wu Han, and that female role is Wang Lanying."

I took two steps forward, my eyes fixed on the plaque in the center of the stage that read "A General and a Minister".

"These mummified corpses are not ordinary corpses. They were filled with mercury while they were alive and then sealed in costumes to suffocate."

This kind of death locks the soul inside the corpse, condemning it to relive the moment of death for eternity.

At this point, I felt the black bone needles in my sleeve suddenly become scalding hot, as if they were giving me a warning.

"Moreover, it's very likely that the evil cultivator isn't the one controlling them."

I pointed to the dark, gaping base of the stage below.

"That aura is coming from underground; the real thing is what's pressing down under this stage."

The moment I finished speaking, the actions on the stage suddenly changed.

The mummy playing the role of "Wu Han" suddenly brought down the large knife in its hand.

Although it was just a prop knife, I actually saw a real flash of blood the moment it fell.

puff-

A very faint sound of a sharp blade piercing flesh rang out.

The head of the kneeling female impersonator's mummy actually rolled off and rolled all the way to the edge of the stage.

Those empty eye sockets were facing us directly.

Then, the shriveled head opened and closed its mouth, making a sound.

A shrill, mournful operatic voice emerged from the dead man's head:

"...Killing one's wife to gain a generalship...What a cruel heart..."

As this lyric was sung, the ground of the entire square suddenly shook violently.

The floor in the center of the stage seemed to have been torn apart by an invisible hand, and with the crisp sound of breaking wooden planks, a pitch-black hole about three meters in diameter was revealed.

The dense, almost solidified black corpse energy gushed out like a fountain, knocking the mummified corpses on the platform off their feet.

"Back up! Everyone back up!"

Lu Yan reacted very quickly, grabbing my arm and dragging me backward.

The members of the Folklore Bureau following behind her reacted quickly, firing their submachine guns at the stage.

Da da da—!

The specially made cinnabar bullets hit the mummified corpses, exploding into bursts of sparks, but they were completely unable to stop the gushing corpse gas.

The aura of death was so intense that the moment it was released, I felt as if the light around me was swallowed up by something, and most of the square quickly went dark.

The midday sun, which was originally high in the sky, was now shrunken into a blurry white spot behind the thick black fog.

"Such heavy resentment..."

I muttered something under my breath, and the malevolent energy within my body began to circulate spontaneously.

This level of corpse energy would likely cause an ordinary person to turn into a zombie on the spot if they just inhaled a single breath.

Lu Yan stood beside me and quickly spoke into her headset: "Group one, group two, southeast and northwest Qiankun positions! Activate the ultraviolet light array!"

Three groups: scatter cinnabar thread, set up netting! Special operations team: plaza stage, form a Bagua spirit-locking array!

Following her command, the Folklore Bureau agents who had been lurking around the square moved.

I saw eight operatives dressed in black tactical uniforms leap out from the shadows, in pairs, their movements extremely skillful.

Four huge searchlight machines were quickly set up.

Om-!

Accompanied by a low, crackling sound of electricity, four dazzling purple beams of light instantly pierced through the black mist.

The corpse energy, illuminated by the purple light, emitted a piercing hissing sound, and large swaths of black mist were purified into grayish-white smoke and dust.

At the same time, eight more figures carrying peach wood nails approached the stage in the square.

They moved in perfect unison, standing at the Bagua positions in the square, and simultaneously nailed the peach wood nails in!

Seeing this, Lu Yan bit her middle finger, quickly drew a huge talisman in the air, and then pressed it down sharply.

"Imperial Edict!"

A golden light curtain rose from the ground along the eight wooden nails, like a huge transparent dome, tightly trapping the entire stage and the gushing black mist inside.

The black mist collided with the golden light screen, creating ripples like waves on water.

The light curtain flickered intermittently, clearly under immense pressure.

"Director Lu, this formation won't last long."

I walked over to Lu Yan and looked at the blood dripping from her fingertips with a serious expression.

"The thing below is exhaling."

This underground palace had been locked for countless years, and the current collapse is like opening a vent in it.

"If you don't plug that vent, even if you bring in the entire fortune of the Folklore Bureau, you still won't be able to suppress this earthy energy."

Lu Yan wiped the cold sweat from her forehead, turned to look at me, and said with a hint of anxiety in her eyes, "I know, but I have to make sure this gas doesn't spread outside the town."

"Chen Yang, if I use lightning magic to forcefully bombard that cave entrance right now, will it work?"

I shook my head: "No, thunder magic belongs to yang, while earth energy belongs to yin."

"If you bombard it now, it's like pouring cold water into boiling oil; it will explode, and the entire ancient town will be overturned."

I looked at the still-expanding dark hole in the center of the stage, and then at the several mummified corpses that were being tossed about by the corpse aura, yet still stiffly maintaining their theatrical poses.

"Someone needs to go down."

I said softly, my right hand unconsciously reaching for the scalpel in my pocket.

"Go into the underground palace and block the source."