TRYMBPIETM 113: Revival of All Things (34)

At 11:30 in the morning, someone knocked on the door of Chi Qingzhou’s house.

Xing Shuangzhan went to open the door, and standing outside was Shen Wenxu.

He stepped aside to let Shen Wenxu in, furrowing his brow. “Is this blood on you from Qing Zhi?”

Shen Wenxu ignored Xing Shuangzhan completely and strode into the living room.

Chi Qingzhou and his shadow were both sitting on the sofa, and two sets of equally curious eyes turned to look, their faces wearing identical innocent expressions.

Shen Wenxu was dressed in a golden-yellow Daoist robe splattered with blood, with several drops of fresh blood still on one side of his face, making his normally gentle and handsome face seem a little strange.

He didn’t seem at all surprised by the sight of “two Chi Qingzhous” sitting there and gave Chi Qingzhou a pleasant smile.

Chi Qingzhou returned the smile, eyeing him carefully. “Wow, so much blood.”

The shadow placed both hands on Chi Qingzhou’s right shoulder, resting its chin on the back of its hand, exaggerating, “You didn’t actually kill your master, did you?”

Shen Wenxu blinked, shook his head, and whispered, “Of course not. That’s Qing Zhi’s enemy, and I’m leaving that to Qingzhou to avenge himself.”

Chi Qingzhou cheerfully replied, “That’s great. I knew all my friends are considerate.”

Shen Wenxu’s eyes squinted into a smile. “Yes, yes, I am Qingzhou’s good friend.”

Xing Shuangzhan could only rub his temples.

He moved closer to the sofa to check on Chi Qingzhou, but as he reached out his hand, the shadow blocked it.

The shadow impatiently waved him away. “Go away, go away, I don’t want to see you!”

Xing Shuangzhan glanced at Chi Qingzhou, who was clearly enjoying the scene, feeling both amused and exasperated.

“Don’t you manage your own shadow?”

Chi Qingzhou gave an innocent look. “What are you talking about, Su Ge?”

That’s not my shadow; it’s me.

Xing Shuangzhan could only sit back helplessly.

Shen Wenxu noticed Xing Shuangzhan out of the corner of his eye and suddenly realized he was facing him. He quickly changed position and turned to the side.

Xing Shuangzhan: “…”

Chi Qingzhou’s friends certainly have straightforward attitudes.

Seeing that his contractor didn’t seem to have any more questions, Xing Shuangzhan took the initiative to speak. “Shen Wenxu, you’re here, but I assume it’s not just to talk about these small matters?”

Shen Wenxu’s eyes shifted slightly as he finally regained his composure.

He muttered, “Yes, I have something to discuss with Qingzhou.”

Chi Qingzhou’s curiosity was still piqued. “What’s up?”

Shen Wenxu licked his lips, an excited look creeping into his expression, though he wasn’t fully aware of it.

“Qingzhou, I’ve figured out what’s going on with the Absolute Yin Land in Linxi Village!”

He instinctively leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees, revealing a scarred wrist beneath his sleeve, with some wounds still oozing blood. Yet, he seemed oblivious to the pain, focused solely on speaking.

“This morning, the weather in Hexing City changed suddenly. After I noticed this, I went to find my master. He wasn’t very willing to tell me what happened, so I had to discuss the matter with him in detail.”

Shen Wenxu showed an expression of innocence, strikingly similar to Chi Qingzhou’s.

“As long as you speak reasonably with him, I think he’s actually quite easy to talk to.”

Chi Qingzhou said nothing, and Xing Shuangzhan tapped the armrest of his chair, his voice low, “Get to the point.”

Shen Wenxu gave him an impatient glance, lazily continuing.

In fact, earlier that day, he noticed the abnormal weather in Hexing City and immediately went to pry some information from Qing Zhi.

Qing Zhi was somewhat unguarded around him, and although he didn’t initially reveal anything, after Shen Wenxu acted without warning, he almost immediately fell into the trap.

From the beginning, Shen Wenxu had no intention of taking Qing Zhi’s life.

However, Qing Zhi had committed many wrongs in the past, and with just a small trick commonly used by cultivators, Shen Wenxu inadvertently attracted a bunch of vengeful spirits that hated Qing Zhi.

To keep Qing Zhi from dying, Shen Wenxu couldn’t stay too far from the action, and after those spirits were driven away, he was left covered in blood.

Shen Wenxu sighed. “My master doesn’t know much. I’ve seen his memories, and the deity he worshiped used to appear quite frequently when he was young, but I don’t know what happened. About ten years ago, that deity’s appearances became less frequent.”

However, along with that decrease came a rise in strange supernatural occurrences.

In Qing Zhi’s memories, that god had pushed him to the position of elder in the Xuanxu Sect to better control the information surrounding these phenomena.

His daily tasks involved managing the Wan Ying Temple for the ghost deity, gathering data on supernatural events, and sometimes even keeping track of new cultivators awakening various talents.

Chi Qingzhou paused for a moment, then lowered his head, thinking for a few seconds before asking, “Are these statistics increasing year by year, or did they suddenly surge at some point?”

Shen Wenxu didn’t hide any of the information he had learned.

While answering Chi Qingzhou, he finally looked at Xing Shuangzhan.

“According to my master’s memories, these numbers were steadily rising, but about four or five years ago, there was a sudden surge.”

Many ordinary people had awakened unusual talents during that time, and some, even though they didn’t fully transform, had their perception enhanced significantly.

A typical example of the former group would be the elite members of the Xuanxu Sectwho were around his age, while the latter…

Shen Wenxu smiled. “Qingzhou, do you remember that overly sensitive actress, Xu Xinxin, from the variety show you filmed? She’s a typical example of the latter.”

Chi Qingzhou quickly recalled Xu Xinxin’s unusually sharp instincts and slowly nodded. “Are there many examples like this?”

Shen Wenxu: “Many.”

Chi Qingzhou: “I see. What about Qing Zhi managing the Wan Ying Temple?”

Shen Wenxu replied, “This matter is related to the Absolute Yin Land in Linxi Village and can be traced back several hundred years.”

To be precise, this was actually Qing Zhi’s most important task.

Given Qing Zhi’s age, he could not possibly be the first follower of that god. If we were to trace back a few hundred years, there should have always been people performing similar tasks for the god.

However, by the time it reached Qing Zhi, the task had subtly changed.

Shen Wenxu said, “If I’m not mistaken, those people’s main task was to establish Wan Ying temples everywhere, while my master’s job was just to manage and maintain them.”

Chi Qingzhou narrowed his eyes. “Are there enough Wan Ying temples?”

Shen Wenxu answered, “I don’t know.”

Qing Zhi only had a vague understanding of events from hundreds of years ago.

As far as Qing Zhi knew, at least four or five hundred years ago, there were people using various excuses to guide others to establish Wan Ying temples in different locations.

Since these places were often quite remote, and the villagers were largely ignorant, the same tactics could work many times.

The earliest example was Linxi Village, which was the most typical case.

Around two hundred and thirty years ago, Linxi Village was still a regular, isolated little village.

Most of the villagers came there to escape from wars or famines, living a self-sufficient life, and were not keen on interacting with the outside world.

Due to years of inbreeding, their bloodlines became very close. Naturally, they gradually struggled to have children.

Moreover, their close familial marriages greatly increased the probability of genetic defects.

Every few years, at least half of the newborns in the village were born with congenital deformities.

The people of that era did not understand what genetic defects were and did not think of cousins as close relatives.

They didn’t understand why they gave birth to monsters and believed it was punishment from the mountain god.

To appease the mountain god’s anger, they tried everything to offer sacrifices, one of the most typical being to offer a bride to the mountain god.

Of course, this had no effect.

As the entire village’s lineage seemed about to die out, a young scholar who had insisted on studying in the nearby town suddenly returned to the village and claimed he had found a way to calm the mountain god’s wrath.

This method was to accumulate virtue and do good deeds.

He told the villagers that their punishment was because their ancestors had only cared about escaping disaster, abandoning many family members behind.

This was the sin they were born with.

As long as they redeemed this sin, the village would return to normal.

The way to atone was very simple: do good deeds.

They could help those who were lost in the mountains, or collect the bones of those who had died in the mountains.

In ancient times, people believed in burying the dead with respect. Under the scholar’s persuasion, the desperate villagers accepted this method.

They cleaned out a dilapidated house that had been abandoned for years, and placed a corpse they had gathered from the nearby deep mountains in it.

At the same time, they also found two or three women who had been kidnapped by bandits and abandoned, bringing them back to marry the village men.

These women came from outside the village and had no blood relations with the villagers. Naturally, when they became pregnant, the children they bore were much healthier.

The ignorant villagers didn’t understand this, but they saw the results—

After establishing the Wan Ying temple, their punishment really did lessen!

Finally, healthy babies were born in the village!

On the day several babies celebrated their full moon, the entire Linxi Village was in an uproar.

They believed the scholar’s words without question and began to madly collect unclaimed corpses from the deep mountains.

Under the scholar’s guidance, they learned how to build temples, perform sacrifices, make offerings, and make vows to Wan Ying temple.

From the initial “wishing for a child,” it gradually evolved into “wanting a lot of money,” “wanting to marry three wives,” “wanting to become a landowner”…

They became fanatic and unscrupulous.

If their wishes were not fulfilled, or if their wishes did not reach the level they desired, they believed the temple did not have enough unclaimed corpses.

They went to different places in search of corpses. Some were not unclaimed, but rather, were those that families were looking for—these were also brought back to Linxi Village.

Human desires are endless.

And human boundaries are broken step by step.

When rumors like “the mountains near Linxi Village devour people, and all the dead are turned to bones” spread, they quickly ran out of new corpses to find.

They learned to watch indifferently, no longer helping dying passersby; they learned to deceive and lead travelers to dangerous places; they even colluded with bandits, using food and gold to support them in harming passing travelers.

The number of ghostly entities in the Wan Ying temple increased.

The resentment in the Wan Ying temple grew stronger.

One day, the ghostly beings, who had long harbored resentment against the villagers, ignored their own corpses being suppressed there and erupted during a sacrificial ceremony, slaughtering the villagers.

The entire village, including the unborn babies, perished.

That night, the ghosts also scattered their souls in the bloodshed.

From then on, Linxi Village became a dead zone, slowly attracting the strong resentment left behind by the girls sacrificed to the mountain god.

The hatred pouring out from the cave where the girls died formed a huge vortex, continuously devouring the surrounding Yin energy.

In just over a decade, Linxi Village became a true Absolute Yin Land.

This Absolute Yin Land lasted for over a hundred years, with several passing monks and Taoist priests trying to solve the problem, but all failed.

As the Yin energy intensified, the stars and moons shifted, and before the founding of the Dragon Country, the Xuanxu Sect considered sealing it completely.

But just then, a mixed migration group from the Puluo and Danlin tribes arrived in this area and used a unique bracelet to suppress the Yin energy, beginning normal life and reproduction.

It was clear that they intended to handle the Absolute Yin Land, and they seemed to have a way to do so, so the Xuanxu Sect abandoned any interference.

Later, several official organizations were established, continuing this attitude.

Shen Wenxu said, “The leader of this group was originally the true owner of the tomb where Cheng Shang is in seclusion. Zhouzhou, do you know? She was never alive from the beginning, but she is your closest blood relative.”