Chapter 134. Liúshuǐ People (10) Buddha’s Relic and Ancestral Master’s Whisk

     A regular mountain looks green or dark green up close, and may look blackish green from a distance. A mountain shrouded in black mist from top to bottom under a clear blue sky is too conspicuous, like a ghost movie effect added to the real world. The video looks a bit fake even when I watch it myself.

     Even at noon, the time when the yang energy is strongest in a day, the black mist still lingers for a long time.

     There are quite a few villages around this mountain, and there are only a few cities that can see this mountain. It is impossible to evacuate all of them in a short period of time. Even if it is done, it will cause panic.

     The special agent team can only ask the network security department to pay attention to the hot searches on various platforms and greet media reporters. The help of the local community is covered up with the excuse of poisonous fog. The poisoning incidents of 12 tourists and the escape of animals last night have also been explained a bit reluctantly.

     There are more than ten survivors in the special agent group. Their physical fitness has improved significantly, and it is not difficult to capture or even kill the Gu worms from the frantically fleeing animals.

     The local task force’s worldview has been completely out of sync since last night. They are all public servants, so why are they so outstanding? The forensic doctors and physicians among them can’t wait to dissect them.

     The village chief explained: “The twelve tourists deliberately broke into the forbidden area and disturbed the dead in the forbidden area of the village, so they were scared like this. They deserved this disaster. If we hadn’t rescued them in time, they would not be scared now, but would have died long ago.”

     Deputy team leader Guo Lei grasped the key point: “Forbidden area of the village?”

     “There are two forbidden areas in our village. One is the ancestral tomb, where we bury our own people. The other is the mass grave, where our ancestors buried intruders many years ago. Later, intruders who entered the forbidden area would die for unknown reasons. Since the founding of New China, such a thing has not happened again until the twelve tourists were scared. Screams were heard everywhere, and we had to go down the mountain to save them. We also found that our whole mountain was not right. “

     The village chief emphasized: “The problem of Miao Gu is true, but our village never uses Gu to do evil and increase sin. This is just a cultural heritage of our Miao people. The purpose from beginning to end is to protect ourselves. The Gu that bit the tourists all went out of control for unknown reasons and has been recovered by us. We also personally solved the deadly poison in their bodies. “

     After saying that, the village chief spread out his calloused hands, and everyone saw more than 20 strange-looking poisonous insects such as green spiders, black moths, and colorful butterflies, crawling out of the skin of his palms.

     The scene was too weird.

     There really is Gu in this world. Despite psychological preparation, some experts subconsciously took two steps back, and some people were stiff and pale due to insect phobia.

     An entomology expert took several steps forward, but was stopped by the special agent. He stopped and said, “The size, color, and even appearance of these insects are different from normal insects. What is the reason for them to become like this? Is there a genetic mutation?”

      The village chief carefully collected them all before continuing, “Many Gu worms in the village have escaped from the mountains, just like the animals. Their poison is unbearable for ordinary people. Last night, villagers who went down the mountain caught some, but some are still at large, this…”

     Captain Yuan Yuan ordered another local task force and two villagers to be responsible for searching for the Gu worms and the people who have been infected.

     The experts also gave the mountain village chief a simple physical examination, including B-ultrasound, blood analysis, electrocardiogram, and urine test, etc. When the Gu worms entered the village chief’s body, they could not detect them.”

     …

     At the same time, at 11:20 AM, the task force finally got through to the two local policemen in the village. They must have slept in late after a long night, and had just woken up. Seeing the black fog outside the window, they kept exclaiming in surprise.

     The phone line was filled with constant static, and besides the static and the conversation between the two policemen, there were also some sounds that seemed to be picked up from somewhere else.

     These sounds were like the murmurs of many men and women, sending chills down one’s spine. The murmurs became even more pronounced when the phone was on speaker, but they were very difficult to make out, even with noise-canceling equipment.

     The young policemen seemed to have not yet noticed the ghosts in their place. They said: “Officer Guo, is it very noisy on your end? Can you ask the people to be a bit quieter?”

     The very quiet task force: “…Sorry, the people from the foot of the mountain are being evacuated, so it might be a bit noisy.”

     According to the statistical reports from the two young policemen, many villagers in the mountain village are sick, possibly due to the influence of the black fog, especially the elderly, who are in urgent need of doctors and medicine.

     Yuan Yuan: “Prepare some more common medicines.”

     The village chief took the initiative to say: “Excuse me, perhaps the Gu worms you found can help them. Gu is a common method of treating illnesses in our village, and they can strengthen the body.”

     “…”

     …

     The task force plans to ascend the mountain at three quarters past midday (around 12:45 PM).

     The group consists of 50 people, including ten survivors. The rest are made up of special agents, armed police, forensic scientists, relevant scientists, Taoist priests, Buddhist monks, and others. Their equipment, in addition to the system-provided gear, also includes items from civilian sources.

     The national team naturally has a more elaborate setup.

     Among them, the Buddhist group, apart from some Buddhist scriptures, has only one truly useful piece of equipment: the Buddha’s genuine relics.

     2500 years ago, Shakyamuni Buddha^[1]Shakyamuni, also known as Siddhartha Gautama, was the founder of Buddhism. He was a prince from the ancient Indian republic of Shakya (now in Nepal) in the 6th century BCE. entered Nirvana. His disciples cremated his body and obtained a piece of skull, two pieces of scapula, four teeth, a phalanx relic of the middle finger, and 84,000 bead-like sarira^[2]Sarira refers to the pearl-like or crystal-like bead-shaped objects that are found among the cremated ashes of Buddhist spiritual figures. relics of his true body.

    So far, a total of 21 Buddha bone relics have been publicly announced worldwide, with the whereabouts of others unknown. It is believed that from now on, the whole world may be secretly searching for the true Buddha bone relics.

     After the second round of internal testing, China has confirmed that Buddha bone relics can exorcise evil and avoid disasters.

     There are only eight Buddha tooth relics found in China, with physical defense attributes of 15 to 35 or more. Yuan Yuan applied for a Buddha tooth relic from Lingguang Temple in Badachu, Xishan, Beijing, with physical fitness ⊕ 25 and gold attribute.

     Compared to Buddhism, Taoism has a much larger array of equipment, but finding it is like searching for a needle in a haystack.

     This is because 40% of Taoist practitioners are frauds, over 59.99% are ‘pure believers’ without subjective awareness, and the false far outweighs the true. Only about 0.01% of Taoist practitioners have any real skill, making truly effective Taoist magical artifacts even rarer than genuine Taoists.

     Within their group, one individual awakened the Yin Yang Eyes. After navigating the struggles between various Taoist sects, he eventually joined the Shangqing School of the Zhengyi Order, becoming a resident fire Taoist with the Taoist name Jingming.

     Being a Taoist of the Fire Element, he dressed casually. Aside from the horsetail whisk he carried close to his person, no one could tell he had any connection to Taoism. The whisk in his hand was one that had been used by Wei Hua, the Purple Void Perfect Lord, the ancestral matriarch of the Shangqing School in Taoist history.

     Although the whisk was not a product of the system, it possessed high-level attributes (Strength ⊕6, Agility ⊕8, Constitution ⊕8).

     When it comes into contact with evil entities, it emits a faint white light, dispelling cold and exorcising evil. It is clearly a light-based weapon, but unfortunately, it cannot be brought into the public test dungeons or free dungeons.

     Accompanied by the village chief of the mountain village, Taoist priest Jingming with his horsetail whisk clearing the way, led the special agent team and the local task force, all dressed in cold-weather gear for summer, into the Yin Mountain shrouded in black mist, one after another.

     At the same time, Wang Xue, who was working as a forging tool in the village, heard the system voice: 【16 survivors are detected approaching the dungeon. Do you want to invite them to join the “Liushui People” dungeon? 】

     “No.”

     What a joke!

     Ye Mo nodded to Wang Xue and went out. There were too many ghosts in the mountains, so she went to watch them.

     …

     It should be a hot summer, but the special agent team had the illusion of climbing Mount Everest.

     Cold, tired, and dangerous.

     The mountains were truly terrifyingly quiet. Along the way, they saw many small animal corpses and withered plants, as well as some returning Gu insects, which had returned due to the stable Yin Qi.

     Walking through the forest, the golden light emitted by the Buddha bone and the white light of the horsetail whisk provided a great sense of security. They could bring normal warmth to those holding them and dispel the black mist within a certain radius.

     This increased the visible range for the special agent team within the black mist.

     Furthermore, they hadn’t even reached the mass grave yet, and they had already encountered two bloody, transparent evil ghosts. It was as if everyone had awakened their Yin-Yang eyes, allowing them to see the spirits of the dead.

     The experts’ legs went a bit weak, the special agents raised their guns, while the survivors simply kicked a rock to test the area.

     The two evil ghosts could only consider themselves unlucky when they met the special agent team, because the survivors tried many Taoist tools, Taoist spells, Buddhist scriptures, etc. through them until they dissipated into the air.

     The local task force watching: “… Is this the agent from the capital?”

     The village chief: “… Are people outside so powerful now?”

     The conclusion of the special agent team: The Taoist tools with notes ⊕ in the system are effective against ghosts. Taoist incantations can be genuine or fake, with the latter being more common. Reciting Buddhist scriptures is only useful when you are very pious. Even the master, despite his experience, was visibly tense when confronted with the ghosts.

     Before the ghosts dissipated, Yuan Yuan and Guo Lei conducted a brief interrogation of the spirits. When asked about the ‘woman in red,’ the spirits became erratic, showing signs of spontaneous disintegration.

     The special agent team looked serious: “Who is this ghost girl in red?”

     The village chief noticed their gaze and argued: “There is no ghost girl in red in our village. Our national costumes do not advocate red like the Han people. Our village likes black, green, white and blue. This ghost girl in red is not from our village.”

     …

     The two bloody evil ghosts were just the beginning.

     The special agent team encountered more and more spirits as they progressed. They had died in various ways, with 99.9% having met violent ends. The remaining modern ghosts had died nearby and were drawn to the mountain, definitely not killed by the mountain village residents.

     The village chief had not lied.

     These ghosts all shared a common trait. Whether interrogating the evil ghosts or questioning the ordinary ones, their reaction to the ‘woman in red’ was the same—fear. One particularly timid ghosts was so scared that it soul flew away.

     Even the survivors couldn’t help but panic a little: “…”

     Witnessing this, Ye Mo thought, ‘Is it really necessary?’

     She had only destroyed the Yin formation. It was her first time using the ‘Water Scripture’ to break a mass grave formation, and she wasn’t very familiar with it, so she might have caused a bit more damage than intended. But was that enough to make every ghost fear her?