Strange Stories

Chapter 576 Another Child

The glow in the west grew dimmer.

The sky was filled with black smoke that gathered into dark clouds. The seven-tailed white fox, holy and elegant, stepped into the air, and its divine light illuminated the night. More than a dozen flying swords reflecting the sunset glow shuttled and intertwined in the night sky, forming a dreamlike scene.

Lin Jue floated down and landed on the ground:
"How are you, Lord Wan?"

"Thank you for coming to rescue me!" Wan Xinrong was the first to bow, "Otherwise, my path to cultivation would probably end here!"

"Mr. Wan is so brave..."

"The Immortal is praising me." Wan Xinrong said, "The Immortal also said that it is not easy to achieve enlightenment, and one must naturally seek it in a dangerous place. I was a little nervous at first, but when I thought about the Immortal's previous path to enlightenment, I felt that such danger seemed to be what he deserved."

"How's the search going, Mr. Wan?"

"It's a small gain."

In the distance, dark red blood surged up and turned into giant hands growing out of the ground, grabbing the seven-tailed white fox with a bang. The fox then lowered its head and blew a breath of cold air, instantly freezing it into an ice sculpture. Countless bloodworms gathered into a black dragon, with its fangs and claws, and rushed towards the fox's golden true fire, and was burned to ashes.

More than a dozen sword lights were shuttling back and forth continuously, ignoring all defenses and counterattacks, closely chasing a black shadow. If there was black smoke, they would pass through the black smoke. If the opponent hid in the mountains, they would pierce the mountain through.

The fight on that side was extremely fierce, with the noise shaking the earth, while the two of them were talking calmly here.

"The Purple Emperor's extermination of demons and monsters has come to an end. Apart from this monster, will Wan Gong not return to the mountain?"

"Although the extermination of demons and monsters has ended, the world may not be at peace. There are still opportunities to be found in this world."

"That's it..."

Lin Jue sighed and said, "I wish you all the best. If you need anything, just call me."

"Thank you, Masato!"

"Sui Su Su Su..."

Twelve sword lights flew back from the distance, the swords were covered with black blood and were still emitting black smoke.

The fox also jumped back gracefully and lowered its head to lick its fur.

"call--"

Lin Jue blew a breath.

The black blood on the flying sword suddenly turned into petals of various colors and shapes, falling from the flying sword. The sword body quickly became clean and bright, even reflecting the stars in the sky.

Thunderclouds gathered under his feet, and with a faint rumble of thunder, they carried him away from the place.

"Slow down, real person!"

Wan Xinrong watched him go away.

Looking back, the remaining half of the mountain was already riddled with holes, the night sky became clear and bright, the black smoke and bloodworms disappeared, and instead black blood kept oozing out from the underground mortars, turning the wasteland that looked normal during the day into a smelly black blood pool. There was a figure falling in the distance, still emitting flames.

Such power...

Wan Xinrong also has this yearning in his heart.

So I continued walking.

Master Tao and his apprentice walked through the snowy forest to the seaside, then went down along the sea to Linhai County, Luzhou.

Nearly a hundred years have passed, and the story of the immortal selling flowers to persuade people to be good is still circulating in this small town. This interesting story has even been passed down for longer and is more deeply rooted in people's hearts than many earth-shaking stories of eliminating demons.

There is also a story circulating here about how a god helped the general regain his courage and get rid of the giant turtle.

It is said that the general built a pavilion on the forehead mountain, named Shenxian Pavilion. There are two stone mountains facing each other on the beach below, which look exactly like a giant fish, so they are called Aoyu Mountain.

It is said that after that, the general was highly valued by the King of Yue because of his bravery in battle. He was very good at leading troops in battles and repeatedly repelled the attacks of the Northern Court for the King of Yue. Later, because the King of Yue committed suicide in surrender, the general also surrendered to the Northern Court. His descendants are still prominent today.

The master and his disciple climbed up the E'tou Mountain, visited the Shenxian Pavilion, and then went to see the Aoyushan Mountain below. Knowing that this was the work of their own master, the original scene seemed to emerge in their minds, and they felt both sad and amused.

When Cai Lingyu traveled to the south of the Yangtze River, he had to go to Yangzhou.

The legend of the pear fragrance that filled the streets for no apparent reason and the thunder that purified evil on New Year's Eve are still circulating.

He knew that the Immortal once accompanied his senior brother in refining medicine in Yangzhou, so while he listened with great interest, he could probably guess from the details that this was also done by his own Immortal.

Before we knew it, it was another Snow Lotus Meeting.

On behalf of his own master, Wan Xinrong went to Tianshan respectfully to pay a visit to the ancestor of Tianshan. When he came back to the West Sea, he saw a demon-removing talisman circulating there. Legend has it that it was passed down from Master Yu Lin and can remove demons.

At a glance, it seems to be Chen Niu Fu?
Looking closely, it was Chen Niu Fu!
However, this "demon-removing talisman" is only about 70% similar to the Chen Niu talisman. Some of the lines and strokes are slightly different, which should have changed during the circulation process. In addition, there is no Chen Niu seal on it, so it obviously has no effect of summoning Chen Niu, let alone removing demons. I asked around and found out that -

It turned out that several decades ago, after the Purple Emperor took over the Nine Heavens, he issued an order through the Purple Sky Palace to all places to demolish the temples of the true gods and generals under the command of the previous Tianweng. The people here had planned to demolish the Temple of True Lord Ji Ling, but unexpectedly, Master Lin came here in person and persuaded them to stop, saying that this was the hometown of True Lord Ji Ling, and they and True Lord Ji Ling were fellow villagers, and that if they worshipped True Lord Ji Ling well, True Lord would protect them.

In order to prevent Ji Ling Zhenjun from taking incense and doing nothing, or falling into evil, he left behind three talismans, saying that he would come after the talismans were burned.

After that, the local people sincerely worshipped Ji Ling Zhen Jun, who also protected this place, and no demons had caused trouble there. The story of the three talismans also spread, and as it spread, it became known that these were talismans bestowed by Lin Zhen Jun, which could communicate with Lin Zhen Jun. With Lin Zhen Jun's divine power, even Zhen Jun would be afraid, let alone ordinary demons.

So, both ordinary people and quacks began to imitate these three talismans and draw talisman paper to use to exorcise evil spirits, protect the house, and eliminate demons.

Wan Xinrong also knew at this time——

It’s not entirely true to say that this talisman paper is useless.

Because Master Lin was so famous, ghosts and goblins were not necessarily smarter than humans, and there were often simple and stupid ones. Since humans believed that this kind of talisman paper was useful, ghosts and goblins would naturally believe it. Therefore, when some ghosts and goblins invaded people's houses, they saw this kind of talisman paper on people's doors. They didn't know whether it was real or fake, and they didn't dare to joke with their lives anyway, so they really stopped.

There was also a case of someone who encountered a monster while walking at night and took out this kind of talisman paper, using the name of Master Lin to scare the monster away, and actually scared the monster away.

It is similar to what happened to Master Fan back then.

……

It was more than ten years before Wan Xinrong returned to the mountain.

He was also the first to return to Fengshan.

It was also in this year that a major event happened in the world.

Master Nan Tianshi, who lived for over a hundred years, passed away.

Over the past one hundred years, whether in the north or south of the Yangtze River, in the human world or the demon world, in the martial arts world or the imperial court, Master Nan has accumulated enough reputation.

On the day of his death, the people of the capital were divided: some believed from the bottom of their hearts that Nan Tianshi was a great god from heaven who had descended to earth and was now about to return to heaven; some believed that Nan Tianshi would become a god, so they did not feel sad when they heard of Nan Tianshi's death, but were happy for him; some were shocked when they heard the news, could not believe it, and burst into tears, and spontaneously gathered in front of his house to see him off.

The very next day, the emperor issued an edict to honor Nan Tianshi's merits, naming him the Emperor of Heaven and Demon-Subduing Light, Righteousness and Zhaolie, and ordered temples across the country to build statues of the deity to be worshipped for generations to come.

It is not uncommon for emperors to deify people, and it is not unusual for them to deify someone as an emperor. It all depends on whether the people on earth agree with it. It is common for emperors to deify people unilaterally, but the people do not buy into it. Or it may just be a trend a few decades ago, but after a few decades, when the emperor changes, the deity's worship quickly weakens, or even disappears completely.

Therefore, there are many "Emperors" in heaven, but in fact they do not have the divine duties and divine powers of an "Emperor", and they may not even have the divine duties and divine powers of a "True Lord".

In our current dynasty, because the Purple Emperor was overbearing and the Zixiao Palace was also arrogant, the subsequent emperors were not as strong as Lord Luo after all. Even if they tried their best to maintain a balance, they did very little about the Conferred Gods.

No one has ever been named "Emperor".

But Master Nan Tianshi is different!
As soon as this decree was issued, it was immediately supported and approved by both inside and outside the court. It spread quickly out of the palace, to the capital, and then from the capital to all directions - everyone knew Nan Tianshi and recognized him, and naturally recognized the emperor's edict to confer him. Even before the emperor's edict, when Nan Tianshi had not yet died, many people already had statues and tablets of Nan Tianshi enshrined in their homes.

At this time, Zixiao Palace and Jiutian still wanted to object, but it was completely useless, not to mention whether they could do so in time or whether it was legally tenable.

From the emperor's royal family to beggars and sinners, both high-ranking officials and common people, peddlers, scholars and warriors in between, have all burned incense before the statue of Nan Tianshi.

There is a new "Emperor" between heaven and earth.

This "Emperor" has little power and shallow foundation, and is far from being qualified to be called an emperor. However, no one and no god dares to underestimate him. In fact, as soon as he ascended to heaven to become a god, many true gods and spirits subconsciously stood up straighter and shrank their necks when they saw him, for fear of being scolded by him.

In Mount Yi, the blind Taoist made another move.

The eldest senior brother accepted two more disciples, and this generation of Fuqiu Peak had eight disciples.

At this time, Ji Yang and Ji Yin were both very old.

Although the eldest brother was still alive, he had already achieved enlightenment, and it was unknown how many years he would live. If his disciple could not achieve enlightenment, he would certainly be able to survive. Therefore, after some deep thought, he gave up the position of the master of Fuqiu Temple and passed it to Ji Yang, asking him to continue to inherit the Taoist temple. He also made arrangements according to the ancestral rules and asked other disciples to go down the mountain.

I wonder who can live in the Taoist temple that the people of Jinping County built for Lin Jue.

The second senior brother left his Taoist temple to his disciples.

Then the eldest, second and sixth brothers built a few huts on the nearby Scissor Peak and lived there in seclusion with the wild cats on the mountain.

The junior sister still lives in Hongye Temple.

Maybe Ziyun has no intention of accepting any disciples.

At this time, the world once again entered a prosperous era. There was no war on the border, the people lived and worked in peace, the weather was good year after year, demons and evil creatures did not appear, and the emperor was benevolent. Looking at the history books, it was also one of the best periods.

Lin Jueze arrived in Huizhou again and flew down the mountain.

(End of this chapter)