Poor Taoist Qiu Chuji

Chapter 136: Old Friends from Xinzhuang Discuss Ghost Stories

Qiu Chuji arrived at Renjiazhuang at dusk. Although the Renjiazhuang before him was undoubtedly smaller and more desolate than the former Renjia Town, wooden houses under construction could be seen everywhere, still exuding a lively atmosphere.

Human beings are such fragile yet tenacious creatures.

As long as there is hope, flowers will bloom quickly again even in this remote wilderness.

Standing on a high place and taking a quick look, Qiu Chuji knew that the layout of Renjiazhuang was probably planned by Lin Jiu.

This is because the whole village, from a general point of view, is shaped like a "person" and revolves around a small river. There are five bridges connected to it. The bridges are painted in the five colors corresponding to gold, wood, water, fire and earth, each occupying a direction. Combined with the terrain of the mountains here, once the whole village is completely built, it will be an excellent treasure formation for gathering energy and warding off evil spirits.

This place is farther away from the prosperous area. Hiding in the ravines, the possibility of encountering war again is greatly reduced, but it will become a place for monsters and demons to prey on. With the protection of this formation, the people in the village will generally not be in any danger as long as they do not leave the village at will at night.

And what Lin Jiu has now established in this manor is no longer a charity manor, but a Taoist temple named "Tiandao Temple", which is located right at the center of the formation, suppressing the evil spirit with the incense of the Taoist temple.

No matter what demons and monsters want to cause trouble in Zhuangzi, they have to destroy his Taoist temple first before they can do anything else.

Qiu Chuji arrived at the door in the already dark night. It was Qiu Sheng who opened the door. Seeing Qiu Chuji's unfamiliar face, he leaned forward and asked, "Master Taoist! If you want to stay in a hotel, you can go to the 'Penglai Inn' in the east. If you want to visit relatives, tell me your name and I will show you the way. If you want to ask for money... Sorry! Our temple is poor and has no money to support you."

Hearing this, Qiu Chuji just smiled and said, "I am Qiu Chuji, and your master Lin Jiu is an old friend."

"Are you Uncle Master Qiu?" Qiu Sheng obviously knew 'Qiu Chuji'. Isn't this the big money sponsor of his master?

His attitude changed immediately. He quickly opened the door and welcomed Qiu Chuji in. He bent his waist several degrees and had a genuine smile on his face.

"Come, come, come! Uncle Qiu, please come in quickly. My master has gone to the mountains to catch ghosts. He has been out for two days. I think he will be back soon."

"Come! Uncle Master, have some tea!" Qiu Sheng, who led Qiu Chuji to the living room, picked up the tea bowl on the table, wiped it with his sleeve, and poured Qiu Chuji a cup of cold tea.

Qiu Sheng, although much smarter than Wencai who is a beat slower and has slow reactions, is also a bit impetuous. It is unknown how much of Lin Jiu's skills he can learn in the future.

"Ghost hunting?"

"Are there many ghosts in this mountain?" Qiu Chuji didn't pay too much attention when he came.

As for the cold tea poured by Qiu Sheng, although he held it in his hand, he did not take a sip.

To be honest, Qiu Sheng's sleeves didn't look clean, and wiping the tea bowl with them was really unnecessary.

"A lot! How can it be not a lot!"

"Those mountains in the south were the scene of several wars in the past few years, and many people died. Later, they were used as mass graves. Master deliberately sought out these mountains as 'backstops', saying that he wanted to use the Yin meridians to ward off evil spirits. However, he also wanted to liberate more ghosts to prevent him from accumulating too much debt and damaging his virtue." Qiu Sheng explained.

Qiu Chuji nodded to show that he understood.

This is actually similar to the fox taking advantage of the tiger's power.

There are a large number of ghosts lurking here. Some of the monsters can sense it from afar by borrowing the aura of the Yin meridians, and will automatically take a detour and not come here.

Although demons and monsters are often confused with each other, there are actually some differences between them.

Demons are alien species that have practiced cultivation. With a foundation, they can transform into human form and distinguish between good and evil. Although most demons eat humans, there is no ruling out that there are a small number of good demons.

As for demons, all sentient beings in the three realms and six paths can become demons. Once they have demonic nature, they will gradually lose their human nature and become the greatest enemy of practitioners.

Ghosts are the spirits and souls left behind after a person dies. They often have obsessions or died unjustly and are not accepted by the underworld, so they wander around the human world. Therefore, most ghosts are much "kinder" than demons. As long as you don't run into them or provoke them, most ghosts will not easily provoke you.

As for why "encountering a ghost" is not a good thing, at the very least it will lead to serious illness or bad luck, and at the worst it may lead to death. This is entirely because humans and ghosts are the yin and yang of the world. Those who are timid and have weak blood will, when they encounter a ghost, even if the ghost does not really do anything to them, they will be frightened and their breath will become more scattered, and naturally they will be entangled with illness and bad luck.

From another perspective, being contaminated by yang energy is also unlucky for ghosts.

It will also affect their health.

As for absorbing Yang energy to practice cultivation, that is something that only ghosts who have truly turned into wandering ghosts and have no intention of reincarnating and are just hanging around in the human world would do. Their purpose is to disguise themselves as humans so that they can be more convenient when walking in the human world and have more Yang energy so that they won't be scattered by the wind when they leave the graves.

In fact, for most ghosts, without dozens or hundreds of years of practice, swallowing a mouthful of yang energy into their bodies is really no different from swallowing a mouthful of kerosene into their stomachs.

Therefore, when dealing with a more powerful evil spirit, it is common to spurt out a mouthful of hot blood, which can hit the evil spirit so that its face is covered with sores and it is in great pain.

If this thing is a great tonic for all ghosts, then wouldn't this mouthful of hot blood spurting out be a boon to the enemy?

As for those ghosts that need to absorb yang energy on a large scale and over a wide range, they are often thousand-year-old ghost kings who want to turn yin into yang, turn from death to life, and cross classes, so they choose to take shortcuts.

In short, in short, Lin Jiu chose Renjiazhuang to settle down here, and it was obvious that he had made thorough considerations. Going into the mountains to catch ghosts was obviously to first capture those threatening ghosts. As for the claim of damaging one's virtue, it was probably an excuse.

Qiu Chuji knew Brother Lin very well. He looked like an honest man, but in fact he was good at making up stories to cover up his actions.

Those who are not clear about this are often deceived by his superficial appearance.

Qiu Chuji and Qiu Sheng were chatting, with Qiu Sheng doing most of the talking and Qiu Chuji just responding a few times.

He sat there for an hour or so, but Qiu Sheng didn't even think of arranging a place for him to stay.

As for Wencai, he was sleeping soundly in the inner room. He hadn't noticed that we had been chatting outside for so long. He has a big heart.

Just when Qiu Chuji was wondering whether he should say goodbye first, stay in the inn for a night, and then come back to look for Lin Jiu the next day, he heard another knock on the door.

Qiu Sheng immediately went over to open the door and saw Lin Jiu, who was wearing a grey gown, a belt and carrying a yellow cloth bag, walking in with square steps.

"Go! Bring the jars in which my master has soaked glutinous rice and chicken blood for half a month into the hall." Lin Jiu instructed Qiu Sheng as he stepped into the door.

Qiu Sheng was stunned, then scratched his head and said, "Master... Master! Those jars of yours were used by Zhe Gu to store pickles during the day."

Hearing this, Lin Jiu was immediately annoyed: "Nonsense! Why didn't you stop him?"

"I tried to stop him, but he failed!"

"You know what happened to Zhe Gu. When she gets mad, I'm helpless, Master!" Qiu Sheng cried out in grievance, and then immediately said, "Master! What should I do? Should I pour out the pickles in the jar?"

Lin Jiu shook his head: "It's useless! Glutinous rice mixed with chicken blood, soaked into the jar, can turn the jar into a simple positive object, which is perfect for sealing ghosts. Now it's polluted by pickles, the positive energy has been broken, and it has no effect."

"Actually, Master! Zhe Gu did this with good intentions, you might as well..." Qiu Sheng showed a strange smile and raised his eyebrows.

Lin Jiu reacted fiercely: "It's late at night, if you want to go, you go, I won't go anyway!!"

As he said this, he swung the bag on his body and was about to hang it on Qiu Sheng.

"Brother Lin! Is it not the right time for me to come here?"

The master and the disciple chatted all the way in. Because they were talking heatedly, and because of Qiu Sheng's carelessness, the lights in the hall were not turned on, Lin Jiu did not notice that there was another person in the room at first.

It wasn't until Qiu Chuji spoke that he reacted.

After seeing that it was Qiu Chuji, he was immediately overjoyed: "How could it be? Brother Dao has come at the right time... at the right time!"

As he spoke, he picked up his bag and walked towards Qiu Chuji, saying as he walked, "Fellow Daoist, you are high up in the sky, and there is another cave. How about temporarily storing these ghosts at your place?"

Qiu Chuji did not refuse outright, but just asked: "Is there anything wrong with doing this?"

Lin Jiu said, "What's wrong? Now that the top leaders of the underworld have disappeared, only the Black and White Impermanence and the Ox-Headed and Horse-Faced Demons are still driving the ghost messengers to work. In addition, there is chaos and chaos now, many people have died, and the underworld is full. It is impossible to arrange for them. I have stored hundreds of ghosts here, and the inner room is full of jars."

"If it keeps piling up, I'm afraid this place will become a city of the dead! There are more ghosts than living people in Renjia Village, and the popularity can't be suppressed!"

"There are so many ghosts piling up, don't you want to help them reincarnate?" Qiu Chuji asked.

Lin Jiu said in distress, "How do I perform salvation? The usual salvation is just to open the passage to the underworld, stuff the wandering ghosts that were supposed to be wandering in the human world in, and throw them into the underworld. I used to do this, but if I do it too much, it's easy for the underworld to come to my dreams at night to find bad luck with me."

Qiu Chuji understood. The underworld is now overcrowded. The ghost officials are already 007, and they have to deal with the Taoist priests in the human world who occasionally cut in line. The resentment of that group of people is heavier than that of thousand-year-old ghosts. It would be strange if they didn't come up to cause trouble.

"So just leave it like this and don't care about it?" Qiu Chuji asked.

Lin Jiu sighed, "There is a way. My junior sister Zhe Gu knows a method of ghost child reincarnation. She can slowly purify the captured ghosts into ghost dolls, and then stuff them into puppets to eat incense. When a couple who wants a child comes to her to tie a doll, they can take one away and reincarnate directly without going through the underworld."

"Is this possible?" Qiu Chuji asked in surprise.

Since this world has reflections of heaven and hell, even if they are not the main ones, they can only be considered tributaries. How can such a thing as reincarnation be treated so carelessly?
"Of course it was difficult before, but isn't it a mess now?"

"Besides, the hellish cleansing and reincarnation in the underworld are actually all for the purpose of purifying the soul, and then arranging for it to be reborn into the human world."

"At Zhegu's place, they just simplified some of the procedures and skipped some of the steps in the underworld, but the effect is actually the same."

(End of this chapter)