Mythology

Chapter 1 A World that Feeds on Ghosts

The dim morning light illuminates the rivers that stretch for thousands of miles.

A few lonely boats float on the water, and one can vaguely hear the fishermen singing ballads as they row towards Peibai City in Jialiang Water Town, loaded with fish.

Peibaicheng is a town where the four sides of the water town meet, with a permanent population of over 100,000, and today happens to be the first morning market in early spring.

Frost covered the old town, and shops were clustered around the market.

People were walking through the streets and alleys, goods were constantly being delivered to the dock by ships, and three or two patrolling police officers stood by and watched.

An old man and a young boy were leading a mule, buying fresh seasonal vegetables along the street.

"Ahe."

"Dad, what's wrong?"

The old man bowed his head and called out, and the young man of about seventeen or eighteen echoed him.

"Ahe, you just came to Peibai not long ago, be smart and protect the mule, don't let the passing boys pick your wallet."

"Got it, Dad."

"kindness."

The old man greeted the vendors at each stall one by one.

The fishmonger Song teased, "Yang San, you brought your son to Peibai. It seems you made a lot of money last year."

"No way. I had a son in my old age, and my wife died early. If I don't bring him here, I'm afraid my uncle will dislike me." Old man Yang patted the mule's butt and raised his head with a little pride.

"Let's go, we still have some work to do."

He knew all the vendors in the market well, and would ask them about the prices of seasonal vegetables in a tactful manner. He would occasionally purchase a few bundles, but would never take advantage of the vendors.

Yang He followed closely behind, pulling his mule, and looked around the quaint Jiangnan town.

Two months ago, Yang He was still living in a technologically advanced city.

After waking up, he had replaced the original owner who had just died after falling off a cliff. During his recovery, he only realized that the world he was in was extremely unfamiliar.

It seems that the dynasty was Dasi and had lasted for more than two thousand years.

"Ah He, come and take a look. There are many tricks to selecting seasonal vegetables."

Yang He came back to his senses. Old Man Yang pointed at the vegetable stall and shared his experience, "Whether the greens in early spring are fresh or not depends on the color of the greens, the fullness of the leaves, and the third is whether..."

He then handed over the copper coins and picked a few pounds of vegetables to pack.

Old man Yang was a vegetable merchant, responsible for delivering seasonal vegetables to restaurants and mansions. Naturally, he hoped that Yang He would be able to follow in his father's footsteps.

Yang He suddenly remembered the purpose of this trip.

"Dad, are we going to Blackwater Martial Arts School to deliver the goods later?"

Old man Yang nodded and said, "Ah He, you are a bit old, otherwise I would send you to a martial arts school to lay the foundation. Alas, it's a pity that I have only recently been able to make some money."

Yang He is very interested in martial arts and came to Peibai to learn martial arts.

I heard that warriors can fly over eaves and walls, smash huge rocks with one palm, take the heads of enemy generals among thousands of people with sharp weapons, and prolong their life by cultivating both internal and external skills.

As a time traveler, how could I miss out on the mysterious martial arts?

Suddenly, there was a noise.

Yang He looked towards the entrance of the market and his expression became a little strange.

Thousands of people flocked to the market entrance, and people from other urban areas also continued to arrive.

Old Man Yang noticed at a glance that a caravan of horse-drawn carriages were carrying seven large vats filled with living creatures, which were being placed one after another on the open space.

"Dad, this is..."

"Ah He, you are new here and you haven't seen anything strange yet? Come on, broaden your horizons!"

The father and son squeezed into the crowd and saved a lot of energy by relying on the mule.

"Strange object?"

Yang He spoke in complex words, staring blankly ahead.

"Once plants, birds and beasts absorb the essence of the sun and the moon, they will turn into rare objects. Warriors take rare objects to strengthen their essence and produce blood, but ordinary people will be too weak to take the supplement."

Old man Yang kept chattering on, emphasizing that all the rare objects were of great value.

Yang He's breathing was rapid, not because he was excited about seeing the rare object, but mainly because the golden fingers of his two lives suddenly moved.

Words surged before my eyes, and the panel became clear.

[Spiritual Vision: 0.2 points]

[Your eyesight is slightly better than that of ordinary people, and you will no longer be troubled by eye diseases. ]

In the twenty-four years of past and present lives, the clairvoyance has always been 0.1 points. Its main function is to show outstanding eyesight, which is a bit useless.

It was not until the strange object appeared that the spiritual vision began to increase.

[Spiritual Vision: 0.3 points]

Yang He had not taken a few steps when his spiritual vision increased again for no reason. He didn't know if it was an illusion, but the noise of the market gradually became silent.

"Ahe, it's turbot!" Old man Yang said as he came closer.

The warriors of the caravan smashed seven large vats, and the water flow swept the living things onto the open ground.

The crowd was shocked, as there was a fat koi carp in the tank that was a full meter in size.

The koi's body was covered with proliferating tumors, its pupils were facing the sky in an unusual way, and its belly looked like a balloon that was about to explode.

[Spiritual Vision: 0.5 points]

Yang He felt cold all over and felt inexplicably creepy looking at the turbot.

Old Man Yang explained, "The rare turbot fish often appears in the Jialiang water town area. Its stomach is a good material for making leather armor, and fish meat is also rare for warriors."

When Yang He heard the discussions around him, the sudden shock in his heart intensified.

"It's rare. Usually, turbot only appears in large quantities in water towns when the tide is high. How come it's three or four months earlier this year?"

"Who knows?" "Turbot is the most greedy fish. It eats whatever it sees. It will eat itself to death in two or three years. The Fuyang Chamber of Commerce is very generous."

"Duobao Duobao, I heard someone found gold in a fish's stomach, I don't know if it's true or not."

[Spiritual Vision: 0.7 points]

Yang Heyi was in a daze. The streets in his eyes were filled with steam and the smell of turbot became increasingly fishy, ​​but others turned a blind eye.

Old man Yang noticed something was wrong with the child and touched his forehead.

"Are you okay?"

"It's okay. It's so crowded that I can't breathe."

Old man Yang licked his lips and said, "It is very troublesome to handle turbot. The fish meat must be removed while it is still alive. If it dies prematurely, most of the fish meat will be devoid of nutrients."

"It's good to learn something from the merchants."

Shopkeeper Chen bowed, and everyone cheered: "My fellow villagers! I am Chen Baosheng from the Fuyang Chamber of Commerce."

"The turbot has been pre-ordered by all the martial arts schools. Everyone can ask for a good start."

"The sundries in the fish's stomach, no matter how valuable they are, will be given to the villagers!"

The crowd was bustling and the entire market was attracted by the actions of the Fuyang caravan.

“Rip open the belly!!”

Chen Biaotou shouted loudly, and seven butchers took out long knives and cut into the belly of the turbot, revealing the fish meat as white as mutton fat jade.

The warrior used a wooden basin to collect the fish's blood and hurriedly helped the butcher to slaughter the fish.

[Spiritual Vision: 0.9 points]

Yang He's head buzzed and his temples ached badly. He could feel that the source of his sudden increase in spiritual vision was something in the fish's stomach.

puff.

Hard rocks and aquatic plants surged out of the fish's stomach, occasionally mixed with a few dead bones of animals.

[Spiritual Vision: 1 points]

[You have 1 point of clairvoyance, and can see part of the essence of the world. Remember, do not be discovered by ghosts, as those who see ghosts will be left with nothing.]

Yang He's pupils shrank slightly, and the top of his head seemed to open up, and a cool feeling suddenly came over him.

His legs felt numb and everything in his eyes changed drastically.

Peibai City is still Peibai City, but it looks eerie and scary.

Yang He noticed that the turbot that the butcher was dismembering was no longer a koi.

What the spiritual vision sees.

The turbot turned into a hideous half-human, half-fish monster, with a skinny body, a belly as swollen as a drum, and mumbling incoherently.

"Hungry, hungry..."

Hungry Ghost

[Hungry ghosts who died from drinking water were starving when they were alive but only had raw water to drink, so they were stuffed to death. After death, their resentment did not dissipate and they turned into ghosts. ]

The butcher skillfully cut open the hungry ghost's belly, and the hungry ghost opened his mouth wide without any resistance.

One could even say…excited? Excited to face death?
Yang He looked around, and all kinds of sharp whispers echoed in his ears.

He realized belatedly that he was not in the world of the living, but in hell!

There are more than a dozen ghosts with human head lanterns floating in the corners of the alleys; a ghost with a thin neck eating air is lying on the top of the eaves; there is a group of long-haired ghosts drifting in the river; the most exaggerated one is the medicine shop.

The shop assistants were drying white angelica root that looked like eyeballs, tsaoko that looked like internal organs, ginseng with facial features, and astragalus root that was constantly bleeding...

All the medicinal materials related to strange objects actually come from ghosts!

"The warriors in this world are using ghosts as medicine!!"

Yang He covered his head. Perhaps all the abnormalities were caused by his clairvoyance? They were all hallucinations?

No.

I would rather trust it to have it than to trust it to have nothing.

According to the clues from the clairvoyance, [those who see ghosts die from being eaten up], which means that being able to look directly at ghosts is definitely not a good thing.

There is a thin layer of window paper between humans and ghosts. If you break the window paper, there will be no trace of the body left.

The only thing we can do is turn a blind eye!
Yang He suppressed his distracting thoughts and realized that the object that caused the growth of spiritual vision was very important, and the golden finger was his reliance for survival.

"kindness?!"

A butcher made a mistake and the turbot died before he could remedy the situation.

From a normal perspective, the turbot becomes shriveled at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Shopkeeper Chen smiled helplessly and did not blame the butcher.

But what Yang He saw was different. There was a crack on the turbot's back, and it seemed like a ghost had crawled out of the corpse, and then suddenly disappeared.

"If the handling of a strange object fails, a new ghost will be born? No wonder there are wandering ghosts everywhere."

Yang Heyi gritted his teeth and leaned over to dive into the crowd that was scrambling for sundries.

"Dad, I'm going to ask for a prize."

"Don't be reckless!"

Old man Yang waited anxiously for a long time before he saw his son coming back in a dishevel.

Yang He was breathing heavily, holding a lotus seed in his palm. There was nothing special about the lotus seed. At the same time, his spiritual vision had been fixed at 1.2 points.

[Vulgar things: Lotus-born lotus]

[Related allusion: "Ghost Lotus", whether to consume 1 point of spiritual vision to enter the allusion world]

(End of this chapter)