Starting from the folklore forum, making up town objects

Chapter 476 A World Composed of Turbid Ghosts

The donkey fell to the ground and was held down by the couple.

The couple, who had been cut in two, now came back together and continued to merge.

Originally, the two had four eyes, but as their faces merged, they became three eyes, and their mouths also began to connect.

But the voices are still those of two people, and they can even say two different things at the same time.

"This donkey is disobedient."

"How about we stop selling it and eat it instead?"

"It would be a waste to eat it."

"Don't waste food. There are so many neighbors outside. If we pay them, we can let them come in and eat together."

"Good good."

"Speak," they said, turning to the people perched on the walls around them, who, without any sign of disrespect, addressed their neighbors. "We're slaughtering a donkey. If you want some, pay up!"

As soon as the words were spoken, the whispers on the wall immediately vanished without a trace.

As soon as a large coin was thrown into the yard, a person who had been lying on the wall climbed over and came in.

The first one appeared, and the second one quickly followed.

When ten large coins were thrown in, the ten people who entered the courtyard began to look at the courtyard owner with a dangerous gaze.

The couple, who had originally intended to continue charging money to recruit more people, became somewhat displeased after being stared at like that, but they stopped letting anyone else in.

"The donkey is here. I don't care how much it eats, I'm only offering one donkey."

As they spoke, the couple, now joined together, took three steps and rushed toward the large coins on the ground.

At the same time, the released phantom body was finally able to move.

As people rushed toward him, a thin thread with a needle attached followed the scissors and darted out.

Scissors first, limbs flying everywhere.

With needle and thread, the broken but still moving pieces were sewn together, forming a strange-looking thing.

Because they belong to different entities, each of those parts has its own consciousness and cannot be unified, so they can only grab at the ground randomly.

Those 'people' whose parts had been cut off showed no pain on their faces; instead, they looked at the donkey with even greater excitement and opened their mouths.

Some of them have barbs on their tongues that extend outwards, heading straight for their illusory bodies.

Some mouths opened 180 degrees, and a pair of sticky hands emerged from their throats. Those hands tore open the original mouths, dragged out a soft new body, and swam towards the phantom body.

Some melted directly into a pool of blood, spreading towards the illusory body.

Some even gouge out their own eyeballs and throw them at the illusionary body.

These are just a few examples.

After witnessing this scene, Chen Xin frantically stamped his own body with seals more than ten times.

As the illusionary body was penetrated by the tongue, blood stained half of its body, and the eyeballs entered its eye sockets, Chen Xin brought the illusionary body back to normal.

The illusory body, with four or five unidentified objects hanging from it, shot straight into the sky.

In the blink of an eye, it passed through the barrier high in the sky and disappeared.

The tongue, eyeballs, blood, and other parts that were originally attached to the illusionary body were all filtered out by the barrier, leaving only the wounds that the illusionary body took away intact.

After the illusion left, the ten 'people' who had just paid for donkey meat in the courtyard all turned their attention to the couple.

Immediately, he pounced on it.

……

On the sixth floor, Chen Xin looked at the pitiful and miserable illusory body in front of him, but did not let it dissipate on its own.

He summoned the bronze rod and moved it towards the attacked areas on the illusory body. Soon, black smoke appeared, but the speed was not as fast as Chen Xin had expected.

Whether it's the places eroded by blood, the tongue torn from the mouth, or the empty eye sockets.

The copper rod 'healing' is very slow.

After Chen Xin added ten more copper pillar imprints, he finally increased the speed of the copper rod to the same level as when he used the healing millstone.

After testing and finding what he wanted, Chen Xin put away the copper rod and actively dissipated the tattered illusion.

"As expected, these things we've encountered this time are all stronger than that millstone. Why is that?"

Chen Xin recalled the sluggish feeling when his illusory body passed through the barrier. He could clearly come out directly in the millstone courtyard before, so why couldn't he do it in other places?

Those places are different from the millstone courtyard?
Chen Xin couldn't figure it out.

He clearly entered the town from that courtyard, so logically, the situation there should be the same as in that courtyard.

Even if it's an illusion, it should be related to the strength of the corresponding turbid ghost. It's impossible that the turbid ghost's ability is one, but the turbid ghost appearing in the illusion it created has a strength of two, right?
Moreover, Chen Xin did not believe it was an illusion.

After thinking for a long time, Chen Xin still had no clue.

"Perhaps the Xia family knows?"

Thinking of the Xia family's ability to see many turbid ghosts at once, Chen Xin suddenly felt that it wasn't impossible to 'learn' it.

But before that, let's learn more about the seventh floor.

The re-formed illusory body appeared, and Chen Xin sent it back into the seventh floor, where it once again landed in that courtyard.

Chen Xin was somewhat curious whether the storyline of that world was continuous.

If it's a continuous sequence, what would the old man do if the donkey got lost?
Or perhaps you simply don't remember that the donkey is lost?

And tell me, after the illusion went in, a donkey popped out again. Wouldn't the old man find that strange?
With a spirit of inquiry, Chen Xin focused his consciousness on the illusory body.

But when the illusionary body re-entered the courtyard, Chen Xin was dumbfounded.

……

"I don't know which son of a bitch stole my donkey!"

The old man sighed and lamented, and every now and then he would glance at the millstone that no longer had a donkey.

"If I had known, I wouldn't have bought that bastard. I could have saved the money and bought a donkey instead."

Looking down at the tiny puppy crouching at his feet, the old man sighed again.

That's right, the puppy is just an illusion.

Chen Xin never expected that the plot was coherent and that the donkey was really gone.

But instead of turning into a donkey, he turned into a puppy!

Donkeys are alright; they can roll around and kick. But what can this tiny mongrel do? Act cute?
"Can't you just act like a human being for once?"

Chen Xin frolicked around in the yard, even climbing over the threshold and jumping into the room, but the old man paid no attention.

"You could say that every loss has its gain."

Chen Xin visited several rooms; there was nothing special about them, just normal decorations.

After walking around the entire area, Chen Xin arrived at the location of the millstone in the courtyard.

After looking up at the millstone for a while, Chen Xin turned around and ran towards the donkey shed, his legs moving very fast.

Upon arriving at the donkey shed, Chen Xin found a gap in the wall. This gap was a square with sides of about fifteen centimeters, used to drain rainwater outside.

Chen Xin squeezed out of there without much effort.

The old man probably didn't realize that the hole could keep out the donkey, but not the puppies.

Once outside the courtyard, Chen Xin began exploring the area again.

But because its lower legs were too short, it couldn't run very far and just wandered around the yard.

If something really happens, he can crawl back through that hole, and the old man might even help him. After all, the old man paid money to buy him!

Chen Xin didn't dare walk in the middle of the road, afraid that some kids would kidnap him.

Following the corner of the wall, Chen Xin roughly surveyed the area around the old man's house.

The old man's house is located on the outskirts of the town.

There were quite a few people around, but compared to the rows of houses in the town, they seemed rather sparse.

Chen Xin even secretly ran to the stream and tested the water.

It's no different from reality.

Everything here feels so real, except for the 'people'!
Chen Xin also discovered that the 'people' here, who seemed normal, would become abnormal whenever they encountered abnormal things.

The last time he was a donkey, the children, adults, hotel owners, and even the man who followed him and brought him into his home that he encountered with the old man were all normal; they had their own logic and ways of dealing with the world.

If Chen Xin hadn't provided the needle and thread, the donkey might still be being kept at those two people's house, waiting to be sold later.

Chen Xin knew that this world was wrong, abnormal.

But if you really think about it, maybe he's the bug in this world.

"Is this place real or fake...?"

Chen Xin is now somewhat uncertain as well.

It may be fake, but this place has clearly existed for a long time, and even if he doesn't come, it will still operate according to its own trajectory.

It may be true, but everyone here may be connected to a corrupt ghost.

A world made up of tainted ghosts?
If that's really the case, then how many turbid ghosts must there be in this world? Their numbers are so vast that Chen Xin even thinks that the ordinary ghosts in the underworld might not be much more numerous than these turbid ghosts.

Of course, it's also possible that Chen Xin's eyes were deceived.

In reality, the world is only as big as this town; anything further away is just an illusion!
But Chen Xin needs to explore this further before he can draw a conclusion.

But it's too slow for him to explore alone.

"Should we bring other people in...?"

The images of those people from the underworld flashed through Chen Xin's mind. Whether they were underworld officials or wandering servants, it seemed that bringing them in was of little use except to serve as slaves.

"Oh, right, the Xia family!"

Chen Xin suddenly thought of something.

The Xia family can observe the situation on the seventh floor, and they can also send people into the Netherworld.

In the Xia family, is there anyone who has entered this world like him?
Chen Xin felt that there must be one.

The Xia family is backed by the entire Great Xia Dynasty. Although they may not have the ability to create illusions, they have a lot of people at their disposal!
Chen Xin looked at the free-range chickens not far away.

Perhaps, the Xia family sent some people in there?

Chen Xin suddenly found it interesting.

"Why don't we give it a try? Maybe it really is a person? It's just an illusion anyway, what's a little bit of good karma to waste!"

Immediately, he took off running towards the chickens.

As they got close, Chen Xin immediately used his needle and thread to stab the chicken.

The chicken, which was pecking at the ground, was startled. Before it could react, it saw the little puppy, which was not even as tall as its leg, take flight.

It took flight along with it!
When the dog and the chicken took flight, everyone around them—whether pedestrians, people washing clothes, or children running around with windmills—was caught in the throes of the storm.

They all looked over, their eyes empty and cold.

But none of them made any move. Only when the chicken's owner's house flew out two large and one small human heads with chicken beaks.

Before the chicken beak and human head could fly towards the puppy, the puppy had already disappeared into thin air, leaving only a chicken that was no longer restrained and was flapping its wings frantically in the air!

As soon as the chicken landed, the three chicken beaks and human heads all shrank into the yard.

Pedestrians, children, and everything else returned to normal, as if that scene had never happened.

At the old man's house, after Chen Xin left, a silly little puppy appeared out of nowhere and frolicked in the yard.

……

"Isn't it a bit of a pity?"

Chen Xin's idea was simple: if a person really turned into a beast, then as long as they were taken away from that world, their true nature would naturally be revealed.

But the result was not what he expected.

That chicken really is an indigenous species.

"That makes sense. No matter how many people the Xia family has, it's impossible for them to take care of all the livestock in that world. The proportion must be very small."

"Besides that reason, it may also be related to which courtyard you enter that world from."

"If I'm not mistaken, the area manifested by each different turbid ghost on the seventh level corresponds to a different location in that world."

Let's call this area 'the door' for now.

No one knows how many such 'doors' there are on the seventh floor, and even the Xia family probably can't find them all.

"Furthermore, even if the Xia family wants to explore that world, they should concentrate their manpower on one 'door' so that everyone enters from the same place, thus increasing their chances of success."

Chen Xin guessed.

"Before going to the Xia family again, we need to enter that world once more."

"But this time, we'll have to go somewhere else."

Immediately, Chen Xin threw the illusion back into the seventh floor, leaving a sticker as a marker. The illusion then continued to wander around the seventh floor, searching for the second 'door'.

……

The ancestral land of the Great Xia Dynasty.

Xia Wuyou was observing everything in the Netherworld from the sun in the ancestral land.

Just then, Xia Chuanren's figure appeared in the sun.

"Ancestor, one of the men we sent has returned."

"Hmm, what was the result?"

Xia Wuyou asked.

"The people who came back said that the Li Mansion, which no longer has a sedan chair, is now abandoned and looks like it has been uninhabited for a hundred years."

Xia Chuanren said this.

Upon hearing this, Xia Wuyou nodded.

"It seems that the people from the underworld really did steal the sedan chair."

Upon hearing this, Xia Chuanren's eyes flickered.

“Ancestor, if that’s really the case, then this is an opportunity, an opportunity to verify our guess.”

Xia Wuyou did not speak upon hearing this.

He also knew this was an opportunity. If they could take that sedan chair back to the Li family mansion in that divine kingdom, wouldn't they have a chance to impersonate the natives?
This will be of absolute help to the Xia family's great cause of establishing a divine kingdom.

But all of this depends on them being able to obtain that sedan chair.

Will the underworld give it to me?

……

P.S.: The content was under review. Those who read it early may have noticed some inconsistencies. I have revised it to maintain its coherence.

(End of this chapter)