Uncle Nine: You were supposed to drive corpses, so you summoned the Monkey King!

On the steps, Father Wu closed his eyes and opened his arms to welcome the gust of cold wind.

"Praise be to God! This cool breeze is the Lord washing away our sins!" Father Wu shouted in broken Chinese.

The townspeople around were so cold that they hunched their necks and backed away.

Mayor Ye twirled the iron bladder in his hand, a fake smile on his face. Ye Dawei stepped forward and walked to Father Wu's side.

"Father, this church has been abandoned for too long, and its reconstruction will cost a lot of money. Our Ye family is willing to donate one hundred silver dollars to help the Master rebuild his golden statue."

Father Wu opened his eyes, his face full of gratitude.

"Young Master Ye is truly a devout lamb of the Lord; God will bless you."

Standing on the periphery of the crowd, Lin Chen observed the scene perfectly.

The Ye family funded the construction of the church because they wanted a spacious and secluded basement beneath it. The large shipment of opium brought in by Tu Long needed a safe place to be stored.

"Master, shall we go in and investigate now?" Lin Chen asked Master Simu.

"It's broad daylight now, there are too many people around, the foreign monks are having a good time, and the Ye family father and son are keeping an eye on things too. Going in would easily alert them." Master Four Eyes turned and walked back. "Wait until dark, climb over the wall and go in, and turn the place upside down."

As evening fell, streetlights illuminated the streets of Jiuquan Town.

In the lobby on the first floor of the inn, Lin Chen and Daoist Simu sat at a square table in the corner having dinner.

"Master, what are you planning to do with that batch of Dragon Slayer goods?" Lin Chen picked up his teacup and took a sip.

Master Simu took a big bite of braised beef and said, "These people don't even recognize their ancestors for money. Keeping them around is just asking for trouble."

"The Ye family father and son are so eager to repair the church today, they probably have their eyes on that place. The church basement is spacious, and no one dares to go there normally, it's the perfect place to hide opium." Lin Chen put down his chopsticks.

Master Four Eyes sneered, "They're really scheming, but they don't even know what kind of place that is. If anything from the Three Killings position escapes, the Ye family father and son will be the first to suffer."

After dinner, Lin Chen returned to his room at the inn.

He sat cross-legged on the wooden bed, with a piece of fine cinnabar and a century-old purple bamboo brush on the square table in front of him.

Lin Chen dipped his brush in cinnabar, held his breath, and channeled his magic power onto the yellow paper.

Lin Chen drew ten master-level corpse-suppressing talismans before finally stopping.

This talisman was more than enough to deal with ordinary zombies, but he knew in his heart that the things in the church were tainted with the evil spirits of foreigners, and ordinary Taoist magic might not work.

He carefully placed ten corpse-suppressing talismans close to his body and then drew ten blazing fire talismans.

After drawing the talisman, Lin Chen took the opportunity to sense the connection to the Heavenly Court in his mind.

After the Hercules and the Mighty Gods had eaten and drunk their fill, the wisp of divine connection they left behind became even stronger. If they encountered any tough opponents, they could call down reinforcements to help them at any time.

Late at night.

Inside the church, Father Wu directed three young monks to clean up the clutter in the main hall.

"John, go and clean the basement. There are too many old things piled up there. The Lord doesn't like mess." Father Wu pointed to a rusty iron door behind the pulpit.

Young monk John picked up a large bamboo broom, took a kerosene lamp, and pulled out a key to insert into the lock of the iron gate.

The iron gate made a scraping sound.

A wind even colder than the main hall blew on John's face.

He shivered and walked down the stone steps.

The basement was extremely large, and the glow of the kerosene lamp could only illuminate a few steps ahead.

The surrounding area was filled with dilapidated benches and dusty wooden crates.

John, holding a kerosene lamp, walked deeper into the area, the cracks in the stone slabs beneath his feet filled with black moss.

The walls were covered with deep scratches, some of which had even carved five-finger marks into the stone slabs. Several broken glass bottles lay scattered on the ground, containing traces of dried holy water.

John swept the dust off the floor and into the corner.

The broom hit a hard object.

John raised the kerosene lamp closer.

On the stone slab in the corner lay a shriveled corpse, dressed in a tattered black priest's robe, its hands tightly chained to iron rings on the wall.

A half-foot-long silver cross was stuck in the chest of the corpse.

John gasped and made the sign of the cross on his chest.

"God, what's going on?" John knelt down and examined the cross closely.

The surface of the cross is engraved with intricate Latin inscriptions, and its edges are polished to an extremely sharp point. This is a sacred object that can only be worn by high-ranking clergy members of the Vatican.

John frowned.

To insert a sacred object into a dead body is a great disrespect to the Lord.

He put down the kerosene lamp and grasped the top of the cross with both hands.

The mummified flesh clung tightly to the bones, hard as a rock. John pulled hard, but the cross didn't budge.

He steadied himself, took a deep breath, tensed his arm muscles, and exerted force.

A muffled thud.

The cross was pulled out, raising a cloud of black dust.

John breathed a sigh of relief, wiped the dust off his clothes with the cross, and a satisfied look appeared on his face.

He turned around, preparing to pick up the kerosene lamp and leave.

The mummified corpse behind him, the moment the cross left its chest, suddenly had two crimson lights shining in its empty eye sockets.

The shrunken chest rose and fell slightly, and the yin energy in the surrounding air frantically converged towards the corpse.

The thick iron chains binding his hands made a slight grinding sound.

The mummified corpse's finger joints made a popping sound, and the originally shriveled flesh plumped up at a visible speed. The nails on all ten fingers quickly grew into sharp claws.

Two sharp fangs protruded from his mouth, piercing his chapped lips.

Inside the inn room.

Lin Chen sat cross-legged on the wooden bed, and suddenly opened his eyes.

He keenly sensed that the extremely yin energy in the direction of the town had become turbulent.

The dark clouds that had been hanging over the church were now pouring down into the ground at an extremely fast speed.

The door to the next room was pushed open, and Master Simu walked in.

"Lin Chen, can you feel it?"

Lin Chen stood up and grabbed the lightning-struck wooden sword from the table.

"An evil aura is emanating from the church. This aura is very mixed; it's neither pure corpse energy nor demonic energy." Lin Chen walked to the window.

"That thing absorbed all the yin energy from the Three Killings position. These foreign monks messed around and released the evil spirit inside." Master Four Eyes spat. "Let's go, before it wakes up and absorbs enough yang energy, let's chop it up."

The two moved with lightning speed, climbing out of the inn window and following the rooftops and dark alleys all the way to the back wall of the church.

After climbing over the brick wall covered with withered vines, the courtyard was quiet.

The two wooden doors of the main hall were ajar, with a faint candlelight shining through the cracks.

Lin Chen walked ahead, and as soon as he stepped onto the steps, he caught a faint sound in his ears.

It was a chewing sound, the sound of teeth tearing flesh and crushing bones.

Lin Chen stopped, gripped the hilt of the lightning-struck wooden sword with his left hand, and used his right index and middle fingers to hold out a master-level corpse-suppressing talisman.

Master Simu gripped the hilt of his greatsword with both hands and assumed a fighting stance.

Lin Chen stretched out his foot and kicked the half-closed wooden door.

The wooden door was smashed open to both sides.

On the prayer altar in the center of the hall, a figure dressed in a tattered black priest's robe had his back to the door.

The figure was holding a young man dressed in monk's robes.

A large gash was torn open in the young man's neck, and blood was gushing out of the wound and into the figure's mouth.

Hearing the sound of the door slamming shut, the figure stopped chewing and slowly turned its head.