Chapter 291: Merciful Guanyin Wants to Eat Meat

When the two big men and the small child were lifted up, they had already drunk their fill of water, just short of becoming water ghosts.

Fortunately, the three still had a breath left, and with everyone pounding their chests and blowing air, they managed to snatch these three back from King Yama's hands.

At this moment, Pangzi knelt on the ground, devoutly chanting the Sutra for Crossing Over the Dead by the riverside; perhaps his purpose was to liberate the vengeful spirits in the river.

"Brother Hai Sheng, do you want to go to my aunt's place later to change clothes?" Xiao Mengxue rushed over, blinking her two bright eyes, staring at me, all disheveled.

I was soaked all over and felt awful, so I blurted out "fine" without thinking. Anyway, after all that commotion, I guess quite a few students were scared stiff. I had no mood to stay here any longer; even the team leader teacher, whose psychological resilience wasn't exactly weak, was scared pale by this little incident.

I went over and told the team leader, then I called Pangzi, who was still chanting scripture, and followed Mengxue to her aunt's house.

Mengxue's aunt lives in the nearby village; she said her aunt knew she was coming today, had prepared a lavish dinner, and even let Mengxue bring a few classmates along to eat, for a lively gathering.

The three walked laughing and joking along the country lane, feeling the fresh naturalness unlike the city's hustle and bustle.

Here there are no city skyscrapers, no endless streams of cars, only a long-lost tranquility; strolling along the country path, hearing the clear, pleasant bird songs from the books, watching the fish pond carp and stream water ripple, stepping on the stone slab path, feeling the rare leisure and ease.

At this moment, I was completely immersed in the rich rural atmosphere, closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and felt the fragrant air mixed with the earth.

"Pfft..." another barely audible puffing sound came so suddenly, mixed with... a foul smell.

"Damn... dead fatty, you farted again" I quickly coughed a few times, forced myself to exhale, damn it, I was feeling the fresh air, but ended up inhaling Pangzi's fart.

Pangzi stood on the side path, hands hanging down at his dantian, looking intoxicated. He glanced at me contemptuously and said, "I'm experiencing the natural way, releasing the impure qi—you don't get it..."

... boasting without blinking, farting is farting, what's with talking about impure qi?

Ignoring Pangzi, who was narcissistically admiring himself to the side, I pulled Mengxue and we walked away.

"Wait for me!" Pangzi shouted from behind and chased after us.

"Hey... what's going on up ahead?" As we walked, we suddenly saw the path ahead crowded with people, and we could hear crying coming from within.

Before we could figure out what was happening, Mengxue shouted "Aunt!" and rushed into the crowd.

After we pushed through the onlookers, we saw an old woman clutching a small child and wailing bitterly, while Mengxue anxiously called from the side, "Aunt Mei, cousin," and similar words.

I and Pangzi hurried over and asked Mengxue what had happened. Mengxue said she didn't know either; just then she saw a crowd gathered outside her aunt's door, worried something had happened, and when she ran over, she saw her aunt hugging her little cousin and wailing on the ground.

In our anxiety, we quickly turned to the old woman holding the child, namely Mengxue's aunt. But she just clutched the child in pain, strangely calling out: "Lady Guanyin, please spare my unfortunate daughter, please spare her."

It was precisely because of Aunt Mei's words that I and Pangzi noticed the child she was holding.

Upon closer look, we were startled—the child's eyes were open, but they were empty voids, lacking any vitality of a living person; moreover, seeing his mother cry elicited no reaction from him, clearly he had lost his soul.

Losing one's soul often happens to children, because their pure spirits easily encounter dirty things and are easily frightened by them. Mild cases cause fever and crying; severe cases become like idiots, only giggling and drooling, showing no reaction even if you hit or scold them. Although this resembles an idiot's state, it doesn't necessarily mean they've become idiots. If the soul hasn't been detached long, it can be recalled by some methods and still return. Conversely, the longer the soul is separated from the body, the longer it is lost in Yangjian, and once it dissipates, it can never be retrieved.

"How..." I quietly poked Pangzi beside me.

Pangzi frowned solemnly and said, "His face is dark as coal ash, the yin-sand elemental light is at the hall of impression, the three fires are dim, danger abounds—he must be a hellish walking corpse."

Pangzi's words made my heart skip a beat, and I tensed up.

I and Pangzi each have our strengths; Pangzi's arts are slightly inferior to mine, but he has followed QingSongShu to deeply study divination and feng shui physiognomy. Although I also studied feng shui under QingSongShu, I am far inferior to him in both.

From what he said, Mengxue's cousin likely didn't just lose her soul; she probably provoked some spiritual entity.

Pangzi gave me a look; I understood and nodded, then ran to a place where no one could see. I placed my hands on my forehead, formed hand seals, stomped three times: "Heavenly divine light, earthly divine light, open the light before my eyes, the mantra opens the eyes,..."

This is the mantra for opening the Spiritual Eye; after cultivating the Spiritual Eye, one can use the mantra to open the eyes, and upon opening, by the method of observing mirrors, one can see the forms entwined around hysteria patients and discern what kind of spiritual entity it is.

But when I returned to that spot and looked at the child, I found no spiritual entity possessing him, no spiritual form visible; I only saw some grayish mist on his body and some tiny footprints, which seemed to be those of some animal.

I leaned close to Pangzi's ear and quietly told him two words: "Evil affliction."

Laypeople think that spirit possession and hitting a ghost are both evil affliction, but in fact they are completely different; spirit possession is the true evil affliction, because the spirit's relation to the body means the patient inevitably shows some abnormal behavior. This kind needs no Daoist; any observant person can spot it at a glance. But hitting a ghost requires someone with Daoist cultivation to know, because when you hit a ghost, the ghost may not be on you—it could cause you to die in a car crash without ever seeing the ghost's face, let alone knowing what it looks like.

So, as long as I say those two words, I believe Pangzi can also judge what's going on.

"Can you tell what kind of spiritual entity it is from the traces?" Pangzi asked softly.

I pondered for a moment and told him, I can only judge from the traces that this is not the work of lonely ghosts and wild ghosts, but of a wild immortal who has opened its Spiritual Aperture.

Wild immortals, that is, animal-cultivated monsters, usually cultivate where spiritual energy crystallizes, having opened their Spiritual Aperture. These wild immortals also split into good and evil kinds; those cultivating the righteous way seek out disciples, impart their skills, letting disciples exorcise evil and avert disaster for people; this kind of wild immortal is also called the Outgoing Horse Immortal, feeding on incense, cultivating merit to attain divine status.

The second kind feeds on human vitality, souls, and essence-blood to enhance its own cultivation, or buries itself in a corpse's belly, using the human body as armor to train. This kind of wild immortal, we generally do not call it an immortal; instead, based on its true form, we append the two words 'monster'.

Now I am judging from the claw marks on the child's body that this is the work of a wild immortal, but regarding wild immortals, I have only heard of them, never encountered one. I don't even know what the wild immortal's true form is, why it lured away the child's soul, where the child's soul now is, or whether it was eaten—I know nothing.

Just as we were at a loss, an old man came running up in a fluster, grabbing Aunt Mei's shoulder and shouting, "Hurry, hurry, take Xiao Yu inside; I've had people roast a suckling pig and prepared peanut oil—we're going now to worship the Guanyin Bodhisattva, begging it to forgive us and spare Xiao Yu."

And Mengxue called that old man Uncle Ming. We two found it strange—when did wild immortals and the Guanyin Bodhisattva become related?

We wanted to ask Uncle Ming for the full story, but he was in such a rush, only preparing the sacrificial items, his mind wholly on little Xiao Yu, having no time for us.

Later, we told Mengxue the situation; she grabbed a relative and asked, and that relative then revealed the full circumstances to us.