Chapter 993: Seven Hells and Six-Story Pagoda

"Baa!"

In front of the Bone Pagoda, there were still many desolate graves. Under the moonlight, piles of white things were squirming. Only when they got closer did they see that they were lambs among the grave mounds, gnawing on the few weeds that occasionally grew out of the dirt piles.

A shepherd sat far away on the threshold of the Bone Pagoda, smoking.

In the dark night, the sparks brightened and dimmed.

The shepherd watched them walk over, stood up from afar, leaned on his whip, and asked, "Excuse me, did you see my lost sheep?"

The few people, who were not lightly frightened, stopped vigilantly. Daoist Four-Eyes tremblingly picked up his glasses, which had lost a leg, propped them on the bridge of his nose, squinted, and looked at the shepherd for a while before slowly saying, "Old fellow, you're out herding sheep so late?"

The shepherd answered listlessly, "I sleep in this pagoda. I lost a sheep, so I can't sleep!"

He kept his hands in his sleeves, bowed toward the Bone Pagoda behind him, and stood crookedly.

Second Master, the ginseng seeker, was folding the white deerskin coat a few times and putting it back into the package. It could be seen that there was also a pair of copper boxes in the package, as long as a forearm and as thick as a fist, placed as treasures in the innermost part of the package.

A large sheep seemed to smell something, walked toward Second Master, its lips constantly flipping, and its head stretched toward the package.

Second Master pushed the sheep's head away with force. The sheep's rectangular pupils, matched with its constantly flipping lips revealing large teeth, looked like it was smiling yet not smiling.

At this moment, Second Master noticed that the sheep was extremely thin, and the ribs on its sides could be seen, but its belly was extremely large. In the moonlight, it looked like a naked corpse.

Daoist Four-Eyes stared at the shepherd for a long time before slowly opening his mouth: "What does your lost sheep look like?"

The shepherd sighed, "It's the lead sheep! Half of my flock almost followed it and ran away. I searched for a long time before finding it back. I was staring at its sheep-mark, and it was circling the Bone Pagoda! That sheep is particularly large, a circle larger than other lambs! But thin... Oh! Its head is pointed, like it's wearing a hat!"

Daoist Four-Eyes felt cold sweat running down when he heard this!

The shepherd greeted them enthusiastically, "Are you going into the pagoda? I'll make way for you."

Saying this, he waved his whip and drove the flock to both sides.

The Bone Pagoda appeared before them. It was not tall, six stories, about three zhang high. The first floor enshrined the Bone Bodhisattva they had come to worship.

In the moonlight, the Bodhisattva was pure white, like the best Dehua white porcelain.

The statue was about half a person tall, dressed in white, with its right hand in the meditation seal and its left hand holding a white lotus flower. It was a statue of the White-Robed Guanyin among the thirty-three images of Guanyin, but Daoist Four-Eyes felt something was wrong with the whole thing; there was a subtle sense of disharmony, and he hesitated for a long time outside the door.

But Second Master, who was used to being a ginseng seeker, entered every temple and worshipped every god, not daring to think too carefully.

He pinched a pinch of dirt, piled it in front of the White-Robed Guanyin, took out three sticks of incense, lit them, and was about to insert them.

At this moment, Daoist Four-Eyes suddenly realized why there was a subtle sense of disharmony...

The incense burner!

In front of the statue, it was empty and clean. Not to mention an incense burner, there wasn't even any incense ash.

Before he could stop him in time, the shepherd behind him laughed: "What did you offer the Tianhou Niangniang? The Tianhou Niangniang doesn't eat incense!"

He was holding a half-grown lamb.

The lamb's hair was soft and smooth, lying obediently in his arms.

The shepherd took a huge step, crossed into the Bone Pagoda in two steps, placed the lamb in front of the White-Robed Guanyin, turned his head and smiled at Second Master, revealing a mouthful of uneven yellow teeth, and then took a dagger from his arms and sliced open the lamb's belly with a backhand.

"The Bodhisattva wants to eat the offering!"

Not a drop of blood flowed out. The lamb was like a torn leather bag, dismantling into bones as white as jade.

Soon, a small, half-missing skull was dismantled by the shepherd and offered in front of the White-Robed Guanyin.

It was the skeleton of a child about four or five years old.

The moonlight shone on the white bones, as if a layer of frost had condensed.

That layer of frost melted silently in front of the white-robed statue!

A glowing radiance covered the statue, and at this moment, the porcelain-like glaze became increasingly cold, even more like jade.

Only then did everyone see clearly: was that White-Robed Guanyin made of white porcelain?

It was clearly piled up with white bones!

This was a Bone Tianhou Niangniang...

Daoist Four-Eyes took out the bronze mirror and shone the moonlight into the Bone Pagoda.

The reflected moonlight climbed up the pagoda body from behind the Bone Tianhou Niangniang. The dark and gloomy Bone Pagoda in the night reflected a trace of pale white like ivory.

Countless skulls formed the ceiling above their heads, limb bones of all sizes were arranged into walls, curved ribs were pieced together into brackets, and spines became beams and pillars!

The entire six-story small pagoda was pieced together into an indescribable divine statue.

It seemed to have lowered eyes, seemed to have compassion, seemed to be cold death!

Daoist Four-Eyes' pupils split again, and four pitch-black eyes looked at the entire Bone Pagoda from four directions, capturing the Bone Tianhou Niangniang's statue into his eyes, and then piecing it into a three-dimensional whole.

Compared to what ordinary people saw with their eyes, it was more three-dimensional, more thorough and vivid, appearing in Daoist Four-Eyes' eyes in every detail.

Snap!

The glasses fell to the ground and shattered into powder.

The white flock of sheep drilled into the Bone Pagoda one by one. They shed their sheepskin, revealing white and clean skeletons, and drilled into the Bone Pagoda one after another.

Daoist Four-Eyes suddenly felt his eyes itching. He didn't dare to scratch with his hands, but the corners of his eyes twitched slightly. As the itch gradually drilled into his bone marrow, his entire face twitched.

In the package behind Second Master, two lambs suddenly broke free from the copper box and fell out.

They crawled toward the Bone Tianhou Niangniang, baaing...

Seeing those two strange lambs, whose leg joints were not the reverse joints of lambs, but bent backward like humans, crawling toward the Bone Tianhou Niangniang like babies, Second Master was already pale.

He turned his head to look at Daoist Four-Eyes, but saw with horror that Four-Eyes' face was already completely blue and black, like a dead person, and the twitching at the corners of his eyes was pulling his eyeballs.

Accompanied by the sound of soft objects falling to the ground, that faint sound.

One of Daoist Four-Eyes' eyeballs fell out of its socket and fell to the ground...

A deathly coldness instantly shrouded everyone. Old Seven watched his own breath turn into white air, and as it fell, it turned into frost. At this moment, the Bone Pagoda seemed colder than the old forest in the deep winter outside the pass, and visible white frost covered their faces.

Second Master tried hard to lift his fingers, but the skin and flesh fell off instantly, and white bone stubs pierced the skin and flesh, exposing them.

He stared at his clean finger bones, and the "Immortal" he had called countless times did not respond at all.

A small white-haired mouse with a red tail flew out of Second Master's arms and fled backward, but a figure draped in white and wearing a high hat suddenly appeared in front of the Bone Pagoda's door.

A black and a white figure suddenly fell from a high place. Following a long, soft red strip that hung down to the ground, they carefully rolled up the white-haired mouse and swallowed it into their mouths.

About half the height of the Bone Pagoda, thin and tall, the black and white impermanence ghosts stood in front of the Bone Pagoda's door, their faces covered by the door eaves.

At this moment, the white impermanence, who used the tongue hanging on the ground to roll up the white-haired mouse, bent down and looked at the ginseng seekers from outside the pass who were already scared out of their wits.

That smiling white-robed soul-summoning messenger, with "Wealth at First Sight" written on his high hat, suddenly opened his mouth again. The white-haired mouse in his mouth had disappeared, but a jade pendant with a red string was spat out by him.

Beside him, the sorrowful-looking black-robed soul-summoning messenger raised a mourning stick, and two green-faced little ghosts holding black and white chess banners jumped out from the side.

As the black and white impermanence walked slowly around the Bone Pagoda without bending their legs.

There were four more Yaksha little ghosts carrying waist drums, hitting the drums with red hammers. Behind them, a real musical band ran out as if they were attending a funeral and wearing mourning clothes. The green-faced hungry ghosts blew the instruments weakly. Immediately following, benevolent ghosts, Five Blessings, Five Champions, and all kinds of big ghosts and Yin messengers emerged from the white mist in the distance. They either danced with their heads shaking or drove away the little ghosts blowing and beating with a decent appearance.

The little ghosts were even more lively. Some set up long poles and climbed up and down, some spat out emerald green ghost fire, and some jumped around making ghost faces.

Daoist Four-Eyes' only remaining eye had its pupil stuck to the corner of his eye.

Seeing this scene, his stiff neck made the sound of frozen ice blocks colliding, and he turned his head with difficulty, bit by bit.

The black and white impermanence had already circled once and returned.

The white impermanence's tongue stretched out long, rolling a scroll of white silk from Second Master's arms. White frost also covered his tongue, but he still rolled the scroll to the door of the Bone Pagoda.

Second Master watched, not daring to move at all, until he accidentally saw that tongue.

"Paper?"

Four-Eyes was already smiling. He also saw what was revealed under the black and white impermanence's robes—stilts!

Daoist Four-Eyes turned and walked toward the door. Second Master's eyes were wide open, not knowing why he could move, but the scene he caught from the corner of his eye made him even more horrified.

Old Seven couldn't move at all. He felt someone pass by him. When he looked up, it was Daoist Four-Eyes with a blue-black face and white-turned pupils.

He was slightly startled and looked forward, only to see that not far ahead, Daoist Four-Eyes' body was still staying there, his mouth and nose had no white air, and he was no longer breathing.

Daoist Four-Eyes came to the door of the Bone Pagoda gloomily, but didn't walk out, instead sighing, "Once you enter this place, there is no door to life!"

"But I still held onto the heart of stealing life, which is why I was trapped in the maze... It was you who reminded me, the Bone Tianhou Niangniang cannot be seen by the living! The only way to meet her is called death!"

"Practitioners of the Dao inevitably have a heart for longevity, which is why that Earth Immortal has been wandering outside the pagoda."

Daoist Four-Eyes sighed gloomily.

"Six-story Bone Pagoda, every story is a hell!"

"This is not the first floor of the Bone Pagoda, but the Cold Ice Hell, the so-called loneliness without kin, cold as ice. Those in the world who die of cold and loneliness without kin fall into the Cold Ice Hell, Yin and cold to the bone, unable to be liberated!"

Daoist Four-Eyes spread his right hand: "Everyone, you can return the petition to me!"

The black and white impermanence looked at each other and respectfully offered the white silk scroll.

Daoist Four-Eyes tightened his Daoist robe, picked up a wooden stick, walked slowly past the ginseng gang, past his own corpse, and came to the Bone Tianhou Niangniang's statue. With a flick of the stick, the sheepskin on the two lambs kneeling on the ground flew up.

A pair of boys and girls, carved from pink jade, wearing festive red robes, squatted there, their eyes rolling around.

The boy suddenly cried out, the soft child's voice carrying a non-human strangeness.

In his open mouth, under teeth like rice grains, a thick "tree root" retracted into his throat. The small braid on his head trembled, and red fruits gathered in a cluster, drilling out from the braid. Ginseng tentacles also drilled out from the boy's seven orifices. Immediately, he slipped into the ground and disappeared instantly.

The girl on the side also slowly lifted her foot to run, but Daoist Four-Eyes grabbed her red hair string like lightning with his left hand.

"Catch him!"

Daoist Four-Eyes gave a sharp shout.

The gloomy voice echoed in the empty Bone Pagoda, coming from nowhere and going nowhere.

The crowd at the door dressed as ghosts scattered in a rush, chasing after the shadows that flashed past in the grave mounds...

The hundred ghosts turned around like headless flies, while the boy escaped freely in the ground, occasionally poking his head out from some grave mound. The ghosts ran so fast that their costumes were messed up and their makeup was ruined, shouting and screaming, no longer looking like "ghosts."

But Daoist Four-Eyes stood under the eaves of the Bone Pagoda, cold and clear, watching like a ghost.

The white impermanence took off his "tongue" and cupped his hands at Daoist Four-Eyes: "Bone-Covering Society, here to help as agreed!"

"Daoist, our Bone-Covering Society took out all the things from the Wei Chenghuang Ghost Society, but we could only enter the first floor of hell!"

"That's why we had no choice but to beg the Daoist!"

"The Bone Tianhou Niangniang is merciful, suppressing the Bone Pagoda to accommodate vengeful spirits and fierce ghosts. But Yin souls and fierce ghosts are not tolerated by the world, so the seven-story Bone Pagoda where the ghosts are located became seven hells. Every April 4th, the Wei Chenghuang Ghost Society, we Bone-Covering Society dress up as a hundred ghosts to guide and transcend the ghosts."

"Over time, the ghosts who don't want to be reborn are trapped in the seven hells. If they want to meet the Bone Tianhou Niangniang, they have to break through the seven hells one by one, release the ghosts, and then they can guide the Tianhou Niangniang to descend to the world!"

"The Salt Transport Gang and the ruffians wanted to invite the Tianhou Niangniang to descend, so they told us that they had invited a high-level Daoist to break the prison for the ghosts and save all living beings."

"I thought it was another 'high-level person' seeking fame, but I didn't expect to see a true immortal this time!"

Daoist Four-Eyes sighed slightly and looked back suddenly. The Bone Pagoda behind him was gloomy and cold. Even though he manifested his Yin Spirit, he couldn't help but endure the bone-chilling cold that pierced his soul.

"Forget it! After practicing the Dao for decades, if I don't enter hell, who will?"

"Is that shepherd also one of yours?"

Daoist Four-Eyes turned and asked.

"White Zhu Wuchang" was slightly stunned: "What shepherd?"

At this moment, a whip fell from the second floor of the Bone Pagoda, hitting a grave mound not far away. The weeds were immediately pressed down, and several ginseng fruits gathered in a cluster swayed in the grass. The black impermanence pounced down from the stilts, grabbed the boy's topknot, and pulled him out of the dirt.

"Caught him!"

The ghosts on the side beat drums and gongs. The black impermanence grabbed the boy and dragged him to the door of the Bone Pagoda. Only then did Daoist Four-Eyes, who was standing under the eaves, reach out his hand.

He held the boy with one hand and the girl with the other, no longer thinking about the mysterious shepherd, and came to the Bone Tianhou Niangniang's statue.

Accompanied by the two little ghosts kneeling and kowtowing three times, it was seen that in the white lotus held by the Bone Tianhou Niangniang's right hand, it seemed as if frost was thawing and melting, and a drop of dew condensed, swaying on the white lotus.

The dewdrop dripped down, and the blood-red ginseng tentacles drilling out from the seven orifices of the two little ghosts squirmed and retracted.

The two boys, who soon recovered their pink jade-like appearance, turned around.

They lay obediently on the ground, turned their heads to kowtow to Daoist Four-Eyes, and their figures slowly dissipated.

Two ginsengs, as thick as ears and arms and intertwined, appeared in place...

At this moment, the ginseng gang realized that the bone-chilling cold around them had dissipated.

The entire Bone Pagoda returned to normal.

However, it was seen that beside the Bone Tianhou Niangniang, the skins of the lambs driven by the shepherd, which were lying paralyzed on the ground, suddenly swelled up as if inflated. Dozens of lambs baaed and ran toward the outside of the door.

The lambs running with their legs, carrying milky fat, ran into the mass grave outside the Bone Pagoda, shuttled through the grave mounds, and soon disappeared.

At this moment, warm air blew in from outside the door.

"Let's go!"

Daoist Four-Eyes walked past his own corpse, looked at the stairs going up, and seemed to be talking to himself: "It's clearly a six-story pagoda, why is it called seven hells?"

The ginseng gang looked at each other, could only tighten their respective packages, carefully bypassed the corpse of the Daoist whose flesh and blood were melting and falling off bit by bit, and walked upstairs.

Only two thick ginsengs intertwined together were left, offered in front of the Bone Tianhou Niangniang's statue.

…………

Wu Ponu walked out of the city gate step by step, staring at the surging waves in front of him. A huge whirlpool swallowed half of the river surface and was still expanding, dragging everything on the river surface into the Sancha River mouth.

Dark clouds covered the moonlight. As he took a step with every footprint, the world suddenly became vast, and the whirlpool in front of him spread infinitely.

Completely encompassing the entire world... ===== CHAPTER 994 =====