Chapter 87: This is fucking raising an evil god!!!

First, a short, sharp pig grunt came from the backyard.

Immediately after, there was the dull thud of a heavy body crashing against wooden railings.

Once.

Twice.

Then, it abruptly stopped.

That wasn't the sound of being startled; it was more like something had been choked by the throat and then slammed hard.

Almost at the same moment, a flurry of chaotic flapping erupted from the direction of the chicken coop.

Accompanied by short, sharp "clucking" cries of distress, it was as if an invisible hand had clamped around the necks of all the poultry.

Lu Yuan had long since stood quietly by the window, his eyes slightly closed, employing the "Listen to Wind, Discern Qi" technique.

It was the flow of qi.

A stream of icy, viscous, faintly sweet-smelling air, carrying a strange bloody scent, transformed into an invisible river of Yin, slowly creeping down from the direction of the back mountain.

As this qi stream flowed past the Wang family's backyard, it actually split off a strand, coiling towards the East Wing Room like a venomous snake.

"It's Earth Vein Yin Malevolence, but it's become active."

"It can find its own targets."

A chill shot up Lu Yuan's spine.

Ordinary Yin energy would only spread aimlessly, but this stream of qi had a clear direction, showing an almost greedy "preference" for the East Wing Room.

Inside the East Wing Room, the baby's crying started in response.

But this crying wasn't right.

At first, it was weak and thin, like a kitten's mewl, but it quickly turned sharp. The cries were mixed with a viscous gurgling sound, as if the throat was tightly blocked.

Then, the crying suddenly rose in pitch, turning into a tearing scream, only to be abruptly cut off.

It changed into rapid, gasping "uh, uh" sounds.

It was the "Frightened Crying, Soul-Seizing" syndrome!

A baby's primordial soul is not yet solid, its Three Souls and Seven Souls are unstable, and it was being violently impacted at its vital points by the Yin Malevolence.

At the same time, Wang Laohan's and a man's hurried footsteps sounded, rushing straight for the East Wing.

Lu Yuan heard Wang Laohan lower his voice, trembling uncontrollably, repeatedly chanting:

"... Ancestors protect us... Lady, have mercy... the child is young, doesn't understand..."

He wasn't praying to the Daoist Patriarch or the Buddha, but to a bizarre "Lady."

Lu Yuan quickly cut a small strip of yellow paper from his sleeve, using his finger as a brush, he drew a "Probe Yin Talisman" in the empty air.

With a flick of his fingertip, the talisman paper was silently sent out through a crack in the window.

The yellow paper floated out but didn't fall directly to the ground.

It hung strangely in mid-air for a moment, then was pulled by an invisible force, slanting and actively drifting towards the window lattice of the East Wing Room.

"Tap."

The talisman paper stuck to it.

After only three breaths.

The bright yellow talisman paper rapidly turned into a dead, ashen black, its edges curling and charring, emitting a wisp of scorched stench.

"Yin energy carrying malevolence, resentment attached," Lu Yuan saw this through the door crack. "But the concentration isn't high... more like an aftereffect."

The pigs and chickens in the backyard, as the baby's crying was temporarily soothed, gradually quieted down.

But within that deathly silence, Lu Yuan caught a more subtle, more persistent sound.

That sound was extremely distant, like countless people whispering, or like the mournful wail of a Yin wind blowing through narrow stone crevices.

The source of the sound pointed directly to the back mountain.

Lu Yuan gently pushed the door open a crack, looking out at the night sky.

The moon was completely obscured by thick clouds. Under the lead-gray sky, the snowflakes fell even heavier.

The moon was dim, the stars dark, a night for a hundred ghosts to roam.

Right at that moment, a short, sharp cry, desperately muffled, came from inside the East Wing Room.

Immediately followed by the young mother's suppressed, utterly broken sobs, and a man's hoarse, powerless attempts to comfort her.

Lu Yuan gestured to Xu Erxiao and Wang Cheng'an, signaling them to guard the door and ventilation points tightly.

He himself held his breath, his right hand forming the "Lurking Trace Seal," completely retracting his own Yang energy, while his left index finger lightly tapped the center of his forehead.

Yin Eye, open!

Afterwards, his entire person slid out of the room door like a ghost, silent as a shadow, and crouched beneath the East Wing window.

Inside, the young but hoarse voice of Wang Laohan's daughter-in-law trembled incoherently:

"... It's back... the well, it's that well..."

"This time I saw clearly, it's not the one behind our hamlet's mountain, it's... deeper!!"

"The well walls are white! They're bones! They're built with human bones!!"

"She was wearing a set of red clothes, not wedding clothes... it's the kind soaked through with blood, a blackened, dark red!"

"The clothes clung to her body, and black water was still dripping down... in her arms... she was holding something, wrapped in a tattered swaddling cloth!"

"A hand stretched out from the swaddling cloth... blue-black, with nails that were long and sharp..."

She gasped heavily, her voice full of drowning-like fear:

"She waved at me, didn't speak, just smiled like that... her mouth stretched all the way to her ears, but black water was flowing from her eyes..."

"She said... she said: 'Little sister, look how well-behaved my baby is, just a bit cold. Lend me your baby to warm up, just for a while...'"

"... I wanted to run, but under my feet were all slippery moss, and... and hair-like things crawled out from the well, tightly tangling around my ankles..."

Crouching under the window, Lu Yuan listened quietly, his mind rapidly piecing together clues.

And at that very moment!

A gaze that was icy, slippery, and full of malice suddenly swept over his body!

This gaze didn't come from inside the East Wing Room, but shot up from deep underground, from the direction of the back mountain!

That "gaze" carried a resentment so thick it was almost tangible, and a twisted "desire," trying to burrow into his spiritual platform!

Lu Yuan's pupils contracted sharply; he had clearly used the "Lurking Trace Seal"!

The next second, without him even actively urging it, the dormant Thunder Qi within his body began circulating on its own.

A slight warmth stirred in his dantian, and a pure Yang, supremely righteous energy erupted forth.

That icy "gaze" was like it had touched a red-hot branding iron, letting out a soundless shriek and instantly retracting.

Lu Yuan looked up towards the pitch-black direction of the back mountain, his brows tightly furrowed.

Nightmare invasion, using the mother to reach the child.

He understood.

The "thing" in the well was using the mother's fear and obsession for her child as a bridge to invade dreams.

Its ultimate goal was to target, or even seize, the baby's purest, most Yin soul through the natural soul connection between mother and child.

This wasn't simple harassment; it was preparation for some more sinister ritual, like "substitution" or "soul usurpation."

More crucially, the details described by Wang Laohan's daughter-in-law in her dream—"bone well walls," "blood-drenched clothes dripping water," "blue-black baby hand"...

These details highly corresponded with the Life-Severing Wang Family's methods for handling the "Nurturing Malevolence Site" and the "corpse" when refining the "Mother-Child Malevolence"!

Hiss—

Thinking of this, Lu Yuan sucked in a sharp breath of cold air.

Strange.

This matter, from start to finish, reeked of something sinister.

This place was not a Nurturing Malevolence Site.

According to the records on the Nurturing Malevolence Diagrams, the Nurturing Malevolence Site was at Wu Family Gully, not here in Mangniu Hamlet.

From Mangniu Hamlet to Wu Family Gully by fast horse would take at least five or six hours.

Lu Yuan didn't think that if the Nurturing Malevolence Site at Wu Family Gully had loosened, the malevolent energy could drift this far.

And, most importantly.

All the loosening of the Life-Severing Wang Family's Nurturing Malevolence Sites had happened very recently.

But judging by the dogs at the village entrance being numb and Yin-infused, the strange occurrences in this hamlet had probably been going on for quite some time.

The more Lu Yuan thought about it, the more he felt something wasn't quite right.

After much deliberation, Lu Yuan finally shook his head.

Rather than guessing blindly, it was better to ask directly.

Thinking this, Lu Yuan dispersed the hand seal, stood up, walked to the door of the East Wing Room, and raised his hand to knock gently.

"Knock, knock, knock."

This sudden knocking made the already tense air inside the East Wing Room instantly solidify; you could almost hear the Wang family's hearts skip a beat.

"Uncle, it's me."

Lu Yuan's voice wasn't loud, but it was like a calming pill, clearly penetrating the door panel.

"We are not ordinary itinerant Taoist priests; we are proper Taoists from Zhenlong Temple in Fengtian City, with orthodox lineage and dharma transmission."

"The unrest in your home, the danger to your infant, the root is not within the house, but in that well on the back mountain."

"There is a great grievance and sin in the well; it's man-made calamity, not natural disaster."

Lu Yuan paused, each word like a heavy hammer striking the Wang family's hearts.

"What's on your grandson isn't ordinary fright; it's the 'Mother-Child Entangling Body Malevolence.'"

"If it drags past a hundred days, his soul will surely be taken, with no power to bring it back."

Deathly silence inside the room.

After a few breaths, the young daughter-in-law's despairing cry rang out:

"Please, Master, save..."

Before she could finish, she was tightly muffled by a hand, leaving only struggling "mmph" sounds.

A flurry of frantic activity inside the room.

But another young man's voice, carrying the terror of someone who had thrown all caution to the wind, broke through the suppression:

"Please, Master, save the lives of my whole family!!"

Finally, a few seconds later.

Creak—

The door of the East Wing Room finally opened.

Wang Laohan stood in the doorway, his weathered face twitching violently, his whole body shaking like a leaf in the autumn wind.

He looked at Lu Yuan outside the door, the last line of defense in his eyes completely collapsing, turbid old tears streaming down his face.

"Master... save the child... save our hamlet!"

By now, Wang Cheng'an and Xu Erxiao had also come out from the West Wing Room, carrying their gear on their backs.

Lu Yuan looked calmly at Wang Laohan before him, his gaze passing over him to sweep over the woman lying weakly on the kang and the baby in her arms.

Lu Yuan looked at the tear-streaked Wang Laohan and said seriously:

"Let's talk slowly in the West Wing."

...

Inside the West Wing Room, the light of the oil lamp flickered slightly.

Wang Laohan's voice was hoarse, carrying the fear accumulated over many years, as he began to tell his story.

The well on the back mountain had dried up during the Tongzhi era. The stones of the well walls were a frightening white, and nothing grew around it.

During the Guangxu era, a pregnant woman fleeing famine was bullied by a local bully in the hamlet. In the end, wearing a set of red clothes, she threw herself into the well while holding her belly, two lives lost.

Later, the bully's family died under strange circumstances, and a woman's crying was often heard by the well, but for many years it was just a tale to scare children.

The real strange events started six years ago.

"A group of people came, three of them, claiming to be Feng Shui masters."

"They were dressed well, holding compasses in their hands, running to the back mountain every day, just circling that dry well."

"They stayed for half a month. Before leaving, they gave two silver dollars to every household in the hamlet."

Wang Laohan's voice dropped even lower here.

"They said the well was the 'Eye of Earthly Yin,' heavy with malevolent energy, and they had performed rites to 'suppress' it."

"They also warned the whole hamlet never to go near it, especially pregnant women and children, or else if the suppression objects were disturbed and the malevolent energy backlashed, the whole hamlet would suffer disaster."

Lu Yuan lowered his eyelids slightly, his knuckles lightly tapping on the table.

Three Feng Shui masters...

Were they from the Life-Severing Wang Family?

But again, this place didn't appear on the Nurturing Malevolence Diagrams...

And Wang Laohan continued his story.

It was after that that the strange occurrences in the hamlet truly multiplied.

Pregnant wives either had unstable pregnancies or difficult births.

Children born often had strange illnesses within a hundred days, sleeping deeply and not waking during the day, crying in fright and staring wide-eyed at night.

Unexplained blue-black finger marks would appear on their bodies, as if pinched by very small hands.

Some children would suddenly laugh or cry at empty corners.

So far, five children in the hamlet hadn't lived past a hundred days.

They had invited spirit mediums, performed shamanic dances, and even Taoist priests from the surrounding areas, all to no effect.

The hamlet people grew more and more afraid to approach the back mountain; that well became an absolute forbidden zone.

Wang Laohan's grandson was the only male heir in three generations.

The birth went relatively smoothly, but after the full month, the child began crying at night, his eyes occasionally going blank.

Faint ring-shaped blue marks had appeared twice on his little ankles, like they'd been tied with thin rope.

Talismans written by invited practitioners, jade pendants sought for protection, would inexplicably shatter or turn black within two days of being worn.

Hearing this, Lu Yuan stood up directly and said:

"I'll go take a look at the child."

Wang Laohan nodded repeatedly.

"Good, good, Master, please."

Following Wang Laohan towards the East Wing Room, Lu Yuan asked from behind:

"Which temple and which master did you invite before?"

Hearing Lu Yuan's question, Wang Laohan quickly replied:

"It was the Shuanghe Temple here in our area, the master... I don't remember his name, several groups came but none were of any use..."

Shuanghe Temple, Lu Yuan silently repeated the name in his mind.

Hmm...

Never heard of it.

Come to think of it, this area was almost out of Fengtian territory.

A bit further ahead, and you'd reach Jilin Prefecture.

This place, Lu Yuan rarely came to, or to put it bluntly, he had never been here before.

Zhenlong Temple was south of Fengtian City, and most of their jobs were in the southern part of Fengtian City.

Zhenlong Temple didn't even go to Fengtian City much, let alone the northern part of Fengtian territory, almost out of Fengtian's borders here.

However, in this marginal zone between mountains and prefectures, Lu Yuan and the other two hadn't seen many villages or market towns on their journey today.

High mountains, distant roads, sparse population—those who could entrench themselves here were surely not very capable.

The strength or weakness of a Taoist temple could be seen from its location.

This wasn't Earth, where the more a Taoist temple was built on a sparsely populated mountain, the more it highlighted its ability.

This was a world full of evil spirits and weirdness. The more powerful a Taoist temple was, the more it needed to be established in a populous place.

Firstly, it was easier to collect incense offerings.

Secondly, it was convenient for the temple's disciples to go out for jobs.

If it were like on Earth, where they were built on remote, high mountains at the drop of a hat, the temple's disciples would use half their energy just going up and down the mountain.

Travel would use another half, so how could they vanquish demons and exorcise evil then?

And that Shuanghe Temple was built here. The Taoists in that temple were most likely a bunch of wild priests with no lineage, huddling together for warmth.

After all, money wasn't easy to earn these days. If you, an itinerant Taoist priest, went out, and the client asked where you were from and what your Taoist name was.

If you couldn't give a proper answer, didn't even have a temple, the client wouldn't hire you.

So many itinerant Taoist priests gathered together, found some remote corner, casually built a couple of rooms, enshrined a Three Pure Ones statue, and called themselves a temple.

But their abilities were hard to say.

Moreover, these temples were extremely irresponsible; they had no concern for their reputation.

Even if they botched a job, they could just leave, find some other place, and casually build another temple.

Lu Yuan couldn't really judge the strength of the evil entity from the situation of this temple.

Lu Yuan looked up and asked the question he was most concerned about:

"Earlier, outside the door, I heard you weren't praying to the Three Pure Ones, nor to immortals or Buddhas, but to a certain 'Lady'?"

"Which Lady were you praying to?"

Wang Laohan's body trembled, the blood drained from his face, his lips quivered as he looked at Lu Yuan with fear:

"It's... it's the 'Red-Clothed, Child-Holding' Lady... in the well on the back mountain!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, Xu Erxiao beside him couldn't help but click his tongue.

"Uncle, you're confused! Even a fool can see the thing causing trouble in your house is that very entity!"

"And you're asking her for mercy? Calling her Lady?"

Wang Cheng'an also nodded repeatedly:

"Exactly, isn't that like taking the thief for your father!"

Xu Erxiao immediately added:

"Taking the thief for your mother!"

Lu Yuan didn't comment on Xu Erxiao and Wang Cheng'an's words.

Xu Erxiao and Wang Cheng'an had only been following Lu Yuan for less than half a year; they hadn't seen much.

This kind of thing was actually quite common.

It seemed contradictory, but it was precisely a characteristic of folk "licentious worship."

Reverence and appeasement of terrifying power.

She should have been a life-seeking fierce ghost, but through word of mouth and psychological suggestion, the villagers gradually bestowed upon her a twisted duality.

One side was bad. She could "claim descendants," causing pregnant women in the hamlet to have difficult births and infants to die young.

This was the manifestation of her resentment, and also the villagers' attribution for unexplainable infant deaths.

On the other side, the people in the hamlet also believed that if they worshipped her devoutly and didn't offend her.

She might "spare" their own children, or even protect the mothers during childbirth.

There's a saying on Earth: China doesn't support idle gods.

It sounds quite uplifting, as if they themselves are pretty impressive.

But actually, looking at it dialectically, to say something a bit unpleasant, it's a kind of utilitarianism.

If it affects me, I'll even worship an evil god!

If it doesn't affect me, even the Three Pure Ones are nothing to me.

And it's the same here.

Clearly knowing it's an evil entity, but if worshipping it can keep disaster away from my family, then I'll worship the evil entity!

Of course, this absolutely doesn't mean the people of Mangniu Hamlet are bad or utilitarian.

This is just the helpless compromise of the lowest commoners, a pitiable, lamentable way of survival.

When the grandson cried at night and showed strange symptoms, they knew in their hearts it might be the "Lady" causing trouble.

After Taoist magic and folk remedies seemed ineffective.

In extreme panic and helplessness, they instinctively turned to that "Evil Lady" they both feared and felt compelled to believe in.

Using the most humble tone, begging the "Lady" for mercy, to spare the child.

This was the most primitive survival method of the lowest commoners when powerless against supernatural threats—begging for mercy from the terror itself.

This "Lady" was a typical example of folk "ghost worship" or "licentious worship."

Fierce ghosts being deified, venerating those who died unnaturally, especially those who died violently or with great resentment, as localized deities with specific functions.

Often related to death, disease, and childbirth.

Fear drives worship; the motivation for worship is not out of affection or gratitude, but out of fear and appeasement, hoping the "ghost deity" won't harm them.

Following Wang Laohan to the entrance of the East Wing Room.

The cold wind, carrying snowflakes, moaned as it swept through the courtyard.

Just as Lu Yuan was about to lift his foot over the threshold, his steps suddenly halted! His entire body stiffened as if struck by lightning!

In an instant, all the clues in his mind madly connected and collided!

The dry well on the back mountain, the red-clothed female ghost who died with two lives...

Six years ago, the three "Feng Shui masters" who appeared just at that time...

What they left behind weren't real suppression objects; they weren't here to help the villagers!

They were triggers used to "gather Yin"!

They warned the villagers to stay away from the back mountain not to protect them, but to protect their "arrangement" from being destroyed!

And these six years of constantly dying infants in the hamlet...

The worship and chanting generated by the villagers' fear...

This endless stream of infant souls and the villagers' incense and prayer power...

Lu Yuan suddenly looked up towards the heavy darkness of the back mountain. A chill shot straight up his spine to the crown of his head!

If the Nurturing Malevolence Sites refined by the Life-Severing Wang Family were to absorb the surrounding malevolent energy to feed the "Book of Malevolent Spirits"...

And that "Book of Malevolent Spirits," as the Life-Severing Wang Family's clan-suppressing ritual tool...

wasn't just used to create a top-tier malevolent spirit that could only exist for a few hours and was only for killing.

It had various other uses, like performing rituals, ceremonies, or other purposes.

But here now...

This was purely fucking nurturing an evil god!!!