Chapter 87. Origin Of Shunping Ghost King
Arc 3 : Supernatural Horror Movie Nightmare.
Everything seems peaceful, yet everything seems not so peaceful.
Du Yan looked up at the incandescent light above his head. The dusty bulb shook a few times, then flickered a few times as if frightened, and then went out. When the light in the stairwell came on again, it had become the white light commonly used in modern communities.
He raised his feet slightly again and then stepped on the floor. The mottled concrete floor and walls gradually returned to normal.
Du Yan raised his hand and touched his left shoulder. In fact, the imprint left by Xiao Lang was not so much a form of surveillance as it was a sharing of some of his abilities with Du Yan.
With the help of Xiao Lang’s ability to understand Yin and Yang, Du Yan was able to easily solve the dilemma in the stairwell.
Du Yan smiled softly, thinking that the person who didn’t know right from wrong and only knew how to be jealous and mess around could be quite useful at certain times.
Now that the dilemma in the stairwell had been solved, Du Yan no longer delayed and went down to the first floor again. He opened the fire exit door again, and the situation had changed. The concrete wall in front of the fire exit door had disappeared, and what appeared in front of him was the elevator room on the first floor.
When Du Yan was about to step out of the elevator, something furry suddenly touched his calf. He lowered his head and saw the shadow of a dog gradually taking shape. It was a large golden retriever.
Seeing Du Yan’s eyes looking over, the golden retriever was delighted to know that he was discovered and sat down, looking at Du Yan with wet eyes.
Du Yan saw the plea in the golden retriever’s eyes, so he squatted down, patted the dog’s head, and said: “Why are you coming to me instead of following your owner?”
The big golden retriever tilted its head and nudged Du Yan’s palm with its nose.
Du Yan could tell that the golden retriever in front of him was probably quite old. The tips of its hair had begun to turn white, and its eyes were not as lively as those of younger dogs. However, judging from the condition of its teeth, its owner had taken great care of it. However, a dog only lives for a dozen years, and no matter how carefully it is raised, it will eventually die.
This golden retriever should have died of old age, but it stayed because it couldn’t let go of its owner.
The golden retriever nudged Du Yan’s palm with its head again and called softly.
Considering the current situation in the community, even though they couldn’t communicate with each other in words, Du Yan could understand what it meant and said: “Is there something bad that wants to attach itself to your owner?”
The owner of the golden retriever who was seen in the elevator today was not possessed by a ghost, but she had a strong negative energy. Now, the community was affected by Tian Luo and overlaps with Shunping Ghost City. The evil ghosts in Shunping Ghost City will naturally wander around the community, looking for the best person to possess.
Some young and middle-aged people with strong yang energy are not so easy to possess, but the owner of the golden retriever is a middle-aged woman in her forties, who is considered to be a person who is relatively easy to be possessed. But she was safe for the time being, and it was probably thanks to the golden retriever in front of him.
The big golden retriever stood up and turned around, with its tail hanging down and swaying slightly.
Du Yan knew that his guess was correct, and he asked again: “Are you worried that the ghost will completely infect your owner, so you stayed here?”
It called softly again, with a look of anticipation and anxiety in its eyes.
Du Yan patted its head and said: “Don’t worry, the problem will be solved, and your owner will recover.”
He paused, then smiled and said: “But during this time, you’d better stay with your owner to prevent her from getting hurt too much.”
The dog licked Du Yan’s palm as if it felt relieved and then ran out happily.
Du Yan followed him out, and just as Du Yan was about to walk out the door, the golden retriever barked fiercely in the direction of the outside. Then, it nudged Du Yan with its head, signaling him to go to the elevator.
Du Yan didn’t notice anything unusual outside, so he asked: “Are you telling me not to go out? Is it dangerous outside?”
The golden retriever groaned softly, took a few steps towards the elevator, then stopped and looked back at Du Yan.
Du Yan was somewhat helpless: “Well, animals’ intuition is always more sensitive than humans’. You probably think there is some danger outside?”
After saying that, he followed the golden retriever back to the elevator. The golden retriever came to the fire exit door where they met and raised his front paws to dig at the heavy door.
“You want me to go back?” Du Yan asked with some doubt.
The golden retriever sat down, tilted his head, and stuck out his tongue as if showing a smile.
“Well, the trouble inside has been solved, maybe there will be some turning point.”
The downward stairs just now seemed to have no end, but now that the evil spirit had been eliminated and the dilemma had been resolved, perhaps he can discover something different. There was a circle of hazy white light surrounding the golden retriever in front of him, which proved the purity of its soul. Du Yan would not doubt whether the golden retriever’s actions were intended to harm him.
Du Yan opened the fire exit door, said goodbye to the golden retriever at the door, and walked down the dim stairs again. Sure enough, when he reached a certain floor, the stairs came to an end.
Du Yan pushed open the fire exit door at the end and was slightly stunned when he saw the scene in front of him.
What appeared before his eyes was a scene that should not belong to the world of the living. The entire area was filled with a thick darkness. This was completely different from the darkness caused by the absence of light. Instead, it was because the yin energy was too dense, forming something that was essentially similar to black fog.
In the middle of this darkness, there was a tall pillar, which was carved from thousand-year-old peach wood. Even in this extremely dark place, there was still a strong yang energy remaining on the pillar.
Du Yan could tell at a glance that all of this was set up to torture the person tied to the pillar, or rather the soul.
The man’s feet were in the darkness, and the endless Yin energy was constantly replenishing his energy, while his body, which was clinging to the peach wood pillar, was being corroded by the strong Yang energy.
Although ghosts have no physical body, they are incompatible with yin and yang. When they are infected by strong yang energy, they will feel intense pain like being burned by fire. The person’s appearance would be burned and corroded by the yang energy, causing it to disappear bit by bit.
But when only half of his body was left, the Yin energy under his feet would sweep up and repair his body. For countless years, this man was tortured over and over again.
Du Yan frowned at the cruel scene in front of him, not only because the man in front of him was being tortured so cruelly, but also because of the clothes on his body.
The clothes he was wearing were the standard Taoist robes of the Du Yan’s sect. In a cultivation sect like theirs that has a long history, the styles of their Taoist robes will never change. Judging from the cloud patterns and Yin-Yang eight divinatory trigrams carved on his sleeves, Du Yan could infer that this was probably the predecessor who lived several hundred years ago.
Du Yan walked forward, and the man tied to the pillar finally opened his eyes.
He was slightly startled when he saw Du Yan standing in front of him, and then he said: “Young man, are you the one that the yellow dog sent to save me? I clearly told it not to bother and that it’s not advisable to stay here for long. It’s best for you to leave as soon as possible.”
When he spoke, his expression was very wooden, a kind of indifference that was like losing interest in everything after being imprisoned for a long time. After he finished speaking, he closed his eyes, as if he didn’t want to talk to Du Yan anymore.
Du Yan finally understood why the golden retriever had signaled him to come here. The Taoism practiced by fellow disciples came from a common origin, and there was a certain common aura between Du Yan and predecessor.
Animals are much more sensitive than humans. After the golden retriever became a ghost, it was naturally very sensitive to the connection between souls. It indicated to Du Yan that in this unknown prison, there were people who came from the same origin as him.
Du Yan, however, bowed to him in the way his sect bowed: “Qianbei, I am the 361st generation disciple of Hezao Mountain.”
(*Qianbei=Predecessor, senior, older generation)
After hearing Du Yan’s words, the man’s expression finally changed. He opened his eyes and looked Du Yan up and down: “361st generation disciple? Since you are a disciple of my sect, why don’t you wear the sect’s Taoist robe when you walk outside.”
Du Yan knew that this senior had been imprisoned here for too long and patiently explained: “Qianbei, the situation outside is different now. The disciples in the sect wear ordinary clothes when they go out, which is more convenient for them to do things.”
“Really?” The man was slightly stunned: “Right, I have been imprisoned here for who knows how many years. Young man, what year is it outside now?”
Du Yan used the sect’s calendar to tell him, and the man looked dazed for a moment, muttering: “It turns out that eight hundred years have passed.”
When he heard him say eight hundred years, Du Yan’s eyebrows moved, and he suddenly remembered something. When he was talking to his master before, the predecessor who was refining the ghost king and was attacked by the backlash seemed to be eight hundred years ago.
So, there must be some kind of connection between Shunping Ghost King and the predecessor from the sect in front of him.
Du Yan thought that there was no time to waste here, so he asked directly: “Qianbei, Wanbei have read in the records of our sect that there was a Qianbei named Tong Xuan, who was attacked by the backlash when he refined the Ghost King, and his whereabouts are unknown.”
(*Wanbei=Successor, junior, younger generation)
“Yes, I am Tong Xuan.” Tong Xuan nodded: “The current Shunping Ghost King is the ghost that failed to be refined and turned against me.”
Afterward, under Du Yan’s questioning, Tong Xuan told him everything that happened in the past, including the truth about Shunping Ghost City, Wenshi Ridge, and the Ghost King.
Shunping Ghost City was actually a place where the superiors trained assassins. In the past, the superiors threw death row prisoners into this city and let these death row prisoners kill each other to decide the winner. In the end, only one person can walk out of this city. The person who can walk out of such a cruel environment was the sharpest knife in the hands of the authorities.
The current Shunping Ghost King was naturally the victor at that time. His name is Sun Jin, and he was once a notorious bandit with countless deaths on his hands. He was so powerful that after becoming the victor, he actually killed everyone who tried to control him, and then he fled Shunping incognito.
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