Chapter 1 What Are You Talking About?

Ye Qiutang was increasingly confused, but the word "weird" inexplicably filled her with fear. "What exactly are you talking about? Explain yourselves clearly!"

Jiang Cheng turned to look at Ye Qiutang. "Miss Ye, if my guess is correct, the danger we are about to face is probably more severe than what Elder Song said. I need to make some things clear to you."

"My friend and I are more experienced in dealing with these kinds of things than you are. We've solved similar problems many times. So you must trust us. In the following actions, no one should hide anything, especially at critical moments. You must not act on your own accord and listen to our arrangements."

Feeling Jiang Cheng's gaze, Ye Qiutang slowly frowned, as if trying to see through the face before her. After a long while, she didn't express her opinion, but simply said in a flat tone, "Elder Song was right. The two of you are extraordinary. He even suspects that these evil spirits in the temple are here for you. The only mistake we made was saving you."

Hearing Ye Qiutang's slightly complaining tone, Jiang Cheng remained calm. "Miss Ye, I don't want to shirk responsibility, but the fact is, what's done is done. There's no point in talking about it now."

"I can only tell you that we have the ability to solve this problem. Not only us, but I also have four other friends who have been scattered to different places."

"Everyone is experiencing something similar, but if everything goes smoothly, we will meet again soon. Then you can take your sunny path, and I'll cross my narrow bridge. We won't interfere with each other, and everyone will be happy."

Jiang Cheng's words were somewhat harsh. Fatty found them jarring to hear, but Ye Qiutang didn't react much. She just stared at Jiang Cheng's face for a long time before asking, "I only have one question. Are you two spies sent by the Nanman? Is this all a scheme set up by you?"

Jiang Cheng replied without hesitation, "I think Miss Ye is overthinking things. If the Nanman had such methods, they wouldn't waste them on you."

Ye Qiutang thought for a moment, then slowly nodded. "When I, Ye Qiutang, say I'll cooperate, I mean it with absolute sincerity. You can rest assured. I believe you can lead us out of this ghost temple."

"That's good." Jiang Cheng's expression softened.

"By the way, what is this 'weird' thing you mentioned earlier?" Ye Qiutang stopped under the ancient stone wall of the Daoist temple. This question seemed important to her.

"Miss Ye should understand what evil spirits are. As for 'weird'... just think of it as an extremely powerful evil spirit. You can't fight this kind of thing head-on. It's best to find its weakness." After night fell, Jiang Cheng tried to call out to Wu, but there was no response. This ghost temple was like a cage, trapping them tightly. What worried Jiang Cheng even more was that Li Bai, Yao Shunyu, Zhu Jie, and Tang Qisheng's groups were still silent.

Jiang Cheng's previous words had reassured Ye Qiutang to some extent. At this critical moment, she didn't think Jiang Cheng would lie to her. "Where are we going now?" Ye Qiutang asked. Since she didn't understand, she wouldn't cause trouble and would just offer suggestions. "The Sutra Depository?"

Lingxu Daoren had made it clear last night that tonight was the deadline to smash the *zijin boyu* (purple-gold alms bowl), which was a source of great evil.

"No, it's not time yet." Jiang Cheng stopped and briefly identified the direction, then stepped towards one side. "We won't wait any longer. Let's go to the Merit Hall first."

Fatty had a very bad impression of the Merit Hall. Every time he woke up in the middle of the night, he would go to the Merit Hall. The way the monks in the Merit Hall accumulated "merit" repeatedly refreshed Fatty's physical and psychological bottom line. Fatty clearly remembered last time that not only were men and women engaging in illicit acts under the Buddha statue, but there were also monks on top of monks. The monks of this Abstinence Temple really didn't discriminate between meat and vegetables. Fatty almost threw up from disgust at the time.

The three were cautious along the way, but fortunately, they didn't encounter any trouble. Arriving outside the courtyard gate of the Merit Hall, Fatty instinctively frowned. He suddenly felt that something was wrong.

"There aren't any of those noisy sounds anymore. Unaccustomed to it?" Jiang Cheng glanced at him and knew what Fatty was thinking. Everything was written on his face.

"Ah, right, right, right. I was wondering why it felt so strange."

Although the appearance of the Merit Hall hadn't changed much, the style and heritage it displayed were very different from before. Here, the stone walls and gray tiles exuded a Daoist aura of casualness, freedom, and reverence for nature.

Faint lights could be seen inside, not the light of torches, but real lights, small clay oil lamps or candles.

Getting closer, they could hear the sound of chanting Daoist scriptures inside.

The sound hummed, but it wasn't annoying. However, they could tell that there were many people inside.

Not daring to go to their old position, the three carefully went to another window. Jiang Cheng poked a small hole in the window paper with his finger.

Ye Qiutang followed suit.

Just as Fatty was about to poke a hole with his thick finger, Jiang Cheng stopped him. "You don't need to. You stay here and be alert."

Through the small hole, Jiang Cheng saw dozens of Daoists sitting cross-legged inside. These Daoists had their backs to them, with green straw mats under them. Each person also had an open scripture in front of them.

Candles were placed among the Daoists, just standing there randomly, with candle tears dripping down onto the ground.

A gust of wind blew, and the candlelight flickered violently. Jiang Cheng saw clearly that the surrounding walls were covered with portraits of figures. Judging from their appearance, attire, and the gestures they made with their hands, they should be deities from the Daoist sect.

"Hiss—"

Ye Qiutang gasped and gently touched Jiang Cheng.

Actually, she didn't need to remind him. Jiang Cheng had seen it himself. In the middle right of the Daoists meditating and chanting scriptures, a thin figure looked very familiar.

It was Huicong Heshang, but now that Huicong had grown his hair out, he should be called Xuancong.

Xuancong's body moved from time to time, and his head was slightly lowered, as if he were chanting the scriptures with everyone.

After changing several positions, Jiang Cheng and Ye Qiutang could still only see the backs of these monks.

"Let's go around to the other side. Be very quiet." Jiang Cheng lowered his voice.

Soon, the three tiptoed around most of the Merit Hall and went to another direction. There was another window here that looked even more dilapidated.

After confirming that there was no danger, Ye Qiutang carefully poked a small hole in the window paper with her finger, then leaned close to the hole to look inside. But the next second, Fatty suddenly noticed that Ye Qiutang's body stiffened, and then she began to tremble uncontrollably.

Seeing that something was wrong, Jiang Cheng immediately pulled Ye Qiutang back. "What's wrong?"

He had been watching the surroundings just now and hadn't had time to poke a hole in the window paper. He also didn't choose to look through the small hole that Ye Qiutang had left, because he knew that if Ye Qiutang had really been affected by something, he would also be affected if he looked. So he chose to ask Ye Qiutang first. This was something he had learned from his experiences in many Nightmare Worlds.

"They... what exactly is wrong with them?" Ye Qiutang's expression was fearful. "What I saw just now was still the backs of these Daoists, they... they are still facing away from me!"

Hearing this, Fatty immediately imagined the scene inside, and his whole person felt terrible.

Jiang Cheng was silent for a moment, then poked another hole and looked inside. After a moment, he withdrew his gaze and nodded to Fatty with difficulty. "She's right. These Daoists are still facing away from us."

In such a short time, it was impossible for the Daoists inside to completely change direction without making a sound, so Jiang Cheng judged that they had been tricked.

Jiang Cheng had once read a campus horror story online called *Ma Hua Bian Nv Hai* (Braided Girl), which was about a high school girl's dormitory. On the night of the holiday, all the roommates had left, leaving only Xiaomei. In the middle of the night, Xiaomei was suddenly awakened by a series of footsteps in the corridor.

The footsteps were very strange, going back and forth in the corridor. Xiaomei felt strange, so she looked out through the peephole in the dormitory door. She saw a girl with a ponytail standing outside her door, stopping and not moving. The thick ponytail hung behind her head, pitch black.

Xiaomei didn't remember that there was this girl in the school. At the same time, it was late at night, and most of the students staying on campus had left. The more Xiaomei thought about it, the more afraid she became. At this time, she suddenly remembered that a girl in the opposite dormitory didn't seem to have gone home either. She quietly took out her phone and sent a message to that girl.

Not long after, she received a reply. But the moment she opened the reply, Xiaomei was shocked, because it was a somewhat blurry photo, as if it had been taken from a crack in the door. The photo also showed a girl with a ponytail facing away from the camera.

So both sides of the girl outside the door had ponytails. She didn't have a face at all.

Originally, Jiang Cheng would have just regarded this story as a boring pastime by a third-rate novelist, but many stories had been derived from this post. Some of them were quite interesting, such as saying that there was actually no one living in the dormitory opposite Xiaomei, that Xiaomei's friend was fake. Others said that the ponytail girl outside was Xiaomei's friend, but this friend had been killed by Xiaomei, and she had come to seek revenge. One of the top-rated posts left a deep impression on the young Jiang Cheng. It said that Xiaomei was truly cursed after opening the photo, that the ponytail in the photo was the girl's real face.

Thinking of this, Jiang Cheng's heart suddenly skipped a beat. He immediately looked into the room. It was still the same as before, with the Daoists facing away, the green straw mats, and the faint flickering candles. But he just felt that something had changed, but as he scanned over them one by one, the Daoists inside didn't move.

"Hiss—"

The next second, Ye Qiutang, who was also observing, seemed to have discovered something and gasped. "Don't, don't look anymore!" Ye Qiutang pulled Jiang Cheng, pulling him backward.

Ye Qiutang's voice was trembling, and her eyes became fearful. She kept looking around, as if worried about something.

"Keep it down, aren't you afraid..." Ye Qiutang's voice just now had frightened Fatty, and his face had turned green. The Daoists inside were evil, and it would be troublesome if they were provoked.

"What's wrong?" Jiang Cheng tried to comfort Ye Qiutang. "Tell me slowly."

"Don't look, there are fewer people inside." Ye Qiutang said urgently. "Last time, I looked at one of the Daoists a few more times, so I remembered him. But... but when I looked again just now, that Daoist was gone!"

"Gone..." Jiang Cheng frowned. "To be honest, Miss Ye, I've been guarding against this all along, so I've been careful to check the number of people every time. I counted twice, and there were always 44 people, including Huicong Heshang."

"Impossible, I clearly remember that there, under the pillar on the right, there was a Daoist, but when I looked just now, he was gone." Ye Qiutang said with certainty.

After saying that, Ye Qiutang continued to look inside, and this time her reaction was even more intense, because not only had the previous Daoist disappeared, but even another Daoist next to him had disappeared, along with their scriptures and the green straw mats under them. All of this had happened very naturally.

Fatty was about to come over to look, but he was forced back by Jiang Cheng's glare as soon as he raised his hand. "Don't cause trouble. You're the only one who hasn't been tricked. You're still rushing to jump into the fire pit."

Now, Jiang Cheng roughly knew where the problem lay. Today, the Merit Hall was a trap. The other party knew that they would carefully look at Huicong Heshang's face, so they had set up this trap.

What they had seen before was indeed the backs of the Daoists inside, but what they were seeing now was the real face of these things.

And seeing the real face also meant that they had been discovered by the ghosts inside.

In the end of that post, Xiaomei disappeared, and she became the next Braided Girl, like a water ghost finding a replacement.

After briefly explaining the story of the Braided Girl to Fatty and Ye Qiutang, their faces became interesting. Honestly speaking, Ye Qiutang didn't think she was that afraid of death. She was the descendant of a famous general and had seen many bloody battles, but she was afraid of dying in such a strange way, silently and full of despair.

"Do you have a way? If you do..."

Before Ye Qiutang could finish speaking, her eyes suddenly froze. She stared straight at the spot behind Jiang Cheng, her gaze falling.

Jiang Cheng turned around and made a blocking motion at the same time. He subconsciously thought that someone was attacking. Anything could happen in this ghostly place.

However, a night breeze blew, and there was nothing behind him. There was no trace of anyone.

But the next second, as his gaze shifted downward, he discovered a pair of shoe prints on the ground.

The shoe prints were very large and round overall, which was completely different from their shoes. Jiang Cheng immediately realized that the shoes were black cloth shoes commonly worn by Daoists, the kind of round-toed shoes.

But when had a Daoist been near them? The shoe prints were very new, and it looked like they had been left not long ago.

Slowly, Jiang Cheng discovered something even more terrifying. The shoe prints were lonely, only one pair. The nearby ground was damp, but he couldn't find the shoe prints of them walking over or walking away. It was as if... it was as if they had suddenly appeared in a certain instant.