Chapter 109: In the Temple of Wind and Water; Night Chatter to Discern Truth (Part 2)
If Ming Yi really wanted to fudge the test, he could very well answer ambiguously or pretend to joke. However, he answered the first two questions simply and succinctly without any tricks, so the last answer should also be the same, otherwise it would be out of Ming Yi's character which would also prove that he wasn't normal.
Xie Lian and Ming Yi stared at each other calmly. A moment later, Ming Yi finally spoke.
He used a tone that was no different than the last two times he responded, "One of the five elemental masters, the younger brother of the Water Master Wudu, the Wind Master Qingxuan."
Shi Qingxuan shook his head, "Sigh, why the hell didn't you say "My best friend"?"
Ming Yi looked at him, "Who's that?"
Hearing this, Xie Lian silently blew out a breath.
As aforementioned, although the Reverend of Empty Words was called 'Reverend', it wasn't a real man of cloth with any holy spirituality. As long as it remained classified as ghosts and demons, it would never be able to escape from the unique traits of their kind. Three sentences had been fulfilled, and all three were undoubtedly true, so it seemed there's nothing amiss with Ming Yi. Except unless Shi Wudu and Shi Qingxuan were not real blood brothers, but such an unbelievably shocking turn of events shouldn't be possible.
Unexpectedly, before he fully exhaled, Ming Yi's hand suddenly shot out, grabbing straight for his throat!
Xie Lian and Hua Cheng both moved to fend off that hand at the same time, three hands fast as lightning, so intense it made Shi Qingxuan leap to his feet, "MING-XIONG! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
Ming Yi glared at Xie Lian intently, speaking with a dark voice, "You asked three questions, but in the last round I only asked one."
Xie Lian smiled, "Lord Earth Master, please think back on the rules carefully. I never said you could only ask one question per round."
"Very well." Ming Yi said, "Then I'll add to my question now. Who are you?"
"Didn't you already answer this question yourself earlier?" Xie Lian asked.
Ming Yi replied, "Perhaps I answered wrong. Otherwise, will His Highness please explain why the need to setup this game so suddenly, and why ask those three strange questions? Lord Ghost King is skilled in the art of manipulation, but to use it on petty entertainment seems to be overkill and unnecessary."
Hua Cheng laughed, "Well, now. As long as I feel like it, I'll use it however I will."
It must be said that while Xie Lian and Hua Cheng saw Ming Yi as suspicious, Ming Yi too thought them equally suspicious. From the moment Ming Yi suddenly struck, they had spoken through their lips, and stopped using the communication array. Shi Qingxuan didn't know what they were arguing about but he didn't dare remove his ear plugs rashly either, so he could only say, "Stop stop stop, I order you all to stop right now and tell me what happened. Otherwise... OTHERWISE I'M GONNA BUTT IN TOO!" Then he flashed open his Wind Master fan. Ming Yi however, shoved him aside, "Move! Stop adding to the trouble!"
Just then, a sudden eerie breeze blew past, and the flames of the small campfire the four surrounded quivered with the eerie wind, dancing wildly. Silhouettes and shadows illuminated by the flames flickered madly, such that even the two one male one female divine statues on the altar seemed to be smiling but not, crying but not, exceedingly creepy. Ming Yi then dragged Shi Qingxuan up and said, alarmed, "Something's here."
Shi Qingxuan was first shoved by him head first to the ground in a heap and now was dragged up abruptly, he was dizzy and seeing stars, "MING-XIONG! CAN YOU PLEASE BE NICER TO ME!!!!"
"No time." Ming Yi said.
Xie Lian had been watching and staring at the two statues and suddenly said, "Look at their eyes!"
The four looked over and saw on the smiling faces of those two divine statues hung four lines of blood. From the eyes of those clay divine statues streamed tears of blood.
Divine statues that had been blessed in ceremonies and worshipped possessed certain repelling powers against evil. Even if evil wasn't warded off for miles, it typically still couldn't be defiled and abused by non humans. That Reverend of Empty Words was certainly powerful. Shi Qingxuan was still here and it made the statue of the Wind Master cry blood tears before the Wind Master himself. The tears of blood were growing thicker and heavier, dripping to the ground and gathering into a twisted, complex form. Shi Qingxuan was bewildered, "What's that thing? Is it... drawing?"
He couldn't make out just what shapes it was forming and he didn't go closer, only looking at it from different angles trying to figure it out. Soon after, Xie Lian suddenly snapped out of it: it wasn't a drawing, it was an upside down word!
He immediately shouted, "DON'T LOOK! IT'S WRITTEN FOR YOU!"
Ming Yi struck out a palm and BOOM! Both the traces of blood on the ground and the two divine statues were blasted into pieces. Shi Qingxuan was eyes wide with shock, "Ming-xiong! You... you you you, you can't let my brother know about this, otherwise he'll never forgive you!"
To destroy a heavenly official's divine statue was to be extremely disrespectful of said heavenly official. Yet today, Ming Yi first cracked the establishment plaque into two then blasted the statues into pieces. This was no different than bashing down someone's household then soundly slapping the face of said household's old master. If this went out and the person in question found out, they wouldn't sit back and do nothing; who knows if a bloody storm would rise from it.
Just then, Xie Lian inadvertently turned his head and suddenly noticed the plaque that they broke earlier and properly set aside had characters that weren't quite right. That establishment plaque had a blue base and golden letters with the words "Temple of Wind and Water", but now the words had turned into twisted, bloody red shapes, seemingly forming the word "Death".
In a blink of a second, he covered Shi Qingxuan's eyes and yelled in the communication array, "CLOSE YOUR EYES!"
"WHAT NOW?!" Shi Qingxuan shouted back.
"Nothing. But the words on the establishment plaque of your temple have changed too. That creature knows you can't hear anymore so it's changed to writing." Xie Lian explained.
"The hell!" Shi Qingxuan exclaimed, "Now I can't hear anything nor see anything, am I not both deaf and blind?!"
Xie Lian let go of his hands and said, "Don't worry, just calm down. We're here for you."
Ming Yi grabbed hold of Shi Qingxuan's back collar and dragged him aside. Shi Qingxuan still had his eyes closed and he put his palms together as in a prayer, "So reassuring!"
Just as the words left his mouth, there was suddenly a huge noisy commotion that came from just outside the rundown temple. Black blurs crossed Xie Lian's eyes and the next moment, there was a large rowdy crowd of people howling like devils and they poured in like blackened tide.
The crowd was truly full of bizarre strangeness, weird forms and monstrous shapes. Some had decapitated heads, some were hanged, some had large blades piercing their skulls, some had their abdomens cut open... all sorts. Shi Qingxuan couldn't hear and couldn't see, but instinctively sensed the footsteps all around were disorderly and chaotic, and in the ruckus he was also pushed around a couple times. He asked in the communication array, bewildered, "What's going on? What's come? Why are there suddenly so many people???"
"It's nothing major," Xie Lian said, "It's the night parade of the Bloody Fire Social. Let's just get out of here."
The Bloody Fire Social of some regions, other than parades in the day, sometimes there would be further entertainment in the night. Not only did the parading performers want to get their fill of scaring people, many common people also had the urge to do the same, thus, they would imitate the eerie makeup of the Bloody Fire Social and use the dark of night to come out and scare others. Unfortunately the four of them seemed to have run into such a group of night cruisers.
This rowdy crowd of ordinary common people didn't have the same realistic, intricate makeup as the parading troupes, but they were nevertheless formidable due to sheer numbers, and was quite the sight to behold. Especially with the dimmed skies, their appearances were exceedingly ghastly. Thus, towns that had such after hours entertainment, on the night of Bloody Fire Social, the locals would all lock up tightly, keeping indoors. Those night cruisers had been wandering about for some time, and when they finally saw there were people inside the broken shrine, they were quite excited as if they spotted prey, and in an instant over fifty of them charged in, overcrowding that small temple.
The four of them were drowned in the pandemonium; Xie Lian kept looking back but could only see Hua Cheng who was still next to him, never more than two steps away, and the other two were pushed more than seven to eight feet away. He shouted, "Everyone, let's get out!"
However, among the night cruisers, some were purely there for fun, but there were others who were shrewd small merchants, there specifically to scam some money from tourists who had come from afar to watch the Bloody Fire Social. They blocked them, not letting them leave, clingy and tenacious as they cajoled, "Young masters, grant us some rewards!"
"We worked so hard to dress up, if you had fun then grant us some rewards!"
"Yea, it ain't easy for us either, and this is only a once a year thing!"
"If you don't reward us watch out for the Old Ghost Master who'll come haunt you!"
Since this whole affair had nothing to do with him, Hua Cheng only watched from the side, not a single bit anxious, so when he heard he only laughed out loud, "Well now, I like to see what kind of ghost dare come knocking on my door!"
Just then, as Xie Lian swept a look at the crowd, he suddenly saw at the edge a pale faced hanged ghost who was just smiling creepily as it wrapped a rope around someone's neck.
Although it was riotous all around and everyone was covered in blood, their faces askew, endlessly enacting you kill me, I kill you, you're now dead, I'm now dead, and oftentimes there'd be someone who's wail and fall, hard to differentiate the real from the fake, still Xie Lian's instincts told him that 'person' wasn't right, and he threw out his arm. Ruoye flew out and struck that hanged ghost squarely on the head.
Sure enough, that hanged ghost wailed and turned into a wisp of black smoke, fleeing through a small crack in the ground. No one around noticed but Xie Lian saw everything clearly. He warned in the communication array, "Everyone be careful! Something's here mixed within!"
Compared to earlier, there seemed to be an added cloud of evil within the Temple of Wind and Water; it naturally wouldn't be the Reverend of Empty Words but some little minions that came from who knows where. Having enacted ghosts for so long, there would for sure be a day real ones be attracted. To have them show up right now, it really was adding oil to fire. There really was too many people, too much chaos in the temple, heads knocking heads, feet stepping on feet, too difficult to determine just who that essence of evil came from. Xie Lian grabbed Hua Cheng and ran out of the Temple of Wind and Water. He was about to ask after the others but found he didn't have enough powers, that his power was almost depleted and couldn't enter the communication array. In that moment of urgency he turned to Hua Cheng, "San Lang, lend me a bit of spiritual power, I'll pay you back later!"
Of course, his "I'll pay you back later" was nonsense. He had never been able to pay back any powers he borrowed. "Alright." Hua Cheng said, then extended his hand to hold Xie Lian's. Xie Lian could faintly feel warmth passing over, and it just so happened a few bloody individuals came running out of the temple straight for him. The last one behind who was dropping innards as he ran, his face full of livor mortis, setting off a faint essence of evil, and without thinking, Xie Lian raised his hand to blast a shot from his palm.
A booming sound like that of an explosion was heard, and at the same time, a blinding white light flashed. It was only after a good moment before Xie Lian came to.
The place where that ghost with the cut belly was mixed with the crowd had only a mound of black ash like residue. As for the Temple of Wind and Water before them, the entire rooftop was blown away. The rioting night cruisers in the temple were all stilled, frozen in shock from that booming sound and that white light.
"..."
Xie Lian raised his head to look at that Temple of Wind and Water with a missing roof then looked down at his own hand before finally slowly turning his head back around to look at the Hua Cheng standing behind him. Hua Cheng smiled at him, "It that enough?"
"..."
"It is." Xie Lian said, "Actually... really, just a little bit, would've been fine."
"That was a little bit," Hua Cheng said, "Do you want more? You can have as much as you want."
Xie Lian immediately shook his head. Before, he had also borrowed spiritual power from Shi Qingxuan, Nan Feng, and others, and they lent very generously. However, Xie Lian had never experienced such a feeling, as if all the blood in his veins had turned into electricity and was charging through his body. If it's said the powers he borrowed from before had to be economized and saved, taking one bite at a time afraid to waste it, then now, he felt like he could eat one full bowl and throw away ten others and it wouldn't be a problem.
The powers Hua Cheng passed onto him was too great, filling his entire body, to the point where Xie Lian was almost afraid to move, scared that with just a wave of his hand, something else next to him was going to explode. Using the temporary calm of their surroundings, he hurriedly entered the communication array and asked, "Lord Wind Master, where are you? I've left the temple but I didn't see you."
"Ugh, my god..." Shi Qingxuan groaned inside the communication array, "Your Highness why did your voice suddenly turn so loud? I left the Temple of Wind and Water too."
Xie Lian lowered a bit of the power and replied, "Sorry, I'm having some trouble controlling it. How did you leave? Are you alright?" Shi Qingxuan had his ears plugged and eyes closed right now.
"Pff, how else could I have left? Ming-xiong pulled me out. Thank goodness I wasn't trampled to death by that crowd." Shi Qingxuan said.
Soon after, Ming Yi's voice also sounded in the spiritual communication array. However, his words froze the small smile that only just surfaced on Xie Lian's face. "That's wasn't me!" He said.
It wasn't?!
Oh no! Xie Lian whipped his head around, "LORD WIND MASTER! JUST WHO WAS IT THAT PULLED YOU AWAY?!"