Chapter 65 "The Little Taoist Priest" The Aphrodisiac Powder, the Mandarin Ducks, and Jiu Lang appear. ...

In the midst of my inner monologue, there's an advertisement in traditional Chinese characters for hiring programmers, next to which is written "No living people allowed."

Behind two vermilion doors, a brass censer covered with gold and silver paper and incense sticks stuck upside down filled the air with the lingering scent of incense, a scent that seemed to suggest an unfulfilled prayer.

Back at the bottom, the narrator and the little system are reporting to their boss about the early opening of the murder mystery game "Little Taoist Priest".

The superior, sitting in the underworld, remained unmoved, asking, "How many cycles of reincarnation have these mortals entered so far?"

"The third one just ended. Logically, they shouldn't be thinking about what happened next. Our rule is that if one party looks back, the game contract that allows them to take another person's soul becomes invalid," the narrator replied. Even someone as indifferent as him now suspected that someone on the inside might have let them win. Heh.

Small system: ...

It has a very close relationship with its host, but this is about work...

The little system was sweating profusely: "Lord Earth Official, please forgive me, I swear it's not!! It must be that the Rinnegan is bugged! Although the drop rate in the gacha pool is so low that many paying customers have emailed us complaining about our control over the drop rate, there are always some lucky ones among the wandering ghosts!! It's fine if the fourth dungeon is opened earlier! It's difficult! If things go wrong, it might make two people realize that life and death are irreversible and give up!"

The black-faced Earth God, with a crescent moon between his brows, looked at the small white paper figure clutching his chest, as if it were covered in arrows, and then looked at another small black paper figure.

The humanoid black figure spoke in the narrator's indifferent voice:

"Although it has always been foolish, it dares not let the 'guests' go."

"These two players seem to have had a few good meals in the human world and are now remembering their past emotions and desires, the cycle of life. But they are ultimately 'guests,' not living people. Once a cycle ends, they will automatically return to where our game started, just like all the other 'guests' in this place..."

That being said...

Our company has already set the flag for these players to fail three times already, and looking back at the current situation, it's truly a headache and a cause for great concern.

In the Mirror of Reincarnation, the dashing young Taoist priest in blue robes stood up, holding a peach wood sword, surrounded by a group of soldiers with fierce expressions.

—The incantation begins.

—Summon the gods!

—Boom!

The smoke dissipated, and he had vanished without a trace. This move only fueled the panic among the officials, who shouted, "A demon! It's truly a demon! Quickly, summon that gentleman from the Celestial Master's Mansion! Only Master Zhong can save Qingyang County!"

——

In the tenth year of the Republic of China, in Qingyang, on the outskirts, ten years after a shot was fired in Nanjing, a Western influence was brought into this remote and impoverished place. When the gentry and students who had been to other provinces returned, they preferred to address each other as "sir" or "gentleman," rather than the rustic "brother" or "brave man."

However, everyone still referred to any intruder as a "demon," and Jian Burang's name quickly made it onto the county's blacklist. He also earned the infamous title of being the third adulterer of the adulteress Xiaomei.

Qingyang is a desolate and decaying isolated county, with many mountains and wild foxes, and little farmland around it. Because men are not allowed to marry outside the county and women are not allowed to marry outside the county, the clans here are very united, and they have taken feudal ethics, religious beliefs, and incense worship to the extreme. There is another problem with this kind of place: people are very talkative and have rich imaginations. They can kill you without a knife, but with their own set of rules and etiquette, they can verbally attack you, drown you, or bury you.

Jian Dieda thought it was clever of the demon to frame a weak woman for a crime in such a place.

Because the characters in the story are so stubborn and inflexible, it only needs to hide behind the scenes to see a group of people foolishly killing an innocent reformed prostitute.

"There is also a young man who is male."

Master Jian thought to himself expressionlessly.

The idea that he was attracted to men had been planted in his mind sometime during his last trip home, which explained his resistance when Xiaomei proposed marriage. Where this muscle intuition, which required no memory, came from was unimportant; his current priority was finding clues about demon-hunting and the other main characters in the script.

He's already seen as Jian Burang by everyone else; even if the plot doesn't follow, the plot will find him, just like that scene at the old house at the beginning of the story.

According to the task panel provided by Tongzi who had just briefly logged in and then disappeared, a group of people did indeed appear on the mountain road. They were two men and one woman. The one on the left in the mandarin jacket was called Bai Xiaosheng, the one in the middle with the square face was Gu Dongzhang, and the woman was as beautiful as a flower. She was Furong Dan, the only female among the nine demon hunters of Qingyang Town.

She followed in the footsteps of Zhao Laosi and his group, searching for the young Taoist priest who could use the 'Thunder Spell'. Ordinary people, unaware of the ways of Qimen Dunjia, misunderstood the personal disciple of Master Shou Kang. The three of them couldn't miss the opportunity to find clues. Unexpectedly, Jian Dieda disappeared in a flash. Furong Dan quickly changed her mind, using a human skin mask to transform into Zhao Laosi's appearance. She then ordered two companions to use sleeping potion and incense to knock out the others. Finally, she quietly brought Xiaomei to their temporary residence in the small courtyard in the city.

Following the route indicated by the prostitute, they searched the place but still couldn't find any trace of the young Taoist priest.

Fortunately, Furong Dan managed to steal some files, and she also observed the streets and alleys of Qingyang.

To be fair, the brutal skinning of these two men disturbed the lives of the people in the county. The officials tried to stop them several times, but many people were still busy setting up altars and performing rituals. People were truly afraid of the mighty demon.

They felt even more strongly that the task of exorcising the demon together could not be delayed. They took down the notice in the city and walked amidst the incessant chatter of Antique Zhang, who said, "I heard there are demons around here, let's retreat." Furong Dan chuckled charmingly.

"The Nine Sects have truly fallen into disrepair. Not only can they not even capture the legendary red monster, but they also dare not do their duty to protect their hometown. This young lady has truly broadened her horizons."

The Nine Sects, also known as the main characters, are referred to by Jian Dieda as the Underworld Suicide Squad.

The ancestors of these nine individuals had all captured the legendary Teng Snake, Fox Demon, and Jade Qilin Lion Beast together. Later, the nuns and laypeople returned to their respective positions and only communicated in special ways.

However, what they didn't know was that, besides the screenwriter Jian who inexplicably arrived early at this Chinese horror film set and successfully reached Qingyang Town, there were also five extra characters who only needed to cosplay and were already eaten halfway through the opening by a red-clothed demon who hadn't even shown his face, leaving them as bloody, mangled remains. The biggest suspense in the story was that even Master Jian didn't know if the 'demon' was actually the three protagonists under the forest pretending to be him.

According to the main storyline, the remaining five core members will form a mountain village demon-hunting team to investigate the red-clothed demon, but will mistakenly enter the Human Skin Inn and be killed one by one.

This story is really hard to cast... Jane Dieda counted herself on her fingers and suddenly realized that one person was missing.

He has face blindness and ADHD, and being mentally withdrawn, he simply cannot remember the amount of information in books and movies.

He only remembered that there were five people: a woman, a man, a man, a man, a man... So who was the last man?

Jian Dieda asked for help: "System?"

The system returned. "Hello, this round of non-exchangeable notifications. The last NPC... he will appear when he is supposed to." The little bald system's voice sounded like a human machine for the first time.

Without much thought, Jane Dieda naturally became curious about this male character whose full picture was unknown.

In "Strange Tales of Qingyang County", he is portrayed as the eldest disciple of the Maoshan Taoist Shou Kang. He was born with supernatural abilities and the power to summon lightning. He is the true ACE combatant of the team, and he is quite ruthless and doesn't talk much. No wonder the three of them wanted to drag the young Taoist into the fire pit.

However, just like in the script, Furong Dan is clearly a chivalrous opera woman. Pointing to the mountain path ahead, she says, "That Xiao Mei is definitely not the murderer. The great demon in red is someone else entirely, and it is the one we have been trying to unravel for generations—"

"Hey! You can't say that name—" Antique Zhang was terrified and hurriedly shouted in an attempt to break the terrifying curse left by the demon to the demon hunters of the Qingyang Nine Schools. Furong Dan was furious and cursed, "It's just a demon!"

Bai Xiaosheng sighed and had no choice but to join the conversation: "Please calm down, Fairy Maiden."

Furong Dan: "Calm down? I'd like to ask you, aren't you learned and knowledgeable about all kinds of monsters in the world? Do you think you can see through the truth behind this strange case?"

Bai Xiaosheng: "No."

Furong Dan: "A useless person is truly worthless."

Bai Xiaosheng: "The fairy is wrong."

The girl with the hibiscus gave a chilling smile and said, "What's wrong with that?" The man with the round glasses sighed politely.

“There is a saying in traditional Qimen Dunjia that the more enlightened a person is about the secrets of heaven, the more congenital defects they will have in their body, which is called ‘five deficiencies and three lacks’. Such people may appear to be disabled, but they can basically become the most powerful celestial masters and the most skilled Taoist masters. Their abilities are far greater than those of us ordinary people. If we were really useless, how could we be here here, blindly stumbling upon dead mice?”

As expected of the all-knowing scholar, his sarcastic remark reached this point, and he lightly stroked the chain of his glasses, taking out the dossier he had looted from Zhao Laosi, and said:

“Miss Furong, Uncle Zhang, catching demons is our duty, but protecting the villagers is the meaning behind this duty. Two murders have already occurred. In my opinion, once the demon is stained with blood, it will soon harm innocent people again. We should not panic. Let’s stop the third murder first and minimize the damage.”

"There are three main crime scenes in this case. I've investigated them. The inn next door where the corpses and heads were found was run by a woman and a child. There were no men at home. The female innkeeper was a kind-hearted vegetarian who never raised the tea price even during the famine. However, there was a slaughterhouse in Cilonggou, where the leg bones were dug up. If they were secretly committing murder and robbery behind the government's back, and then stewing those human bones with pig and cow bones, that would be..."

Cilonggou?

Isn't this the place where the original owner of this body 'met a disaster' in his mind? A bloody image and a vengeful blood bat formation with a sinister laugh floated into his mind. Now he roughly knew how the little Taoist priest lost his life when he went down the mountain.

The demon wanted to defeat them one by one, but he interfered in the process. Fortunately, the trio traveled together and escaped disaster. Moreover, they avoided the most dangerous place, Cilonggou.

Sitting halfway up the mountain, Jian Dieda felt he should revisit the inn and the blood array, but the key issue was...

"Master, I am a young Taoist priest now, not an old demon pretending to be a Taoist priest in the body of a demon, right?"

In a sudden flash of inspiration, Jian Dieda, without any sense of self-awareness, said, "After all, I'm quite capable."

He squatted down and thought again.

"Could it be that 'I' am a demon?"

Everyone is searching for the legendary monster, but they are most likely to fall into blindly seeking verification while ignoring clues, and I am no exception.

System: "..."

In a daze, everything is booming and lively, hahaha.

Wow, someone's gotten really into playing the werewolf!

Or has our company gone mad?

Because of the lessons learned in the last world, Jane is now a high-risk player for mistrust, and in this world she will only be given the lowest level of clues...

The bald guy decided to play dumb to the end.

"Go for it, host teacher, with the determination to die! Friendly reminder: you are human, but when you're being handsome, you often don't look human."

Jane Dieda said, "Yeah, I know I'm handsome."

But then he learned that there was another character in the original movie, the one Bai Xiaosheng had just mentioned who was 'lacking in five things and lacking in three things'. As a player from another world, he discovered a bug—that powerful descendant of the Celestial Master, Zhong… something, this person doesn’t seem to have appeared in the movie?

Could you please find the cast list for this "Master Zhong"?

Just as Jian Dieda was about to continue thinking, his mind was interrupted by the narrator's interjection.

[Congratulations to the host for unlocking the 'Cilonggou' corpse-raising site map.]

As you suspected, it was a special environment (with a hidden entrance to the ghost realm) – ten years ago, a village or town in the human world broke its seal after the death of its last guardian. As the protagonist, you are burdened with the mystery of the previous Taoist priest's tragic death and must prevent the leakage of demonic power in order to find the murderer...

[Side Quest Issued: First, infiltrate the city and use 12 hours to repair the damaged peach wood sword x1]

[Main Quest Awaiting Unlock: Second Exploration of Cilonggou]

[Werewolf Night Safety Warning: Do not stray far from the vicinity of Zhong Kui Celestial Master's Mansion in Qingyang Town]

After the narrator finished speaking, he left, and Tongzi also left with her. Halfway up the mountain, they passed a oxcart driver. Furong Dan thought that Xiaomei was still in the county town, so she and the two demon hunters returned to their starting point.

The desolate earthen slope, with only the Taoist head straw marker behind the haystacks, seemed to exude a sense of desolation.

Jian Dieda looked at the water-tainted peach wood sword in his hand, not knowing how to repair it for a moment. Besides, did this Qimen Dunjia technique really exist in this other world? Like summoning lightning... He didn't see any skill trial description on the panel.

Judging from Bai Xiaosheng's words, his master must have passed down the secret method of protecting the seal in the form of a book, but who should he ask to repair the formation?

In the vast Qingyang County, there are NPCs in front and demons behind, but he is the only player.

The wandering knight 'Jian Burang,' who spent his first night in Qingyang County, could not escape the clutches of the Overnight System and could only begin his daily quests.

That night, a dark figure appeared inside the coffin in the mortuary of the city. Ah Liu, the night watchman, closed the wooden door and left the yellow paper and a bowl of meat for the "guest" as usual. After a while, a pair of hands reached out and stuffed the dry food of the dead into his mouth. He also sensed the abnormality in the city amidst the faint barking of dogs.

At the first watch of the night, the sky was frighteningly dark.

Xiaomei was arrested, and her two husbands didn't even have time to be buried; their coffins were right next to them.

Perhaps because they had gained nothing during the day, Furong Dan and Bai Xiaosheng came to the mortuary again. The two of them pushed aside the crude array set up by the geomancer, and the beautiful female demon hunter was cursing someone's name in great displeasure.

She was cursing someone with the surname Zhong...

“That Zhong Ding! How disloyal! You even claim to be a descendant of Zhong Kui, the Celestial Master! I think he's just a weirdo, a cold-blooded, selfish cripple with a twisted and gloomy mind…”

"He deserves it; being abandoned by God is his punishment."

Jian Dieda suddenly opened his extremely dark black pupils in the night. His expression was numb, yet strange, as he pondered.

The male and female demon hunters outside were strangers to him. The young Taoist priest, who did not trust them, held his peach wood sword across his arm, paused to cool them down, crossed his arms slightly, and continued to listen to their conversation with a blank expression.

Bai Xiaosheng said, "You shouldn't say that, Miss Furong. Master Zhong is the only demon sealer we can rely on..."

He said he couldn't do anything about it!

"..."

"He doesn't even want to show his face! Bah! What a coward!"

The sorceress, in a fit of rage, swung her hand across the gold and silver paper on the mortuary table, shattering the eerie atmosphere scattered on the floor. Bai Xiaosheng couldn't soothe her, nor dared he provoke her further. He turned and closed the wooden door before sitting down, smoothing his jacket sleeves, and sighing with the same worry as during the day:

"You know, we haven't found the demon, and we can't even see the people. And that Taoist brother, he refuses to show himself. Could it be that the demon..."

Furong Dan: "..."

Everyone knew that the demon was hiding in Qingyang and was good at disguising himself. Bai Xiaosheng was behind her, carefully observing the woman's expression.

Jane Dieda glanced at the two of them.

He suddenly realized that Bai Xiaosheng was also guessing.

Furong Dan regained her voice and said decisively,

"Even if all the reliable men are dead, I, your grandma, will still catch that great demon. Do you think we women are afraid of such evil spirits and heretics?!"

After saying this, it seemed that the biggest obstacle this old lady couldn't get over was the descendant of Master Zhong who refused to help the three of them. Jian Dieda was listening attentively at first, but later he realized that Furongdan probably didn't know anything about Master Zhong. The things she made up were almost all hearsay, rumors, and what others were saying...

I've heard from others that the Zhong family is skilled at creating a demon-catching artifact called the "Meat Double Path".

Double-path, a type of card game.

Minister Wang Tianhua flattered Yan Shifan by using brocade robes to create points, similar to Go pieces, and using beautiful women as Go pieces, moving them on a large Go board according to the moves of the pieces.

This treasure was later absorbed by the Qimen Dunjia system and became a secret treasure used by Master Zhong to seal away various demons.

Jian Dieda also heard the girl outside the coffin say that Master Zhong was a handsome man with long hair whose face was so long that it was hard to tell whether he was male or female. The demon-hunting community always suspected that he was not a fully grown adult male because he was always covered in red, with a bewitching and charming appearance. His laughter alone could make people faint. Moreover, he had an inexhaustible charm even towards young men who got close to him. His face was as beautiful as if it had been painted with fine brushstrokes, with a charming beauty that neither men nor women could match. In addition, he wore a red robe and had a fox-shaped jade pendant at his waist. He was truly a demon and monster that was more frightening to Taoist priests than any ghost in the world...

At that moment, Bai Xiaosheng's voice came from outside the coffin: "Grandma, that's an exaggeration."

"When a Taoist priest goes down the mountain, he must not break the precepts, and he must not let his heart be moved by the Tao."

The only two listeners in the mortuary remained silent.

They left later.

A short while later, the door creaked open.

Jian Dieda thought it was Bai Xiaosheng returning, but it turned out to be Furong Dan. The woman looked carefree, but her expression became much calmer and stronger after she walked in. No one can read the thoughts of each NPC through the screen, but Jian Dieda understood.

Furong Dan is also guessing.

She was pondering who the real demon was.

It turns out that everyone is actually quite intelligent. This murder mystery game, which completely went out of control and collapsed without the script, is actually quite interesting.

Master Jian was in no hurry to show himself. What is a murder mystery game? It's that everyone has to hold onto their biggest secret and not be kicked out of the game prematurely. He, who inherited the original owner's storyline, had already lost his memory. He might as well sleep and wait for dawn to come, and see if there would be another murder in Qingyang County.

Unlike real NPCs, the system barely intervened this time and didn't suddenly change scenes or maps. He could feel the normal flow of time. Jian Dieda's Taoist robe was already as tattered as a rag, and like the peach wood sword, it didn't refresh overnight.

When Jian Dieda was in the local area, he followed the local customs and walked around the streets. Many beggars regarded him as one of their own.

A butcher shop came up ahead.

Taoist priests in the Republic of China era would go down the mountain to beg for alms.

Otherwise, one would have to drink alcohol with soy sauce and eat stones to stave off hunger.

Jian Dieda glanced at the braised pig's snout in front of him, walked closer to the butcher, and the vendor, a shrewd man, casually gave the young, poor Taoist priest a piece of fatty pork on credit. The young, impoverished Taoist, who had just been crying for his mother from hunger, reached out, tossed the meat into his mouth, and before he could even chew it, it all slid down his throat.

The vendor was amused and picked up a ladle to add another bowl of porridge to the Taoist priest's bowl. This time, the Taoist priest, who didn't even bother to style his hair in the traditional Taoist style, completely lowered his head.

The poor Taoist priest's life was saved, but this strange change happened unexpectedly.

Because his peach wood sword moved slightly at that moment.

The streets were crowded with people. A large sedan chair with vermilion reliefs and gold trim came from afar. A poor young Taoist priest with greasy lips heard someone call out, "It's Master Zhong. Master Zhong is above."

The pork vendor, oblivious to everything else, abandoned the unremarkable Jian Dieda and merged into the feudal and conservative atmosphere of Qingyang, where the owner of the sedan chair was highly revered.

Suddenly, three figures appeared on the second floor of an inn in the distance. Furong Dan, who was wearing a veil and flowers, looked at the sedan chair from the Celestial Master's Mansion with disgust.

Her gaze searched downwards, and suddenly she spotted a person wearing a lotus crown and a blue-black robe. From the back, he looked like a Taoist practitioner.

She was overjoyed, "Look over there!"

But the next second, the crowd started moving again.

Bai Xiaosheng and Gu Dongzhang searched for Jian Dieda's fleeting shadow. Strangely, as the Zhong family's sedan chair left, the Taoist priests in the crowd also disappeared.

After failing to find the person twice, the group had to pass each other by again.

It wasn't until noon that the head of the Zhong family opened the courtyard gate.

He stepped out of the sedan chair, holding the curtain with his hand. His slender hands, adorned with gold rings, revealed a red robe that was faintly visible in the sunlight. His long hair reached his waist. His servants even brought him a wooden wheelchair made by Westerners for the disabled.

"..."

The fifth uncle of the Zhong family came over to push the head of the family. All the maids and servants also greeted Master Zhong at the front door. Jian Dieda, who came in through the back door, did not see the man once along the way. At this moment, he passed by the kitchen and saw that the NPCs were not there. Feeling hungry again, Jian Dieda picked up a few cold dumplings and tasted them.

"...Just like him, the peach wood sword was still trembling."

Ever since the bell and tripod came into his possession, the magical artifacts have been in this state.

This contradicts the task prompts received by J&D.

I tried to contact the system administrator, but they weren't there.

Jian Dieda could only rely on himself. As he entered the house, he didn't forget to fill his stomach. After all, he couldn't just go straight in and kidnap the NPC. While thinking about this, he ate all the food in the Zhong family's kitchen: cold noodles, chive filling, and dumplings with large pleats that tasted a bit raw when they cooled down. He ate like a beggar until his stomach felt uncomfortable and he felt like vomiting, but he didn't stop. He was prepared to patiently wait until night to continue looking for clues about the demon in the ancient town.

Uncle Zhong is dealing with the matter of Furong Dan and her family being refused entry when they came to visit. It was his decision not to allow the maid to reveal that Zhong Ding was not at home. Now that the head of the family has returned and discovered the whole story, the two of them have reached a disagreement.

There is a great demon in Qingyang.

The strange things that happened to Xiaomei were also brought up.

Those outside couldn't hear the masters' voices clearly, only the coughing of Zhong Tianshi, the paralyzed man with limited mobility. His fifth uncle was impatient; he had been waiting for a descendant for the family, and he had heard that Zhong Tianshi also intended to prevent the yamen from executing Xiaomei and to stop the town from paying tribute to the Cilonggou Mountain God. He couldn't sit still any longer. Since ordinary people couldn't persuade Zhong Ding, the elders simply used a bone-softening powder and acacia flowers on this stubborn young man. The old man went out and cast a soul-capturing bell on the head of the family's room.

As night fell, Jian came out and saw that the small and dark Celestial Master's Mansion was lit with red lanterns.

That paralyzed Taoist priest, that descendant of Zhong Kui, seemed to finally have a chance to verify his true identity.

Jane looked at the suspicious man in red inside the room. He was lying on the bed, his long, flowing hair draped over his back, and he looked very thin and exhausted. He had just returned from outside and was so tired that he could only lie down under the lamp. Although he was dressed in fine silks and satins and wore a gold ring on his left hand, his profile, with its prominent lips and nose, looked as lonely as a bamboo lamp on the screen.

Jane observed for a long time but didn't see him move.

He's quite the shut-in, actually.

He, a typical otaku in the real world, thought indifferently.

Unaware that he was being targeted by Furongdan and her group, he still hoped that Zhongding could help him repair the peach wood sword and submit the task given by the system.

In order to pass the level, the player opened the door of the Celestial Master.

A strong, sweet scent of aphrodisiac instantly ignited a passionate desire in the two men in the room, drawing them together in a fiery, intimate moment.

-----------------------

Author's Note: Jiulang is here! [heart eyes][heart eyes][heart eyes][heart eyes]