Chapter 152 Ajarn has yet to...
Ajarn's face, which had remained unchanged until now, showed a strange expression. He was going to marry Pingyu, so what was the meaning of her calling her boyfriend over?
To play the role of a sleeping husband?
After uttering these two sentences, Pingyu turned her head away and said no more. Ajarn was not very familiar with Taoist culture, so he naturally did not understand the meaning of the Hun Tian Ling and Qian Kun Quan. He knew that Nezha had some abilities, so he assumed that Pingyu had not given up and wanted the young Taoist priest to save her.
Just as the stalemate was at hand, there was a knock on the door.
Ping Yu shifted a sliver of his gaze, and Ajarn said, "Come in."
The door opened a crack, and the person who entered was not a pilgrim, but a monk dressed in a "dragon robe." The monk put his hands together respectfully and said, "Ajarn, someone is looking for you."
His bow caused a gust of wind to blow the door open slightly. Pingyu sighed inwardly upon hearing that a new pilgrim had arrived. She turned her head, wanting to see who this person was about to be dragged into the mire. Looking up, she saw a dashing young woman standing beside the monk.
She was dressed all in black, with her hair tied in a high ponytail, and didn't look like someone who would be superstitious. Pingyu noticed a string of small Bodhi seed beads hanging from her wrist, and on top of that, a small wooden sword.
.....Taoist priest?
Pingyu's eyes widened, about to take a closer look. But at that moment, Ajarn stepped forward, blocking her way. The handsome woman seemed to glance at her as well, then said to Ajarn, "I'd like to ask you to perform a consultation; the price is negotiable."
Ajarn stepped outside. "Please come with me," he said, closing the door behind him. After a while, making sure Ajarn and the others had left, Pingyu stepped forward and grasped the doorknob. Perhaps certain that Pingyu couldn't escape the building, Azan didn't lock the door. The moment she stepped outside, everyone sitting outside turned around simultaneously. Their eyes were empty, staring blankly at Pingyu.
Pingyu laughed awkwardly, retreated back into the room, and considerately closed the door.
Pingyu believed Nezha would arrive soon. However, before he arrived, she decided to search Ajarn's room first. Apart from the various deities and Buddhas, there were no other decorations in the room. The only furnishings were numerous mahogany cabinets, and Pingyu opened all the closed drawers one by one, as if she were opening a blind box. Inside, besides some scriptures and Tantric thangkas, Pingyu found a photo album.
Its outer cover was made of red velvet, without any engravings. Since Ajarn had locked her in this building, Pingyu no longer cared about his privacy. She simply hugged the photo album and sat on the sofa.
She opened the photo album, and what caught her eye was an old photograph.
.
The image is black and white.
Inside the incense and candle shop outside, an old woman pulled a newspaper from among the clutter. This folded newspaper was an old edition; when laid flat, it almost filled the entire table. It was a newspaper from six months ago, covered in a thick layer of dust. The old woman blew on it forcefully, coughing violently. Nezha pulled the newspaper over; the black and white image on it was exactly the same as the photo in Ping Yu's red photo album.
The old woman's withered fingers reached into Nezha's line of sight. She drew circles on the paper and covered the volunteer's face, saying, "She was Master Tai's youngest daughter, and she's dead."
Immediately afterwards, her finger slid to the side.
Standing next to the volunteer was an elderly man in white. He looked very old, with skin that hung down like tree bark, and all exposed skin was covered with age spots. The old woman continued, "He is Master Tai."
Nezha understood: "He peeled off a human skin."
Even tigers don't eat their cubs, yet humans can easily harm their own children. Changing one's appearance through skinning is common among evil cultivators, and Nezha was used to it. The next second, the ghost boy who had flown far away returned. He was carrying the old lady's smartphone, which was displaying a news article.
"My lord, my lord, look here!"
Nezha squinted and looked carefully for a while. The silence made him release his pressure, making the two people waiting beside him unable to breathe.
After a long pause, Nezha said coldly, "I don't understand."
He's from a thousand years ago, not some modern-day Nezha... How come everyone here is so clueless!
The ghost child froze on the spot, cautiously glancing at Nezha several times. The old lady tapped the screen twice, selecting AI voice. Instantly, a cold, electronic female voice rang out from the phone: "Title: Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum Suspected of Being Robbed."
Nezha scrolled down and saw several accompanying pictures.
The picture showed a pit about the size of a person in the ground, surrounded by a fence covered with yellow and black sealing strips. Nezha glanced at the surroundings and knew the tomb raider was quite skilled. The opening likely led directly to the core of the tomb. Based on this information, Nezha made a rough deduction. Although the sentence structure was a question, Nezha stated it as a statement: "His ability to take human faces comes from stealing artifacts from the tomb?"
“Yes,” the old woman and the ghost boy said in unison. The old man continued, “I don’t know if he stole or bought this artifact, but it’s in his possession. That artifact is called the Nine Netherworld Soul Mask.”
Legend has it that this object can steal human skin, control corpses, and then collect the souls of others for its own use. However, this object is too ferocious. During an experiment, the mask went out of control and backfired, turning the entire secret workshop into a death trap. All the sorcerers and craftsmen were killed after having their masks stolen, and their whereabouts became unknown. If those tomb raiders did indeed steal the Nine Netherworld Soul-Binding Mask from Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum, it would prove that this malevolent magical artifact was controlled by the First Emperor from beginning to end.
Whether he used it to achieve his own goals remains unknown to later generations.
Nezha detested evil and malevolent things the most, and if he found such an object, he would destroy it on the spot. However, there was one thing that made Nezha suspicious after hearing the old man's words. He asked, "Judging from the tone of the person in the black box, you seem to be quite strict in guarding ancient artifacts. If that's the case, since such an evil object has fallen into his hands, why hasn't anyone come to retrieve it?"
"This..." The old lady hesitated for a long time, "I don't know either."
Nezha showed no mercy: "What use are you?"
The old woman sobbed.
The ghost child said, “I was one of the first ghost children to follow him. When Ajarn was in Thailand, he made a living by making ghost children for people, but because the number of dead children was limited, the number he made was small. What those tomb raiders stole from the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum was indeed the Nine Netherworld Soul Mask that you are talking about. It was difficult to sell in China, so they smuggled themselves into my country. Because Ajarn made ghost children, he spent his days with human souls. When he heard that the Nine Netherworld Soul Mask had such effects, he did not hesitate to give up half of his family fortune to buy it. When the tomb raiders sold the mask, they also gave them a message. They said that in remote villages in China, there are countless infant spirits that can be used. They are extremely yin and poisonous, which is the best material for making ghost children. That's why Ajarn moved from Thailand to here.”
"However, he is quite old, and the mask's effectiveness needs to be tested. So..."
He robbed his family of their face.
Collect their souls.
They replaced the heart, liver, spleen, stomach, and kidneys of their family members.
Those who do evil deeds will be punished by heaven, mostly by targeting the family members of wicked people. But if Ajarn kills his own family members first, the divine punishment will not fall on him for a while.
At this point, the infant spirit suddenly fell silent. He thought of the gods in China, who had good relationships with both the heavens and the underworld, unlike the gods and Buddhas of Thailand, who were entangled in love and hate. Nezha looked at its increasingly wary expression with suspicion, when suddenly he heard the old lady sigh beside him. The old woman stopped pretending to cry and instead took out a pair of high-quality, soundproof earphones from a drawer and put them on the baby in the swaddling clothes. She said, "Because the place with an inexhaustible supply of infant spirits is in this area, Ajarn came here. It just so happened that I had just given birth at that time, and babies are prone to losing their souls if they stay in incense shops for too long. Moreover, nowadays people rarely burn paper money to worship their ancestors; they usually burn incense electronically on their phones. So I wanted to sell this ancestral business. The Thai master wanted it, and the price he offered was reasonable, so I gave him the shop."
"Who knew that he would later do something earth-shattering."
Nezha asked, "What important matter?"
People tend to be more respectful when discussing matters of ghosts and spirits. The old woman clasped her hands together and lowered her eyes. Her voice trembled as she said, "He... he killed the ghost messenger."
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