When the four first entered the ancestral hall, Black Tiger did not appear.
Black Tiger only appeared suddenly, blocking their way, after Ge Dalong triggered the underground mechanism. Zhang Shi sensed that there might be a secret hidden beneath the ancestral hall. While the two sides were fighting in the courtyard, he had already swaggered deep into the underground passage.
The secret passage wasn't deep. After descending a dozen or so steps, a faint light appeared before Zhang Shi's eyes.
Before us was a spacious stone chamber, its walls inlaid with luminous gems, just like the underground palace beneath Huo Youming's tomb.
Inside the stone chamber, countless memorial tablets were densely packed together, with a porcelain pot placed beneath each tablet. The material of the porcelain pots was unknown, and they shimmered with an eerie green light in the dim stone chamber.
Zhang Shi inspected the stone chamber and found no danger, so he opened a porcelain pot to check.
Upon opening the porcelain lid, a plume of black mist erupted from the pot, remarkably similar to the lost fog surrounding the village.
Zhang Shi was well aware of the danger posed by these porcelain pots and the black mist. After glancing inside the pot, he carefully placed it back in its original position to prevent more mist from escaping.
His gaze swept across the scene, and Zhang Shi saw a face distorted to the point of near deformity. He realized that these porcelain pots likely imprisoned beings of the soul type, and the mist was likely of the same origin as the Lost Mist outside.
Since Dingzhen wasn't on his person, Zhang Shi didn't dare touch the porcelain pot easily, so he turned his gaze to the memorial tablet.
Most of the memorial tablets bore the surname Huo, but one in the center was an exception that caught Zhang Shi's attention.
"The Position of the Ancestral God Anye"
Zhang Shi looked at the memorial tablet with suspicion. Although he knew very little about the etiquette and taboos in this regard, he could understand from the literal meaning that this Master An was of extraordinary status.
Why would the Huo family ancestral hall enshrine someone with a different surname?
The memorial tablets in this stone chamber are all the same in terms of material and size, but their placement is somewhat particular.
The ancestral tablet of An Ye was placed in the very center, surrounded by the tablets of other members of the Huo family. From a distance, the tablets were arranged neatly in all eight directions, somewhat resembling an array.
Zhang Shi hesitated for a moment, then carefully opened the porcelain pot of Grandpa An a crack. To his surprise, the pot was empty, without any spirit or mist.
Having experienced many strange things, Zhang Shi was no longer bothered by such things. Seeing that the room was empty, he casually took out Grandpa An's memorial tablet and the porcelain pot to examine them closely, but in the end, he found nothing unusual.
He put the items back exactly as they were. Although he could tell that the person who set up this formation had grand ambitions, Zhang Shi didn't destroy it for the time being. The four people outside were still fighting Black Tiger, and he didn't want to alert them so soon.
Zhang Shi searched for a long time but found no secret passage or place that required a key, so he turned and left.
Right at the start, the black tiger was hit by a Holy Silver Crossbow bolt.
This time, Zhang Shi saw a different side of the Black Tiger. Its body still seemed to melt away, turning into a pool of black sewage. Wisps of mist drifted in the sky, but instead of dissipating, they were drawn westward as if by some force.
Zhang Shi's eyes lit up. Ignoring the people in the courtyard, he strode off in the direction the mist was drifting.
When Zhang Shigang arrived at the foot of the low hill west of the village, he was greeted by a dense mass of figures covering the hillside.
These figures wandered aimlessly around the low hills, showing no reaction to Zhang Shi's arrival.
Zhang Shi had anticipated this and walked directly through the graveyard. When he stood at the highest point of the low hill, he saw a shadowy figure, as black as ink, holding a porcelain pot of the same style, collecting the wisp of black mist, while occasionally letting out a sinister "giggle."
Zhang Shi walked slowly in, stood in front of the phantom, stared at it with sharp eyes, and gripped and then loosened his grip on the old Duan in his hand.
A moment later, the black mist was completely absorbed by the porcelain pot, and the phantom quickly walked towards a tombstone.
Zhang Shi glanced at it; the tombstone belonged to "Huo Linjian".
The phantom tapped rhythmically on the stone tablet a few times, and a hidden compartment appeared in front of it. He carefully placed the porcelain pot into it, tapped the stone tablet a few more times, closed the compartment, and then sprinkled some dust on it to cover it up.
Zhang Shi noticed that there was another memorial tablet in the hidden compartment, which also belonged to Huo Linjian.
After doing all this, the phantom began to chuckle again, its body becoming somewhat solid. It then grabbed an evil spirit and swallowed it, before turning into a pool of dirty water that seeped into the ground and disappeared.
Zhang Shi looked at Huo Linjian's coffin, which was also empty.
"A soul wanders in the dark forest. An Ye, Lin Jian, is this another pun?"
Zhang Shi recalled the couplet on the wooden door at the village entrance, wondering what it was implying.
After a short wait, the group of four came into Zhang Shi's view.
Events unfolded just as Zhang Shi remembered. The group ventured deep into the graveyard, attracting the attention of the evil spirits.
Among them, an evil spirit closely followed behind Zhang Shi, one of the four, opening its large mouth as if to swallow him whole.
In the critical moment, Zhang Shi, holding Lao Duan, struck the evil spirit with the blade.
Old Duan slammed the evil spirit on the head with a powerful gust of wind, leaving it dazed and confused.
Zhang Shi, one of the four, also sensed something was wrong. He turned around and cleaved the evil spirit in two with a single strike, then led the group in a frantic escape.
Zhang Shi watched the four people, waiting for the right moment to conduct an experiment.
Soon after, the four began their attack on the evil spirits. Wu Qing took out a red chili pepper and threw it at the group of evil spirits.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Zhang Shi flashed in front of an evil spirit and slashed it with his sword before the explosion occurred.
"Whoosh!"
When Lao Duan came into contact with the evil spirit, he cleaved it in two as easily as cutting tofu.
"It seems that I can influence what appears in my memory through my actions."
Zhang Shi composed himself and refrained from further action after the experiment. Instead, he quietly observed the four-person group as they entered the underground chamber beneath Huo Youming's tomb.
As expected, the four-person team cleared the evil spirits from the graveyard, and Zhang Shi once again shared the experience points equally.
Subsequently, the group of four discovered the coffin beneath Huo Youming's tomb, pushed open the stone lid, and entered the underground chamber.
Zhang Shi did not immediately follow them inside, but instead stood at the entrance of the stone coffin and waited.
Sure enough, not long after, two mud monsters appeared in front of the stone coffin, emanating bursts of black mist from their bodies. In an instant, the black mist corroded the protective shield left by Ge Dalong and spread towards the cave.
Zhang Shi no longer stood by and quickly dispatched the mud monsters one by one with a single strike. Seeing that the mist had not dissipated, Zhang Shi crawled into the cave and closed the stone coffin.
Zhang Shi's current state is as if he has night vision; even in very dark environments, he can still see the road ahead clearly.
Before long, Zhang Shi caught up with the group of four and followed them all the way back to the mysterious altar.
This time, Zhang Shi focused all his attention on Zhao Feng, wanting to figure out how he had suddenly disappeared.
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