The moment the word "hundred years" was crossed out on the imperial edict, thunder rumbled in the sky, purple light hid behind dark clouds, lightning flashed, everything was bright, and raindrops as big as soybeans fell down in an instant.

Kong Xuyang laughed wildly. He wiped the rain off his face and held up the imperial edict with great joy: "The time has not come yet. This imperial edict is still effective. Just wait to be struck to death by the thunder, you bunch of rabble!"

The Taoist zombie inside the gate of Yinshan Village was not in a hurry. He rang the bell with his right hand, raised his eyes and said slowly: "Form a formation to meet the enemy."

The rain instantly extinguished the scattered money for the dead, the red sun candles for sacrifice, and the incense sticks that had not yet burned out. In Yinshan Village, every household lit up a dim oil lamp, illuminating the incomplete human figures on the windows.

Judging from the outlines of these figures, they were all men in their prime. Some of them were missing arms or legs, and some had only half of their heads left due to the explosion. They walked out of the house slowly, step by step. Just as these men walked out and were about to be drenched by the rain, a yellowed oil-paper umbrella suddenly opened above their heads, shielding them from the torrential rain that represented punishment from the sky.

The woman, wearing a Japanese-colored shroud and with her head smashed on the bridge pier, followed the man silently, holding an umbrella for him all the time, their hands tightly clasped under the umbrella.

The bride, in a red wedding gown and a veil on her head, waving a wedding handkerchief in one hand and holding a pair of blood-dripping red scissors in the other, was carried on the back of the hunched matchmaker as she staggered out of the woods, a coquettish and contented smile emanating from under the veil.

"The red evil spirit is on the left." The Taoist raised his hand, and a yellow talisman flew out from his sleeve and stuck on the veil of the bride at the front of the line.

The matchmaker under the bride raised her dark eye sockets without eyeballs, chuckled, lowered her head, and stood to the left without moving.

The old man climbed out of the pond, all soaking wet. His swollen face was covered with emerald green duckweed, and his mouth was open with black mud and sand flowing continuously.

"The solar evil star is on the right." The Taoist raised his wrist and made a gesture, and these old men stopped moving, their dark eyes like black holes staring at the outside of the village gate.

The rain was getting heavier and heavier. Kong Xuyang looked at the two golden peach wood swords inserted in front of the village. He felt anxious and cursed inwardly through gritted teeth.

The peach wood sword from a hundred years ago blocked the entrance to the village. Neither he nor the evil spirits behind him could break through and could only wait for the thunder to strike.

There was a buzzing sound in the clouds, purple lightning flashed, and a thunderbolt over a foot wide roared down and hit the Taoist priest at the gate of Yinshan Village hard.

In the blinding flash of lightning, the talisman paper on the Taoist's body instantly turned to ashes, the peach wood sword shattered into sawdust in the blink of an eye, and the memorial archway with the words "Yinshan Village" written on it was shaken by the thunder.

The two Red Sun Devils standing on the left and right were forced to kneel on the ground by the pressure of the thunder. They straightened their backs in the mud and struggled to stand up.

Hundreds of resentful ghosts screamed miserably, the air was filled with gloomy energy, wedding clothes and funeral clothes fluttered in the cold wind and rain, and there were many ghost shadows and ghost sounds:

"Heaven and earth are cruel!"

“Heaven is unfair!”

Kong Xuyang heaved a sigh of relief, overjoyed, and read out the words of the imperial edict aloud: "The people of Yinshan Village have used evil magic, causing countless innocent deaths and injuries. Their crimes are too numerous to list. Will you plead guilty?"

The thunder dissipated, and the yellow talismans on the Taoist's face and body were chopped off, revealing his face completely. It was a face exactly like Ri Liu's, with a calm expression and a calm tone: "I plead guilty."

"It doesn't matter if you don't admit it..." Kong Xuyang's smile grew wider and wider, but he suddenly seemed to react and looked over in surprise, "What did you just say?!"

The Taoist priest, whose appearance was exactly like Ri Liu's, repeated calmly, "I plead guilty."

The two Red Sun Devils on the ground looked up in surprise. The ghost who died on the bridge also put down his umbrella and stared at the Taoist together with the zombies.

The Taoist looked at Kong Xuyang and said, "For the past hundred years, your ancestors have used tombs to accumulate Yin energy and breed powerful ghosts to protect the souls of the people in Yinshan Village. They have stolen the vitality of their descendants to force reincarnation, causing countless descendants of Yinshan Village to die in vain."

"This tomb formation has been arranged until now, and the Yin Qi is enough to make us ghosts unite our souls and regain our sanity. It also empties out Yinshan Village, allowing us, the guilty people, to avoid the punishment of being torn apart in the imperial decree."

"But over the past few hundred years..." The Taoist slowly raised his eyes, "I have transformed the people of Yinshan Village in the tomb into fierce ghosts. Their souls and spirits are separated and they have no consciousness at all. They only remember the order I gave them to defend Yinshan Village and not let any outsiders in. This led them to kill many innocent passers-by."

"You are right. I did use evil magic and killed innocent people."

The Taoist in yellow stepped forward, crossed the main gate of Yinshan Village, lifted up his robe, knelt on one knee in the heavy rain, and took the imperial edict from the stunned Kong Xuyang with one hand, looked up at Kong Xuyang, and said in a calm voice:

"No matter if it happened a hundred years ago, the evil magic and murder were all caused by me alone. I should bear the responsibility alone. No one in Yinshan Village has anything to do with it."

"I am willing to be executed and struck by thunder until my soul is shattered, in exchange for a hundred years of peace in Yinshan Village, with all living beings safe, people walking on the human path and ghosts entering the ghost world."

"But before that..." The Taoist took the imperial edict from Kong Xuyang, clasped his knees, and stood up slowly. A strong wind blew in the night, causing the three golden hair crowns on his head to sway left and right.

A flash of blue-purple lightning appeared between heaven and earth, as bright as daylight.

In the light of lightning, the Taoist raised his rain-soaked face and slowly turned to look at Ri Liu in Yinshan Village: "Are you my descendant?"

"Judging from his face," Ri Liu said respectfully, "it should be, old man."

Two faces that looked almost identical were facing each other across the archway of Yinshan Village, which was shaken by the strong wind and heavy rain and was about to fall down.

One of them was wearing a Japanese shirt and suit pants, with a casual posture, as if he was watching a play; the other was wearing a neat Taoist robe, with a calm look and a fierce but upright look. The two of them were one tall and one short, one inside and one outside. Behind them was a fierce ghost roaring miserably; in front of them were foreigners holding foreign guns and cannons; next to them were two people with dazed looks, Kong Xuyang and Yang Zhi.

The Taoist suddenly laughed. That laugh was bright and generous, shining like the sun and the moon. If Mu Sicheng was still awake, he would probably be frightened by the smile on Ri Liu's face. Ri Liu would never laugh like that.

"Old man? I was only in my early thirties when I died, and you call me that..." The Taoist couldn't stop laughing, his eyebrows drooping softly, "You young man, you are a bad person by nature. Did you borrow money from the shady people? Do you want me to help you?"

Ri Liu shook his head honestly: "Not yet, it would be great if you could help."

"I can help you." The Taoist smiled and said, "You are my successor. I have accumulated a lot of Yin energy over the past hundred years. It's okay to lend you some of your fortune before I leave."

He raised his feet, like a flying dragon, and landed in front of Ri Liu in almost the blink of an eye. His Taoist robe was vibrating and scattered in the air due to the vibration of the huge yin energy that emerged from his body.

The three golden hair crowns on the Taoist's head fell apart, and the dark blue aura that had lingered on his face for a long time dissipated, revealing a handsome, lively face. The black nails on his hands retracted and turned into clean, round fingers like those of a living person.

With his eyelids half closed, he leaned over and whispered in Ri Liu's ear. His words were faintly heard amidst the overwhelming negative energy, and they were gentle and pitying:

"A hundred years ago, Yinshan Village was about to fall and be handed over. I had no other options. I was desperate and made a deal with an evil god who suddenly appeared. He promised me that he would protect Yinshan Village for a hundred years and prevent any outsiders from invading. He gave me this evil magic book, and as a deal, I had to give him my soul and then suffer here for a hundred years."

"But the hundred years have come, and the evil god who was supposed to end it all has not come. However, the time in Yinshan Village has suddenly stopped, and it stopped when I was about to be trapped for a hundred years. Once the hundred years are about to end, it will go back to seven days ago."

"Yinshan Village was trapped in a seven-day cycle, unable to move forward, and strange strangers began to enter Yinshan Village on the first day of the seven-day cycle."

"So many people came to Yinshan Village, but no one dared to wake me up. I watched helplessly as these strangers came and went, just playing tricks on the villagers. These villagers who were protected by me were provoked by these violent strangers and became more and more out of control. They killed more and more innocent people, and became neither human nor ghost. I wanted to put an end to all this, but I didn't know how to do it."

The Taoist's long, bony fingers extended from his robe, and lightly touched Ri Liu's forehead with his fingertips. Yin energy from his body flowed like a torrent into Ri Liu's body. He smiled and whispered:

"Thank you."

"Thank you for entering the tomb without harming any of the villagers, and for waking me up."

Ri Liu looked at the Taoist priest and said, "Don't you hate the evil god who played with and tortured you?"

The Taoist priest who looked like Ri Liu closed his eyes, reminiscing, and muttered to himself:

"…It doesn't matter if I hate him or not. I begged him of my own accord. I have never regretted it. I only remember kneeling in front of him, abandoning the faith of my ancestors, and saying—"

"As long as the flying general is in Dragon City, the Hu horses will not be able to..."

The clouds in the sky rolled and a crack appeared. Purple light flickered and thunder roared. The force was like a mountain collapsing and the earth splitting. The rain was like a torrential wave. There were two flashes in the crack and gathered into a round ball of lightning. It was aimed at the ethereal Taoist in yellow clothes on the ground and struck down fiercely as if it had a thousand pounds of strength!

The Taoist in yellow suddenly opened his eyes, turned around and faced the thunderbolt, waved his sleeves and spread his robe, protected the fierce ghost from Yinshan Village and Ri Liu behind him, and shouted the last three words in a fierce voice:

"——Cross Yin Mountain!"