Someone in the crowd trembled as they uttered these words. Suddenly, the commotion around them grew louder, and even the expression on the big man's face gradually froze. "How, how is this possible? I'm not..."
However, before he could even finish his words, he couldn't stand it anymore. His face suddenly turned pale with fear, and he shook his head in disbelief, saying, "Impossible, this is impossible. Where's the doctor? I need a doctor. I just need the doctor to take a look. I just need to apply some medicine. It's definitely not some terrible disease... Quick, tell me where the doctor is. Take me to him!"
The expression on the big man's face suddenly became agitated, especially when he saw that the people around him avoided the word "water plague" as soon as they heard it. His rationality was completely broken, and he finally couldn't help but grab the collar of the nearest monk, and became hysterical. His voice was hoarse and rough, and his eyes were full of uncontrollable fear.
But this is just a temple, where is there any doctor? Even though his collar was being grabbed uncomfortably, the monk still shook his head, "I'm sorry, benefactor, we don't have a doctor in this 'Star Viewing Temple'. You can only find a doctor at the foot of the mountain, but now..."
The entire "Star-gazing Temple" was sealed off by heavy troops outside. Not to mention going to the foot of the mountain to find a doctor, even the gate of the "Star-gazing Temple" was blocked.
Although the monk did not say the rest of the words, everyone around him understood what he meant. At that moment, the big man suddenly pushed the monk aside and ran straight towards the temple gate. As he ran over, he couldn't help but shouting: "Sir, please let me out to see a doctor. I'm not sick, I'm fine, I just have a little allergy. Please, let me out, let me go out to see a doctor--"
But the sound abruptly stopped the next moment. Before the big man could get close, the soldiers guarding the gate had already attacked without hesitation. With a swipe of their swords, they chopped off the big man's head. There was no trace of guilt or hesitation on their faces. Instead, they shook their heads with a look of regret and shouted orders at the top of their voices: "The epidemic has spread within the 'Guanxing Temple'. We are under a special order from the court to prohibit the spread of the epidemic. All soldiers obey this temporary order and directly execute the temporary order. Seal off the entire 'Guanxing Temple' until the epidemic is over."
The orders of the officers and soldiers changed. It was no longer about capturing the water plague patients who had strayed into the "Guanxing Temple", but about sealing off the entire "Guanxing Temple" and not letting anyone escape until the water plague was over. The water plague had already spread, and the end of the water plague meant... killing everyone in the entire "Guanxing Temple". In the absence of any doctors, diagnostic plans, and support, the water plague would only be truly over when everyone was dead!
All of a sudden, everyone in the 'Stargazing Temple' understood what the officers and soldiers meant, and also witnessed with their own eyes the strength of their execution - anyone who tried to escape would be killed.
Suddenly, everyone seemed to hear a very slight "bang" sound. The string that was already on the edge of sanity and was shaky finally couldn't bear it anymore and broke.
In such an instant, almost everyone became terrified and pushed away the monks who were trying to calm them down and block their way. They rushed towards the gate of the Buddhist temple as if they were out of control, trying to break out of this blocked area.
"Why? What do you mean? We are not sick, why don't you let us out? If we are locked up here, we will get sick even if we are not sick. We will die, we will really die. Let us out, let us out quickly-"
"Why are you locking us up? Aren't you here to arrest people? You could just arrest that evildoer. Why are you locking us up? We haven't done anything wrong. The court can't treat us like this!"
"It's all those evildoers' fault. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't be like this. Oh, where are those evildoers? As long as we catch them, we won't die—"
"That's right, catch them. We are not the ones who deserve to die. It's not our fault. If we eliminate those evildoers, we will be saved—"
"Eliminate the evil—eliminate the evil—"
The expressions on everyone's faces became distorted and extremely terrifying. Their faces were filled with boundless and uncontrollable fear, as if death would befall them at the next moment. The desire to survive made them subconsciously push everything onto others, letting others replace themselves and gain a chance of life.
Order collapsed in this instant.
The next moment, I don't know who in the crowd drew the knife first, and slashed at the "person who was considered to be a troublemaker". Blood suddenly splattered and scattered all over the place. The knife was fatal. The person who was slashed didn't even have time to be stunned. He fell down with his eyes wide open, revealing the person who slashed him with blood on his back. The person's face was filled with fear and terror, and the hand holding the knife was shaking. He smelled of books.
It was obvious that this was a scholar who didn't often handle a knife, but rather a book. This was most likely his first time wielding a knife and drawing blood. After his first killing, his face and body trembled uncontrollably with fear. However, the fear of killing quickly disappeared, replaced by a kind of madness that seemed to be "liberated." He kept muttering unconsciously, "Alive, alive, we can survive. As long as we kill all those "evildoers," we won't get sick and we can live. This man in front of me, I saw him walking with that big man before. He might also be sick. Kill him and we'll live!"
What are you talking about!
Hearing such completely abnormal remarks, Wen He's face suddenly turned colder. An extremely ominous premonition came straight to him, and he even felt an extremely inharmonious feeling. But before Wen He could react, the sound of swords and weapons chopping and the screams of the crowd rang out from the other side of the crowd. After the scholar on this side lost control and killed people, on the other side, an old man who looked kind-hearted also took a thick stick and smashed it on an old woman's head with a crazy look on his face. When he found that one stick did not kill her, he hit her more than ten times, and only withdrew his hand after smashing the old woman's head into pieces.
Not far away, the old woman's daughter rushed back. Seeing that her mother had been silent for just a moment, she couldn't help but scream like crazy, "Help! Someone, help! Someone's been murdered! What did my mother do wrong? You killed her by smashing her to death! Why did you do this to her all of a sudden?"
However, at this moment, the old man did not show any apology on his face. Instead, he looked as if it was natural, or even as if he was saying, "You should thank me."
"Why? Because she deserves to die. Your mother has been infected with water plague. Did you know that? I did this to keep everyone alive. When I passed by your room this morning, I noticed that your mother had several purple spots under her neck. That's because she had water plague! I'm killing all of us!"
"No, no, it's not water plague. It's really not water plague. Those purple spots appeared before we came to the Stargazing Temple. They're allergic spots that my mother gets every autumn. She's been applying medicine all the time, and they'll heal after autumn. It's always been like this. This isn't some kind of epidemic..."
However, before the girl could finish her words, she was interrupted by someone, and voices of questioning came straight to her.
"Who knows whether what you said is true or false? Maybe this is an epidemic, and you are afraid of being discovered, so you said this."
"That's right, they say it's a pre-existing problem. Who knows? Anyway, no one knows if it's true or not. They can say whatever they want."
"That's right, that's right. If it really is a plague, won't it kill us all?"
“…”
These words were not spoken by the murderous old man, but by the many pilgrims around him. Such words directly made the girl anxious, and she subconsciously retorted, "It's really not true. Why do you think so? My mother really didn't have the plague. You killed the wrong person and don't you feel any guilt at all?..."
The girl was about to lose her temper, and she shouted this sentence in a hoarse voice, but later she stopped herself, not for anything else, but simply because when she turned around, she found that the faces of the people around her did not really have any guilt. To put it bluntly, their faces were full of strange and indifferent expressions. Many of them had a kind look before the accident, but now, they were full of disgust and cold-bloodedness. From their faces, one could see the words that seemed to be a matter of course: It is better to kill the wrong person than to do the right thing.
Now that it has developed to this point, no one can stop it. No one knows which pilgrim started shouting "to eliminate the scourge", but everyone's faces turned crazy. Many women, old men, and scholars who were powerless all grabbed the weapons at hand, and in the name of "justice", they searched for possible "people with the plague" and carried out a crazy... massacre.
It was really a massacre. Everyone's faces changed, becoming extremely terrifying and distorted. The entire Buddhist land was suddenly stained with a disgusting bloody stench, which made the young monk 'Changsheng''s face become extremely ugly. He couldn't help but think of the dark and bloody war experience before he was adopted by the 'Guanxing Temple'. The shadow of his childhood made him shrink in fear behind his trusted Buddhist disciple Tang Yan, and hold on to the corner of his clothes tightly, for fear that if he let go, he would return to the nightmare of the past.
As soon as Tang Yan lowered his head, he could see the pale face of Xiao Changsheng behind him. He couldn't help but rub his head a few times to comfort him. The warmth of his palm came from his head, and followed by the voice of his most familiar, beloved and respected senior brother.
"Don't be afraid, Changsheng. I picked you up and I will protect you until you reach adulthood."
"You'll be fine as long as I'm here. Don't be afraid."
Tang Yan's voice was not particularly gentle. He was a cold person, and even words of comfort like these were only slightly warmer than usual. Compared to the other brothers in the 'Stargazing Temple', he was much colder. But such a voice made Xiao Changsheng's frightened expression ease a lot. Although he still huddled behind Tang Yan, his condition was obviously much better.
Needless to say, in the current chaotic situation and with the abbot absent, all the monks in the Buddhist temple placed their support on Tang Yan. They had expected Tang Yan to ask them to continue their previous work of comforting the people, but unexpectedly, this time, Tang Yan simply glanced coldly at the main hall, which had been stained with blood without knowing when, and then said, "Don't worry about it anymore. We at the Guanxing Temple don't need to protect such selfish people. The monks on duty will take turns to clear the haze and negative energy. All the remaining monks should return to their rooms and protect themselves."
When Tang Yan said this, his face was extremely cold, and such an order was equivalent to separating the pilgrims from the monks. From this moment on, no matter what the condition of the pilgrims was, he would no longer intubate them. This order actually went against the usual practice of the "Guanxing Temple", but all the monks, seeing those completely crazy pilgrims who had become like "demons" at some point, finally said nothing, tacitly agreed with Tang Yan's statement, and quickly carried it out. Those on duty continued to take turns as usual, while the rest returned to their rooms.
After giving all these instructions, Tang Yan did not return to the room, but followed the team of monks on duty to check whether several important places in the Buddhist temple were eroded by the Yin energy, and whether the suppressed and sealed Yin creatures had escaped. This has been another job of the "Stargazing Temple". In addition to observing the stars and asking for divination, there are many places in this "Stargazing Temple" where monsters are suppressed and sealed. Every day, several groups of monks take turns on duty to check whether the seals are loose and whether the Yin energy has leaked out. This is the main daily work of the monks in the Stargazing Temple.
Especially now, the hearts of the pilgrims in the Star Observation Temple have changed dramatically. The darkness in people's hearts is extremely tempting and stimulating to those monsters. Such a breath and darkness will make all the monsters in the Star Observation Temple restless. If the blockade is loosened at this time, the monsters inside are very likely to run out. In this case, the consequences will be unimaginable.
This is indeed the case. When we were patrolling yesterday, all the seal traces were normal and stable, and there were no problems. But when we entered the room, we found that all the monsters inside were agitated, and many of them even looked like they were about to rush out.
At that moment, except for the Buddhist disciple Tang Yan who seemed to have expected it, the faces of all the other monks changed drastically. Without saying anything, they rushed in hastily, casting spells to strengthen the suppression seal, and seal again those restless monsters that were about to escape. However, there were many monsters sealed in the seal room of Guanxing Temple, and not all monks could completely strengthen the suppression seal at once. A seal usually took at least a quarter of an hour to complete, and monks with less ability might even need more than half an hour.
In this way, the monks' spiritual power will be exhausted very quickly, and the monks whose spiritual power is almost exhausted will be ordered by the Buddhist disciple Tang Yan to go back to the rooms in the inner courtyard to rest, and notify the next batch of monks on duty to replace them to ensure that someone can take over the task of strengthening the seal here.
The young monk Xiao Changsheng was also on duty. His talent was indeed higher than that of ordinary monks. Although he was young, he was quite strong. However, due to his young age, Tang Yan did not let Xiao Changsheng hold on for too long. He asked him to rest when he felt tired and meditate on the spot until his spiritual power was almost restored before continuing. Xiao Changsheng was obedient and knew that he could not show off his strength. When he felt that he could not hold on any longer, he collected his spiritual power and let other brothers take over. He planned to walk to the side and sit down to meditate.
Just as he walked to the door and was about to sit down to meditate and recover his spiritual energy, a somewhat familiar figure flashed past the door, which suddenly surprised Xiao Changsheng. The reason was nothing else but that figure looked very much like the abbot who had been missing since morning, and the direction of the figure seemed to be another large sealed room. If he remembered correctly, there seemed to be a very difficult monster sealed in it, but because the suppressing seal was extremely powerful, it was jointly suppressed by the previous abbots of the "Stargazing Temple" and the strong men in the metaphysical world, so there would basically be no problem, unlike the seal in this room, whose abilities were uneven.
But why did the abbot go to the large sealed room over there instead of this one? Xiao Changsheng couldn't help but wonder, and was worried about the abbot's health. After all, last night, the abbot's complexion and health didn't look very good, and now, the other brothers around him seemed extremely busy and couldn't spare any free time. After thinking about it, Xiao Changsheng decided to go to the room over there to check on the situation.
So, Xiao Changsheng didn't struggle for long, and he tiptoed out of the door and went in the direction where the figure that looked like the abbot disappeared.
However, his action at that moment made Xiao Changsheng regret for the rest of his life. Even for a long time afterwards, he was still thinking, if he had not followed at that time, would everything that happened afterwards be different?
But there is never an if, just like the history that we never want to happen can never be repeated.
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