Yellow paper smoke
"No wonder the events of Guanshan Town were once a topic of conversation among goblins and ghosts after dinner. It was all for this nourishment." Yuanli said.
The black civet cats pounced on the boys and girls kneeling in the coffins, scratching and biting them like crazy. The children were powerless to dodge and could not make a sound, so they could only wait for death in despair.
Every time a black civet cat tortured a child to death, it would pounce on another child impatiently, and repeat this process over and over again until all the boys and girls were dead.
The heartbroken elders watched this cruel and bloody sacrifice, but failed to receive the usual blessings. Immediately, one of the elders attacked the young strong man who was performing the sacrificial dance.
"Blessings! Everyone believed your proposal and followed what Uncle He said when he resurrected. They sacrificed all the boys and girls under the age of sixteen in the town before they could rest in peace. Only then were they willing to sacrifice their youngest sons in advance. Now, what about the blessings of the God of Wealth and Goddess of Wealth?"
"Yes! My son was going to be six years old tomorrow, and now he's been killed by you! Why didn't Zhang Shengshu kill you, Zhang Changjun, when he was controlling the zombies to kill people?"
For a moment, the crowd was filled with complaints. Zhang Changjun suppressed his temper and motioned for them to listen to him quietly, but he could not stop their noisy mouths.
He casually took out a skull from the coffin and smashed it in front of the crowd.
The skull, which had already experienced years of wind, rain and insect erosion, was so vulnerable that it fell to the ground and shattered into pieces.
"Enough! Shut up! You all saw that I am already the high priest recognized by the Goddess of Wealth! Uncle He is dead, and I am the only one you can rely on! I am not a kind and good guy like Uncle He, and I will not tolerate your dog-eat-dog behavior!" Zhang Changjun roared.
Upon hearing this, the noise gradually died down and the situation was under control.
Zhang Changjun concealed his anger and spoke seriously, "For years, the will of the Goddess of Wealth has only been conveyed through recognized high priests. Everyone knows this. The Goddess of Wealth didn't bless us immediately, but she didn't punish us either. We just need to wait quietly. Anyone who dares to cause trouble again will be disrespecting the Goddess of Wealth and will become food for the sacred cats."
It was not known whether Zhang Changjun was lucky or the so-called magic cat really understood what he said, but the moment he finished speaking, the black cat cooperated and raised its head to look at the people, hunched its back, and took an attacking posture, which immediately scared everyone.
Zhang Changjun was secretly pleased with himself. Facing this bunch of idiots, he only needed to stay a little longer, and then make up a random excuse, saying it was the will of the Goddess of Wealth, and then he could go back to sleep.
As he sat quietly waiting, his greed grew wildly, and he kept plotting schemes to harm others and benefit himself. The deep murderous intent completely wiped out the remaining guilt and regret in his heart for the child who died in the sacrifice tonight.
Until he saw Zhang Shengshu approaching with a group of corpses walking in strange ways. With a nearly effortless leap, all the corpses Zhang Shengshu had brought with him fell from the sky, landing at the outermost edge of the crowd, surrounding them once again.
Zhang Shengshu's temperament had changed drastically. The remaining traces of humanity in his eyes had turned dull and numb, like a walking corpse. He was now a completely different person from the one he had seen in the temple.
There were extremely obvious corpse spots and dark bruise-like marks on his body, as well as many ulcerated areas. The most severely ulcerated area was his right arm. Without the sleeve covering it, the rotten flesh and exposed bones could be clearly seen.
Walking towards Zhang Changjun, he knocked on the new coffin as he passed it. The deceased in the three coffins all stood up, holding onto the coffins. They fumbled around in the coffins to assemble their bodies, then climbed out and followed Zhang Shengshu closely.
There was not a single piece of good skin on their bodies. They were covered with scars and blood from being scratched and bitten by cats. There were many bloody holes and pits with missing flesh on their bodies.
The blood kept flowing, leaving bloody footprints with every step.
Zhang Shengshu pointed at Zhang Changjun as he walked. The three dead children who had just come back to life quickly ran towards the fleeing Zhang Changjun, pounced on him, hugged his legs, tripped him to the ground, and then burst out with extraordinary strength to break Zhang Changjun's legs.
The severe pain from his broken leg made him scream, which startled the birds in the forest and made them fly away in all directions. It also startled the goblins and ghosts in the forest that were catching the fluorescent light. All of their unfriendly eyes were fixed on Zhang Shengshu in the crowd, and some of them were even ghosts and evil spirits who cast admiring glances at him.
Zhang Changjun lay on the ground, dragging his broken leg and trying to escape in the opposite direction, but the two corpses clinging to his legs were like heavy weights, making it even more difficult for him to move forward as he became increasingly weak.
"I am the high priest chosen by the God of Wealth and the Goddess of Wealth. How dare you attack me, Zhang Shengshu! Get out of here, that dead kid you're commanding! Get out!" After saying that, he turned around and glared at the dead kid lying on his broken leg with disgust, then turned around and spat in front of Zhang Shengshu.
"Oh, really?"
Zhang Shengshu raised his right hand and waved it slightly. In an instant, Zhang Changjun was lifted up by an invisible force and his body began to dance a sacrificial dance uncontrollably. He knew this feeling better than anyone else.
The bystanders immediately understood the whole story. If they were not afraid of Zhang Shengshu and the corpses he controlled, the angry people would have rushed over to seek revenge.
In fact, everyone present knew that the death of their young son was caused by their own selfish consent. However, they had lived a comfortable life and been selfish for too long, and had long been accustomed to blaming others instead of themselves for everything. Therefore, they blamed all the losses on Zhang Changjun, and their hearts were filled with hatred and anger.
Zhang Shengshu controlled Zhang Changjun to kowtow to the dead in all directions.
He controlled his strength very well, showing his sincerity in admitting his guilt, but at the same time he did not die before he kowtowed and apologized to all the children who died in the sacrifices tonight.
After sitting down at the altar and carefully examining everyone's expressions, he revealed an expression of extreme dissatisfaction.
"Tonight, without all the vicious curses, it's truly too quiet and boring. All my life, I've been played for fun. Now that I'm dead, I want to see how much fun you take in bullying and torturing others. How about this: tonight, we slowly kill them one by one until the first cockcrows, okay?"
He took three incense sticks from the incense burner, put them under his nose, and sniffed as if taking a deep breath. The swirling smoke floated straight up and he didn't inhale any of it at all.
This inexplicable behavior made the audience puzzled, but it also made them completely convinced that Zhang Shengshu was still alive and was just using Taoism to play tricks.
Only the dead don't breathe, so they won't affect the direction of the smoke.
Now, with so many people dead in Guanshan Town, even if the remaining people were lined up to be killed slowly by Zhang Shengshu, there would be no one left alive by the time the roosters crowed in the morning.
People who realize this, knowing that they will inevitably die, no longer cower and act like cowards ready to be slaughtered.
Someone immediately stood up and said, "Although I didn't go to the temple last night, I heard about Zhang Shengshu painting spells on the faces of the dead to control them. Everyone, look at the messy spells on these corpses. If this isn't Zhang Shengshu using Taoist magic to play tricks, then what is he? He might just be pretending to be dead and resurrecting. We have many people and are working together to kill Zhang Shengshu. Are we afraid that we won't survive the hands of the corpses controlled by Zhang Shengshu?"
"Right! Even if Zhang Shengshu is really a dead man who has come back to life, the reason so many people died in Guanshan Town is because of him! Death is imminent, so he has to take someone with him!"
Listening to their increasingly innocent and foolish ways, Zhang Shengshu couldn't help laughing. Instead, he became playful and watched quietly without trying to stop them.
But the more he looked at people without saying a word, the more they felt that their idea was correct. Soon most of them united and reached a consensus. They rushed towards Zhang Shengshu, ready for a fight.
When the first person was about to touch Zhang Shengshu's body, he thrust three incense sticks into the man's eyes with force. He moved so fast that the man had no time to react, and his right eye was popped by the incense in his hand.
The others hesitated for a moment, but still rushed towards him without hesitation.
Zhang Shengshu calmly took out a stack of yellow paper from the cloth bag hanging around his waist and unfolded it. He saw a pattern similar to a magic circle drawn on the yellow paper.
He let go and dropped the yellow paper to the ground. The night wind blew it down and spread it flat on the ground.
He deftly gouged out his right eyeball and threw it casually into the center of the magic circle on the yellow paper.
In an instant, a thin red and black smoke emanated from the magic circle on the yellow paper.
The thin smoke drifted towards the people running towards Zhang Shengshu, straight into their faces. They suddenly stopped moving, stood there in a daze, and raised their heads.
At the moment when the thin smoke entered their noses and disappeared, they were muttering something, each saying something different.
Then they returned to normal, looked at the faces in the crowd, and after locking onto their targets, they rushed forward, fighting and cursing, creating chaos and bustle.
Zhang Shengshu propped himself up on the altar, holding his younger sister in his arms, swinging his legs leisurely, swaying his body, and singing nursery rhymes to soothe children. His voice was cheerful yet sad.
However, when singing the second half of this short nursery rhyme, Zhang Shengshu's voice became noticeably weaker, and the amplitude of his body shaking also became much smaller.
He stroked her face and said gently, "Brother did it. Go to sleep, go to sleep. The Goddess of Wealth promised you that you would be the only soul in Guanshan Town that could be reincarnated. If you have a choice in your next life, don't be a human. This unfair world can eat away at every bone. It's not good at all, not good at all..."
The little sister in his arms still had the mentality of a three-year-old. She didn't understand what her brother said at all. She only understood that her brother was not happy.
If her brother is unhappy, she will be unhappy too.
She stroked his chest to comfort him, the same way he had stroked her back. She wanted to call him brother, but because her tongue had been cut, she couldn't speak clearly. She could only make two simple "ah ah" sounds, similar to her brother's, to call him.
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