Chapter 352: Yinshan Village

The red lanterns were hung on the low inner wall of the tomb, and were swayed from side to side by the hot and humid wind blowing out from inside, and the bright red light swayed back and forth along with the lanterns on the damp wall, reflecting many shadows of different heights on the wall, like a shadow play shining on the wall.

The shadows moved stiffly, poking their heads and ears at each other as if in conversation, emitting the kind of distant, muffled words and footsteps that Bai Liu had just heard, shifting their positions as the light swung and moved toward the main chamber.

On either side of the entrance to the main chamber, illuminated by lanterns, stood, left and right, two respectfully stooping shadows, seemingly greeting guests, these two shadows, which were empty in the region of their blackened eyes, turned about animatedly on their shadowed faces, as if surveying the entrance, or rather the shadows.

A slow crack opened at The Shadow's lips, and the eerie, shrill sound came out of the wall once more:

"We have guests two to congratulate, please come into the main hall!"

But while there were so many shadows on the walls, there was no one in the tomb, only the red light of the shadows shifted, and between the light and darkness were the shadows that kept changing their movements and shapes as they moved inward, becoming clearer and clearer on the walls.

The two welcome shadows at the entrance urged twice, Bai Liu still did not move, smiled into a crescent-shaped eyes up to sink, originally laughing mouth also convergence is gone, only two red hole like aperture eyes staring at Bai Liu.

The Shadow's feet, which had been standing on the wall, sank eerily halfway down, curved eerily to the ground, and came closer and closer to where Bai Liu stood, as it urged a third time in a shrill voice:

"We have two guests, come in."

Bai Liu lowered his eyes and stepped inside, followed closely by Mu Sicheng.

The two shadows guarding the entrance tucked their hands and bowed their half-bodies, rolling their eyes to watch Bai Liu enter the tomb passage, their mouths cracking slowly in a great arc:

"Your guests are here, the guest of honor welcomes them!"

As soon as Bai Liu walked into the tomb passage, the shadows on both sides of the tomb passage instantly stopped their marching steps and noisy conversations, and these shadows stood still, staring silently at Bai Liu and Mu Sicheng, who came in, with eyes reflecting the red light.

These shadows, large and small, in different forms, ranging from a woman with her hair in a bun holding a little girl with a double braid, to a hunchbacked old man supporting a walking stick, to a middle-aged man in a short-typed waistcoat, all stood without a word in the wall, staring at Bai Liu as he slowly made his way toward the main crypt.

Mu Sicheng's scalp was numb as he approached Bai Liu and asked in a lowered voice, "What are these shadows? Didn't you say that only the living have shadows in the underworld?"

"The living can shine shadows in the netherworld, but the netherworld is not the only place where the living can shine shadows." Bai Liu heads into the main crypt with an unblinking eye.

"Shadow is a person's three souls and seven spirits after the gathering of the shape of the light printed on the physical object shaped a kind of image, the essence of the shadow and the mirror shines out of us is the same, so the folk and Taoism have ghosts do not have a shadow, ghosts can not be printed in the mirror of the saying, because the ghosts of the three souls and seven spirits are not complete."

"To have a form without a shadow is to be a soul, to have a shadow without a form is to be a spirit."

Bai Liu swept a glance at the shadows on the wall with his afterglow, "These shadows should be the spirits of the Yinshan Village people who died but were trapped here for eternity."

Mu Sicheng looked around at these shadows and winced, "...... So these shadows are just prana-ized, nothing more harmful than the soul-ized martyred bridge ghost zombies or whatever out there, right?"

Bai Liu retracts his sight: "The Evil Art of Maoshan describes that [a person's soul is good but his prana is evil, and a person's soul is spiritual but his prana is foolish ...... When the soul is present, it is his person; when the soul is gone, it is not his person."

"The world moves corpses and shadows, and Bi Prana does so, but only those who have the Way can control Prana. (Note 1)"

Mu Sicheng swallowed, "What does ...... mean by that?"

Bai Liu explains it simply: "It means that the soul is good and the spirit is evil, the soul is spiritual and the spirit is foolish."

"With a soul in place, this ghost can still be called something with a human existence, while once the soul is completely dissipated, this ghost will not even have a bit of humanity left, the most severe ghosts in this world are prana-ized, and only those with a high level of Taoism can sanction prana."

Mu Sicheng couldn't help but spit out, "No? Are those souped-up martyred bridge ghosts and zombies out there still considered kind and humane?!"

Bai Liu replied calmly, "Compared to prana, yes indeed."

The red light of the lanterns in the tomb passage became more and more prevalent, and at an unknown time, Mu Sicheng found that the shadows on both sides began to march slowly, their eyes illuminated by the red light staring at Bai Liu without the slightest turn, their feet walking in a ghostly and illusory pace.

The mouths of the shadows split open in red slits of varying sizes and pressed against each other to whisper, their speech so muffled that it was like listening to the next-door neighbor whispering through a wall, secretive and raucous.

Mu Sicheng couldn't hear what they were saying at all, but it definitely wasn't anything good, as the sight of the shadows looking at them gave Mu Sicheng a lingering feeling of malice.

Just as Mu Sicheng was looking at these shadows, the back of his neck chilled, and frowning in wonder, he asked, "These shadows, aren't they getting shorter and shorter?"

Bai Liu pulls Mu Sicheng in close and gets him to step right back up.

"Pay attention to your feet." Bai Liu faintly reminded, "These prana are trapped in the wall as shadows, and they haven't even attacked us now, so they shouldn't be able to break away from the wall and actively attack us, but their shadows can touch our shadows."

Mu Sicheng subconsciously lowered his head and realized with horror that somehow the feet of these shadows had slowly slid down from the wall to the ground and were still getting closer to their shadows.

No wonder he just watched these shadows get shorter and shorter!

The shadows on the wall seemed to know that they had been caught in the plot to approach, and in unison they cracked their mouths into a smile, almost identical smiling red mouths appearing simultaneously on different shadows of men, women, and children, accompanied by playful giggles in different voices coming out of the wall.

Mu Sicheng was so frightened that he immediately began to walk in a straight line behind Bai Liu, trying to center his shadow as far away from these prana as possible.

Bai Liu squinted and swept Mu Sicheng's shadow on the ground with the light at the end of his eyes, so faint that he could barely be seen.

The absence of a shadow means that the current Mu Sicheng is close to having his soul separated from his body, which is why he can't shine a shadow.

Whereas the Mu Sicheng on this side is human and shadowless, then the Mu Sicheng on this side is souled, so what remains in the Mu Sicheng's body is, self-evidently, naturally the prana.

The prana is inhuman, only malignant.

Things are getting slightly more problematic, things like prana can only be subdued by righteous Taoist techniques, but Bai Liu These don't have righteous techniques, only evil ones.

We can only go one step at a time.

Bai Liu walks to the end of the tomb passage and pushes open a narrow faded red double wooden door.

The shadows above the wall look at Bai Liu with that kind of salivating gaze that makes one's scalp tighten while complimenting each other and laughing as they enter inside the wooden door.

Bai Liu also led Mu Sicheng into the wooden door.

As soon as he entered the wooden door, the scene of the tomb which had been low suddenly opened up a lot, the height of the top of the tomb was several times higher than before, and it looked like it had to be as high as two or three stories, and the decoration of the main chamber of the tomb was modeled after the main hall of the old mansion, with red and white candles and lanterns lit everywhere, which could almost be called brightly lit.

The shadows wandered around the wall, which was painted with a number of scenes of banquets and guests, and the voices of the shadows talking, laughing and joking were a fitting counterpoint to them; of course, if the shadows hadn't been staring directly at Bai Liu, he would have given his blessing to this lively banquet with more sincerity.

Directly opposite the wooden door in some kind of regularity placed seven eight-imperial tables, eight-imperial tables covered with thick dust, but vaguely visible eight-imperial tables on the eight-imperial table Qi Men Bagua pattern, eight-imperial table table legs were golden nails nailed to the ground, can not be moved.

The circle around the Eight Immortals table was not filled with tables and chairs and benches, but with a set of coffins standing up vertically, all of which were opened, leaving only an empty coffin box, with the lids stacked randomly on the ground vertically and horizontally, and red threads wrapped around the coffins.

The interior of the coffin was so badly decayed that water was still dripping down, and a bronze mirror was inlaid at the head, similar to the bridal coffin Bai Liu had seen in the temple earlier.

Bai Liu walked up, he marched around these coffins, squatted down and carefully rubbed the red thread on the lid: "There's not much ash on the break, it's just been ripped off, the body inside shouldn't have traveled far yet."

Then Bai Liu stood up, and he went around the coffins one by one, and counted softly under his breath, "1, 2 ......33."

"There are only 33 empty coffins." Bai Liu looks around, "16 less."

Mu Sicheng stood at a distance, he was creeped out by the sight of the coffins and didn't want to get close at all, "How do you know there are 16 missing?"

"This should be a formation made with seven as the extreme number." Bai Liu pointed to the seven eight-immortal tables, "The zombies of the paper men driving the corpses, the martyred bridge ghosts on the bridge, and the coffins that we guard in the temple are all seven, and according to this law, each eight-immortal table here should correspond to seven coffins as well."

"It can also be seen from the ash on the ground." Bai Liu instructed Mu Sicheng to look at the ground, "The ash on these places is not heavy, and there are traces of dragging and pulling, so they should have originally placed coffins as well."

"These 16 coffins should have been carried out by those devils we met on the road."

Bai Liu pondered, "But these devils were originally formed because of the tomb owner, they should only listen to the tomb owner's orders alone as well, and this formation should have been set up by the tomb owner a hundred years ago as well."

"Why would this tomb owner want to have these devils move these bridal coffins out of the tomb after a hundred years, destroying the formation he had painstakingly set up a hundred years ago?"

Bai Liu lowered his eyes and rubbed the dust on his hands, "Obviously just one step away, he will be able to gather Yin Qi and train himself into an absolute Yin corpse out of the world."