noveltune Chapter 233 Crossing the Ditch?
Chapter 233 Crossing the Ditch?
Chapter 233 Crossing the Ditch? (4000)
Lu Yuan did not rush forward immediately.
He stood still, first raising his hand to signal everyone to stay put.
He then slowly squatted down, placed the broken peach wood cane head in his palm, and gently stroked the broken edge with his fingertips.
With that swipe, Lu Yuan's gaze darkened further.
"It wasn't bitten off."
He said in a low voice.
"It was broken by being 'grinded'."
Zhou Heng was taken aback: "Worn out?"
Lu Yuan didn't look up, but his gaze seemed to have pierced through the stone path and fallen into a deeper depth.
"Some things can devour evil spirits, dissolve talismans, and slowly consume the spiritual energy within magical artifacts."
"This staff is inlaid with lightning sand, which should be the most effective against evil spirits."
"But now the lightning sand has dispersed, but the wooden frame hasn't exploded, which means it wasn't broken by a single, direct blow, but rather by a sustained, gradual weakening."
"To achieve this level of sophistication, it's not simply a matter of being sneaky; it requires the very 'strategy' of this place."
Lu Yuan paused briefly at this point, as if reviewing the flow of his thoughts.
"Look at this ditch, red cloth, evil spirit stakes, talisman walls, white bones, broken artifacts—it seems messy, but they all point to one thing."
"It's not just an evil god buried here."
"Someone has set up an evil formation here to sustain, suppress, and transform negative energy."
"In other words, it's not as simple as just 'there's something in Savage Gully,' but rather the entire gully has been turned into a giant furnace."
.
Upon hearing this, the expressions of the people behind him changed.
"A furnace for forging?"
Wang Chengan's throat tightened.
Lu Yuan nodded.
"The Soul Refining Furnace, or rather, the half-finished Yin Furnace."
"When a person dies here, their soul cannot dissipate; their evil spirits are trapped here and cannot escape."
"Over time, this place will gather the energy of the living, the resentment of the dead, and the yin energy of the mountains, eventually nurturing something extremely difficult to deal with."
Song Qinghe felt a chill run down her spine and couldn't help but ask in a low voice, "So, are these red cloths and talisman pillars for suppressing evil spirits in the furnace?"
"Suppress some, lock some, feed some."
Lu Yuan spoke calmly, yet his words sent chills down people's spines.
"What is suppressed is the overflowing evil spirits, what is locked is the souls that died here, and what is fed is the offerings made to the Lord of the Underworld."
"The old willow tree you saw earlier was just an opening on the outer perimeter."
"The true heart of the furnace is not in the trees, nor in the mountain pass, but in the deeper veins of the earth."
As Lu Yuan spoke, he stood up and looked ahead again.
After that soft sound, the end of the stone path returned to deathly silence.
But this deathly silence wasn't clean; instead, it felt like something invisible was slowly seeping into people's ears, making even breathing heavy.
No one asked any more questions, but they all gripped their magical implements even tighter.
Lu Yuan took a step forward, deliberately avoiding the broken talismans and broken bones under his feet.
After walking about twenty steps forward, the terrain suddenly changed, and a large open space appeared at the edge of the stone path.
In the center of the open space stood a huge rock.
The rock was about one and a half people tall, with an irregular shape, and from a distance it looked like a broken rock that had been peeled off the mountain.
But once you get closer, you can see that it didn't stand there naturally.
The boulder has been cut on all four sides.
The scratches are extremely deep, as if it had been repeatedly processed by heavy tools such as axes, hammers, and chisels, and the surface is covered with dense engravings.
Those engravings are not decorations, but rather runes.
At first glance, it appears chaotic, but upon closer inspection, one can discern the structures of four ancient seal script characters: "山" (mountain), "封" (seal), "镇" (town), and "禁" (forbidden).
Nine black iron nails were also driven into the front of the stone.
Each nail was rusted black, but the nail heads were not completely rotten; instead, they gleamed with an abnormal dark red luster in the sunlight.
At the foot of the boulder, there was a circle of broken porcelain bowls.
The bowl's rim faces inward, and the bottom is covered with paper ash, bone powder, cinnabar, and some indistinguishable fragments, as if someone had made offerings here for a very long time.
Several strands of blackened red thread were pulled between the porcelain bowls, with the ends of the threads all pointing towards the center of the stone.
Upon seeing this, everyone instinctively stopped in their tracks.
"What is this again?" Zhou Heng couldn't help but ask.
Song Qinghe frowned as well: "It looks like a stone tablet, but it's not."
Lin Zhaoxuan stared at the stone for a while, then his expression suddenly changed slightly: "There's a restriction on this."
Only Lu Yuan remained silent.
He walked halfway around the stone, his gaze growing colder and colder, before finally stopping behind it.
There was an inconspicuous groove there, and next to the groove, there was a piece of animal bone that had been weathered and turned white.
The animal bone was long and thin, resembling either a wolf bone or a fox leg bone. A hole was drilled in the middle of the bone, and a faded copper coin was inserted into the hole.
Lu Yuan reached out and paused above the groove, seemingly sensing the remaining energy.
After a moment, Lu Yuan nodded as if he had suddenly realized something.
"I see."
Xu Erxiao blinked: "Brother Lu, what did you see?"
Lu Yuandao said, "This is a soul-suppressing stone, no, it's a soul-binding stone that's half-suppressing and half-locking."
Everyone was taken aback.
Lu Yuan continued, "The real Soul-Suppressing Stone is used to suppress the soul of the deceased and prevent it from leaving the body and wandering around. It is often found in cemeteries, mass graves, or the core of a sealing formation."
"But this one is different."
"Its surface is engraved with soul-suppressing patterns, but underneath are buried soul-locking nails, nine nails in the heart, surrounded by porcelain on all four sides, and a red thread to guide the way."
"This means it doesn't just press down, but nails the souls to this ground, forcing them to circle around the stone."
"After a long time, the soul's nature is worn down, the resentment is dissipated, and what is left is only the most easily manipulated yin essence."
Song Qinghe's face turned pale: "You mean—it's refining the soul?"
"right."
Lu Yuan nodded.
"We can't just use a living person to refine it; that would be too impulsive and could easily ruin the whole thing."
"This is to slowly grind the souls that died in this ditch into Yin Sha, and then the Yin Sha is swallowed up by the offering and fed to something deeper."
He raised his hand and tapped the stone twice, the sound dull.
"Listen, there is an echo inside this stone, but it is not an empty echo; it is a suppressed echo."
"There are probably a lot of things buried underneath."
Zhou Heng's face turned ashen: "What exactly are these people trying to do?"
Lu Yuan coldly replied, "Naturally, they want to raise an evil god, to borrow divine power, and to bring things that shouldn't be alive to life."
"This kind of arrangement is most afraid of yang fire, which is why they set up red cloth, talisman walls, and evil-suppressing stakes here, deliberately making the mountain path a half-yin and half-yang ditch."
"It looks like it's suppressing evil, but it's actually nurturing evil."
"The longer it's pressed, the more 'cooked' it becomes."
Everyone felt a chill run down their spines upon hearing this.
Just then, the bushes next to the rock in front of them suddenly swayed slightly.
Everyone tensed up immediately, and Zhou Heng had already held his sword horizontally.
But after the shaking, what emerged from the shadows was not a ghost, but a tree.
A very strange poplar tree.
The tree wasn't very tall, but its trunk was unusually thick, with a bluish-white color, as if it had been soaked in water, or like the bone exposed after the flesh had been scraped away.
The bark peeled away layer by layer, revealing a network of crisscrossing lines beneath, so fine they resembled countless mouths stacked together.
The strangest thing is the leaves.
It was still noon, and all the other trees around were bare branches, but this poplar tree had a few dozen leaves hanging on it.
The leaves are not green, but grayish-white, with slightly curled edges, and they tremble gently on their own even when there is no wind.
It looked like someone had hung a bunch of thin pieces of paper on the treetops.
Below the tree trunk, there were three short wooden stakes nailed together, with a red line running across them and several small copper bells hanging from the middle of the line.
The bell didn't ring, but as the crowd approached, it shrank back slightly, as if it were being suppressed by something.
Song Qinghe murmured, "This tree—something's not right."
Lu Yuan stared at the poplar tree, a hint of genuine disgust appearing in his eyes for the first time.
"Of course something's wrong."
"This is a shady poplar."
"Or rather, he was turned into a 'spirit-summoning Yang'."
"Poplar trees are inherently yin in nature, and they tend to attract yin energy, especially old and withered poplars, which are most fond of attracting wandering souls and spirits."
"But this tree has been tampered with; it's not just about gathering yin energy."
He pointed to the tree roots.
"Look at the soil around the tree roots."
When everyone looked down, they discovered that the black soil around the tree roots was noticeably wetter and shinier than other areas, and contained wisps of fine white fluff.
It looks like ash, and also like hair.
Several pieces of bone were still pressed under the tree roots. The bones were worn thin, so they were obviously not buried naturally.
Lu Yuandao said, "The poplar trees here are not for blocking the wind, nor are they for marking locations."
"It's used to guide souls."
"Poplar leaves are thin, branches are light, and they rustle in the wind, making it easy for people to hear sounds they shouldn't."
"In the old days, some places would plant poplar trees at mass graves and river bends, saying that they could attract wandering souls and ward off ghosts, preventing them from running away."
"But this one wasn't planted in an ordinary way."
"There are bones underneath it, bells hanging on its branches, and a talisman wrapped around its trunk."
"This is like turning a living tree into a banner for summoning souls."
Zhou Heng got goosebumps listening to this: "Then what's the significance of it here—"
Lu Yuan gazed at the treetops and slowly said, "It is responsible for guiding the scattered soul energy back onto this path."
"In other words, the souls of those who die in this ditch, regardless of whether they have escaped even a little, will eventually be partially pulled back by this tree."
"With it, the ghosts will never leave; with it, the road will never be clean."
He paused, his voice growing colder.
"This is not just a simple tree."
"This is a road sign, a hook, and also a cage before feeding."
As soon as he finished speaking, the branches of the poplar tree suddenly trembled slightly.
A grayish-white leaf slowly drifted down from the tip of a branch.
The moment the leaf fell to the ground, the several copper bells beside it rang very softly at the same time.
"bite.
The sound wasn't loud, but it seemed to come from the bottom of a distant well, clear and crisp, penetrating everyone's ears.
Zhou Heng was jolted and took a half step back.
Song Qinghe quickly pressed down on the Tai Chi Sealing Disc, as if afraid that something might take the opportunity to escape.
Lu Yuan's gaze, however, had already passed over Yin Yang and landed at the end of the stone path deeper behind the tree.
Lu Yuan knew that the real trouble was yet to come.
This poplar tree is just the second "showcase" displayed in Yeren Gully.
It tells those who come after that someone set up a trap here, and that people died here.
But it also serves as a reminder to all living people who dare to move forward: once you enter this path, don't expect to leave unscathed.
At that moment, the stone path ahead suddenly became unusually quiet.
It wasn't that the wind had stopped, but rather it was as if something had stopped the wind altogether.
Everyone stood in front of Yin Yang, none of them daring to make the first move.
The few small copper bells hanging from the red thread were clearly not blown by the wind, but just as the gray-white leaves fell to the ground, they trembled very slightly, making a series of soft sounds like teeth chattering.
"Ding, ding—"
The sound wasn't loud, but it was excessively clear.
Zhou Heng felt a chill run down his spine and muttered under his breath, "This thing can even make a sound?"
Lu Yuan didn't reply, but simply raised his hand, signaling everyone to slow down their breathing.
He looked at the leaf that had just fallen to the ground, his gaze gradually darkening.
"It's not the leaves rustling."
Lu Yuan said.
"It's the one catching things."
Song Qinghe was taken aback: "Receive what?"
Lu Yuan did not answer immediately, but looked up at the canopy of the shady poplar tree, and then looked down at the few pieces of broken bone under the roots.
Finally, his gaze fell on the patch of gray earth at his feet, pressed down by the shadow of the tree.
A faint wisp of white vapor slowly rose from the gray soil.
It's like smoke, and like fog.
If you don't look closely, you can hardly see it.
But Lu Yuan could see it clearly.
"They're here."
At first, no one understood what Lu Yuan was referring to.
The next moment, a soft "click" sound suddenly came from behind the soul-binding stone by the roadside.
It looked like some kind of wooden object, which was slowly pushed from a distance.
Immediately afterwards, a faint scent began to waft through the air.
It wasn't bloody, nor did it smell of decay.
Instead, it was a cool fragrance.
It smells like the ash left over from burning paper money, mixed with a hint of new cotton cloth, beeswax, and wood soaked in cold water.
The moment that smell wafted out, Zhou Heng's expression changed instantly.
"The smell of a funeral—"
Wang Cheng'an's throat went dry: "What funeral?"
Lu Yuan raised his eyes and looked deeper into the stone path, saying calmly, "It didn't come from anywhere."
"They're almost here."
As soon as Lu Yuan finished speaking, a sliver of white slowly emerged from the end of the stone path that was mostly covered by red cloth and withered branches.
That white wasn't the white of sunlight, nor was it the white of fog.
It was a striking white cloth.
Someone is carrying it.
Two people, one in front of the other.
The person in front was wearing a worn-out blue cloth short jacket, with a white cloth belt around his waist and a white hat on his head.
His shoulders shrug as he walks, but his feet make no sound at all.
The person behind was even stranger; he looked as if he were buried inside a long white banner.
All that could be seen was a corner of cloth dragging gently on the ground, and a section of wrist exposed was as pale as bone that had been soaked in water.
What's most unsettling is that the two men were carrying a small paper coffin.
The coffin was no more than half a person's height, covered with white paper, but with a circle of red flowers tied around the edge.
The red was so bright it was almost blinding, the white so cold it was almost unbearable; placed together, they were so jarring they made one's heart ache.
Zhou Heng instinctively took a step back, his voice trembling: "This, this isn't—"
"White Fiend." Song Qinghe uttered the two words almost instinctively, her face turning deathly pale: "The White Fiend of the funeral procession."
Lu Yuan's eyes were as cold as ice.
"This is no ordinary White Demon."
"It's across a ditch."
"This place beyond the pass is mountainous and treacherous, filled with heavy yin energy. In the old days, some families who were particular about such things would hire a 'funeral attendant' to lead the way for a funeral, lest the coffin's aura rush through the mountain pass and disturb anything underground."
"But if the evil spirit is sent off on the wrong path, or if the white banner is carried into a place it shouldn't go, then the evil spirit will not travel on the human path, but will only travel on the path of the dead."
.
Lu Yuan paused, then lowered his voice even further: "This is called 'Crossing the Ditch'."
"The living avoid it, the dead follow it."
Is this a "crossing the ditch"煞 (sha)?
Everyone was stunned for a moment and immediately looked at Lu Yuan. What was this thing?!