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墨書 Inktalez
Zhong Kui's Diary
Wan Li No clouds, the sky is clear and blue.
I drove Fatty to Shacheng General Mountain.
The car was an off-road vehicle borrowed from Lingfeng, which is said to perform well on steep slopes, making it very suitable for the mountain roads of General Mountain. Along the way, I chatted casually with Fatty, and even now, I feel as if what happened last night was just a dream.
When I realized that the person in my arms was Xiao Lin, I knew that Jiang Ziyu had mistaken his target. I took out my phone and waved it around, discovering that Jiang Ziyu was actually holding Luo Xiaoyue. Seeing the light from my phone, everyone else intentionally or unintentionally moved aside a bit, but those two remained shamelessly wrapped up in each other's embrace...
Damn it, Jiang Ziyu, you old bastard! Weren't you infatuated with Xiao Lin? Didn't you want to have a passionate romance with her that would shock even the Demon? How come you're now holding onto Luo Xiaoyue like you're mesmerized and can't let go? With what you're doing, all I can say is—well done!
Because of this, I successfully obtained the address of the Cursed God. To my surprise, the residence of the Cursed God turned out to be at Shacheng General Mountain's Thunder Sound Temple. Yes, it's the same dilapidated temple where we encountered a landslide while going to pick up Lingfeng for his wedding. It was also in that broken temple that I met the White Dragon Horse from Dominion Villa, who was then known as the Six God Monk.
I never expected that broken temple to be the hiding place of the Cursed God. No wonder it was so run-down; anything related to the Cursed God couldn't possibly be in good condition. Wait, that doesn't seem right. I frowned and said, "That broken temple had no one else besides the Six God Monk. Both Kong Xuan and Qingcheng have checked this."
Fatty hadn't seen the state of the broken temple. After I told him about it, he laughed and said, "Maybe that statue with half its head missing is actually the Cursed God. You know how it is with gods."
I shook my head. "The Cursed God is just a person. No matter how powerful he becomes in his cultivation, he can't possibly lose half his head."
"Come on, what's so rare about that? Otherwise, why would he be called the Cursed God? It's because he's unlucky," Fatty said recklessly about the Cursed God. Anyway, being with me meant his bad luck wouldn't trigger.
When we arrived at the narrow path where the boss of Cao Da Ma Zi was supposed to meet us, we got out of the car. Checking the time, it was now eleven in the morning. Since it wasn't yet midsummer, it wasn't particularly hot. Calculating our journey, we should reach the Thunder Sound Temple around two in the afternoon. If everything went smoothly and we headed back to drive to Star City, we would probably get back after ten at night.
We hurried along and safely reached the entrance of the Thunder Sound Temple. From a distance, we saw that the temple door was wide open. As we approached, we noticed cobwebs everywhere, making it look exceptionally dilapidated. It seemed this broken temple deep in the mountains hadn't been visited by anyone.
I broke off a branch and casually swept away the spider webs at the temple door as we entered the courtyard. It was Fatty's first time here, and he couldn't help but exclaim: "Wow, this temple is really falling apart! Look at this grass; it's almost knee-high and getting close to my thighs!"
I stepped on the square Bluestone Slab beneath my feet and laughed, "You know, this Bluestone Slab is quite sturdy. The vitality of these wild grasses is impressive; from a distance, it looks like a large patch of grass, who would have thought they actually sprouted from the cracks in the stones?"
As we laughed, we carefully searched through the temple. Aside from some personal belongings left by the Six God Monk, there were no strange occurrences inside the temple, and it was clear that no one had lived there. Even when we took a Hammer and struck each room one by one, we found no hidden chambers or mechanisms.
In the end, we sat on the dilapidated threshold of the Main Hall, smoking.
"Ghost Brother, do you think that half-missing Buddha statue is the Cursed God?" Fatty pointed to the statue in the center of the hall with his cigarette-holding hand.
I casually glanced over; due to lack of maintenance, the statue appeared extremely worn down. I couldn't help but chuckle, "Why don't you check if there's a signature on the Dharma Seat?"
This wasn't just a random suggestion; some Dharma Seats have inscriptions hidden in dark places besides the Lotus Pattern, such as notes indicating who built this Buddha in which year and month at what location—similar to how artists or calligraphers stamp their works. In other words, it's akin to today's 'made in China.'
Fatty took a couple of puffs from his cigarette, spat out the butt onto the ground, stood up to extinguish it with his foot, and walked over to the statue. He climbed up and down for a while before suddenly shouting, "Ghost Brother, come look!"
"Really? Did you find something?" I quickly stood up, tossed my cigarette butt underfoot and crushed it before walking over to Fatty.
At the base of the Buddha statue, a few words were inscribed: Three Thousand Prostrations, Buddha Helps Those with Fate.
"What does this mean?" Fatty asked in confusion, pointing at the tattered Cushion in front of the statue. "Is it telling us to bow three thousand times and then make a loud noise for Buddha to appear?"
I frowned and said, "Fatty, have you ever read Dragon Eight Parts?"
"Of course I've read it," Fatty replied after a moment's pause. "Ghost Brother, what do you mean?"
"Since you've read Dragon Eight Parts, you must know about Duanyu's adventures in Limitless Cave. After he fell into the Gorge and entered the cave, he had to bow a thousand times before he could obtain the North Sea Divine Skill manual from Fairy Sister, right?" I said solemnly.
Fatty suddenly became excited: "I understand! I'll go and bow!"
I couldn't help but laugh and said, "Does your IQ need a recharge? What I meant was that the secret book was taken from the broken Cushion."
"Right, so I also plan to break the Cushion... uh, maybe it's not necessary to break it," Fatty chuckled, scratched his head, walked over, picked up the Cushion, and with a tug, the Cushion was torn into pieces.
"Nothing here!" Fatty bent down and rummaged through the pieces of the Cushion, finally standing up empty-handed with a bitter smile: "The book is all lies."
"Could it be that we misunderstood?" I circled around the statue and returned to stand in front of it, frowning in thought as I stared at the original spot where the Cushion was placed.
"What do you mean?" Fatty asked.
"What would a normal person’s reaction be after bowing three thousand times?" I stroked my chin and pondered.
"What else could happen? They'd faint," Fatty replied with a laugh.
"Exactly. If a normal person bows three thousand times, the only result is fainting." I pointed at the spot where the Cushion had been and said with a smile: "Here's the problem: if they faint at this position, they should fall right under the Altar Table."
I crouched down, preparing to crawl under the Altar Table.
"Ghost Brother, what are you doing?" Fatty looked astonished.
"The first thing someone who faints does when they wake up is subconsciously assess their surroundings to recall what happened to them. So if they open their eyes and see the bottom of the Altar Table... if I'm not mistaken, there should be clues on the back of the Altar Table." I looked at Fatty with a hint of pride: "You didn't think of this?"
"Your reasoning makes sense, but..." Fatty laughed heartily and directly flipped the Altar Table over: "Isn't this enough? There's no need to crawl under it."
I stood up, scratched my head, and chuckled awkwardly, "I just wanted to squat down to tie my shoelaces."
To cover up my embarrassment, I directly looked at the bottom of the Altar Table, only to find that there were no hints or symbols on the back of it. Damn, my deduction was wrong, which made me feel even more embarrassed.
Fatty took out a Hammer and smashed the Altar Table to pieces, hoping to discover something. However, apart from a pile of wood shavings, he found nothing.
"Smoke, smoke," Fatty handed me a cigarette and lit it for me, laughing, "Ghost Brother, do you want to call Jiang Ziyu and ask if that guy is just messing with us?"
"He shouldn't be," I took a deep drag of the cigarette. "After all, he's a Grandmaster-level Expert; he wouldn't lack this bit of integrity. Besides, his happiness came so suddenly at that time that he was a bit incoherent; he probably didn't have the mind to deceive me."
"But there’s no trace of the Cursed God here at all," Fatty said with a frown.
"This broken temple definitely has some mechanism; we just haven't found it yet," I exhaled a puff of smoke and pointed at the statue. "And that verse written under its feet must be related to the secret room."
"Three Thousand Prostrations? Come on, are we really supposed to bow three thousand times for the mechanism to appear?" Fatty looked at the statue with a face full of despair.
"Three Thousand Prostrations, heh heh, I wonder which idiot came up with this mechanism," I sneered as well.
If it were someone else, they might actually start bowing. It was so obvious; as long as you bowed three thousand times, naturally Buddha would help those with fate.
But both Fatty and I were rather lazy. If we had to honestly bow three thousand times, it would be better to just stab us three times instead. Throwing away the cigarette butt, I said firmly, "Fatty, let's pry open the stone slabs near the Cushion."
Fatty was taken aback. "How come?"
"First of all, if the mechanism really appears after Three Thousand Prostrations, then there must be some kind of sensor under these stone slabs. After bowing, the sensor will activate the mechanism. So it seems that prying open the floor will give us answers," I said while rubbing my nose.
"What's next?" Fatty actually pulled out a crowbar over a meter long from his Spatial Bag.
"What the hell do you have in your Spatial Bag?" I asked in surprise.
"Everything you can think of, it's packed full," Fatty replied with a laugh. "You haven't heard the next part yet."
"Next part? Since we're just sitting around anyway!" I chuckled.
"That reason is too ridiculous," Fatty said, laughing as he used the iron rod to pry up the Bluestone Slab that was originally under the Cushion.
We both knew that there couldn't be any mechanisms beneath the Bluestone Slab. We had previously struck it with a Hammer, and it was solid underneath, so there was no way there could be a hidden room. However, just as I said, since we were idle anyway, we might as well check.
The moment we lifted the stone slab, we were stunned. There was nothing underneath, but on the back of the slab were two rows of large characters.
Bing Wu Ding Mao, upside down.
Xin Si Geng Shen, visible Cursed God.
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