Daomu Biji: Restart

I squatted in front of this short mud idol and asked Fatty, "Isn’t this thing pretty similar to the idol we saw in the Heavenly Palace?"

Fatty also squatted down and touched his chin. "It's very similar to the shit I took yesterday."

"Are you that healthy? Shouldn't you have some problems in such a dangerous environment in order to show your respect?"

"If I had held it in, the first thing that would've come out when I found Little Brother and Master Hua would be the urge to poop. How embarrassing would that be?" As Fatty spoke, he pointed to something behind the idol.

This dilapidated temple was set in the north and was facing the south. The idol hadn’t moved from this place for thousands of years, so the sun would sweep across it at the same time every day. Over the years, the statue’s shadow was cast on the wall, which caused the color of the wall to change.

This change was like a drop of water repeatedly hitting a stone; it had occurred for such a long time that there was now a vague outline.

When we were in the Heavenly Palace, we saw murals depicting the local Eastern Xia people using hot oil to stop bug-like creatures from crawling out of the abyss. Their god had also looked like a wooden club, so the outline on this wall brought me back to that moment when I first saw the strange idol in the Heavenly Palace.

This was not a humanoid god.

"In the Kunlun Mountain region, the development of the Bon religion gave rise to many local gods," Xiuxiu said.

I shook my head and bit my lower lip while thinking to myself, this god isn’t a local god. It’s no mere coincidence that this thing appears in all the places with huge geological crevices and huge underground structures.

The distance between Northeast China and the Kunlun Mountains was very far.

Based on my past experiences, we may even see the truth about this god next.

"If a large number of people died, then did they worship this god because they thought it could save them?"

"Maybe they hoped that this god would let them go," I responded.

At this time, Fatty suddenly bowed and paid his respects to the idol. When I looked at him, all he said was, "Just in case. It doesn't hurt to be prepared."

"Based on the current development, our ultimate goal should be to kill this thing,” I said to him. “I’m afraid it’s useless to pay your respects."

Fatty looked at Xiuxiu and asked, "According to you Mystic Nine guys, is your brother Wu Xie considered too ambitious?"

Xiuxiu turned on her flashlight, illuminated the wall with the strong light, and motioned for us to look at the relief while saying, "No, he accomplished everything he intended to do before."

Fatty and I followed Xiuxiu's flashlight to look at the reliefs on the wall. They were completely weathered and almost unrecognizable, but we could see that the previous lines were very complicated. Looking at the wall now, however, it just looked like a mass of folds. But the mountain wall here seemed to be made of some kind of jade, so it had a glossy look to it when the flashlight shined upon it. I felt an indescribable sensation as I looked at that wall; even my throat felt uncomfortable.

Fatty finally summed it up for us. He looked at it and muttered to himself, "Which immortal carved a big mouthful of phlegm here?"

I breathed a sigh of relief, finally understanding the reason why I had felt so uncomfortable. With Fatty’s vivid description, Xiuxiu immediately took about three or four steps away from the relief.

I endured the nausea and continued to look at it. Now I could see that the whole relief could be divided into three parts. One part depicted the snakes entering people's bodies—a large number of adult snakes had obviously directly parasitized the people back then—while the second part depicted some strange things mixing in among the villagers, just like what happened with Jin Xingsan. In the third part, one of the villagers was being burned to death. The snake in this person’s body was different from the other snakes in that it had very short viper horns that almost looked like a crown.⁽¹⁾ There also appeared to be twelve other snakes in this person’s body.

After the person was burned to death, all the "snake people" who had mixed in among the villagers were discovered. The soldiers killed all these people and made the snake disaster disappear, but it could be seen from the relief that the horned snake escaped.

I felt like I was going blind after reading these parts since my eyes were practically pressed up against the stone in order to see what the lines showed, but fortunately, I was skilled at interpreting this kind of thing. If it were ordinary people, they wouldn’t know what these reliefs meant.

"According to what you’ve said, it's not Jin Xingsan who can confuse us. Only this horned snake can," Fatty said.

Yes, this horned snake could make people hallucinate and think that corpses were their companions. Plus, I believed that its IQ wasn’t all that low.

So, this snake was regarded as a dragon by the locals and the emperor sent people to make a censer, set up a trap in the cave, and trap the horned snake within a human cage. The girl who was used as the cage was probably a Zhang family member. I just didn’t know if the Zhang family was around at that time, or if this person was someone with special abilities similar to the Zhang family.

The girl was completely sacrificed, but for some reason, they actually managed to trap the horned dragon within her body. Fatty said that this definitely wasn’t the first time they had done this kind of thing; the emperor's mage must have dealt with this snake disaster in other places before.

I didn’t know which emperor it was or which dynasty it was in; all the information was too vague.

Now that I thought of it, this snake had lived for a really long time, and now it had fallen to its death. I was a little weak.

"This whole relief has nothing to do with this strange god?" Xiuxiu asked.

After looking at the eighty percent of the relief that I couldn’t make out, all I could infer was that there had to be a plot involving this god, but I couldn’t see anything.

Tch, Fatty and I looked at each other at the same time. Our tacit understanding really was awesome.

"This relief was destroyed by someone," Fatty said.

I nodded. Someone had thoroughly and accurately destroyed all the content related to this strange god a long time ago. We could tell because all the damage had a patina on it. This person had mainly destroyed the parts pertaining to this god, but in order to prevent others from seeing those parts, he also damaged other areas. The damage in those areas, however, wasn’t as thorough.

We got back on the helicopter and headed towards the town. Tang Tang’s body was in a warehouse there so we were going to give our final farewells.

On the way over, Fatty said to Xiuxiu, "If the Zhang family investigated this matter back then, it’s possible that they were the ones who took care of the information in the temple. It’s like the Zhang family has been covering up the existence of this wooden club thing. But for what reason? Do they think of themselves as wooden clubs?”

I remained silent, my mind now completely blank. This information could basically be inferred, and Fatty had already deduced it.

When we arrived in the town, we landed in the crematorium’s parking lot. This Kunlun Mountain town had a lot of land and a large parking lot. Many people here preferred to have sky burials, so the crematorium wasn’t as full as it would be in the city. As a result, we were able to buy a spot without any problems.

We didn’t open the bag holding his body because we didn’t want to scare the others. After dismissing the staff, the three of us performed a simple farewell ceremony.

Fatty shed a tear, which he wiped away with his hand, "Tang Tang, we’re even. Take our money and go down and have fun. Hopefully there aren’t any little monsters in heaven."

As I looked at the shapeless sleeping bag on the morgue bed, my mind went back to the first time I ever met him.

No matter how significant a role you played in an era, you’ll eventually usher in your own end.

Goodbye, Tang Tang.

Fatty and I moved the body to the furnace hearth, pushed it into the main body of the furnace, and then closed the door. After that, Fatty pulled down the ignition switch on the side.

The whole furnace instantly turned red with the light from the flames and the sleeping bag started to burn, but at this time, we suddenly heard a scream. Then, something slammed against the furnace door and a strange face appeared behind the door’s glass.

I thought Jin Wantang’s corpse had finally transformed, but when I saw that thing behind the glass, I realized that it wasn’t Jin Wantang's face but that little monster Qi Yu's face.

Before I had time to react, the thing slammed into the furnace door again, hitting it so hard that it knocked the door open. A huge heat wave poured out, along with the smell of burning flesh. The little monster was on fire as it rolled out, knocked into us, and then threw itself directly at Xiuxiu.

Xiuxiu smoothly rolled to the side and dodged while supporting herself with one hand, but the little monster instantly turned and threw itself at her again. This time, Xiuxiu didn't bother dodging at all and got ready to greet the little monster with an elbow. But before it could approach her, Fatty lifted the morgue bed up and smacked it away. I immediately picked up a nearby broom that was used to sweep up ashes and rushed over, but the little monster instantly broke the window and rushed out.

Fatty and I chased it to the broken window, but there was a meadow outside so we couldn’t see anything. We both looked at each other. It was at this time that I suddenly realized that this thing had been hiding in Jin Wantang's sleeping bag the whole time. Had we been carrying it with us the whole way?

I turned to look at Xiuxiu, who closed the furnace door again as if what happened just now was only a small scene. When she saw me looking at her, she also gave me a suspicious look.

"Explain,” she said. "Is Jin Wantang a corpse with two lives?"

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TN Notes:

(1) If I have to suffer, you shall as well. Here’s what a horned viper looks like:

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♡＼(￣▽￣)／♡ Surprise! I got through more last night than I thought I would. Anyone else kind of forget about Qi Yu? Maybe it's just me…