By the door of the household, a couple, smiling, listened to the middle-aged woman’s chatter in front of them, without the slightest trace of impatience.
The content of the chatter was the same as yesterday!
Happiness as usual, still beautiful.
But the happiness here gave Wan Lei a completely different experience. It was no longer a smile on his lips, but a chilling sensation.
What… had happened here?
With his mind full of thoughts, Wan Lei walked aimlessly on the street. Suddenly, a young man running out almost bumped into him.
“My book is number one on the bestseller list… I’ve become a god…”
Looking at the writer shouting hysterically in ecstatic joy, Wan Lei really wanted to grab him and slap him, asking him what was wrong.
But he suppressed the urge in his heart, worried that if he stopped the young man, a series of bad things would happen.
He went around the young man and continued towards the town center.
Arriving at the statue of the Great Sage Equaling Heaven, Wan Lei stopped and observed. He hadn’t looked closely yesterday, but today, the eyes of the Great Sage Equaling Heaven seemed to flicker with a faint golden light.
Was this statue sentient?
“Greetings, fellow Daoist.”
The mayor flew over, smiling kindly at Wan Lei.
Wan Lei’s hairs stood on end, and he took two steps back.
“May I know why you have come to our town, fellow Daoist?”
Wan Lei shook his head and remained silent, turning to look north of the town.
A monkey with six ears, pulling a cart, walked over.
“Pay your protection fees, hurry up and hand over your protection fees.”
The monkey shouted with a smile. People went up to collect their share of the supplies and thanked the monkey.
The monkey walked over slowly. More than half of the supplies on the cart were gone.
When it reached Wan Lei, it looked up at him. Wan Lei waited for it to give him the pills.
However, the monkey did not ask him what he needed. Instead, it smiled, shook its head, and said,
“You should have left yesterday.”
Boom!!!
Wan Lei felt as if he had been struck by lightning. His mind exploded, and he stared at the six-eared monkey with wide eyes.
The monkey did not look at him. It walked to the sacrificial offerings, picked up a fruit, and hopped onto the cart. With one leg dangling and the other resting on the cart, it sat like that.
The monkey took a bite of the fruit and looked in the direction it came from, its gaze somewhat deep.
“So, I can’t leave today, can I?”
Wan Lei narrowed his eyes, preparing for battle.
He couldn’t see the monkey’s cultivation, but it definitely had cultivation.
How could a monkey with intelligence and the ability to speak be so simple?
“No,”
The monkey shook its head.
“I have no hostility towards the Five Elements Hall, nor do monkeys from Flower Fruit Mountain kill innocent people indiscriminately. I have no intention of killing you.
You came here to investigate, right?”
“Where did the previous scout go?”
Wan Lei remembered that according to the intelligence, the scout had lost contact after sending back information, and it was suspected that he had been silenced.
“He took a wrong turn and went somewhere he shouldn’t have. He can’t come out for now,”
the monkey said.
“Where did he go?”
“You wouldn’t want to know.”
Wan Lei’s heart sank. Did he go to your Flower Fruit Mountain on Penglai Immortal Island and get eaten by your monkeys?
“It seems you know a lot about this town. Can you tell me what’s happening here?”
Seeing that the other party’s attitude was friendly, Wan Lei politely inquired. If he could get the answer directly, he could return to report, without any danger, which would be wonderful.
However, the monkey naturally wouldn’t tell him directly.
“Aren’t you an investigator? Then investigate. Whatever you find out, that’s all you’ll know.
The strangeness of this town is right before your eyes. Let’s see if you can see through it.”
Upon hearing this, Wan Lei said no more, turned his head, and carefully observed the town.
Everything here looked normal at first glance. If he hadn’t been here for the second time, he wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual.
Looking now, apart from that faint, elusive strange smell, there was nothing abnormal.
Could it be an illusion formation? Or an illusion?
But there were no traces of a formation found.
Thinking of this, Wan Lei’s pupils turned into double pupils. He activated his array eye.
The array eye analyzed all formations and also had some ability to see through illusions.
Wan Lei looked again, but the town remained as usual, revealing no clues.
“Array eye? I didn’t expect you to be a formation master,”
the monkey said indifferently, its expression very normal.
Wan Lei did not answer. Since he couldn’t see through it, he would look for unusual places.
Everything here was repeated every day, but this peculiar point was not a clue.
As he looked, Wan Lei’s gaze fell upon the people nearby who were bowing to the statue of the Great Sage Equaling Heaven.
The incense in the censer was wafting and dissipating into the sky.
“What are they doing?”
Wan Lei looked at the six-eared monkey.
The monkey let out a sneer.
“In the East Sea, the Great Sage Equaling Heaven is a god. They believe in gods and worship gods, isn’t that very normal?
They give faith to the Great Sage Equaling Heaven, and the Great Sage Equaling Heaven gives them happiness. It’s an equivalent exchange.”
Upon hearing this, Wan Lei’s eyes narrowed, and he suddenly looked up at the eyes of the Great Sage Equaling Heaven statue.
He finally understood what the golden light in those eyes was.
It was faith, it was prayer, it was…念力 (niàn lì – mental power/willpower)!
“I know what to do now.”
Wan Lei closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, golden light erupted from them, instantly covering the entire town.
“Oh? You also have 念力? You keep surprising me. You’re not an ordinary disciple of the Five Elements Hall, are you?”
The monkey smiled but did not stop Wan Lei.
“I have also been believed in by billions of living beings.”
His immortal status was granted by those billions of living beings.
Wan Lei used his 念力 to counter the 念力 of the Great Sage Equaling Heaven.
And the 念力 of the Great Sage Equaling Heaven was swept away like dust under his 念力.
It wasn’t that the Great Sage Equaling Heaven was weak, but that only tens of thousands of people in this town believed in it. The 念力 in the statue was insignificant compared to Wan Lei’s 念力 from billions of living beings.
After the 念力 of the Great Sage Equaling Heaven was cleared, this town finally revealed its true face.
In the town, it was still bustling. People were active on the streets.
It’s just that…
It’s just that all the people here were corpses!!!
They exuded a strong stench of decay, and their bodies were covered with尸斑 (shī bān – corpse spots) and rotting flesh. Some even had chunks of flesh falling onto the ground as they walked, revealing bare white bones.
They were already dead, but they were still living aimlessly in this town.
Walking dead!
“No wonder… no wonder…”
Wan Lei muttered to himself, looking as if he were in a daze.
No wonder he had been smelling a faint, unpleasant odor, but couldn’t quite identify it for a while.
Now he knew. It was the smell of decay. Everyone in this place was dead.