Chapter 15 The River Ceremony

Zhu Xiaoyu asked, "Shixiong, did you understand? If you did, we can set off."

I nodded and said, "I'm ready!"

Although I didn't understand the situation inside Blackwater Fortress, I couldn't just stay here. You have to walk the road to know if it's smooth or not.

If you don't walk, you'll never get out.

Shi Fei Daoren led us along the underground of Blackwater Fortress for a while, arriving at an underground pier. "This is the exit of Blackwater Fortress. We can only take a boat from here."

"The real road to life and death leading to the Xianyang River is underground. Before we reach the Xianyang River, we can only walk a path without sunlight."

Zhu Xiaoyu pointed to the large ship in the distance and said, "Check if that ship can be used. If not, get a ship from outside as soon as possible."

While Jin Tanzi led people towards the warship, I squatted down at the pier, reached out and touched the bottom of the pier, and quickly grabbed an iron chain submerged in the water.

When I pulled it up, a string of iron cages came up with the chain.

When I saw the incomplete human heads in the iron cages, I couldn't help but say, "This is troublesome!"

Zhu Xiaoyu's face also became unusually ugly, and she wasn't so polite when she spoke: "Old Daoist, why didn't you say that the pier needs a blood sacrifice?"

The human heads below the iron chain were clearly things that had been chopped off to sacrifice to the river.

In the world of術道 (shudao, esoteric arts), sacrificing to the river is not a rare thing. When encountering rivers haunted by ghosts and monsters, practitioners usually choose to sacrifice to the river in order to pass smoothly.

However, killing people to sacrifice to the river is very rare, and it is also a way of quenching thirst with poison.

Once the ghosts and monsters in the river have their appetites whetted, they will demand more and more sacrifices, and the wronged souls in the river will become more and more terrifying.

The Road of Exile has been abandoned for many years. Who knows how many people had to be killed to pass through Blackwater Fortress smoothly in the beginning.

Shi Fei Daoren walked over and took a look, his face also becoming extremely ugly: "This... I didn't know that we had to sacrifice to the river here!"

"Perhaps the garrison of Blackwater Fortress used other prisoners to sacrifice to the river in the beginning!"

"Then we..."

I pulled all the iron chains up. Each chain had nine cages, meaning that we had to kill nine people before we could cross the river.

When Zhu Xiaoyu looked back at her disciples, no one spoke, as if waiting for fate to decide.

Gui Kui came up and said, "Commander, why don't we choose people to kill! Nine people isn't much, we can draw a few from each group..."

"Shut up!" Zhu Xiaoyu slapped Gui Kui across the face, silencing him.

Zhu Xiaoyu knew very well that if she wanted to kill people to sacrifice to the river, my Liangjie Hall would definitely not provide anyone. If pushed too hard, I could make even more of their people die.

Zhu Xiaoyu said sternly, "Everyone who is going on this expedition today is a comrade who can live and die together. If anyone dares to mention the river sacrifice again, don't blame me for being ruthless."

Gui Kui didn't dare to speak, but Zhu Xiaoyu looked at me and said, "Shixiong, how should we deal with this situation?"

I reached out and scooped up some river water, smelled it, and said, "Then it depends on how sturdy that ship is."

Jin Tanzi also rushed back at this time: "Commander, that ship can be used, but it's a ghost ship loaded with coffins. I'm afraid... I'm afraid we won't be able to get off once we get on."

Ye Yang said in a deep voice, "Is it a ship tomb or a ship coffin?"

For people who make a living on the water, the ship is their home when they are alive, and the ship is their coffin when they die.

Their families put them in the ship where they lived for a lifetime, pushed it away from the shore, and let it drift. When the ship naturally sinks, the ship and the person come to a complete end.

People who travel on the water all year round have to burn incense and paper money, and even kneel on the boat and kowtow when they see a ship with its sails furled and its cabin sealed, for fear of offending the people inside the ship.

These kinds of ghost ships can be divided into ship coffins and ship tombs according to their size.

Small boats are coffins. Besides a little clothing from the deceased's lifetime, there won't be anything else. No one will try to take anything from it.

Large ships, even warships, may be pirate ship tombs. The ship not only contains coffins, but also the wealth that the pirates accumulated during their lives. If they are seen by their peers, they may try to take advantage of it.

Stealing ship tombs is often more dangerous than tomb raiding.

Because those pirates dared to let their tombs float on the sea, it means that they have placed a deadly killing move on the ship.

You should know that the ancestor of the pirates, Shui Xian Sun En, was a Daoist from the Five Pecks of Rice School. The secret methods he left among the pirates deterred the sea for hundreds of years, and were still used by pirates until the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Jin Tanzi gritted his teeth and said, "It looks like a ship tomb to me. But... I can't say for sure, please go over and take a look."

I followed Ye Yang to the vicinity of the warship, and couldn't help but frown: "A ship built with Imperishable Wood! What a grand gesture."

Imperishable Wood is actually cedar, another name for sunken wood. This kind of wood has extremely strong corrosion resistance. If it is specially treated, it can last for thousands of years without rotting.

This kind of wood is also a top-quality material for making coffins, second only to golden silk nanmu, which is exclusively for emperors.

The scale of that warship was not small, and it was not a problem to accommodate hundreds of people.

Built entirely of Imperishable Wood, what else could it be but a ship tomb?