Chapter 365: Yinshan Village

Yang Zhi dug his head in, wiping the mud from his face as he woefully lifted his hand and handed Kong Xuyang the pile of calendars he had already accumulated, asking urgently, "Brother Kong, this is what I just dug up, can you see what's going on?"

Kong Xuyang took the calendar and skimmed through it quickly.

"...... In the year Gengzi, in the month of Gengchen, on the 21st day of March, the young and strong members of the family gathered together to worship their ancestors, they were determined to join the army, to be known for their righteousness, to go on the road to fight against the ghosts coming from all directions, their wives and daughters' parents shed tears beside the bridge, kneeling down to ask the gods of heaven and earth to bless the men of our Yinshan village to return home in good condition... ..."

"In the year Gengzi, in the month of Xinshi, on the first day of the fifth month, there was news of war in the capital, with the rumbling of cannons and the stabbing of gunfire, which was also heard a hundred miles away, and all the relatives of the family were worried and prayed day and night at the shrines and temples ......"

"On the fifth day of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth month of the fifth year.

The man's name was Wang Wu, aged thirty-eight, with a son and two daughters, a kindly man, who was busy helping his neighbours cut wheat.

" Wang Wu's son and two daughters shook the corpse and shouted in bewilderment, but Wang Wu did not answer."

"...... On the eighth day of the fifth month, the corpses were returned to the village, with a white cloth placed on a wooden frame at the entrance of the village, everyone in the village stood in front of the corpses, silent, no one came forward to open the cloth to identify the corpses, they all covered their faces and wept, a few hours later Old Zhang in the village came forward to shake his hands to remove the cloth, loudly howling, mouth repeatedly called out his nickname, tears gushing Unable to stop, he fainted in front of the body ......"

......

"On the 23rd of May, all the young and strong from the village of Yinshan returned, and no one survived."

"On the 27th of May, it is appropriate to move the earth, travel, and bury, most of the bones of the young and strong returning home are incomplete, according to the customary practice not to enter the ancestral grave, buried at the foot of the opposite hill, the mourning woman holds the tablet, the children cry in front of the mourning, the parents carry the coffin around, and keep the spirit for seventy-seven to forty-nine days, although not in the ancestral grave, but with great rites and thick burial."

......

"July 20, the righteous all died, the foreign devils were rampant, went to the capital, unhindered, burned, killed and plundered, no evil was done, the fires burned smoke, the village of Yinshan was vaguely visible."

"The court is inactive and allows the ghosts to eat people; in less than three days, surrender."

"On the seventh day of the ninth month, there were rumours in the capital that the imperial court had deliberated with the foreign devils and, as a sign of the sincerity of the deliberations, handed over the villages where those involved and their relatives were located to the evil spirits, allowing them to slaughter and rape and pillage and station themselves, with the tacit understanding that they could continue their march inwards, cede territory and punish the mob as a sign of their sincerity."

"The only women left in Yinshan village were Old You, who were weak and defenceless, and in their pathos they would rather die than be humiliated.

"I'd rather be a stern ghost under the bridge than a bitch in front of the hall."

......

"What's all this nonsense?!" Kong Xuyang looked more and more furious, "Nothing to do with that Taoist zombie shit, anything else?"

Yang Zhi stole a glance at the growing number of ghosts that were being kept away from the zombies, and couldn't help but shiver and blush, not even daring to shake her head at Kong Xuyang for fear of angering him: "No, no more."

"There's no more digging!" Kong Xuyang kicked Yang Zhi in the head, so furious that his face filled with blood.

Mu Sicheng, next to him, watched the scene and couldn't help snorting derisively, "Only a fool would take it out on his own teammates."

Kong Xuyang's temple jumped at the corner of his forehead and he walked over and raised his hand to give Mu Sicheng a slash, but halfway there he saw the fangs at the corner of Mu Sicheng's mouth and stopped.

Mu Sicheng is now a zombie with the corpse poison, and if he walks over to Mu Sicheng and gives him a bite, it is he who will suffer.

His essence is now almost depleted, and he can no longer finely manipulate the zombies guarding Mu Sicheng to bite him to death; he can only simply have the zombies watch over Mu Sicheng ......

And if the zombie doesn't kill Mu Sicheng with another bite, and Mu Sicheng's spirit level falls below 20 and he doesn't die, then something more troublesome will happen.

Prioritise things, don't waste energy, find the calendar first!

Kong Xuyang's raised hand pauses for a moment before he takes a deep breath and shakes it off, turning to put the calendars around his waist, squatting down and continuing to dig the grave with Yang Zhi.

Mu Sicheng looks at the yearbook on Kong Xuyang's waist, and the monkey's paw, clipped backwards behind the zombie, twitches and exhales a long, slow breath.

He had just tried to provoke Kong Xuyang to come over and steal the calendar from his waist, but he didn't expect Kong Xuyang, the idiot, to have his head on straight by this time and not give a glance no matter how much he screamed.

Mu Sicheng's eyes darkened as he glanced at the bronze wall surrounded by zombies, which, although vaguely shaking under the siege of ghosts and monsters, still looked unshakeable in the short term.

Kong Xuyang was right when he said that his stash of killer cards would last until he found all the calendars.

If the calendar holds the key to the game, as Bai Liu says, then wouldn't Kong Xuyang really win, as he says?

And with Bai Liu and these ghosts outside the walls, there's no telling how long Bai Liu will last ......

The fangs around Mu Sicheng's mouth grew longer, his face was a near-corpse green colour and his breathing became laboured as he visually measured the distance between him and Kong Xuyang.

This is a distance he can fill with a single burst, which means he can now burst through and make a surprise attack, stealing the calendar from Kong Xuyang's waist and throwing it outside the wall of zombies.

But if he forced himself to burst through, the zombie behind Mu Sicheng would definitely give him a second go, and Kong Xuyang would be furious and would definitely kill him.

...... just don't know if Bai Liu will get it and be able to decrypt it in time to find the secret of that Taoist zombie and come to his rescue.

With so many steps, it was clear to think that cooperation was definitely too late, and he would most likely be out cold if he did it the hard way.

Mu Sicheng takes a deep breath -

But for some reason, when he thought that the person outside was Bai Liu, no matter how outrageous the operation, he still felt that he could -

--Bet!

Mu Sicheng was staring at the calendar on Kong Xuyang's waist, took a deep breath, lowered his body, and flashed his right paw to scratch Kong Xuyang's waist with a blast.

Kong Xuyang's reflexes were quick, and before the anger in his eyes could rise, the short knife in his hand backhanded and swung outwards at his waist, swatting away Mu Sicheng's outstretched claws.

But what Kong Xuyang didn't expect was that Mu Sicheng didn't roll over to block the zombie behind him as he expected, but instead, he grabbed Kong Xuyang's short blade with his right paw and pulled it forward, pulling Kong Xuyang in front of him.

In Kong Xuyang's stunned and unprepared eyes, Mu Sicheng received a fierce bite on the back from the vampire behind him, and then used his left hand to hook the calendar from Kong Xuyang's waist, and also pulled away the calendar that Yang Zhi had just thrown out of the grave before he could react, crumpled it into a ball and threw it out, saying sternly: "Bai Liu, the calendar is out! "Bai Liu, the calendar is out!"

The zombie at Mu Sicheng's back bit him so hard that he choked on a mouthful of blackened, bruised blood.

From the zombie bite, a steady stream of corpse poison was pumped into Mu Sicheng's body and his face decayed in a matter of moments.

Mu Sicheng is propped up on his hands, panting heavily, his breath stinking of rot, his eyes glowing black, his fangs growing close to his jaws and his throat hissing with thirst for blood.

Kong Xuyang watched as the calendars he had worked so hard to collect were thrown out by Mu Sicheng, and every muscle in his face trembled uncontrollably with rage. --Mu Sicheng...!"

The tip of the knife stabbed Mu Sicheng's back, but it felt like it was stabbing into some tough animal leather, and it wouldn't go any further, and it curled.

Kong Xuyang's movements were halting and his face snapped.

Oh no!

Two bites in a row and Mu Sicheng's spirit level has dropped to 20!

[System warning: Player Mu Sicheng's spirit value has dropped to 17, entering panel berserk state!

Mu Sicheng slowly raised his scarlet eyes, twisted his head in a crooked manner, turned his shoulders a few times and rubbed his fists, standing up against the zombie still biting him on his back, shaking off his two monkey paws which were becoming longer and longer, looking down at Kong Xuyang and Yang Zhi who kept retreating, and slowly raising his eyebrows.

"No wonder Bai Liu didn't rush to my rescue at all when he left me here."

"So this game has this berserk setting." Mu Sicheng stuck out his tongue and licked the blood stains from his mouth, a red glint in his eyes, and cracked a wicked smile, "That's funny, I like it."

Kong Xuyang's voice was sharp and piercing as he formed a palm with one hand: "Zombie back! Protect me!"

The wall of zombies surrounding the outside quickly shrank inwards to encircle Kong Xuyang and Yang Zhi.

Kong Xuyang's face was white and he had no blood left. "

Yang Zhi is forced not to look out and digs his grave with single-mindedness, his eyes red, his breathing rapid and his hands hard, driven by his desire to live.

There's no point in doing anything now but digging graves to end the game quickly!

Yang Zhi, with a strong sense of purpose, dug both graves together, but halfway through the digging Yang Zhi noticed something was wrong.

The grave was accompanied by an assortment of fragmentary and beautifully antique gold and silver jewellery and Chinese porcelain, and in the centre was a small lambskin diary of excellent specification, not a calendar, and written in English letters rather than brushstrokes.

Yang Zhi, full of doubts, dug a few more times and saw a foreign-style hexagonal coffin. He removed the lid and looked into the grave, screaming in shock, sitting on his buttocks and taking several steps backward, pointing his shaking hand at the coffin and saying in a trembling voice: "Kong, Brother Kong, look at the person in the coffin! ......"

Kong Xuyang follows Yang Zhi's finger and subconsciously looks inside the coffin, also frozen in place.

Inside the coffin lay two corpses dressed in foreign clothes, these two corpses were dressed in foreign clothes on the outside and lined with Taoist robes, looking neither yin nor yang, neither east nor west, such a dressing was strange enough, but what was even stranger was their faces.

The faces of the two bodies are identical to those of Yang Zhi and Kong Xuyang.

Yang Zhi was so shocked that she backed up, her voice tinged with tears: "Brother Kong, what's going on? How can there be corpses here that look just like us!"

Kong Xuyang stared motionlessly at the two bodies as if in a nightmare, his face blue and white for a while, muttering under his breath.

"The grave robbers who stole from Yinshan Village a hundred years later, and the fake foreign devils who robbed Yinshan Village a hundred years ago ......"

"If the evil Taoists of Maoshan are guarding Yinshan Village, then the proper Maoshan warlocks should be ......"

In a flash of light, everything came together in Kong Xuyang's head. He snapped open the copy of Maoshan Daoism he had stolen from the back of the temple, flipping from cover to cover without seeing any notes, and then Kong Xuyang, as if suddenly thinking of something, folded the book up and looked to the side.

On the side pastedown is written in English.

[On April 17, 1901, I would like to ask the two masters to assist us in breaking the Yinshan Village by using decent techniques, and I will thank them heavily afterwards].