Chapter 154
An Intricately Linked Scheme!
Chapter 154 An Intricately Linked Scheme! (Two Chapters Combined)
Chen Miao touched the tree roots with his fingers, and a chilling sensation emanated from his fingertips.
Gathering Yin energy at his fingertips, a chilling aura rapidly emanated from the tree roots and converged in Chen Miao's palm.
Sure enough, it was a tree root!
The roots and tendrils of the locust tree!
All the yin energy that gathered just now came from within these tree roots!
If it weren't for the ability to extract yin energy from the yin, Chen Miao would never have discovered these tree roots hidden in the wall!
Chen Miao continued digging into the walls of the room. After peeling away most of the walls, tree roots could be seen in the cracks between the stones.
Chen Miao examined the tree roots and found that they looked very strange.
One section is thick, and the other is thin.
After watching for a while, Chen Miao suddenly realized how tree roots in this condition could be formed.
Growth!
If initially only a piece of tree root was inserted into the cracks in the wall, and these roots continued to grow and eventually connected with each other, then the current situation would fit.
While it's somewhat magical, the fact that zombies can cook makes things like tree roots growing seem less magical.
"But who put these tree roots in there?"
"If it was someone who deliberately inserted it into the scheme later, then the workload would be too great."
"And judging from how deeply it penetrates the wall, it doesn't seem like it was inserted later."
"Then it must have been crammed in when this room was first built!"
"If we calculate it this way, this scheme was very likely already in the works when the village was built, and the planning process may have even taken more than fifty years!"
"Who is the one?"
"It seems there's only one person who would willingly allow everyone to incorporate tree roots into the construction of their house!"
"The village chief of Fengmen Village, the one who developed Fengmen Village and then relocated the entire village!"
Chen Miao suddenly remembered something the old man from that village had said when he and Qi Ning parked their car earlier.
Fengmen Village's rise and fall both depend on its village chief!
"So, this whole scheme in Fengmen Village was set up by the village chief to raise corpses?"
"If that's the case, then the customs of Fengmen Village seem to make sense."
Chen Miao sorted out the situation.
"Because the village chief of Fengmen Village needs these zombies kept at home to do things that will help him raise that flying zombie, he has people from Fengmen Village send their elderly relatives to Fengmen Village after they have lost their spouses."
"Because they need to be buried at the same time, when the deceased old man's body is kept at home, it will be transformed into a special kind of zombie due to the feng shui arrangement."
"The existence of this zombie can help take care of another elderly person's diet."
"With a solution that's even cheaper and easier than a nursing home, why wouldn't the villagers from Fengmen Village who live elsewhere follow this custom?"
"As for the elderly who are sent to the village, what can be done even if they disagree?"
"How can they break free from the shackles of 'tradition' and 'custom' imposed by their descendants?"
"Perhaps the only way to break free is through 'filial piety' and the unwillingness to send the elderly back to the village."
"But how many people like this are there?"
The more Chen Miao thought about it, the more reasonable his guess seemed.
Of course, there are still a few points of doubt.
First, how exactly do these zombies kept at home help flying zombies advance in rank?
Secondly, even if you raise zombies, how would they know how to cook?
Third, the Three Scholar Trees Gathering Yin Formation only gathers Yin, so why can't we feel any Yin energy at all?
This is a point that Chen Miao hasn't figured out yet.
If he could figure out these questions, Chen Miao felt that his chances of survival would be much greater!
He had asked Zhong Cai before, but Zhong Cai didn't understand how a Three Scholar Trees Gathering Yin Formation could not leak any Yin energy at all!
Chen Miao pondered for a long time, but made no progress.
While Chen Miao was pondering, Qi Ning and Zhong Cai kept going back and forth.
In the latter half of the night, Zhong Cai's body couldn't hold on any longer, so he switched places with Chen Miao.
As for the spirit tablet placed at the entrance, Chen Miao moved it to a corner of the room.
The method of moving the spirit tablet is naturally not to hold it in your hands. If you want to hold it in your hands, you have to enter the range of the spirit-suppressing field.
The method Chen Miao used was to alternate between two spirit tablets for pacifying the soul, which was the method mentioned in the book. This was a method that Chen Miao had thought of before.
It involves placing a spirit tablet at a more distant location and then connecting the two spirit-suppressing fields.
Once the connection is established, the scope of those sneaky activities will expand.
At this moment, all that is needed is for one person to stand at the edge of the soul-suppressing field and lure the ghosts over, so that Chen Miao can use a stick to push aside the previous soul-suppressing spirit tablets.
By repeating this process, the evil spirits can be lured to the target location.
Actually, it would be simpler if you had enough ghost cubes.
All you need to do is put all the ghosts and spirits into the Ghost Cube, and then you can move the spirit tablets at will.
It must be said that, to some extent, Ghost Cube can also be seen as a kind of 'scheme'.
Because the ghosts that enter the Ghost Cube are as if they are hidden away, the power of the Soul Suppressing Field cannot break through the 'situation' of the Ghost Cube and drag the ghosts out from inside.
If you think about it this way, the fact that the management bureau can make a feng shui arrangement only the size of a ghost cube shows how terrifying their power is.
Later in the night.
Chen Miao and Qi Ning finally managed to catch the last ghost in the last household before dawn.
Chen Miao counted them carefully; there were seventy-eight ghosts in total!
Judging from their appearance, they should all be the elderly couples who died in the village.
Or perhaps they were all couples buried together.
However, if it was the village chief who did it, then what was the reason that the village chief raised these ghosts?
They were raising flying zombies under the open space, but they were also raising a group of ghosts in the village.
Chen Miao realized that they couldn't leave the village!
"Are these ghosts used to prevent those who know the village's secrets from leaving?"
It seems that this is the only explanation that makes any sense.
I stopped thinking about it.
The night of ghost hunting left Chen Miao and his two companions quite exhausted.
The three of them took turns resting during the day.
The so-called "taking turns to rest" means that one person stays on duty while the other two sleep.
In order to take care of Zhong Cai, and also to avoid wasting manpower.
So Chen Miao and Qi Ning each got four hours of sleep.
When it was Chen Miao's turn to watch over the two, he opened the book again.
He wanted to see if his discovery of the tree roots would affect the changes to the content.
Upon seeing this, Chen Miao's fatigue vanished completely!
"After resting, I told the other two about my discovery."
"Zhong Cai became very interested in what I said, so he conducted an experiment in his room and dug out a piece of tree root."
"I didn't expect Zhong Cai to tear a piece of the tree root off the wall. Right after the tree root was torn off, I felt a strong yin energy coming from that piece of tree root."
"But soon, these yin energies disappeared, vanishing towards the floor of the room."
"And directly below the room we are in is where those two coffins are located."
After having some guesses in our minds, the three of us went downstairs together.
"At this moment, the old man is sunbathing in the yard."
"Zhong Cai dug out another section of tree root from the wall, broke it off, and as I sensed it, the root suddenly emitted yin energy after leaving the wall. This yin energy was instantly absorbed by the coffin!"
"Or rather, it was absorbed by the corpse in the coffin."
"This situation surprised us."
"We've discovered the location of the Yin energy, but another question arises: why does the Yin energy stored in the tree roots not dissipate at all, but release when the roots are broken?"
"To verify this idea, Zhong Cai conducted another test. This time, he did not cut the tree root, but simply pulled it out of the crack in the rock. Then, a magical scene occurred."
"The yin energy from the tree roots actually emanated and quickly drilled into the coffin."
"When Zhong Cai stuffed the tree roots back into the wall, the yin energy within the tree roots stopped flowing away once again."
"Just as I was wondering about this change, Zhong Cai told us some news."
"There's more than one scheme in Fengmen Village!"
"Zhong Cai hadn't considered the possibility of a second feng shui arrangement before, but after seeing the condition of the tree roots, he finally realized that there was indeed a second feng shui arrangement here!"
"The purpose of the second feng shui arrangement is to conceal yin energy," Zhong Cai said. "This second arrangement is very likely the location of every house in Fengmen Village!"
"These houses together form a new situation."
"Because the entire Fengmen Village lacks a strong sense of yin energy both indoors and outdoors, Zhong Cai speculates that this formation likely covers the entire village, so there must be something else besides the houses!"
"And that thing that is different from the house is very likely the core of this scheme."
"In order to find this core, the three of us split up for the first time, because there were only a few hours left before nightfall."
"The direction I was searching for was a fan-shaped area from the center of the village to the entrance. I searched from the center of the village to the entrance, but I still couldn't find that special place."
"For our safety, I'm going to explore back from the village entrance!"
"Just then, as I actively gathered yin energy, I suddenly noticed a large amount of yin energy converging from one direction beside me!"
"With a sudden thought, I walked in that direction and saw two stones about a meter apart and only half a meter high."
"Two stones were hidden in the bushes beside the path at the village entrance. If I hadn't discovered the problem while gathering yin energy, I wouldn't have paid any attention to these two stones at all."
"I reached out, closed my eyes, and touched the stone, beginning to gather yin energy!"
An accident has occurred!
"After the Yin energy in my hand established a strange connection with that stone, my consciousness also seemed to be connected with something mysterious and profound."
"In my perception, the entire Fengmen Village disappeared, replaced by an intricate network with three large nodes and hundreds of shimmering small vortexes."
"Although I didn't understand why this was happening, I quickly grasped what those three major turning points were!"
"A locust tree!"
"From this perspective, the lines connecting the three large locust trees and forming these networks are yin energy! Or rather, the tree roots that contain yin energy!"
"As for those hundreds of shimmering little vortexes, those should be the houses in Fengmen Village!"
"When I focused my consciousness on those small vortexes, I felt a pulling force."
"After Zhong Cai told me about the Three Scholar Trees Gathering Yin Formation, I suddenly understood why I couldn't sense any yin energy in the village!"
The "Three Scholar Trees Gathering Yin Formation" utilizes three giant scholar trees to gather yin energy.
"Originally, this yin energy should have permeated the entire triangular area, with the three corners where the three locust trees are located having the heaviest yin energy."
"But because of this stone at the village entrance, and the hundreds of nodes in Fengmen Village that emit suction, this yin energy was sucked into these nodes one by one!"
"These nodes are constantly absorbing yin energy, meaning the entire network of yin energy formed by the locust tree and its roots is in circulation!"
"Those hundreds of nodes are like pumps, pumping away the absorbed yin energy through the tree roots located in the nodes, and then letting the yin energy circulate underground throughout Fengmen Village."
"The location of this large rock at the entrance of Fengmen Village is the strongest point of attraction!"
"Almost all yin energy passes through this node and is then 'pumped' in all directions."
"This isn't over yet!"
"If it were just the three big locust trees absorbing the yin energy and the hundreds of nodes pumping it away, the yin energy below Fengmen Village would only accumulate more and more. But in reality, among the hundreds of nodes, there are also some that consume yin energy."
"There are thirty of these entities that consume Yin energy, which corresponds to the number of houses in the village."
"In other words, when the yin energy was pumped out from the nodes of these thirty houses, some of it was absorbed by the things stored in the nodes."
"If I'm not mistaken, those coffins are the ones absorbing this yin energy!"
"And this is not the end!"
"In my mind, after those thirty nodes absorbed the Yin energy, they created something new."
"After these things are produced, they are pumped away by the nodes. However, these pumped-away things do not form a cycle in the underground of the entire Fengmen Village. Instead, they disappear in a certain location."
"That location is an open space on the west side of the village!"
"There, something exists that is absorbing what's being produced from those coffins!"
"Just as I was about to take this opportunity to carefully examine the open space to the west, I was suddenly awakened by Qi Ning and pulled away."
Looking at Qi Ning's tense face, I had no idea what had happened.
"Until I saw Qi Ning's gaze."
"Looking down, I saw that my right hand was turning bruised from my palm up to my elbow."
"You can imagine that if I kept touching that stone, my whole body would probably turn into a bruise."
"Although I survived, according to Zhong Cai's observation, it seems that I can't save my arm."
"I was still in a daze, not yet recovered from the loss of my right arm, until the pain in my right arm gradually became clearer."
"I couldn't hold on any longer and passed out."
"During this period, I regained consciousness intermittently several times, and each time, I fainted from the pain."
"I didn't see Qi Ning and Zhong Cai on the later visits. They must have gone to find a way to leave the village."
"I wanted to tell them about my discovery, but I was powerless to do so."
"I don't know how much time passed, but I was awakened again by the pain!"
"But this time, it's not the pain in my arm, it's the pain in my heart!"
"A hand with black fingernails, the same bluish-black color as my right hand, pierced my heart."
"I am dead."
……
(End of this chapter)