Perform Yin Opera, Erlang Shen!
The next moment, Zhou Sheng's eyes suddenly stung as though pricked by needles. He felt an urge to cry, as if a blazing light were shining upon him.
Before closing his eyes, he saw an opened vertical eye.
It was indeed an eye—majestic, vast, and sacred, suffused with dazzling divine radiance that mortals could scarcely bear to look upon.
At that moment, Zhou Sheng actually sensed a trace of divine aura.
Unity of Person and Role!
That bearing, that expression—Zhou Sheng's heart jolted, and these four words instinctively surfaced in his mind.
With merely a stroke of cinnabar and the opening of his voice, he had entered the realm of Unity of Person and Role in an instant?
It felt so familiar and effortless, as though this were no difficult task at all, but as simple as breathing.
"Shine through the three layers of debts from sin and grievance, see through the nine winding guts of reincarnation—"
A mighty, soaring operatic voice rang out, echoing through the mountains like exploding thunder and making Zhou Sheng's eardrums buzz.
The next instant, he felt the earth beneath his feet suddenly shudder, rumbling loudly.
It was as though this was not a road, but the writhing entrails of Ghosts and Gods.
Then, a hand tightly seized Zhou Sheng's wrist and pulled him forward.
Zhou Sheng opened his eyes and saw only Master's back. At some unknown point, the surroundings had filled with strange white mist.
"Stay close. Do not lose focus, no matter what. You are carrying the Patriarch's divine statue. The judge cannot harm you for the moment, and I have broken his soul-bewildering formation. He is enraged now and has gotten serious."
"The mist around us will muddle your five senses and make you hallucinate. No matter what sounds you hear later, do not believe them, and especially do not turn around!"
Master's voice was grave. Zhou Sheng hurriedly nodded and focused on following Master's footsteps.
Master walked quickly, as if someone were pursuing them from behind.
After they had walked for a while, the scenery around them became increasingly desolate and unfamiliar. It was so quiet that not even the faintest cicada cry could be heard.
Far away amid the white mist stood rows of low houses shrouded in bluish light, with bright red lanterns hanging at their doors.
They looked close, yet seemed separated by the ends of the earth.
Dead silence, eerie cold, and strangeness.
Wait!
Zhou Sheng's heart jolted. The scene was becoming more and more familiar. Was this not... the Yin-Yang Road?
Master had brought him onto the Yin-Yang Road?
Just then, faint footsteps suddenly sounded behind him, drawing ever nearer.
Zhou Sheng's hair stood on end. Judging from the sound, the pursuing judge seemed to have reached directly behind him.
Then, a familiar voice sounded at his back.
"Brat, if you keep going forward, you'll follow Him into the Underworld!"
Zhou Sheng felt as if struck by thunder. A chill shot from his tailbone straight to the crown of his head, numbing his scalp and raising goosebumps all over his body.
Because it was Master's voice, using the art of voice transmission.
"You are carrying the Patriarch's divine statue. He cannot kill you for the moment in the world of the living, but once you enter the Underworld, the statue will be sullied by the waters of the Yellow Springs and temporarily become obscured and dust-covered. Then your death will be at hand!"
"This mist is a divine art. I may appear to be only inches away from you, but in truth we are separated by a vast distance. I can only contact you through secret voice transmission. Brat, stop quickly!"
Zhou Sheng slowly raised his head and looked at Master's back ahead, the figure still pulling him onward.
"Steady your mind and resist stray thoughts. This mist can transform into inner demons to bewitch you. Brat, do not fall for it!"
The Master in front also spoke. His voice was identical, and with how familiar Zhou Sheng was with Master, he could not find the slightest flaw.
Two Masters, one before him and one behind him. One of them had to be lying—the judge in disguise!
If he guessed wrong, he would be doomed beyond redemption!
Instinctively, he wanted to use the Luo Book, but his eyes suddenly shifted as he asked a question.
"Master, what was the first opera you taught me?"
He was asking both the Master in front and the Master behind.
"Escape first!"
The Master in front did not turn around. A trace of urgency seeped into his voice. "We'll talk later. Your master must watch the road first!"
But the Master behind immediately transmitted into his ear, "It was Marquis Huan's opera, Listening to the Qin and Storming the Camp!"
A faint smile appeared on Zhou Sheng's face, as though he already had an answer in his heart.
"Master, if you cannot answer this question..."
With his other hand, he brought the box containing the Patriarch's divine statue from his back to the front, pressed down on its lid, and stared intently at the Master before him.
At this moment, the Master ahead seemed to sigh helplessly. "It was Zhang Fei's Listening to the Qin and Storming the Camp. At a time like this, you still don't trust your master?"
Zhou Sheng laughed. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he opened the box and took out the Patriarch's divine statue.
Rays of golden light bloomed forth, and even the surrounding sinister yin aura seemed to fade considerably.
The next moment, the Master before him finally stopped running. He released the hand that had tightly gripped Zhou Sheng's, then slowly turned around.
It was a face identical to Master's, but its expression was cold and grim to a terrifying degree. The instant Zhou Sheng met those eyes, a chill ran through his entire body, as if he had fallen into an ice cave.
It was as though the soul within his flesh was trembling, terrified, and shaking.
"You master and disciple—one old fox and one little fox. So you were deceiving me."
At last, it was no longer Master's voice, but the voice of an unfamiliar man—low, majestic, and magnetic.
It was not loud, yet it carried an indescribable oppressive force, imposing without anger.
The judge had finally revealed himself!
Zhou Sheng felt no joy at having succeeded. Instead, he hugged the Patriarch's divine statue tightly and retreated several steps, facing a formidable enemy with every pore on his body standing erect.
At this moment, it was as though an abyss were staring back at him. The immense terror of facing death cast a shadow over his heart.
Fortunately, Master's voice from behind dispersed that fear.
"Haha, you shameless judge! You love eavesdropping on other people's conversations so much? Aren't you embarrassed?"
"The first opera I taught this child was The Case of Executing Mei!"
"Hmph! Lord Bao's dragon-head guillotine could behead Chen Shimei; it might not be unable to behead you, Judge Lu!"
Master spoke with righteous conviction, but a bitter smile appeared on Zhou Sheng's face. "Master, hurry up and get here!"
The voice was clearly so close, and he could even hear footsteps, yet he simply could not see Master's figure.
It seemed that every wisp of mist could twist heaven and earth, conjuring vast distances out of thin air.
"Don't rush, don't rush. These old bones of your master's are about to rattle apart from running!"
Lu Pan silently watched Zhou Sheng. Divine radiance flowed in his eyes, and his cold, majestic gaze pierced through Zhou Sheng's flesh like a judgment, falling into the depths of his soul.
Then he slowly spoke, his voice like a great bell and his majesty like the sea.
"Zhou Sheng, Yang Register, entry 17,430,009."
"Born in the twenty-first year of Zhaode in the Great Xuan Dynasty. Male. Because he cultivated no merit in a previous life and showed no reverence for the gods, fifty-five years have been deducted from his lifespan in this life. He was meant to die of starvation at the hour of the Rat on Frost's Descent, at five years old."
"Lifespan: five years."
Zhou Sheng's pupils contracted. He had not expected the other party to directly expose the secret he had been desperately concealing.
"Borrowing a corpse to return the soul."
Lu Pan's eyes, flowing with divine radiance, stared silently at him as he enunciated each word. "Then..."
"Who exactly are you?"
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