At the foot of the rear mountain in Qingci Town.
There was also a shrine dedicated to the White Ape.
During the monthly worship ceremony, the town's divine statue was carried over in a sedan chair and placed in the shrine at the foot of the mountain.
The route was nearly ten kilometers long, and the worship procession took a full two hours to travel it, with the sound of gongs and drums shaking the heavens the entire way.
Not only did the hands of those beating the gongs and drums grow sore.
Everyone who listened along the way also ended up with their heads buzzing.
But no one dared complain.
Because no one knew whether the White Ape might suddenly leap out at some point.
The White Ape loved vanity and bustle.
It also had a strange quirk—it sometimes liked to hide in the surrounding forests, follow the worship procession, and admire the sight of everyone worshiping it.
Someone from a gong-and-drum troupe had tried to slack off before, only for the White Ape to suddenly spring out and eat him.
Thus, no matter how bitterly tired anyone felt along the way, no one dared complain.
"Lingying, are you sure you asked that Lord Lu the day before yesterday... and that no one really will become a sacrifice this time?"
"Exactly. It would be strange if that demon didn't eat people..."
"...Little Lord Lu said no one would become a demon's sacrifice again... and no one in town would die because of demons anymore..." Shen Lingying stared fixedly at the figure at the very front of the procession.
"Sigh, if no one really will die because of demons, then why are we still carrying out this damn ritual?"
"Lingying, I feel that Lord Lu was only trying to reassure the people in town... He's just counting on us not to make any mistakes during the ritual, lest the White Ape blame him."
"That's right. The White Ape is so powerful. So many Demon Slayer Envoys have failed to defeat it before, and Lord Lu is so young..."
Shen Lingying did not argue. She kept her eyes fixed on the tall figure at the front of the procession and said firmly, "Anyway... I believe him!"
The people around them sighed one after another, but no one said anything more.
In front of the shrine at the foot of the mountain.
Jia Kuiren gently struck the bronze bell before the shrine.
The booming bell made everyone's hearts tremble.
"Raise the altar!" Jia Kuiren shouted.
Eight sturdy men carried the sedan chair containing the divine statue up onto the altar.
"Bring forth the offerings!" Jia Kuiren announced.
Li Tuo brought the three sacrificial animals, wrapped in chains and carried by the town's residents, to the foot of the altar.
The White Ape cared greatly about saving face.
Even for a sacrifice, it demanded that the ritual follow the ancient practice of the Dagan emperors when they worshiped the land and grain deities, using a complete Grand Sacrifice of an ox, a sheep, and a pig.
The town's three butchers took the knives handed over by Li Tuo and went behind the three animals, aiming for their necks.
"Slash!"
At Jia Kuiren's command.
The sharp knives plunged into flesh and severed their blood vessels. Bright scarlet blood gushed out, pouring into three half-man-high porcelain basins prepared in advance.
A thick stench, heavy with the pungent odor of blood, flooded everyone's nostrils.
Everyone's spirits jolted, while a trace of grief flashed through their hearts at the same time—a sorrow like that of a hare mourning the death of a fox.
The ones being killed now were the three sacrificial animals, but once the White Ape arrived, perhaps they would be the ones to die.
The crowd could not help but laugh bitterly inwardly. As members of the Human Race, they had actually fallen so low as to sympathize with livestock.
But in the eyes of demons like that, what difference was there between them and livestock?
The wind moaned mournfully. Steam rose from the animals' hot blood, and all that remained in everyone's hearts was an indescribable desolation.
Lu Jun watched this scene in silence.
It was as though none of it had anything to do with him, though his gaze occasionally flicked toward the distant forest.
The demonic aura there was extremely dense.
He had seen it from the very beginning.
The White Ape had followed them the entire way.
It watched everyone worship it with false noise and bustle.
Satisfying that intense vanity in its heart.
Lu Jun had not chosen to strike, though he very much wanted to.
But he was waiting for an opportunity.
He wanted the White Ape to die in a far more shocking manner.
Only then could this place remain forever free from demonic harassment.
"Pour!"
Jia Kuiren spoke again.
The three butchers who had slaughtered the sacrificial animals lifted the porcelain basins before them and poured the blood fiercely around the altar.
The thick yellow earth was drenched scarlet.
"Shaman, strike the gong!"
Jia Kuiren's heart was filled with humiliation.
The bronze-gong troupe struck the gongs in their hands again.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
"Chief celebrant! Recite!"
The most important and crucial part had arrived.
Lu Jun knew it was time for him to step up.
He needed to recite the sacrificial text. Once he finished, they could invite the divine statue out of the sedan chair.
Then, under everyone's gaze, the divine statue would manifest, and the White Ape would descend from the sky and begin eating people.
The gong troupe was now using every trick in its repertoire.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The booming gongs surged across the altar and echoed through it, churning together with the raging wind!
Lu Jun stepped onto the altar and swept his gaze over the people below.
Their faces were filled with terror, their expressions trembling.
"It's over, it's over..."
"The order is the same again, and the day of death is the same again..."
"The demon is coming... Don't eat me... Don't eat me..."
Once Lu Jun finished reciting the sacrificial text, the demon would leap out and eat people.
At this moment, Lu Jun's recitation sounded less like a ceremony for a deity and more like a countdown to everyone's lives.
Although Shen Lingying had asked Lu Jun for information before.
And Lu Jun had promised that no one would die.
But...
They did not believe him!
The White Ape demon had eaten too many people!
So many deaths, such profound fear... How could a promise from Lu Jun, an outsider, possibly erase it?
Moreover, today's entire sacrificial procedure was no different from before.
Several people in the crowd had already begun quietly sobbing.
The greatest fear was not death, but knowing that death was drawing ever closer.
At that moment, Lu Jun spoke:
"Recite the sacrificial text!"
"Above, the divine beings hear us! I, Lu Jun, now lead all the people before Your honored presence. Bearing the resplendent mandate of Heaven and holding sincere incense in reverence, we have gathered beneath the rear mountain of Qingci Town. With dark jade scriptures and jade wine, we respectfully report and sacrifice to the Myriad Spirits."
"In the beginning, the Great Origin lay dark and silent, and the Dao awakened the primordial chaos. Once yin and yang were divided, the myriad forms came into being. The Dao Lord lowered His manifestations, deriving the hexagrams and establishing the warp and weft; His laws spread throughout the universe, arranging the notes to order dawn and dusk..."
The gale continued to surge, growing even more violent. It swept through the mountains and forests, raising a dense rustling sound.
Lu Jun's voice rang out clearly, and for a time, it strangely harmonized even more with the sound of the violent wind passing through the woods.
But when Lu Jun spoke his next sentence, everyone's expressions suddenly changed.
"Now, a White Ape in the mountains has become a scourge, bullying the ten thousand people of the town..."
The mournful crowd's faces changed in unison.
Wait?!
No, Lord Lu, did you read that wrong?
What kind of sacrificial text was this?
"Dark yin veils the moonless night, and demonic miasma shrouds the sky. The stars have lost their light, and the mountains and rivers sob..."
Stop, stop, stop!
Wasn't this supposed to be a sacrificial text? How had it become this?!
"We, the surviving people of Qingci Town, bear shackles in the mire and gnaw at grass roots in dark alleys. Now we kneel sobbing beneath the altar, daring to use blood and tears as ink and severed hair as incense, sorrowfully appealing to the divine Myriad Laws Dao Lord!"
Everyone was dumbfounded.
That included the White Ape, which was eavesdropping from the grass nearby.
Wasn't this supposed to be the White Ape Festival?
Wasn't everyone supposed to be worshiping me?
Who was the Myriad Laws Dao Lord?!
"Wrong, wrong, wrong! It's the White Ape General! The White Ape General!" The White Ape, frantic with anger, suddenly poked its head out of the forest.
The crowd instantly fell into panic.
Lu Jun's expression was cold, with a hint of solemnity.
"Tears of boundless mountains and rivers—who says the world is broad?"
"Welcome the Myriad Laws Dao Lord's Manifestation in the World!"
"Wipe out all demons!"
The moment Lu Jun finished speaking.
"Wrong! It's me—the one being worshiped is me!"
The White Ape, nearly several dozen zhang tall, arrived on the altar in a fit of anger and panic, then punched the sedan chair on the altar.
"Look closely! I'm the one being worshiped!!"
With a thunderous boom, the sedan chair instantly shattered into splinters of wood scattered across the ground.
But everyone instinctively looked toward the divine statue on the altar and froze in place.
How could the divine statue inside the sedan chair be a White Ape demon?!
It was clearly a deity!
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