Looking at those words, Huang Huai recalled how, as a foolish child, he had once carved them into the foot of a Yellow Turban Warrior statue. Memories rose in his heart.
Back then, he had been only eleven or twelve, and he had been at Xunzhen Temple for less than half a year. Inspired by the story in Journey to the West where Sun Wukong left words on Tathagata's finger, he had hit upon the idea of carving those same words into the foot of the Yellow Turban Warrior statue.
Later, Great Daoist Master discovered what he had done. Though the Yellow Turban Warrior was a low-ranking deity, Great Daoist Master still punished him by ordering him to offer incense morning and night, making him burn incense before the statue and pray for the deity's forgiveness for a full month.
Seeing the Yellow Turban Warrior statue again now, Huang Huai felt a rush of familiarity and affection.
He clasped his hands and bowed to the Yellow Turban Warrior statue, then stepped past the figure, which was nearly as tall as a person, and approached a painted ceramic statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva, about a foot high.
Ceramic statues could certainly withstand the ravages of time better than clay ones. Though the paint on Guanyin Bodhisattva's statue had begun to oxidize and fade, overall the damage was minor and had not harmed the statue itself.
Huang Huai knew this statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva well. He had bowed to her many times, though usually only on holidays and other special occasions. More often, he had worshiped Holy Lord Emperor Guan. After all, he had invited Holy Lord Emperor Guan's statue up the mountain to ward off evil and disaster.
Huang Huai gazed at Guanyin Bodhisattva's kindly face, which brought peace to the heart just to behold, and bowed respectfully. Then he stepped forward, carefully wrapped the statue in red cloth, and lifted it in his arms.
As Huang Huai prepared to leave the storeroom, his gaze swept over the intact Yellow Turban Warrior statue. He hesitated, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his face, but soon he switched off the lights, plunging the storeroom into darkness.
A figure slipped into the side hall, bowed to the statue of Holy Lord Emperor Guan enthroned above, and carefully lifted it.
The storeroom door creaked open. Carrying the statue of Holy Lord Emperor Guan, Huang Huai chuckled softly. "This time, I'll have to ask you to hold the line, Second Master."
Huang Huai planned to take the statues of Guanyin Bodhisattva and the Yellow Turban Warrior into A World to see whether anything would happen to them. But compared with the otherworld, it was probably the middle of the night here. If his estimate was right, that was.
In the modern world, you could stay out all night without much trouble. But in the otherworld, who knew? If he had the bad luck to encounter evil spirits, he might not even have a place to cry out for help.
A mysterious portal materialized out of thin air. Huang Huai carried the statue of Holy Lord Emperor Guan through it, and in the blink of an eye, he was back in the side room he had left earlier.
It was just as dark here. If Huang Huai had been night-blind, he would have been no better than a blind man.
He looked around. The entire courtyard was silent. Huang Huai set the statue of Holy Lord Emperor Guan on the altar, and his heart settled.
Before long, Huang Huai had returned to the storeroom at Xunzhen Temple in the modern world. He glanced at the statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva, then fixed his gaze on the Yellow Turban Warrior statue. Stepping forward, he bent his knees slightly and wrapped his arms around its waist. With a sudden heave, he lifted it. A statue weighing over a hundred pounds was no great burden for him.
Holding the Yellow Turban Warrior statue, Huang Huai took one step forward and passed through the mysterious portal. The very next moment, a thunderous boom rang out. That clap of thunder must have disturbed countless people from their dreams.
Prepared for this, Huang Huai turned to the Yellow Turban Warrior as the thunder cracked. A faint glimmer of divine light flashed across the statue and vanished. If Huang Huai hadn't been staring at it, he might have missed the change with the slightest lapse in attention.
"It didn't break!"
Seeing the Yellow Turban Warrior unharmed, Huang Huai was greatly encouraged. Next, all he had to do was bring over the statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva. Then, perhaps, he could confirm his suspicions.
At a thought, the mysterious portal appeared. Huang Huai returned, holding the statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva in both hands, and came back to the otherworld amid another clap of thunder.
As Huang Huai watched, the slightly dim statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva suddenly glowed with an unusual radiance. The light flashed and vanished, just as the light he had seen on the Yellow Turban Warrior.
The statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva, too, showed no sign of damage. Huang Huai was now certain of one thing: the statues he brought from the modern world had to be bolstered by Incense and Fire Prayer Power to remain unharmed beneath the heavenly thunder.
There was one point he still couldn't be sure about: if a statue received too little Incense and Fire Prayer Power, would it still be unable to withstand the thunder?
Whatever the answer, this test had already yielded a great deal.
He looked at the two statues he had brought into the otherworld and hesitated. In the end, he decided to leave them in the side room for now.
He had already told Ma Xing to leave the side room alone for the time being. It would serve as a shrine to Guanyin Bodhisattva, and the Yellow Turban Warrior could be enshrined there as well.
It would seem rather odd for a residence not to enshrine statues to guard the home and protect its people. Huang Huai had no intention of worshiping the statues in this world, whose origins he knew nothing about.
He straightened his clothes, took incense and candles from nearby, and lit them. Then he respectfully bowed to the statues of Holy Lord Emperor Guan and Guanyin Bodhisattva at the center. After that, he took more incense and candles and bowed to the Yellow Turban Warrior statue.
The incense and candles burned slowly, sending wisps of fragrant smoke through the air and shrouding the statues of Guanyin Bodhisattva, the Yellow Turban Warrior, and Holy Lord Emperor Guan.
On a deserted street late at night, a gust of sinister wind swept through an empty alley. A hazy, eerie figure appeared, drifting toward Shun'an Ward.
Fortunately, there was no one left on the street. Otherwise, anyone who saw that figure might have been scared to death—or at least badly frightened.
The enormous figure was clearly made up of countless contorted, hideous faces, each brimming with boundless resentment. Through the mass, one could just make out the shape of a bull's head atop a human body.
Seeing such a phantom, one would first think of the bull-headed, human-bodied statues that towns and villages often enshrined to protect themselves.
But those statues were sacred and majestic. This figure, on the other hand, was enough to trigger anyone's trypophobia at a single glance. And every face making up its twisted, unnatural body was horribly ferocious.
"I want you dead, I want you dead, I want you dead... Give me back my life, give me back my life..."
An invisible mental force spread out from the eerie figure, covering an area more than ten zhang in every direction. Wherever it passed, the statues of Guardian Spirits and Guardian Deities enshrined in the homes all stirred with a barely perceptible divine glow, screening out the intangible psychic force.
Otherwise, if an ordinary person were struck by such a frenzied and eerie psychic force, they would either die or go mad.
Two figures in the distance watched the eerie figure as it pressed on toward its destination, unwavering. The smell of alcohol hung in the air.
Han Song, who followed his master, looked at Zhang Yan and asked, "Master, can this evil god really lead us to the fiend who slaughtered Niujia Village?"
Zhang Yan wore a wine gourd at his waist. He looked thoroughly drunk, yet his eyes shone with keen light as he glanced at his disciple. "Do you know how this evil god came into being?"
Han Song froze, then answered instinctively, "This disciple suspects that, after the villagers of Niujia Village died, their resentment remained, and by chance merged with a fragment of the bull-headed, human-bodied god they worshiped. That must be how this evil god came to be."
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