Then he said to me, "Let me introduce myself first."
I nodded frantically beside the old man, like a chicken pecking at rice.
Then the old man spoke unhurriedly. "My name is Li Xuanqing, and I'm your grandfather's junior brother.
Back in those days, we were all from Maoshan Sect. But later, some changes occurred, and we had no choice but to leave Maoshan.
There were five martial brothers in total.
Senior Disciple Brother was your grandfather, Li Xuande. Second Senior Brother was called Li Xuanba, and as for the third, that was me.
Fourth Junior Brother was Li Xuanzong, and Fifth Junior Brother was Li Xuanwei.
When all was said and done, you ought to call me Martial Granduncle."
I froze when I heard that. He's from Grandpa's generation. Shouldn't I call him Martial Granduncle? How could I call him Martial Uncle?
So I immediately voiced my confusion to the old man.
The old man glared at me. "Can't I want to seem a little younger?
Calling me that makes me sound so old. I don't like it.
From now on, call me Martial Uncle. Don't argue with me about useless nonsense."
I nodded. Whatever he wanted me to call him, that was what I would call him.
I was a little surprised that they had been martial brothers, then respectfully called out, "Martial Uncle."
Now that I know, I'll have to call him Martial Uncle from now on.
Then I asked, "Martial Uncle, what exactly happened in Lin'an Village? Can you tell me?"
Martial Uncle lowered his head in silence for a while, as if recalling the past.
Then Martial Uncle spoke with a deep gaze. "This began several decades ago.
At that time, your grandfather and I were both in our twenties, full of high spirits, and had achieved a little in our cultivation.
But one day, after your grandfather and I returned to Maoshan from our travels,
we had barely entered the mountain gate when the Sect Master summoned us to his room and said he had something for us to handle."
Martial Uncle paused, then added, "Oh, right.
At that time, the master of us five martial brothers was the Sect Master of Maoshan Sect.
So we asked Master what the matter was.
Master said there was a place called Lin'an Village that required us to make a trip there.
My senior brother—your grandfather—and I asked Master what we were going there for.
Then Master told us about Lin'an Village's past.
He said something utterly absurd had happened in that village long ago.
He had encountered it while traveling in his younger days, but at that time, things had not yet reached the point of eruption.
Yet in the blink of an eye, so many years had passed. By then, it should have been close to erupting.
The matter had likely happened a thousand years ago. At that time, there was a prime minister serving at court.
When he reached retirement age, he resigned from office and returned to his hometown. The emperor saw that he was old and approved it.
He also bestowed countless gold and silver ingots, silks and bolts of cloth, along with all manner of precious treasures...
The carriages were packed to the brim. When they passed Lin'an Village, the sky was already nearing darkness, so they planned to enter the village and borrow lodging for the night.
But who would have thought that the seemingly peaceful Lin'an Village of that time was a bandit nest through and through?
The villagers worked the fields by day and robbed homes by night. Whenever they encountered anyone, they burned, killed, looted, and committed every evil imaginable.
Later, several bandit chiefs put their heads together and decided to kill everyone in that party before taking their valuables.
That very night, the bandit chiefs led their men there.
Or rather, they led those villagers who were farmers by day and bandits by night.
They went in and slaughtered all eighty-odd people in the party, then carried away every last treasure.
While moving the valuables, they discovered a little girl hiding inside one of the chests.
The girl had red lips and white teeth, and she was dressed in splendid finery. After asking around, they learned that she was the prime minister's daughter.
They had someone restrain the girl first, then sent someone to report to the bandit chiefs.
When the bandit chiefs came in and saw that the girl was fair-skinned, beautiful, and extravagantly dressed,
evil thoughts rose in their hearts, and they took turns violating her.
By the time the bandit chiefs were finished, the girl was already barely clinging to life...
After dividing up the treasures, they realized there were simply too many corpses to hide.
If they burned them all, the fire might last until daylight. If anyone saw it during the day, they definitely would not be able to cover it up.
No matter what, he had been a high-ranking court official, so none of them dared to be careless.
The bandit chiefs remembered there was a huge deep pit behind the village, and they decided to go all the way.
They ordered their men to throw every corpse into the deep pit on the back mountain.
Once all the corpses had been tossed into the pit, several men carried the barely living girl over to the bandit chiefs.
Her clothes were in tatters, and her entire body was bruised purple and blue, but she had not yet drawn her last breath.
Several underlings grinned at the bandit chiefs and said, 'Let the brothers have some fun too. We won't run into goods like this many times in a lifetime.'
The bandit chiefs nodded and said, 'Make it quick. Throw her in before daybreak.'
There was no need to say what happened next. After those villains were done, the girl had more breath leaving her than entering her.
Then those villains kicked the barely living girl into the pit.
Afraid that the rotting corpses would give off a stench and lead the authorities to investigate, the bandit chiefs immediately gave the order.
They had every underling dig up earth and fill the pit. It was said that they dug up half a small hill.
People from other villages passed by, saw the scene, and asked why they were filling in the pit.
The bandit chiefs had long discussed this question with their underlings.
They told them that if anyone asked, they were to say that smallpox had broken out in the village.
Fortunately, it had been discovered early. Afraid of infection, they had buried the victims."
After recounting this history, Martial Uncle sighed. "Alas! In those days, smallpox was an incurable disease.
Ordinary people feared it like a tiger. Once someone was found to be infected with smallpox,
at best, they would be thrown into a leper village and left to fend for themselves; at worst, they would be beaten to death with a club or buried alive.
Once nearby villages heard that smallpox had broken out here, no one dared come near.
A few months later, the authorities still had not received news that the former prime minister had returned home safely, so they sent people to investigate.
The investigators followed the clues all the way to Lin'an Village and heard that smallpox had broken out there.
They immediately turned around and left, and the matter was quietly dropped."
I asked Martial Uncle, "Did something happen afterward?"
"Yes, something did happen."
Martial Uncle stroked his chin and said, "One night, three months after those people were buried, several bandit chiefs died under strange and inexplicable circumstances.
Their deaths were unimaginably gruesome. After that, the underlings who had participated in the murders either vanished one by one or died horribly in their homes.
Slowly, more and more people died, and those who remained began to panic.
Then the villagers discussed it among themselves and decided to find an old Taoist priest to inspect the village.
The Taoists of that era truly had some skill.
They were unlike the fake Taoists nowadays, who merely used the Taoist name as a banner to cheat people out of food and drink.
The old Taoist priest casually asked a few questions, then took out a compass and walked around a few times.
After pinching his fingers and making calculations, he roughly understood what had happened.
Once he knew the result, his heart turned cold. If he spoke the truth, his own life would certainly not be spared.
But if he said nothing, he would have to watch the people in the village die one after another. He was caught between a rock and a hard place.
Then the old Taoist priest thought of a compromise.
He told the villagers, 'This humble Taoist has observed that the back mountain of this village never sees sunlight all year round.
This is caused by excessive yin energy. To break such an abnormal phenomenon, one must use yin to restrain yin.'
The villagers did not understand and asked the old Taoist priest, 'What does it mean to use yin to restrain yin?'
The old Taoist priest said, 'Using yin to restrain yin means burying the dead in a place with excessive yin energy.
As long as there are enough people, using yin energy to suppress yin energy, this situation can be resolved.
First, move all your deceased relatives to the back mountain.
In the future, whenever someone dies in the village, bury them on the back mountain as well. That way, the village will remain safe and sound.'
Martial Uncle sighed. "Alas! The old Taoist priest had no choice either.
If he had revealed the truth, he might have met a fate of body and soul perishing on the spot.
But if he said nothing, he could not bear to watch several hundred people in the village die one after another.
So he used this method to temporarily suppress the calamity.
But this method treated the symptoms, not the root cause. No amount of yin energy could suppress the ever-growing resentment.
Once that resentment accumulated to a certain extent, the calamity would truly erupt.
The correct course would have been to dig up every corpse, then bury them in batches in places that received abundant sunlight.
That way, the yin energy and resentment could not gather together, and what happened later would never have occurred.
But the old Taoist priest did not dare say it, afraid of bringing disaster upon himself. Still, he had been too naive. Just as he was about to leave,
an iron rod smashed into his head, and the old Taoist priest breathed his last on the spot...
Afterward, the villagers gradually moved their deceased relatives to the back mountain and buried them there, along with the old Taoist priest's body.
For the next thousand-odd years, whenever someone died in the village, they were buried on the back mountain.
The village gradually settled into peace, and very few people still knew the truth.
Until more than forty years ago, when Master traveled there and saw the problem at a glance.
Master knew that the yin energy there could no longer suppress the resentment, and that the thing inside seemed extremely powerful.
After returning to Maoshan, he summoned your grandfather and me and had us live permanently in Lin'an Village.
If anything truly happened in the village one day, we would be prepared.
And so the two of us stayed there for over forty years. He got married, had your father, and then had you.
Since I dislike lively places, I lived in this Bamboo Forest all along.
Later, Master passed away, and a struggle for the position of Sect Master broke out within Maoshan.
Originally, Master had planned to pass the position of Sect Master to your grandfather, Li Xuande.
But Second Senior Brother Li Xuanba had coveted the Sect Master's position for many years, and he caused a huge uproar at Maoshan.
On top of that, your grandfather had married, so he no longer had any attachment to Maoshan.
Thus, while guarding the village, he watched his descendants slowly grow into adults.
That is all there is to that mess in the village. Is there anything else you don't understand?"
Hearing that, I asked Martial Uncle, "Then where did all the people in the village go?"
Martial Uncle said that unless something unexpected had happened, they were all buried in the earth on the back mountain.
I asked uneasily, "Everyone is dead... then will something happen to me too?"
Martial Uncle fell silent for a while before saying, "Probably not. Your father should have arranged everything.
Based on what you told me about how you escaped earlier, your father likely used a Substitute Straw Man to deceive him."
"What is a Substitute Straw Man?"
Martial Uncle replied, "You write down your birth date and eight characters, then stick them onto a straw man woven from rice straw.
That can conceal your original life soul. Even if he destroys the straw man, he cannot harm your real body.
After all, the straw man is only a decoy. It merely carries a trace of your soul's aura."
I was completely lost in a fog, so I asked why the beans I had thrown while escaping had turned into people.
"That is called Scattering Beans to Create Soldiers." Martial Uncle said, "Ghosts prefer yin, and soybeans also belong to yin.
So, through certain methods, ghosts are enshrined within the beans.
When needed, you take them out, chant an incantation, and scatter them."
Then Martial Uncle glanced at me sidelong. "When you arrived, I took a look. You used quite a lot along the way.
Your grandfather ran all over the place back then, collecting these one bean at a time.
You must understand that every bean contains a ghost, and some ghosts are extremely difficult to collect.
You might have to persuade them for a very, very long time, or perhaps fight them.
Your grandfather traveled north and south, leaping about everywhere for more than ten years, just to collect this small bowlful.
You squandered half of them in one night. If your grandfather knew, even his coffin lid would not stay shut.
And this method has already been lost for many years.
Master only taught it to your grandfather back then. Even the current Sect Master of Maoshan does not know this craft.
If you sold them, each bean would cost several hundred thousand, and even then there would be a price but no market."
As he spoke, Martial Uncle gritted his teeth and glared at me. "You little wastrel."
I shrank my neck and muttered timidly,
"I had no choice if I wanted to stay alive. Besides, those soldiers were so weak. They vanished the moment I threw them out."
Martial Uncle glared at me. "Bullshit. With your grandfather's abilities, he would never have taken a fancy to ordinary little ghosts.
The ghostly things in the village may have some cultivation, but they definitely could not be a match for the Yin soldiers inside those beans."
"But that's how it was," I said. "They disappeared as soon as I scattered them."
Martial Uncle looked at me suspiciously. "Take out the remaining soybeans and let me see them."
At that, I opened my bag, grabbed a handful of soybeans, and handed them to Martial Uncle.
Martial Uncle rolled them around in his hand, frowning as he examined them. Then he said in mild surprise, "Oh, so that's how it is."
I asked Martial Uncle what was wrong.
Martial Uncle said that because they had gone so long without nourishment from yin energy, the Yin soldiers inside the soybeans had greatly regressed in strength.
Then he added that there were even Ghost Spirit-level Yin soldiers inside.
By rights, Yin soldiers of this level—forget scattering a whole handful.
Even if I casually threw out just two, they could beat those ghostly things until they were scrambling all over the ground for their teeth.
I asked again what a "Ghost Spirit" was.
My martial uncle ignored my question and looked at me instead. "Kid, don't ask so much.
I'm only asking you one thing right now: do you trust your martial uncle?"
After hesitating for a moment, I nodded. My martial uncle said, "Good. Leave the remaining soybeans with me.
Come back and collect them after a while. When the time comes, your martial uncle will give you a surprise."
I was about to pour out all the soybeans in my bag and give them to my martial uncle.
My martial uncle hurriedly said, "Hey, hey, hey... wait, wait. This stuff can't touch the ground.
Otherwise, the yin souls inside will slip away through the earth."
"Wait for me."
With that, he ran back into the house and brought out a filthy brass basin.
Then he placed them inside one by one, counting as he went.
In the end, there were three hundred and twenty-six in total. Then he said to me,
"Kid, watch carefully. That's all there is. When you come back, I'll restore these to their peak condition and give them to you.
But let's make this clear first. If I fix them up for you, you have to give me a little service fee.
I won't ask for much. Just give me the extra six. What do you say?"
It's only six. Last night, I scattered who knew how many of them. I immediately waved a hand generously. "Fine."
Then my martial uncle rubbed his hands and said somewhat sheepishly,
"Don't think your martial uncle is greedy. It's mainly because this stuff is really hard to get."
"Hey, hey, hey, alright, alright... just take them."
Seeing how generous I was, my martial uncle nodded approvingly.
It was only much later that I learned this thing's true value. Whenever I thought of how many I had squandered that night,
I raised my hand and slapped myself twice across the face. Really slapped myself, of course—but that was a later matter.
Then I asked, "Right, Martial Uncle, what's the deal with that paper-folded horse of mine?"
My martial uncle told me to take it out for him to see, so I showed him the paper horse my father had given me.
After looking it over, my martial uncle smacked his lips. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Your father and grandfather really were willing to spend. They even equipped you with such fine goods."
Then he said, "This is called a Yin Horse. It's a Daoist technique, but yours is far more advanced than those ordinary ones.
Most other people's are single-use. Once used, they're gone, and they can't be used for very long either."