Daoist arts are arts; gunplay is law

"Triad Gang?"

A Gui froze for a moment, thinking he had misheard.

"That's right." Huang Bai glanced at him. "The Triad Gang you're thinking of."

Great Black Buddha Mother was no ordinary evil spirit. Behind her stood the entire Chen Family Village, worshipping her.

If they truly came to blows, the trouble would not just be the evil god herself, but those several hundred villagers as well.

Evil-banishing arts were useless against living people. If Great Black Buddha Mother used those villagers to break free, things would only become more difficult.

Killing several hundred ignorant believers was unrealistic, but leaving them alive would get in the way. Since that was the case, they could only find a group of people better able to hold down the situation and suppress them.

After hearing this, Chen Lixing still hesitated.

"What are we going to the Triad Gang for? We've always kept out of each other's way. If we take the initiative to approach them, they probably won't be easy to talk to."

It was not that he was afraid.

Miaotou was itself a local power. With his reputation, if he truly called people in, gathering several hundred or even a thousand to lend support would not be impossible.

But the Triad Gang was, after all, a huge gang with more than ten thousand members. If they provoked them for no reason, it would be hard to clean up afterward.

Huang Bai's expression did not change.

"It's fine. I'll do the talking."

The van drove out of the city, leaving the bustling streets for the outskirts.

Huang Shaoming, the leader of the Triad Gang, lived in an estate halfway up a mountain. The place was grandly built, surrounded by high walls, with no shortage of guards and patrols.

A Gui parked the van at the foot of the mountain and pointed up the mountain road.

"That's the place."

"Whenever they hold their annual meetings, the foot of the mountain is packed with luxury cars. There are patrols around today too."

"Not a problem."

With that, Huang Bai walked to the wall and raised a hand in a spell-sign.

The next moment, the wall rippled gently like water. He walked straight through it.

"Now that's what you call magic." Chen Lixing clicked his tongue in amazement. "No matter how many times I see it, it's still incredible."

Spirit mediums could invite gods to possess them, fight ghosts, suppress evil, and even unleash strength beyond that of ordinary people when borrowing divine power.

But at the end of the day, they were still flesh and blood, walking the path of "borrowing strength." They were ultimately different from someone like Huang Bai, who cast spells himself.

Inside the estate, the flowers and trees were meticulously tended.

An old man in a Tang suit leaned on a gold-plated cane topped with a dragon's head, walking and speaking with several middle-aged men.

"Have you taken care of Councilman Chen's side?"

"Yes."

"Legislator Zhang likes to gamble, and Minister Lu likes women. Remember all of that clearly. If you want to curry favor with someone, you have to go along with their temperament. Rein in that temper of yours. Don't ruin my business."

"Understood."

After the men left on their orders, the old man finally stopped. He raised a hand to rub his brow, weariness showing in his expression.

The underworld nowadays was no longer like the old days, when carrying a knife or a gun meant you could swagger wherever you pleased.

If gangs did not go legitimate, sooner or later they would be crushed beneath the wheels of the times. Yet so many people were still stuck in the old ways, unable to understand why he had spent all these years keeping his head down and greasing palms everywhere.

"This old man doesn't have many years left to live."

"What comes after that? Who can say?"

Huang Shaoming sighed softly.

Whether it was charity or building bridges and paving roads these past few years, to put it bluntly, he had wanted, at least in some small measure, to repay the blood debt he had incurred in his youth.

As he was thinking, footsteps suddenly sounded behind him.

Huang Shaoming spun around sharply.

Not far away, a long-haired young man was slowly walking toward him.

Huang Shaoming's expression remained still, but his heart had already sunk.

Anyone who could sneak this far in without a sound was no simple figure.

"Are you from the Four Seas Gang?"

"Or were you sent by the Yamaguchi-gumi?"

Huang Bai shook his head.

"Neither. I came to ask Leader Huang for a favor."

Huang Shaoming stared at him, with no fear in his eyes, though his tone turned colder.

"What if I refuse?"

At his age, he had already taken many things lightly. The other party had made it deep into the estate; if he truly wanted Huang Shaoming dead, he probably could not escape it anyway.

Huang Bai did not answer at once. He merely lifted a hand.

Black qi suddenly churned within his sleeve.

A two-headed cobra poked out from his cuff. Its scales were glossy black, its tongues flickering as a foul stench rushed at him. It stopped almost against Huang Shaoming's face.

Huang Shaoming's expression finally changed. Even the hand gripping his cane tightened.

"You... who exactly are you?"

"A Daoist from Mount Jinhua."

"I came today to subdue demons and exterminate evil. Does Leader Huang not intend to do a good deed while he's at it?"

The words were polite, but the meaning was anything but.

Having lived so many years, how could Huang Shaoming fail to understand the weight behind them? This young man was clearly half persuading, half coercing him into providing men and resources.

But in times like these, the desire to survive was always the most real thing.

After a moment of silence, Huang Shaoming nodded.

Not only did he provide men and resources, he also agreed to donate ten million.

Before long, more than a dozen vans loaded with people sped straight toward Chen Family Village.

Chen Family Village lay in a remote area, far from the bustle of the city.

The entire village was tightly closed off. The Chen clan had always been hostile to outsiders, and many people did not even know their own real names.

A mishap had occurred in the village a few years ago, and quite a few people had died. Yet even so, those who remained still guarded this place.

Inside the ancestral hall stood the memorial tablet of Great Black Buddha Mother.

An old woman, her skin wrinkled like tree bark, knelt before the tablet and offered incense. Part of her ear was missing, as was a chunk of flesh from her nose. She was even missing several fingers, making her appearance especially horrifying.

She had cut those pieces from herself, bit by bit, offering her own flesh and blood to the Buddha Mother.

In a place like Chen Family Village, aside from wives brought in from outside, one could hardly see any girls who had grown up normally.

It was not a genetic problem. The reason was that many girls had been sent away as sacrifices from childhood.

The people of Chen Family Village believed in the Buddha Mother, but they also feared her. In the end, what they worshipped was a monster that could turn around and bite them at any moment.

Just then, the wisp of incense before the tablet suddenly trembled.

A cloud of black smoke emerged from the tablet. As it twisted, it vaguely took the shape of a snake, then vanished into empty air the next instant.

The old woman's face changed on the spot. With a thud, she dropped to her knees, her lips trembling uncontrollably.

"Fire Buddha cultivates one, heart sa mu mou..."

She knew the Buddha Mother had found another target.

But this time, who would it be?

The night before, at the psychiatric hospital.

Li Ruonan wore shackles that restrained her movements. Looking deranged, she kept muttering to the patients around her:

"There really are ghosts... there really are ghosts..."

"Come, say it with me. Say it, and you won't be afraid... Fire Buddha cultivates one..."

Before she could finish, a nurse approached with an injection.

"Number 4396, time for your shot."

The needle pierced her skin, and the medicine was injected. Li Ruonan quickly calmed down.

The nurse turned and left.

But she had taken only a few steps when Li Ruonan abruptly opened her eyes.

There was not the slightest trace of confusion in those eyes. Instead, they held a chilling coldness that made one's skin crawl.

The next second, she smashed through the window like a madwoman, vaulted over the high wall, and disappeared directly into the night.

The vans stopped at the entrance to Chen Family Village.

The moment the engines died, villagers surrounded them.

"Stop! Outsiders can't park here!"

Before the words had even faded, the van doors slid open in a clatter.

A group of young men in suits, with buzz cuts and cropped hair, filed out. At their head, a scar-faced hall master carried a shotgun, without the slightest smile on his face.

"Everybody out!"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

As soon as he finished speaking, he fired three shots into the sky.

The gunshots exploded through the air, sending the birds in the woods flapping into flight.

The villagers of Chen Family Village had originally planned to rely on their numbers, pushing the elderly and women to the front to make a scene. That tactic might have worked against the authorities, but it was utterly useless against people like the Triad Gang.

A few swings of the clubs, and the ringleaders immediately became obedient.

Chen Family Village had always stuck together, and normally they dared to stand up to outsiders by relying on their numbers. But when they encountered people even more overbearing and unreasonable than themselves, they immediately wilted, quiet as quails.

Chen Lixing stood to one side, shaking his head.

"Sure enough, it takes these kinds of people to handle this kind of situation."

What he had worried about most was how to deal with these villagers. Now it seemed Huang Bai had made exactly the right move.

Huang Bai said with a smile, "Arts are arts; Daoist arts are arts, gunplay is law. You can't do without either one."

If he had not been concerned that Great Black Buddha Mother's seal might be completely broken, Huang Bai had even considered calling in an engineering crew with explosives to level that cave outright.

He beckoned over the old crone.

"Take me to Great Black Buddha Mother's cave."

The old crone's face turned deathly pale, and even her lips trembled.

"You cannot disturb the Buddha Mother."

"You'll suffer retribution. You'll be cursed. You'll be bitten alive by evil ghosts..."

After hearing this, Huang Bai did not so much as lift an eyelid. He simply waved a hand.

A yin wind suddenly rose.

A yaksha slowly emerged from the black qi. Eight feet tall, with a blue face, protruding fangs, and crimson hair hanging over its shoulders, its very appearance seemed to lower the temperature around them.

The yaksha lowered its head slightly, its vertical pupils fixed on the old crone.

"Then what about an evil ghost like me? Are you afraid?"

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