Xie Yu patiently explained, "Mortals perceive this world through the six roots, six senses, and six dusts.
The six senses are the eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, and mind-consciousness.
These correspond to the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind of the six roots.
They also correspond to the six dusts of the mortal realm: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and thought.
Mortals have relied on these to perceive the world through generations, and have summarized the framework and scope of conventional logic. For example, blood has a bloody stench, corpses have a rotting stench... All of the above constitute the mortal world of six dusts.
These six dusts are the boundary for mortals observing the world, and they are also a 'cocoon chamber' that mortals weave for themselves. Whenever they encounter things that exceed this boundary, people will feel panic and fear."
Hearing this, Xie An instantly had a sense of sudden enlightenment as if touching the rules of specters.
Xie Yu continued, "And specters and demons can shield and distort the mortal Six-Sense Cocoon Chamber. This ability is called Cocoon Force!"
It was Xie An's first time hearing this term, "Cocoon Force?"
Xie Yu nodded. "Cocoon Force can distort and control people's six senses, create or amplify fear, and weave a Six-Sense Cocoon Chamber for people that they can never escape from. Specters were originally not that terrifying, but through Cocoon Force, they distort and magnify people's inner fear instincts.
This is why Dark Force masters are unable to slay specters. Because Dark Force masters also cannot shake off the control of Cocoon Force."
Seeing that Xie An still had some doubts, Xie Yu gave an example. "I will give you the simplest example, Young Master Mingxi. When you and someone else exchange attacks, you definitely first see the enemy striking toward your face, and only then do you put your hands in front of your face to block. Am I right?"
Xie An nodded. "Right."
Xie Yu suddenly asked, "But what if this kind of vision itself is wrong? How will you then slay enemies and defend yourself?"
Xie An listened, dumbfounded.
At first hearing, it sounded like sheer fantasy, but pondering it carefully, it felt very consistent with the behavioral logic of specters.
No wonder specters could make people feel extremely terrifying.
Firstly, the behavioral logic of specters exceeded people's cognitive boundaries, so humans would naturally feel a panicked panic instinctively.
Secondly, specters also mastered the Cocoon Force which controlled people's six senses, constantly amplifying people's fear instincts... This was rather terrifying.
Having transmigrated for a month, it was Xie An's first time hearing such a profound explanation.
This Daoist Master Yusu... was an expert!
Xie Yu continued downward, "Why did Young Master Mingxi and Zhao Hu have the same nightmare? It was because you were afflicted by evil in Li Family Village. But being afflicted by evil is merely a worldly saying; in truth, what you were afflicted by was the specter's Cocoon Force. This Cocoon Force controlled your thoughts, guiding you to have the same nightmare."
So that was how it was!
Although everything was explained, the fear in Xie An's heart... invisibly increased by a few points.
"When was I afflicted by evil? The moment I stepped into Li Family Village?"
Xie Yu shook her head. "A month ago in Li Family Village, the grievance of the evil spirits wasn't that heavy. It wasn't enough to cause outsiders to be afflicted by evil the moment they stepped into it. It should have been that the six senses were triggered. Young Master Mingxi might as well recount all the details of entering the village to me."
Xie An slowly recounted it in detail:
"At first, Shopkeeper Zhou Yun of the grain shop came to the estate to report, and not seeing my father, he came to the West Courtyard to find and report to me. He said that the tenant farmers of Li Family Village in Wuqiao Town were fleeing the village en masse recently. Thinking of sharing worries for my father, I brought Zhao Hu to the countryside to check the situation.
Right when we arrived at the village entrance, I saw a tax collector wearing official robes pressing for taxes, and the grain-paying peasants wearing padded clothes and carrying grain bags, lining up at the village entrance to pay grain. My attention was drawn by an old crooked-necked locust tree at the village entrance.
Densely and densely hung on that old locust tree were one bloody and mangled corpse after another, and under the tree, an old Taoist in yellow robes was setting up an altar and performing rituals, scattering paper money with one hand and shaking a soul-recalling bell with the other, chanting in his mouth, 'Heaven is panicked, earth is panicked, this tree is tied to a Yama Stake, living mortals arriving here must not answer, must not answer'..."
Xie Yu interrupted, "Then... did Young Master Mingxi answer?"
Xie An said, "I later went to Village Head Li Degui's house, and spoke with Li Degui."
Yet Xie Yu shook her head. "Li Degui is not important; what's important is that grain-collecting tax collector."
Xie An said, "The grain-collecting tax collector came knocking on the door at night to collect taxes, asking if we had paid our grave tax? Both Zhao Hu and I followed the taboo that 'when a ghost asks a question, one must not answer,' and we didn't answer..."
Xie Yu suddenly said, "The grain-collecting ghost at night and the grain-collecting tax collector at the village entrance in the day are the same entity. Did you answer the daytime grain-collecting tax collector's words?"
Xie An widened his eyes.
He had never thought in this direction before, and at this moment he couldn't help recalling it anew:
"When I entered the village, I sat in the carriage and let Zhao Hu go inquire about the situation. Clearly, Zhao Hu and the grain-collecting tax collector had conversed. So... that's why Zhao Hu was afflicted by evil!?"
Xie Yu nodded, then gazed intently at Xie An, "Then, Young Master Mingxi, did you ever answer the grain-collecting tax collector's words?"
Xie An instinctively shook his head. "I didn't..."
Yet before the words were finished, Xie An gasped a breath of cold air.
He abruptly remembered a detail:
At that time, Zhao Hu reported—the old Taoist said the grain-collecting official entered the village every single night to collect taxes, and the tenant farmers couldn't go on living so they fled. Yet that tax collector said he clearly only came once a year.
Xie An felt curious at the time and looked at that grain-collecting tax collector.
And that tax collector happened to turn his head to look, and smiled as he greeted him, "So Eldest Young Master Xie has come to inspect. Outside the city, refugees are running amok, and it's hardly peaceful; the young master should return to the city early."
Xie An nodded and hummed a "Mn."
Just because of that "Mn"!!?
Xie An told this detail to Xie Yu, and Xie Yu nodded. "That's right. Just because Young Master Mingxi hummed a 'Mn.' That was answering the words. Although that old Taoist performing rituals at the village entrance died, before dying he should have discovered the evil-afflicting rule of Li Family Village, and after death, holding onto this obsession, he admonished living mortals entering the village not to answer..."
Xie An's spine instantly grew cold, a chill pouring backward from the crown of his head straight to his toes.
I bloody...
Who could defend against this?
Mortals in this era really had zero sense of security.
Xie An was stunned for quite a while before finally recovering his wits. "If you put it that way, Zhao Hu's body had clearly rotted away, but he was still able to keep his consciousness as usual. Was it because of the Cocoon Force?"
Xie Yu nodded. "Young Master Mingxi is very smart. But Cocoon Force can only guide nightmares, and cannot directly evolve into physical harm."
Xie An: "Then why did Zhao Hu wake up from his dream only to find his internal organs were gone, and the situation was just like in the dream?"
Xie Yu spoke very resolutely, "Because someone was manipulating things behind the scenes, intentionally magnifying the panic. Including the fetus in Liu Fu's belly turning into a monster strain, that was also intentionally done by someone."
As she spoke, Xie Yu walked over to the dressing table to rummage for something... and then pulled open a wardrobe to search.
Sure enough...
From the corner of the wardrobe, she fished out a white cloth doll.
The cloth doll was about the size of two infant fists, its mouth drawn with cinnabar, and a pair of scarlet eyes dotted on. Written on its belly was someone's birth characters, and drawn upon it was a bizarre blood talisman of the Six Ding and Six Jia.
The instant Xie An saw that cloth doll, he felt a strong wave of mental discomfort.
He opened his Qi-Gazing to check.
The qi inside the doll... was all sinking downwards.
In other words, this doll was not a dead cloth doll, but rather a... "living" cloth doll possessing specter abilities.
Xie An blurted out, "The one who truly dug out Zhao Hu's internal organs... is this doll?"
Before you continue