Disturbances like the one stirred up at Mount Putuo Temple were not uncommon in Fukou.
Nor were they confined to the local gods and Buddhas.
Even the foreign Bodhisattvas worshipped by those foreign monks showed abnormalities. Darkness and light shrouded their faces, which seemed caught between weeping and smiling.
As for the "red headscarf" at the Temple of Lord Guan, a gentle breeze swept past it. The two blade-bearing attendants beside Guan Yu's statue radiated baleful energy, driving back the encroaching darkness once again. Inside the Heavenly Consort Temple, the light remained unchanged, without a trace of darkness.
It was like an operating table illuminated by a shadowless surgical lamp.
Fortunately, all these places could hold out.
The real trouble broke out at the docks and the Mass Grave outside the city.
When the darkness arrived, the great ship concealed in the shadows instead came "alive." The laborers hauling goods and the Grain Transport Gang members supervising them were all dragged aboard.
At the Mass Grave outside Fukou, even the Hairy Moon could cast no light.
That was where the true horror lay.
As the shadows descended, something seemed to awaken. The wild dogs that normally ate corpses, the wolves that ate people, and various inexplicable, Uncanny things all fell silent.
They trembled.
Instinct drove some creatures to try to escape, but great hands of darkness rose from within, seized them one after another, and forcibly dragged them back.
Moments later, strange chewing noises sounded in the darkness.
Yin and yang were out of balance. This place was about to spiral out of control.
Just then, the sounds of Three Pure Bells, the Ritual Drum, and a Dharma Conch rang out within the darkness.
A loud, clear voice carried out of it.
[Azure sunlight casts ethereal reflections; radiant daylight restores