Arrogant-IV

Over there, Lan SiZhui and others searched the ancient tombs to no avail and had already moved to the Tiannv Temple to look for clues.

In Dafan Mountain, in addition to the ancestral graves of the residents of Fojiao Town for generations, there is also a Temple of the Goddess. The person worshiped in the temple is not Buddha or Guanyin, but a "dancing goddess".

Hundreds of years ago, a hunter from Fojiao Town went deep into the mountains and discovered a strange stone in a grotto. It was nearly ten feet high and made of nature. It looked like a human figure, with all four limbs in a dancing posture. What's even more amazing is that the facial features on the head of the stone statue are vaguely distinguishable, and it is a smiling woman.

The townspeople of Fojiao Town were very surprised. They thought it was a sacred stone that gathered the aura of heaven and earth, and they spontaneously made up many legends. Why is there an immortal king who has a crush on Xuannv of the Nine Heavens, and carves a stone statue in Xuannv's likeness to comfort her from the pain of lovesickness? When Xuannv found out, she was furious, and the unfinished stone statue had to be abandoned; what else is there that the Jade Emperor has a beloved one? His daughter died young, and the Jade Emperor's longing for his beloved daughter condensed into this stone statue. The variety is eye-popping. These legends flowing from their mouths convinced them themselves, so some people changed the grotto into a shrine, the stone platform into a throne, enshrined the stone statue as "Dancing Goddess", and offered incense all year round.

The interior of the grotto is as open as a two-entry temple, with the goddess of heaven standing in the center. At first glance, he looks very much like a human being, even his waist can be said to be graceful. When you get closer and take a closer look, it's rough, but it's amazing that natural creations can resemble humans to such an extent.

Lan Jingyi raised the wind evil disk and lowered it, but the pointer remained unmoved. There were messy candle remnants and a thick layer of incense ash on the altar, and the fruit plate contained a rotten sweet smell. The people of the Gusu Lan Sect are all somewhat mysophobic. He fanned the air in front of his nose and said, "I heard from the locals that this Tiannv Temple is very effective in making wishes. Why is it so dilapidated? I don't even ask a few people to clean it."

Lan SiZhui said: "Seven people have lost their souls in a row. It is rumored that the thunder struck out the Buddha's feet to suppress the evil spirits in the ancestral tombs. No one dares to come up the mountain. The incense has been cut off, so naturally there is no one to clean up."

A disdainful voice sounded outside the grotto: "A piece of broken stone has been made a god by someone, and yet it dares to be placed here to be worshiped by others!"

Jin Ling walked in with his hands behind his back. The effectiveness of the silence spell was not long to begin with, and his mouth could already be opened. However, there was nothing good to say as soon as he opened it. He looked at the female statue and hummed: "These rural villagers don't know how to work hard when things happen, but they burn incense and worship Buddha all day long, pray to gods and ghosts. There are tens of millions of people in the world, and gods and Buddhas have too much time to take care of themselves. Who cares?" They have to come here! What's more, it's a wild god with no name or identity. He's so smart, so if I make a wish now, I want this soul-eating thing in Dafan Mountain to appear in front of me right now. Can it be done?"

A group of monks from small families followed behind him. Hearing this, they immediately agreed and laughed loudly. The originally silent temple suddenly became noisy and cramped due to the influx of people. Lan SiZhui shook his head secretly, turned around and glanced at it unintentionally, and saw the face of the goddess statue. Her facial features were vaguely visible, and it seemed to be a compassionate smile.

However, he felt that this smiling face had an indescribable sense of familiarity, as if he had seen it somewhere before.

Where exactly did you see it?

Lan SiZhui felt that this must be a very important matter, so he couldn't help but approach the altar, wanting to take a closer look at the goddess's face. At this moment, someone suddenly bumped into him.

A monk who was originally standing behind him suddenly fell down silently. The others were all shocked and alert. Jin Ling said warily: "What's wrong with him?"

Lan SiZhui held his sword and took a closer look. The monk's breathing was fine, as if he just fell asleep suddenly, but he didn't wake up no matter how he was slapped or called. He stood up and said: "He looks like..."

Before he finished speaking, the originally dark cave suddenly lit up, filling the cave with red light, like a waterfall of blood pouring down the four walls. The incense candles on the altar and in the corners of the grotto all started to spontaneously burn.

There were several buzzing sounds, and everyone in the grotto drew their swords and held talismans. At this moment, a man suddenly rushed outside the temple, carrying a gourd of medicinal wine and splashed it all over the stone statue of the goddess. The cave was suddenly filled with the strong and choking smell of alcohol. He also drew a talisman in the air and threw it. On the stone statue, a raging fire instantly ignited on the altar, reflecting the grotto like daylight.

Wei Wuxian finished using the contents of the Qiankun bag he picked up, threw the bag away and shouted, "Everyone, get out! Be careful of the soul-eating goddess inside!"

Someone exclaimed: "The posture of the goddess has changed!"

The statue of the god just now clearly had its arms raised, one arm pointing straight to the sky, and one foot raised, with a graceful posture. At this moment, in the red and yellow fire, he let go of his limbs. It's absolutely true, it's definitely not a dazzle!

The next moment, the statue raised another foot - stepped out of the flames!

Wei Wuxian shouted: "Run, run, run! Stop cutting! It's useless!"

Most of the monks ignored him. The soul-eating monster that had been missing for thousands of years finally appeared, and no one was willing to let it go! However, so many fairy swords were used to chop and stab, and they were thrown with talismans, seals and various magic weapons, but they still did not stop the stone statue. It is nearly one foot tall, and moves like a giant, with a strong sense of oppression. It lifts the two monks in front of their faces, and the stone mouth seems to open and close. The swords in the hands of the two monks clang to the ground, and their heads hang down, apparently His soul was also sucked away.

All kinds of attacks were completely ineffective. Now the others were finally willing to listen to Wei Wuxian's words, swarming out and scattering in all directions. There were many people, and the more anxious Wei Wuxian became, the more he couldn't find Jin Ling. He ran around on a donkey and ran into a bamboo forest. He turned around and bumped into the Lan family juniors who were chasing after him. Wei Wuxian called to them: "Children!"

Lan Jingyi said: "Who are your children! Do you know whose family we are from? Do you think you can pass yourself off as an elder just by washing your face?!"

Wei WuXian said: "Okay, okay. Brothers, give a signal and ask your... that Hanguang-Jun to come up!"

The juniors nodded repeatedly and turned over while running. After a while, Lan SiZhui said: "The signal fireworks...we were all set off in Mojiazhuang that night."

Wei Wuxian was shocked: "You didn't make up for it later?!"

This signal firework would not be used even once in eight hundred years. Lan SiZhui said with shame, "Forgot."

Wei Wuxian threatened, "Is this something that can be forgotten? I'll let you Hanguang-Jun know about it so that you can look good!"

Lan Jingyi's face turned ashen: "It's over, I will be punished to death by Lord Hanguang this time..."

Wei Wuxian: "Punishment. It should be punished! If you don't punish, you won't have a long memory."

Lan SiZhui: "Master Mo, Master Mo! How do you know that the one who sucked the soul was not a soul-eating evil or a soul-eating beast, but the statue of the goddess of heaven?"

Wei Wuxian ran while searching for Jin Ling's figure: "How do I know? I saw it."

Lan Jingyi also caught up with him, running with him on the left and right: "What did you see? We also saw a lot."

"I saw it, what next? What's near the ancient tomb?"

"What can there be? There is a dead soul."

"Yes, there are dead souls. So it is definitely not a soul-eating beast or a soul-eating evil. Obviously, if it is these two types, with so many dead souls floating there, will it not eat it? No."

This time more than one person asked: "Why?"

"I'm talking about your Gusu Lan clan..." Wei Wuxian couldn't bear it any longer: "Teach less about immortal sect etiquette and cultivation family genealogy and historical origins, such smelly, long and memorized nonsense, and teach more about practical things. Isn't it okay to eat something from a living soul? What's wrong with this? Dead souls are much easier to absorb than living souls. The body of a living person is a barrier. If you want to eat living souls, you must break this barrier. Just like..." He glanced at The donkey rolled his eyes while panting and running, "It's like an apple is placed in front of you, and another apple is placed in a locked box. Which one do you choose to eat? Of course the one in front of you. This thing only eats raw souls. , and there is a way to eat it, he is very picky and very powerful."

Lan Jingyi was surprised: "Is that so? It seems very reasonable! Wait, it turns out you are not a madman!"

Lan SiZhui explained as he ran: "We all thought that the landslide and thunder chopping the coffin caused the loss of souls, so naturally we thought it was a soul-eating evil."

Wei Wuxian said, "Wrong."

"What's wrong?"

"Wrong order, wrong cause and effect. Let me ask you, which came before and after the landslide and the soul-eating incident, and which was the cause and effect?"

Lan SiZhui said without hesitation: "The landslide comes first, and the soul-eating comes after. The former is the cause, and the latter is the effect."

Wei WuXian said, "It's completely wrong. It's the soul-eating that comes first, and the landslide that comes after. The soul-eating is the cause, and the landslide is the effect! On the night of the landslide, there was a sudden heavy rain, and there was lightning and a coffin. Remember this. .The first lost soul, the lazy man who was trapped in the mountains for one night, got married in the past few days."

Lan Jingyi asked: "What's wrong?"

Wei Wuxian said, "There's nothing wrong with anything! How can a pauper who is doing nothing and doing nothing get the money to get married and have such a grand affair?"

Several young men were speechless. It's no wonder that the Gusu Lan family was originally a family that didn't have to consider the issue of rich or poor. Wei Wuxian continued: "Have you seen all the dead souls floating on Dafan Mountain? There was an old man who was killed by having his head smashed. His shroud was of excellent workmanship and material. With such a gorgeous shroud, his coffin couldn't be empty. , there must be several funerary objects in the coffin. The coffin that was split open by a bolt of lightning was probably his, and the people who collected the bones later did not find the funerary objects, so they must have all been taken away by the lazy man. Only in this way can Explain his sudden wealth. The lazy man suddenly became rich and got married after a night of landslide. Something unusual must have happened that night. It rained heavily that night, and he took shelter in the mountains. Is there any place on Dafan Mountain where he can take shelter from the rain? ? Temple of the Goddess. And if ordinary people go to the temple, they must do one thing."

Lan SiZhui asked, "Make a wish?"

"That's right. For example, let him have great luck, make a fortune, get married, etc. The goddess fulfilled his wish, rained thunder from the sky, split open the tomb, and let him see the treasure in the coffin. And his wish came true, as As a price, the goddess came to his wedding night and sucked his soul away!"

Lan Jingyi: "You guessed, right?"

Wei Wuxian: "It's just a guess. But if we continue to guess based on this, everything can be explained."

Lan SiZhui: "How do you explain Miss A Yan?

Wei Wuxian: "That's a good question. You should have asked before you went up the mountain. Ah Yan had just gotten engaged at that time. For all newly engaged girls, they must have the same wish."

Lan Jingyi said confusedly: "What wish?"

Wei WuXian said, "It's nothing more than, 'I hope my husband will love me and love me for the rest of his life, and only like me', and so on."

The young people were confused: "Can this wish really be realized..."

Wei WuXian spread his hands and said, "It's very simple. As long as her husband's 'life' ends immediately, doesn't it mean that he 'has only loved one person in his life'?"

Lan Jingyi suddenly realized and said excitedly: "Oh, oh! So, so, so after Miss A Yan got engaged, her husband was killed by jackals in the mountains the next day, because it was very likely that Miss A Yan went to the Tiannv Temple to make a wish the first day. !"

Wei Wuxian strikes while the iron is hot: "It's hard to say whether it was a jackal or something else that killed him. There is another special thing about A Yan: why is her soul the only one among them all to come back? What is the difference between her and others? Different The thing is, one of her relatives has lost her soul. Or to put it another way, there is a relative who has taken her place! Zheng Tiejiang is Ah Yan's father, a father who loves his daughter. After seeing that his daughter has lost her soul, medicine is useless, and she is helpless, What can you do under the circumstances?"

This time Lan SiZhui answered quickly: "——He could only place his last hope in heaven. So he also went to the Tiannv Temple to make a wish. The wish was, 'I hope my daughter Ayan's soul will be found'!"

Wei Wuxian praised: "This is why only A Yan's soul has returned, and it is also the reason why the third lost soul, Zheng Tiejiang, lost his soul. Although A Yan's soul was spit out, it was inevitably damaged. After her soul returned to its original place, she began to imitate the dancing postures and even smiles of the goddess statue involuntarily."

What these lost souls have in common is that they all made a wish in front of the statue of the goddess. The price of a wish coming true is your soul.

This stone statue of the goddess was originally just an ordinary stone, but it happened to look like a human being. It had been worshiped for hundreds of years inexplicably, and it gained magical power. But it was greedy enough and wanted to increase its mana faster by sucking souls. The soul absorbed through the exchange of wishes is equivalent to the soul voluntarily donated by the person who made the wish. The two parties trade fairly and seek benevolence. It seems reasonable and consistent. Therefore, the pointer of the Wind Evil Disk does not move, the Yin Summoning Flag cannot be summoned, and the sword cannot be summoned. All the talismans and seals are invalid, just because the things in Dafan Mountain are not monsters at all, but gods! This is a wild god that has been raised by hundreds of years of incense and offerings. To deal with it with something used to deal with ghosts and monsters is equivalent to fighting fire with fire!

Lan Jingyi said loudly: "Wait a minute! But just now in the temple, someone's soul was also sucked, and we didn't hear him make a wish!"

Wei WuXian's heart suddenly lifted and he stopped in his tracks: "Someone was soul-sucked in the shrine? Tell me what happened just now, word for word."

Lan SiZhui repeated it clearly and quickly. When he heard Jin Ling's words, "It's so clever, then I will make a wish now. I want this soul-eating thing in Dafan Mountain to appear in front of me right now. Can it be done?" At that moment, Wei Wuxian said, "Isn't this making a wish? This is making a wish!"

When others agreed with Jin Ling, it was assumed that they all made the same wish. The Soul-Eating Goddess was right in front of them, so their wish had been fulfilled. Next, it was time to ask for the price!

Suddenly, the donkey stopped and ran in the opposite direction. Wei Wuxian was caught off guard and was flipped off by it again. He clung to the rope for dear life, but he heard a crunching and snoring sound coming from the bushes in front of him. An extremely tall figure was crouching in the bushes, its huge head moving on the ground and its abdomen. Hearing a strange noise, he raised his head suddenly and caught their gaze.

The face of this soul-eating goddess was originally vague, with only roughly eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. After sucking the souls of several cultivators in one breath, she now has clear facial features. She is a smiling woman with a lot of blood hanging from the corner of her mouth. Holding a torn arm, he was chewing.

Everyone immediately followed the donkey to retreat.

Lan SiZhui collapsed and said, "This is wrong! The ancestor of Yiling said that only high-level people eat souls, while low-level people eat meat!"

Wei Wuxian said helplessly: "Why are you so superstitious about him? He makes a mess of everything himself! No rules are set in stone. You are just like a baby. When you have no teeth, you can only drink porridge, soup, soup, and water. Once Of course she wants to eat meat with her teeth when she grows up. Now that her magic power has increased, she naturally wants to have a taste of it!"

The Soul-Eating Goddess stood up from the ground. She was tall and powerful, using her hands and feet together. She was dancing wildly and seemed to be very happy. Suddenly, an arrow whizzed over and hit her forehead. The arrow penetrated from the back of her head.

Hearing the sound of the string, Wei Wuxian followed the sound and saw Jin Ling standing on a high slope not far away. He had already put the second arrow on the bow, fully pulled the string, let go and another arrow pierced the skull. The force was so strong that the Soul-Eating Goddess staggered back a few steps.

Lan SiZhui shouted: "Master Jin! Release the signal on your body!"

Jin Ling turned a deaf ear and wanted to take down the monster. With a sullen face, he set three arrows at once. Even though she was hit with two arrows in the head, the Soul-Eating Goddess was not upset and continued to attack Jin Ling with a smile on her face. Although she danced as she walked, her speed was terrifyingly fast, and she was half the distance in an instant. Several monks appeared from the side and struggled with her, blocking her steps. Jin Ling was hit by arrows and kept moving forward. It seemed that he was determined to shoot all the arrows first and then fight the soul-eating goddess in close combat. The hand is quite steady and the shot is accurate, but it's a pity that all the magical weapons of the Immortal Sect are useless to it!

Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji were waiting for news in Fojiao Town, wondering when they would notice the change and catch up. Water is needed to extinguish the fire, and if the magic weapon of the immortal sect cannot do it, then let's resort to evil tricks!

Wei WuXian pulled out the sword from Lan SiZhui's waist, chopped off a thin piece of bamboo, made a flute with his flying hands, brought it to his lips, and took a deep breath. The sharp flute sound was like a loud arrow, piercing the night sky and shooting straight into the sky.

He shouldn't be like this unless he has to. But now, no matter what is summoned, it doesn't matter, as long as the evil spirit is heavy enough and the viciousness is strong enough to tear this soul-eating goddess into pieces!

Lan SiZhui was stunned, but Lan Jingyi covered his ears and said, "It's already this time, why are you still playing the flute! It's so unpleasant!"

Three or four of the monks who were fighting with the Soul-Eating Goddess in the field had their souls sucked away. Jin Ling pulled out his sword and was less than two feet away from the Soul-Eating Goddess. His heart was beating wildly and the blood in his brain was rushing: "If I can't cut off her head with this sword, she will die here - die!"

At this moment, a jingling sound came from the forest of Dafan Mountain.

Jingle, jingle, jingle. Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's slow, sometimes it's loud. Echoing in the silent mountain forest. It's like iron chains hitting each other and iron ropes dragging the ground. Getting closer and louder.

For some reason, this sound gave people an extremely uneasy feeling of threat. Even the Soul-Eating Goddess stopped dancing, raised her arms, and stared blankly into the darkness where the sound came from.

Wei Wuxian put away his flute and looked at where he was coming from.

Although the ominous premonition in my heart is getting heavier and heavier, since I am willing to accept his summons, then at least I am willing to listen to his words.

The sound stopped suddenly, and a figure emerged from the darkness.

After seeing this figure and face clearly, the faces of several monks were distorted.

Even when faced with the stone statue of the Goddess that could suck away their souls at any time, this group of people did not flinch, nor did they show any timidity. However, the voices they shouted at this moment were full of unconcealable fear.

"...'Ghost General', it's 'Ghost General', it's Wen Ning!"

The title "Ghost General" is as notorious as the Yiling ancestor, and everyone knows it. The two usually appear together.

This word represents only one object. It was Wen Ning who was the number one under the throne of Yiling Patriarch Wei Ying who helped the tyrants, stirred up troubles, worked for the tigers, and turned the world upside down. Wen Ning should have been crushed to ashes long ago!