Chapter 485: Chapter 449: Returning to Pinghu Village
The three of them, Sang Que, dismounted from the carriage and gazed into the distance.
The blood mist was dense, and a ruined city loomed faintly at the edge of their vision. Most of the city walls had collapsed, bricks scattered everywhere. Weak wailing of ghosts sounded from the mist, the wind swirling around the blood mist, mingled with whispers of ghosts.
Qin Ze stood beside Sang Que, looking sorrowful, instinctively grasping the small wooden dagger hanging from his waist. Before his eyes were the sights and sounds of his wife and two children.
Xia Chan also sniffled, murmuring softly, "Uncle Yushan..."
Although Hua Qianmian said nothing, she furrowed her brows tightly, reminiscing about the many people and events in Wangshan City, thinking of the children in the Orphanage. That ghost disaster had claimed many lives; she had risked her life to save only a part of them. She wondered if those children who escaped were still safe now.
Sang Que took out some Yellow Paper prepared for the Paper Macher from the painting, along with incense candles and food. He walked a few steps forward and drew a circle with stones at the entrance leading to Wangshan City.
They all squatted down, burning some Yellow Paper for the departed friends and relatives, offering fruits, and chanting a few words.
As the incense lit up, an eerie wind arose around them. Shadows of ghosts flickered in the blood mist, deterred by the ghostly aura surrounding them, unwilling to approach. The shadows gathered more and more, shoulder to shoulder, numbering in the thousands.
The group didn’t feel terrified by the scene; instead, the sadness in their hearts grew stronger.
Qin Ze even rushed directly into the shadows, loudly calling out his wife’s maiden name and his children’s nicknames. Unfortunately, only the howling eerie wind responded to him.
"It’s time for us to leave."
Sang Que stood up from the ground, returning to the carriage first. Xia Chan followed closely behind, and Hua Qianmian glanced at Qin Ze standing at a distance, back facing the others, sighed, and quickly returned to the carriage.
The three of them waited in the carriage for the time it takes to brew a cup of tea before Qin Ze came back, silently sitting at the carriage shaft, flicking the whip to drive the carriage forward.
The deceased are gone; the living must move on.
Upon reaching Wangshan City, Bai Long County’s Pinghu Village was not far.
A normal carriage would take three to four days to travel, but the paper mache carriage took less than two days to reach the archway into Pinghu Village.
Sang Que remembered the original archway vividly colored, with white dragons carved on the columns and a plaque above with the traditional characters ’Favorable Weather’. A stone tablet at the lower right of the archway bore the inscription ’Pinghu Village’.
Now the archway had become decayed, with the paint peeled off, and the plaque had fallen to the ground. The stone tablet beside it was also broken in half.
However, mist still swirled around the archway, continuously merging with the surrounding blood mist.
Sang Que felt this was like an instance entrance, with the existence of Fish Woman Village below the lake making this space different from normal space.
"Stay alert, I’ll go in first and call for you when I come out."
Sang Que said to Qin Ze, who was driving the carriage behind, drew the Hundred Blade, and cautiously stepped into the archway.
Walking about five steps through the mist, the scene before him suddenly cleared as if nothing had changed.
The sun shone brightly, a serene fishing village nestled by the lake, the lake surface like a mirror, water greenish-blue. Fishing boats were neatly docked by the shore, water birds chirped and flew overhead, occasionally skimming the surface.
Even the willows by the shore were as they were before. The small yard at the village entrance still bore the marks of a fire pit they used the last time they stayed overnight there.
Using Ghost Eye, Sang Que carefully scanned every corner, ensuring there were no ghosts or living people here. Then he exited the archway, instructing Qin Ze to drive the carriage inside.
The paper mache carriage passed through the mist, instantly burning to paper ash when sunlight from Pinghu Village touched it, the three on board quickly jumped off the carriage.
"What a beautifully scenic wonderland." Hua Qianmian remarked with hands on hips, scanning the fishing village and sighing.
The journey through the blood mist showed nothing but a sky and land stained with blood, filled with nothing but corpses and Evil Spirits. The lush greenery before them now was truly rare.
Sang Que looked up at the slanting sun, pushed open the gate of the small yard at the village entrance, "We’ll rest here for today. Once the sun sets, we’ll see if any villagers appear in the lake."
Xia Chan stretched and yawned, having slept the entire way in the carriage, still drowsy.
Qin Ze glanced towards the direction of the lake and asked, "Should I dive down to explore first?"
Sang Que replied, "No need, the lake below remains unchanged. What we seek isn’t this lake, but the Fish Woman Village at the lake’s bottom within the Hidden Realm."
It seemed the time within the courtyards of Pinghu Village had been frozen, remaining tidy after all this time, with very little dust.
Sang Que hung the painting on a tree, instructing everyone not to eat or drink anything here, then had the Puppet Master Chu Mo Wei from within the painting bring out some pre-prepared convenience food and bottled water to quickly settle lunch.
As they ate, Sang Que roughly calculated.
Currently, she was on the Sixth Level of the Nine Netherworld, with Ghost Realm and various capabilities enhanced. She commanded a Sixth Level Yin Child and a Fifth Layer Paper Macher, with a Fifth Layer Flying Corpse Red Ghost and four hundred Zombies, all infused with various types of Evil Spirits, at minimum Black Zombies, with more than twenty having reached the Jumping Corpse standard.
Additionally, the Puppet Master Chu Mo Wei busied himself in the painting with logistics, occasionally crafting some Blood Puppets.
These Blood Puppets needed to be crafted using wooden materials and corpse flesh and blood. They were generally not very strong, so Sang Que applied to the research institute for a batch of explosives, turning all these Blood Puppets into various types of Self-destructive Puppets, currently numbering over three hundred, large and small.
The Yin Child wore embroidered shoes, the Paper Macher held Ghost Scissors given by the Ghost Vendor, and in her hands, the yin object also included an embroidered handkerchief from Zhang Junyao, an alarm clock attracting ghosts, a cloth doll, a Buddha Bone Bracelet from Monk Bingchen, and a sign tube obtained along the way.
Before departing, Qiao Ling gave her a whole box of medicine, ranging from emergency treatments to antidotes against miasma, and items allowing her to breathe underwater without being detected by the Water Ghosts.
The Ghost Vendor also provided some items, but Sang Que didn’t take any of the yin objects, as they usually carried side effects, causing different unexpected situations, too troublesome.
In the end, she only took ten Substitute Death Grassmen, the only successful White Porcelain Doll made by the Ghost Vendor recently, and a few raincoats that could slightly resist the mist of the Hidden Realm.
There were even more weapons and equipment brought from modern times: two pistols, five boxes of various grenades, five large barrels of gasoline. If not enough, she could return to fetch more anytime.
With ample ammunition and proper preparation, as long as Zuo Jinye himself didn’t appear, Sang Que felt confident she could single-handedly decimate the Impermanent Bureau.
The only concern was that the Impermanent Bureau was located within the Hidden Realm.
She had been in the Deceit Dynasty for over two years, having visited the Hidden Realm only a handful of times. All she knew about the Hidden Realm came from the Ghost Vendor, who himself claimed only to have explored less than thirty percent of it, with many places he dared not approach.
After inventorying what she had, Sang Que took out the map of Fish Woman Village’s outskirts given by the Ghost Vendor, telling the group, "This time we’ll split into two teams; Qianmian, I need your disguise skills. You’ll come with me to the Hidden Realm. Qin Ze, you and Little Chan will stay here, keeping an eye on the changes beneath the lake. If anything happens, you’ll need to dive down to assist us."
