Volume 2: The Road of Life and Death 9. Deserted Village

"Did you enter the small temple through the village that night, or took another route?" Chu Sen asked.

"I went around from the other side of the mountain, but every household in the village had lights on that night. I swear I saw it very clearly." Luo Tianbao was a little anxious, and beads of sweat oozed out of his head.

"Second brother, you must stay calm. You must have encountered something strange. Otherwise, there is no need for us to come here. They are all strange things anyway, so one more thing doesn't matter."

The reason I say this is not because I am brave, but because I have finally come out to practice the skills I have learned, and I want to make things as big as possible.

"I actually encountered such a weird place." Luo Tianbao sighed.

"Second brother, this means that your luck was destined to be bad for a while on the day you encountered the dead cat."

"Well, that's the truth. Some things cannot be avoided." He said helplessly.

"But why is this village so deserted? It doesn't make sense." Chu Sen said.

"What else needs to be said about an abandoned village? Maybe a big boss of a real estate company bought the land and never opened it?" I said.

"Stop talking nonsense for now, let's go to the temple and see for ourselves." Luo Tianbao took us through a desolate village and came to the small temple. There was not even an altar in the temple except for a statue. The statue was carved from stone, but the workmanship was very good, and the statue's facial features were lifelike. She was sitting cross-legged on a lotus platform, holding a treasure bottle in her hands. At first glance, she does look a bit like Guanyin Bodhisattva, but if you look closely, there are still big differences from Guanyin's Dharma image. First, her appearance is not as solemn and dignified as Guanyin's. Secondly, Guanyin's face is full and round, but the face of this statue is angular, especially the cheekbones on the cheeks are clearly adjusted.

No other statue of a deity has such prominent cheekbones. I thought about it and said, "Do you think this statue could be a human statue? No matter how I look at it, it seems like a human statue carved in the image of a girl."

After hearing this, Luo Tianbao slapped his head and said, "I am so stupid that I actually forgot such an important thing."

"What did you think of?" Chu Sen asked.

" Temple like this is very common in rural areas . It's called a daughter temple. When a daughter dies, a family will build a small temple to enshrine her stone statue. Daughter temples are not open to anyone, especially men, as it's very likely to attract evil spirits."

"So you are possessed by the ghost of a woman?" I said.

"That's basically it. It seems that this girl is not at peace in the grave , otherwise she wouldn't be taken away so easily." Luo Tianbao felt relieved after knowing the reason.

But we are faced with another problem. This village has been deserted for a long time. There is not even a living person to be found. Where can we find the graves of the dead ?

But if the girl's grave is not found and her emotional knot is not resolved, Luo Tianbao's strange possession will never disappear. Whenever he falls asleep, water will ooze out of his body. It's so sad to think about that life.

Luo Tianbao said, "We need to ask people in the neighboring village about the situation. We must find the girl's grave no matter what."

I pointed to the sky and said, "Brother, according to the star positions, most of the graves in the countryside are buried in the Yinsha Palace. How about we try astrology?"

"Come on, you've only learned a few days of kung fu and you're already in a hurry to show off? There can't be any mistakes in this matter, otherwise I won't be able to live in the future. For people like us, it's safer to rely on our mouths." After saying this, Luo Tianbao walked down the mountain path.

After walking for a long time, we finally found an inhabited village. There weren't many people in the village, mostly elderly people and children. We asked an old man about the next village. The old man took off his pipe and said, "You guessed right. The people in the village next door have done something terrible. The whole village is destroyed."

"Oh, old man, can you tell us what happened?" I said.

"This incident happened five years ago. The village was called Xiti Village. Back then, Xiti Village was considered wealthy in the surrounding area. The villagers were smart. They didn't grow crops, but Chinese herbal medicine. Every household had a car. At that time, the people in Xiti Village were so crazy that they didn't expect it to happen so quickly."

"The incident happened because of a flood. That summer, all the villages around us were flooded. People from other villages fled to the mountains, but not the people of Xiti. Firstly, they were rich and didn't dare to leave too far from home. Secondly, their houses were nice, two- or three-story brick houses that couldn't be washed away by the flood. So the people of Xiti stayed on the rooftops of their small buildings. Later, someone got lucky and fished out a snow-white fish from the flood. It was about the same size as a hairtail, over a meter long, and as it swayed in the water, it looked like a snake."

"It just so happened that the people of Xiti Village were having dinner, so they gutted the fish, fried it, and ate it all. Shortly afterwards, there was lightning and thunder, and strong winds blew in waves. The water became increasingly powerful, eventually washing away most of the houses of the villagers. No one who was caught in the flood could escape alive. The only ones who survived were a few unmarried girls, and everyone else in Xiti Village died."

"No wonder every good house in the village was destroyed by the flood." Luo Tianbao said.

"You're right. Their village used to be very beautiful, with small buildings just like the villas where the rich people live in the city. But now it's a ****, and it's said that some people have even seen ghosts in the village ."

The three of us looked at each other secretly. Luo Tianbao's face was pale and it was obvious that he was very scared .

The old man took a few puffs of his pipe and said, "It's said that the people of Xiti Village eat little white dragons that fell from the sky. Can anyone be healthy if they eat dragon meat?"

Luo Tianbao said, "Master, do you know if the people of Xiti Village have a village cemetery?"

"Yes, it's just west of the foot of Yuanbao Mountain. That place is flooded every year. They say it's flooding their ancestral graves. This is called eternal retribution."

When the old man said this, he did not show any sadness for the people of Xiti Village. Instead, an expression of gloating was clearly visible on his face. It seems that even simple rural people have a hatred of the rich.

We had all the necessary information, so we returned to Xiti Village and found an old grave area that was completely destroyed by water on all four sides of the hill. The original raised earth covering it had long been washed away by the water, and the pits underground looked like they were dug by giant rats. In some of the pits, you could still see scattered pieces of wood, while in some of the pits, there were no traces at all, and even the coffins and human bones had been washed away by the flood.

"Second brother, this is a big trouble. The girl's grave is no longer there." I said worriedly.

"Don't jump to conclusions yet. You've learned all this Feng Shui knowledge for days, now's the time to put it into practice."

"How can this be used? The graveyard has been washed away."

"Since I was able to summon the soul back, it means the girl's grave must still be there. Otherwise, I wouldn't have suffered this loss. Also, I was oozing water at night, which is very clear in this matter. What the old man said is absolutely reliable."

"If the girl's grave is still in Xiti Village, it won't be in this area." Chu Sen said.

"You are really wrong. She must be here. This is where the ancestral tomb is. Where else can a girl be buried if not in the ancestral tomb after she dies?" Luo Tianbao said affirmatively.

"If the girl is indeed buried in this place..." I carefully looked around and said, "According to the observation method of Lianxingshu, the five elements here are naturally water, but water and wood do not conflict with each other. Logically, this area should not be flooded like this."

Luo Tianbao nodded and said, "You're right. A very important criterion for a burial site is high ground. That way, even if there's water, it will quickly flow down and won't pool. Therefore, there shouldn't be cases of water-soaked coffins. But judging by the remaining wooden planks, these coffins were all washed away by water after being soaked."

"Yes, among the five elements, earth also controls water. Logically, this situation should not occur unless something changes the local feng shui structure." I said.