Chapter 2193 - 2045: Starting from 600 Years Ago

Chapter 2193: Chapter 2045: Starting from 600 Years Ago

"Oh?" Li Sijie asked in confusion.

"This time, it was General Zhao who first discovered that the Dark Night Sect was involved in the deaths at Lop Nur, and only then did he notify us at Dragon Gate. This matter is actually our Dragon Gate’s concern. The Dark Night Sect is cultivating a very formidable child at Lop Nur, and if the Dark Night Sect succeeds, this child will be taken away and trained into a very powerful opponent in the future." Song Xiaodong said.

"What’s so formidable about a child?" Li Sijie asked.

"A child alone may not be formidable, but this child was born from a woman who died six hundred years ago, who was a performer." Song Xiaodong replied.

"Ah? How is that possible?" Li Sijie asked in disbelief.

"How could it be fake when I saw it with my own eyes? Both Yiyi and Xianling saw it too." Song Xiaodong said.

"Really, how could the dead give birth?" Li Sijie still didn’t believe.

"Not only did we see the dead give birth, we also saw a dragon boat in the desert, moving silently as if on a river. The scene was incredibly eerie." Song Xiaodong told Li Sijie.

"Wow..."

"What happened afterwards?" Li Sijie asked.

"Then an old monk named Benwu arrived. I thought he was an old monk, but it turned out he was only twenty-something, yet his hair and eyebrows were completely white, his body hunched and his face full of wrinkles." Song Xiaodong said.

"How come? Premature aging?" Li Sijie asked Song Xiaodong.

"No, a Taoist told me that this little monk cultivates Dry Zen, specifically comprehending the principles of aging." Song Xiaodong answered.

"Dry Zen? Is it really that miraculous?" Li Sijie said incredulously.

"Yes, there’s even more remarkable stuff. There’s a young Taoist with us, who told me he’s over ninety years old but looks only sixteen or seventeen." Song Xiaodong said.

"Is there really such divine skills to never age?" Li Sijie asked.

"Yes, but the young Taoist isn’t forever sixteen or seventeen. When he uses his cultivation technique, his body will age. By the time we finally dealt with the matters at Lop Nur, the young Taoist aged from sixteen to sixty." Song Xiaodong continued.

Song Xiaodong didn’t know that maintaining youth comes with a price—the price being that one cannot get angry, laugh, cry, or be emotionally intense. They must abstain from eating meat, and cannot be cold or hot, as the Five Elements counteract each other.

"Alas, the dealings of cultivators are beyond my comprehension." Li Sijie sighed.

"Later on, there was an even more formidable Mr. Zhao—when he trembled, a Dharma body resembling the King Yama appeared behind him, commanding such awe!" Song Xiaodong expressed deep admiration for Mr. Zhao’s divine skills.

"Is there really a King Yama?" Li Sijie asked.

"I don’t know either, but Mr. Zhao’s apparition seems more like a presence or a kind of psychic power. As for the Dharma body, Master Benwu also has one—shining light above his head, similar to Mr. Zhao’s, both driven by the power of faith." Song Xiaodong explained.

"So many died in the desert, who was responsible?" Li Sijie asked again.

"This matter needs to be traced back over 600 years." Song Xiaodong responded.

"Ah?..."

"Six hundred years ago, during the Yuan Dynasty, there was a pair of childhood sweethearts. Later, the boy enlisted, and the girl awaited his return to marry her. However, one day, the girl was kidnapped by traffickers and sold to a theater troupe. The troupe owner violated her, and the girl became pregnant. You know, in the old society, pregnancy before marriage was a grave sin. Unable to bear the humiliation, the girl hanged herself." Song Xiaodong narrated.

"How vile the old society was!" Li Sijie lamented.

"Later, the boy became a General and returned to marry his childhood sweetheart. Upon learning the girl’s fate, he was stricken with grief. Later, when the theater troupe performed at the General’s Mansion, the girl, having turned into a fierce ghost after death, visited the General in dreams. In a rage, the General killed all eleven people in the troupe." Song Xiaodong continued.

"Wow... that’s too tragic." Li Sijie couldn’t help but say.

"There’s an even crueler twist. The General ended up in prison for the act, with his political enemies seizing the opportunity. In prison, he was beaten to death." Song Xiaodong said.

"They were truly a tragic pair of lovers!"

"Indeed... After the girl died, she cursed all who heard her performances, ensuring they’d never reincarnate. They must listen to her sing all tragic tales before they could reincarnate." Song Xiaodong explained.

"What’s wrong with being an audience? Aren’t audiences lovely? How could she curse them?" Li Sijie asked.

"Perhaps those people knew what happened to the girl and didn’t stand up to help?" Song Xiaodong speculated.

"What happened later?" Li Sijie asked.

"Eventually, the tragic lovers, along with those cursed audience members, the performing dragon boat, were brought to Lop Nur and buried there." Song Xiaodong said.

"Why bury them so far away?" Li Sijie asked.

"It was surely the work of the Dark Night Sect. These two suffered tremendous humiliation in life, and even after death, their resentment was immense. Dark Night Sect must have sought to turn them into fierce ghosts." Song Xiaodong said.

"The Dark Night Sect is truly vile—their lives were already tragic, yet even in death they were exploited!" Li Sijie felt the Sect’s deeds were utterly depraved.

"Hmph, the audacity of the Dark Night Sect! Aren’t they afraid of karma? Lop Nur is a shifting lake, moving east and west—part water, part dry. The watery side is under yin, and the Sect buried the woman’s corpse underwater, while the man’s was buried in the desert’s dry land. In life, they couldn’t be together; in death, they were buried separately, yin and yang apart, meeting day and night but never together—in this manner, six hundred years passed." Song Xiaodong retold this with palpable anger.