I become a god in another world

Chapter 298: Ruined Temple in the Wilderness
Chapter 298

Once it was agreed that they would set out again, everyone's eyes turned to the carriage.

At this time, the horse had been pulling all the way and was exhausted. Its limbs were curled up and it collapsed to the ground, neighing weakly.

The car itself was also damaged.

The axle that fixed the wheel on the right rear side broke, the wheel rolled to the side, and the body of the car fell on its side on the side of the road. Although it had not fallen apart, it still needed repairs.

Zhang Chuanshi took a look and said:
"There are tools for repairing the car, it just takes time—"

It was getting dark now, and if we delayed any longer, it would be late at night.

During the Han Dynasty, evil spirits were rampant. People did not leave their homes after nightfall, and were trapped in the wild.

Although several people are powerful and are not afraid of ordinary evil spirits, the beheading ghost case has been delayed. Once delayed, more innocent people will die tragically.

Besides, Zhao Fusheng was also marked by a ghost. Once she fell asleep at night, she would be dragged into her dreams by the evil ghost again.

Zhang Chuanshi's words left everyone silent for a while.

Soon, Liu Yizhen spoke first:
"I don't want to ride in the car anymore."

He had had enough of the hassle.

After leaving the city and leaving the official road, the mountain road was rugged and uneven, and the vehicle was bumpy so much that it almost shook his bones apart. It would be more convenient and comfortable for him to carry the coffin up the slope.

He thought for a while and then said:
"Besides, repairing the car now is just a waste of time."

Although Zhang Chuanshi can drive a car, he may not be good at repairing cars. If this delay continues, it will take a long time to find Sifang Town.

Meng Po also nodded:
"I don't have to take a car. I think it's better to rely on my own two legs than on these wheels."

Zhao Fusheng's eyes fell on the dying horse:

"The horse can't pull it anymore."

As soon as she finished speaking, the horse neighed briefly, then moved its tail, and with a "puff" sound, it excreted a large amount of loose feces like shooting an arrow.

"..."

When everyone was feeling disgusted and speechless, the horse panted several times, kicked its four hooves hard a few times, but was unable to stand up and finally stopped moving.

The horse is dead.

Zhao Fusheng became anxious and said to Meng Po:
"Meng Po, look at the horse."

Zhang Chuanshi felt that her attitude was not right and muttered:

"I just lost my master and I didn't see you in such a hurry."

"A horse is worth at least seven thousand coins." Meng Po answered from the side.

Zhao Fusheng felt distressed:
"Seven thousand coins, how many of me can you buy with that?" One Zhao Fusheng is only five coins, and this horse can buy more than a thousand Zhao Fushengs.

"..." Zhang Chuanshi didn't dare to say anything.

Zhao Fusheng is short of money now, and Wan'an County has many places where money is needed. There is a shortage of livestock and supplies in the city, and even in the Demon Suppression Division there are not many decent horses.

In order to handle this beheading ghost case, Zhao Fusheng had already lost a good horse when he went to Liutu Village today. If another one died at this time, Zhao Fusheng would suffer a heavy loss.

Meng Po did not dare to be careless and walked to the side of the horse.

She stretched out her rough hand and touched the horse's head. In the night, blood light appeared in Meng Po's palm. The moment the blood mist touched the horse's body, it was immediately sucked into the horse's head.

The horse that had fallen to the ground and died earlier came back to life immediately. When it raised its head again, its big eyes had turned from black to red, revealing a bit of evil.

The horse, which had been weak before dying, kicked its four hooves and stood up again.

When Zhao Fusheng saw this, he first breathed a sigh of relief, then felt a headache:
"I don't know whether this horse is dead or alive--"

She frowned:

"If you are dead, you have to go back soon, otherwise you won't be able to sell it for a high price after being dead for a long time."

Zhang Chuanshi was surprised by Zhao Fusheng's words:
"then what do I do?"

Zhao Fusheng waved his hand:
"You're not going to die."

She spoke so confidently that Zhang Chuanshi was delighted. He thought she was sure of it, and his nervous expression relaxed a little. He smiled and asked:
"How do you know, sir?"

Zhao Fusheng said:

"There is a saying that goes, calamity lasts for a thousand years."

Zhang Chuanshi was stunned for a moment, not understanding what was going on. He turned to look at Liu Yizhen:

"What do you mean, sir?"

Liu Yizhen kindly explained to him:
"Good people don't live long, but evil people live for thousands of years. What she meant is that you are not a good person."

"..." Zhang Chuanshi was not convinced:
"How can I not be a good person? I sell coffins, and I also have incense, candles and paper figurines. I send the dead on their last journey, and what I do is to accumulate good karma—"

Liu Yizhen said silently:

"In other words, you make money from the dead—"

Zhang Chuanshi was so embarrassed by his bullying that he immediately became anxious:

"Hey! Why do you talk like Xiao Fan--"

"Okay, stop joking." Zhao Fusheng interrupted the two people's bickering and looked around:
"This place is weird. Don't stay here for long. We should get back on track as soon as possible." After she said that, she felt her eyes sore and sleepiness came over her. She forced her mouth to close tightly and not yawn at this time for fear of scaring everyone.

"Yizhen, why don't you just tie the coffin to the horse's back and lead the horse away." Zhao Fusheng said to Liu Yizhen, then looked at Zhang Chuanshi:
"Lao Zhang, look at this place. Is it familiar?" She said, and pointed to the ground:
"The road here is wrong. It carries a dead air, a rotten smell, and a smell of fireworks."

Zhang Chuanshi looked down and reached out to grab a handful of sand.

There was something strange about the sand, and everyone saw it clearly before, but when Zhang Chuanshi tried to grab it, no one made a sound.

Zhang Chuanshi grabbed it in his hand and smelled it, then shook his head:

"It doesn't taste good."

After saying that, he threw the sand and gravel again.

Several people noticed that the strange gravel in his hand did not leave the black shadow that had been left in Zhao Fusheng's hand before.

"I think this sand and stone is quite comfortable." After Zhang Chuanshi finished speaking, Zhao Fusheng sighed:
"It seems that the feelings after death are really different from those when alive."

"What do you mean--" Zhang Chuanshi was stunned for a moment and asked.

"nothing."

Zhao Fusheng shook his head. Seeing that Liu Yizhen had already put the coffin on the horse's back and tied it up, he asked Zhang Chuanshi:
"Do you recognize where this is?"

Zhang Chuanshi had no choice but to stop joking and look around.

It was getting dark at this time and things in the distance were hazy and not very clear.

All you can see is that the terrain here is uneven, undulating, and the weeds are sparse and dead. Occasionally you can see a few thin small trees, whose leaves have almost all fallen off, leaving only bare branches.

He scratched his head and asked doubtfully:

"This place is black soil. As far as I can remember, there is no such terrain near Sifang Town. It is more like Shilipo—" Zhang Chuanshi said curiously:
"But Shilipo is not black soil. Although the terrain is mostly valleys and not flat, the mountains are covered with lush forests and the trees are very dense. Once you enter Shilipo, the weeds grow waist-high, numerous and dense. If you step in, you will sink halfway. Without an acquaintance to lead the way, you can't enter the slope at all—"

But what appeared before everyone's eyes was a strange black slope.

Looking around, the whole mountain was covered with black stones, mud and rugged rocks, which made it difficult for Zhang Chuanshi, who claimed to be very familiar with Shilipu, to distinguish them.

"This, this, I don't know the way either." Zhang Chuanshi said somewhat embarrassedly.

His words silenced Zhao Fusheng and others.

"After returning to the Demon Suppression Division, we must summon the heads of the villages and towns under the jurisdiction of Wan'an County to the Division's government office for a meeting and ask them to recruit some odd jobs to drive the carriage and lead the way."

Zhao Fusheng made a secret decision in his heart.

She said:
"When was the last time you came to Shilipo to do business?"

Zhang Chuanshi was originally afraid that she would get angry, but seeing that she was calm, he felt relieved and quickly replied:

"Yes, it happened two years ago—"

"Hasn't it been here since then?" Liu Yizhen asked.

Zhang Chuanshi nodded:
"Ah."

Liu Yizhen asked curiously:

"Didn't you say that there was good business in Shilipu, which supported your coffin shop? How could you have lost such a good thing?"

He was just asking casually, but Zhang Chuanshi got angry and said:
"It's lost, it's my fault anyway."

The old man's unhappy expression proved that there was something fishy going on.

But now is not the time to pursue these matters.

Zhao Fusheng pretended not to notice his guilty conscience and said:
"You haven't been to Shilipo for two years, so it's normal for you to have some changes." She pondered for a moment, then said to Zhang Chuanshi:
"If this is Shilipu, and we are inside Shilipu, which direction do you think we should go to reach Sifang Town?"

"Is this Shilipo?" Zhang Chuanshi was stunned for a moment when he heard this, and then he quickly understood what Zhao Fusheng meant:
"This place does look like Shilipu, but it's too desolate. If it were covered with trees and grass—" He raised his hand and gestured, thinking for a moment:
"If we are in Shilipu, then Sifang Town is located to the east of Shilipu, and going west is the direction of Huangquan Road."

After saying this, he looked around again.

At this time, all directions were bare.

The sky gradually darkened, and the uneven hills in the distance formed shadows, like an endless black wave with no end in sight.

Zhang Chuanshi's dark face showed a look of sorrow:

"I can't recognize the road."

He explained:

"There are many bends in Shilipo, and you have to rely on the bushes to identify the road, but here——"

There is no grass or trees here, how can you recognize it?
In other words, Zhang Chuanshi, who claimed to be able to find his way, also lost his way.

Everyone was somewhat helpless, but Zhao Fusheng was not panicked. Instead, he asked Zhang Chuanshi again:
"Is there anything that can be used as a landmark between Shilipo, Huangquan Road, and Sifang Town?" She was afraid that Zhang Chuanshi didn't understand what she said, so she simply asked:
"Besides trees and woodland, such as bridges, houses? Stone piers?"

"Landmark..." Zhang Chuanshi murmured, then thought for a while, and suddenly his eyes lit up:
"Yes, yes, yes!"

He obviously remembered something and became excited:

“There is a temple.”

Zhao Fusheng said:

"temple?"

"Yes." Zhang Chuanshi nodded:

"It was originally an abandoned mountain house with a clay statue of some unknown kind, but peddlers and nearby villagers would sometimes pass by there when going in and out of Shilipu, and sometimes they would stop there to rest if the time was not right."

Zhang Chuanshi said:

"Shilipo is very large, and there are several villages in the mountains. The incense-cutting village I just talked about is also on this hillside. When it comes to the harvesting season, some scattered incense has to be sold, and some villagers also have to leave the mountains."

The mountain roads were difficult to travel on and it was easy to get lost. Sometimes, when we were halfway through our journey, we did not dare to walk alone in the mountains. When it got dark, we would rest for the night in a wild temple and continue our journey the next day.

Zhao Fusheng raised doubts:
"It's okay to be a traveling merchant, but you also mentioned the nearby villagers." She said:

"Since they are villagers nearby, they should be familiar with the mountains and have planned their time well in advance. How come they encountered a dark night halfway through their journey?"

When Zhang Chuanshi heard her ask this, he couldn't help but laugh:
"Your Excellency doesn't know. The situation in Shilipo is different from other places. There is a lot of miasma in the mountains, and the color of the fog varies depending on the time of day and the weather."

When he mentioned the situation in Old Shilipu, he gradually regained his previous talkative and shrewd character, and motioned for everyone to talk while walking.

"The trees are thick and the fog is heavy in the mountains. It's hard to tell whether the sky will be clear or dark. An experienced old man can predict it about 70% to 80%. If you are a young person——"

When he said this, he pouted and shook his head:
"It's impossible to be sure, let alone foreign merchants."

Because of this, the mountain temple that originally housed the clay statues was gradually repaired and covered with hay for travelers to rest.

Zhang Chuanshi said:
"I once led my men into the mountains and encountered miasma. We rested in a wild temple. Although the temple was small, it had everything it needed. There was even a well outside with water in it."

After he said this, everyone remembered this wild temple.

The group hurried on their journey in the cover of night.

At first, Zhao Fusheng was worried that this place was haunted by evil spirits. As they were traveling at night, he was worried about encountering evil spirits, so he was always very cautious.

But after walking for a long time, the journey was smooth and no strange things happened.

Even when she urged Zhang Chuanshi to get up and find the way, she was still a little sleepy, but after walking for a long time, she felt more energetic.

But this situation did not make Zhao Fusheng feel relaxed, but made her more alert.

If something is abnormal, it is a monster.

She was marked by a ghost in her dream, and the sleepiness itself meant that the ghost's killing rules were activated.

After the first ghost dream, there will definitely be a second time.

But after she entered this evil black land, she no longer felt sleepy. This was clearly an even greater oddity.

When Zhao Fusheng was on the alert, Liu Yizhen, who was leading the horse in front of him, suddenly called out:
"Fu Sheng."

When she heard Liu Yizhen calling her name, she was stunned for a moment and looked up at him.

Liu Yizhen pointed to the front and said:
“There’s a temple over there.”

Liu Yizhen's words startled everyone, and then they looked at him intently.

The low hills in front and the mountains in the distance formed layers of shadows, and the green mist shrouding the night further obstructed everyone's vision.

But Liu Yizhen grew up in the ancestral temple and was very familiar with it. Even though it was blocked by the shadow of the mountain, he recognized it quickly.

Seeing that everyone couldn't see clearly, he simply took the lead and walked towards the temple:
"I'll lead the way, and you follow behind me."

If there was someone leading the way at this time, the people who were walking like headless flies on this black soil slope would feel like they had found a backbone.

Zhang Chuanshi breathed a sigh of relief:
"There are no other temples in Shilipu except for that one temple. If that is the temple Yizhen saw, we should be near Huangquan Road."

Zhao Fusheng nodded and said:
"Go over first and talk later."