Translator: Dj22031
Editor: Dj22031
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Xie Lingya was sound asleep when something suddenly scratched his chest, waking him up in pain. It was Pheasant Brother scratching himself like crazy, and he thought he was bleeding.
“What are you doing?” Xie Lingya, worried that Pheasant Brother had been frightened by the weasels again, took off his headphones, but there was no weasel crying outside.
“Ooooooohhhh!” Brother Pheasant’s voice was getting increasingly frantic, deafening without his headphones.
Xie Lingya had a bad feeling, but he couldn’t believe those weasels could break his formation. He quickly opened the tent to look, his face changing dramatically. He practically crawled out of his sleeping bag, gave Shi Changxuan a strong push, and went next door to wake Fang Zhe and Hai Guanchao.
“What’s wrong?” Fang Zhe asked in confusion.
“Let’s go! This lake is going to rise!” Xie Lingya said anxiously.
The previously calm mountain lake was suddenly rising at an extremely fast speed, only a few meters away from where they were!
In such a dangerous situation, everyone bent down and scrambled to gather their luggage and sleeping bags. In just a moment, the water was already at their feet!
The bone-chilling cold startled Xie Lingya, and he ran uphill, carrying his belongings and the chicken, occasionally pulling Fang Zhe to his side.
When they reached the top of the gentle slope, they looked back to see that the lake had not only risen slightly, but the original gentle slope had vanished.
Xie Lingya set his things down on the ground and slumped down, completely sleepless and shivering. He glanced nearby and saw weasels crouched on a slightly higher rock, staring at them grimly…
Xie Lingya felt a chill run down his spine.
Could it be that these weasels had lured him there? If it weren’t for Brother Pheasant, this would have been truly disastrous.
Fang Zhe, still terrified, stared at the lake and asked, “How could this happen! How could this lake still rise?”
“It must be due to the geology. Haven’t you seen TV? I’ve seen similar cases before, where the lake water disappears and reappears overnight. Just looking at the environment around the lake, it doesn’t look like it’s constantly flooded, which proves that the lake’s rise cycle is quite long.” Hai Guanchao remained calm and analyzed the situation. “We… are just unlucky.”
“What kind of bad luck? I saw the lake because I followed the weasels,” Xie Lingya said. “They’re very perceptive. They must have known something was wrong with the water level.”
As he said this, everyone looked at the weasels and saw something strange in their expressions. They didn’t take them seriously at first, but now they felt a chill in their hearts. It seemed that they couldn’t underestimate any opponent!
“No, we can’t let them follow us anymore.” Fang Zhe made up his mind and said.
Xie Lingya was about to agree, but he saw those weasels jump off the rocks and rush down the mountain as if for their lives. In the vast night, their figures could not be seen in the blink of an eye.
“Did they know that we were going to take action?” Xie Lingya looked at them doubtfully.
Hai Guanchao suddenly trembled, “Teacher Xie, Teacher Xie… look…”
Xie Lingya looked back and his eyes widened. In the swollen lake, many figures emerged and walked towards this side stiffly.
Looking around, there were so many that it was hard to count them. When Xie Lingya shone his flashlight over, human figures lined up neatly and approached this side. Their faces were blue-gray with a layer of frost, and a look of pain was frozen on their faces, which made people shudder.
It was cold enough on the mountain, and the boundary of the snow on the top of the mountain could be seen, but seeing these guys, it only made them feel colder.
Moreover, they seemed to have noticed the four people standing in the front row, staring at them straight.
“…Why are there so many ghosts in the mountains.” With so many ghosts, it’s no wonder that the weasels avoided them. Xie Lingya didn’t have time to think clearly and said, “Hide!”
When he said hide, he certainly didn’t mean to find a place to hide like a weasel.
Xie Lingya and Shi Changxuan were left to their own devices. While Fang Zhe grabbed Hai Guanchao and chanted, “My left hand holds the three souls, my right hand holds the seven spirits. Heaven covers the earth, earth covers the sky. Part the clouds and mist to see the blue sky. A thousand evil masters cannot find me, even ten thousand evil masters cannot find me. I respectfully call upon the six stars of the Southern Dipper and the seven stars of the Northern Dipper. I obey the command of the Supreme Lord Laozi!”
Fang Zhe hid Hai Guanchao first, then himself. The four of them hid themselves, making them invisible to the ghosts. By then, the vast crowd of ghosts had already approached, and Xie Lingya could see them more clearly. They had long hair, wore armor, and held weapons, like an army.
The ghosts circled aimlessly by the lake, unsure where to go.
“They’re trapped here,” Xie Lingya saw at a glance. These were the ghosts of those who died in vain, unable to reincarnate or leave the place of their death.
Xie Lingya felt a chill when he thought of the surging lake water. Could it be that these soldiers were drowned or frozen to death in their sleep?
At this moment, the ghosts once again realized that they could not leave this place and began to sob softly to the moon. Their sorrowful cries were even more frightening than the cries of weasels.
They wandered around the lake in vain, and they didn’t know how long they had been trapped in this cold and desolate place.
Xie Lingya couldn’t bear to see this, so he lifted his hiding method.
The soldiers around stopped and looked over.
One of the ghosts was a little more awake and asked, “Who is it?”
His accent was strange and only vaguely discernible. After all, he was an ancient ghost who had died and had been in this remote place for a long time, and he didn’t know any changes.
Xie Lingya: “Uh…”
How to explain it? He looked at the ghost’s confused look and felt that he wouldn’t understand even if he said it.
The ghost said again, “You’re not from here.” He suddenly said, “I can’t leave here. Can you take a message home for me?”
Xie Lingya asked, “Where are you from?”
The ghost was momentarily confused again. “I can’t go back. Can you take a message home for me?”
He repeated this sentence over and over again, with the first half of the sentence spoken most clearly. Imagine that Xie Lingya and his companions had come up by car. In the past, they would have had to walk even that distance, the long journey and the difficult snowy mountains.
The other ghosts seemed speechless, staring at this stranger. Although they were staring at Xie Lingya, the other three were inevitably taken care of by him. Hai Guanchao’s legs went weak, and he covered his face and asked, “What are you doing…”
Shi Changxuan also unleashed his hiding spell and stood with Xie Lingya. “Let’s call the ghost soldiers here to question them.”
These ghosts were very vague, with only simple obsession. Questioning them would not yield any results.
Xie Lingya had the same idea. He stared at the countless cold, fixed gazes, and with a sudden thought, he raised the City God’s seal to summon the City temple’s strongmen.
A moment later, a strongman arrived, bowing to Xie Lingya and saying, “Master.”
The approaching soldiers paused as the strongman arrived, but they remained focused.
“Excuse me, but I’d like to ask how so many ghosts unable to reincarnate came about?” Xie Lingya asked.
The powerful warrior quickly replied, “I only know a little about this. I’m just a Qing Dynasty ghost, and I’m still too young.”
Xie Lingya: “…”
This is still too young.
Xie Lingya: “Tell me.”
The powerful warrior said, clearing his throat. “These tens of thousands of souls are the army of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. Back then, Emperor Xuanzong dispatched his troops to attack Xiaobolü, requiring them to cross the snow-capped mountains. After Xiaobolü’s capture, the army returned and, at the advice of a Xiaobolü captive, stationed here. This lake rises every ten years, then recedes after three days. That day was high water, and snow fell here. That night, almost all the soldiers were drowned in their sleep and froze to death. They sank to the bottom of the lake, wandering there, constantly climbing upwards, trying to return to the Tang Dynasty. They could only emerge once every ten years, but they never left the area within ten miles.”
The four listened in fascination. They had encountered the same army that had been trapped here a thousand years before. Were they searching for a way back to their homeland?
But time had passed, and the Tang Dynasty was long gone.
Even Xiaobolü was no longer in existence, having become part of the Tang Dynasty a few years after the war.
Both the Great Tang and Xiaobolü had long since vanished into the river of history. The lives of these tens of thousands of people barely made a splash, and future generations, upon seeing them, would just wonder where these ghosts of the snowy mountains came from.
Xie Lingya, suddenly realizing, asked, “What about the captives?”
The strongman replied, “The Xiaobolü people are hardy, and many escaped. Only a hundred or so were buried here with them, but there were too few of them for you to see.” He added, “Because they were buried so secretly, they only come out once every ten years. For thousands of years, no one has discovered them. Even if someone did, one person alone wouldn’t be able to liberate so many souls.”
So many years had passed, and both the army and the captives had longed for home for so long. Time wore away the soul, and now they could only cry, desperately searching for a road that would never return.
“By the way, some of the dead told me that the Tang Dynasty went on the expedition to plunder, while others told me that it was because Xiaobolü was stealing tribute and was ambitious along with other countries… I don’t know the specific reasons, Master, do I need to ask a senior for detailed inquiries?”
Xie Lingya murmured, “No need, I’ll send them directly to the underworld. Even if they committed any sins in their lifetime, the underworld can decide who is right and who is wrong… The snow-capped mountains are too cold, and they have been frozen for thousands of years.”
As for the cause of the war, it was not something that any of the dead souls present could decide. Even if there was right or wrong, both sides should have gone to the underworld long ago. A thousand years was too long.
“Master, you are so righteous!” The strong man quickly saluted and said implicitly, “It’s just… there are tens of thousands of souls here, and the mages may not be able to save all of them. Perhaps each of you can choose a portion first?”
Everyone: “…Hehe.”
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