There were no obvious wounds on Lin Ruhu's wife's naked body. Only her hands, feet, and waist showed bluish-purple bruises caused by those invisible red threads.
She staggered to her feet from the ground and tried to grab the clothes scattered beside the statue.
Unexpectedly, the brass wealth god statue was now making a series of buzzing sounds as if it had been struck. With the resonance, a phantom of the statue emerged and hovered in the dim light.
The woman was busy pulling the scattered clothes over her body and didn't notice at all that the phantom of the wealth god statue behind her reached out its hand, grabbing her back into its embrace.
"Ah!! Help! Master, save me!!"
The woman was caught again by the cold statue and immediately let out a terrified scream.
"Let her go," I said. Although I despised this woman for her pleasure-seeking behavior, I thought it was a pity that she had squandered her whole life in just three years of indulgence. Since I met her here, it was a coincidence. Moreover, with Si Jiangchen by my side, even if I caused any trouble, he would back me up!
The phantom that emerged from the brass wealth god statue was the divine consciousness of the statue that had been enshrined for many years.
Hearing my voice, it slowly turned its head and gave me a sidelong glance.
"This... is the consort offered to me by the world. How could I let her go?!" The face of the wealth god statue was hideous. Its bloodshot eyes were painted with cinnabar, and the obsidian eyeballs with their natural pupil patterns glowed eerily in the pale yellow light. "... However, if you're willing to offer yourself to me in her place, I might reluctantly accept you!"
As it spoke, the wealth god statue showed a lecherous expression. Its long, blood-red tongue circled around the woman's head and face and then slithered into her mouth like a snake. The woman, who had been struggling and crying for help, could only let out muffled moans.
"You're quite arrogant!" Si Jiangchen, who was standing behind me, suddenly said coldly, "A penniless wretch who was tricked in a scheme doesn't even want to reincarnate but still dares to dream of being a wealth god?"
"Nonsense! Who's a wretch!! I'm a god! The true god who controls the wealth of the world. If you don't offer sacrifices, you'll end up starving on the streets!"
The wealth god statue was enraged by Si Jiangchen's words. It grabbed the woman's neck and bit down with a "snap". I had already been on guard against it hurting the woman, so I immediately slapped a yellow talisman over. The divine consciousness of the celestial god on the talisman suddenly appeared, strangling the wealth god's neck and smashing it against the wall.
Although I didn't know how Si Jiangchen knew that the wealth god statue had once been a penniless wretch, I took this excellent opportunity to grab the stunned woman from its embrace. I whispered a soul - calming incantation and then stuffed her back into her limp body on the ground.
During the previous vibration, the yellow wealth god statue had already drawn out the woman's soul. If Si Jiangchen hadn't enraged it, I might not have been able to find a flaw in it and force it back with a talisman.
The woman vomited a large pool of black water and then opened her eyes. She had no memory of the out - of - body experience. She only saw me kneeling beside her and knew that I had saved her life.
"Master, save me! I don't want to die! I'm only twenty - three. I want to live!" The woman cried and hid behind me.
The yellow talisman only trapped the wealth god for a few seconds. As its blood - red tongue wriggled, it actually licked and defiled the talisman on its forehead and broke free.
"How dare you!! I'll kill you all!!"
It roared and stirred up countless fine sand in the underground chamber, creating a whirlwind that rushed towards us.
Si Jiangchen stepped forward from beside me and kicked the huge brass statue.
With a "clang", the statue was kicked and cracked. The crack quickly spread all over the statue, and it crumbled, revealing its inner skeleton...
"Ah?!" I couldn't help but widen my eyes.
It turned out that the yellow wealth god statue in front of us was not a real brass statue but just a clay figure painted with gold powder to look like brass. Inside the statue was a human skeleton!
A mummified human!
I knew that both in Taoism and Buddhism, there were saints who could achieve Buddhahood with their physical bodies. In Jiuhua Mountain, a place with a prosperous Buddhist Dharma, there were dozens of Buddhist monks who had achieved Buddhahood with their physical bodies. After they passed away, they were placed in jars and didn't decay for years, so the believers would adorn them with gold and color to make Buddha statues for people to worship.
This was a way to promote the wonderful Dharma. Whenever a physical - body Bodhisattva appeared, the temple where the Bodhisattva was enshrined would be filled with incense and countless believers. A large amount of money would flow into the temple like a river.
Therefore, many evil temples and small shrines would come up with some evil ideas!
I had heard from the master of the Maoshan School about some terrifying events.
Back then, the masters went on a pilgrimage and stayed in a Taoist temple in Shanxi Province.
Near that Taoist temple, there was a Buddhist temple that attracted pilgrims to offer sacrifices because of the continuous appearance of physical - body Bodhisattvas. Each of these physical - body Bodhisattvas sat on a lotus throne, looking kind - faced with their eyes slightly closed, as if they were sleeping. The golden - painted statues made them look extremely solemn and sacred.
Countless pilgrims and believers flocked to the temple, and the money they offered had to be measured in sacks every day.
However, this fanatical belief only lasted for less than half a year. A Buddhist temple should be a sacred place where all ghosts would bow down, but the pilgrims could see ghosts during the day!
More than once, pilgrims were so frightened that they screamed and fled. Some people with weak constitutions were even scared out of their wits and had to go to the Taoist temple to ask the Taoist priests to call their souls back.
My master was from the Maoshan School, a Taoist sect mainly focused on catching ghosts and exorcising evil spirits. After hearing the pilgrims' accounts, he knew that there were evil ghosts lurking in the temple.
When he sneaked into the temple at night, he discovered a terrifying secret.
Those seemingly solemn Buddhist monks were actually doing evil deeds like demons.
They tricked the young novice monks into eating food mixed with sleeping pills. When the novice monks were too weak to resist, they would be placed on a three - foot lotus throne that had been prepared in advance. To prevent them from falling, an iron nail about one foot long was buried in the middle of the clay lotus throne. The nail would pierce through the anus of the selected novice monk and into his abdomen, firmly fixing him on the magnificent lotus throne decorated with colorful paintings and gold paint. Then the senior monks would pose them in various poses of Arhats and Bodhisattvas and coat them with more than a dozen layers of transparent tung oil to prevent decay.
After ten days or half a month, when the tung oil was completely dry, they would invite outside clay - sculpting masters to paint gold on these "Buddhas" with physical bodies to turn them into money - making tools for the temple...
The ghosts that the pilgrims saw were the resentful souls of those novice monks who were unwilling to die in such a way!