Chapter 118: The Starving Ghosts in the Buddha

Gao Tian didn't even know what to feel as he stared at the lower half of Lan Zhu's body hanging from the giant Buddha.

He kept talking, faking a conversation with her, pretending she wasn't dead.

That lasted until Jiang Yang put a hand on his shoulder and shook him, trying to snap him back to reality. "We have to find a way to get Lan Zhu's body down.

"We can't just leave her hanging up there.

"She must have seen something in the base of the Buddha, and that's what killed her. The wounds on her corpse are an important clue."

The half of Lan Zhu's body dangling outside the dark hole remained motionless. She was already dead.

Only a corpse could hold such an agonizing posture for so long without reacting.

Gao Tian's rational mind had known the truth the moment he saw her lower half dangling from the statue. His emotions, however, refused to accept it, which was why he had subconsciously started talking to her corpse.

Not even a full day had passed since they entered Longshu Temple, yet two people from their four-man team were already dead.

They had both died bizarrely, leaving no clue as to what Killing Rule they had tripped.

The most pressing question remained: what exactly had Lan Zhu seen inside the base of the Buddha? What had caused her death?

Gao Tian fought down his grief and asked, "When you came into Longshu Temple alone earlier, did you inspect this giant Buddha?"

Jiang Yang's expression was relatively calm. "That dark hole was too high. I couldn't climb up.

"I settled for knocking on the base of the statue a few times to confirm it was hollow inside.

"To make sure no ghosts were hiding in there, I drew my gun and fired from these angles. Look, here are the bullet holes I left—"

Jiang Yang pointed at the lower side of the Buddha's drooping belly, intending to show Gao Tian the bullet marks. But as his finger found the spot, both his expression and his hand froze.

There was nothing there.

The giant statue was faded and covered in dust, but it was completely intact. It bore no signs of violent damage, much less bullet holes.

"How is this possible? I definitely fired a few shots into the lower section. I even pressed my eye against the bullet holes to check the inside of the Buddha—"

In pure disbelief, Jiang Yang instinctively reached out and touched the spot where he had left the marks.

Only the smooth, cold surface of the statue answered his touch.

Had the bullet holes on this giant Buddha somehow repaired themselves in just ten or so minutes?

Was this Buddha alive?

Everything about Longshu Temple was growing increasingly bizarre.

A sudden chill swept through the temple.

Gao Tian had no doubt that Jiang Yang had fired his weapon. A veteran who had survived five missions would never lie about something like this.

The only explanation was that the Buddha itself was the problem—it was an evil entity.

"Let's figure out how to get Lan Zhu's body down first.

"Leaving her hanging up there isn't right."

Gao Tian searched the ground and picked up a few large rocks.

His plan was simple. Lan Zhu's body was currently wedged into the upper half of the dark hole, caught in a delicate balance.

As long as he found the right angle and broke that equilibrium, he could knock her remains free and cause them to tumble out.

It was a somewhat disrespectful way to treat a corpse. But as participants in supernatural missions, they couldn't afford to be particular about such things.

He expected it would take at least five or six rocks to get the job done. After all, more than half of her body was deep inside the hole, wedged in tight.

But after throwing just the first rock, Lan Zhu's hanging corpse lost its balance and tumbled backward, plummeting to the ground. It was much easier than he had imagined.

The two men took a step back. Once the corpse landed in front of them, Gao Tian and Jiang Yang finally realized that only the lower half of Lan Zhu's body remained.

After she had shoved her upper half into the dark hole, something inside the Buddha had gnawed on her. That half had been eaten clean, leaving behind a jagged, pitted mess of bite marks.

Her large and small intestines, a messy clump of gore, and her waist had been caught on the lip of the hole. From the outside, her lower half had appeared to retain a complete human shape.

To think that this crazy woman, Lan Zhu, had survived so many haunted houses in America only to die in a Green Text Mission that wasn't even meant for her.

Jiang Yang drew both of his revolvers. He was done being polite; he was going to completely blast this giant Buddha to pieces.

Whatever was hiding inside, it was surely going to enjoy swallowing a few dozen bullets.

Right as he prepared to open fire, a strange rustling noise echoed from the dark hole above. It sounded like something was rapidly climbing up the interior walls of the statue.

"Something is getting ready to come out."

Jiang Yang fought down his grief and rage, immediately aiming his guns upward.

Gao Tian also drew his Terror Blade, pressing his other hand against his Luck Jar. The moment he confirmed the Fierce Ghost of Longshu Temple had appeared, he would boost his own luck.

A face as withered as dead grass slowly peeked out of the dark hole, staring down at Gao Tian and Jiang Yang.

He had a shaved head bearing six burn scars and wore the tattered remains of a gray monk's robe. This person had likely been a monk in life. However, the skin on his face was completely shriveled and sunken, clinging tightly to the shape of his skull. He had starved until he had absolutely zero fat left on him. Gao Tian had never seen anyone so thin in his entire life; the man looked practically identical to a starving ghost of legend.

The monk looked down at them with a terrified expression. His mouth was continuously chewing on something hard, producing a grotesque crunching noise, and fresh crimson blood stained the corners of his lips.

Whatever could crawl out from the bottom of the Buddha was certainly not human. That went without saying.

Soon after, a few more monks slowly poked their heads out. Though their features differed, every single one of them was bony to the extreme. Even with a layer of skin clinging to their faces, they were virtually indistinguishable from bare skeletons.

Like the first monk, their jaws chewed nonstop, crushing hard objects between their teeth. Every now and then, a spurt of blood would spray from their mouths.

The interior of this giant Buddha was definitely an anomalous space that defied the laws of physics.

Gao Tian had thrown rocks inside to test it, and Jiang Yang had shot directly at its belly. It simply could not have hidden a dozen people or ghosts; it was unclear where they had even come from.

Gao Tian could roughly guess what had happened. When that crazy woman Lan Zhu had stuck her upper half into the dark hole, she had run right into these monks trapped at the bottom—practically real starving ghosts. They had devoured her completely in an instant, leaving only her lower half hanging outside the giant Buddha.

"Who are you? Outsiders, what are you doing in this temple?

"Our incense money, along with our stored grain and vegetables, has all been eaten up and spent. We truly have nothing left to give you."

The monks inside the Buddha seemed terrified of these uninvited guests. They shoved each other back and forth in the dark hole until they pushed forward a bolder one who still had a bit of flesh on his face, and he called down to question Gao Tian.

His pronunciation sounded very strange; it took a lot of effort to understand what he was saying.

Gao Tian tightened his grip on his Terror Blade. He knew these monks were ghosts, but from their perspective, they didn't seem to realize what they had become. Even though they had just eaten a person alive, their memories were still stuck in the period shortly after the temple's food had run out.

Jiang Yang lightly patted Gao Tian, gesturing for him to relax.

He turned back, suppressing the hatred in his voice as much as possible to communicate calmly with the monks above. "We are just passersby. Rest assured, once we figure out what happened here, we will leave immediately.

"What exactly happened in this Longshu Temple?

"What are you hiding from inside this giant Buddha?

"Where is the temple abbot? Is there a monk named Yusheng?"

He would hold off on fighting these ghosts and try to coax some information out of them first.

Since they still perceived themselves as human, he would play along and find out what had taken place in Longshu Temple.

The living were always more important than the dead.

If Jiang Yang had been blinded by rage and immediately started shooting to avenge Lan Zhu, his intellect would never have allowed him to survive to his fifth mission.

Seeing how amicable Jiang Yang sounded, the starving ghost monks hiding in the dark hole exchanged looks. Another one mustered the courage to answer him. "To be honest, we still don't know what happened.

"It was just an ordinary day. We chanted sutras, cultivated, fetched water, and farmed like we always did.

"But our master told us something had happened outside. He ordered us to drop everything today and immediately hide in the belly of this Buddha, strictly forbidding us to come out no matter what occurred outside. Not unless we heard his voice.

"After saying that, our master hurriedly left.

"We have obediently hidden in here ever since, following his orders and not daring to step out. Everything else is fine, but for some reason, we keep getting hungrier and hungrier. It feels—like we haven't eaten a meal in a lifetime.

"Sometimes, when we see something poke into the hole from outside, the hunger drives us mad. We don't even care if it's a small animal or a dead object—we just grab it and gnaw on it. After eating, we get a tiny bit of fullness in our stomachs and regain a little sanity.

"We just don't know when someone will deliver food into the hole next."

From this skin-and-bones monk's account, it seemed he truly had no idea he had turned into a ghost. In his eyes, eating a person alive was just a result of eating in such a frantic rush that he had no time to see what the food was.

As for the name Yusheng, it did not draw much of a reaction from the monk. "Yusheng?

"I feel like I've heard that name somewhere before.

"Even if I have, it feels like it was many years ago. I can't remember."

Hearing mention of a master who had left the temple, Gao Tian continued to press. "How many years has it been since your master went out?

"Did he say when he would return, or when you could leave the Buddha?"

Seeing how the monks had withered into dried corpses, Gao Tian naturally assumed they had been trapped inside the giant Buddha for at least a few years.

To his surprise, the monk sounded baffled by the question. "What do you mean, how many years? Didn't Master just leave this morning?

"He promised he would definitely be back tonight. He was only going to be outside for a single day."