Chapter 456: A Hidden Escape Route

I had seen those three words in Li Changgui's will. That night, I sneaked into Shuangfo District and played the ghost in his manor to force his secretary to hand over the real will.

In the will, Li Changgui instructed his descendants to do three things before his burial. The third was to head to Suolong Village in the Depths of Henshan, bring out the Clay Figurine from the ancestral hall, and bury it alongside him.

"If this really is Suolong Village, then a lot of things make sense." Suolong Village was also known as Qianlong Village, a deserted village in the Depths of Henshan. When they first hunted Lu Xing, Tie Ningxiang led a team here. At the time, heavy fog had sealed the mountain, and a police officer was trapped in a well. No one knew what he encountered down there. Although he was eventually rescued, he had lost his mind and gone completely insane.

I remembered another police officer going missing during that operation. His name was Old Wei.

At the time, Zhao Bin, Old Wei, and I had entered from the sunlit side of the mountain. We encountered ghosts hiding people and the wolf shoulder tap one after another. By the time we grouped up with Tie Ningxiang, Old Wei was missing, and he still hadn't been found.

I closed my eyes. I really didn't want to recall the events of that day, but now I had no choice but to face them.

Carefully recalling Old Wei's appearance and voice, a hint of surprise slowly surfaced in my eyes.

Old Wei's voice in my memory was exactly the same as the voice that had called me at the very beginning of the livestream!

'A dry well, a familiar person... Old Wei was trapped in the Yin-Yang Boundary all along!' Goosebumps erupted all over my skin. This setup by the Underworld Live Show had somewhat exceeded my expectations. 'So the most crucial clue was given to me right at the start. If I'd known that, why would I have panicked so much?'

I let out a bitter laugh and quickly calmed down. "Old Wei called right at the start of the livestream, specifically mentioning that he was trapped in a well. In this village, only the area by the old locust tree at the entrance has a Deep Well. It looks like I have to find a way to save him."

As I thought deeper, a new idea emerged. 'The difficulty of this livestream has far exceeded my expectations, even bringing me to such a bizarre place. According to what Half-Immortal Liu said, the one who tied the bell must untie it. The only way back is to ride the Death Special Train, but I've already had a falling out with the conductor. Even if I get back on the train, my chances of survival are incredibly low. The Underworld Live Show wouldn't issue a guaranteed-death mission. Me getting trapped and dying in the Yin-Yang Boundary doesn't align with the Underworld Live Show's interests either. After all, they still want me to bring out the Double-Faced Buddha's Good and Evil Relic.'

I never deluded myself into thinking I was all that important. To a colossal entity like the Underworld Live Show, interests were what mattered most. The Live Show made me board the train in Lu Xing's place, hijacking the fruits of the Two-Faced Buddha's hard labor. They definitely wouldn't do this just to spite the Buddha. The deeper reason had to be the Good and Evil Sarira—this item was of paramount importance and couldn't be left out here. Considering that, the Live Show would likely arrange an escape route for me, and this hidden escape route had to be in the mission hints.

'Although Half-Immortal Liu didn't explicitly tell me what the Yin-Yang Boundary is, I feel like this place must be a lawless zone sandwiched between the Yang Realm and the Underworld, like a shadow cast by sunlight. It's almost impossible for me to escape relying purely on my own strength.' The clues in my mind slowly linked together, and my train of thought cleared. 'Why would a living person like Old Wei be trapped and die in a dry well in the Yin-Yang Boundary? And why did another police officer who was trapped in the well for a few hours go completely insane after being rescued? What did they see down there? Could it be that the well connects the Yang Realm and the Yin-Yang Boundary? Is entering the well like crossing into another world, exposing you to all sorts of bizarre and terrifying sights?'

A smile appeared on my face as I finally figured it all out. 'The answer on how to leave was given to me right from the start. The Underworld Live Show really hid it well.'

"What are you grinning at? Did you go crazy?" Feng Minglong nudged me gently.

I waved my hand dismissively. Now that I didn't have to worry about an escape route, I just needed to secure the Good and Evil Sarira. 'Sitting around waiting for death isn't my style. Figuring out the true value of the Good and Evil Sarira is very important to me. Maybe I can use it to bargain for more benefits.'

I quietly took out the Large-Screen Phone. "Is Master Tianxin here? Does anyone know what a Buddhist sarira means to a Buddha?"

Wang Shi also noticed I was acting off and leaned in. "Number Twelve, why are you pulling out your phone now? Don't waste your effort, and be careful not to provoke the villagers."

"Yeah, you're acting really weird. Did carrying that coffin make you stupid?"

Feng Minglong chimed in. I looked at the two of them, not intending to explain myself, as the corners of my lips curled up. "It's nothing. I just think tonight is getting more and more interesting."

Jiangcheng Old Driver tipped the Super Thriller Live Broadcast Room 99 Underworld Coins: "This sudden posturing is literally leaving me breathless!"

Teletubbies Died of Murder tipped the Super Thriller Live Broadcast Room 1 Yuanbao: "Master Tianxin: This old monk is spending the night at the nun's place tonight. Best of luck, benefactor!"

Half-Immortal Liu from Qingcheng Mountain: "A sarira is a Buddhist holy relic. I once met a wandering high monk before I entered Qingcheng, and I was fortunate enough to converse with him. We discussed sariras that day. Generally speaking, the hair, bones, and ashes left behind after a monk dies are all called sariras. Bone sariras are white, hair sariras are black, and flesh sariras are red. But that's just the view of a feng shui practitioner like me. In the eyes of Buddhists, to see a Tathagata sarira is to see the Buddha. A sarira contains the great wisdom and compassion left behind by a high monk, and because it holds a trace of Buddha-nature, enshrining a sarira is worshipping a Buddhist treasure. To see the Buddha is to see his Dharmakaya."

Half-Immortal Liu from Qingcheng Mountain: "The sariras left behind by different Buddhas are also different, all because the Buddha-nature they contain varies. As for what Buddha-nature is, I haven't figured it out either. You can temporarily treat it as a philosophy of cultivation, or perhaps the soul of a Buddha."

Half-Immortal Liu was a feng shui master after all. Although he was well-read and knew a bit about everything, Buddhist sariras involved Buddhist secrets, and the underlying mechanisms weren't something he could fully comprehend. Still, his words were very helpful to me. At the very least, they let me know one thing: the Good and Evil Sarira contained the Two-Faced Buddha's Buddha-nature and was extremely important to him.

'If a sarira is compared to the wisdom left behind by a Buddha, then doesn't inheriting a certain Buddha's sarira also represent the resurrection of a certain Buddha-nature?' I didn't dwell on these wild thoughts any further. Putting away the phone, I stood quietly in the crowd. Because I was wearing a coffin bearer's robe and a Paper Doll Mask, I looked completely inconspicuous compared to Feng Minglong and Wang Shi.

About half an hour passed before three knocks sounded from inside the doors of the Lu Clan Ancestral Hall. The thuds were muffled, as if someone were slamming their head against the door.

Hearing this noise, the surrounding villagers seemed to understand its meaning. Four men carrying a red-and-white sedan chair placed the Soul Sedan Chair at the entrance of the stone building, standing with their backs to it. The men in the procession picked up the children and stood on the outermost edge. Meanwhile, the village women in brightly colored, peculiar coats performed an exaggerated dance as they gathered around the stone building's entrance, forming a human wall to block the view from the outside.

Then, the sound of beating gongs and drums resumed, and the doors of the stone building slowly pushed open.

The three of us outsiders were squeezed to the very back. Blocked by the crowd, these villagers clearly didn't want us to see what was happening inside.

'What the hell are they doing?' To prevent any accidents, I quietly activated my Judging Eye, staring intently at the stone building.

'The doors are opening.'

The wooden doors were pulled open by a woman, and the scene that followed completely caught me off guard.

Her pale body stood out sharply in the dark night. With her well-proportioned figure and the intricate patterns covering her, she looked more like a meticulously carved piece of art.

Lu Shan walked out of the ancestral hall cradling the White Jade Buddha Statue. She wasn't wearing a single shred of clothing, and the scars on her face had transformed into dark dragon patterns. They seemed alive as they spread across her smooth skin.

'I've seen these patterns on Lu Xing.' In his final moments at the Lanjiang Dam, the scars on Lu Xing's face had morphed into a similar design. Like a madman, he had stood alone upstream of the city, attempting to defy the heavens and change fate by fishing out the flood dragon that had been suppressed beneath Jiangcheng for a thousand years.

'Lu Xing... Lu Shan? A flood dragon... Suolong Village?' The joy of having just discovered an escape route was quickly diluted as new doubts surfaced in my mind. I had a nagging feeling that I had stumbled upon something crucial. 'The Lu Clan in this Yin-Yang Boundary probably has some sort of special connection with Jiangcheng.'