Chapter 3

At this moment, under the night sky, the temple.

Silent.

Mysterious.

Chilling.

Every carved detail on the headless clay statue in front of him was so lifelike.

As if it were not a clay statue.

But a real person standing there.

The world outside was pitch black.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

The night wind, carrying the cold and damp air of the mountains, blew into the temple.

The bonfire flickered, dim and bright, as if it could be extinguished at any moment.

Just like Jin An, whose body felt as if it had fallen into an ice cellar, his heart pounding with fear.

Jin An wanted to turn and run out the door, but he was worried that it would provoke Wang Tiegeng, who was hugging his head and crying at his feet. For a moment, he was in a dilemma.

He was so anxious that cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

Suddenly!

A hand reached out from the darkness behind Jin An and silently placed itself on his shoulder.

Jin An was greatly startled. Just as he was about to swing his knife to defend himself, his mouth was covered by another hand from behind, and he was silently taken out of the terrifying wild temple.

The pale moonlight pierced through the layers of tree shadows, casting a mottled light on the ghostly mountain forest.

The night rain in the mountains.

Had stopped at some point.

By the light of the shattered moon, Jin An finally saw that a middle-aged Taoist had saved him.

The Taoist had a Taoist hairstyle, with an ordinary bamboo hairpin in it, wearing a five-colored Taoist robe, and a pair of blue and white ten-direction shoes on his feet.

Jin An, who had been tense, let out a deep breath and hurriedly thanked the Taoist: "Thank you, Master, for saving my life today."

However, this five-colored Taoist robe Taoist, whom he had met in the deep mountains, had a very peculiar temperament.

"Evil things like those with light birth years and small zodiac signs. You don't need to thank me. You didn't die in this coffin temple in the horn-shaped basin because your birth year is strong."

After saying this, the Taoist turned and walked away, leaving Jin An alone, as if he had not just saved him from the wild temple.

In the dead of night, in the desolate mountains, all was quiet, leaving Jin An alone.

Jin An turned to look at the direction of the wild temple. There was no more bonfire or crying in the wild temple. The open door was deathly silent, dark, and eerily calm.

Jin An shivered and hurriedly took two steps to catch up with the Taoist.

...

The mountain path after the rain was not easy to walk on.

Especially at night.

Jin An walked deep and shallow in the mountains, his feet covered in mud, getting heavier and heavier.

Jin An followed the Taoist quietly for a while, but eventually, he could not resist his curiosity and cautiously asked, "Master, why did you say that the wild temple is a coffin temple?"

"And what do you mean by 'horn-shaped basin'?"

The Taoist, who had been walking ahead, paused, and Jin An also stopped.

At this point, the two had walked out of the sunken basin and stood on a high hill with an old pine tree, the view suddenly opening up.

By the silver moonlight, the Taoist pointed to the dark and quiet wild temple in the basin below, and asked Jin An without expression, "Look carefully at the temple below. It has only a door and no windows. Look at the temple's roof beams, which are higher on both sides and lower in the middle. Doesn't it look like a coffin and a coffin lid?"

"The color of a coffin can be red, white, black, yellow, or gold. Black represents the mysterious water that can suppress evil, and is specifically used for burying those who died violently, unjustly, or tragically. Look at the black stones used to build this coffin temple. Doesn't it look like a black coffin?"

Without waiting for Jin An to answer, the Taoist continued, "Look at the high mountains around the temple, which are narrower at the top and wider at the bottom, pressing the temple into the basin, where it never sees sunlight. Doesn't it look like a horn-shaped basin?"

"Both the black coffin and the special location of the horn-shaped basin suggest that the person who built this temple was not an ordinary temple builder, but a high-ranking Taoist who understood feng shui and star patterns, and chose the location for a yin residence."

After listening to the Taoist's explanation, Jin An looked down at the basin again.

Perhaps because of the psychological suggestion, the wild temple really did look like a black coffin.

The basin also looked like an inverted horn-shaped opening.

The Taoist continued without expression, "A horn-shaped basin is also called a yin-gathering place."

"This is not a good omen."

"The horn-shaped burial method originated from well burial, which can be traced back to the Shang and Zhou dynasties. Well burial is characterized by a wide opening at the top and a narrow one at the bottom, symbolizing the gathering of yang and the dispersal of resentment. In feng shui, it means that snakes, insects, and rats, which fear yang, will not live in the ancestral tomb and disturb the ancestors' rest. When the ancestors rest peacefully, the family will prosper, and the descendants will live in peace."

"But as there is yang, there is also yin, like heaven and earth, sun and moon, day and night, male and female, up and down. Since there is a well burial that gathers yang and disperses resentment, there is also a horn-shaped well burial that gathers yin and blocks yang."

"This type of well burial is a yin-gathering place, where the yin energy of the deceased gathers year-round and is hard to dissipate. If the deceased died violently, unjustly, or tragically, the gathered yin energy is even more powerful."

"This yin-damaging and yang-depleting burial method is used either to suppress extremely evil things or to bury the remains of enemies, to prevent them from seeking revenge after death and causing trouble, and to prevent their souls from reincarnating."

"Since the horn-shaped basin is already a yin-gathering place, building a coffin temple in the basin must have been due to some deep-seated grudge. The temple builder did not do all the bad things, leaving a small opening for the coffin temple, so that the descendants of those buried there would not be completely cut off and their families would not all die violently."

"Unfortunately..."

"The only opening has been broken by some high-ranking person, and the yin energy in the coffin temple has burst out. In a few years, this place will become a forbidden zone for the living."

"The traces of destruction are still fresh, so it must have been broken recently."

Jin An was increasingly alarmed.

He felt that the more he listened, the more it sounded like the feng shui mysticism of a roadside fortune-teller.

A seemingly ordinary mountain basin actually contained such profound secrets.

"What if we just blow up the mountains, dismantle them, or make the basin opening larger to let sunlight in, turning it into a yang-gathering and yin-dispersing place?" Jin An suggested.

"Then all the snakes, insects, and other dirty things would be burned to ashes by the sun's ultraviolet rays."

However, the Taoist raised his eyelids and glanced at Jin An, as if to say that young people today are fearless and do not know the meaning of death.

"Feng shui corresponds to the stars and the moon in the sky, the mountains and the earth below, and also to yin and yang, the five elements, the ten heavenly stems, and the eight trigrams and nine palaces, which are interrelated. If you really tear down the four walls of the mountains, it would be like helping the evil, allowing the things suppressed in the coffin temple to be completely free. When that happens, more people will die, and the nearby residents will have to flee."

Jin An was still not convinced: "Is there no other way?"

The Taoist shook his head.

This was the answer.

The Taoist said, "With the coffin temple and the horn-shaped basin, it is like a sea-stabilizing needle that fixes the yin-gathering place. As long as future generations avoid it, no great disaster will occur."

The Taoist seemed to think of something and added solemnly, "I saw that the head of the clay statue in the temple was missing. In the future, be careful of women with scars on their necks."

"Remember, stay away from them if you encounter them."

"?"

"!"

Jin An was chilled again.

Did ancient women also have head transplant surgery?

/

Ps: Big shots, I'm back!

Actually, I originally planned to return after a three-year hiatus, bringing the first 10 chapters of my new book, and announce my return with flowers on April 24th. I told my editor on April 24th that I would start a new book on May 10th. On April 26th, I submitted the first 3 chapters for review, which were quickly approved, and I signed the contract on the same day. I had 15 days to accumulate more chapters.

But reality was too harsh. I only managed to write 3 chapters in 15 days, and by May 11th, I only had 6 chapters in reserve. After a year without writing, my hands were rusty, and I had to abandon my grand plans and let my editor down with the new book.

Oops, this feels like a bad start, but I hope "The Great Sage of White Bones" can break the record of updating one chapter a day with 2000 words for "There's a Demon Here" during the new book period. QAQ.