Chapter 3 Autopsy
Chapter 3 Autopsy
Cheng Yunqi felt very magical at this moment. He felt like he was floating in the air, as if he had really become a ball of cloud, and another "self" was sitting right under his feet.
He listened and heard the wind was very loud and the rustling of bamboo leaves was like thunder; he looked and it seemed as if everything had disappeared and he could even see the ants on the ground carrying insect corpses clearly; he smelled and could distinguish the sweetness of rain mist, the fresh fragrance of spring bamboo shoots and the slight fishy smell of soil one by one.
He was about to feel it more carefully, but he saw Taoist Master Sukong wave his sleeves at him, and he felt dizzy. When he came to his senses, he was already in the bamboo forest.
Looking around, the greenery surrounds you like a sea, the mountain breeze blows through the forest, and the clouds feel like they are about to be carried away by the mountain breeze.
Yunqi focused his mind and carefully felt the connection with the human soul that Taoist Sukong mentioned.
He had a feeling that he was now a rootless duckweed, which would drift away with the wind, blend into the sky, and seep into the earth. Only in the northwest direction, there was an attraction, and only by going there could he take root.
After clarifying the direction, Yunqi had the thought of going that way. As soon as the thought came to his mind, he felt himself floating in that direction. The stronger the thought, the faster his soul floated.
Less than half a mile away, a fragrant aroma came from the soil underground. He was in a trance, and his soul involuntarily descended. He saw a green-leafed wisteria lying on the ground. The leaves were heart-shaped, with white veins, and the vines were dark purple. It looked like Polygonum multiflorum, but it exuded a strange fragrance. Just floating beside it and smelling it, he felt his soul more solid.
In just a few breaths, Yunqi didn't know how much time had passed. He suddenly became addicted, and then suddenly woke up. If his physical body was still there at this moment, he would have been covered in cold sweats.
Resisting the temptation and eliminating distracting thoughts, the clouds began to drift towards the northwest again.
Along the way, golden butterflies, white cats, green snakes, macaques, black muntjacs, pheasants and other spiritual species occasionally discovered Yunqi's wandering soul. These spiritual species had not yet opened their minds and did not know what wandering souls were. They often flew over to play and frolic, and Yunqi tried hard to avoid them and suffered terribly.
What made Yunqi even more unbearable was the attraction of all kinds of exotic flowers and plants along the way, as if the waves of invisible fragrance were nets that were going to entrap his soul.
Fortunately, Yunqi was determined and turned a blind eye to all the temptations, determined to return to his physical body.
However, the Earth Soul was outside, and although his five senses were sharp, he was extremely slow to the passage of time. He didn't know how long the cloud had passed, nor did he know how much time he had left. He just hurried on his way, not daring to delay any longer.
As he floated, he felt a sense of weakness and exhaustion, and Yunqi thought to himself that something was wrong. Could it be that the time had come and the Earth Soul could no longer hold on?
A feeling of panic immediately arose in Yunqi, but he could do nothing about it. He had never felt the feeling of life passing away so clearly.
"Woo——"
At this time, Cheng Yunqi keenly noticed that the mountain wind that never stopped now turned to the northwest, and he realized that this was an opportunity. He carefully felt, pondered, and tried to blend his soul into the wind and ride the wind.
The soul lies between reality and illusion. Previously, when he was attacked by the fragrance and pounced on by various spirits, he imagined himself as an intangible body, weakening his perception and gathering his soul. But now, in order to use the power of the wind, he imagined himself as a real body, stretching his limbs and blowing them into a big flag.
These were all his own random thoughts, but the truth was that they were very useful. His soul rode on the wind and flew away in an instant.
When the wind gradually slowed down, the clouds were approaching and the monument where Zhan Biyun hid his bamboo could be seen in the distance.
He breathed a sigh of relief and quickly floated towards the direction of the stone tablet. Soon he saw a bamboo pavilion, but when he looked at it more closely, a feeling of palpitations suddenly came over him.
The place was still the same, the stone tablet was still there, the bamboo pavilion was still there, the bamboo mat was still there, but where was Taoist Master Sukong? Where were the boys and girls who were traveling with him? More importantly, where was his own body?
Yunqi hurriedly searched around, but after many circles, he found nothing. He wanted to shout, but the soul could not make any sound.
The feeling of exhaustion and weakness became more and more severe, and Yunqi became extremely anxious. At this moment, an idea suddenly occurred to him and he flew into the bamboo pavilion, but the situation inside left him at a loss.
The pavilion clearly displays:
A handsome young man in white, thin, pale, frowning, sitting cross-legged, no one knew whether he was dead or alive, but judging by his appearance, he looked no different from his own soul-leaving body;
A sturdy man with a strong physique, he looked to be in his thirties or forties, but his right eye was damaged. He looked quite ferocious and also in a state of loss of soul.
A slovenly, bald old Taoist priest, covered in dirt and smelling terrible, but the robes on the Taoist priest were the same as those on the Taoist nun Bikong, and he also looked lost;
A somewhat creepy-looking paper figure, with normal human clothes, a hat, shoes and socks on it;
A plant with thick roots and few leaves. The root tuber is black and already has a human shape, with limbs and distinct facial features, just like a doll. The leaves on the doll's head are intertwined like a crown of grass.
The last one is even more peculiar. It is a bamboo stick, seven feet long and seven sections long, straight from top to bottom. The bamboo stick is jade-green in color and slightly transparent. You can see that the top two sections are hollow, while the five sections in the middle are colorful. Two bamboo branches grow from the second section of the bamboo stick, and two bamboo branches also grow from the bottom of the last section. Each branch has five leaves, which looks a bit like limbs.
Yunqi was at a loss for a moment, but his intuition told him that these people or things could all be inhabited by the Earth Soul, and now it was just a matter of choice.
Yunqi looked at the incense burner again. The incense stick had reached the end and was about to burn out.
Isn’t flying back on time a test, and isn’t the final choice the real test?
people?
Is he a handsome but frail teenager? Or a strong but disabled middle-aged man? Or an old man of noble status but slovenly?
Personification?
Was it the strange paper and bamboo figures that made people completely confused, or was it the Polygonum multiflorum that had already taken human form and exuded a strange fragrance? The cloud was now a mess, and his thoughts were jumping back and forth between the three people and the three objects.
Not long after, Yunqi was the first to give up his three human bodies. If he really wanted to live again, he was unwilling to wear someone else's skin. And then he thought, are the bodies of these three people also waiting for their own souls to return?
Since there really are immortals in this world, why not devote ourselves to objects?
Afterwards, Yunqi immediately gave up on the paper man, simply because the Polygonum multiflorum and the bamboo stick at least looked lively, while the paper man gave people a lifeless feeling.
His mind went back and forth between Polygonum multiflorum and the bamboo stick, but he didn't know how to make a decision. As the last bit of incense ash was about to fall, the cloud was about to attach itself to Polygonum multiflorum, which had a more human form.
But when the soul was about to touch the body of Polygonum multiflorum, he suddenly discovered that there was a faint will on Polygonum multiflorum. This faint will was expressing fear and begging to the earth soul of the cloud.
It turns out that this Polygonum multiflorum has become a spirit and has developed spiritual intelligence.
Yunqi breathed a sigh of relief. Without having to make any more decisions, he immediately threw himself into the bamboo stick beside him.
Just in time, the last bit of incense ash in the furnace fell.
----
Cheng Yunqi suddenly opened his eyes.
What caught his eye was the stele of where Zhan Biyun hid the bamboo. Looking around, he saw Taoist Master Su Kong sitting peacefully in the bamboo pavilion, surrounded by circles of people sitting cross-legged with their heads drooped and lost in thought. Under the stele, there were about twenty or thirty young men and women standing in place, still daring not to step forward.
He touched his cheeks, chest and back, and found that he had returned to his physical body without knowing when. The young, middle-aged and elderly people, as well as the paper figurines, Polygonum multiflorum and bamboo sticks he had just seen had all disappeared.
It seems like just a dream.
"You, stand behind me."
Yunqi looked up at Taoist Sukong and found that she was looking at him.
Yunqi did not dare to delay, he stood up and walked to stand behind the nun.
At this moment, he saw that the incense stick in the burner was clearly more than half burned.
"Is this really a divine method? Did I pass it?"
Yunqi thought to himself, then he looked at his nose with his eyes, his mouth with his nose, and his heart with his mouth, and stood still.
I watched the incense sticks burn out, and no one woke up.
The dazed man sitting on the bamboo mat didn't react at all.
Looking at this scene, the expressions of the dozens of boys and girls under the stone tablet who dared not take part in the law examination were wonderful, some were shocked, some were horrified, some were regretful, but these expressions, without exception, were accompanied by a kind of relief at surviving a calamity.
After the incense sticks burned out, Su Kong took out a small white flag from her sleeve with an expressionless face. She gently waved the flag, and Yunqi heard her whisper:
"Wandering soul, where can you stay? The soul of a thousand miles away is here, hurry and enter the body!"
Suddenly, a gust of wind blew, and Yunqi felt a cool breeze on his face. Then, the lost people on the bamboo mat suddenly raised their heads, as if awakened from a nightmare.
These people looked around and gradually came to their senses. When they saw the clouds behind Su Kong and the fire in the incense burner had gone out, expressions of regret and unwillingness gradually appeared on their faces.
However, when they saw these lost souls wake up, the faces of those under the stone tablet changed again, becoming uglier than those sitting on the bamboo mats. If they had known that this female Taoist priest could call back wandering souls, why would they not dare to participate in the test?
Just when everyone on the bamboo mat woke up, Taoist Jihu arrived as promised.
Su Kong pointed at the clouds and said:
"Please trouble Jihu to send the young monks back to the outside of the mountain first, and when you come back, send him to Wanhu Peak."
"Yes, Master Yu."
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(End of this chapter)