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Crackle, crispy.
"Grandpa Jianye, do you want to eat?"
"I don't have as good teeth as you young people."
I'm old and my teeth are loose. I can't eat this.
Ling also grabbed a handful of beans from Maria's bag and pretended to throw them at her, but she stopped halfway.
"What's wrong, young lady? You won't get angry even if you get pelted with beans during the Bean-Tossing Festival."
Maria thought Ling was also afraid that she would be angry.
But it's not like that.
Ling also spread out her hands and picked out a strange red bean from the handful of soybeans.
"Bean Ghost"
Chapter 285 Bean Ghost
"Bean Imp."
This is what the evil spirit of heaven says.
Spring, summer, autumn and winter, the cycle of the four seasons. In traditional mythology, each season has its own guardian deity.
There are eight million gods, and each season is guarded by a different group of gods rather than a specific god. For example, in spring, there are Takenouchi-no-Mikoto, Keitsu-no-Shujin, Amago-no-Mikoto, Himei-no-Mikoto, etc., and their duties are different. The same is true for the other seasons.
Only when the seasons are divided. The previous gods have gone, and the next gods have not yet arrived. The beginning of spring, the beginning of summer, the beginning of autumn, and the beginning of winter are the only four days in a year when the gods "change shifts". It is difficult to distinguish the seasons, and humans have no gods to pray for blessings, so evil and filth breed on those days.
This is of course superstition. When the seasons change, the weather changes suddenly and it is easy to get sick, so the ancients thought it was evil.
But human hearts are very strange. If something is clearly false, but many people believe it and it becomes a tradition, then the falsehood will become true.
"Bean ghosts are ghosts born from the evil at the time of the seasons. People use beans to exorcise them, hence the name."
As for why beans can drive away ghosts, this is not an invention of the island country, but originated from China. It is passed down from the "Shennong Bencao Jing" written by an unknown person in the pre-Qin period. The original text records: soybeans can kill ghosts and relieve pain
In the past, the Japanese believed this very much, and they believed it for thousands of years, so much so that when written words were passed down, the pronunciation of "豆子" (まめ) was "魔灭".
Soybeans are a symbol of prosperity and life.
Ling also carefully looked through the bag of fried soybeans Maria bought and found four red beans inside. If you don't look closely, you can't tell them apart. At first glance, you might think they were fried to a caramel color.
These beans give people a bad feeling. However, ordinary people may not be able to feel the cursed aura.
Ling wasn't quite sure what the bean was, but when she used Gaia's light to test it, the red bean instantly turned into black smoke and disappeared.
Disappeared, leaving nothing behind, not even a trace of residue.
It is not a natural thing, it is not scientific at all, it is mysterious.
However, Maria did not get the fried soybeans from any special channel. She just bought them from a very famous fried soybean shop in Ikebukuro.
This is troublesome.
If the source was a popular snack shop, it would have spread widely.
"What are the consequences of eating this bean?" Ling didn't know either. She just had a feeling that the thing was not good.
This is something you have to ask a professional.
As a professional, Amanesha lived up to expectations. As a monster that has lived for more than a thousand years, from the Heian-kyo period to the present, he really knows a lot of things.
"These beans will make you weak if you eat them."
Just no strength? That's not bad, it doesn't seem like a serious symptom. But Ling had just thought so when Tian Xiegui's next words dispelled her lucky thoughts.
"From a modern medical perspective, it will cause muscle atrophy, starting with the hands and then spreading to the whole body. In the end, you won't even have the strength to breathe."
Isn't this ALS? A fatal disease that is incurable even fifty years later.
The weather outside the window was gloomy. The day was like night.
Just as the red bean in Lingye's hand dissipated due to the light of Gaia, a monster appeared on the streets of Tokyo.
Nearly two months later, the shrill alarm sounded again at the TAC headquarters.
The moment the alarm was heard, the first emotion that rose in the mountain was a subtle sense of relief. The team members in the command room were sharing beans, and after the beans were finished, they should have prepared for the evening dinner.
Now the dinner party is ruined.
Their battle, Ace's battle, was not over yet. It was not time for the dinner yet, and they and Ace could continue to fight side by side.
He immediately suppressed this emotion. Faced with monsters, or super beasts, he needed to be extremely alert.
"TAC, everyone mobilize!"
When the Eagle and the Universe arrived at the scene, they discovered that a strange monster had appeared in Tokyo.
Monsters, not super monsters.
The difference between the two is that the latter has been artificially modified and equipped with various weapons, such as flamethrowers, missiles, venom sprayers, etc. It is a biological weapon rather than a living thing.
There is no such sign on this monster, no trace of artificial modification. It is native.
"Isn't that a 'ghost'?" Konno blurted out when he saw the image of the monster.
That is the most popular image of the "ghost" in the island's rural stories, with horns on its head, sharp fangs, a red body, and wearing a tiger-skin skirt.
Except for the lack of a classic mace, it's a "ghost", and anyone who sees it will think so.
"How is this going?"
The TAC team believed in science the most, but the more they experienced, the more confused they became. After the Yabo people surrendered, the battles they experienced, apart from the remaining super beasts, were filled with these inexplicable things.
The lion-dancing monster almost caused Mount Fuji to erupt. Then there was the snowman, and now there are the "ghosts". They are all myths and legends, and should be attributed to "feudal superstition".
Even if myths really exist, why haven't they appeared in the past few hundred years? Why are they popping up one after another now?
Ling thought that it was because of her that the 'Night Parade of One Hundred Demons' occurred, but Beidou didn't think so.
These were all monsters formed from resentment. When the word "resentment" was mentioned, the first thing that came to his mind was the undead spirit from 50,000 years ago.
The Earth has not really encountered it in the past few hundred years, but it appears frequently now. That's because the ghost from fifty thousand years ago is now gradually waking up and turning its attention to the Earth.
Hippolytus and Phaea, the former was a strong attack, and the latter was a test after the failure of the strong attack.
No, going back to the beginning, maybe the invasion of the Yabo people was also related to Zoda.
The Kingdom of Light, after all, is a scientific civilization, the most advanced civilization in the galaxy. They don't know much about "grudges".
In the Kingdom of Light, three million light years away, the Space Guard has also been aware of the instability on Earth for some time.
"It seems that it is not the time to let Ace come back yet." Zoffy asserted after looking at the information coming from the distant Earth.
"Not only that, if the Earth is really targeted by Zoda, Ace alone is not enough. He is not enough to support Gaia against such a terrible enemy." Father Ao said.
"But why? Isn't the Kingdom of Light the thorn in Zoda's side? I've read its information. Every time it awakens in the past, it will definitely target the Kingdom of Light and want to take revenge on us. Why is it targeting the Earth this time?"
Why? Probably because Gaia has awakened.
For a planet, a single day or night can take millions or even tens of millions of years.
The history of the Kingdom of Light is still too short, only a few hundred thousand years, so there are many things that even Father Ao does not know.
"Zoffy, take Seven and the others to garrison near the solar system in the near future. Taro is not ready yet, he is still in special training, and he is totally unable to deal with Zoda right now."
"We garrison the solar system? But what about the Kingdom of Light?"
"You don't need to worry about this."
It is called the Kingdom of Light, but in fact, this is just a gateway to the Kingdom of Light. The real Kingdom of Light is extremely vast and is the hub connecting countless parallel universes. But there are more than just a few people in the Space Guard. The Kingdom of Light is a huge civilization with 50 billion people of light.
"I remember there is a relic in the Kuiper Belt of the solar system that can be used as a temporary frontline base. I will send you the specific coordinates with my signature."
"Relics? Whose relics?"
"The civilization in the solar system was once glorious, but one day it suddenly disappeared, and even the records were lost. That was also before the establishment of the Kingdom of Light."
That was a time when Father Austen had not yet been born, and he learned all this from the king.
When a civilization disappears from the record of the universe, no one will remember it or know about it anymore.
Only King Ao still remembers.
On Earth, another monster formed by "resentment" appeared, but Father Ao did not take it seriously. He was concerned about Zoda, not these little monsters.
But Ace lost. This time, when facing the monster, he was defeated miserably and had no power to resist.
When Gaia appeared, the monster ran away. It ran away too decisively. It had the ability to move through space, and it didn't even give Lingye a chance to use the Meta Field.
"What's wrong with Ace?" Yamanaka didn't understand.
Ace's behavior today was very strange. He was beaten the whole time and didn't fight back at all. But the enemy wasn't that strong. It was Ace's own problem. He seemed unable to even fight back.
When everyone returned to the base, they realized the seriousness of the problem.
Beidou and Konno, their hands suddenly lost strength. One was a young and energetic man, and the other was a famous strongman in the team, but now they couldn't even lift the helmets of the TAC team.
"What's going on? You two should go to the hospital right away."
As soon as Captain Long finished speaking, the headquarters received a call. There was more than one call, and then one after another, they got better, all with the same thing.
Like Beidou and Konno, many people in Tokyo suddenly suffered from arm muscle weakness.
When I first sought medical treatment, I thought it was an isolated case, but when the hospitals compiled the data, they found that there were dozens of people who suddenly developed the same symptoms.
"The Metropolitan Police Department checked the water company, wondering if there was a problem with the water source. They also checked the geographical distribution of the victims and whether there was a toxic gas leak. But none of these investigations showed any suspicion."
And now it also includes Hokuto and Konno.
Their TAC team was hit, even Ace was hit. Fortunately, Gaia seemed to be fine.
Beidou and Konno went to the hospital, and the results of the examination were not ideal. The muscles had lost their elasticity, which is simply called muscle atrophy, and this is basically irreversible with current medical technology.
"Because of the sudden surge in cases, the hospital urgently contacted experts in the United States, but there was nothing they could do either."
We are used to relying on the colonial power when we have difficulties. But the American experts and doctors can't do anything, so there is really nothing we can do.
There is no treatment plan, just waiting for a miracle to happen.
However, Beidou was not discouraged. Even if the hospital couldn't cure it, there must be someone on Earth who could.
After all, if he can even bring the dead back to life, muscle atrophy is nothing.
Only after losing them do you realize how important your hands are. In just a few hours, Beidou found himself unable to take care of himself.