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"Mr. Shi, what are we now?" Chen Mu asked the skinny old man beside him.
The other person's name was Shi Dechun. According to him, he was a sculptor during his lifetime, specializing in carving various wooden statues.
It is said that he was carving his last statue before his death. After completing it, he was exhausted both physically and mentally, took a nap, and then came here.
"According to the saying here, we have become ghosts." The skinny old man Shi Dechun said with a smile.
"In fact, there is nothing wrong with being a ghost. You don't need to eat, you can survive by just drinking dew. At least you don't have to worry about making a living."
Chen Mu glanced sideways, this old man was quite open-minded.
However, people become ghosts after death? Nonsense!
He had been in this world for more than ten years and had never heard of this statement.
The evil spirits we first encountered were actually ghosts. They could absorb the essence of the three treasures of living people, transform into human form, and intimidate and kill people, which is why there are legends of ghosts taking lives.
But...what about these people in front of me?
Are they the so-called evil spirits?
If they found out that I was a celestial demon in disguise...
"Is it possible that I'm not actually dead, but just turned into something else?" Chen Mu tested carefully.
The seven or eight people sitting around the campfire started laughing. They were in the same mood when they first arrived.
Someone immediately laughed and joked: "Yes, yes, you are not dead, I am not dead, and no one is dead. Haha..."
"Laugh, laugh, laugh! Laugh your ass off!"
"Have you learned the Dew Gathering Spell? You guys are just laughing here!"
"I can tell you that each of you owes me twenty jade dew beads."
"If you can't afford it, don't even think about me taking you to Jigu City!"
A tall and strong middle-aged man with a big nose and horns on his head suddenly walked up to the group.
The whip in his hand was swung in the air with a crackling sound, and his face looked ferocious, as if he wanted to eat someone.
Everyone around the campfire was speechless when they heard this.
One by one, they closed their eyes and began to mutter to themselves.
Old man Shi, who was sitting next to Chen Mu, had already sat upright and was chanting a spell in a serious tone.
Chen Mu couldn't help but twitch his lips.
Just now you were a gentle and open-minded old man who was indifferent to life and death. Now that the horned man comes, you just give in?
Your reaction speed is too fast!
Chen Mu looked up at the man coming with horns and couldn't help but narrow his eyes.
He thought of the bearded man in Qiandeng City.
I really want to break off these horns!
"Newcomer, what are you looking at?" The horned man glared at Chen Mu and shouted angrily.
Several people around the campfire suddenly froze up, fearing that they would be affected, and they tried to shrink their heads and bodies like quails.
Chen Mu also discovered that the old man Shi, who was sitting cross-legged next to him, actually used the fingers of both hands to prop himself up slightly, and then quietly moved away from him.
Chen Mu: “…”
What a sly old bastard!
Facing the horned man's angry gaze, Chen Mu said solemnly: "Your horns are really beautiful!"
“Is… is that so?” The horned man scratched his head and then laughed happily: “I think it looks good too.”
After saying that, he turned around and went to another bonfire, cracking the whip in his hand again, and regained his ferocious look, as if his kind attitude just now was an illusion.
The people around the campfire looked at each other in confusion.
"How did you do it?" The old man Shi beside him looked surprised.
How?
"Maybe it's because I speak more sincerely." Chen Mu looked serious.
Everyone around the bonfire: "..."
You are kidding me!
Chen Mu smiled.
It's just a lie.
Of course, the reason he was able to fool the horned man was because he had the help of the true form of the celestial demon.
In the past few days, he has discovered that the true form of the celestial demon seems to be able to stir up other people's emotions and temporarily confuse their minds.
(End of this chapter)
Chapter 424: Dew Collection
The next day, by the Forgotten River.
A group of people dispersed in twos and threes and wandered along the river.
Chen Mu stood beside Shi Dechun, looking at the endless and calm water with lingering fear. The memory of the fear of struggling at the bottom of the river still remained in his heart.
As I was staring at the river in a daze, a splash of water suddenly appeared.
A humanoid black shadow suddenly jumped out of the water, then sank back in. As it rose and fell, it changed into a human form for a while, and then turned back into a black smoke form.
After struggling for dozens of times, it finally sank to the bottom of the water and disappeared, leaving only a circle of ripples that slowly spread out, but soon returned to calm and became like a glass mirror again.
"What a pity." Shi Dechun's face was full of sadness.
Chen Mu frowned: "What will happen if that person falls into the riverbed again?"
"What else can we do?" Shi Dechun snorted coldly.
Chen Mu's heart skipped a beat.
Will he die completely?
He remembered that the water of the Forgotten River was extremely corrosive, comparable to a horrible poison.
Shi Dechun's face was gloomy: "Of course it's to reincarnate."
Chen Mu's face froze: "It seems that there is nothing wrong with being able to reincarnate, right?"
Shi Dechun said with a sour face: "He can live a carefree life in the world, but I lost five jade dew beads in vain."
"Niutou said that if anyone helps him pick up a ghost from the river and pays for the trip to Jigu City, he will give him five less jade dew beads."
“What a loss…”
Chen Mu couldn't help but roll his eyes.
I thought you were sympathizing with your fellow humans, but after all this time, you are actually worrying about your own income?
tsk...
but……
"Is there really such a thing as reincarnation?" Chen Mu expressed his doubt.
"Why not?" Shi Dechun looked at Chen Mu strangely: "As long as you soak in the riverbed long enough, you can wash away the marks of your past life."
"Then your body will turn from black to white and become as light as a feather. You can fly out of the Forgotten River and head to the Naihe Bridge."
real or fake? !
Chen Mu was full of suspicion: "Have you seen the Naihe Bridge?"
Aren't these just stories and legends? He has been practicing Qigong for more than ten years, and has never seen such a statement in the official Taoist scriptures.
Shi Dechun said calmly, "I have never seen the Naihe Bridge, but I often walk along the Wangchuan River, and I often see ghosts flying to reincarnate."
As he said this, he narrowed his eyes, raised his chin and pointed at the river surface as if he was watching a good show: "Look, there is one over there."
Chen Mu looked up in surprise and saw a cloud of white smoke flying out of the water.
The color of its head changed rapidly, revealing clear facial features, but below the neck was a ball of white smoke that looked like a long snake.
The man had a dull expression and drooping eyes, as if he was summoned by something. The white smoke tail swayed slightly, and he flew towards the endless other side of the Forgotten River and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Chen Mu's whole body stiffened and he felt creepy.
Isn’t this the same human-faced serpent monster we encountered on Jilong Mountain?
How could it appear in the Forgotten River?
This thing... is it transformed from those dark shadows at the bottom of the river?
"Are you scared?" Shi Dechun looked at Chen Mu with a smile.
"It really scared me." Chen Mu came back to his senses and said with lingering fear.
He ignored the old man Shi's mischievous joke and asked quickly: "What on earth is that?"
"The Yin and Ming worm."
"All ghosts whose past life marks were washed away by the Forgotten River are like that."
"I was scared the first time I saw it, but after seeing it more often, I got used to it." Shi Dechun looked like someone who had experienced it.
Chen Mu couldn't help but grit his teeth.
When he was in Jilong Mountain, he used the Five Ghosts Moving Mountains to devour a group of Yinming insects. As a result, not only did they not die, but they drilled into the Five Ghosts Bag and turned into ghost monsters.
Here in the Forgotten River, he saw a human-shaped black shadow transformed into a ghost worm. Thinking about the shape of the human-shaped black shadows at the bottom of the river, he felt that they looked like ghosts in human form.
So, under special conditions, Yinming worms and ghost monsters can transform into each other?
The human-shaped black smoke torrent at the bottom of the river...
Could it be that they are all ghosts? !
Chen Mu looked up at the Forgetful River, which was unknown how wide and long, and felt his scalp tingling.