Chapter 234
Chapter 234
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 234
>Chapter Title: Lion Dance
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When he discovered that these dead sheep might all have turned from humans, he was utterly shocked.
But after the shock, new questions arose in Li Huowang's mind.
“What exactly are they worshipping? Who exactly are they?” These two questions kept circling in Li Huowang's mind.
He now had a pressing need to figure out these two questions. If this evil cult was still deep in this cave, he needed to consider whether to continue venturing further in.
Worthy to risk for Black Tai Sui, but not worth dying for.
After learning this, Sun Baolu spoke up.
“Brother Li, this doesn't seem right. Look at how the sheep, cow, and pig heads are arranged on the plate—they're placed upside down. These offerings are for these dead sheep.”
“They're not worshipping a deity? But worshipping these sheep?”
Li Huowang, with furrowed brows, stood by, constantly shifting his gaze between the offerings and the dead sheep.
“Is it an offering to the Sheep God? Old Sun, does Qingqiu have a Sheep Immortal?”
Gouwa asked from the side.
“Sheep are livestock; why would we worship livestock as immortals? Qingqiu has no such custom.”
Upon hearing this, various factions Li Huowang had encountered flashed through his mind.
Zhengde Temple's lewd evil Buddha ancestor, the Robe Sect's suffering Ba Hui, An Cian Nunnery's rotting Bodhisattva.
A flash of insight struck his mind, and words slipped out involuntarily.
“I get it. They're not worshipping these sheep. These sheep are just props needed for what they truly worship to appear. They worship death—they're worshipping death itself!”
“What?”
The others clearly didn't understand what Li Huowang meant.
They didn't get it, but Li Huowang did.
He stood on the giant cauldron, overlooking the sheep corpses below once more.
Some existence herded hundreds or thousands of people here, turning them into sheep.
The unsuccessful ones were discarded aside, while the successful were gathered and killed at the same moment.
And the instant these sheep died was the start of their worship—they weren't worshipping the sheep, but the death of these sheep itself!
As the details came together, he felt he completely understood the logic behind those existences' actions back then.
Beneath Qingqiu wasn't just those miscellaneous evils; there was also a religion worshipping death!
Even more outrageous, Li Huowang didn't even know if the things following this religion were humans or something else.
From past experiences, since they worshipped death, these things definitely possessed some death-related abilities. Just simple association told Li Huowang how dangerous they were.
After fully grasping what this meant, Li Huowang grew tense. He looked toward the others around him.
“Let's go, you all head out first. This isn't just some evil problem anymore!”
With that, Li Huowang led the others outward, but after just a few steps, “da~ da~ da~” the sound of wood striking suddenly rang out.
Startled, Li Huowang gripped his sword hilt tightly, scanning the surrounding darkness.
“Da~ da~ da~”
The wooden striking sound carried a certain rhythm, echoing from all directions with overlapping echoes, making Li Huowang unable to pinpoint the source.
Unable to distinguish the enemy's location, Li Huowang didn't dare charge blindly, fearing a head-on collision.
Li Huowang clenched his teeth, ears twitching slightly as he focused all his energy to discern the sound's direction.
As the sound grew closer, Li Huowang's keen hearing finally paid off; he located the direction.
“Found it! It's... above!!”
Li Huowang quickly tilted his head up, looking toward the pitch-black ceiling, and swiftly hurled the fluorite in his hand upward toward the sound.
With the fluorite steadily lodging in the crevice at the top. In an instant, a human face larger than a round table appeared before them under the eerie green glow.
It was a man's face with extremely flat features, deathly pale, mouth agape, and two pupils the size of lantern holes, one red and one white, staring fixedly at Li Huowang below.
The man's neck had no limbs or torso behind it, just a long, caterpillar-like cylindrical body, with various-sized hands propping up a white cloth taut.
That incessant wooden knocking came from inside his cylindrical body.
This bizarre sight immediately reminded Li Huowang of what he'd seen at Woman Mountain.
“This is the Lion Dance Palace's lion dancer? No, it's not a lion dance! Which lion dance has no lion head but a flat dead man's face?!”
“Is it them? Was that grand sacrificial ceremony earlier their doing? Could they be not Lion Dance Palace but Death Dance Palace?”
Regardless of what it was, seeing that large mass hanging and crouching on the rock ceiling, Li Huowang couldn't pretend he saw nothing. He decided to try communicating first.
After pondering for a moment, Li Huowang slowly spoke.
“Masters of Lion Dance Palace, this one Xuanyang offers greetings. Passing through your treasured land this time with no intent to offend—circumstances necessitated it.”
In the blink of an eye, Li Huowang found a new excuse.
“This one requires a Black Tai Sui as a medicinal primer for pill refining. Hearing your treasured land has them, came seeking. If the masters can help find one, this one will reward handsomely!”
No matter how the thanks would go later, Li Huowang had said it. Now it depended on their response.
But unexpectedly, the lion dancer just hung upside down from the ceiling, saying nothing, showing nothing—like a stone lion statue.
“What does it mean? Could it be that since the lion dancers are Qingqiu folk, they don't understand what I'm saying?”
Thinking this, Li Huowang turned to instruct Sun Baolu to repeat it in the Qingqiu tongue.
As Sun Baolu spoke, Li Huowang suddenly tensed up. Sensing danger, he instinctively lunged left.
But it was too late; he felt a sharp pain in his back, and his body was sent flying by a tremendous force.
“I was ambushed! The one on the ceiling is bait!”
Realizing this, Li Huowang crashed heavily into the darkness. When he climbed up again and touched his body, he found no injuries.
“This... what's going on?”
Li Huowang instinctively reached toward his back.
When his fingers touched the Great Thousand Records beneath his skin, he realized it had blocked for him just now.
Though embedding the Great Thousand Records under his skin was excruciating, it had turned into a blessing—he now had an extra layer of thick armor on his back.
Li Huowang felt a spark of joy, but it quickly faded. No time for that now; he hurriedly propped himself on his crutch and rushed toward that side.
He saw the ambusher: another lion dancer. The only difference from the ceiling one was that its flat face belonged to a black-pupiled woman with blood-red lips!