amaotonovel Chapter 278: Punishment is like walking on a tiger
Chapter 278: Punishment is like walking on a tiger
Chapter 278: Punishment is like walking on a tiger
Yuan Ziyi's warning was inevitably half a step behind, and Jiang Wen was not sure whether there was really such a headless corpse standing behind him and staring at him coldly. Before he finished speaking, Jiang Wen suddenly felt a gust of evil wind coming from behind him!
The fishy smell spread very quickly, as if it was emitted by a decayed corpse that had been dead for a long time. But at this critical moment, Yan Yongchun had already passed Yuan Ziyi like lightning, quickly stretched out his hand to push Jiang Wen aside, and his fist turned into a phantom and rushed out in an instant.
Yim Wing Chun's position at this time was slightly sideways, leaving her with a very narrow space to perform. If it were some advanced martial arts, she probably wouldn't even have a chance to start fighting. However, Yim Wing Chun's boxing skills were quite unique and could be performed at any distance.
Her punches were delicate and powerful, following the principle of "keeping the center and using the center". The shadows of her fists were faintly concentrated on a center line, covering the opponent's eyes, nose, throat, abdomen, and genitals without exception. Before Jiang Wen turned his head, he heard a series of hitting sounds on the worn and rotten flesh, but the sounds were continuous but weak, and in the end, she could not exert even one-third of her strength.
Fortunately, a moment of respite means a moment of turning point, which is enough for Jiang Wen.
Jiang Wen saw that there was room for maneuver, so he naturally stopped being polite. He rolled up his sleeves and stretched out his arms to grab Yan Yongchun's shoulders. As he exerted his strength, half of his face turned red, and the other half suddenly turned blue. He used the "Great Shift of the Universe" internal energy to stick to her palm power.
All of a sudden, the force that Yim Wing Chun used to push Jiang Wen came back along the original path, and the force that she used to punch and hurt the enemy also came back in reverse. Everything suddenly gathered around Jiang Wen, and it was like all rivers returning to the sea in an instant. Then a stronger torrent erupted from the abyss, so that Jiang Wen's whole body was filled with an inexplicable force that began to entangle, twist, and control the energy.
It happened in a flash. In a daze, Yim Wing Chun not only failed to shake Jiang Wen, but was also pushed back by Jiang Wen. In the end, she relied on the force of Jiang Wen pressing on her shoulders to stabilize her body. The evil wind of unknown origin behind Jiang Wen, which had originally been forced back by Yim Wing Chun's sudden attack, now uncontrollably staggered towards Jiang Wen.
And the next second, the energy in Jiang Wen's body suddenly exploded, and a cold light flew up from his right hand, just like a flying sword of an immortal that could take people's heads from a thousand miles away. It instantly turned into three cold blades and attacked back!
I saw one sword stronger than the other, one sword suppressing the other. It didn't seem fast at first glance, but it made people suddenly feel that there is always a mountain higher than another. The Qi Sect's unique skill "Three Green Peaks of Taiyue" took advantage of the situation to suppress the enemy, and was coming back with its extraordinary internal force. Even the surrounding branches and twigs were rustling with the dancing sword!
With the brief moment of turning around, Jiang Wen finally saw the headless corpse behind him that was so rotten that it looked like a human. The scars on its sides seemed to be caused by sword and knife wounds. The dead flesh was so attached to the bones that even insects could not eat it, and it also looked heavy, iron-black in color.
The headless corpse raised his arms to block, blocking Jiang Wen's sword. However, the internal force attached to the sword suddenly disappeared as soon as it made contact with the sword. In a blink of an eye, only the not-so-sophisticated sword moves were able to be effective, and they did cut into the tattered leather bag.
The headless corpse was splattered with dirty blood, and Jiang Wen's face was as cold as frost. He seemed not to be afraid of the abnormal phenomenon that his internal force was failing. The internal force in his three burners was still pouring into the sword, and he continued to chop at the corpse with the sword, as if he was dismembering the body calmly and precisely, which made Yuan Ziyi's scalp tingle.
But the next second, the magical inner state of "Great Shift of Heaven and Earth" was used again, like the internal energy of the Yangtze River rolling back, and the sword blade that pierced the headless corpse suddenly generated a magnetic suction force, pulling the direction against common sense and obstructing the movement of the headless corpse.
The strange phenomenon of sucking back internal energy did not last too long, because the headless corpse was originally a tree without roots and water without source. As the internal energy dried up very quickly, the headless corpse was about to break free from the sword's suction and commit violence again. However, Jiang Wen turned into "Taiyue Sanqingfeng" with a domineering posture, and swung out the long sword in his hand again, with a ruthless and ferocious momentum that was even more fierce than before!
Jiang Wen started by slashing straight at the head, then swung his sword and slashed across the waist, and finally jumped up and stabbed the opponent in the back with his sword. The three swords were completed in the blink of an eye, one faster and one more fierce than the other. He reversed the flow of internal force and used the sword sect's unique skill "Three Deadly Swords in a Row" with pure moves. While chopping and slashing, he had the power to split gold and jade, and immediately forced the opponent back to a desperate situation. He was staggering and about to fall, and it was obvious that he had been seriously injured!
"The positive ones are the three Qingfeng of Taiyue, and the negative ones are the three immortal swords that take life. How should you respond to Jiang's three consecutive sword attacks?"
Jiang Wen, who had escaped from danger, landed lightly on the ground like a pair of swallows dancing on a willow. The ancient sword in his hand re-sheathed with a clang, and he spoke slowly to the headless corpse.
However, just as Yuan Ziyi had said before, the headless corpse, which had been severely injured by Jiang Wen's sword moves, staggered back behind a thick pine tree. In just a blink of an eye, it disappeared in broad daylight and in full view of everyone, without any warning, as if it had never appeared.
The stench of corpses still lingered in the air. Jiang Wen was shocked when he saw this extremely strange scene. He thought that the headless corpse could not only hurt people in broad daylight, but also hide underground. If an ordinary person set foot here, he would die a violent death. There was indeed something strange on this Zhanlu Mountain!
"Let's go! Something is wrong here, let's go out for now!"
Jiang Wen seemed to be worried that the headless corpse would appear in the dark forest again, so he made a decisive decision. Before leaving, he naturally did not forget to take the strange gilded Buddha with him. While they were escaping, there were still strange footsteps following them in the dense forest. It was not until they were completely away from this rocky forest that the terrifying breath and stench completely disappeared.
"Finally he stopped following us. Could that headless corpse just now be a vicious criminal? I heard that people who have been beheaded have strong evil spirits and are most likely to become zombies and evil spirits."
Yuan Ziyi was breathing heavily, looking around vigilantly, and not stopping to inquire about the news.
"By the way, Sect Leader Jiang, what did you encounter in the cave just now?"
Jiang Wen whispered, "It's similar to what you saw, but I only sensed aura in the cave, and didn't see any corpses. I withdrew first to prevent any accidents."
Yuan Ziyi sucked in a breath of cold air. When she thought of these things appearing in the pitch-dark cave and lurking right behind her, her scalp suddenly went numb. She said hesitantly, "Why don't we go back and get some candles, yellow paper, boiled chicken, and pig heads? We'll definitely be able to find something..."
Yan Yongchun was also apprehensive and said, "It's so dangerous, could it be the dead bodies in the cave causing trouble?"
Jiang Wen shook his head and said, "The dead won't cause trouble. I'm more afraid of the living doing something behind the scenes."
The Red Lotus Mother seemed to understand something and asked in a low voice, "Do you suspect someone did it on purpose?"
"I have made a mistake this time. Previously, I only considered the external conditions and thought that this place was not suitable for sword forging. However, I was still obsessed with the appearance and forgot the difference between sword forging in ancient times and today."
Jiang Wen nodded and continued.
"Like the headless corpse just now, only people who have committed serious crimes would be beheaded and displayed to the public, but in the pre-Qin period, beheading was a very solemn form of sacrifice..."
Jiang Wen had already thought of sacrificing a person to make a sword. This method was derived from the poor smelting conditions in ancient times. In the literature on this kind of thing that later generations found, most of them were before the Han Dynasty, especially during the Spring and Autumn Period.
Because at that time, "human sacrifice" was something that was in accordance with Zhou rites.
The Book of Han once recorded that "the people of Chu believed in witches and ghosts and attached great importance to lewd sacrifices." This situation was also prevalent in Wu and Yue. For example, both the Yue Jue Shu and the Wu Yue Chunqiu recorded that King Helu of Wu once tricked the people into his daughter's tomb to be buried alive with her. "He danced with white cranes in the Wu market, and made all the people follow and watch. He also made men and women enter the Xian Gate with the cranes, and then set off a trap to cover them up."
Jiang Wen's previous idea was not wrong, because directly throwing a living person into the furnace to forge a sword would only increase the impurities in the steel and would not help improve its purity.
However, human sacrifice before forging the sword is a mysterious religious ritual that is difficult to explain. In the same "Wu Yue Chunqiu", there was a sword master who killed his two sons, Wu Hong and Hu Ji, and forged two swords into two pieces to present to Helu. Helu would be ecstatic as long as he called their names.
In this way, Zhanlu Mountain might not be the place where Ou Yezi forged the sword, but this mountain is very likely the place where they killed white horses and white cows, and even sacrificed people. Later, in the eyes of some people, this undoubtedly became a mysterious way to success, and they even "sacrificed" in various ways...
Just as Jiang Wen had analyzed before, sword-making is a huge project. It is impossible to complete it by just a few people working behind closed doors in the mountains. There must be a considerable scale of industrial support behind it.
Jiang Wen changed his way of thinking and analyzed it. If the people who died suddenly in the stone cave were not a group of desperate villains, but a group of sword-making maniacs in Zhanlu Mountain, then everything would make sense.
In addition to the few people who died suddenly, there are probably others who are still hiding in the unknown places in the deep mountains of Zhanlu. Their purpose of coming here is to imitate Ou Yezi's sword-making, but after repeated attempts without success, they turned to figure out Ou Yezi's method of sword-making with human sacrifice, so they started with the monks in the Zen temple.
Jiang Wen felt that there were most likely a group of martial artists in the mountains, because they obviously had no scientific research spirit and did not care about the impact factor. Just like Jiang Wen could not understand why the martial artists never questioned whether those martial arts that were said to take dozens or hundreds of years for one person to master were a scientific research scam to get funding.
When they returned to the ruins of Zhanlu Temple, Luo Shuang'er and the Six Ding Goddesses had been waiting for a long time. Everyone could see their vigilance and signs of fighting at a glance. After a conversation, they were all surprised by what they saw and heard.
"I suspect the man who killed and forged the sword has accomplices in the mountains."
Jiang Wen leaned against the carriage and directly put forward his guess.
"My plan is this. You guys will first settle down in Songxi County and help me find out if there are any strange things happening here."
Luo Shuang'er stuck her head out of the carriage and took the initiative to say, "I'll stay with you."
Jiang Wen said quickly, "No, even if your kung fu is enough to resolve the crisis, you still lack experience in martial arts. One person's plan is short, and three people's plan is long. You still have to stay together to be safe."
Seeing that Luo Shuang'er was still unwilling to give up, Jiang Wen tried to persuade them gently, "Don't worry, there is only a small area on this mountain. I can finish the run in a day and a night at most. Then I will go down the mountain to meet up with you and we will go back to Dawang Peak together."
Luo Shuang'er was about to object, but was pulled back by Yuan Ziyi. She could only ask in a low voice: "Then what are you going to do?"
"I will naturally stay on Zhanlu Mountain to investigate further. If there is any accident at night, I will give it a try."
Although Yuan Ziyi was worried at this time and intended to drag everyone to the county town, she couldn't help but mutter: "Master Jiang, what is the purpose of your trip that you want to hide? Does this mean that we are still in your way?"
As soon as these words were spoken, everyone immediately glared at him angrily.
Jiang Wen laughed and said, "Girls, please don't misunderstand me. To be honest, when I was less than ten years old, I was busy all night for the Eight Desolations, Rage Slash, Creation of Heaven, Dragon Slaying Sword, and Blade of Destiny. Naturally, I would be more interested in famous swords and precious sabers..."
(End of this chapter)