Chapter 414: Stone Statues
Qin Mu was astonished. If the Butcher had also returned, then Village Chief and the others should know about Xing Han’s attack and the severe injuries he had suffered. Since the crisis with Xing Han was resolved, why hadn’t Ma Ye stayed at the Great Thunderclap Monastery? Instead, he had followed Village Chief and the others here.
“Village Chief, Xing Han, he…”
Village Chief shook his head. “The matter of Xing Han is a trivial affair. Calling you back is about something major. Can you contact the Heavenly Demon Patriarch?”
Qin Mu’s heart stirred. “What major event has occurred? The Patriarch and the Dharma Protector Elder went out together, wandering the world. He said that after his death, he would have the Dharma Protector Elder bring his ashes back. Village Chief, what exactly is the matter? When I was traveling with Saintess Xiang earlier, we also discovered a strange event—a great mountain had split open, and a stone statue was exposed. Could this be related?”
Si Yunxiang quickly nodded. “That stone statue was extremely terrifying, as if it had grown out of the mountain, surging upward with a sudden force!”
“It’s not just one stone statue.”
Ma Ye gave off an aura of wisdom, smooth and round like a pearl. “There are about a hundred stone statues appearing all over the world, along with many various treasures. These things all appeared suddenly; they are not from our world. There was also a stone statue that drilled out from beneath Mount Sumeru, but it collided with the mountain. Instead of splitting Mount Sumeru open, it was suppressed instead.”
Qin Mu’s expression turned strange.
The Mute’s face was grave. His ten fingers leaped rapidly, forming a series of bizarre hand gestures.
“This kind of stone statue is a sign that gods and demons are about to descend.”
The Deaf man watched his hands and said, “It is very difficult for gods and demons from other worlds to cross the world barrier. They must first petrify themselves into stone statues, devoid of power, in order to send the statues to this world. Their primordial spirits and magical power will remain in their respective worlds. For the stone statues to restore their flesh and blood bodies, they need blood sacrifices to summon their primordial spirits from the other world. Then the statues will awaken. On the way here, the few treasures we saw were celestial phenomenon weapons, used to trigger great calamities, slaughter the common people, and use their flesh and blood to sacrifice to these stone statues… Don’t look at me; this is what the Mute said.”
Everyone turned to look at the Mute. Village Chief couldn’t help asking, “Mute, how do you know so much? Even I don’t know these things, yet you are perfectly clear about them.”
The Mute grinned, gesturing with his hands. The Deaf man said, “This guy is playing deaf and dumb again. I didn’t understand.”
“This matter is too terrifying. In my opinion, don’t bother looking for the Patriarch. Let’s just return to the Great Ruins directly!”
Granny Si said, “So many stone statues have appeared in the Yan Kingdom. If they revive, they will be deities. Who can withstand that? Ma Ye, don’t bother being your Tathagata anymore. Whoever wants to be Tathagata can be it. I don’t want this mountain villa either. Let’s go back to the Great Ruins immediately!”
The Butcher shook his head. “Granny, leaving like this isn’t good, is it? Hiding in the Great Ruins would make us turtles shrinking into our shells. A real man should stand tall between heaven and earth and fight with a bang!”
Granny Si glared at him, sneering, “Not leave and wait to die? Like you, barely surviving after being cut in half?”
The Butcher’s face flushed red, and he said angrily, “I won’t argue with a woman!”
Village Chief coughed and said, “Granny, the Human Sovereign must bear responsibility…”
“Bear responsibility?”
Granny Si laughed in anger. “Have you borne your responsibility? You can’t even handle yourself, yet you push Mu’er into the fire pit! If you have the ability, take it on yourself! Now, you’ve been chopped up like a stick, hiding in the Great Ruins and pretending to be dead every day, and you still have the nerve to talk about bearing responsibility!”
Village Chief was furious. “You, you…”
“You what?”
Granny Si said fiercely, “Over a hundred stone statues! If you have the ability, go and level them all. Otherwise, you obediently go back to the Great Ruins and pretend to be dead!”
The Deaf man coughed and said, “Granny, that’s going too far…”
Granny Si shouted, “What business is it of yours? I raised Mu’er with my own hands, wiping his mess. You, with your dark face, used to hit his palm every day. If it weren’t for the fact that you, that bookworm, write well and could teach Mu’er to read, I would have beaten you to death long ago!”
The Deaf man flew into a rage, stammering, “Books cannot be read without beating… You, you’re twisting things! Only petty women and…”
Granny Si slapped a piece of cowhide over his head, and the Deaf man immediately turned into a bull, mooing loudly.
The Pharmacist quickly said, “Granny, I think…”
“Get lost!”
Granny Si said coldly, “Go back to your room and attend to that bunch of women of yours!”
“Yes, ma’am.” The Pharmacist responded cheerfully, turned around, and walked away.
The Mute tapped his pipe, gesturing with his hands, “Ah, ah…”
“Shut up! You bad seed, full of bad ideas!”
The Mute lowered his head, looking deeply wronged, and said nothing more. The Lame man opened his mouth, wanting to speak, but Granny Si turned to look at him. The Lame man shivered several times and said with a dry laugh, “What are you getting so fierce about? Can’t we all discuss things nicely? Haha, discuss nicely… Ma Ye, Ma Ye, say something! I’ll follow whatever Ma Ye says. If Ma Ye says go back to the village, I’ll go back. If Ma Ye says fight, I’ll fight!”
Granny Si glanced at Ma Ye. “If you don’t go back to the Great Ruins, I’ll go to your Great Thunderclap Monastery and see how many monks are left there!”
Ma Ye didn’t say a word.
“Blind man, say something.” Village Chief looked at the Blind Man.
The Blind Man said, “If Mu’er wants to stay, then we stay. If Mu’er wants to go back to the Great Ruins, then we go back too.”
Granny Si stared coldly at him. The Blind Man closed his eyes and said, “Granny, if you want to take Mu’er away, none of them can stop you, but I can. I have also taken Mu’er away before, and I know his determination. We are old. If Village Chief doesn’t repair the Divine Bridge, he probably won’t make it past next year’s Spring Festival. Why must we make things so tense? Let’s hear what Mu’er has to say.”
Granny Si’s heart softened again. She looked at Qin Mu and said gently, “Mu’er, you’re grown up now. Those bad guys in the village have taught you to be like this. Don’t learn from them. Come back with Granny. Marry whichever girl you like. Granny is waiting to hold a grandchild…”
Qin Mu looked around in confusion, then lowered his head.
Si Yunxiang stood beside him, also confused about what was happening. She thought to herself, “But Auntie is indeed majestic and domineering, putting these god-like beings in their place. When will I ever have such authority…”
After a moment, Qin Mu raised his head and asked doubtfully, “These stone statues are the same as those in the Great Ruins, all transformed from gods and demons. Did their sudden appearance happen because Yu Xiu and I created the Primordial Spirit Attraction, causing this change? Are those stone statues here to destroy the Yan Kingdom? Then is this disaster caused by me? Are they coming to kill me?”
Village Chief said, “It may not necessarily be caused by you. It’s more likely caused by Emperor Yanfeng’s cannon blast that killed the Shangcang Jade Lord. Calculating the time, Shangcang should have reported that cannon blast to their masters by now. The reforms of the Yan Kingdom National Teacher and Emperor Yanfeng would have attracted this kind of thing sooner or later; it’s just that it has come many years earlier.”
The Butcher said, “This change is not about you, but about the reforms. First, Emperor Yanfeng’s cannon blast caught the attention of Shangcang’s masters, and then you and Princess Xiu created the Primordial Spirit Attraction, causing some subtle changes in the Great Dao.”
“Then there is still my part in this.”
Qin Mu thought for a moment, then said to Granny Si, “Granny, I’m not going back. I have many friends here: Wei Yong, Shen Wanyun, Mu Qingdai, Yue Qinghong. I don’t want to hear news of their deaths a few years from now. Didn’t you all say that if you cause trouble yourself, you have to fix it yourself?”
Granny Si was taken aback. “The Butcher taught you to be loyal, and you really are loyal? What use is loyalty? Can it save your life?”
Qin Mu shook his head. “No. But it can give me peace of mind.”
Granny Si was stunned and sighed. “Peace of mind? I wonder if you’ll still have peace of mind when the Yan Kingdom is destroyed in the flames of war. You’ve grown up and have your own ideas. Fine, I won’t force you. Please invite the Patriarch back.”
Qin Mu blinked, curious. “Why do we need to invite the Patriarch back?”
“The few of us old bones discussed it and felt that Shangcang is bringing down a calamity, triggering those treasures that have broken through the ground, causing natural disasters to erupt. They use the people who die in these disasters as sacrifices to revive these stone statues.”
Village Chief said, “So, after our discussion, we decided to go and intercept the gods of Shangcang, not letting them succeed.”
Qin Mu was stunned for a moment, then asked puzzledly, “Since they are the physical bodies of gods and demons, why not just smash these stone statues?”
“After gods and demons petrify, they become extremely hard and difficult to break.”
The Blind Man said, “In the Great Ruins, have you ever seen a broken stone statue?”
Qin Mu thought about it. Indeed, he had rarely seen broken stone statues during his many travels in the Great Ruins. The last time he was in the East Sea of the Great Ruins, he had seen many dragon king stone statues with their heads cut off.
That time, it should have been the Heavenly King statue from the Heavenly King Temple riding the Dragon Qilin, going to the East Sea at night to quell the chaos, using the Green Dragon Crescent Blade to behead the dragon king stone statues.
“Can we move the stone statues into the Great Ruins?”
Qin Mu said, “Move them into the Great Ruins and place them together with the stone statues there. Then we won’t have to worry about them awakening and causing trouble.”
The Lame man laughed. “Carrying a stone statue means carrying a god. Who can carry a god for tens of thousands of miles into the Great Ruins? And it’s not just one or two, but over a hundred!”
Qin Mu frowned. The divine statues were indeed terrifyingly heavy. Even someone like Ma Ye, who was known for his physical strength in the Village of the Crippled and Elderly, could only carry a stone statue for two or three hundred zhang before needing to rest. And Ma Ye was the strongest in terms of physical power in the village!
“Saintess Xiang, does the Holy Religion have any way to contact the Patriarch or the Dharma Protector Elder?” Qin Mu asked, turning his head.
Si Yunxiang quickly said, “My Si family has Heart Vision Mirrors. Two mirrors form a pair. If you silently recite the other person’s name in your heart and think of their appearance and voice, you can contact them, see each other, and hear each other’s voices. Both the Patriarch and the Dharma Protector Elder have Vision Mirrors, making it convenient to communicate. I’ll go notify the Old Lady right away and have her contact the Patriarch!”
Qin Mu was surprised. “The Holy Religion has such things as Heart Vision Mirrors?”
Si Yunxiang rolled her eyes at him. “You’ve been the Holy Religion’s leader for two years. How many times have you been to Holy Spirit Mountain? Have you visited the Si family of the Holy Religion, the Yu family of the Holy Religion, or the Shi family of the Holy Religion? If it weren’t for the fact that you’re doing an okay job as leader, I would have rebelled against you long ago!”
Qin Mu smiled. “You wouldn’t. You don’t have the ability.”
Si Yunxiang was exasperated but had no choice but to obediently go contact the Si family’s Old Grandmother. She really wanted to be as imposing as Granny Si, but this kid just wouldn’t give her the chance to show off.
“Grandpa Butcher, the sun, moon, and stars in the sky, the Milky Way and constellations—they are all fake.”
Qin Mu came to the Butcher’s side and asked, “Grandpa Butcher must know many secrets, right?”
The Butcher pulled out his two butcher knives, crossing and grinding the blades together. “Speaking of this, I have to mention the martial art I created, the ‘Horizontal and Vertical, Vast and Boundless, a Single Line of Sky’ technique. Back then, I was a grandmaster of the combat technique school, determined to create an unprecedented ultimate art. At that time, I had a fanatical confidence, thinking I was invincible under heaven and could break any divine ability with a single slash. But I had never fought against the heavens, so I wanted to split the sky open, leap beyond it, and have a fight with the heavens…”