I changed the world.

Page 266

The sick child's condition worsened significantly tonight.

"To see the Fifth King of Hell..."

For some reason, the female lead in the red costume had already stepped down from the stage in the blink of an eye...

Guan Zeping felt increasingly uneasy. His previously muddled mind seemed to sense a subconscious fear and he began to retreat instinctively. However, it was too late. The dan actor made no move, yet he was already in front of him in the blink of an eye.

In that instant, the face of the female lead suddenly became clear from the blurry image, and Guan Zeping's scalp tingled with fear.

That wasn't a woman's face at all, but a paper doll's face. The features looked pretty, but upon closer inspection, they seemed to have been drawn on with a pen, which was extremely eerie!

The paper face was deathly pale, with two smears of blood-red mud on its cheeks. The features, which looked as if they had been drawn with a brush, were indistinguishable from the paper figures burned for the dead.

"what!"

Guan Zeping woke up with a start and found himself still lying on the ground, and couldn't help but breathe a long sigh of relief.

It was all just a dream.

Fortunately, it was just a dream.

He had just calmed himself down a bit, and now his mind was clear, and he instantly recalled all the illogical parts of his dream.

That makes sense. I'm clearly staying overnight in the mountains, but in my dream I'm back in Huangjia Village. It doesn't make sense at all. I guess it's just a nightmare, probably something I've been thinking about lately, and it's manifesting in my dreams...

A feeling of fullness came from his bladder. Guan Zeping rubbed his eyes, pushed away an arm that was pressing down on him, sat up, and looked around. It was pitch black all around, and he could vaguely hear the sounds of snoring coming from the side.

It sounded like everyone else inside was asleep, and Guan Zeping didn't intend to wake them. He quietly got up, put on his shoes, carefully held onto the wall, avoided some clutter in the room, and pushed open the wooden door to go outside. The chilly air outside made him shiver slightly, and he quickly tightened his clothes. Guan Zeping walked out of the cave entrance, intending to find a place to relieve himself outside.

The cave was quite spacious, and the moonlight shone in through the entrance, so it didn't feel dark. Guan Zeping walked out of the cave, and apart from the faint roars of some unknown beasts in the distance, it was quite quiet all around.

Guan Zeping stepped out of the cave, looked around, and decided it wasn't appropriate to relieve himself in front of someone else's house. So he walked about twenty meters further out, found a bush, got into position, took out his penis, waited a moment, and began to relieve himself...

"Sizzle..." With a sound of water, Guan Pingze took a deep breath...

However, at that moment, he suddenly heard a melodious yet mournful opera tune.

"A ghostly beauty, a lovely maiden"

ethereal beauty, captivating and alluring.

Wearing a red dress,

Even a skilled painter would find it difficult to depict.

The frosty moon is lonely..."

The melody and singing of the opera overlapped with the moment he heard it in his dream, giving him an incredibly strange sense of déjà vu, as if he had returned to that ancient stage once again...

For some reason, at this very moment, Guan Zeping suddenly recalled the boy's warning to them before he went to sleep:

"Fellow practitioners, it is not safe in the mountains at night, please remember not to wander around."

He didn't even notice that he had urinated on his shoes. Guan Zeping swallowed hard, slowly turning his head. He discovered that in the woods not far from him, an ancient-style stage had appeared out of nowhere. Two strings of white lanterns hung on either side of the stage, swaying gently in the breeze. On the stage, a female opera singer dressed in a red costume was softly singing a traditional opera song.

How could this be... there was definitely no stage there just now...

Guan Zeping felt a chill slowly rise from his back. The slight languor he had just felt from not being fully awake vanished instantly. He clearly remembered that there was no ancient stage in that direction before. There was no way he could not have missed such a large object!

At that moment, the female lead who was still singing made a delicate gesture with one hand, extending the melody into a lingering note, and slowly turned her head toward Guan Zeping.

Guan Zeping's eyes met those of the female impersonator, only to find that the actress's face was as pale as paper, her cheeks painted with vibrant rouge, and a faint smile playing on her lips. In the dim light, she appeared particularly eerie...

Guan Zeping was a Taoist priest.

Not only was he a Taoist priest, but he was also a Taoist priest from the Celestial Master's Mansion on Danding Mountain, and a disciple personally taught by the Celestial Master.

Whether in folk tales or in entertainment products such as movies, games, and novels, such a person would always be given a buff like "evil spirit restraint" or "exclusive demon-slaying skill" when facing demons and monsters. In the eyes of ordinary people, such a Taoist priest should be the one feeling fear when encountering evil spirits...

But in fact, Guan Zeping is now truly horrified...

He also wanted to say something like in those movies: "You demons and monsters, how dare you flaunt yourselves before me!"

However, I really can't do it!

Aside from chanting scriptures, chopping wood, and performing rituals, he really doesn't know anything about exorcising demons or subduing evil spirits...

Oh, no, he does know a little bit of basic kung fu. As a disciple of the Xuanmen sect, one usually knows a few moves of Xuanmen Tai Chi or Baguaquan, but Guan Zeping considers his own strength to be only enough for health maintenance and loosening up his muscles, nothing more. He'd probably struggle even against a strong man, let alone this one in front of him…

It seems unreliable no matter how you look at it...

Looking at the evil spirit before him, Guan Zeping's mind was in chaos. His survival instinct made a series of thoughts race through his mind, finally settling on one word...

"escape!"

However, at this moment, he was completely unable to move.

Yes, as Na Danjiao turned his face, Guan Zeping froze, a tremendous sense of fear surging in like a tidal wave, gripping his entire body, even his throat.

At this moment, it was extremely difficult for him to even make a sound.

Chapter 507 Seeking Immortals

The music continued, and the female lead continued singing as she gracefully walked towards Guan Zeping. The melody swirled in the night sky, and to Guan Zeping, it seemed to be losing its human touch...

But then the female lead had already reached the edge of the stage, and with an extremely incongruous posture, she floated down from the stage as if she were weightless, and then headed straight towards Guan Zeping...

In the blink of an eye, the danjiao had already arrived in front of him. Even though the night was dark, Guan Zeping was able to clearly see the strange creature in front of him by the light of the stars and moon in the sky.

The face I had seen in my dream almost instantly matched the pale face in front of me. It was not a normal human face at all, but a standard paper doll face with flat features drawn with a pen. In this environment, it exuded an extremely sinister feeling!

The pale, paper-faced figure immediately reminded Guan Zeping of the paper figures buried with him at funerals he had attended before…

Cold sweat trickled down Guan Zeping's forehead. Suddenly, a ruthless glint flashed in Guan Zeping's eyes, and he bit his tongue hard. The intense pain made his whole body twitch, and a metallic taste immediately filled his mouth.

Almost simultaneously, he was like a drowning person who had gained a moment's respite and regained his ability to move.

"Help!"

Without any hesitation, he yelled at the top of his lungs, then frantically started running forward...

He hadn't run more than a few steps when, with a thud, Guan Zeping fell heavily to the ground, tripped by a tree root. But at that moment, he didn't care about that; he scrambled to his feet and ran forward as fast as he could...

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Guan Zeping was filled with extreme fear. Although he was a Taoist priest and many people thought he should be a professional exorcist, he knew in his heart that he was no different from ordinary people when it came to those ethereal ghosts and demons. Until yesterday, he had only seen them in novels, comics, and movies. Neither his master nor his senior brother had ever taught him any skills related to exorcism.

Of course, among the religious rituals, incantations, and ceremonies he had previously learned, there were indeed methods that claimed to be able to exorcise evil spirits and ward off disasters. However, he had never truly and unfailingly discovered any supernatural phenomena while using these methods. Therefore, he did not have much trust in these complex esoteric methods. In fact, he shared the same view as many esoteric disciples today: demons, ghosts, feng shui evil spirits... were all just superstition, a far-fetched answer given by people in that ancient era to inexplicable natural phenomena. In today's world, with advanced technology and humanity having entered the interstellar age, these old tricks of the esoteric sects might still have some effect on those ignorant men and women, but for a true esoteric disciple like him, they were merely tools for making a living.

Making money? No shame in it...

However, today, especially at this very moment, he realized with absolute certainty that he was wrong! Those myths and legends, those demons and monsters, might actually exist!

With chaotic thoughts swirling in his mind, Guan Zeping gasped for breath and sprinted forward as fast as he could. At this point, he no longer cared about observing the path ahead, nor about the branches that stretched across the forest, or the long grass scraping against his exposed face and hands. He just kept running forward...

"whee…………"

"Hehehe..."

A faint, eerie laughter came from behind him. The laughter was elusive and elusive, like a ghost haunting the forest. Urging Guan Zeping, he dared not relax for a moment and could only keep running forward.

However, at that moment, he was completely unaware that the direction he was running in was getting further and further away from the cave...

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"Huff... huff..."

"Pfft!!!"

Guan Zeping seemed to have kicked something in his ankle, and he fell heavily to the ground. Gasping for breath, he tried again to get up, but his ankle twisted, and he fell again. He simply couldn't run anymore; he felt his heart pounding in his throat. Guan Zeping wasn't a fan of exercise to begin with, and yesterday's all-day mountain climb had already exhausted him. This frantic sprint had completely drained his remaining strength.

"Hehehe..."

The faint laughter came from behind again. Guan Zeping struggled to his feet and limped forward. However, after walking a short distance, he parted a patch of tall grass and found that there was a cliff in front of him. In the darkness, he could not see how deep the cliff was.

A pebble he kicked spun as it fell down the cliff, echoing for several seconds before finally making a sound, followed by several more rhythmic echoes…

Clearly, the cliff was quite high, and unable to see the way forward in the dark, he had somehow ended up at a dead end...

Guan Zeping panicked and turned around abruptly to find another way. However, when he turned around, he saw a figure in theatrical costume emerging step by step from the shadows behind him...

What particularly unnerved him was that, although they were in the middle of nowhere, the female lead in the opera costume gave off a calm and composed demeanor, as if the surrounding bushes and weeds were avoiding him, unlike his own disheveled state.

As the cliff grew closer to Guan Zeping, Guan Zeping looked at it again, his whole body trembling. It was bottomless, and he really didn't dare to jump!

"Hehehe... Look what I've encountered... A Taoist priest... Hehehehehe!"

A voice that sounded like a child's rang in Guan Zeping's ears. The pale, paper-like face of the dan (a type of female role in Peking Opera) grew closer, and on its flat, seemingly drawn features, a somewhat comical smile appeared. However, at this moment, this smile gave off an extremely sinister feeling.

"Help...help me...no...help me!!!" Guan Zeping retreated to the edge of the cliff in terror, trembling as he watched the female lead getting closer and closer.

"It smells like the Celestial Master's Mansion... the Taoist priests of the Celestial Master's Mansion... hehehehehe..."

Suddenly, the dan (a type of female role in Peking Opera) stopped, tilting its head slightly as if making a "sniffing" motion. Then, its voice suddenly became frenzied, and the next moment, the corners of the paper figure's mouth gradually stretched to both sides, until, under Guan Zeping's horrified gaze, the corners of its mouth stretched all the way to its ears...

Immediately afterwards, the paper figure's jaw suddenly opened wide, revealing a terrifying, blood-red maw accompanied by a foul stench!

He swallowed hard... Guan Zeping decided that, no matter what, he should jump down and try...

Maybe if I jump, I won't die?

Taking a deep breath, Guan Zeping gritted his teeth and decided to jump off the cliff...