Chapter 524: Ghostly Talismans on Peachwood Doors
The so-called underground space is actually no more than five zhang in diameter and looks more like a cellar.
But who would dig a cellar dozens of zhang underground in a normal household?
Tian Lin swept his gaze over the walking corpses buried in the ground and finally settled on a dozen or so coffins leaning against the wall.
Having previously completed missions in the land of mass burial, he instantly understood upon seeing the coffins.
This was clearly a Corpse Well used by corpse chasers for Corpse Nourishment.
Sure enough, Tian Lin saw a well hole not far from the underground space that led straight to the outside world.
Above that well hole, there was a decayed but not completely ruined iron chain.
This kind of iron chain was naturally used to hoist coffins.
Unfortunately, after the unknown destruction of this village, the iron chain naturally lost its use.
"What's going on, is that Brother Tian?"
A voice sounded above the well hole, clearly the voice of Wang Yanyu.
It was obvious that the sounds of Tian Lin fighting underground had transmitted up through the well, and after hearing the fighting sounds below, Wang Yanyu found the wellhead. But she did not dare to go down rashly, so she questioned from above.
"Sister Wang, no need to worry, this is a Corpse Well, and the walking corpses in the well have already been subdued by me."
From above, Wang Yanyu replied: "Since there is a Corpse Well, it would be convenient for Brother to set up an array."
Clearly, she and Tian Lin had the same thought, which was to arrange the array in the open space beneath the Corpse Well, saving Tian Lin the effort of digging a hole.
After confirming that Tian Lin was unharmed, Wang Yanyu left the wellhead to attend to her own matters.
However, Tian Lin was not in a hurry to set up the array but first glanced at the ten coffins, then collected the Sealing Earth Skill.
Upon collecting the Sealing Earth Skill, the ten walking corpses buried underground simultaneously rushed towards Tian Lin.
With Tian Lin's current strength, he naturally was not afraid of these walking corpses' combined assault.
He effortlessly sealed them one by one using talisman paper, then looked at these eleven walking corpses.
Unfortunately, they had been here for too long, and most of the clothing on these walking corpses had completely weathered away. Only a small amount of fabric, stained by Yin energy and Corpse Qi, had turned into Yin objects but was equally dilapidated.
These walking corpses were male and female, but fortunately, their limbs and such were extremely intact.
To be fair, corpse chasers typically would not find incomplete corpses for Corpse Nourishment. Because such corpses, when nourished, would be weak for their own use and wouldn't fetch a good price if sold. So, the intactness of these corpses wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
Tian Lin looked away from the alluring bodies of several female corpses and furrowed his brows.
Earlier, he had noticed that the eleven walking corpses underground did not match the ten coffins.
In theory, since it was Corpse Nourishment, corpses couldn't simply be tossed into the Corpse Well; they had to be sealed in coffins.
So eleven walking corpses ought to correspond to eleven coffins, yet there were only ten coffins underground.
Could it be that one coffin had rotted into bits over time?
But the coffins used for Corpse Nourishment are Yin objects, not ordinary wood that would be eaten by insects or eroded by time.
Looking again at the surrounding coffins, the intense Death Qi indicated that the abundant Yin energy hadn't damaged them. On the contrary, with the passing of time, they showed signs of turning into Red Coffins.
"So these eleven walking corpses are not all nurtured by a Corpse Nurturer. One should be an outsider—but this Corpse Well has already been sealed, so no evil spirits beneath could escape the well, nor could evil spirits from outside enter."
Tian Lin was in no rush to deploy the array; he walked to one of the female corpses and used his sword to tear open the corpse's clothes.
In an instant, the female corpse's clothes and undergarments all fell to the ground, revealing a gracefully curved body.
He then walked to the second walking corpse and once again tore open the clothes.
This process repeated until Tian Lin finished tearing open the last female corpse's clothing. By then, Wang Yanyu and Mei Xiangu had completed setting up the array above.
As soon as the two women entered the Corpse Well, they saw Tian Lin tearing at the clothes of a female corpse.
Wang Yanyu didn't say anything, but Mei Xiangu, with an unabashedly dark expression, said, "I wondered what you were doing down here, so it turns out you have this kind of fetish? I think you shouldn't have joined the Wenda Sect, but rather the Xiangxi Sect would be more fitting."
Tian Lin ignored Mei Xiangu's teasing and picked up a wooden plaque from the pile of tattered clothes, saying, "This is from one of the walking corpses, which looks like it was once a living person."
"What do you mean, once a living person?"
Mei Xiangu did not understand Tian Lin's words, and then she heard him say, "Back when Jiaonan Town faced a great calamity, some people, knowing they had no strength to escape, hid in their own Corpse Well.
Unexpectedly, they couldn't leave the Corpse Well later, eventually dying inside it. Over the years, this person's body transformed into a dried corpse in this Land of Corpse Nourishment and finally turned into a walking corpse along with the corpses they had nurtured."
"How do you know that?"
Facing Mei Xiangu's questioning, Tian Lin said, "Guesswork!"
Mei Xiangu wasn't interested in the truth of Tian Lin's speculation; she turned around, glancing at the eleven naked walking corpses, and said:
"I'm not interested in the history of South Suburb Town. The urgent task is to quickly complete carving the array."
Tian Lin nodded, and with a wave of his hand, the eleven walking corpses burst into flames. The talisman papers on their foreheads were the first to burn out, and once the papers were gone, the walking corpses regained movement.
But earlier, Tian Lin alone had managed to subdue the eleven walking corpses, let alone now in the presence of Wang Yanyu and Mei Xiangu.
In just moments, the eleven walking corpses turned to ashes and charcoal.
The group freed up the area and then worked together to lay out the array patterns. In about a quarter of an hour, the thirty-six array flags underground were arranged. As Mei Xiangu placed the engraving array stone at the Array Eye, Spiritual Energy instantly filled the heavens and earth of South Suburb Town.
Now that the array was completed, ordinary evil spirits could not enter South Suburb Town. And when Wenda Sect disciples passed by and saw the grand array, they would know that this place had been claimed by fellow sect members.
Once the Deacon Hall of the sect inspected it, the South Suburb Town could be inhabited again.
"I've used up the array flags I had, and now we just wait for the Deacon Hall to verify and record the merits. But right now, neither you nor the other two have any credit; we should immediately head to the next location."
After seeing the two flying out of the Corpse Well, Tian Lin himself did not hurry to leave. Instead, he took a piece of white cloth from his Storage Bag and went to the stone wall on the south side to make a rubbing of the ghostly symbols on it.
To be honest, he wasn't interested in how the people of South Suburb Town died.
But he was curious about how South Suburb Town appeared in the secret realm.
Tian Lin couldn't understand what the ghostly symbols on the wall under the Corpse Well meant.
However, those ghostly symbols, despite their chaotic appearance, were definitely not the work of corpses, nor the idle doodles of children.
Tian Lin thought these symbols probably held some secret—most likely left by the person who sought refuge in the Corpse Nourishing Well and ultimately died there.
——
"There's another small town that the Demon Hunting Bureau has cleared on the map, let's hurry up and see if we can get there in time to stake it with array flags!"
Seeing Tian Lin emerge from the Corpse Nourishing Well, Mei Xiangu immediately spoke up.