Chapter 49: The Snowy Mountain Temple of Meow

  We didn't wake up the witch, but instead sat around the fire and chatted quietly to pass the time. When my electronic watch showed 12:00, the lamp core, which had been buried in the grass and sleeping soundly, suddenly opened its eyes and looked towards a certain place outside the house where the wind and snow were blowing wildly. Its pupils also shrunk into a needle-like shape.

  "Master!" Lamp Grass discovered something was amiss with Lamp Wick, hesitated for a moment, stretched out his hand to push the demoness beside him and called out softly.

  "Ah! It's my turn on night watch?" The female demon's mouth was watering, her eyes half-asleep as she raised her head to ask.

  "Here I come!" I stood up and slowly stretched my limbs, saying to the demon girl.

  "What time is it?" The demoness understood what this sentence represented, wiped the saliva from the corner of her mouth, took a deep breath to calm herself down and asked.

  "Exactly 12 o'clock!" I pinched two talismans in my palm and said to the female demon.

  "Let's go!" The witch grasped the green bamboo-like judge pen by her side and rushed out first.

  "Woof woof! Ruff ruff!" I trudged through the knee-deep snow, creeping forward along a pitch-black alley for about a minute. A cacophony of crowing and barking was blown into my ears by the biting wind. I knew that we weren't far from the awakened corpses now!

  "Over there!" The wick jumped down from the top of the lamp grass and dashed straight into the darkness. The lamp grass hastily whispered to us, then quickly followed after the wick in a small run.

  "Shadow!" The witch saw that the lantern grass and the wick had deviated from the route of the advancing troops, her face changed slightly, and she lightly drank a sound, hiding her figure in the wind and snow.

  "Open your eyes!" In a flash, I silently finished the incantation of "Opening Eyes", stretched out my hand and took out a small drum from beside me, warningly tapping it on Nasalina's body.

  "Over there!" Niutou suddenly felt a cool sensation in her eyes, and then she saw the black shadow rampaging in a courtyard of a house in the distance. With a sudden tug on my sleeve, Niutou took off running towards the black shadow first.

  "Open your eyes!" This girl, who was also blind and deaf, didn't wait for me either. She followed closely behind me as I ran a few steps in the snowy ground. I gave myself another "open your eyes" spell, otherwise I would have blindly followed her and charged forward recklessly!

  "The Bright King remains unmoving, all laws return to their origin!" A voice full of Zen meaning came from the lamp grass in the wind and snow! Then I felt a flash of golden light in front of my eyes, and the black shadow in the distance was fixed in place.

  "Ah-ya-ya Ku Ba Ni Ba, Song Toh Ni Ku Ba Ni Ba!" The snot-nosed girl who rushed to the lamp post before me saw that the monk had already taken action and couldn't help but gasp for breath. With a clang of the Buddhist drum in her hand, she lightly shook the copper bell on her wrist and began to chant loudly in an unintelligible dialect. As she chanted, her small feet tapped out a rhythmic pattern on the ground.

  By the time I rushed to He Jingying's side, she had just finished chanting this incantation. With a kick from her, I clearly felt a gust of wind rushing towards the awakened corpse that was fixed in place and unable to move.

  "Got it!" This sentence I understood, as the nasal mucus "Dong" sounded a loud slap on the Buddhist drum in his hand, and the gale that was rushing towards the awakening corpse suddenly retracted. Looking again at the pair of feet fixed to the ground, yet still waving their arms with all their might trying to pounce on our awakening corpse. Both hands and feet were already bound by this invisible gale, unable to move!

  "Shaoyang!" Suddenly, the female demon appeared in mid-air, her left and right hands forming a sword gesture with her index fingers, as she let out a cold shout that chopped towards the awakened corpse's arms.

  "Shaoyin!" As soon as the fingernails swept across the awakened corpse's arms, the demon girl didn't even look back and swiftly leaped onto a cloud ladder behind the awakened corpse, pointing her finger like a sword and stabbing it into the awakened corpse's back heart.

  "What are you standing there for? Come on and give it a good hit!" The witch's feet tapped rapidly as she retreated several steps, shouting at me.

  "Flames deceive heaven, divine power of thunder."

  The ultimate extremes of existence, pervading all four dimensions.

  The sky is turned upside down, the sea is boiling and the mountains are collapsing.

  Six dragons drumming, order to pursue quickly!

  Hurry up like an imperial decree!

  I recited the incantation of fire and thunder in my mouth, clenched my right fist with my fingers, and then suddenly extended my index and middle fingers to point at the corpse.

  "Rumble, rumble!" The wind and snow that had been sweeping across the sky suddenly came to a halt, followed by a dull clap of thunder. Several flashes of lightning tore through the gloomy sky, twisting together as they descended straight down towards the corpse with a chicken head still clutched in its mouth.

  "Crack!" A burst of lightning flashed, a dazzling arc of electricity flashed by. Looking again at the resurrected corpse still lying on the ground, waves of heat emanated from its body, accompanied by bursts of pungent smells.

  "It's done! Open the belly and catch the yellow skin!" The female demon, seeing that our attack was effective, raised the judge's pen in her hand and prepared to give the awakened corpse a disembowelment.

  "Ah!" Before the witch could bring down the judge's pen, a small head suddenly poked out from between the waist and abdomen of the corpse on the ground that had been struck by lightning. It looked around quickly in all directions, let out a shrill cry, and jumped out to flee into the wind and snow!

  This yellow-skinned guy caught us off guard, it's clear that he took advantage of the psychological slackness after our battle and hit us with a timing difference!

  "Chase!" The female demon stomped her foot, gritting her silver teeth as she spoke. She then deployed her body technique to closely follow the fleeing yellow-skinned monkey.

  "Damn it! Chase!" I took a glance at the large hole exposed on the corpse's waist and abdomen, cursed lightly and also chased out. Can't let this scourge escape safely, or else we'll be waiting to be killed by it.

  "Open your eyes!" I panted and caught up with the fleeing witch, giving her a slap on the back of the head. In such a strong wind and snow, only the witch could match the speed of that yellow-skinned creature. I bent down, clutching my stomach and gasping for breath, staring blankly as the witch and the yellow mouse disappeared one after another before my eyes.

  "What about him?" Lian Cao and Bi Tan Yu asked me in unison after rushing over and panting for a few seconds.

  "She's gone that way, let me catch my breath first!" I stretched out my hand and pointed in the direction where the female demon disappeared, saying to the lamp grass on top of the bald head which was emitting hot air!

  "You rest for a while, we'll catch up first." The lamp grass put the lamp core on the ground and stood still, looking forward and said to me.

  "Follow him, don't fall behind, I'll rest for a while and catch up." I looked at the hesitant Huo Jingying, patted her arm and said to her. In such a big snowstorm, a girl alone is not a good thing.

  "Then take a rest and catch up later!" Niutou thought of staying to accompany me, but was also worried that Shifu and Shushu couldn't handle the cunning Huang Pizi alone. After biting her lip, she took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat from my forehead before saying.

  "Go quickly! I'll follow right away, remember don't separate from the monk." I lightly pushed Niú Tiān and urged her.

  "Damn it, among the four of us, I'm the one with the worst physical strength!" After they all walked far away, I finally sat down in the snow and mocked myself. Actually, this thing isn't my fault, mainly because the witch used only about 3 seconds from starting to accelerating. It's not easy for me to hold my breath and catch up with her, and even give her a wake-up curse! If I had been advancing at a steady pace like Lamp Grass and the others, I wouldn't have ended up in this panting state!

  After I spat out the turbid air that made me suffocate in my chest cavity, I got up and followed their footsteps to chase forward. The farther we went, the more blurred the chaotic footprints in the snow became. After chasing for half an hour, not only did I fail to catch up with the demon girl, but even the footprints in the snow disappeared without a trace. At this time, I realized that I was lost.

  "Lou Mengmeng, what are you dawdling here for? They've all gone ahead." Just as I was cautiously making my way forward through the snowy ground with the talisman clutched in my hand, the demon girl's voice suddenly rang out from behind me.

  "Master? How did you end up behind us?" I turned my head to look at the demon girl, asking her with some surprise. Logically speaking, she shouldn't be here right now!

  "It wasn't halfway when we met the monks, they said you were behind, I didn't feel at ease and came back to find you! Follow me, I've found the lair of the yellow-skinned ones. This time none of them will escape, I'll finish off these pests once and for all!" The demoness rolled her eyes at me, then walked over and whispered in my ear while holding onto my arm.

  "Oh, okay, let's go! Master Aunt, you didn't have to come back and find me. I'm a grown person now, are you afraid I'll get lost?" I wiped the sweat from my forehead and smiled at the demon girl.

  "It's because I was afraid you'd get lost that I came to find you, and yet you still have the nerve to say you're such a big person. Come on, let's climb up this mountain, at the top of the mountain there's a temple dedicated to the mountain god, and the old lair of the yellow-skinned one is right in that temple! The monks are already there, they're just waiting for us two to go over and take action together!" The demon girl's mouth curled up into a slight smile as she spoke, her head lowered, tightly grasping my arm as we walked forward.

  "I say, Master Shu, your physical strength is really impressive! You climbed such a high mountain and didn't even break a sweat!" I panted as I continued to climb up the mountain, while tightly grasping the talisman in my hand, praising the demon girl.

  "That's who made you not love exercising. From today on, every morning you will run 10,000 meters for me. Persist for half a year and your physical strength will naturally come up." The witch said with a hint of complacency and cunning in her eyes.

  "Add some strength, the Mountain God Temple is about to arrive." After climbing up the mountain path for about an hour, the demon girl raised her arm and pointed to a distant place, saying to me.

  "Did the monks arrive early?" My opening curse hadn't dissipated yet, and I stared at the yellow fox in front of me, its tail curled up and leading the way. I slowly unfolded the two Taoist talismans in my palm, while responding to it with a deliberately casual tone.

  "Arrived early, just missing you! Hehe!" Huang Pizi's eyes sparkled with a hint of green light, and he turned his head to chirp at me.

  "Oh! It's not just me who is missing, but you too!" I said with a deeply meaningful smile to Huang Pizi.