Chapter Eleven: A Forest of White Bones

  The rain kept pouring down, and the yellowish mountain water continuously flooded into the Wanren Pond, soon accumulating a golden-yellow puddle.

  The wooden box floated up, drifting back and forth in the puddle. When it drifted to the edge of the divine crow's beak, it pecked at the other with its sharp beak, but then got lazy and didn't bother to trample on it. Besides, it wasn't in the mood to care about the wooden box either.

  Due to a temporary headache, I did something earth-shattering in the unfamiliar city of Fengdu, and as a result, hundreds and thousands of ghostly soldiers chased after me, almost costing me my life. Even now, Shen Ya still has lingering fears about what happened. However, this incident shows that a newborn calf is indeed not afraid of tigers.

  "Is a newborn calf afraid of a tiger?"

  This inexplicable idiom suddenly popped out of my mind, making me feel that I had a past life and had been to this place before, or at least had thought about it. What on earth am I, what kind of thing was I born from, where did I come from, and why would I have had a past life?

  As the crow was racking its brain over this complex problem, flashes of lightning cut across the dark sky, followed by a deafening clap of thunder and a series of smaller explosions. The wooden chest shook violently with each peal, and more than one person inside it cried out for help.

  "Let us out, savior."

  "If we don't get out of here soon, we'll all be roasted to death!"

  "Benefactor, if Kawaritsuzakura is not mistaken, you are the elite of World War II enshrined in Yasukuni Shrine, which the Prime Minister of the Great Japanese Empire would visit despite international public opinion and even the feelings of Chinese and Korean nationals."

  The four beasts in the wooden box became more and more absurd, actually linking themselves to the Yasukuni Shrine of the Great Japanese Empire. The many strangers made Shen Que feel that he shouldn't have come to this world, encountering all these messy and headache-inducing problems as soon as he arrived. He lazily opened his eyes, glanced at the wooden box, looked up at the dark sky, then drooped his head, no longer paying attention to these beasts.

  "Help!"

  "Help!"

  "Save..."

  The sound in the wooden box grew weaker and weaker, like a dying patient, stretched out its legs and let out a final "gasp" before expiring.

  The divine crow opened its eyes again, stretched out its beak towards the wooden box that had already quieted down, touched the small gap and pecked at it twice. However, this unusual wooden box was indeed impossible to open, and the divine crow couldn't help even if it wanted to.

  The reason why the Kawauma and others, who were confined in the box, couldn't help but cry out for help to the Tengu, was that they had been cooped up for too long and were suffering from a minute-by-minute torment. Although the outside world was stormy with thunder and lightning, they were floating on the surface of the icy water. However, what was carrying them wasn't an ordinary wooden box, but rather a strange object possessed by Kawauma's vengeful spirit. As a result, the temperature inside was exactly the opposite of the outside air temperature.

  As time passed, with the rain continuing to fall, the water in the pit accumulated more and more, and the temperature gradually dropped. However, the air temperature inside the wooden box became higher and higher, scorching hot, making it difficult for the four animals to breathe, every second feeling like they were on the verge of death.

  Fortunately, the cavalry and others have been living in a place without sunlight for a long time, where even the moon and stars are not visible. The extreme darkness and humidity forged their icy bodies, and the coldness of the beasts and the scorching heat of the wooden boxes offset each other, greatly reducing the temperature inside the box, thus preserving their lives.

  Although this was the case, none of the four slaves were willing to continue simmering down quietly, anxiously hoping that the good God would come and open the wooden box to let them out.

  Although the divine crow wanted to release the four beasts from their boxes, apart from using its sharp beak to peck at them, what other methods did it have?

  "Saving one life is better than building a seven-story pagoda."

  Another idiomatic phrase popped into his mind, prompting him to think. As soon as he did, the divine crow immediately recalled the scene when the wooden box fell into the valley. Its originally sharp eyes sparkled, and it flapped its wings, shaking off the water droplets on its feathers before picking up the box in its beak and flying over the Ten Thousand People Pit, where it dropped the box again.

  Just then, Shen Ya heard a loud rumbling sound, and he hastily looked for the source of the sound, only to see a scene that made his heart skip a beat.

  The wall of the sacrificial altar suddenly collapsed, and one by one, white flowers bloomed into grotesque human heads emerging from the earth. In the dragging mud and stones, they rolled into the mass grave in twos and threes, bumping and colliding with each other. In an instant, the originally gloomy mass grave was filled with a forest of white bones.

  The crow saw that every time a human head fell, it rushed towards the wooden box. The wooden box, with the help of the puddle, kept dodging the skulls. Hundreds of skulls entered the mass grave, and in an organized manner, surrounded the wooden box, like a well-trained team, preparing to attack a castle.

  When he came into the world, Jin Ya was fortunate enough to witness a battle between many human skulls and a wooden box.

  The wooden box was surrounded by a group of skulls, taking full advantage of the whirlpool to turn around and form an array with its opponent.

  The largest skull, like the leader of this team, every time it hits a small skull, the one being hit immediately rushes towards the wooden box and charges at the enemy.

  The wooden box was knocked to one side by the impact of the small skulls, and inevitably collided with another or several other small skulls. Each collision was accompanied by a flash of golden light and frequent bursts of phosphorescence. Columns of water shot up into the sky, then fell back into the abyss, creating a spectacular scene.

  The largest skull probably figured out the strategy from small attacks, and then charged towards the wooden box with its body as an example. The smaller skulls rushed up, and a more wonderful scene occurred instantly.

  With a loud "bang", the wooden box pulled out a puff of seven-colored smoke, and the four beasts inside fell into the pit like a cluster of light yellow dung, tightly packed together. The bodies of four Japanese soldiers immediately floated up in the water-filled pit.

  The white bones were like flies on dung, and the skulls of the people rushed up to them. In the collision between the skulls and the Japanese corpses, Chuanji miraculously rose from the pit of ten thousand people.