Cursed Mountains and Seas

Chapter 18 Evil Spirits and Yin Bodies, Three Thousand Abyss Treasures (Please read and vote)
While pulling the Zhang brothers along, Wang Cheng advanced instead of retreating, with the three flames of fortune, prosperity, and longevity burning fiercely on his head and both shoulders.

The room felt like a furnace, with the air crackling with the sizzling sound of ice hitting hot iron.

Although he has not yet reached the level of "pure yang fire that can scorch evil spirits", he at least has the power to resist ordinary evil spirits.

The eerie stench of money dissipated considerably after being extinguished by the three fires, and Zhang Wu and Zhang Wen escaped unscathed, scrambling out of the main room.

Behind them, the resource expert had already helped Wang Cheng see the information about the evil spirit.

[Evil spirit: This place has no silver buried, also known as: Silver accomplice.]

Everyone knows that tigers have their accomplices, but few know that many rich people also have their accomplices.

The mountain bandits, mountain chasers, and sitting tigers of the mountain lineage all have a unique skill.

When burying silver and other treasures, a living person would be tortured so badly that they would wish for death, and then asked, "Are you willing to guard the silver for me?" The person, unable to endure the torture, would have no choice but to agree.

Finally, burn that person to ashes and put them in a jar along with the treasure. This will conceal the treasure's radiance, prevent others from spying on it, and kill the thief.

Over time, these guardian spirits of treasures will be corrupted by the legend of "not hiding three hundred taels of silver" and the power of wishes, turning into evil spirits.

The stronger the evil spirit was in life, the longer it has been buried in the ground, the more powerful it becomes.

Taboo: Anyone who obtains this kind of silver will convulse and faint upon smelling the stench of money. The silver accomplice must be lured away with even more valuable wealth to successfully obtain the silver and treasure.

It was the evil aura emanating from Yin Chang that obscured the precious light.

If it weren't for the Four Seas Coin, Wang Cheng would never have been able to find the treasure that Xue Da had hidden.

In the blink of an eye, a dull figure, covered in silver-gray and stained with blood, appeared before Wang Cheng, its chilling, foul stench almost freezing the air.

call out!call out!
The Zhang brothers, who had rolled out of the main room, did not run away. They drew their bows and arrows behind Wang Cheng and shot two arrows at the evil spirit.

It passed right through without harming Yin Chang in the slightest.

This was the first time Wang Cheng had truly faced evil spirits since he sent the Wang ship away, and the Zhang brothers were in a similar situation.

In the rush, he lost his composure and forgot that only divine officials or other evil spirits could fight against them.

Only after missing his target did he realize what had happened and quickly reminded Wang Cheng:

“Hey, the elders in the clan say that evil spirits are demons that crawl out from the thoughts of all living beings. Ordinary people can't hurt them. Let's retreat first.”

Wang Cheng understood evil spirits better than they did, and the words his father had once said came to mind:
"In this world, yin and yang are mixed together. The dead and ghosts are just commonplace things. Most of them are not harmful to people. They are just meant to confuse, cover up, and scare people."

But evil spirits and ghosts are completely different.

Just as each type of divine official corresponds to a specific of the seventy-two pentads, each type of evil spirit corresponds to a particular legend or folk custom in human society.

Its essence is roughly equivalent to a natural phenomenon. It kills according to specific obsessions and rules. Ordinary people can only run away when they encounter it. Only officials of the divine path can confront it head-on.

Some mid- to high-ranking officials were even able to subdue them and use them for their own purposes, employing these evil spirits to control other evil spirits.

The silver accomplice before us, created by human hands, has been corrupted by the legend of "there is no silver buried here," and is no longer what it used to be.

Whoever exposes his obsession with "protesting too much" will die!
A flash of silver light appeared before his eyes, and a silver arm lashed out in front of Wang Cheng.

Arrows were ineffective against it, but even though its counterattack was blocked by the blade of the ring-pommel sword, it almost knocked Wang Cheng over.

With his current mere cultivation level, he has absolutely no chance of defeating the opponent.

After rolling on the ground to the doorway, the silver accomplice did not continue the pursuit.

Upon seeing this, Wang Cheng's face lit up with joy:
"There's a chance! This silver courier must have been obtained by Xue Da from a local official of the mountain-walking lineage. It only reacts mechanically and guards the treasure without ever leaving its side."

Furthermore, I also saw its contraindications, so it's definitely worth a try.

Wang Cheng stomped his foot suddenly. The Ghost Technique [Turtle Head Body] that he had taken from Haizhu Ghost was useless on land, but his other trump card was unaffected.

Zhang Wu and Zhang Wen, who were outside the door, suddenly felt a blur before their eyes.

In a daze, I vaguely saw Wang Cheng's shadow twisting, and he suddenly opened a pair of oily green eyes. His body was covered with snake-like patterns that quickly wove into a gorgeous yet sinister royal robe.

That appearance seemed even more ferocious and terrifying than the evil spirit Yin Chang, and I couldn't help but shudder.

But upon closer inspection, there was nothing unusual.

Rubbing his eyes, he saw that the once menacing Yin Chang had become distorted as if he had seen something utterly terrifying. His five-hole-like features were almost contorted, and he shuddered, taking a step back with lightning speed. If he hadn't been restrained by the jar, he probably would have vanished without a trace.

Only Wang Cheng himself knew that what they saw was not an illusion.

What has just been exposed is his evil spirit form.

Scholar Wang Fugui died because of a folk ritual of sending off the Wang boat, and that very night he was transformed into an evil spirit, naturally becoming bound to this folk custom.

Wang Cheng bought its evil destiny and inherited this connection as well.

Crucially, he himself was also a participant in the ceremony of sending off the royal ship, and was the second core member of the ceremony besides the prince.

Therefore, the evil spirit that was formed was not the evil spirit "[Scholar]", but the evil spirit "[Crown Prince on Behalf of Heaven]!"
Obsession with killing—Anyone who dares to oppose me, I'll put them on my boat and take them with me.

For ordinary ghosts and evil spirits in the East China Sea, encountering him is not much different from encountering Ox-Head and Horse-Face; even just wearing a skin is enough to scare ghosts.

Immediately, Wang Cheng activated the [Dragon Breathing Technique], exhaling a deep breath towards the evil spirit before him, and then inhaling sharply.

The silver accomplice actually took the initiative to leap, and with this aura, landed in the coin hole of the [Four Seas Coin], and then fell back into slumber.

The most valuable thing Wang Cheng possessed was that half of the Mountain Spirit Coin, a treasure that could buy and sell fates. It easily outshone the wealth in the ground.

He smiled smugly and transformed back into human form from an evil spirit.

He picked up the shovel himself and dug a couple more times, eventually unearthing a dark, black jar.

Upon opening the lid, the top layer is a layer of silver ingots covered with dried black and red patches, all shaped like small boats, with inscriptions of fifty taels, twenty taels, and ten taels.

As the night wind blew, the bloodstains on the surface and the stench of money in the room all vanished without a trace.

Even though Wang Cheng was considered a wealthy young man in the past, he was still speechless when he saw so much money. The Zhang brothers, who came up behind him, couldn't help but gasp in astonishment.

"Wow! The fishing tycoons are making so much money?"

One by one, the gold ingots were taken out and counted. It was discovered that there were still many heavy gold ingots at the bottom, but they were covered with teeth marks, indicating that they had passed through the hands of many people.

I held them in my hand and weighed them; each piece weighed about seven or eight ounces.

During the reign of Emperor Daisho, the exchange rate between gold and silver was approximately 1 tael of gold to 8 taels of silver, and 1 tael of silver to 1000 copper coins.

Zhang Wen quickly counted the money, his excitement mixed with resentment:

"Boatman, this money adds up to about 3800 taels of silver, enough for a wealthy self-cultivating farmer to work for more than two hundred years without eating or drinking."

Looking at the dried bloodstains, one can only imagine how many merchants these fishing tyrants had harmed on the Jiulong River over the past four years to amass such wealth.

It's quite strange that such a wicked person could actually save so much money without using it for eating, drinking, gambling, and whoring.

What exactly are they planning to do?

Wang Cheng recalled Xue Da's cultivation level of quietly lighting the lamp of his heart today, and felt a sense of enlightenment.

He continued his inspection, head down, and found two more boxes below, in addition to the gold and silver.

The wooden box contained two land deeds, the address of which was the house in Green Willow Lane.

Real estate in this era and in this location is worthless; at most, it's worth a few dozen taels of silver.

The other, however, is a dazzling and magnificent mother-of-pearl inlaid lacquer jewelry box.

Upon seeing it, the Zhang brothers became immediately excited:
"Big boat, this is it, this is it."

This is the box my father pulled out of the water when he was fishing in the East China Sea!

Wang Cheng reached out and picked it up, calling out its name directly without needing the Four Seas Coin:

"A purple lacquered gold box inlaid with mother-of-pearl and fish and seaweed patterns—just as I thought, it really is this treasure."

He knew about it simply because this kind of mother-of-pearl inlaid box was extremely famous among the water-dwelling officials.

Legend has it that every treasure from the Three Thousand Abyss that floats out from the depths of the vast ocean is always contained in a purple lacquered gold box inlaid with mother-of-pearl and fish and seaweed patterns.

No two boxes have exactly the same pattern.

So, regardless of the value of what's inside, the box itself is an extremely rare item!
(End of this chapter)