Enshrinement as a God

The Water God Festival, which had reached its second day, had become even more crowded with more people coming from other villages.

Perhaps because it was a pier village of not a very large scale, each inn was full of people, and exorbitant prices were even more rampant, and as such, arguments frequently occurred, and fierce fights were frequent.

"You die, I die!"

Thump!

It was an early morning, and in the inn where Jiang Ziya and Xi Xichang were staying, tables and chairs were flying with the sound of a fight.

Thanks to the gathered onlookers, an even more chaotic mess was unfolding.

"Ugh..."

"Hmm..."

Despite the commotion that filled the surroundings, Jiang Ziya and Xi Xichang, who were sitting opposite each other at the table, just groaned and fiddled with their food.

Although they were sitting in the same place, their thoughts had already gone somewhere else, and they were looking at different places.

Clang!

With the sound of a plate breaking, fragments of the bowl flew in the direction of the two.

Thump! Thump!

The two, who had been meaninglessly playing with their chopsticks, lightly flicked away the palm-sized pieces of the plate with their chopsticks.

"What on earth is this commotion from the morning..."

Xi Xichang, who had been distracted, came to her senses and frowned, looking at the fight that was happening on one side of the inn.

"Is something wrong?"

Jiang Ziya also broke his thoughts and asked Xi Xichang.

"I don't have time, and there's no boat to the Sichuan Alliance... so I can't help but worry."

Xi Xichang, who had heard the news of the Black Contemplation Fortress from the Tang Clan before, could not help but be anxious to be spending time in a place like this.

If the succession problem, which was a chronic problem of the Black Contemplation Fortress, were to be resolved, the current chaotic situation of the Sichuan Alliance would inevitably become a fatal weakness.

Although she had tried to establish order by borrowing the power of the Tang Clan from the outside, that had also been thwarted.

On the contrary, since the Tang Clan had become enemies with the Martial Arts Alliance due to this incident, a potential hostile relationship could also be created with the Sichuan Alliance.

She needed to go to the Sichuan Alliance as soon as possible to inform them of the news and to persuade the vice-leader, the Tiger-Subduing Sword, Seung Huho, to reorganize the inside.

"As the surroundings are getting more and more noisy, it seems that I'm likely to get caught up in an argument if I'm not careful."

Jiang Ziya's eyebrows danced strangely as he heard Xi Xichang's monologue.

Xi Xichang, seeing Jiang Ziya, who was suddenly eating the cold food in a hurry, raised the corners of her eyes.

"What about you, Scholar Jiang?"

As Xi Xichang saw it, Jiang Ziya had also barely touched his food until now.

She had heard that he had passed the preliminary round with ease, and to think that he was worried about the main round, he was not that kind of person.

"It's nothing. I just have something on my mind..."

It was not because of the main round of the Fish Dragon Festival or the group of martial artists who might be plotting something.

This was because the strange feeling that he had been feeling since yesterday had become even more certain in the morning.

Jiang Ziya, who had found this strange, had gotten up from his bed and had drawn the eight trigrams to solve the divination, but strangely, the direction was not caught, and the result was not easily revealed.

Although there had been no major problem with the divination that he had habitually looked at simply the day before, something must have changed overnight.

"The main round of that competition is from today, right?"

"Yes, are you thinking of coming?"

"We'll see."

Although Xi Xichang avoided the answer, it was not difficult to guess that she would come to the competition venue where the Fish Dragon Festival was held today, judging by her actions.

"It might be more boring than you think. Why don't you go see something else?"

"You hinted that I should come for the preliminary round, but it seems that you don't want me to come for the main round?"

"No way. I'm saying it for your sake, Miss Xi."

If the group of martial artists who had a grudge against Jiang Ziya were to do something, it was highly likely that it would be on the day of the main round of the competition.

Jiang Ziya did not want to get Xi Xichang involved in such a thing.

Xi Xichang looked at Jiang Ziya for a moment as if she were suspicious.

"Gah!"

Bang! Bang!

The fight that was happening in the inn was reaching its peak.

As they drew their swords at each other, Jiang Ziya, who could not watch anymore, stuffed the food into his mouth in one bite and got up from his seat.

"Then I'll go out first because of the Fish Dragon Festival."

"The competition doesn't start for another hour, does it?"

Jiang Ziya, who had not thought that Xi Xichang would even know the time of the competition, was at a loss for words for a moment.

"Practice, I'm going to practice."

At Jiang Ziya's somewhat unconvincing answer, Xi Xichang silently nodded her head and drank the remaining tea in the teacup.

"Let's go."

"What?"

"You said you were going to practice. Since I was going to stop by to cheer you on anyway, let's go together."

"You're really stubborn."

"If I'm fooled three times, am I a fool?"

If one were to add up the time he had hidden Yang Jian's identity and the time he had hidden Nezha's matter at the Tang Clan, Jiang Ziya had already ditched Xi Xichang twice.

As Xi Xichang pointed that out, Jiang Ziya also gave up on making any more excuses.

In the first place, if something strange were to happen in the village, Xi Xichang also had to know so that she could prepare for it if something happened.

"It's just that there's something on my mind, so you might be making a wasted trip."

"Let's just say it's a walk. If we're stuck in the inn anyway, we'll have to put up with the sound of the ruffians fighting, won't we?"

Jiang Ziya and Xi Xichang, who had left the inn, moved their feet and went to a deserted beach.

Although it was not a place far from the village, the reeds were growing high, and the floor was full of rough gravel, so it seemed to be a place that people did not often visit.

Although there was a mudflat, the seawater was far away, and no particular features were visible.

Jiang Ziya took out a piece of paper with the eight trigrams and the four cardinal directions drawn on it from his bosom, put it down on the floor, and placed his favorite hand knife in the center.

"Why did you come here?"

"Look."

The hand knife that Jiang Ziya had put down spun around according to his hand and then stopped, pointing to the west.

"Is it a technique of body transfer?"

For Xi Xichang, who had witnessed Jiang Ziya's great martial prowess, body transfer was not a very surprising thing.

But Jiang Ziya shook his head at Xi Xichang's question.

"It's a technique to confirm the direction."

"Then... something must be wrong. That way is north, and if so, this way would be east."

"That's why I'm saying it's strange."

Jiang Ziya picked up the hand knife and the paper again.

"Since my technique can't be wrong, the eight trigrams technique must be being affected by something."

Xi Xichang, recalling the strange tricks of Jiang Ziya that she had seen a few times, could roughly guess what Jiang Ziya was worried about.

"A formation... is it?"

"I don't know. Maybe other techniques or unknown powers are at work."

This was the first time Jiang Ziya had had such an experience since he had come to the Central Plains.

In Jiang Ziya's memory, the only time his directional technique had been affected was when he had gone out of the inn in the Hermit's Valley in the past.

Jiang Ziya, who had displayed his directional technique in the mist that filled the Hermit's Valley, had almost walked into the direction of the Heaven beyond Heaven, which could be called the center of the Hermit's Valley, alone.

Fortunately, he had met Shirsha and had not entered the Heaven beyond Heaven, but Master Gongsun, who had heard the story later, had gotten angry and had warned Jiang Ziya.

'The power spread in the Hermit's Valley is a huge barrier created by nature. Can such a change happen here overnight?'

If he was a skilled person who could spread such a huge formation or technique overnight, he was surely a great master.

Xi Xichang's expression also became stiff.

"Could it be the Tang Clan..."

Although the Sichuan Tang Clan was famous for being proficient in poison and hidden weapons, as a prestigious martial family, their formation was also of a considerable level.

But Jiang Ziya shook his head at Xi Xichang's words.

"That's not it."

To see it as the Tang Clan, the situation was too quiet.

If the Tang Clan had spread a formation, they would have surely spread a net here and would have ambushed them.

"Then that's a relief... but if it's as Scholar Jiang says, something must have happened last night, right?"

"The direction was not caught in the inn, but since the opposite direction is caught when I arrived here, there must be something here."

Xi Xichang, hearing Jiang Ziya's words, looked around the reed forest's mudflat, which was overgrown with reeds, once again.

But no matter how much she looked, she could not notice any suspicious signs with her naked eye.

"What on earth am I supposed to be looking for?"

Jiang Ziya smiled at Xi Xichang's question.

"We have to find something suspicious. If it's a technique, there will be a medium, and if it's a formation, there will be a core that constitutes the formation."

Xi Xichang had only focused on the study and training of martial arts, and had never learned about formations or techniques, so she was no different from a layman.

"Can't you narrow down the target?"

"That's why I was trying to find it alone, in case you would say that."

"Alright."

Xi Xichang, who had heard Jiang Ziya's words and had jumped into the mudflat without fear, walked on without hesitation, even though her feet went into the mud and the mud was wrapped around them.

Although an ordinary woman would have been afraid of getting her clothes and body dirty with mud, Xi Xichang did not hesitate to get muddy.

Jiang Ziya took out Tonglin from his bosom, stretched it long, and then swung it in one go.

Swoosh!

The reeds in the place where Tonglin had passed were cut smoothly as if they had been cut with a knife.

Xi Xichang, who was struggling and walking across the mudflat towards the beach, asked Jiang Ziya, who was cutting the reed forest, as if she were dumbfounded.

"Isn't it this way?"

"If something were placed in the mudflat, the energy would be affected by the high tide."

Xi Xichang felt as if she had been hit hard on the head by Jiang Ziya's answer.

If it was low tide now, there was a risk that if something were installed here, it would collapse when the high tide came in.

But if he had told her a little earlier, the situation of her knees being submerged in the mud would not have happened.

Xi Xichang, at the fact that Jiang Ziya had teased her, had a deep wrinkle on her forehead and struggled to walk out towards the reed forest.

Although the soil on the side of the reed forest was a little damp, it was not to the extent of getting her shoes dirty.

Jiang Ziya leisurely cut the reeds for a long time in that place, but he could not find any traces of a formation or a technique.

"This is strange..."

Not a single rock or tree was caught in his sight.

Even if he tried to find the traces with a technique, the direction was erratic, so he could not easily judge the location.

"Are you sure this is the place?"

The two, who had searched for about an hour from then, faced each other with a tired look.

"This is really strange. If we've searched this much, there should be something..."

"No matter how much I look around, there is not a single suspicious object here. The only thing that has been touched by a human hand is this stone Buddha."

"...What did you just say?"

"What?"

"That... touched by a human hand..."

"The stone Buddha?"

Jiang Ziya, at Xi Xichang's question, immediately flew his body towards her.

Xi Xichang, at Jiang Ziya's reaction, hurriedly moved ahead to one side of the path in the reed forest where she had seen the stone Buddha.

"No way... is this it?"

The small stone Buddha, which did not even reach her knees, was a Buddha statue that could be seen while walking on the road, and the only slightly unusual thing was that it was wearing a small hat woven with reeds.

But if one recalled that this was a reed forest, that point was also not so unusual.

As Jiang Ziya took off the small hat, the fierce face of the Buddha statue was revealed.

"This is not a Buddha statue. It is the statue of Daiitoku Myō-ō, who protects the west among the Five Great Myō-ō."

(End of Chapter)