132: Chapter 132 Amnesia

The reaction of Ye Xiaoqing's team members to Xiao Wang's disappearance made Ye Xiaoqing feel a chill from the back of his head all the way to his heels.

At first, he thought these bastards were messing with him, but on second thought, given the circumstances, these people couldn't be that bored, let alone lack the awareness to see the situation.

So, Ye Xiaoqing began recounting various past events, trying to awaken their memories.

But all of Xiao Wang's experiences and past seemed to have been erased from their lives out of thin air, and their memories had been distorted along with it.

For instance, there was one time Xiao Wang went on a mission with only one other team member, but after that member's memory was twisted, the entire mission only featured him alone, with no trace of Xiao Wang's existence at all.

Even though there were various transaction records, videos, and photos, the team members just couldn't recall a person named Xiao Wang.

At that moment, Ye Xiaoqing knew that things were not looking good.

He immediately contacted the Jiantian Bureau to report the matter, then found Li Xiuyuan.

After listening to all this, Li Xiuyuan furrowed his brows slightly.

"What is the approximate cultivation level of your team members?" he asked.

Ye Xiaoqing said, "They are all around the Third Realm."

Ye Xiaoqing's squad, including himself, had a total of six people, consisting of both martial artists and cultivators; except for Ye Xiaoqing, the captain, the team members were all at the Third Realm.

"Only you still remember that Xiao Wang; perhaps the formation inside this Guoqing Temple can only affect those at the Third Realm and below."

This was only Li Xiuyuan's initial assessment; whether it was as he said remained to be investigated.

In short, Guoqing Temple was clearly not as safe as it appeared on the surface, so Li Xiuyuan decided to go find that Buddha statue hidden in the corner to get to the bottom of it.

...

After leaving the side hall, Li Xiuyuan followed the gaze he had sensed earlier by himself.

His entire body was enveloped in white mist, as if he had donned an invisibility cloak, and he brushed past numerous pilgrims and monks without anyone noticing.

He arrived in front of the door to the hall where miscellaneous items were stored. The door was tightly shut, with a rusty iron lock hanging on it. Li Xiuyuan moved his Spiritual Sense slightly, and the iron lock opened automatically.

After the hall door opened, Li Xiuyuan walked inside, passed through the piled-up clutter, and found the Buddha statue in the corner.

"I have some things to ask you; if you know what's good for you, come out yourself."

Li Xiuyuan said to the dust-covered Buddha statue before him.

The Buddha statue showed no reaction; the spirit within it either was too terrified or naively thought that playing dead would fool him.

After waiting for a moment, Li Xiuyuan's fingers hooked onto the Buddha statue's head and applied a little force.

Fine cracks appeared on the surface of the stone statue, rapidly spreading along its texture.

And the moment his Spiritual Sense probed into the Buddha statue, he saw the spirit hidden inside.

The spirit finally knew it couldn't keep up the act. It floated out from the depths of the Buddha statue. Since it was merely a wisp of a spirit, facing an existence with Li Xiuyuan's level of power was like morning dew meeting the scorching sun—it could evaporate into nothingness at any moment.

"Don't, don't kill me!"

The spirit's voice was slightly hoarse and trembling incessantly.

"I am just a wandering spirit that accidentally stumbled into this place; I have nothing to do with anything here. Please, I beg you, don't kill me."

Li Xiuyuan did not let go; he still gripped the Buddha statue's head. "I ask, you answer. If I am dissatisfied in the slightest, you know the consequences yourself."

The spirit immediately nodded like a chicken pecking at rice, its desire to survive evident.

"Who are you? Where are you from? Why did you come to Guoqing Temple?"

"I... my name is Ergouzi. I am a wandering spirit from nearby, dead for many years. That day, I was wandering nearby when suddenly an extremely abundant amount of spiritual energy forcefully pulled me here. You also know that for wandering spirits like me, temples and Taoist shrines are completely forbidden places that cannot be entered."

"After entering the temple, I searched for a long time and finally found this un-consecrated Buddha statue to hide in."

Ergouzi stammered out his origin.

Since entering Guoqing Temple, Ergouzi had been hiding in this Buddha statue, not daring to leave.

Because Guoqing Temple was brimming with Buddha light, if he made even the slightest movement, he would be converted by the dense Buddhist Dharma here. It was equivalent to finding a prison for himself, but at least by staying in this prison, he could barely survive.

"What else do you know?" Li Xiuyuan continued to ask.

Ergouzi's voice suddenly became a few degrees shriller: "This temple is in the belly of a colossal giant! We are all in its belly!"

Li Xiuyuan's pupils contracted slightly; he had not expected to receive this answer.

Then, Ergouzi spat out everything he knew.

Precisely because Ergouzi was a wandering spirit, he could see more things. After entering Guoqing Temple, he had once seen with his own eyes, on a certain night, a giant creature that could almost cover the entire sky spit out Guoqing Temple.

And that giant creature seemed to be cultivating, refining the essence of the sun and moon. Once it finished its cultivation, it swallowed Guoqing Temple back in.

"Did you see the appearance of that giant creature clearly?" Li Xiuyuan asked.

Ergouzi shook his head: "No, it was too massive; I couldn't see what it looked like at all."

"That is all I know. I swear I haven't hidden anything."

Li Xiuyuan fell into deep thought.

If what Ergouzi said was true, and they were currently in the belly of a giant, then what could this giant be?

The other party was highly likely to be a Rising Beings, but what kind of Rising Beings could possess such earth-shattering power?

Furthermore, there were no barriers between Guoqing Temple and the outside world.

When Li Xiuyuan brought Jingxin here, he had seen the bustling scene of Guoqing Temple with his own eyes, and upon entering the temple, he hadn't felt any obstruction.

That giant creature had once personally spat Guoqing Temple out from its belly, which meant that Guoqing Temple and the land beneath it were all inside its stomach.

If this was the case, there must be a teleportation formation or something similar in between, yet Li Xiuyuan hadn't sensed any fluctuations of spiritual energy. How could it connect so seamlessly?

Li Xiuyuan didn't fully believe everything Ergouzi said, but it was at least a direction.

...

...

The abnormal conditions in Guoqing Temple became more and more frequent following the disappearance of Ye Xiaoqing's team members.

First, what Yiyun had mentioned occurred: monks walking on the road would inexplicably start crying, or perhaps laughing, and the pilgrims seemed not to see this at all, continuing to converse with the monks normally.

In the Grand Hall, several young monks actually sprawled onto the Buddha's offering table, eating the offerings while chanting scriptures with a strange tone.

The pilgrims below joined in the chanting, and from time to time, the wooden fish would sound; whenever this happened, the pilgrims would piously kowtow.

Similar bizarre scenes played out one after another in Guoqing Temple, and in the face of these utterly absurd events, everyone actually ignored them.

And Li Xiuyuan's conjecture was also quickly shattered.

He had previously believed that this so-called memory loss would only affect those at the Third Realm and below, but soon, even Ye Xiaoqing himself forgot about Xiao Wang.