26: Chapter 26 Conehead Snail

Zhou Ping and a few other refugees looked at the situation before them.

If they hadn't experienced fleeing from famine, they probably wouldn't understand why these villagers of Qin Family Village were so devout to Lord Qinling.

But they had witnessed with their own eyes that the fishing boats of Qin Family Village were intact and the villagers had food.

While in their own village, there was nothing left.

Holding his deeply sleeping daughter in his arms, Zhou Ping gazed at the temple emitting wisps of blue smoke.

For the first time in his life, a humble yet extravagant thought arose in his mind.

If there really was a deity in this world who protected humanity...

How wonderful that would be.

Finally, after waiting for a long time, Zhou Ping and several refugees were led by Village Chief Qin Zongliang into the divine temple.

In their hands, they all clutched the joss sticks stuffed into them by the villagers.

Zhou Ping, holding his daughter, walked at the very front; the little girl had already woken up.

She rested on her father's shoulder, her small arms wrapped around his neck, and her eyes timidly gazed at the divine statue inside the temple door illuminated by the oil lamp.

Qin Ling inside the shrine was also sizing up these refugees from Zhou Family Village.

He had sensed these people the moment they entered Qin Family Village.

Zhou Ping stood in front of Lord Qinling's divine statue for a long time before clumsily lighting the joss sticks in his hand.

As blue smoke rose, he knelt down rigidly, his knees striking the rough stone slabs with a dull thud.

The youth supported his grandmother and was also kowtowing.

That middle-aged couple knelt together; the man kowtowed first, followed by the woman.

[incense points + 1]

[incense points + 1]

[incense points + 1]

Looking at the popped-up incense points, Qin Ling's eyes lit up.

The villagers of Zhou Family Village burning incense to provide incense points made him confirm one thing.

That was, as long as villagers from other villages burned incense for him, he could also obtain incense points.

If he wanted to gain more incense points, relying solely on Qin Family Village was definitely not enough.

He needed more villages to worship him!

However, changing the deity of worship was no small matter.

What's more, the villagers of Zhou Family Village had currently fled from famine and left; wanting to get all the villagers back would also take quite a bit of effort.

Watching Zhou Ping kowtow, Qin Ling reached out to rub his chin.

The conversation between Zhou Ping and Village Chief Qin Zongliang in the room earlier had all been heard by his split consciousness.

He also came to know the current situation of the coastal villages.

Almost all the coastal fishing villages experienced situations where fishing boats went out to sea and never returned.

This was clearly a very bad sign!

Although this East China Sea had never been truly peaceful and the crew members always risked their lives when going out to sea,

there had never been such a large-scale occurrence of fishing boats getting into trouble!

If so many fishing boats met with collective accidents so casually, these coastal fishing villages should have long since perished and definitely couldn't have survived until now.

This showed that such a situation was rare even for the treacherous East China Sea!

Qin Ling's split consciousness darted out of the temple, crossed the courtyard wall, passed over the village, arrived at the pier where fishing boats were quietly moored, and looked toward the boundless sea.

The sea surface was calm, with no wind or waves.

Yet he knew that beneath that calmness, something was lurking.

The last time he went out to sea with the boat, he had sensed the thing caught in the fishing net.

He had thought it was just a hazard encountered by chance.

But after hearing what Zhou Ping said, he knew this was definitely no coincidence.

Since the East China Sea was no longer peaceful, could Qin Family Village located by the sea continue to remain peaceful?

Qin Ling did not know.

But he knew that he truly had to prepare for the worst.

Inside the divine temple.

After finishing his kowtows, Zhou Ping stood up and said to Village Chief Qin Zongliang with a very earnest face,

"Uncle Qin, if I can return to the village this time and reassemble the villagers to return, I also want to enshrine Lord Qinling in Zhou Family Village."

Village Chief Qin Zongliang naturally rejoiced upon hearing this.

For a deity, naturally the more believers, the better.

Presumably, Lord Qinling would also be happy about this matter.

Moreover, Village Chief Qin Zongliang also hoped that these coastal villages wouldn't have to live in constant fear every day.

He knew all too well how much the lives of the villagers in Qin Family Village had changed after receiving the protection of Lord Qinling.

Qin Ling naturally heard Zhou Ping's words.

However, just as he had considered before, since the villagers of Zhou Family Village had now fled the village to escape the famine, talking about worshipping him was temporarily meaningless.

What was more important right now was to guard against the possible turmoil in this East China Sea.

With a thought from Qin Ling,

his split consciousness at the pier used Qin Family Village as the center, patrolling around it in circles from time to time.

For the days that followed, Qin Ling's split consciousness undertook the patrol work around Qin Family Village.

...

That very night.

The rain began to fall around the Hour of Hai.

At first it was just a few scattered drops, tapping lightly and melodiously against the tiled eaves of the dilapidated temple.

In less than half an hour, the rain abruptly turned heavy, and dense lines of rain wove into a huge water net, shrouding the entire Qin Family Village in a damp dark night.

Inside the temple, the oil lamp flickered unsteadily from the draft blowing through the hall.

The residual incense in the incense burner had long since burned out, leaving only a few grayish-white incense stalks stuck crookedly in the ash.

Qin Ling, who did not need sleep, naturally did not slumber.

His split consciousness appeared at the village pier.

The sound of the rain was noisy, yet it could not cover up those sounds.

Rustle, rustle.

These sounds were like countless sharp claws scraping against the damp reef rocks.

The perception of Qin Ling's split consciousness spread silently with the pier as the center.

In just a short while, he sensed it.

At first, it was just a few black spots crawling out from the foam at the junction of the waves and the sandy shore.

Then there were a dozen or so, dozens of them.

That was—

The Cone Snail!

Qin Ling recognized at a glance this sea snail that frequently appeared by the seaside.

But this was definitely not an ordinary Cone Snail.

Their bodies were as large as an infant, and the shells that should have been colorful and beautiful now presented a bewitching dark purple color.

Beneath the shells, two protruding, round eyeballs slowly rotated in the rainy night, exuding the indifference unique to cold-blooded animals.

Besides the eyeballs, Qin Ling also saw tentacles.

Pitch-black tentacles with tips curved and sharp like sickles, each as long as an adult's forearm, were waving wantonly in the rain.

Some of these Cone Snails had not yet become spirits; they were simply massive in size.

They had not yet completely broken away from the instinct of snails, making their movements sluggish and their perception dull.

The only dangerous thing was the cutting lethality brought by those sickle-like tentacles.

But there were also individual Cone Snails that were already monsters!

However, even for the Cone Snails that had already become monsters, their strength was only at the early stage of the First Transformation.

This strength was really nothing to Qin Ling.

He didn't even think these Cone Snails were worth him making a move personally.

As a deity, naturally he didn't plan to do everything personally.

Didn't he spend some effort cultivating the siblings Qin Yin and Qin Mo to become martial artists precisely so they could help him handle these trivial matters?

Furthermore, the strength of these Cone Snails happened to be just right for this pair of siblings to practice on.

With thoughts flashing through his mind, Qin Ling immediately used the Dream-Entering Technique to pull the siblings Qin Yin and Qin Mo into a dreamscape.