Chapter 80: Sorcery

Xiao Chu Ba surged into the “Pot and Jar Array” with the crowd. Despite his frantic rush, he was a step too late. The pots were already surrounded by a tight-packed mass of people, three layers deep. The sound of slurping gruel echoed to the heavens, punctuated by curses, shouts, and screams. Xiao Chu Ba couldn’t squeeze his way in, no matter how he tried. Pushing, pulling, and dragging were all useless against the tightly packed bodies. A wave of fury washed over him, and he madly swung his stick, bashing the heads of the people in front of him, drawing blood. Yet, the people in front of him stubbornly held their ground, ignoring his blows.

With a wild roar, Xiao Chu Ba dropped his stick and began to climb over the people, using both his hands and feet. He scrambled onto a sea of bobbing heads, only to realize he was still several layers of people away from the pots in the center. Heedless of what he grabbed or stepped on, he crawled over the tightly packed heads and shoulders, pushing relentlessly toward the middle.

In the center was a huge wooden basin. Around it, dozens of people were drinking gruel—or more accurately, fighting as they drank. Those in the back tried to pull the ones at the front away, but the front-liners wouldn’t budge, enduring punches, kicks, and beatings from sticks. Some had abandoned their bowls altogether, plunging their heads directly into the basin to drink.

One man’s head and face were injured, and blood dripped continuously from his forehead and cheeks into the gruel, turning it pink. The people around him, oblivious, continued to gulp it down.

Xiao Chu Ba struggled to get down, but there was no place to land. Every time he tried to slip off someone’s shoulder, he was pushed away by the people in front. He was tossed about on the dense sea of heads like a fish gasping on the sand, unable to reach the water just inches away, no matter how much he thrashed.

Seeing the gruel in the trough dwindling, Xiao Chu Ba burst into tears. His desperate wails seemed contagious, spreading quickly through the crowd. Soon, the entire area in front of the Cloud Ascension Temple was filled with the sound of weeping, so loud that even Zhang Yingchen was moved.

But the Pot and Jar Array had worked. The crowd of red-eyed refugees was now congested dozens of meters from the trench, and not a single person was charging it. As more refugees arrived, fights broke out over a spot at the pots. The scene grew even more chaotic, blocking the path for newcomers to approach the trench.

Zhang Yingchen raised his telescope and scanned the area slowly. In his view, the teeming mob was fighting and killing each other for a sliver of hope for survival. Under the pressure of survival, humanity and dignity had vanished. Some were beaten to death by the pots, others were pushed down and trampled. One man’s head was submerged in a basin, unmoving—it was unclear if he had been killed or had drowned. The people around him continued to drink the gruel as if nothing had happened.

His lens focused on a refugee who was somehow floating on the heads of the crowd. He was only a short distance from a basin, but no matter how he struggled with his hands and feet, he couldn’t get a single taste of the gruel. Zhang Yingchen sighed and was about to move the telescope when the man suddenly leaped, throwing himself through the air towards the basin. He crashed heavily into it, sending a spray of blood and gruel flying. The surrounding area erupted into chaos.

Zhang Yingchen lowered his telescope, murmuring the name of the “Supreme Unity Heavenly Lord Who Saves All from Suffering.” The Pot and Jar Array had done its job; the situation was now under control. But the danger was not over. The core members of the Namo Amitabha Cult had not yet shown themselves. Once the gruel was gone, the refugees’ momentum would build again. He had to force the cult’s leaders to reveal themselves quickly so he could perform his “miracles.”

He pressed a button on his remote control, and the loudspeakers, turned to maximum volume, began to play the Daoist melody “Rising Higher Step by Step.” In the middle of this icy, hellish scene, the sudden music was like a melody from the heavens. Even the refugees, red-eyed from fighting, paused in a daze.

Zhang Yingchen seized this moment of stillness and began to speak.

“Everyone,” his voice, layered over the elegant Daoist music, sounded solemn and sacred. “Do not fight over this food. Fighting for it will only grant you a fleeting moment of life, but for this struggle, you will be condemned to the eternal fires of hell…”

“Everyone, do not fight. Do not be swayed by heretics and demons. I have plenty of divinely gifted food here. But if you fight for it, even what you swallow will turn into the unquenchable flames of karma and burn your organs to ash—”

Zhang Yingchen had spent a long time carefully crafting his sermon. It was short but persuasive, designed to both soothe the refugees’ emotions and instill enough fear to guide them into the refugee camp in an orderly manner.

Before he could finish, the Namo Amitabha cultists mixed in the crowd, seeing the situation turn against them, immediately began to shout: “Don’t listen to the heretic Daoist’s nonsense—”

But their voices were far too faint compared to the decibels of the mobile sound system. The refugees were already captivated by the music and the True Man Zhang’s powerful voice; no one paid any attention to the shouting around them.

“…Hah! What demon dares to cause trouble? Die!” Zhang Yingchen pointed his fly-whisk, and a cultist at the front who was shouting to disrupt the speech was struck down with a fatal blow to the head. Blood sprayed into the air. The surrounding refugees immediately fell to their knees, prostrating themselves on the ground, trembling and silent.

Zhang Yingchen pointed his fly-whisk again and again, and the special reconnaissance snipers fired with unerring accuracy. More Namo Amitabha cultists were hit and fell. Occasionally, an unlucky refugee was killed by a stray bullet.

Each gunshot sent a large swath of refugees to their knees, burying their heads in the ground, afraid to look up. The chaotic scene in front of the Pot and Jar Array fell silent. The surviving Namo Amitabha cultists dared not speak or even remain standing—anyone who refused to kneel before the “True Man,” especially those who looked too well-fed to be refugees, became a target for elimination. In addition, refugees who continued to fight for food instead of kneeling were also shot.

Wang Xing and Lei Zilin hid in the back. They didn’t know what was happening at the front, only hearing the booming music and the deafening sermon. Seeing the refugees in front of them fall to their knees in waves, they wondered if “True Man Zhang’s” powers were truly that formidable. Their desire to cause trouble had already cooled by half. Wang Xing, a former bandit, knew how to read the wind. He immediately ordered his men to slowly retreat from the front. Meanwhile, a cultist had already run to report to the Protector: The heretic Daoist is powerful!

Zhang Yingchen watched as the refugees fell to their knees like cut grass wherever he pointed his fly-whisk. The land fell silent. He was overjoyed. Just as he was about to continue his sermon on reason and morality, a new sound of drums and music arose. A procession carrying various banners appeared from the back of the crowd. In the center were two palanquins. The first was carried by sixteen half-naked, burly men, shaded by a red silk canopy. The second was carried by eight men.

Zhang Yingchen had long received intelligence that the Saintess and the Protector were riding in these palanquins. He rejoiced inwardly: I’ve finally forced you out.

The procession of more than a hundred people, playing music as they went, wound its way toward the trench. The kneeling refugees parted to make a path for them.

The palanquin procession soon arrived before the trench. Now Zhang Yingchen could see clearly. On the palanquin, surrounded by a group of young girls in red and green holding various “ritual instruments,” stood a young woman—the “Saintess.” She looked to be about seventeen or eighteen years old, dressed in a palace-style gown lavishly decorated with embroidery.

Zhang Yingchen sighed to himself. The so-called “Saintess” was nothing more than a figurehead pushed forward by a group of professional religious politicians, likely a pitiful girl with a tragic fate. However, her current role meant she was doomed to die.

While Zhang Yingchen was lamenting her tragic fate, Protector Liu emerged from the second palanquin. He was a man in his fifties, fat, and dressed in a “clerical robe” that was neither Buddhist nor Daoist.

Protector Liu had been resentful about this assignment from the start. Instead of enjoying wine and snow in his own warm, heated room, attended by maids, he was stuck in a drafty palanquin among starving refugees, unable to eat or sleep properly. He had also heard that the “heretic Daoist’s” magic was very powerful, and he was already quite afraid. If it weren’t for the tens of thousands of refugees giving him courage, he would not have dared to face the Daoist directly.

But now, he had to step forward. The refugees had been completely subdued by the Daoist’s “Lion’s Roar,” and the “Saintess” was unreliable. He knew the truth about the cult’s saintesses all too well: most of them had no magical powers, and few could even read. They were merely “living goddesses” to be worshipped. It was impossible to rely on her to turn the situation around.

Protector Liu took the sword handed to him by a cultist and ordered his palanquin to be carried to the edge of the trench. His confidence immediately deflated. The Daoist’s earthen dike was already higher than his side, and the Daoist himself was perched on a high platform. Even standing on his palanquin, Liu was much lower and had to look up to speak.

Looking up, he saw Luo Chun, formerly of the Inner Dharma Hall, standing beside the Daoist. Protector Liu cursed inwardly. He raised his sword and pointed. “Heretic Daoist! You practice sorcery and bring disaster upon the people! Now that the Heavenly Maiden of our holy cult is here, you still won’t…”

Before he could finish, Zhang Yingchen burst into laughter. Amplified by the sound system, his laughter became a deafening roar, like a gale sweeping across the land. The cultists at the front staggered, on the verge of falling.

Protector Liu’s ears rang, and the sword nearly fell from his hand. He was stunned. He hadn’t expected this “heretic Daoist” to actually possess magical powers! The high-ranking members of his cult didn’t actually believe in the supernatural tricks they used; they saw them merely as “techniques” to deceive the lower-ranking members.