Mingde Temple is located in the south of Feiye City, in the mountains and forests, with an endless sea of trees and mountains behind it.
There is only one mountain road around, which winds up to its gate.
At this time, the sun was setting in the west, and the red light was everywhere.
A few pilgrims were leaving in front of the temple.
It is already afternoon, and few people come to burn incense at this time.
Because the night in the wild is far more dangerous than the day.
At this time, at the gate of Mingde Temple, a tall and sturdy young man was standing.
The young man was dressed in dark green linen clothes, with a large bamboo hat on his head and a rough short knife on his waist. He walked briskly towards the mountain gate.
The young man has an ordinary face but bright eyes. It is obvious at a glance that he does not come from an ordinary family with malnutrition.
But who would have thought that a few months ago, this person was thin, small, and weakly built like a bean sprout.
The young man was Wei He who took the opportunity to leave the team.
He ran all the way and spent a lot of energy before arriving at Mingde Temple in a short time.
Walking up the gray stone steps step by step, Wei He soon came to a large temple with yellow tiles and red walls.
On the plaque at the main entrance of the temple, it is written in red characters on a black background: Mingde Temple, in three large characters.
Two young novice monks were sweeping the fallen leaves outside the door with brooms, sweeping them into a pile.
Wei He stood outside the door and looked inside. At the entrance of the temple, there was a huge courtyard. Inside, there was a black incense burner with a width of two people around it, and a large number of incense heads were slowly burning.
There is very little smoke left in the incense head, and it seems that it is about to burn out.
At this time, two more pilgrims arrived together, crossed the temple door and walked into the courtyard.
Then he bowed towards the incense burner, made a salute, and then entered the side hall.
Wei He did not follow him through the door, but wandered to the left, walking around the temple wall and into the forest.
The two young novices were sweeping the floor and whispering something, not paying attention to his movements at all.
Wei He walked around Mingde Temple in a large circle and found that the temple was quite newly renovated, and many parts seemed to have been completed recently.
Moreover, the robes worn by the novices are not bad in workmanship and obviously not bad in money.
Returning to the main entrance of the temple, Wei He was about to enter.
But just in time to see the gate, a small group of soldiers walked out of it.
Each of these soldiers is thick-waisted and broad-shouldered, tall and tall. They wear standard black leather armor and have sheathed broad-backed knives on their waists. They walk quickly and are well-trained.
Fully six soldiers filed out, protecting the pair of women in the middle.
Among the two women, one was wearing a green skirt, red shoes, and a girl's bun, and was following the other woman step by step. She was obviously a maid or something like that.
Another woman, wearing a white veil, black hair shawl, with silver hair accessories looming in the hair.
Even though this woman was wearing a veil, the gentle and polite temperament revealed in her eyes made Wei He look at her a few more times involuntarily.
Looking from a distance, the woman at the center of the soldiers was dressed in a white dress and was spotless. From a glance, she knew that someone in the family was always doing her laundry.
Otherwise no one can keep such clean clothes all the time.
Wei He sighed in his heart, these ancient people did not have a washing machine and could still maintain such a level of cleanliness, they must have been of extraordinary origin.
And those soldiers...
He turned his attention to the six soldiers guarding the woman.
The leather armor of these soldiers is engraved with the word "Hong". The writing is not big, but it is extremely clear and profound.
Soon, the woman, escorted by a group of soldiers, went down the mountain along the stone steps, gradually went away, and disappeared into the dense forest.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk... This private soldier from Hongjiabao is different from ordinary people at first glance. He is really extraordinary." A pilgrim couldn't help but admire in a low voice.
"Good rice and good meat are provided every day. I heard that Hongjiabao even teaches private soldiers internal martial arts training. With these conditions, even a waste can be turned into an elite." Another person caressed his beard and sighed.
"Aren't they just elite soldiers built with money? Now the defenders are very thin, and Hongjiabao secretly raises such strong private soldiers. This plan..."
Most of the pilgrims who were still outside at this time were not ordinary people. They started chatting at this time, and most of them had their own experiences and opinions.
It was immediately obvious that something was wrong with Hongjiabao.
Wei He said nothing. What happened to Hongjiabao had nothing to do with him. He only came here to find out the whereabouts of his missing parents.
Entering the temple gate and the courtyard, he quickly found a white-browed monk passing by.
"This master."
The monk who was pulled by him looked him up and down.
"The donor is polite."
"I would like to ask, half a year ago, did your temple invite some stone carvers to come to the temple to carve Buddha statues?" Wei He asked in a deep voice.
"Six months ago?" The old monk thought for a while, "It did happen. But..."
.........
.........
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At this time, it is at the foot of Mingde Temple Mountain.
A tall, strong man wearing a straw hat slowly came to the stone steps going up the mountain.
He took out a dark green bamboo tube from his arms, shook it gently, held it close to his ear, and listened carefully.
There was a faint sound of wings vibrating inside the bamboo tube. The vibrations were three long and two short, very regular.
The man twisted the lid of the bamboo tube, and there was a black hole for ventilation on the lid.
He got close to the black hole and smelled it.
"It smells good, and there's something missing here."
He has been tracking the black-letter bug continuously for these days, secretly wiping out all the living people who had last come into contact with the black-letter bug.
It relies on the smelling insects in this bamboo tube.
The scent bug and the black bug are natural enemies, and they specifically feed on the black bug. Once a black bug is found, or even people it comes into contact with, the fragrance will naturally emit fragrance.
The aroma is as moisturizing as sandalwood and unforgettable. The closer you get to the target, the stronger the aroma emitted by the scent insects becomes.
The black letter bug is even more difficult to deal with. Once it comes into contact with a human, it will take several months to dissipate if it leaves dry marks.
The man had already relied on this method to kill three of the people who had come into contact with the black-lettered insects, and disguised their bodies as if they had been attacked by ferocious beasts.
With his martial arts, it is not difficult to do this.
The man walked up the stone steps with relaxed and natural steps. His expression was leisurely, as if he was no different from other pilgrims who came to worship Buddha.
He has the confidence and the confidence.
Back then, Zhao Deli was a gangster, but he was still affected and died. The people he could come into contact with were just ordinary people.
Even if they are slightly stronger, they are just stronger lower-level gang members.
He was the one who was sent to clean up the area around here, and he was the one who silenced these people.
To him, these people are just stronger ants who can be easily harvested.
In fact, in the entire Feiye City, the only ones he could be afraid of were the older generation of martial arts masters or the masters of the big families in the inner city. The rest, even those small gangs that were as weedy as weeds, were not worth mentioning.
Wei Hezheng took the old monk and asked him about the disappearance of the stonemason six months ago.
"The mason didn't come to the temple at all at that time. He only disappeared halfway. When the donor asked about this, the old monk really didn't know how to answer." The old monk was puzzled.
"Is there not a single survivor after that?" Wei He frowned.
"I didn't find it. All the stonemasons disappeared halfway. Therefore, in the end, we hired high-priced stonemasons from other cities to complete the Buddha statues in this temple." The old monk shook his head.
Wei He inquired repeatedly for a long time, but found no clues. He only knew that the stonemason disappeared halfway before arriving at Mingde Temple.
However, there is only less than ten miles between Mingde Temple and Feiye City, and passers-by often pass by. With so many stonemasons, it is impossible to just say they are gone, or even the slightest trace can't be found.
The most likely result is that there are traces, but the person who found the traces was unwilling to publish them.
Wei He felt helpless and let the old monk go.
He walked around the temple and found that two main halls were blocked from entering, while the rest were allowed to pass freely.
The sky was getting dark, and there were fewer and fewer pilgrims. Most of them went down the mountain.
Wei He asked several more monks, but there was still no news, so he had no choice but to leave the temple and walk down the mountain.
The setting sun has completely sunk into the horizon.
On the steps going down the mountain from the temple, it was freezing cold on both sides, and the originally clear woods gradually turned into a dark and deep black curtain.
Wei He didn't notice at all, there was a figure behind him quietly and slowly following him.
He felt slightly chilly, so he sped up and hurried down the mountain.
Suddenly, a small black insect quietly emerged from the gap in his clothes, then flapped its wings and flew away.
The man behind him paused slightly and frowned.
"The aroma has faded..." He picked up the bamboo tube and shook it gently, and found that the aroma had indeed faded.
"It doesn't look like the person in front of me." A judgment flashed through his mind and he looked away from Wei He in front of him and back.
The man turned around and looked in the direction where the black letter insect flew away.
"Um?"
"No, it's just me and the person in front of me. If it's not him, then who is it? Could it be that he is attacking in the east and in the west?"
The man raised his mind and his eyes fell on Wei He's back again.
He already had doubts in his heart, so he quickened his pace and approached Wei He.
"This brother, stay here."
He pretended to be a pilgrim and spoke loudly.
puff!
Suddenly a handful of white ash was thrown towards me.
The man's heart tightened and he was caught off guard. He closed his eyes tightly and was almost blinded.
However, as a martial arts practitioner, he reacted very quickly. Before the white ash could get into his eyes, he quickly swept his arms and used a strong wind to blow away the white ash.
He already knew in his heart that the other party was likely to notice his identity. He immediately raised his right leg and turned into a whip to whip at Wei He.
Unexpectedly, his right leg hit the blade first. The man's expression changed, and he quickly changed his moves. He pressed his right leg down and tried to step on Wei He's instep.
At the same time, the other leg also rose into the air, spinning and kicking towards Wei He's chest.
This is the deadly chain kick he specializes in.
This kick technique can continuously change moves between moves, making it unpredictable and constantly alternating between virtual and real, making it difficult to resist.
The man kicked and kicked more than ten times in a row.
When I opened my eyes, I saw that there was no one else in front of me. The person who had just been running had been running for who knows how long.
"Hateful! To be so insidious..."
He only had to close his eyes for a short time before the other person ran away and out of sight. Is this person maybe a rabbit spirit?
The man quickly went down the steps and chased with all his strength.
After a while, it disappeared at the end of the stone path going down the mountain.
At this moment, a person quickly emerged from a bush on the right side of the stone path. It was Wei He who had just been hiding.
He glanced at the direction the man left, stood up and breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's quite clever." A voice suddenly sounded behind Wei He.