Slap!
Sima Mu raised his hand and slapped himself hard.
"What are you doing?"
The old lady was startled by his sudden action, fearing something had happened!
"Damn this crow's mouth of mine!"
Sima Mu was depressed, as this kind of rule contamination was really unpredictable.
"Handsome guy, please help me check this out!"
The girl who had just screamed was a long-haired student in a light blue dress, holding an oil lamp and running to Lin Baici for help in a panic.
"My blood seems to be burning up really fast!"
"How fast is fast? Isn't it all the same?"
"No, yours is obviously burning much faster!"
The tourists, hearing the dress-wearing girl's words, began to focus on the blood in their lamps, and some of them discovered in horror that their blood was burning at different rates.
Visibly faster.
This scared them.
"Look, you can almost see to the bottom of the lamp. Add some more blood!"
Hua Yue Yu gave helpful advice; she looked at her own and it was fine, no problems.
"Oh! Oh!"
The girl in the dress nodded hurriedly and took the kindling knife from Lin Baici, cutting her finger.
Drip drop! Drip drop!
"The blood is flowing too slowly, make the cut bigger!"
Sima Mu urged, "What are you waiting for? Are you still afraid of pain? If you can't do it, I'll help you!"
The dress-wearing girl cried and, enduring the pain, cut her finger again, but unfortunately, the wound was still too shallow.
Sima Mu couldn't stand to watch any longer and grabbed her left hand.
The sharp edge of the sickle blade crossed her pale palm, and blood poured out.
"Ah!"
The girl in the dress screamed in pain.
The tourists whose blood was burning up too rapidly were all frantically borrowing knives, hastily adding more blood to their lamps.
Hua Yue Yu and Jin Ying exchanged a glance, both seeing a hint of fear in the other's eyes.
"Why... why is it still so fast?"
The girl in the dress was shivering, her face drained of color, white without a trace of life.
"Damn, what's wrong? Why is mine burning up so fast? Did I get the wrong lamp?"
"Handsome guy, what should I do?"
"Wuuu, I don't want to die!"
There were probably more than two hundred tourists whose blood in the lamps was burning too rapidly.
"Eater God oppa!"
The little girl hugged one of Lin Baici's legs, her mother, Zhang Ju, stood by, holding an oil lamp in one hand.
The blood inside it was burning at a normal speed.
Sima Mu glanced at his lamp and found no issue, so he was as calm as an old dog, and had the leisure to command others: "Don't just stand there, keep adding blood!"
"Looking at it this way, it's useless to find no reason, adding more blood is of no use!"
Hua Yue Yu felt that Sima Mu's advice was unreliable and harmful to others.
"How much blood did you add to your lamp the first time? Did you fill it up?"
Lin Baici asked the lightly made-up girl in the dress with a questioning look.
He had a rough idea of the reason.
"Fill... did I fill it up?"
The girl in the dress mumbled.
"I need an exact answer!"
Lin Baici raised his voice.
"Not... not quite full... "
The tears of the girl in the dress flowed even more torrentially: "It... it was too painful, so I didn't continue to bleed!"
"Those of you whose blood is burning up too quickly, didn't you all fail to fill up the lamps just now?"
Sima Mu spoke loudly.
Buzz!
Everyone was stunned all at once.
Was that the reason?
Dammit,
had I known, I would have filled it right up.
"So what do we do now?"
Someone asked anxiously.
Sima Mu didn't know and naturally looked toward Lin Baici, waiting for an answer.
Lin Baici was silent because he felt,
there was no solution.
Lucky for him when the Eater God said 'add enough to burn for three years,' he was cautious enough to fill the lamp with blood right up to the top. Had he been afraid of the pain, had he thought a bit might suffice, then he would be calm now.
"Why aren't you speaking!"
"Right, what should we do, please tell us!"
"Please, I'm begging you!"
Those tourists with ever-growing fetus imprints on their backs couldn't sit still any longer and were shouting around Lin Baici.
"He said everything he needed to say, it's your own fault for not following his instructions!"
Hua Yue Yu saw the agitated and crazed expressions of these people and worried they might act rashly, so she quickly explained on Lin Baici's behalf.
"It's your own fault!"
Jin Ying reprimanded.
Those who listened to Lin Baici's reminder and filled their lamps with blood were greatly relieved at this moment.
The situation was now clear.
Blood could act as lamp oil, and filling the lamps with it and lighting the wick could use this light to drive away the fetus imprints on their backs.
If they didn't do this, the ghostly thing would just keep growing until it matured and devoured the person underneath.
"Luckily, these ghostly things don't attack others, they just eat the person they're on top of."
The old lady patted her chest and took a deep breath.
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Steady! Steady!
Soon, in just a few minutes, the blood of several tourists was burned out, and no matter how much more they added to the lamp, it was useless.
The shoulder-riding buddha infants on their backs began to grow rapidly and, like mad dogs, they lunged at them, gnawing and tearing fervently.
"Fuck, if I'm going to die, you're all going down with me!"
A young man wearing Puma sneakers, seeing that he was beyond help and so were the others, suddenly pounced on a woman next to him and started fiercely pounding her head with his fists.
Whoosh!
The people nearby, worried about getting involved, pushed him away in an instant.
It didn't concern them, so they just hung back and watched.
The sneaker-clad young man's actions stirred some people, and they thought to do the same, to go on a rampage; they were going to die anyway, and neither law nor morality could punish them now.
However, at that moment, Lin Baici leapt out like a cheetah, charging behind the sneaker-wearer and hitting him hard on the head with a pine wood baseball bat.
Thump!
The young man in the sneakers instantly had his face covered in blood and collapsed dizzy to the ground, only to be bitten awake by the shoulder-riding buddha infant the next moment.
Thump!
Lin Baici lifted his foot and kicked him square in the mouth.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Lin Baici roared, his glare holding these people in place.
Standing over six feet tall, even though he had never worked out, his body had developed perfectly from childhood due to a mysterious sensation of hunger, with well-proportioned muscles and even a six-pack.
Now standing in the Daxiong Treasure Hall, holding a torch, looking furious, he had a menacing presence and a commanding aura, which was quite intimidating.
"Instead of killing each other, you should be hurrying to escape, you might still live!"
Lin Baici bellowed.
Those who had been planning to drag others down with them were instantly stunned by his shout and, adding the words he bellowed, it gave them a glimmer of hope, and they started to escape towards the outside of the hall.
Seeing this, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
But Lin Baici knew they were doomed.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Every person who escaped the hall and stepped past the threshold didn't get far before being smashed into pulp by a giant palm of a buddha descending from the sky.
Those still inside were too scared to flee, and their oil lamps burned out, causing the shoulder-riding buddha infants to attack.
The hall turned into utter chaos.
"Oppa, you were so cool just now!"
Kim Myungjin watched, dazzled, as Lin Baici single-handedly subdued over a hundred people, preventing a likely disaster if those people had started a riot.
Hua Yue Yu clenched her pink fists in annoyance and hit the GOPRO camera at her collar, wishing it would work so she could have captured Lin Baici's domineering posture.
"Eater God brother is so amazing!"
In the crowd, a little girl clutched tightly by her mother looked up at Lin Baici with sparkling big eyes.
"Dude, that big buddha has his eyes on you!"
The eagle-hooked nose man had not expected the student to be so brave.
"What?"
Lin Baici had yet to feel fear, but Hua Yue Yu and Kim Myungjin were startled, instinctively turning to look towards the dark buddha on the altar.
It had a smile of ambiguous meaning at the corner of its mouth, sizing up Lin Baici.
[In its eyes, you are already six parts cooked, remove the head, and you can be eaten, but rare ingredients like you are worth waiting for a while.]
Lin Baici's brows slightly furrowed.
After another agonizing fifteen minutes, everyone suddenly realized that the shoulder-riding buddha infants had disappeared.
"They've gone, really gone!"
"We should be safe now, right?"
"Thank goodness, we're saved!"
The surviving tourists cried with joy.
Lin Baici counted; there were more than eight hundred tourists who entered the Daxiong Treasure Hall and, after the 'worshipping Buddha' and 'lighting the lamp' two rounds of rule contamination, only 271 remained.
"In such a short time, close to 600 people died!"
Kim Myungjin looked at the survivors; she was completely numb.
Because the taboo items had yet to be found and the rule contamination was not over, meaning people would still die, if we continue at this rate and proportion, wouldn't everyone be wiped out in the next round?
"Using fresh blood to replace lamp oil, and you must fill it up at once, it's such a trap, if I had hesitated because I was afraid of the pain, I would've been done for!"
Hua Yue Yu felt terrified after the fact, the rule contamination was horrifying.
The old lady nodded violently.
"Handsome guy, thank you!"
The survivors gathered around to thank Lin Baici.
It was all thanks to him that everyone was able to survive these two crises.
"Add blood and ignite the lamp, so Buddha's light shines forever!"
The dark buddha spoke, its voice was high, solemn, and cold, silencing all the hubbub in the hall, "But don't you think something is still missing in front of this Buddha?"
"Whatever you want, as long as we have it, we'll give it to you!"
Someone begged, "Please let us go?"
"I regard offerings as nothing more than dung; why would I want your possessions?"
The dark buddha laughed, "There's a saying, 'offer flowers to the Buddha.' You just need to pick a bouquet of wildflowers each, and place it before the Buddha!"
Lin Baici would not take this at face value, not a word slipped by him, he committed everything to memory.
"Go!"
"Go pick flowers by the Lotus Lake to the east!"
After the dark buddha finished speaking, it closed its eyes.
Everyone looked at each other, unsure of what to do, so they looked to Lin Baici, waiting for him to take the lead.
"Do we even need to think about it? Let's go pick flowers!"
The man with the eagle-hooked nose ran his right hand through his hair and slicked it back.
Nobody moved, not even sparing him a glance; they were all waiting for Lin Baici's decision.
This made the man with the eagle-hooked nose feel awkward.
[Remember, all beings, the offering table is too small, it can only hold the flower bouquets of thirty people!]
The dark buddha suddenly blurted out another line, leaving everyone utterly confused.
"What does that mean?"
While some were still cluelessly asking, others had already smartly started to run out of the hall.
"Hurry and grab the flowers!"
Sima Mu was anxious.
The dark buddha meant that it would only allow the first thirty people who presented their bouquets to live.
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