"What are mountain spirits and water monsters?"
I was stumped by this question, because although we often talk about the term "mountain spirits and water monsters", it was difficult to say what they were.
Literally, a mountain spirit or water monster is a demon in the mountains and a demon in the water, but obviously this was wrong, because that was my answer to the man who shook his head and instantly dismissed my answer.
"So what do you call a mountain spirit and water monster?" I sat down with a grimace, thinking, "Is there any new explanation for this thing? I thought to myself, "Is there any new explanation for this thing? Can you even say where it came from?
What I didn't expect was that just as I was filled with disdain, the man said, "As the Buddhist saying goes, those who have accumulated good deeds in life but have committed the sin of not saving the dead and returning the favour, after death, they are punished for their sins as demons, monsters, mountain demons, tree gods, water spirits, zombies, wandering spirits, or possessed by foxes, bear fighters, jiao and snakes, and so on. Some are mountain spirits, some for thousands of years, some for tens of years. If they can wake up to their past mistakes, try to help others in need and repay their kindness, and cultivate their virtue in this way, they can return to their original form and be reborn in a blessed cave. If, on the other hand, they are punished as mountain spirits and water monsters, and do not take up their forms, but use their divine powers to confuse the world and disturb the mortal world, they will be struck down by lightning on the day when they are full of mischief, and will be transformed into monkeys and earth, and will never be reborn. The mountain spirits and water monsters are not gods, but they have divine powers, and if mortals in the world harm them with evil thoughts, they will also suffer evil retribution!
"This is the origin of mountain spirits and water monsters, do you understand now?" The man asked me after he finished.
I was a bit dumbfounded, really, this was the first time I had heard such an explanation, so this is what mountain spirits and water monsters are all about, I really didn't have any idea about this stuff before that.
"Okay, you're great and knowledgeable, but what does telling me this stuff have to do with the story you're about to tell?" I asked, digressing.
"People are divided into good and evil, and so are mountain spirits and water monsters." The man shrugged his shoulders and then said, "There are mountain spirits and water monsters that are blinded by their inner grievances, and after they are reborn, they are bent on revenge against the world and want to cultivate the power of the evil Mr. Yin."
This was the second time I had heard the expression "Mr. Yin", and to be honest, I had no concrete idea of what it was, and had no idea what Mr. Yin actually was.
But that was okay, because I didn't know enough to ask.
"Mr. Yin is just a generic term for powerful Yin creatures, and Mr. Yin is only the lowest level of the hierarchy, but even this lowest level is enough for those Yin creatures to possess the living and manifest strange powers. After Mr. Yin, there are also the terms Yin Master, Yin Sect, Yin King, Yin Emperor, etc. The highest rank is Yin God, and there is even the existence of Yin Saint Yin Immortal, but those are rare and powerful people in all ages, and are basically not in the ranks of our discussion."
Seeing that I didn't understand, the man then explained to me some more.
Hearing this, I couldn't help but laugh playfully and asked the man somewhat deliberately, "So what rank are you?"
I had already seen that this man was not a normal person, and he ended up pretending to be deep with me, so I took the opportunity to irritate him a little.
"I'm not Mr. Yin," the man said with a cold grunt.
"Oh, so you're more advanced than them, well, go on, what happens after the mountain spirit and water monsters try to get back at the world?" I shrugged my shoulders and asked with a grimace.
"All things in this world have their own destiny. Mountain spirits and water monsters that do evil and plague the world are bound to get their comeuppance, it's just that the time varies. But that's not what I want to talk about," the man said.
Now I was really anxious, saying, "What are you going to talk about? You've been going around in circles, but you're just trying to give me knowledge.
As I was getting angry, the man then spoke out, "Many years ago, there was a wandering soul who was filled with resentment because of his misfortune in life and his resentment in death. "
"And then what," I said, drowsy with one hand on my cheek, quite uninterested in the man's story.
"Can you tell it a little faster? I find you really have no talent for storytelling, do you know that if you wrote online articles that beat around the bush like you do, you would have been scolded by readers long ago?"
"Mountain spirits and water monsters also belong to the category of Yin creatures, and the shortest way to quickly increase their power is to directly absorb other people's vital energy for their own use. That year, that wandering spirit inadvertently found a virgin of the Third Yin when the girl was just five or six years old."
The man suddenly sped up when he said this, but as I listened, I couldn't help but feel a twitch in my heart and guessed something.
"What happened afterwards? What did it do to the girl?" I asked, frowning.
"It didn't do anything to the girl," the man said with a bitter smile, "because at that time it was too weak and acted too recklessly, so when it was stalking the girl, it was careless and didn't grasp the timing, and three rooster crows sounded, and it almost lost its soul. "
"What goes around comes around, deserves!" I snorted.
"But it didn't die," the man laughed.
"That was God's mercy to let it live, and I hope it will change its ways and go on the right path from now on!" I said with a straight face.
Hearing this, the man was silent, but after a moment, he said to me, "Good for you, although you are foolish, but you are full of justice, which makes you naturally make the right judgment many times."
"Of course, if one has goodness, justice and light in one's heart, one can naturally walk the path straight. How can there be so many complicated things in the human world, and how can there be so many sinister hearts? People's hearts are not scary, what is scary is suspicion and doubt." I said righteously.
"Don't cock your tail, one compliment and you're out of your depth," the man interrupted me.
"Ahem, you please continue," I was so full of embarrassment that I hastened to stop talking with a dry cough and let him continue.
"At that time, that wandering spirit was embarrassed and anxious, and it didn't know what to do at all, and it was weak, and it couldn't get into a human body, and it couldn't even possess some healthy living creatures, so, at that time, it actually seemed to be dead." The man said with a heart full of sighs.
"Get to the point!" I was so anxious I wanted to rush up and knock him on the head.
"The point is simply that it had no choice but to rush into the sheep pen of a family. It had no choice but to take advantage of the lamb's weakness to possess its body and escape annihilation." Seeing my urging, the man could not help but tell me the final choice of that wandering soul.
"Wouldn't that be the end of it? Wouldn't you just say that the wandering soul possessed a sickly little lamb and that would be the end of it? What a rush to go around in such a big circle," I muttered irritably as I heard this and looked at the man's back.
"It wasn't a sickly lamb, it was a disabled lamb, and after it possessed itself, it fused with the remnants of that lamb's soul, and it couldn't get out. It couldn't get out, you understand? Things are far from being as simple as you think, do you understand?!"
Hearing my words, the man also felt full of fire and asked me in a loud voice.