“This is a deity tablet of the Ba Yan God!”
The moment Nawa saw the wooden tablet, he recognized its origin.
“The Ba Yan God is very efficacious! The temple of the great exorcist Sashu, who worships the Ba Yan God, is right here in Manggu!”
Spurred by the money, Nawa did not even need to be urged. He spilled everything about the past of this 'deity,' the Ba Yan God:
Since ancient times, Tailande's religious landscape had been deeply influenced by neighboring countries. Its religious culture was complex, involving Buddhism, Shamanism, Voodoo, Taoism, and more, each with its own distinct deities.
Among them, the most famous and widely worshiped deity by the locals was the water god Naga, a legendary horned, dragon-like creature that lived at the bottom of the Southern River.
According to legend, Naga was the guardian deity of the Mei River, ruling over the river and rainfall. It could transform into a human, but when asleep, it would reveal its terrifying true form.
It would bestow blessings upon its believers, but it would also cause floods and droughts when treated with disrespect.
However, a few years ago, droughts began to occur one after another across Tailande, accompanied by various ghosts and monsters causing trouble. Among them was a particularly troublesome supernatural incident that resulted in many deaths, eventually even alerting the military.
—It involved a temple in Manggu called Baode Temple. The temple was secretly running a dark business, performing illegal abortions on one hand while using infant corpses to make Kuman Thong on the other.
When the police searched the premises, they first unearthed over three hundred fetuses, and later discovered sixteen hundred foul-smelling infant corpses in the underground mortuary.
Thus, under the protests of the local public, the temple was shut down.
But the strange occurrences began right then.
First, the residents living nearby could hear extremely loud and terrifying infant cries coming from the closed temple every single day.
Some could even see pale white shadows of infants crawling around inside their own homes.
Subsequently, the thirteen doctors and nurses who had originally performed the abortion surgeries met unnatural deaths. Without exception, they were all strangled by umbilical cords and hung inside Baode Temple.
Out of pity and fear for the infant spirits, some believers of Naga invited a famous local great exorcist who worshiped the Naga Goddess to handle the matter.
But that very night, the great exorcist also died inside the temple.
More and more people saw infant figures in their homes. Sometimes, waking up in the middle of the night, they could even feel an icy, slippery infant corpse right beside them.
So many people died that the authorities attempted to demolish the temple and rebuild it. However, the construction workers would become dizzy, experience ringing in their ears, and suffer rapid heartbeats the moment they started up the machinery. These symptoms only subsided once they left the site.
The authorities tried every possible method, inviting various great exorcists to subdue these infant spirits. But whether they were Voodoo practitioners, Shamans, exorcists, Buddhists, Taoists, or Onmyoji...
All the exorcists were completely helpless against these infant spirits.
It was not until a great exorcist named Sashu Zonglavimong, who claimed to worship a true deity, appeared that things took a turn.
He declared to the public that the local deities of Tailande had all perished and died, and only the Ba Yan God he worshiped was the true god.
General Basong at the time believed his words. He gathered the skeletal remains of the infant spirits and used them to construct a bone tower on the original site of Baoshan Temple, enshrining a statue of the Ba Yan God.
Since then, as expected, there were no more disturbances from infant spirits.
But what truly elevated the Ba Yan God to his divine status was the 'Naga's Sunken Corpse' incident from a year ago.
“Naga's sunken corpse?”
Nan Zhi looked at Qin Yue, who nodded as she recalled something:
“On May thirty-first of last year, a drought occurred in a tributary of the Mei River. Someone used machinery to excavate a seventy-nine-meter-long skeleton of a serpent from the riverbed along the bank. Some said it was the corpse of the Naga God.”
—This incident was quite a sensation and caused a massive stir internationally at the time.
“Yes, yes! That skeleton was excavated on the orders of the great exorcist Sashu. Such a massive skeleton, such a miraculous creature—it could only be Naga! The great exorcist was right. The Naga Goddess had indeed perished and returned to the Buddha-land. So later, Baoshan Temple also became a temple for the Ba Yan God. The great exorcist was received by the King and even awarded a medal.”
Nawa danced with joy:
“The Ba Yan God is the true god! As long as you hang a statue of the Ba Yan God in your home and constantly chant his divine name, you won't be troubled by demons or ghosts! At night, the rich live in indestructible, luxurious grand rooms, while we only need to turn off the lights and stay indoors to avoid being killed by ghosts and monsters! The great exorcist told us that the Ba Yan God suppresses demons and ghosts every day, which consumes his dharma power. Staying in the Divine Kingdom, he also feels lonely and needs to take a wife. Every once in a while, he has to marry a new bride. It must be a pure and flawless virgin, regardless of gender, but they must be exceptionally beautiful—the most beautiful of all.”
Hearing this, Nan Zhi already had her answer.
What Ba Yan God? He was merely an evil spirit attempting to usurp a divine seat!
She had never heard of any legitimate deity needing to take a wife.
Were they not afraid of being struck by lightning?
Nawa, completely oblivious, happily continued to educate them:
“These brides, the brides of the Ba Yan God, must first have the great exorcist perform a ritual for them, cleansing their bodies with holy water to establish a true marriage contract with the Ba Yan God. Then, for seven days, they are not allowed to eat anything until their bodies and souls are pure. After that, they must put on wedding clothes and be sent to the Infant Bone Tower to unite with the Ba Yan God.”
“If a person doesn't eat for seven days, they will die.”
Qin Yue furrowed her brows, unable to resist refuting, “This is a crime! It's a crime cloaked in superstition! Is a deity like this really worthy of your faith?”
Nawa gave Qin Yue a strange look and said nonchalantly:
“Ever since the world became so strange, some people get killed just by staying near the river, some die while eating at home, some die at work, some die when they go to the hospital, children die when they go to school, and they die on their way home. Under such circumstances, things have gotten much better since we started worshiping the Ba Yan God. If we only need to lose a tiny, tiny number of people to live in peace, why not? Besides, those people don't actually die. They go to the Divine Kingdom to enjoy blessings and become the wives of a deity. Isn't that great?”
With that, he pulled out a deity tablet from beneath his clothes and kissed it devoutly:
“May the Ba Yan God protect me. The Ba Yan God is great and powerful! Why don't you believe in the gods of Huaxia and let them protect you?”
“Have you ever heard of Great Yu taming the floods or Nüwa mending the heavens? We Huaxia people are our own gods.”
Nan Zhi stopped Qin Yue, who was about to say more, her tone calm:
“If there are demons and ghosts, we kill them. The people of Huaxia can become gods themselves, and we call this process 'cultivation.'”
...
The Ba Yan God was absolutely an evil spirit, without a doubt.
The ordinary citizens only saw that there were no demons running rampant, but they overlooked something much deeper.
Blinded by the authorities, they could not see the rising death toll, nor could they see the increasingly dark sky.
Feeding demons with flesh and blood was no different from harboring a tiger, only to invite disaster.
Because these things had an endless, insatiable thirst for flesh and blood that could never be filled.
This craving would only snowball, growing larger and larger.
Like a powder keg constantly building up pressure, once it exceeded a certain threshold, it would explode with a deafening crash.
When that time came, what awaited them would inevitably be an even more violent backlash.
Rate on N.U.
