Under the supervision of Jiangli and Fu’er, Xia Xin quickly dug up another ghost leg from the side of the mountain rock.
Imitating the method, Jiangli took out a copper coin and a peach wood plaque, handled it properly, and then continued rushing to the next location.
Xia Xin put the ghost leg into a hemp sack and dragged the sack behind them.
For the third time, they found a place.
Without Jiangli saying anything, Xia Xin numbly walked over and began digging on his own.
By now, he couldn’t care less about fear; the night’s shocks had numbed him completely.
Once he dug up an arm, he proficiently stuffed it into the hemp sack.
Jiangli raised an eyebrow and turned to walk away.
Fu’er looked at Xia Xin, who carried the hemp sack on his back, and patted his shoulder, "Good lad, you’ve made rapid progress."
Xia Xin gave a forced smile. He was certain now; what else would he be scared of after tonight?
He had developed his courage!
Feeling Xia Xin, although he had grown up in a Taoist Temple, he had never seen a corpse, he had undergone compulsory education, and had been educated in materialist thought.
Xia Xin, carrying the sack, walked more easily than before.
Fu’er shook his head with a hint of amusement.
The three of them, in this strange partnership, took over two hours to circle the mountain, gathering all of Lin Yurong’s dismembered limbs.
Jiangli located them quite smoothly; it’s just that Lin Yurong was a key ’array’s eye’ and the coverage area was too extensive, requiring them to circle the entire mountain, which took a bit of extra time.
Xia Xin, after making the circuit, was nearly exhausted to the point of collapse, his legs feeling as if they were no longer his own.
But he couldn’t afford to rest; after putting the torso into the hemp sack, he glanced inside the sack and still couldn’t help trembling.
... Okay, he had overestimated his capacity to endure.
Quickly closing the sack, Xia Xin suppressed his nausea and asked, "Ancestor, it seems we haven’t found Lin Yurong’s head yet..."
"The head should be in the array’s eye, the main tomb; we’re not looking for that now."
Jiangli checked the direction and took a few steps forward, stopping on top of the mountain, "I need to do this."
Xia Xin was taken aback for a moment.
Before he could react, he saw Jiangli take out a blank piece of yellow ritual paper.
She pinched the paper and tore it a few times in her hands.
The paper instantly shaped into a paper figure in her hands.
Jiangli produced a puppet talisman, stuffed it into the paper figure, threw in a copper coin, and tossed the paper figure onto the ground.
Xia Xin and Fu’er saw the paper figure shudder, stand up from the ground, and actually stand there.
Jiangli, without even looking at the paper figure, pulled out the vermilion that she had gotten from Xun Tianhai and, dipping a twig into it, drew a formation on the ground.
After completing it, she took out a spirit talisman, affixed it to the center of the formation, and placed the remaining peach wood plaques on top of the spirit talisman, inserting them into the soil.
"I summon the spirit of the earth from the Kun palace, patrol Zhen and raise thunder, red with the fire of separation. Yu steps intersect Qian to ascend to the bright yang, Xun orders to call forth thousands of spirits. Kan rains down to cleanse the evil and fierce, soaring through the heavens and earth to slay the demon spirit—"
Jiangli clenched her hands into a seal, shouted in a low voice, and with a slash of her fingertip across her palm, fresh blood immediately fell onto the peach wood plaque at the center of the formation.
The peach wood plaque flickered a few times with red light.
Within a second, a burst of energy spread out from the formation in all directions.
The surrounding trees howled, the mountain wind roared, as if immortals were reciting incantations in the sky.
Xia Xin stuttered, "This is..."
"The Eight Trigrams Celestial Spell," Fu’er said, looking at Jiangli’s formation in awe, "Ancestor truly lives up to her reputation. The Puppet Substituting Evil Array can indeed help these wronged spirits find release, but the Ancestor also worries that they might scatter and flee after emerging. With the Eight Trigrams Celestial Spell aiding, sealing the mountain paths so they have nowhere to escape, and purifying the mountain’s evil qi to harmonize the yin and yang, upholding heaven and earth—when it comes to integrating formations, our Ancestor does it best!"