Volume 1 Faith Chapter 20 What you have in your heart is what you see
The offerings that the middle-aged man asked everyone to prepare were five kinds of Huilu, five kinds of tribute meat, libation wine, Dom, offering bowls, lamps, Gala, and Dankha.
What Mu Yiran brought back from the Suta Temple were the five tribute meats and five wisdom dews that were processed by practitioners using various plants collected by him and Ke Xun.
The five tribute meats are the five plants that Mu Yiran just mentioned, and the five wisdom dews are nutmeg representing feces, costus root juice representing urine, white cardamom representing brain marrow, bamboo yellow representing male sperm, and purple sandalwood representing female blood.
The libation consisted of five kinds of wine, namely Qingsha wine, grape wine, rice-brewed liquor, rice wine and Ma** wine, which Qin Ci had brought back, replacing the wine made from human brains, blood and bile that everyone had prepared before.
Dom is a kind of offering cake, which is made of five kinds of rice flour, including millet, rice, barley, wheat and peas, which were found by the Geng couple . It replaced the dough made of human gallbladder, brain, blood and internal organs prepared by everyone before.
The lamp was an ordinary oil lamp that Mu Yiran had brought back at first . The lamp oil was made of ghee found by Weidong, replacing the lamp oil and wicks made from human fat and hair that everyone had used before.
As for Gala and Dankha, no one knew what they meant, but Mu Yiran used the sacrificial rituals of other sects as a reference and speculated that believers, in addition to offering wine, meat and food to God, often also offered clothes and accessories to God. Gala and Dankha must be referring to these two things.
The clothing mentioned here refers to clothes and equipment, and the equipment refers to the iconic instruments held in the hands of each god.
Many gods with good looks often hold flowers, spices or jewels in their hands. Mu Yiran thought that considering the living conditions in the current area, it was unlikely to have jewels, so he used camphor, sandalwood and rosin spices found from flowers and tamarisks to replace the flowers made of human facial features and human bones used as ritual instruments.
As for the clothes of the gods, the angry god wears human skin, and the kind god wears eagle feathers or silk. Mu Yiran believed that when the man pointed to the north, he did not mean the corpse on the sky burial platform, but the vulture and the flowers and plants in the valley.
The answer is actually right in front of everyone's eyes, but good and evil are only a thought away. Yongxi Visual Buddha said: What you have in your heart is what you see.
So, for the same offering, some people see blood and flesh, while others see the fragrance of flowers and plants.
"No wonder this painting is called "Faith," Ke Xun and Mu Yiran stood side by side beside the small tents when everything was ready and waiting for the night to fall. Ke Xun said with enlightenment, "It seems that the painter is testing whether the power of our thoughts is evil or good. If we had found the right thing at the beginning, maybe not so many people would have died. It feels like from the beginning to the end, it was some people who kept killing themselves."
"In fact, I once thought that the intention of the painter was to force people like us to let go of the evil side of our hearts, gradually destroy our humanity and kindness, and believe in the heresy that only the devil can make you immortal." Mu Yiran said calmly, "The reason why cults have so many believers is nothing more than two ways: either they seize people's sexual desires to brainwash them, or they dig into people's evil thoughts to encourage and indulge them. This painting is a trap about human nature, and I almost fell into it, so I didn't see it until today."
"Don't be too hard on yourself," Ke Xun patted his shoulder, "Even if you are evil at heart, I still like you."
Mu Yiran pinched his wrist expressionlessly and threw his arm aside.
Night finally fell, and the light of snow shone from the distant mountains, bringing with it a chill.
Everyone stood outside the turned-over small tent, looking for a suitable angle on the top of the tent in the light of the snow.
The strange thing was that no matter whether he turned it over or looked frontally, he could not use the angle of light to make out a clear pattern like Mu Yiran did last night.
Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. Geng's mother couldn't help but get anxious: "Is it not working? What should we do? Does that mean someone will die tonight?"
Sha Liu's face turned pale, and he whispered, "Could it be that these sacrifices... made the pattern no longer appear?"
"Tsk," Ke Xun heard from the side and looked at her with a smile, "I seem to smell a hint of scapegoating. Miss Shaliu, if you can't bear to part with those bloody sacrifices of human brains and hearts, you can just take them and find a tent to crawl into. We won't stop you."
"You misunderstood..." Sha Liu said quickly, "That's not what I meant. I just provided another idea so that everyone can brainstorm. After all, time is running out and Hei Shitian will appear soon..."
Ke Xun was too lazy to pay attention to her. He walked over to Mu Yiran and whispered, "I suspect that the light will not shine at the right angle until the Black Corpse Sky appears."
Mu looked towards the snow in the distance with delight and said "hmm".
Geng's mother cried out in despair: "Doesn't this mean that some of us will still die? That thing will kill people as soon as it appears. We don't have time to find any patterns, and we have to piece together the whole picture based on the patterns. Isn't this just wishful thinking!"
Geng's father looked at Mu Yiran with bloodshot eyes: "Didn't you say that these offerings were for the good god? Then could it be the good god that appeared tonight? A good god wouldn't kill people, right?"
"It's best not to have too high expectations," Mu Yiran replied calmly, "After all, we have personally prepared sacrifices to the angry god, and this fact can no longer be erased. The angry side has been summoned, and I don't think it will be willing to be replaced by the other side. Things in this world are always rising and falling, and the fight between good and evil will never stop."
"Then what should we do? Are we just going to wait to die outside the tent? Once the Black Corpse appears, he will definitely capture those who are not in the tent first..." Sha Liu also looked at Mu Yiran eagerly.
Mu Yiran lowered his eyes and pondered for a while, then looked up at the people who were looking at him, waiting for him to make a decision: "There is only one stupid way to try. The requirement for tonight is two people per tent. The eight of us are divided into four groups, and there are seven tents here in total. This requires one person to see the patterns of all seven tents and move them to the correct position as quickly as possible and piece them together into a complete pattern."
"I'm afraid this person must be you, Brother Mu." Geng's father said hurriedly.
Mu Yiran nodded slightly: "I will try my best. Then let's assign numbers to these seven tents. I hope everyone can remember them. Next, let's assign tents. Mrs. Geng and her child are in tent number one. This tent is the one with the pattern I saw yesterday. You don't need to look at it again tonight. You two don't have to do anything in it. You just need to listen to my only command, which is that when all the tents are in place, I will shout 'turn over the tent'. Mrs. Geng, please turn this tent over. The tent is not heavy, and Mrs. Geng should be able to do it alone."
Upon hearing this, Geng's mother stepped forward and tried to turn it over. It was indeed quite easy, so she nodded to Mu Yiran.
Mu Yiran continued, "Shaliu is in tent number two. I saw the pattern of this tent last night, but it doesn't connect with the pattern of tent number one. I believe there are other patterns connecting the two tents. You are alone in this tent, don't worry. If Heishitian walks towards you, someone will enter the tent in time to make up the number of people. Although this trick didn't work in the second half of last night, I think it should be the same tonight as in the first half of last night. At least it will be effective for a while in the initial stage."
Sha Liu bit her lip, looking embarrassed: "What if it doesn't work? Hei Shitian already knew our routine yesterday, how could he be fooled today?"
“Even so,” Mu Yiran said calmly, “Hei Shitian’s first choice is always the tent that doesn’t meet the specified number of people, and yours isn’t the only tent that doesn’t meet the specified number of people tonight.”
Without waiting for Sha Liu to say anything else, Mu Yiran turned to the remaining men and said, "We will each occupy one of the remaining five tents. Doctor Qin will correspond to Mr. Geng, Wei Dong will correspond to Ke Xun, and Sha Liu and I will correspond. Once we find someone's tent that Heishitian is heading towards, the corresponding person will immediately leave his own tent and enter that person's tent."
Everyone suddenly realized what was going on when they heard this. Mu Yiran was using a method of mutual rescue. Whichever tent Heishi Tian walked towards, that tent would immediately become occupied two people. In this way, Heishi Tian would inevitably adjust his target and look for another tent with only one person, thus delaying the time for someone to be chosen to a certain extent.
"In the meantime," Mu Yiran continued after seeing that everyone had caught up with his train of thought, "I will be the one who moves in and enter the five tents one by one to observe the patterns on the tent roofs. Before I enter, please try to use the light from the snow to adjust the tents to an angle where you can see the patterns clearly, so that I can see them directly after entering the tent and memorize the patterns more quickly."
"Okay." Everyone responded.
"Finally," Mu Yiran said, "you must remember the number of your tent and listen to my command. Once I figure out the joint positions of these patterns, I will immediately tell everyone where to move their tents. Tent No. 1 will be the base and will not be moved. The other tents will be moved based on tent No. 1. After they are moved, I will ask everyone to turn over the tents. Then everyone will work together to turn over the tents. Do you understand?"
"I understand." Everyone replied.
"There is one thing I need to remind everyone," Mu Yiran looked at everyone with a serious look, "We don't know how many people meet the screening criteria of Black Corpse Sky tonight, but if one person is caught outside the tent, then it is very likely that at least one more person inside the tent will die.
"And what I want to say is that we are a whole tonight. All the actions are completed by the eight of us. No one of us can be missing. Once one person fails, the whole group will be affected and it is likely to cause the whole group to collapse.
“So, I hope everyone can muster up the courage to withstand the enormous pressure of death approaching, and don’t escape, don’t panic, and don’t collapse and give up.
"Each of us is tied to the lives of seven others. I hope everyone can hold on until the last second, do their best, stay calm, and keep hope."
Everyone nodded.
"Time is almost up," Mu Yiran looked up at the sky and saw that it was getting darker. "Everyone, go into your own tents. Make sure the entrances of your tents face the circle so that it will be easier for you to run around."
Everyone's faces were inevitably filled with tension, and some of them shrank back and were a little afraid as they entered their respective tents.
Ke Xun was as calm as Mu Yiran. Before entering the tent, he turned around and said to him with a smile, "Do you know how sexy you looked when you were arranging the troops just now?"
Mu Yiran looked at him expressionlessly, and finally said, "Yeah."
