Damn it! Let's smash the darkness together!-Chapter 1253 - 146: What Is Called History Now Was Called the Future in the Past (Part 1)
"So... sorry!"
With a reminder, Gu Pan and the others suddenly came to their senses, hurriedly withdrawing their hands, faces full of astonishment.
They felt as if they had lost their rationality completely, easily provoked to anger. It was clearly akin to what happened before, a situation where their emotions were manipulated, only this time it was not greed but anger.
To step into almost identical traps twice in a row was undoubtedly a face-reddening mistake, leaving them deeply ashamed.
Xu Shu didn’t find this worthy of embarrassment, as he had fallen for it too.
The difference was that others had begun to fight directly, while he had only just located a verbal target before managing to snap out of it——he initially wanted to argue with Gu Pan, who had her back to him, questioning why she wouldn’t face him directly, but out of politeness, he waited for her to finish speaking first.
A moment later, Xu Shu, bearing a blank expression, nodded toward the person lying on the ground: "Let’s help him first."
"Alright, alright..." Gu Yue Ming’s face blushed, hoping no one remembered her street-vendor-like scolding from moments ago. She hurriedly reached to pull Shen Chongyang up, giving him pieces of medical bandages to treat his injuries. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮
While waiting, Xu Shu glanced at Lu Bingwei and whispered, "You woke up quite quickly this time."
Lu Bingwei remained expressionless: "The first time can be forgiven. If fooled the second time, one would surely be a fool."
"..." Everyone immediately felt a sweat, knowing well this fool was what she called them.
Especially Xie Xiaochan, who pouted displeasedly and walked to the side.
Among those present, she felt the most astonished, as being an evolving "Seven-color Taoist," she prided herself on emotional and mental strengths. Yet, despite being consciously vigilant, she stumbled twice and woke slower than others, leaving her somewhat ashamed.
However, despite another round of turbulences, the group on site was not worried but rather relaxed, all eagerly glancing toward the third bronze door on the other side of the hall.
Shen Chongyang, once healed, quickly apologized to Lu Bingwei: "Lu Daoist, sorry for the trouble earlier."
"It’s nothing," Lu Bingwei replied indifferently, since he hadn’t managed to harm her.
After a brief silence, ignoring others, she directly gazed at Xu Shu with a slight frown, asking: "There’s likely emotion control behind the next door as well. Xu Shu, do you feel confident?"
Xu Shu didn’t answer directly but pondered: "The first hall amplified greed, this one amplified anger—standard Buddhist concepts of ’greed’ and ’anger’..."
"Oh? You noticed it too? Not bad," Lu Bingwei’s eyes brightened, praising him, "Seems your previous mention of a Buddhist friend wasn’t just talk."
"Ha ha." Xu Shu was noncommittal after being complimented.
What’s this about me noticing it too? I probably know far more than you!
As a well-read folklorist, Xu Shu had a rather distinct advantage in grasping all sorts of fragmented knowledge.
Moreover, he had known from the beginning from the "mermaid" that the ruins were heavily marked by Buddhist influences, and that ’Death God’ and ’Ksitigarbha’ had merged into ’Tailed Ksitigarbha’ in reality!
With the established results in mind, it was easy to infer some patterns from the two characteristic instances of mental manipulation already observed.
Lu Bingwei continued: "Buddhism holds the concept of the three poisons: greed, anger, and confusion; seeing now, this relic seems to hide similar techniques. With greed and anger covered, the next door probably cycles ’confusion,’ amplifying obsession..."
Before she finished speaking, the nearby ’Soul Capturer’ Lady Qianfa laughed: "If it’s only this level of influence, I believe the next level is worth a try."
Huang Lili behind her also said: "Indeed, although this force is eerie and hard to defend against, it seems to merely affect the mind without direct attack methods, not posing much of a threat."
"Ha ha, makes sense, as we’re third-tier Transcendents, with even Human List Experts leading us; the original mechanisms here might neatly crush under-tier capacities."
"Ha ha, certainly we can!"
"Brother Xu, what do you think?"
Everyone was curious, eagerly looking to Xu Shu, full of anticipation waiting for his response—since Xu Shu was unanimously seen as the "Breaker of Walls" in everyone’s mind; whether opening bronze doors or prison treasure vault doors, none could be done without this formidable "Dragon Elephant."
Under everyone’s hopeful gaze, Xu Shu’s eyes rolled, surveying the surroundings, making some mental calculations.
Though these guys might be a little underwhelming in terms of individual strength, not even up to the level of ’Two Evergreen Friends,’ easily falling for traps and reacting strongly, their ability to detect loopholes was decent.
Simply put, with ’greed, anger, confusion’ controlling the mind and trying to create internal disputes, the hindrance might be significant for teams whose strength distribution is relatively even, but not affecting their peculiarly unevenly matched crew with extremes.
Having "Micro-wave Calm" and "Cunning Traveler" – these two strengths far beyond peers – enables suppressing the environment otherwise causing serious team harm!
However, despite thinking this way inside, Xu Shu didn’t draw swift conclusions, instead, gentlemanly passing the question to another: "Jun Moxiao, what do you think?"
