Pawn Crossing the River

In any case, Kukulkan is now the leader of the ancient gods and has been recognized by Xidaomen and Chakchel. Even Ixichel cannot openly confront him. Then the Heron Club cannot openly confront Kukulkan, even if there are royal family members and other dignitaries in the club.

But the Heron Society wanted to express their intentions more or less, so they began to worship Itsumna.

Judging from Ixichel's attitude, there are still differences within the ancient gods, which can be roughly divided into the Itesumna faction headed by Ixichel and the powerful Kukulkan faction.

The disputes between the ancient gods also affected the secular world, and the legend gradually began to spread that Kukulkan had usurped the position of the sun god of Itsumna. But it's just a legend. Itesumna is still the sun god recognized by Xidaomen. Just like the late emperor who has entered the Ancestral Temple, there is no problem in worshiping Itesumna.

Therefore, Heron would express his opposition to Kukulkan by worshiping Itsumna without attracting investigation from Xidaomen. To put it bluntly, they are anti-Kukulkan, not Xidaomen. .??.

This also explains why the Heron Society does not worship the ancient god Pachaka, because Pachaka has no relationship with Kukulkan, and worshiping Pachaka does not express the Heron Society's secret opposition to Kukulkan's purposes.

The history of the past always serves the politics of the present.

This means that worship may not be true worship, but may also be another form of opposition.

Now Qi Xuansu has another clue, but he will not pursue the Heron Society for the time being, because this clue is relatively obscure, and it is difficult for him, a foreigner, to intervene in it in a short time. It is better to let Jueshengtang pursue this clue. , he would start with the more conspicuous shadow first.

Qi Xuansu asked again, "By the way, Chief Tantai, you once said in your letter that these cases all occurred after Kukulkan completely replaced Itesumna, and you also marked the word 'thoroughly'. I think You know, what are the standards and limits of this 'thorough' thing?"

Tan Taiying explained, “In the past, even though Itsumna had fallen, when Tawanting’s believers prayed to the sun god without specifying which sun god it was, some of the incense and willpower would still flow to Yitsumna. Tessumna, to contribute to his resurrection, 'Sun God Kukulkan' must be recited in order to accurately locate Kukulkan, which means that Kukulkan has not really replaced the sun god of Itsumna. status, a 'usurper' or a 'usurper'."

"Kukulkan must be dissatisfied with this, and has further accelerated the action of encroaching on the priesthood of Itesumna. This is divided into two parts. One part is Kukulkan's encroachment on the level of the kingdom of God, just like his seizure of Missi The other part is the changes of his believers in the secular level, including the priesthood of Er Sun God.

It is not limited to destroying statues, murals, legends, written records, etc. about Itsumna, but also tampering with the parts that cannot be destroyed, and ultimately achieves the purpose of changing the consensus of public memory. Kukulkan's temple privately called it This is called the "History of Time" operation. This was also resisted by Itesumna's followers, but Kukulkan still relied on his powerful power to complete this move. "

“In the end, when believers just prayed to the sun god without specifying which sun god it was, all the incense and wishes began to flow to Kukulkan, which meant that Kukulkan had completely replaced Itsumna and became The only sun god in the New World. We use this standard to divide time nodes. "

Tantai Ying explained the word "thoroughly" in detail.

This also explained one thing to Qi Xuansu, why when Qi Xuansu asked the Juesheng Church to compile information about Kukulkan, the Juesheng Church would regard the "Shadow Case" as the main content.

Whether it was the murder of the priest of the Sun Temple, the new Xijing Sun Temple shrouded in shadow, the black sun tattoo, the time of the incident, or even the Heron Society involved due to Qi Xuansu's inquiry, they all had something to do with Kukul Kan has an explicit or implicit relationship.

This inevitably raises a question: Was Kukulkan the mastermind behind the "Shadow Case" with an ulterior motive? Or was someone else secretly plotting against Kukulkan with the intention of overthrowing him?

That is, is Kukulkan the perpetrator or the victim?

This question is not easy to answer. If you get it wrong, you will also get the motivation wrong, and the end result will be completely different.

Qi Xuansu seems to have a lot of clues now, but these clues are fragmented and not enough for Qi Xuansu to get a full picture. Then Qi Xuansu can only make bold assumptions and verify carefully.

He now assumes that this is a series of conspiracies against Kukulkan, so Ixichel is undoubtedly the biggest suspect. There is even a possibility that she is the mastermind behind the Heron Society. For a god, this is It's not that difficult. Don't underestimate Ixichel. If she hadn't split into two people, she would have been the head of the gods after the death of Itsumna.

Based on this guess, continue the deduction.

If Ixichel is the mastermind behind this series of cases, what is her purpose?

Now it seems that there is an effort to overthrow Kukulkan, including to

Daomen exposed Kukulkan all to achieve this goal.

So think further, what happens after overthrowing Kukulkan? Just for revenge? Or resurrect Itsamtu? Or is it Ixichel himself who takes over?

In any case, from a motivation point of view, the logic here makes sense.

However, Qi Xuansu had an inexplicable intuition that things might not be that simple.

After the banquet, Huangfuji said goodbye and left. He had never been interested in things about ghosts and gods. He was only interested in human affairs, such as the construction of Xingang and Xindao Palace.

Regarding this point, it may be a common problem among martial artists. Since embarking on the path of a martial artist, first the spirit and body have become one, and then the ghosts and gods have made changes, so that they are invulnerable to all laws, and naturally have no connection with ghosts and immortals. Later, after the warriors understood the method of "shattering the void", everything was really just a punch. This is destined that warriors cannot be idealistic and can only be materialistic.

What is materialism? To put it simply, matter is the first nature and spirit is the second nature.

On the contrary, alchemists and wizards are idealistic.

Exiled immortals and Qi refiners both want a little bit of everything, but they must always pay attention to a balance. In other words, both hands must be grasped and both hands must be strong.

As for Qi Xuansu, he is more materialistic, but not as absolute as the warriors.

Then Huangfuji's actions are easy to understand. Developing New Port and opening Xindao Palace are the first priority, and resisting the steam gospel is also the first priority. These are all visible and tangible materials. As for other things, fear, uncertainty, unknown, and desire, until they are truly confirmed, it cannot be said that they are not important, at least not that important. In other words, unless Tantai Ying can provide tangible evidence to Huangfuji, Huangfuji will not personally participate in it. At most, it will open the door to convenience.

Qi Xuansu thought so and asked to see the body of the deceased.

Of course Tantai Ying would not refuse. The main hall of Juesheng Church is also on Danxiu Mountain, a few steps away from where the three of them held the banquet. The two of them soon arrived at the main hall of Juesheng Church. Although they were heavily guarded along the way, with Tantai Ying, the chief deputy hall master, personally leading the way, there was no obstruction.

Finally, Qi Xuansu saw the corpses in the cold cellar used to store special evidence and corpses under the Juesheng Church.

Qi Xuansu first looked at the black sun tattoos and found that these tattoos were very abnormal. Normal tattoos are tattooed on the surface of the skin and can be washed away by some means, but this black sun tattoo is tattooed on the skin.

This is obviously not an ordinary method.

So Tantai Ying called it a mark.

Some marks were there before the deceased was alive, and some marks were only there after the deceased was invaded by shadows. What is the difference between them? It's still unknown.

Qi Xuansu continued to examine the bodies of these people.

The internal organs were all empty, and the flesh and blood had completely withered, leaving only the skin and bones. Judging from the temperature of the cold cellar, it was obvious that these corpses were not decomposing normally, but had become like this after being eroded by the shadows.

This is quite similar to the method of blood sacrifice. In Jinling Mansion, the people who were harmed by Lord Siming showed this characteristic. From this, it seems that these shadows do have a certain connection with the ancient gods, and even some kind of The means of blood sacrifice.

From this point of view, when it comes to blood sacrifices, Kukulkan has the motivation to lead all this. After all, the sky-wide karma in Kukulkan's kingdom cannot be faked.

This in turn conflicts and contradicts Qi Xuansu's previous assumption that Ixichel was the mastermind behind the scenes.

Qi Xuansu couldn't help but have a thought. Could it be that this series of "shadow cases" were not planned by one party, but the result of a secret conflict between multiple forces?

As for why Qi Xuansu didn't ask Ixichel directly, the reason was simple. Qi Xuansu couldn't really trust Ixichel yet and didn't want to alert the enemy.

In addition to the corpse, there was also a shadow servant captured by Juesheng Church.

I don’t know what means Jueshengtang used to make this shadow slave fall into a deep sleep. However, just in case, Jueshengtang fixed it with torture tools specially used to imprison heavenly beings.

Qi Xuansu walked up to this so-called shadow slave and looked at it carefully.

Although he still roughly maintains his human form, his body has many animalistic features, a bit like a savage, and a bit like half-human and half-demon. Qi Xuansu can easily think of those phoenixes that were infected by evil fire and turned into monsters. Linzhou people.

This is the advantage of being experienced. You are well-informed. You can always find a rough reference point for anything you encounter, and then use the puzzles that have been solved to correspond to the unsolved mysteries.

Are there any similarities between Shadow and Hellfire?

Tantai Ying followed Qi Xuansu and introduced him in detail, "We call them shadow servants. According to the Tawanting priest, this kind of thing should be called Yasir. They come from heaven."

Messenger and guardian. "

Qi Xuansu said, "Heaven? Whose paradise is it? Is it Itsumna? Or Ixichel? Or Kukulkan?"