That night, Liu Baozhen attended the banquet as scheduled. During the wine-drinking ceremony, the Hong brothers took turns coming over to toast him, and Liu Baozhen drained his cup every time without fail. He downed over a hundred cups in succession, knocking all of the Hong brothers under the table, but he himself remained composed and unruffled, with only a slight flush on his face. When no one else came forward to toast him again, Liu Baozhen simply helped himself to more wine.

  Seeing that the plan to get rid of Liu Baizhen by getting him drunk had failed, Hong Xiuquan finally decided to take drastic action. Taking advantage of the dispersal of the gathering and the retreat of the other kings, the hidden warriors suddenly appeared. Using iron hammers, they struck Liu Baizhen's head, and the Earth King, who was unguarded, was knocked unconscious on the spot. At that time, Liu Baizhen had lost all signs of life, with a gaping wound in the back of his head, and blood and brain matter splattered everywhere, leading those present to believe that the Earth King was dead.

  Because of Liu Baizhen's great fame in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, no one dared to go and behead him. In the end, he was only wrapped in a sack and thrown into an ancient well in Nanjing City. The strange events that would affect the entire Taiping Heavenly Kingdom began from this day...

  One day later, Hong Xiuquan began to have the same nightmare again. In his dream, Liu Baizhen was standing beside him. Liu Baizhen still looked like he did after being beaten to death, with red and white things flowing down his neck and onto his chest. Looking at Hong Xiuquan who had become stiff all over, Liu Baizhen kept asking: "Why... why... why"

  Hong Xiuquan was awakened from this nightmare, drenched in sweat, with all his clothes thoroughly soaked. After more than an hour, he finally calmed down a bit. When he fell asleep again, it was still the scene of his previous dream, where Di Wang Liu Baizhen stared at him with wide eyes and asked: "Why... why... why"

  From then on, the Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan never had a peaceful sleep again. After three days, Hong Xiuquan sent someone to retrieve Liu Baizhen's body from the old well and bury it in a thick place to calm his resentment after death. Unexpectedly, after retrieving Liu Baizhen's body, he found that his chest was still rising and falling, and there were breaths and heartbeats. Moreover, Liu Baizhen's brain injury had slowly healed, and even the broken bones had been repositioned.

  The person in charge of the salvage saw this scene and did not dare to hide it, and immediately reported it to Heavenly King Hong Xiuquan. Knowing that Liu Baozhen was not dead, Hong Xiuquan was both shocked and angry. He was shocked because his brain had been smashed and he didn't die, if he waited for him to fully recover and come back to take revenge, what would happen? He was angry because since Liu Baozhen was not dead, then the one who appeared in his dreams for several days was not a ghost. Since it wasn't a ghost, there was only one explanation left, that Liu Baozhen was using magic to harm him.

  In a fit of rage, Hong Xiuquan issued another decree. He ordered people to set up a pyre on the spot and take Liu Baizhen to the outskirts of Nanjing for cremation. Then he crushed his ashes and scattered them into the sea by boat. The Heavenly King's decree was issued, and although the people below were frightened by Liu Baizhen's reputation, they did not dare to disrespect him. A big fire burned Liu Baizhen into flying ash.

  Just as they were about to collect Liu Baozhen's ashes, a sudden strong wind blew in, scattering the ashes all over Nanjing. The people who participated in the cremation were frightened and when they came back to their senses, they simply grabbed a handful of dust from the ground, put it in an urn, and pretended it was Liu Baozhen's ashes. They then rushed out to sea together, considering themselves to have escaped to heaven.

  That night, countless poisonous snakes suddenly emerged from the ground all over Nanjing. Overnight, countless soldiers and civilians died in the mouths of poisonous snakes. Because Liu Baozhen had just been burned to death that day, it was hard for Hong Xiuquan not to think about this place. Later, when he learned that the cause was still due to Liu Baozhen's ashes flying over the entire city of Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan was truly frightened.

  Because the God-worshipping Society had just opened for a few days, it hadn't started this kind of business to exorcise evil spirits. So Hong Xiuquan ordered that in the territory under the control of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, they should find masters who could exorcise evil spirits. As a result, many monks and Taoist priests came, reciting scriptures and setting up altars. However, the poisonous snakes in Nanjing City became even more fierce.

  In the city of Nanjing, poisonous snakes emerged one after another, and it seemed that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was about to be forced to relocate. A heavenly official who had a good relationship with Liu Baozhen offered a plan to Hong Xiuquan, saying that Liu Baozhen was a filial person in his lifetime, and if his parents were invited to Nanjing City, he would not bear the harm of snakes on his own parents and would definitely withdraw these poisonous snakes from Nanjing City.

  At that time, this was also a helpless measure. Hong Xiuquan immediately gave the order to have Liu Baizhen's parents brought over from their hometown in Jiangxi. On the same day that Liu Baizhen's parents arrived in Nanjing, the poisonous snakes in Nanjing suddenly disappeared without a trace, as if they had never appeared at all.

  Seeing the effectiveness of this move, Hong Xiuquan finally brought Liu Baozhen's parents to the imperial palace, and until the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in 1864, there were no more snake disturbances in Nanjing.

  After Zeng Guofan's troops captured Nanjing, Hong Xiuquan had been dead for many days. The Xiang Army looted and killed in the city of Nanjing, and nearly half of the people in the imperial palace were killed. When the Qing army was killing until midnight, the snake plague that had been extinct for many years reappeared in Nanjing. However, this time the poisonous snakes came out with a strange phenomenon, they only bit the Qing soldiers but did not harm the people of Nanjing at all.

  Generally, hundreds of Qing soldiers were bitten to death. Just when Zeng Guofan was puzzled as to why the sudden outbreak of snake infestation occurred, a surrendered general from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom who had participated in the killing of Liu Baizhen reported to Zeng Guofan about the tragic incident that happened after Liu Baizhen's death. After hearing this, Zeng Guofan hastily sent someone to the imperial palace to check on Liu Baizhen's parents' whereabouts. The person he sent quickly returned, bringing back two white-haired corpses with him.

  On the day of the city's fall, Liu Baizhen's parents were mistakenly believed to be relatives of Hong Xiuquan and had already died at the hands of the Qing army. Knowing that the only thing that could control Liu Baizhen was dead in the chaos, Zeng Guofan did not dare to delay for a moment, he sent someone to rush overnight and invited Zhang Renzheng, the 61st Heavenly Master of Longhushan in Jiangxi, to come down from the mountain.

  After inquiring about the detailed process, Zhang Tian Shi prepared for three more days and personally went to a family surnamed Shao in the suburbs of Nanjing, borrowed an antique from the Western Zhou period, and then set up a demon-expelling array in the city of Nanjing. He drove out all the military personnel and civilians in the city. As for what happened in the city, no one knew. However, that night, the thunderstorm in Nanjing was seen by everyone.

  The next morning, the gate of Nanjing City opened, and Zhang Tian Shi came out with a ceramic jar. Without bidding farewell to Zeng Guo Fan, Zhang Tian Shi took his apprentice directly to Beijing, found a kiln workshop, paid to have the people driven away, and personally sealed the mouth of the ceramic jar using ancient methods. After burning for one night, this sealed top colored ceramic double-eared vase was created.

  Because the road back to Jiangxi is mountainous and far, it's inevitable that there will be unexpected events. Zhang Tian Shi stored this ceramic vase in the White Cloud Temple in Beijing, originally planning to temporarily store it here for 50 years, using the auspicious Taoist teachings of this place to dissolve the evil spirits' aura inside the vase. After 50 years, once the evil spirits' aura is completely dissolved, someone from Mount Longhu will come to retrieve it. However, unexpectedly, the Eight-Nation Alliance arrived at the White Cloud Temple before anyone from Mount Longhu did, and upon seeing this sealed ceramic vase with two handles, they thought it was some valuable antique, so they snatched it away from the old Taoist's hands.

  Lao Dao originally wanted to take back the ceramic pot, but was kicked away by his own master, Baiyun Guan's old master. While kicking him, he scolded: "It's not like it's something good, just give it to him. How will his future misfortunes affect you? Give it to him! This is also a way for us to avenge the Great Qing Dynasty!"

  From then on, this glazed ceramic double-eared vase drifted overseas. Unexpectedly, more than a hundred years later, the object was returned here again.

  After listening to Director Qiu's words, Sun Baozi was stunned for a long time. He didn't expect that such a small ceramic pot would have so many stories inside. Thinking of what Old Qiu said, after Liu Baozhen died, the entire city of Nanjing was plagued by snakes, and the strange events that occurred on the plane to the monk named Gino could also be explained. It seems that the human-shaped mist that disappeared from the pot during the handover ceremony earlier was indeed Liu Baozhen.

  Thinking back to over a hundred years ago, the snake disaster in Nanjing City made Sun Baozi shiver. He suddenly remembered something and immediately said to Gao Liang: "It's bad, over a hundred years ago, he caused a snake disaster in Nanjing. Now that he has appeared again, will he cause another one here?"

  "Do you think this is Nanjing over a hundred years ago?" Gaohuang looked at Sun Bingzi with a slow and lazy gaze, and continued to say: "Liu Baozhen operated in Nanjing for many years before his death, and there were arrays set up everywhere, so he could control the snakes so easily after his death. This is the old imperial city, he has never been here before, why did he make trouble in the capital?"

  Here is the translation:

  "Speaking of which, Gaohuang looked at Sun Wuzi with a somewhat strange expression and suddenly changed the subject, saying: "The most important thing now is to find Liu Baozhen's soul as soon as possible. After more than 100 years, his evil spirit has not been resolved. Letting him run wild outside is like burying an unpredictable time bomb, who knows when he will go crazy again."

  As soon as he finished speaking, the office door was opened. A white-haired man walked in, looking at these few people inside, with a tone of sarcasm and said: "I heard that someone among you is getting more and more capable, being turned around by a handful of ashes. If I were you, I would have been choked to death by this handful of ashes..."