Chapter 317
Chapter 317
-----------------------------------------------------------------
>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 317
>Chapter Title: Talisman
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
The iron-rimmed wheels rolled slowly along the dirt road. Due to the weight of Black Tai Sui and Li Huowang's luggage, they were forced to crush deep tracks into the muddy ground.
Li Huowang, holding the reins and driving the horse, twisted his head to glance at Mantou on the roadside, sticking its tongue out nonstop. He reached out, pinched a fold of skin on the back of its neck, and directly hoisted it onto the carriage.
"Thump thump thump thump." Mantou's constantly wagging tail was like a wooden stick, knocking loudly against the wooden carriage.
Li Huowang pushed away the affectionate dog head that was nuzzling close with his hand and said impatiently,
"Settle down!"
With that, he reached into his robe and pulled out the note that Tuoba Danqing had given him back then.
Just like before, it had an address here, but unlike previous times, this note didn't explicitly state what had happened.
It only deliberately noted that two Yellow Character scouts had been lost in this place, so those going next time should be careful in dealing with them.
Li Huowang didn't know how strong these so-called Yellow Character scouts were, but he could be sure this matter was no small thing.
Otherwise, Tuoba Danqing wouldn't have said that after finishing this trip, he could promote him from Gui Operative to Ren Operative.
Translator's note: (Ghost Operative) has been changed to Gui Operative
He knew this trip might be dangerous, but if he had to say he was afraid, Li Huowang really wasn't. After going through so much, he had grown somewhat numb. If a person wasn't even afraid of death anymore, then there wasn't much left to fear.
Li Huowang took out the dark blue talisman booklet again and flipped it open to look. The first page at the beginning was a simple overview of the booklet.
"Ancestor He Dao saw traces of immortal birds and spirit insects in the sand, knew that they all contained innate spiritual mechanisms, and thus deduced from hearing and sought in detail..."
In simple terms, a man named He Dao, or perhaps a Daoist surnamed He, figured out a way to borrow the power of heaven and earth from bird calls and insect tracks.
The sounds derived from bird cries and beast calls in heaven and earth, used to mobilize heavenly spiritual energy, were called incantations. The marks found in insect traces and star patterns, leading to heavenly spiritual energy, were talismans.
But Li Huowang only half-believed what it said. He didn't think that just looking at the power of heaven and earth could backfire on oneself—who knew which force from this chaotic world it was borrowing.
In this deranged world, everyone had their own logic, and most of them contradicted each other.
Never mind things like heavenly spiritual energy, the Three Pure Ones and Three Corpses, or the Five Directions Buddha Realms. He didn't want to dwell on what was true or false. As long as it could help him, he was even happy to believe it came from the Jade Emperor descending to earth.
"Draw the same talisman in one smooth stroke: start with four, next a stroke folding to the left-down flick and vertical, below that make chou, below chou make double fire characters, reverse draw four circles and make lotus."
Although Blind Chen had said this talisman had huge hidden dangers, using it wasn't that easy.
When drawing talismans, one had to chant incantations in the mind. If even a single stroke was wrong or a single word misspoken, the talisman was ruined. Worse still, after drawing it, the drawer themselves couldn't see if it was done right.
If he wanted to master this talisman booklet proficiently, it would take no small amount of hard work.
To be honest, Li Huowang felt this thing was far more troublesome to use than the *Great Thousand Record*. That one had a huge cost, sure, but it was truly convenient.
A small strip of bright yellow talisman paper was placed on the carriage. Li Huowang bit his fingertip and began copying from the talisman booklet in his hand.
"...Heavenly essence, earthly essence, essence of sun and moon—heaven and earth combine their essences, sun and moon combine their lights!"
As Li Huowang finished chanting in his mind, he slapped the talisman onto the horse's back. The next moment, he vaguely heard some viscous whispers in his ears.
But before he could listen carefully, the black horse pulling the cart neighed sharply. Dark purple veins bulged across its skin, and it bolted forward madly.
The wild wind lifted Li Huowang's black-veiled conical hat again and again, revealing most of his face.
Hearing the creaking of the wheels, Li Huowang, who was driving the horse, couldn't help but tense up.
"Running like this, the carriage won't fall apart, will it?"
Fortunately, after a short while, once Li Huowang removed the talisman from the horse's back, it slowly returned to normal.
But in just that short time, the carriage had already traveled several li—remarkably fast. This talisman was unexpectedly effective, beyond Li Huowang's expectations.
However, as the black horse, dripping with bloody sweat, reached the riverbank and gulped down water greedily, Li Huowang wiped the oily red liquid seeping from its back and thought to himself,
"Is there really no hidden danger in using this thing?"
"Woof woof!" Suddenly, Mantou bared its teeth and barked fiercely at the roadside.
Li Huowang looked up and saw it was a peddler with baskets on a shoulder pole.
Seeing the peddler walking further ahead, Li Huowang hurriedly drove the carriage to catch up. They were almost at the destination; it wouldn't do not to ask a local for clarification.
"Hey, peddler, wait up!"
The peddler glanced at the copper coin sword on Li Huowang's back, then at the red Daoist robe on his body. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, set down the shoulder pole, and stared at Li Huowang's black-veiled conical hat as he asked,
"Daoist, what do you want to buy?"
"I'm not buying anything specific. I just thought since we're heading the same way, we might as well travel together. After all, there's safety in numbers—no need to run into highwaymen robbing the road and lose our lives for nothing."
The peddler, who had a mole with a hair on his chin, chuckled.
"You're joking, Daoist. I don't know about other places, but around here, there really aren't any highwaymen. You'd do better to watch out for the beasts in the woods than fear highwaymen."
"No way? Then why have I heard this place isn't very peaceful?"
Li Huowang had just cast the line when the other immediately bit.
"That's county seat business—it has nothing to do with us. The county has merchants; we peddlers aren't needed."
The peddler didn't care at all.
"Oh? Tell me more. I'm new around here and don't know much."
But when Li Huowang asked, the peddler clammed up, his expression turning fearful, as if wary of something.
Li Huowang didn't press him. Instead, he looked at the goods on the peddler's shoulder pole.
"What all do you have there, packed so full?"
Seeing a chance for business, the food peddler perked up immediately.
"I'm a food peddler, of course I sell food—like soap paste, clarified sugar balls, milk sugar drizzles, I've got it all.
After Li Huowang bought more than half of the different snacks from the peddler's baskets, he asked again. The peddler hesitated for a moment before finally opening up.
He sneaked a few glances into the surrounding woods, then leaned close to Li Huowang and whispered,
"I'll tell you, but don't go blabbing about it outside. Rumor has it there's ghosts haunting Cangshui County up ahead."
"Ghosts?"
Li Huowang froze in astonishment. He really hadn't expected to hear that from someone else.
"Yeah, wasn't it Ghost Festival just a while back on the fifteenth of the seventh month? Well, King Yama forgot to close the Ghost Gate! All those things from the underworld came rushing out."
Li Huowang didn't believe a word of the peddler's ghost stories. If this guy even knew about King Yama forgetting the Ghost Gate, it was a waste for him to be just a peddler.
"Just tell me what exactly happened in Cangshui County up ahead. No embellishments."
(End of chapter)