Guanzhong Tomb Robbery Notes

Chapter 358: Heavy Loss, Don’t Look Back

The talisman paper burned rapidly.

It turned into tongues of fire and spewed out in all directions.

I instinctively took two steps back to avoid the flames coming towards me.

"what!"

Because Uncle Chen was too close, he was unable to react in time when the talisman paper suddenly combusted, and the flames licked his face.

He covered his face and screamed as he stepped back.

I hurried over to support him: "Are you okay?"

Uncle Chen's old face was wrinkled in pain.

Every wrinkle twisted and trembled violently with pain.

He gritted his teeth and said, "It's a minor injury."

"If it were when I was young, I would definitely be able to avoid it..."

The most important thing for people in the world is face.

If you encounter a situation where you lose face, you have to bite the bullet and make up for it no matter what.

This is Uncle Chen’s situation right now.

But I don't have time to laugh at his excessive concern for face.

What's more important is to figure out why those talismans burned by themselves, and what's going on with the blood talisman.

"Uncle Chen, I just saw a bloody talisman on the back of the jar..."

Before I could finish my words, Uncle Chen exploded like a cat whose tail was stepped on.

"A bloody talisman?!"

He screamed, staring at me with wide eyes: "Are you sure the talisman is bleeding?!"

I wanted to make a promise with all my heart.

But when the words came to his lips, he changed his words: "Blood-red water is really flowing down."

"I can smell a faint... well, it doesn't smell like blood."

"It's a faint fishy smell with a hint of corpse odor."

"So I'm not sure if the red liquid flowing down is blood."

Because it suddenly occurred to me that the smell was different from the smell of blood, I reorganized my words.

Uncle Chen put down his hands that were covering his face.

Revealing his cheeks that were red from being burned by the fire.

"Go over there...hiss, take a look."

When he spoke, his cheeks moved and he gasped in pain.

After being burned, the skin will not blister immediately, but will feel a burning pain.

After a while, the blood and tissue fluid around the burned skin will resume normal circulation, and blisters will form under the skin.

Usually the best way to deal with a burn is to first flush the burned area with cold water, and then stop flushing after the burning pain in the burned area completely disappears.

Uncle Chen didn't take care of it in time, and by the next day, half of his face was covered in blisters...

But that’s all in the past, let’s get back to the present.

I helped Uncle Chen walk towards the bleeding talisman.

He casually asked, "What do those talismans you just saw mean? Will they work if I burn them?"

Uncle Chen sucked his teeth hard, enduring the pain on his face as he said, "Those talismans are all drawn very strangely. They don't look like the Three Mountains Talismans."

The Three Mountain Talismans refer to the Zhengyi Talisman of the Zhengyi Daoist Sect of Longhu Mountain, the Shangqing Talisman of the Shangqing Sect of Maoshan Mountain, and the Lingbao Talisman of the Lingbao Sect of Gezhao Mountain.

These three schools are all good at using talismans.

Therefore, they are collectively called the Three Mountains Talismans or the Three Sects of Talismans.

It is no exaggeration to say that these three sects can be regarded as the ancestors of talismans.

The various branches and schools that were derived later, as well as the unconventional talismans derived from the folk, cannot escape the foundation of these three schools of talismans.

"Could it be a fake talisman drawn casually?" I guessed.

It's not impossible.

Talismans are also called ghost-painted talismans in the folk, which means they are drawn in a messy way and look like they were drawn by a ghost.

There might be some people who don’t know how to do it and just want to cheat people out of their money, so they just scribble something and pretend it’s a real talisman to sell.

Well, later I actually met several such charlatans.

He doesn't know anything about talismans, but he dares to draw them casually and even claims that they are magic talismans bestowed by the Jade Emperor.

Uncle Chen shook his head slightly: "It doesn't look like a random drawing."

"You can tell from the strength of his brush and the way he draws it, he's definitely an expert at drawing talismans."

"It might be a talisman passed down from the folk Dharma lineage."

Compared with orthodox lineages such as Zhengyi and Quanzhen, folk lineages are less recognized.

As part of the folk lineage, after Zhengyi disciples marry and have children, they pass on the talismans they have mastered to their descendants, but they do not allow their descendants to become disciples.

This is called a family heirloom.

Moreover, the family-inherited talismans are usually on the verge of being lost.

It is equivalent to cutting off the inheritance of the sect and passing it down privately only within one's own family.

There are also some folk lineages that are hidden Taoist lineages, which practice the more ancient Taoist traditions.

The largest part is the product of the combination of witchcraft and Taoist culture in various places.

For example, the Lu Ban School that inherited the Lu Ban Book, the Pu'an Sect that eliminated evil spirits and controlled evil spirits, the Lushan School with complete rituals of fasting and offering sacrifices, the Meishan School that recruited and dispatched demon soldiers, the Yinshan School that used the Yin to mobilize, drive away and lock souls, and so on.

These folk legal traditions each have their own unique features.

In terms of ability, it is no less than that of the orthodox lineage.

When I heard Uncle Chen mention folk magic, I thought of the spirit-calling bell I had received from my uncle Ai Wuzhuang before.

That bell was made by a master from the Yinshan Sect.

I walked to the bleeding talisman and stood in front of it, shining the flashlight on it.

The talisman was still dripping blood-red liquid.

The liquid flows through the cylinder to the ground and is then quickly absorbed by the compacted ground.

Uncle Chen stared at the talisman carefully.

But the runes on it were written in cinnabar.

After being soaked in the blood-red liquid, the cinnabar became difficult to see.

I took a look at it twice, but lost interest in the runes that were so blurry that they were difficult to recognize. Instead, I looked at the bloody liquid flowing to the ground.

"Hold the flashlight steady."

"You just moved the light away when I saw something." Uncle Chen muttered dissatisfiedly.

I quickly raised my flashlight. "The writing is red, and the talisman paper is also blood red. Can you really see anything?"

"Besides, do you understand the talismans of this folk Dharma lineage?"

"If you ask me, just tear it apart..."

As soon as I said the word "tear", a cold wind blew from behind me.

call!

The wind is not strong.

It’s not that cold.

Instead, it feels gentle, like someone is blowing air on your back!

Is there something behind it?!

Bang bang bang!

My heart started beating violently and my right hand holding the dagger rose up.

Uncle Chen grabbed my raised right hand.

His hands were shaking slightly as he squeezed my right wrist hard.

He uttered three words through his teeth in a hoarse voice: "Don't, turn, back"

My heart suddenly sank.

It seems there is something behind me!

"Uncle Chen..."

Uncle Chen pinched my wrist hard.

Then he said, "Listen to me."

"This is a blood talisman that can restrain severe death."

"Ordinary blood talismans are made from the blood of black dogs, rooster combs, and other animals that can ward off evil spirits."

"But the blood talisman that controls severe loss...must be made with human blood!"

"The person in this jar is not the one we thought was deceased!"

"But..."

The more Uncle Chen spoke, the trembling his voice became.

When he said the word "but", his voice trembled so much that he couldn't speak.

It was as if an invisible hand was pinching his throat, preventing his vocal cords from producing sound normally.

"Huff, huff!" Uncle Chen bent down and gasped for breath.

But his head was held high stubbornly.

His eyes were fixed on the blood talisman.

His eyes were bloodshot and there was a complex light flashing in them.

I think there is something wrong with Uncle Chen.

Just when he was about to separate him from the blood talisman, the blood talisman suddenly broke into two pieces along the edge of the vat!

Immediately afterwards, there was a knocking sound in the tank.

Cracks appeared on the cylinder body.

Soon the dense cracks formed into a spider web shape.

The jar is about to burst!

What's inside is coming out!