The Talisman's Blood-Sweat

Iron-wrapped wheels rolled slowly along the dirt road, forced by the weight of the Black Tai Sui and Li Huowang's luggage to press deep wheel-ruts into the muddy ground.

Li Huowang held the reins as he drove the cart. He glanced sideways at Mantou, who was trotting along the road with its tongue lolling. Reaching out, he pinched the loose skin on the back of the dog's neck and hoisted it onto the cart.

"Bang-bang-bang-bang." Mantou's constantly wagging tail struck the wooden cart like a drumstick.

Li Huowang pushed the dog's eager, nuzzling head away and said impatiently, "Settle down!"

He reached into his robe and pulled out the slip of paper Tuoba Danqing had given him.

As before, it contained an address. But unlike before, this time the paper did not specify what he would be facing.

Instead, it only noted that two Yellow rank scouts had been lost at that location, and that whoever went next should proceed with caution.

Li Huowang had no idea how strong a Yellow rank scout was. But he could be sure of one thing: this job wouldn't be small.

Otherwise, Tuoba Danqing wouldn't have promised that, after this task, he could be promoted from Gui soldier to Ren Wu.

He knew this trip might be dangerous. But afraid? He really wasn't. After everything he had been through, he had gone somewhat numb. If a man isn't even afraid of death, then there's not much left to frighten him.

Li Huowang took out the dark-blue talisman manual again and flipped it open. The first page was a brief overview.

"The forebear, He Dao, observed the traces of immortal birds and spirit insects in the sand, and understood that within them all lay the innate spiritual mechanism of the world. He thus deduced and sought out the details of it..."

Simply put, a man named He Dao—or perhaps a Daoist surnamed He—had deciphered a method for borrowing the power of Heaven and Earth from the sounds of birds and the marks of insects.

The sounds, distilled from bird calls and animal cries, that could mobilize Heaven-and-Earth's spiritual energy were called spell-chants. The traces, derived from insect tracks and star patterns, that could channel the same energy were called talisman scripts.

But he took what was written with a grain of salt. Li Huowang didn't believe for a second that 'the power of Heaven and Earth' would just let itself be borrowed without biting back. Who knew which force from this chaotic world he would be borrowing from?

Everyone in this mad world had their own internal logic, and most of it contradicted everyone else's.

He didn't care about 'Heaven-and-Earth spiritual energy,' the Three Pure Ones or the Three Corpses, or the Five Buddhist Realms. He didn't want to get tangled up in deciding what was real and what wasn't. If something could help him, he was willing to believe it—even if it was the Jade Emperor descending to the mortal realm.

"One stroke for the talisman, start by writing the four, then a stroke folded down-left, a tick and a vertical. Beneath it, write the ugly character. Below ugly, write two fire characters side by side. Draw four counter-clockwise circles and finish with a lotus..."

Even though Blind Chen had said these talismans carried a huge hidden danger, actually using them wasn't so simple.

To draw a talisman, you had to recite the incantation in your heart. If you made even a single mistake in the strokes, or recited even a single wrong word, the talisman was worthless. And worse still, after it was finished, you couldn't even look at it yourself to see if it was correct.

To truly master this talisman manual, he was going to have to put in some serious hard work.

To be honest, Li Huowang felt this thing was a lot more troublesome to use than the Thousand Greats Record. That book had a huge price, but at least it was convenient.

He placed a narrow strip of bright yellow turmeric paper on the cart. Biting the pad of his finger, he began copying from the talisman manual in his hand.

"...Heaven's essence, Earth's essence, the essence of Sun and Moon. Heaven and Earth combine their essence, Sun and Moon combine their brightness!"

Li Huowang finished the incantation in his heart. Gripping the talisman, he slapped it onto the horse's back in front of him.

The next moment, his ears caught a faint, viscous whisper.

Before he could make it out, the black horse pulling the cart screamed. Every vein on its hide bulged, dark and purple, and it bolted into a frantic gallop.

The fierce wind lifted the black gauze hat on Li Huowang's head, revealing a face that was now mostly covered in flesh.

Listening to the screech of the cart wheels, Li Huowang grew nervous. If it keeps running like this, is the cart going to fall apart?

Fortunately, after a while, once Li Huowang pulled the talisman off its back, the horse slowly returned to normal.

But in that short burst, they had already covered several li. The speed was undeniable. This talisman was far more useful than he had imagined.

It was only when the horse, now sweating blood, reached a river bank and began drinking huge gulps of water that Li Huowang wiped a red, oil-like fluid seeping from its back and muttered to himself, "Using this stuff... can it really have no hidden cost?"

"Woof woof!" Mantou suddenly barked, baring its teeth at the roadside.

Li Huowang looked up and saw a traveling peddler carrying a shoulder pole.

Seeing the peddler walking on ahead, Li Huowang quickly drove the cart after him. He was nearly at the destination now; it would be foolish not to ask a local for some clear information.

"Hey, peddler! Wait a moment!"

The peddler glanced at the copper coin sword on Li Huowang's back, then at his red Daoist robe. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand and lowered the pole from his shoulder. Staring at Li Huowang's black gauze hat, he asked, "This Revered One, what can I do for you?"

"Nothing in particular. I just thought that since we're headed the same way, we might as well travel together. Safety in numbers. Wouldn't want to run into highwaymen and lose my life for nothing."

"You jest, Revered One. I can't speak for other places, but around here, there aren't any highwaymen. You're better off guarding against the beasts in the woods than worrying about bandits."

"Is that so? Then how come I heard this area is unsafe?" Li Huowang threw out his line, and the bait was taken immediately.

"That would be the county seat's business. Nothing to do with us. The county has its merchants; we peddlers don't mix in it." The peddler looked completely unconcerned.

"Oh? I'd love to hear the details. I'm new here, and I really don't understand much."

But when Li Huowang pressed him, the peddler fell silent. There was a look of fear on his face, as if he was wary of something.

Li Huowang didn't force the issue. Instead, he looked at the contents of the peddler's pole baskets. "You've got a full load there. What do you have?"

Sensing a customer, the peddler perked up. "I'm a food peddler, so I sell food, of course. Things like soap nut paste cake, chengsha dumplings, milk cakes—I've got all that."

Li Huowang bought about half the different snacks in the peddler's baskets. When he asked again, the man hesitated for a moment before finally deciding to speak.

He furtively glanced around the surrounding woods. Leaning in close to Li Huowang, he lowered his voice. "I'll tell you, but don't go blabbing it around, all right? I heard... up ahead, in Cangshui County... there's a haunting."

"A haunting?" Li Huowang was taken aback. He hadn't expected to hear those words from someone else.

"Yeah. A few days ago, wasn't it the Ghost Festival on the fifteenth of the seventh month? Ay-yah... Turns out the King of Hell forgot to close the gates of the underworld! All those things from the land of the dead... they all got out!"

Li Huowang didn't believe a single word of this ghost story. If this guy knows that the King of Hell forgot to close the Ghost Gate, he's wasted as a peddler.

"Just tell me what actually happened in Cangshui County up ahead. No need to embellish it."