Chapter 29: The Soul-Seizing Knot

To be honest, my second sister was tortured into this state. They hated this female ghost so much that they wished it would disappear immediately. However… one of the reasons was that I was involved, and the other was that the sentence mostly struck a chord in the hearts of the poor.

For a while, they couldn’t make a decision, and after a long silence, my father said, “Master Jiang, you decide what to do!”

As for me, I stood there like a bolt of thunder, my hands and feet were cold, and I had only one thought in my head: did I cause my second sister to die? Did I attract the ghost?

The old man looked at me. He didn’t have time to comfort me, but instead took a roll of red thread out of his bag. At this point, I noticed that he was carrying a yellow cloth bag, which had been hanging on his back the whole time, so it wasn’t obvious.

After taking out the red thread, the old man shook it, and it spread out. Then he thought about it for a while, and began to tie it around my second sister according to a special pattern.

The way he tied the red thread was extremely complicated. Even tying a knot seemed to be very particular. I simply couldn’t understand what the old man was doing!

What was he going to do next? And would this seemingly ordinary red string be useful?

The old man spent more than half an hour tying the knots. The whole process was extremely complicated. In the end, all the ends of the rope were scattered on his chest. The old man tied the last knot on his chest. This knot was the biggest and most complicated. It took the old man another 10 minutes to tie it.

“It’s done.” After tying the knot, the old man wiped his sweaty hands, as if tying the knot was extremely laborious. I noticed that when tying the knot, the old man would mutter to himself, and at the same time, he would be very focused when he was muttering, so that he would not be distracted at all.

After the old man finished, I looked at my second sister. Her limbs and forehead were all wrapped in red rope, with a knot every few inches. Finally, there was a large knot on her chest, and the whole person seemed to be tied up.

I don’t know if it was my illusion, but I always felt that after the old man had done such a good job on my sister, my sister’s expression seemed to have calmed down a bit.

“Master Jiang, tea.” My mother handed the tea to the old man, who took a sip and then put it down before slowly saying, “This is a soul-locking knot. The red thread used has also undergone special processing. I did this to lock my second sister’s soul. Because of all the things that have happened during this time, my second sister’s soul has become extremely unstable. A little fright will make it escape from the body, and coupled with the evil spirits that haunt her every night and force their way into her body, it is also very easy to be squeezed out.”

My parents were sad to hear that their daughter was suffering from this kind of torture every day, and they were powerless as parents.

At this point, old Jiang also patted my sister’s hair affectionately and sighed, “This child is also quite strong-willed. She has been fighting the evil spirits for her body. If the evil spirits didn’t use her body, it would be fine. At worst, I would tell you about the situation, which would be a relief. But if they forcibly take over her body, it would be a great harm to her family and friends.”

“Second sister…” Hearing this, my mother could no longer hold back, and she hugged her second sister in bed. It must have been very hard for her to fight the evil spirit all by herself these days.

“Master Jiang, is the evil spirit trying to possess my second sister’s body?” my father asked angrily.

“Not necessarily. For ghosts, possessing a human body is not an easy task, at least not for ordinary ghosts. For example, if Mrs. Zhou and Mr. Zhou were not willing to let Mr. Zhou possess her body, Mr. Zhou would not have been able to do it. As long as Mrs. Zhou had the slightest thought of resistance, he would have been pushed out, because in the end, Mr. Zhou was just an ordinary ghost. If the evil spirit is formed with resentment, it is much stronger, but it can only take over a person’s body when the yin energy is strong, and it can only succeed with the help of the right time and place and its own strength! And when there is a living soul in the human body, it cannot occupy it for a long time. If the living soul in the body is completely squeezed out, it depends on whether the yang spirit and it are compatible. If they are not compatible, it can only use this yang body to complete what it needs to do, and it must leave.

At this point, the old man Jiang paused for a moment, then took another sip of tea. He must have been quite exhausted explaining so much. If he were an ordinary person, he would not have bothered to explain the ins and outs of this case even if he had the chance. He only did so because of me. He mentioned to me later that this was a kind of “entrance exam flim-flam,” which was to arouse my interest and to give me some knowledge.

“It is very difficult to meet the right Yang body, just like the possibility of catching a fish with your eyes closed in the water. Therefore, basically, the evil spirit is not trying to take over Ermei’s Yang body, it is just trying to take revenge.” Old man Jiang explained patiently.

“What does it want to retaliate against?” My father was puzzled. He couldn’t think of anything in my family that was worth retaliating against.

“Evil spirits don’t need any reason to harm people. The more hatred they have, the more people they will affect, which means it depends on how much resentment they have. Of course, in general, evil spirits have a target and a creditor, and once they find the creditor, it’s over. But if the resentment it feels is not caused by a single person, but by the whole environment, then it’s hard to say.” Old man Jiang explained to my father.

“But you said that the evil spirit was brought here by Sanwa. It was originally in the village, but I haven’t seen anyone else in the village have any problems.” My mother was also very confused.

This has to do with Sanwa’s constitution. He is extremely sensitive to yin and yang, and is naturally able to see through the essence of things or the flow of qi in the world. Let me put it this way: it’s like having a natural sixth sense. However, everything in the world, when you observe it, it will also observe you. When Sanwa saw them, they also saw Sanwa. Ghosts are not something that can be measured by humans, such as saying that they have eyes and ears, and then imagining that they will listen and see. Their senses are not like this. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s very complicated to talk about it. To put it simply, when Sanwa saw them, it was like waking them up. Then, Sanwa’s constitution was originally yin, which was extremely compatible with them. It was simply a piece of delicious food, which made it easy to be haunted by ghosts, but…”

Old Jiang stopped here, he really didn’t know how to explain this abstract concept to my parents in a simple way, and was still thinking about how to organize the whole story for my parents.

“Yes, how did it find my sister?” My father frowned and waited for the old man to explain. In addition, my father didn’t understand what it meant to see them and wake them up.

But my dad didn’t want to understand it either. This was really too profound for him and my mom.

“Evil spirits haunt people based on the size of their grievances. Resenting people tortures the living, and at the same time, it also tortures themselves. It is very comfortable for them to vent their grievances once, and it is simply a task that must be done. It has set its sights on Sanwa, and wants to haunt him. But Sanwa has my tiger claws to protect him, so it can’t get close to him. What should he do? It will never be satisfied if it can’t vent its grievances. In this case, the weaker second sister will of course become its target. As for why it doesn’t go after other people in the village, the reason is very simple. It’s because you are all Sanwa’s family, always connected by blood and sharing the same breath. It can easily feel it. Unless it bumps into someone else in the village, it has nothing to worry about. “At this point, Old Jiang looked at my parents with a smile and continued,

“You live in the countryside and have heard many ghost stories. You can recall the times when evil spirits harmed people. Which time was it not the same family that was affected? Have you ever heard of it affecting the neighbors? The newly born evil spirits have the greatest resentment and are the most terrifying. At that time, it may affect an entire area. After venting their initial resentment, they will exist unconsciously. This is a kind of lonely soul and wild ghost until they are stimulated again and wake up.

At this point, Master Jiang had explained the whole thing. It was already 10 o’clock at night, and my mother looked at the little alarm clock in my house with a little fear and said, “Master Jiang, it’s coming. So, should we let Second Sister wear Sanwa’s tiger claw? Sanwa had thought about doing this before, but we didn’t let him do it because we thought of your instructions.”

“It’s right not to do it. It’s a hassle for Sanwa to be entangled, and I have to do a lot of work. Besides, Taoism has a saying about nurturing the body. The tiger’s claws have been nurturing Sanwa for seven years. It’s not a good thing to take them off. After someone else wears them, the seven years of effort will be wasted.”

“Then Master Jiang, it’s coming.” My eldest sister, who had been silent, finally couldn’t help but say something.

Old Master Jiang laughed and said, “Don’t worry. If it comes, it comes. If I didn’t want to destroy it, why would I need to go through all this trouble?”

It is true that the old man Jiang has many ways to destroy this evil spirit. As long as he has the soul-locking knot, which locks my second sister’s soul and prevents it from flying away again, the old man Jiang can do anything to the evil spirit without any taboos. The reason why it is so troublesome is to create more merit, just like the group of ghosts I passed away when I was a child, just like the compassionate approach he deliberately chose now.

“Bring the table,” Jiang Laoren replied to my eldest sister, and then told my mother to do so.

My mother quickly brought a table over, thinking that the old man would do the same thing as last time, but he just casually took out a stack of yellow paper, took out some vermilion, and then asked my father to pass him a small dish of water.

It turned out that the old man was only going to draw talismans, and this time the drawing of talismans was far less serious than the drawing of the blue talismans the last time. The yellow talismans seemed to be much more relaxed, and the old man only recited a few talismans when they were completed, of course, no one else could understand them.

He didn’t even do the motions of summoning and binding the demons.