Chapter 49: Silver Talisman

Old Jiang laughed heartily at this and patted my head, saying, “What’s so strange about snakes in the soil? If you don’t believe me, ask the local farmers. Sometimes when they cut bamboo, they can find a snake sleeping in the hollow bamboo tube. They don’t know how it got there. It burrowed into the soil itself. Look.”

He pointed to the hole in the ground and said, “Look, there are many long, bumpy tunnels in the hole, and it looks like a snake is curled up inside.

“When it is practicing, it will enter a state similar to hibernation, and when it is practicing, it does not breathe through its mouth and nose, absorbing spiritual energy, but breathes through its skin and body. The same is true for animals when they are practicing.” Old man Jiang continued to explain to me.

“What? Animals are that powerful?” This is simply amazing to me.

“Animals are powerful? So are humans! When you were in your mother’s womb, did you breathe through your nose and mouth? The way humans breathe in their mother’s womb is the most coveted breathing state for cultivators. It is especially difficult to practice this.” Old Master Jiang sighed.

“Humans can do that? So, do I have to practice it? Does the master have to practice it?” I can’t imagine that I will ever stop breathing through my nose and mouth.

“Haha, you’ll know when you’re officially in the door! Your master, me, is the most useless of all. The mountain lineage has fallen, and the people walking the world are all from the other four lineages. Alas… this is the hardest to say.” Old Master Jiang sighed.

I didn’t understand a word he said, but in order to give him face, I pretended to understand and said “Oh,” which resulted in a slap on the head.

Old Jiang said with a squint: “Know what you know, don’t know what you don’t know. You’re pretending? If you keep pretending, I’ll beat you to death.”

I…

So, the master and I were silent for a while. Old Jiang took me out of the big pit. Outside the pit, a group of people were still waiting. As soon as we went out, a man came up to us.

I recognized him at once. He was the soldier from the courtyard, and it seemed that he was the leader.

“Master Jiang, have you decided what to do?” the man asked respectfully.

“I’ve decided. I’m not going to open the stone door, I’m going to seal it and then bury it. At night, I’ll summon the spirits of the dead in this Yin-nourishing place, break the ground, change the flow of the feng shui in this area, and slowly dissolve the things underneath.” Old Master Jiang said calmly.

“Are you really not going to open it and take a look?” The man was probably curious.

“Open it? Someone is keeping evil artifacts inside, and you want to open it? Opening it will cost lives. Curiosity should be kept in check.” The old man said sternly.

However, what he didn’t know was that when we left here, we would eventually have to open it and experience a horror.

Old man Jiang, he looks wretched, and he’s not very approachable, but when he’s serious, he has a certain air of authority. He’s already decided to seal the stone door and not open it, so the others don’t dare say anything more.

The problem is twofold.

First, what is inside the stone door? Because no one knows what the concept of a “cultivating evil device” is.

Second, how to seal the stone door?

At this time, the only one who dared to ask Jiang Laoren was me. Sure enough, I did not disappoint everyone’s “ardent” hopes, and asked the first thing I could think of: “Master, what is a demon-cultivating device? Are there no ghosts inside this stone door?”

“It’s hard to say what’s inside this stone door, but the most likely scenario is that it’s a place to raise evil artifacts. The righteous have their magic artifacts, which can be used as the center of a magic circle, to protect people from disasters, and to do many other things… But just as there is yin and yang, there is good and evil in the world. Magic artifacts need spiritual energy to nurture them, and people are the most spiritual of all things, so they can nurture them with a little spiritual energy of their own. But for evil artifacts, you need to find a special place with evil energy to raise them. Places with a lot of resentment are even better. Old Master Jiang patiently answered, and he was always willing to explain things to me.

“But Master, why can’t the place where the evil device is kept be opened?”

“Why should it be opened? Places that cultivate evil objects generally have a sinister aura, and the things inside are extraordinary and always deadly. If you open it, you will only find an evil object at the end, and at most you will destroy it. If you can seal it and disperse this gathering of evil spirits, isn’t that the best way? No matter what, you must always consider the best thing to do with the least cost. Money is the least important thing in this cost. The most important thing is the lives of those people, understand?

“Yes!”

Master Jiang’s words always have a power that convinces me. At this time, I remembered that each life is the most important.

“So, Master Jiang, when will you seal the stone door?” Everyone’s questions were answered thanks to me, and at this point the leader of the courtyard finally couldn’t help but speak up. After all, there were still so many people waiting outside to dig bamboo to earn points. If they waited too long, rumors would spread and it would be difficult to handle.

“Now!” After that, the old man took something very precious out of his bag.

The object was in a wooden box. The box was rectangular, not too big, very finely carved, and had a small golden lock.

I am not a connoisseur, and I don’t know the material of the wooden box. Later, I learned that the so-called wood surface of the wooden box is made of agarwood and red sandalwood, and the small golden lock is real gold.

The old man held the small wooden box in his hands, his eyes revealing a hint of nostalgia and sadness. He rubbed the wooden box and said to himself, “The things my master left me are getting fewer and fewer. I don’t have the ability to make this thing. If I were to make it, I wouldn’t know if I could succeed even once in a hundred times. What’s more unfortunate is that I don’t have the ability to use this thing to draw talismans a hundred times. I never thought that a small mountain village would let me use it.”

The old man’s words were incoherent, and no one could understand the full meaning, but everyone understood two things. The first was that this thing was extremely precious, and the old man was unable to replicate it. The second was that he had mentioned his master for the first time.

These words made everyone curious about the contents of the box. The old man rubbed the wooden box for a while, and finally used a special technique to twist the small lock on the box back and forth several times, opening the wooden box.

What no one expected was that the wooden box was also inlaid with a fine white jade lining, which meant that it was a jade box with a wooden cover. The workmanship was exquisite, but the contents were a bit disappointing, because there was only a talisman inside!

But the talisman was actually silver.

The silver talisman was dazzling in the sunlight, and even more amazing was that the bright red writing on it also had a hint of glimmering light, as if it had been written in rubies.

Old Jiang took out the talisman and looked at it with some reluctance. At this moment, I saw clearly the runes on the talisman. They were completely different from the usual talismans. They were not something similar to the shape of characters, but were obviously a kind of totem, with some incomprehensible characters around it.

Of course, at that time I didn’t know what totem it was, and I thought that the thing on the talisman was a big tiger that wanted to roar, but it didn’t look like a tiger, and I couldn’t say what it was.

“Have this pit dug open, and let the stone door be completely exposed.” Old man Jiang held the talisman in his hand, and he had a certain air of majesty about him. After he gave the order, a squad of People’s Liberation Army soldiers came over and started digging the pit with shovels.

Then he ordered the people in the courtyard to “go find some glutinous rice, freshly steamed is best.”

Then came the long wait. I went with Su Rou to ask Ding about the bamboo flute. I wanted to know how to play it and if it could drive away snakes. It was very tempting for a child.

But this is the secret of Xiaoding’s master, how can he tell? Xiaoding is shy and has a clumsy mouth. He was cornered by us and had no choice but to shut up, lower his head, and blush like a big girl.

His unscrupulous master just laughed and didn’t help him at all.

After about an hour, the stone door was completely dug out and fresh glutinous rice was also found.