Chapter 138: Mysterious Paper Man

After some time of rest, everyone has more or less recovered. Even Tao Bai and Xiao Chengqian, who were previously unconscious, have also woken up. But in order to avoid any more accidents, we are destined to spend the night on the rocks tonight. Patel is too cunning. I am afraid that it still has some power left and will do something else at night.

The bright moon slowly rose from the horizon and, when it was completely at a high point in the sky and the cool moonlight was lightly sprinkled, the rocks were already filled with the sound of breathing and the sound of snoring.

I didn’t sleep, but instead cut bamboo sticks one by one in front of the flickering firelight. This was some of the materials that Uncle Johnny had brought from the Penglai. The purpose was to make a paper man, and as the successor of the Shan family, I was the one who should complete this task.

The knife kept swinging, and the bamboo in my hands quickly turned into strips of bamboo. In this quiet night, the sound of the bamboo and the knife colliding created a “swish” sound, which not only did not destroy the tranquility, but also made the night seem more silent and distant.

The silence was so profound that it seemed to have spanned many years… I suddenly felt as if the person chopping the bamboo in front of me was not me, and as if the place where I was was not a lonely rock on the deep pool, but rather the warm courtyard of my hometown that year, under the moonlight, with the master by the oil lamp, and I, a young child, curiously squatting on the side, watching the bamboo paper flying in the master’s hands with great interest.

These memories make me feel a little dazed. They seem to have happened a long time ago, so long ago that when I recall them, they are tinged with a faint haze of memory, like old photographs. They also seem to have happened only yesterday, so close that I can remember every expression of my master at that time so clearly.

“Sigh,” in such a trance, the knife I was using to cut the bamboo cut my finger. The pain from my fingertips made me suck in a breath, and I finally came back to my senses from the memories of the past.

“Are you okay?” asked Uncle Johnny next to me, and quickly took the wine. He originally wanted to take a sip and spray it on my finger to disinfect it, but he hesitated and handed it to me.

I smiled. This old man is quite cute when he is stubborn. Then I took a sip of the wine and sprayed it on my bleeding finger. I took another sip of the wine to disperse the cold of the night.

“Will you be able to hold out tomorrow without a break?” Uncle Johnny couldn’t help but ask me.

“No problem.” At this point, I had almost enough of the bamboo strips I needed, and I was finishing them one by one. The hardest part was drawing the runes on top. If I made a mistake, the finished paper doll wouldn’t work!

I didn’t ask why I had to make a paper doll, because Uncle Johnny never explained why. Just as he never explained why he didn’t use the last and strongest blow he said he would use when it was most dangerous today.

He just woke me up when everyone was asleep, pointed to a pile of materials and asked me to make a paper doll, saying that it was preparation for tomorrow, and gave me another drawing with some images of the paper doll and the runes that needed to be drawn on the ‘bones’ of the paper doll.

These runes are generally drawn according to the fate, otherwise they will not have any effect. Although I am not a fortune teller, I can generally know the fate of the paper man by seeing these runes. However, these runes are so complicated and do not conform to the common sense of the arrangement of runes, so I can’t see the fate hidden in them at all. I just feel that at a glance, these runes are not those we learn in Taoism, but seem to be more advanced, just like the formation laid by the master.

But I had no doubts, because at the bottom of the drawing was still a Li written in a dragon-like and phoenix-like style!

Everything was done in silence. During the process of drawing the rune, there could not be any disturbance. Even if I was just following the instructions, I had to concentrate fully because of the unfamiliarity of the rune.

It took more than an hour to complete the work, and during that time, I didn’t have any conversation with Uncle Johnny.

After completing the rune, I took a deep breath, took a big sip of the wine next to me, lit a cigarette, and took two deep breaths. The fatigue was slightly relieved. Uncle Johnny originally wanted me to rest for a while before continuing to tie the paper doll, but the most critical work was already done, so I thought it might as well be done in one go.

The image on the paper is not much different from the paper dolls we usually make, except that the proportions of the body and the facial features are much more perfect than most people in the world. This is not to say that it is handsome or anything, it is just a harmonious and perfect feeling that makes people feel that people should grow up that way and be the most upright people. It is just an image on paper, and even a glance makes people feel very comfortable, and some people can’t take their eyes off it.

“It feels amazing, Li said. The higher level of existence that the world thinks of is just this kind of image.” Uncle Johnny said to me, then paused for a moment and added in a low voice, “It looks pretty good. I suspect that the people who live on Kunlun Mountain look like this.”

I didn’t say anything, but I had some guesses about what the master had arranged. Thinking about this, I looked at Uncle Johnny and said, “Why did you bring this out only now?”

The firelight illuminated Grandpa Johnny’s face. He was silent for a moment before saying, “If we were all wiped out in the daytime, it wouldn’t make sense to take this out, would it? Some things… are just a matter of course, like me taking out this drawing. But even though it’s a matter of course, there’s still a bit of bitterness and reluctance. Although this doesn’t mean that the bitterness and reluctance make me back down.”

“What do you mean?” I had already started to make the paper doll, and although I wasn’t listening to Grandpa Johnny with all my heart, I thought about it for a while and was sure I still didn’t understand.

In response to my question, Master Johnny smiled and said, “Chengyi, you don’t have to understand everything, and you don’t have to ask why.”

Then, there was another moment of silence. Paper crafting is a skill that I have learned since I was a child, so it wasn’t slow at all. Soon, the basic shape of the paper man was complete… Grandpa Johnny looked very involved, and at this point he couldn’t help but sigh with emotion: “Taoist priests are always very mysterious, and they seem to understand some art. Paper people and paper horses, when your master opened the altar and used paper people and paper horses to borrow the help of the dead, I thought it was amazing! The main thing is that I find it hard to believe that a Taoist could make something so lifelike.

Know art? My face became weird, and I remembered the spirit jade left by the master, which was carved with incomprehensible nonsense, and even hot pot, as if afraid that others would not know, and there was a crooked inscription next to it saying “This is hot pot…” I felt that art was something that had nothing to do with us. Just like the master could sketch the charm of a paper doll with a few strokes, I could probably do it too, but to get us to draw something other than a paper doll itself, that would definitely be…

But Master still has a masterpiece, which is the portrait of the Grand Master. It is almost the result of his entire skill in drawing paper figures, combined with his unforgettable memory of the Grand Master. As for me… I’ll just draw paper figures.

In order to distract myself from this embarrassing question, I asked Uncle Johnny bluntly, “When you said tomorrow is the most dangerous time, did you mean when the coffin is opened?” This is nonsense. Any zombie is most dangerous when the coffin is opened, even if it is opened in the sun. As soon as the zombie comes into contact with a living person, it will rise up in an instant. But I couldn’t think of any other questions.

“It’s dangerous, but it should only be a moment. As long as you get past that moment, there’s no danger. As long as you can subdue Patel. You said that the moment you open the coffin is the most dangerous, but that’s not true! You know, not all zombies are afraid of sunlight. At least Patel isn’t! The danger is breaking the seal, the moment your master’s spirit is absorbed.” Uncle Johnny whispered, and this was the third time he had repeated this sentence, but every time he said it, it was very heavy.

He couldn’t tell me what to do, because the master didn’t tell him what to do at the moment of breaking the seal. He just said that the person who would come to solve this problem completely in the future would most likely be his successor, and that person would have the same fate as him. If he, as the successor, didn’t know how to deal with the zombies, then he would not be worthy of being his successor.

However, Uncle Johnny still gave me a package of things. When I opened it, it was a package of blood-colored glutinous rice. I was very surprised that the glutinous rice was blood-colored. It really smelled strongly of blood. Uncle Johnny only explained to me in a light tone, “This glutinous rice is carefully preserved by me. They… how should I say it… are soaked in my own blood once a month by me. Do you understand?”

“Why is it your blood?” I was puzzled by this.

“Maybe my blood is better! Don’t you trust me?” Uncle Johnny didn’t want to explain too much, just looking at me seriously.

I stopped and put away the sticky rice, saying, “Then I won’t ask.”

Uncle Johnny smiled, patted my shoulder, and didn’t say anything in the end.

The rocks were quiet again, except for the flickering fire and the two figures busy and silent by the fire. It seemed that at this moment, they were relying on each other, the faint warmth between the elders and the juniors.