Chapter 78 Talisman Paper

Chapter 78 Talisman Paper

Chapter 78 Talisman Paper
The next moment, everything around became empty.

He was still in the cave on the mountain wall and could still see the rough stones, the narrow space, and the darkness outside, but at the same time, he could also see the entire Ranshan Sect.

This was not the feeling of "the stone becoming transparent" - the stone wall was still real, but Li Wuxiang could see through the thick mountain wall and see everything within the entire Ranshan Sect. It seemed to have nothing to do with "vision", but a magical power that transcended the five senses.

From an objective point of view, the closed Ranshan Sect was actually not much different from what was seen outside - Taiyi Hall, row houses, square. It was just that these things were gathered together at this moment, upside down, left and right, inside and outside, stacked up in the darkness into an extremely strange building.

When looking at them, Li Wuxiang couldn't tell where they were - they seemed very far away from him, and yet very close to him, as if they were completely stuffed in this stone cave, or occupied an entire huge mountain.

He looked down and saw that the scraps of paper in his hand had disappeared. He then realized that the broken brick seemed to have really become a "stepping stone" and he was already in the scraps of paper.

Here, all the previous definite concepts - far and near, high and low, inside and outside, have all lost their meaning.

Ranshan Sect... is so weird.

He had never come into contact with the other thirty-six sects. He only knew that there were two sects near Deyang, one called the Louguang Sect and the other called the Tianxin Sect.

But Ranshan... the weak leader, the declining sect, the weird Guang Chanzi, this made him feel that the Ranshan sect seemed to be guarding some secret, but even Zhao Kui didn't know it until now.

Li Wuxiang didn't dare to act rashly, because the stacked buildings on Youran Mountain looked too weird. So he just tried to slowly move forward, backward, left and right - he could move! He seemed to have stepped into the stone wall, as if the thing was an illusion, but he could really feel the weight and touch of the entity, as if he no longer belonged to this real world.

At this time, Xu Xianren was ordering people to release fire poison into the cave.

This feeling was also extremely strange. Li Wuxiang could smell the poison gas and feel the high temperature of the flames, but these two things seemed to have nothing to do with him at all, as if there was an impeccable barrier between them.

So he came up with a bold idea - Xu Xianren seemed to be just a dozen steps away from him, so could he touch him from here?

He tried several times and found that the direction seemed to be messed up in this illusion. There was no problem near him, but if he walked three steps away, the direction and distance would become irregular.

The group of people outside were still working hard on the stone cave, so Li Wuxiang didn't rush. He asked himself to calm down and speculate on a possibility - he had previously guessed that the buildings in Ranshan were like a body, and the "Ranshan School" was like a soul. He took over the Ranshan School, so the buildings quickly decayed like a body without a soul.

Therefore, the illusion of Ranshan should be similar to the outside world. The reason why it is like this now is probably because it has been put away - like a piece of originally flat paper that was crumpled into a ball by him, so everything inside is messed up.

He thought he could try to imagine the Ranshan illusion as a two-dimensional space. Now some of the faces of this space are touching each other, so the sense of distance becomes a mess... What if he can find the pattern here?
There are reference points - those buildings stacked on top of each other.

He spent nearly half an hour carefully observing the chaotic buildings, and tried to restore their original appearance and the distance from him in his mind. Then, he tried to take a step - it seemed like he was spinning in place, moving forward and backward. But after trying a few times, he seemed to have walked deeper into the mountain with the previous step, but when he took the next step, he was immediately two steps behind Xu Xianren.

Li Wuxiang tried to get closer to him, but this was almost his limit. His sense of direction and reference points had become very vague - just as he took a step forward, he suddenly saw the back of his hand not far away. He was startled and immediately stepped back, but the skin on the back of his hand had been scraped off the gold rope. Because he stepped back too quickly and took a big step, he felt a chill on his back and a large piece of his clothes on his back was scraped off!

Li Wuxiang stopped immediately, realizing that this crumpled and twisted illusion was more dangerous than he had imagined. The disordered space brought not only shortcuts, but also... something? A fault? Like a tear in crumpled paper?

He didn't dare to explore anymore and tried to go back carefully. Then he realized that he had made another mistake.

The directions in the illusion were chaotic, which meant that the perspective was not fixed. The building he referenced when he came here was completely different from the one he referenced when he returned. He could only try in small steps, and when he finally got back to within three steps of the starting point, his entire body was shining with golden light - a small part of his skin was peeled off by the cracks in the illusion.

He didn't dare to act rashly again. He sat down where he was, first using his energy to let the skin on his body recover slowly, and then began to think about the talisman paper.

Zhao Kui probably didn't have any special tricks. The reason why he could refine such a powerful talisman paper must be all due to this illusion. But what should he do?
Li Wuxiang carefully observed the stacked buildings again, and only then discovered that something seemed to be wrong in the Taiyi Hall.

From his perspective, the Taiyi Hall was integrated with the houses on both sides, and the hall was full of crisscrossing walls. But in such a chaotic situation, the statue enshrined was still standing firmly in the main hall, not overlapping with anything.

The place where he was standing before was one step away from here. The scene he saw was very different due to the different position. So only then did he realize that there was a plaque on the top of the statue's head - when he looked into the Taiyi Hall outside before, the plaque did not exist.

He tried walking a few steps in other directions. The statue and the other plaques appeared and disappeared in his field of vision, just as if a person was looking at something very far away through a telescope. If his hand shook a little, he would be far away from the target.

He tried again and again, and finally found a suitable distance and angle, so that the whole statue seemed to be right in front of him, and even the texture of the wooden plaque was clearly visible.

Everything inside was almost the same as outside, but now he saw these two things clearly and realized that they were the only ones that were completely different from the ones outside - this statue was not the long-eyed Taiyi statue, but a handsome and young figure. He was sitting upright in white clothes, his face was lifelike, and the craftsmanship was extremely exquisite. And under his seat, when he was outside, Li Wuxiang thought that the seven human figures under his seat were the other seven gods of the Eight Divisions of Xuanjiao, but now, he found that they did not look like people.

The seven objects below all have facial features, eyes, noses, mouths, and ears, densely packed together, and the workmanship is extremely exquisite, with every detail visible. And these seven objects do not appear to be suppressed by the statue, but rather they all eagerly stretch out their arms with countless tiny fingers, seemingly supporting and supporting the statue above.

Li Wuxiang's gaze moved to the wooden plaque above the statue - yes, there were four words on it, "Wishful Ancestor".

It should be the "Wishful Ancestor" that Zhao Qi chanted when he wanted to summon the Kitchen God, "Wishful Ancestor, three thousand worlds, Lord Sima Ming, please return to this world."

Why does this thing look so weird?
Is this what the Ranshan sect actually worships?

Only then did he realize that there seemed to be something behind the raised arms of the seven humanoid figures on the base. Li Wuxiang tried to adjust his angle, and after two quarters of an hour, he finally saw those things clearly.

It was bamboo paper. When Li Wuxiang first saw it, he thought it was a few scattered stacks, but after further observation, he found that there was a pattern - the stack on the left had the least, only about a dozen sheets, the ones next to it had a little more, dozens of sheets, and the ones next to it had even more, about two or three hundred sheets, and the stack on the far right was not scattered, but a whole stack, with different sizes and colors of paper, so it was not from the same batch of paper.

He also looked at a piece of mulberry and hemp paper tied to the outside of the knife paper. There was a seal and a row of small characters on it - "Made on April 19, 1933 by Deyang Lubaozhai".

Was this bamboo paper bought in Deyang City?
Li Wuxiang let out a breath and suddenly laughed. He really overestimated Zhao Kui. He thought Zhao Kui had some tricks to refine such a powerful thing in the illusion. If he guessed correctly...

He took a deep breath, quickly stretched out his hand, and reached for the thinnest stack on the left.

His palm, wrist, front and back of his forearm suddenly appeared in different positions, as if they were cut off neatly in an instant. But his three fingers had already touched the stack of papers, and they immediately retracted sharply -

The entire right arm was exposed to the golden coil, and the soul in it seemed to be injured, and the whole body was in excruciating pain. He immediately sat down again to regulate his breathing, and it took a long time for a thin and soft layer of skin to grow slowly. When the pain finally became bearable, he looked at the dozen or so pieces of paper that fell on the ground.

It was the same bamboo paper that Zhao Qi had used before, but underneath it was a piece of mulberry paper that was originally used to bundle paper. There was also the same seal on it, but the small characters on the signature were "Made in Deyang Lu Yunzhai on July 30, 2801".

These are from three hundred and twenty-two years ago.

So there is no need to refine bamboo paper? Just put ordinary paper in here and wait for time? Then these stacks of paper should have been put in by the successive patriarchs of Ranshan, and the last knife should have been put in by Zhao Kui.

There are only a dozen or so left, but... Zhao Qi had at least a hundred more.

It should be something Zhao Kui left for him before he left. Li Wuxiang thought that it was something he was told to use to guard the longevity lamp. If it was something else, he didn't know what to say.

He looked outside and saw Xu Xianren sneering and shouting, "It's because we found his hiding place that this guy is anxious! Want to lure me away? Ha, no matter what magical powers you have, you can't escape from my grasp today! Go! Go quickly!"

This guy's temper is a bit like Zhao Qi's, more like Zhao Qi and Zhao Kui combined.

A quack like Lao Guo wouldn't have such a temper. It seems that he is either a descendant of the hidden family Lao Guo mentioned, or a member of a certain sect... Could he be a disciple of one of the two nearby thirty-six sects, Louguang Sect and Tianxin Sect? Seeing that Zhao Qi had left, he came to collect money?
Li Wuxiang continued to sit cross-legged, took out a pen and cinnabar from the package, moistened them with the water in the water bag on his waist, then unfolded the bamboo paper, intending to start making a set of internal organs for himself.

But as soon as he put pen to paper, he immediately felt a strong resistance - he had felt this resistance when he was painting the trapped characters for Zhao Kui in Chen's courtyard and when he was painting his heart for himself in Xue's house. But here, the resistance became extremely strong. As soon as the tip of the pen touched the paper, he immediately felt the pressure coming from all directions. Before he could raise his breath to resist, his hand shook violently and the whole pen pierced the paper.

He took a deep breath with heartache, and completely understood how Zhao Kui felt before.

So he sat quietly, watching the group of people busying themselves outside, and letting himself slowly grow new flesh and skin.

When the group of people had treated their tricks in the cave as a game, and were tired of playing, and retreated to the side to take a temporary rest because the smoke in the cave was too pungent, he tried to knock on the ground beneath him with the broken bricks and appeared in the cave.

The residual opium made him feel extremely uncomfortable, but he immediately shrank behind a rock in the deepest part of the cave, drew his knife, first cut open his chest, and then placed the knife on the rock.

At this time, he could completely control it. The practice of the True Immortal Body Dao Pian required the five internal organs - heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, gallbladder, stomach, bladder, large and small intestines. Thanks to his work experience in his previous life, he knew the appearance of these organs clearly.

He finished drawing the liver, spleen, and lungs first, and was about to pick up his brush to draw the kidneys when he heard someone outside say with a smile, "Are you tired already? If you rest for too long, the Immortal Xu will get angry! Wait until I urinate to quench the fire poison in this cave, and then let the demon have some water, and then we can continue working!"

As he spoke, the man walked to the entrance of the cave and was about to untie his belt.

At this time, another person not far away cursed in a low voice: "There is a chicken demon. I think Xu Xianren got it wrong. He doesn't want to lose face and insists on making us do hard labor here!"

The man at the entrance of the cave untied his belt and turned to smile: "What else are you not satisfied with? You have obtained half of the thirty-six sects' skills, so what's wrong with doing some hard work? I think it's quite interesting, ha——"

He turned his head and saw an open chest deep in the cave. He was stunned again, and the pale tentacles wrapped around the handle of the knife flew over with a buzzing sound, and the head fell to the ground.

Li Wuxiang put away the knife and continued to draw his talisman. After a moment of silence outside, he had finished drawing the lungs, gallbladder, and stomach. When Xu Xianren promised him five more Huangya pills, he pushed his chest up again. After a moment, only a shallow scar remained.

At this time, he still had many scars on his body, all caused by the illusion. Because most of the incense and vows left by Zhao Kui had been used up, he didn't want to use the rest to make himself more beautiful, so he could slowly nourish himself later.

Next, he had to deal with the issues at hand, especially Xu Xianren.

This person knew that Ranshan's illusion was in his hands, and the best way was to tell him to shut up forever. But his information must have other sources, and this matter would spread quickly, and trouble would still come.

So he had to find another guarantee for himself, just like the security guarantee promised by the foreign evil - this matter had to start with killing people.

　Two chapters into one

　　
　
(End of this chapter)