Drawing Talismans

Xiao Hua knew the county town better. Once he was sure Pan Yun would really take Qieqie away, he hid one steamed bun in the woodpile and ate one himself.

When Pan Yun looked at him, he smiled sheepishly. "I'll save one. If there are still people who haven't been seized and driven out, and they come back, they'll have something to eat too."

Pan Yun nodded and said with rare kindness, "We'll take you to the Zhang Family."

Xiao Hua hesitated. "Now? What if the yamen runners see us..."

If he were caught and driven out on the road, that would be far too unjust. He wanted to hide until nightfall before leaving.

Pan Yun looked at his face. "Trust me. It's safer to go now. Lead the way, and I'll take you there."

With Pan Yun there, they smoothly evaded patrolling constables, soldiers, and idle thugs hunting beggars and refugees along the way. After turning through three alleys and two streets, they reached the lane where the Zhang Family lived.

Pan Yun stopped while holding the child's hand. She nodded to Xiao Hua. "Go on."

Xiao Hua walked to the Zhang Family's door and could not help looking back at them. In the end, his eyes reddened, but he still raised his hand and knocked.

The door opened, and a somewhat older woman stood in the doorway.

The instant Xiao Hua saw her, he dropped to his knees with a thump and kowtowed, choking out, "Mother—"

She startled, then was overwhelmed with joy. She hurriedly helped him up and called excitedly into the house, "Husband, come quickly! We have a son!"

A middle-aged man hurried out. Seeing Xiao Hua in ragged clothes and tears, he was both shocked and delighted. He pulled him into an embrace. "Good, good, good! Come in, quickly. From now on, we're your father and mother, and you're our son."

Xiao Hua nodded and called him "Father." He could not help looking back toward the mouth of the alley once more, only to find it completely empty. Both of them were gone.

Xiao Hua's tears immediately spilled down again, but before they could run farther than his cheeks, a hand gently wiped them away.

He looked at Madam Zhang with wet eyes. This was the first time in his memory that anyone had wiped away his tears.

Much of the fear and sorrow in his heart faded. At last, the young child felt a faint, solid joy.

Pan Yun led the child onto the main street. This time, she no longer deliberately avoided the yamen runners.

Yet strangely enough, once she stopped avoiding them, she could not encounter any.

It seemed they simply had no affinity with government soldiers.

So Pan Yun deliberately led the child to the entrance of the county yamen. In her heart, she repeated several times, I'm going to hand the child over to the county yamen, then looked at his face.

The child stood there with a baffled expression, completely unable to understand why they were standing here.

Pan Little Black meowed mockingly beside them. "Because someone's skills are lacking. And she's supposed to be an elite graduate of the National Academy too. This is killing me—her face-reading is actually this crude..."

Shut up, Pan Yun said in her mind. Keep spouting nonsense, and believe it or not, I'll put you down and make you walk by yourself.

Pan Little Black moved its injured leg. After letting out a meow, it obediently lay still.

Pan Yun led the child away from the county yamen entrance. She no longer thought of handing him to the yamen runners and having them search for his family.

Pan Yun asked, "Do you know where the bookshop is?"

"I do!" the child answered happily. At last, he could help Sister.

Pan Yun led him to look for a bookshop.

It was hardly strange that this child knew her gender. Children had a peculiar intuition and were not influenced by outward appearances.

Adults were different.

The bookshop clerk saw Pan Yun's male clothing and automatically took her for a boy. Then he saw that their clothes were either dirty or disheveled, while Qie'er's outfit even had a missing patch and an extra strip of cloth, ragged beyond compare. He automatically took them for beggars.

Before they had even come close, the clerk impatiently waved them away. "Go, go, go. This isn't a place for you. Get out of here."

Pan Yun did not get angry at being looked down upon. She directly took out a small piece of broken silver. "I'm buying something."

Seeing the money she had produced, the clerk's face flushed red, but his attitude did not change. Frowning, he asked, "What are you buying?"

Pan Yun led the child into the shop and asked, "Do you have talisman paper and cinnabar?"

These things really were sold in bookshops.

The clerk's brows drew tight. "Yes, but they're very expensive. How much do you want?"

Pan Yun said, "Bring them out for me to look at first."

After a pause, she added, "I want to see every grade."

The clerk replied irritably, "There's only one kind. Cinnabar is precious, and we only have a little ourselves."

He quickly brought over a stack of talisman paper and watched Pan Yun's expression.

Pan Yun frowned. Dao talisman paper came in three varieties. This two-chi-nine-cun kind was called Bing paper, but what she wanted was the three-chi-six-cun Jia paper. Still, after glancing at the clerk, she swallowed the words.

After asking the price, she settled on one ream of Bing paper. It was not as though she absolutely needed talisman paper. Many things in the world could serve as talisman tokens—bamboo slips, jade tablets, metal plates...

But cinnabar was essential.

She did not have enough spiritual power to keep forming talismans in midair.

"How much is the cinnabar?"

The clerk lifted his eyelids. "One tael per tael."

Pan Yun frowned. At this quality?

Pan Yun examined it carefully, then still chose it. "Then give me one tael."

She already had brushes and an inkstone, stored in the Spirit Realm Space. As for cinnabar and Dao talisman paper, she had never cultivated before. Knowing she could not draw talismans, she had never considered buying them at home.

Pan Yun dug out that piece of broken silver and handed it to the clerk. The clerk weighed it, and it was exactly right—one full tael. He lifted his eyelids to look at her. "Thank you for your patronage. The Dao talisman paper is eighty coins."

Pan Yun felt around in her bundle, pulled out a string of coins, and counted out eighty for him.

Pan Little Black had long been unable to endure it. As the clerk took the money, it swiftly slashed forward with a paw, only for Pan Yun to catch it in one hand. She held its paw in her grasp and gave it a warning look.

Pan Little Black meowed repeatedly. "You can endure even this?"

My temper isn't that bad, Pan Yun said in her mind. He's an irrelevant person. Why should I let his emotions affect me? I only need to achieve my goal.

"Meow, he looks down on you so much. He humiliates you like that..."

Pan Yun casually put away her purchases and led the child out. You're wrong. He only looked down on me; he didn't humiliate me.

Pan Little Black said, "Looking down on someone is humiliation! That's unfair. Yet you're so narrow-minded and fierce toward me..."

That's because you bully me!

Pan Little Black immediately fell silent.

It once again witnessed Pan Yun's emotional steadiness. Other than matters involving the safety of the Pan Family, she truly rarely had her emotions stirred by outside things.

It... was a little happy.

With such a powerful state of mind, its companion would surely achieve something in cultivation someday, wouldn't she?

It felt as though the road to breaking the seal was not far away.

Pan Yun disliked trouble, so unless it was absolutely necessary, she generally did not take the initiative to provoke it.

If she could quickly buy what she needed, there was no reason to let branches grow from the tree.

Naturally, buying clothes and renting a room were the same.

After spending the past few days with Tao Ji and Xuan Miao, she had learned quite a few things.

After asking the child where the pawnshop was, she led him there to buy old clothes that fit him.

The clothes at the pawnshop were much cheaper than those at ready-made clothing stores. Families of modest means liked to pick things out at pawnshops, and the place had a dazzling assortment of everything under the sun, comparable to the secondhand markets of her previous life.

The pawnshop clerk was much more polite. He did not look down on them because they were young or poorly dressed, and he thoughtfully led them to choose secondhand clothes.

These collected secondhand clothes had all been washed, folded neatly, and stored together. Aside from being a little old, there was nothing wrong with them.

Pan Yun bought not only two outfits for the child, but also two suitable sets of men's clothes for herself.

The two changed on the spot in the pawnshop. Only after tidying their hair and faces did they leave.

After leaving the pawnshop, she headed straight for the inn the child had mentioned—the one with a kind owner who always gave them leftover food—and rented a room.

The innkeeper frowned slightly at their ages and questioned them in detail. "Where is your home? Where are your parents and family?"

Pan Yun spun lies as easily as opening her mouth. "Our ancestral home is in Kaifeng. Our father was a manager at a trading firm in the Capital City. Last year, he took a merchant caravan out and vanished after encountering bandits. Our mother died of illness last year. We brothers truly couldn't survive in the Capital City, so we decided to return to Kaifeng and seek refuge with relatives."

The innkeeper was full of sympathy upon hearing this and immediately arranged a quiet, safe room for them.

The moment she entered, Pan Yun checked the doors and windows. Once she confirmed there was no problem, she set the black cat on the table. "You keep watch tonight."

Pan Little Black lay sprawled on the table, as though it had not been the one keeping watch last night.

The child stared at the black cat with sparkling eyes. "Sister, can a cat keep watch too?"

"Its name is Little Black. From now on, call me Brother when we're outside," Pan Yun instructed before saying, "All things have spirits, especially cats. It can not only keep watch, it can fight too."

The child's eyes flickered brightly. He lay on the table and stared at the black cat, cautiously touching it. Seeing that it did not object, he went a step further and placed his hand on its back...

Pan Little Black gave him an indifferent glance, lifted its head, and looked down upon the world.

Just as it was about to graciously let out a meow, the child suddenly scooped it into his arms.

This child was far too fast.

Pan Yun had already arranged their luggage and taken her brush and inkstone from the Spirit Realm Space.

Seeing the black cat being held, she nodded with satisfaction. Perfect—the table had been cleared for her.

She placed the items on the table one by one, then looked up at the child across from her, whose face was full of contentment. "Do you remember your family name?"

The child said, "My name is Qie'er."

All right, then. He did not know his family name.

Pan Yun might be no good at face-reading, but she was skilled in formations and talismans.

Otherwise, she would not have been selected to research the sealed Three Jade Spirit Realm.

Talismans used one's own qi to draw upon the qi between Heaven and Earth, gathering it into talisman paper and manifesting divine intent, protecting people as they fulfilled their wishes through the unseen.

No talisman was more suitable for their current situation than the Peace Talisman.

A person would encounter many accidents in a lifetime. The Peace Talisman could help them avoid bad accidents, something that required immense fortune.

Thus, the Peace Talisman could bring good luck.

Pan Yun was extremely familiar with this talisman. After she began cultivating in her previous life, all her extra income had come from talismans.

The talismans she drew most often were the Peace Talisman and the Wealth-Seeking Talisman.

So, seated at the table now, she calmed her mind and steadied her breath. With one fluid stroke of her brush, a Peace Talisman appeared beneath its tip.

The surrounding qi was drawn to the brush tip. When she finished the stroke, a flash of spiritual light passed by. The symbols on the talisman paper seemed to come alive and dance, only settling quietly onto the paper a moment later.

Pan Yun was surprised. This talisman... was absurdly good.

Could it be that she was even more talented than in her previous life?

Pan Yun's lips curled upward in delight.