Talisman Suppression Book

He grabbed a handful of coarse, cold pond ash, put it in a rough cloth pouch, tied it shut, and carried it with him. At last, Hu Ma had his first protective talisman since coming to this world.

With this talisman, he finally had the right to sleep soundly for an entire night...

According to the village's customs, when the Old Woman passed away, it was best for someone to stay in her home. It showed that the household was still occupied. So Second Master didn't rush Hu Ma back to the manor; instead, he stayed behind for a few days.

Hu Ma wasn't in a hurry either. He needed time and space to think carefully about his own situation and learn a few things.

Before he went to the manor to meet Second Master, Hu Ma had hardly slept well at all in the village. At night, he'd even relied on the Old Woman's chanting to keep the Evil Spirits at bay.

But this time, with the furnace lit inside him and a protective talisman in hand, the problem of being constantly troubled by Evil Spirits was finally solved.

He spent the night alone in the thatched hut the Old Woman had left behind. Nothing happened.

The only trouble was, there was no one to make breakfast for him.

But Hu Ma, who had once eagerly volunteered for chores to make a good impression, wasn't the pampered sort.

He knew where to draw water, where to grind flour, and which jars in the house held coarse salt and which held pickled vegetables.

He had no trouble keeping himself fed.

For the first few days after the Old Woman's funeral, the villagers took extra care of Hu Ma, who had suddenly been left all alone. They gave him a few flatbreads or carried a couple of buckets of water for him.

Of course, they weren't doing it out of regard for Hu Ma. They were repaying the Old Woman's kindness, or simply pitying him for being left utterly alone at fifteen or sixteen.

But after a few days, everyone gradually got used to it, as if nothing had happened.

Hu Ma settled into the little hut the Old Woman had left behind and quietly took stock of her belongings.

Perhaps the Old Woman had long ago prepared to perish alongside that Meng Family ghost. It seemed she had arranged everything for Hu Ma in advance. She had entrusted Xiao Hong Tang to him, and left the birth-date paper by his side. From then on, Xiao Hong Tang would follow Hu Ma.

The little girl was usually playful and often vanished without a trace, but as long as Hu Ma lit a stick of incense, she knew to come home.

According to the Old Woman, did that make Xiao Hong Tang his Little Servant Ghost?

Hu Ma didn't know what a servant ghost was for, but surely a little girl no one else could see could do all kinds of things?

At the very least, she could steal a piece of cured meat from the Cui Family without anyone noticing, right?

The second thing the Old Woman had left behind was that black porcelain jar.

Hu Ma knew what was wrong with his body, and the Old Woman must have known too. That was why she had left him this jar.

Inside were pills, packed to the brim.

They were bright red, and when he held one in his fingers, threads of blood seeped out. Each one was about the size of a longan.

"Are these all Blood Ganoderma?"

Hu Ma sniffed one and found its scent familiar. It had to be something close to that.

He hadn't eaten any Ganoderma for three or four days, ever since he'd gone out to look for the Old Woman. After her funeral, he ate one pill, and at once felt his body grow warm.

The furnace fire he'd spent so much of earlier was gradually replenished as he swallowed the blood-red pill.

He sighed inwardly. These were things the Old Woman had specially left behind to save his life!

Still, one pill didn't bring him anywhere near the same improvement he'd gotten from eating a big piece of meat.

But one pill every two days was enough to keep his body from running into trouble, and the furnace fire within him continued to grow steadily.

He'd checked earlier: his cultivation had already reached one and a half incense sticks. He wondered if finishing all the Blood Food Pills in the jar would bring him to three incense sticks.

Of course, Hu Ma couldn't help thinking, Before she left, the Old Woman never told me where this Blood Ganoderma came from. She only said she'd nearly cut all the Blood Ganoderma from Old Yin Mountain...

What if I finish this whole jar and still haven't built up enough power? What am I supposed to do then?

Unfortunately, he had no way to ask those questions anymore.

Later, when he asked Xiao Hong Tang, she only sucked on her finger and said, "The Old Woman could always find it."

"Even in places where everyone said there was nothing, the Old Woman could find it."

"..."

"So that must have been the Old Woman's special skill?"

Hu Ma couldn't exactly expect the Old Woman to appear in a dream and tell him. All he could do was hold on to hope and open the booklet she'd left behind.

"Qingyuan Hu Clan Town Taisui Book. Sounds like a family heirloom?"

He'd long suspected that the Old Woman—or rather, Hu Ma's original self—came from no ordinary background.

You could tell a family's stature from the enemies they'd made. They were at least on a level where they could feud with the Huaiyin Meng Family. Besides, the Old Woman had cut Blood Ganoderma for him every day, something as precious as gold, and fed it to him like pork. That alone was beyond what an ordinary person could do.

Hu Ma knew there must be plenty of good things in this secret art. But when he opened the booklet, he was at once delighted, astonished, and helpless.

The delight came from the fact that it seemed to be full of practical knowledge, packed into a whole booklet, so dense it made his eyes swim.

Things like curing illness, finding herbs, burning bones, questioning ghosts, and reading ley lines...

But the helplessness came from the fact that he recognized every character on the pages, yet couldn't understand a thing.

To put it more precisely, it was like handing a sixth-grader a manual on how to build a nuclear bomb.

Recognizing the words was one thing; understanding them was another.

The technical terms, obscure meanings, and incantations on the pages left him completely at sea.

"Looks like I'll have to start with addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and two-variable equations..."

Hu Ma gazed out at the vast sea of knowledge, staring at all those words he could recognize but that might as well have been written in another language, and let his imagination run wild.

"Some of this seems to have something to do with Taisui..."

"Could it be that it records how to survey the mountains of flesh and blood food, and find rare Taisui?"

"Could the Old Woman have relied on the skills recorded here to cut all the Blood Ganoderma in Old Yin Mountain for me?"

"..."

He couldn't help feeling shaken. If that was really the case, this must be an extraordinary field of study.

Of course, all of this was still just speculation and guesswork.

If he truly wanted to make sense of it, he'd have to learn the basics of this world first, then study the secret arts.

But who could teach him?

Second Master?

Second Master had already grown impatient. "I know the rules and going rates for half-hidden-door businesses in Mingzhou Prefecture. Want me to teach you?"

The words made Hu Ma blush, and he felt a little awkward. He'd only taken the opportunity to ask Second Master to teach him a few of his real skills, along with stories about his adventures and experiences in his younger days.

At first, Second Master had eagerly told Hu Ma all about it. But gradually, he ran out of things to say, and Hu Ma kept asking questions. He couldn't keep it up much longer.

Whenever Hu Ma stumped him, Second Master lost his temper and started bragging about his Ultimate Skill.

That made Hu Ma curious. "Second Master, you've been a virgin for sixty years. What use do you have for knowing the going rates?"

Second Master's face grew even more awkward. "Can't I enjoy the thought of it?"

"Sure, sure..."

Sensing that Second Master was unhappy, Hu Ma hurriedly smiled ingratiatingly. "I was just wondering, are these skills you've taught us really the end of the line? How do we learn what comes after?"

"They're the end of the line. At least, the few things I know are as far as I can go."

In the end, Second Master could only answer Hu Ma helplessly. "I truly don't understand anything beyond that..."

"Your Old Woman was so capable. Why didn't you learn from her while she was alive? Now you've come to our line of work to bang your head against a wall. What for?"

"..."

After hearing Second Master out, Hu Ma understood.

Second Master really didn't know any more.

Second Master didn't even quite understand why Hu Ma wanted to keep learning. After all, the skills he'd learned so far were enough to make him a good butcher...

But Hu Ma knew he had to learn more about this line of work.

Before she left, the Old Woman had repeatedly urged him to keep learning the more advanced skills of Second Master's trade.

But thinking it over afterward, Hu Ma wondered: if the Old Woman was certain this line of work could save his life, and knew Second Master didn't know any more advanced techniques, why hadn't she told him?

Was it because she didn't know them herself, or was she testing him?

"To go further with our furnace-lighting skills, you'd have to find the Attendant masters of the Blood Food Gang. They really do have Ultimate Skills. I know our skills come from their lineage, but those life-saving abilities aren't easy to teach."

Second Master explained to Hu Ma, "You should let go of that idea. Come down to the mine with me a couple of times, then get yourself a wife. That's what matters..."

"..."

"I think getting a wife and living a peaceful life would be nice too, but I have no choice. I have to learn..."

Hu Ma needed to learn those skills to save his life, but he couldn't say that outright to Second Master. He could only mull it over on his own.

The weather gradually turned cold. It was the quietest time of year in the village, but no one dared to slack off. They prepared to plow the fields and sow seeds, fed the livestock a few extra handfuls of fodder, and got ready to work for the next spring's harvest.

The boys who had followed Second Master to learn his skills also put in extra effort. Some of their families even steeled themselves and bought them a few more pieces of White Ganoderma to help build them up.

They were afraid the boys' furnace fire wouldn't burn brightly enough for the Blood Food Gang to take notice.

If they weren't chosen, they'd have to wait another year—and that would mean wasting a year's worth of grain.

That night, he read for a while by the oil lamp, as usual.

Although he couldn't understand the contents of the Hu Family's Talisman Suppression Book, he did his best to memorize them, word by word. He might need them someday.

After he lay down, he drifted into a hazy sleep, then suddenly heard a voice. "Brother Old Bai Gan, can you hear me?"