Windmill

"Ya! Ya! Ya!"

Hearing a child's babbling, Yu Chen stopped what he was doing. As he rose, his complexion gradually turned pale. He pushed open the door and smiled at the middle-aged woman outside, who had come bearing food with the child in her arms. "Auntie Wan, didn't I say there was no need? The villagers will start gossiping again when the time comes!"

"I'm only bringing you food. It's no trouble!" Though the woman did not look very old, her temples had already begun to gray, the result of overwhelming grief in her early years. As she spoke, she entered Yu Chen's house. After setting down the food, she held the child and gave a bitter smile. "Besides, you can be considered my benefactor."

"There's no need for that, Auntie!" Yu Chen shook his head. Looking at the child in her arms, he saw that compared to a month ago, the baby had put on quite a bit of flesh and now looked adorably plump. A bracelet woven from five-colored threads was tied around his wrist. Yu Chen's gaze shifted, and he said with feigned helplessness, "Just take good care of A Bao!"

"Of course..." the woman immediately replied. Then her gaze grew hesitant, but in the end, she gritted her teeth and asked, "It's just... is it really all right for A Bao to take my family's surname?"

"It's fine!" Yu Chen shook his head and lowered his eyes. "Actually, it would be best to put him under your son's name and never let him learn of his origins for the rest of his life. No! He is your grandson! He is your son's posthumous child. It's only that his mother was not blessed enough and died in childbirth!"

Yu Chen spoke those final words with absolute resolve, leaving Auntie Wan greatly startled. Yet she quickly came to her senses and said, "Yes! A Bao is my grandson, my son's posthumous child—not anyone else's!"

After repeating those words several times, Auntie Wan left with the child.

Once Auntie Wan had gone and the door was shut, the color gradually returned to Yu Chen's pale face.

He glanced at the food beside him and saw two or three small rice dumplings among it. Only then did he realize that the Dragon Boat Festival had arrived. The corner of his lips lifted. Opening his mouth, he exhaled a stream of mist that coiled around the food. After devouring the nutrients within, the now much denser mist returned to Yu Chen's nose and mouth, and he slowly swallowed it down.

A month ago, Yu Chen had brought the corpse-born child here. Upon meeting Auntie Wan, who had lost her only son half a year earlier, he had conceived the idea of entrusting the child to her care.

Yu Chen had entertained that thought partly because of the remnants of morality from his previous life, and partly because he had been influenced by the atmosphere in the Southern Barbarian Lands, where young children were protected. Of course, those influences were not enough to make Yu Chen abandon his original plans. To him, handing the corpse-born child over to Auntie Wan, giving some consideration to her feelings and the gossip around her so that she could have some peace of mind, was already the utmost he could do.

What concerned Yu Chen more now were the things at hand. He assembled the materials he had gradually gathered over the past month into something resembling the long-handled pinwheels children played with.

Yet compared to an ordinary pinwheel, the one in Yu Chen's hand was far more delicate and compact. Each blade was even smaller than a fingernail. Yu Chen carefully held a specially made slender brush and lightly traced one Xin Blade Curse after another onto the blades.

This pinwheel was called the Yin Windmill. Its refinement method was one of several ritual-tool methods appended to the Yin Talisman Treasure Register. According to the records in the Yin Talisman Treasure Register, it might be somewhat connected to the ancient magic treasure, the Ten-Thousand-Blades Chariot.

The Ten-Thousand-Blades Chariot had been a weapon of war used when two armies faced off during the ancient Yin-Shang era. Whenever it was deployed, there were hundreds or thousands of them. Each war chariot stood topped with a four-bladed windmill, paired with the four talismanic seals of earth, water, fire, and wind. When the windmills spun, they could generate endless sharp blades. Even an army of thousands upon thousands would be sliced to pieces upon encountering them.

The Yin Windmill, on the other hand, discarded the talismanic seals of earth, water, and fire entirely. Centered on the wind seal and refined with cold Sha Qi, it specialized in sudden strikes at short and medium range. When used, one merely had to gently turn the windmill, and countless strands of cold Sha Qi would transform into hundreds of invisible blades that rushed straight at the target's face. It was truly impossible to guard against—ruthless and venomous.

Yu Chen had taken a great liking to it. Using his cheat, he spent a week optimizing it to a certain degree, making it even more small and exquisite. The fingernail-sized windmill atop its slender shaft looked like nothing more than an ornament.

Once it was finished, Yu Chen used it to secure his hair. From afar, it looked like a hairpin.

Besides the Yin Windmill, Yu Chen had learned quite a few things from the Yin Talisman Treasure Register: the Moving Method for manipulating objects, the Li Fire Talisman for producing fire, the Kan Water Incantation for summoning water, and beginner methods for dispelling evil and overcoming curses.

Though these things were extremely crude—the Moving Method could move at most thirty or forty jin, while the fire produced by the Li Fire Talisman could only light a cigarette or start a fire—trying to use them to subdue demons and exorcise evil would only get oneself killed.

Yet every spell and incantation contained its corresponding principles. For example, both the Qi-Eating Method Yu Chen had just used to devour the food and the Xin Blade Curse drawn upon the Yin Windmill came from this source. They served as excellent supplements to the talismanic arts that should originally have accompanied the Orthodox Three-Mountains Talisman Qi Formula Yu Chen was refining.

Moreover, not everything appended to the Yin Talisman Treasure Register was worthless.

Apart from the Yin Windmill, the refinement methods for the Three-Yin Northern Lodges Demon-Slaying Saber, the ritual tool Money Sword, and the Soul-Confounding Banner were all rather profound.

There was no need to say much about the Three-Yin Northern Lodges Demon-Slaying Saber. It was an art passed down through the lineage of the True Martial Grand Emperor. Even after several alterations, one could still see a trace of orthodox mystic-gate teachings within it.

The Money Sword was the copper-coin sword Chen Ergou had used to break Yu Chen's witchcraft. It used copper coins that had circulated among the people for more than a century as its core, drawing forth a wisp of human-path wish power within them for refinement. Its essence lay between the immortal path and the divine path, involving both the use of wish power and the immortal path's ritual prohibitions. This greatly interested Yu Chen, who in the past could only focus on researching witchcraft.

The final Soul-Confounding Banner was fully known as the Hundred-Poison Soul-Confounding Banner. In truth, Yu Chen even doubted whether it could be called a ritual tool. According to the records, this Soul-Confounding Banner drew venom from five poisonous creatures whose properties restrained one another, mixed it with the juice of poisonous herbs, and infused it into a long banner. Its power depended entirely on the toxicity of the poisons used. The few incantations upon it merely controlled the release and retrieval of the poison, functioning almost like a switch.

What interested Yu Chen were precisely those incantations, because within them he saw traces resembling witch-script.

Relying on the properties of his cheat, Yu Chen successfully incorporated the refinement method of the Soul-Confounding Banner into the Snake Shadow Banner in his possession, completing an upgrade. Once he returned to the Southern Barbarian Lands, he could cleanse and refine the Snake Shadow Banner anew. Its toxicity and flexibility would surely both see obvious improvements.

And so, Yu Chen spent his days going out to gather all kinds of materials, while at night he used the newly learned method of gathering qi to breathe in and out the moon's radiance as he refined ritual tools.

The days passed one by one. Late one night, as usual, Yu Chen gathered the qi of the moon's lunar radiance and calmly refined several ritual tools in his hands when he suddenly sensed an aura approaching his location.

With a flick of his finger, a stream of mist arose and transformed into a mist snake that crawled to the door and opened it. A thin, weak man twisted his way inside. On closer inspection, one could see that as he walked, his waist involuntarily swayed outward, giving him a rather comical appearance. It seemed his leg had been injured.

Yu Chen could not help smiling. "You are a snake demon, yet you dare appear before me after being injured? Aren't you afraid I'll take you in?"

The man shuddered all over at those words, dropped to his knees, and pleaded, "Please show mercy, Senior! Save me!"

"Oh?" Yu Chen's smile grew even gentler as he asked, "Then tell me—what exactly have you provoked, that you have come to me for help?"

Yu Chen was not joking. He had discovered traces of the snake demon before him seven days ago, when he had gone out to gather materials. Though Yu Chen had not fought it at the time, the snake demon seemed to have sensed something. At the sight of Yu Chen, it had reacted as though encountering its natural predator, swiftly hiding away and never appearing before him again.

Yu Chen was not surprised by this. After all, he was a shaman honored as the Great Snake Shaman, proficient in snake witch-script and highly skilled at commanding and controlling snakes. Though this snake demon had attained some cultivation, it still could not withstand Yu Chen's witchcraft. It was precisely because it had vaguely sensed this that it had kept avoiding Yu Chen.

Yet now it had actually dared to come before Yu Chen. This made him very curious. What could the snake demon have encountered that it had endured its fear of him and come seeking aid?

Hearing this, the snake demon was overjoyed. It hurriedly performed a salute and began explaining why it had come to find Yu Chen.

This update is early. Wishing everyone peace and good health on the Dragon Boat Festival, and happy holidays!