After Xu Feng finished speaking, Shen Jicheng turned the incense stick in his hand upside down and drove it into the ground as though extinguishing a torch. Then he stood up.
Incense offered to no "person" was always meant to be crushed underfoot.
He chose a direction and loosened up.
Shen Jicheng planted an incense stick where he stood and formed a hand seal. "Big Dipper, Big Dipper, summon forth my true form; save the star spirits, and let no ghost draw near."
He lifted the triangular talisman hanging around his neck, presenting it upward and downward in invocation.
Then he hung it around his neck again. Keeping his hands in position, he used two fingers, held like a tiger's jaws or a dragon's mouth, to pick up the seal lying on the ground.
Facing the deep mountains, he said, "I beseech you thrice. Have mercy, have mercy."
Finally, he hung the seal on himself.
Xu Feng and Master watched him go through it all.
It was an eye-opener.
The two corpse sewers had entered this place on nerve alone.
They had made no preparations at all.
Neither Xu Feng nor Master spoke. After a while, Shen Jicheng visibly perked up.
He made a wiping motion over his eyelids, then picked up his awl. "Let's go. We're heading into the mountains, deeper in.
I'll take the lead. If you run into danger, remember to shout!"
Xu Feng said, "All right!"
Once they entered the mountains,
the going grew difficult.
The road to the Charity Nunnery had still been a broad one.
But farther in was another matter. In the distance, Xu Feng could see mountains wreathed in clouds and mist. In other deep mountains, clouds rose from the peaks.
That meant miasma and the like naturally formed within them.
This