Upright Heart

"As for what accumulating more Mindfulness does..."

Chang Dafeng seemed to recall something and suddenly smiled. "When a living creature meets an evil ghost, it's like a mouse seeing a cat-that fear is rooted in the creature itself, and there's no getting rid of it.

"Some people don't have a single wisp of Mindfulness. If they meet even a Puppet, they might be scared to death.

"Ghosts have such a tremendous effect on the human mind. At the level above Puppets, where true ghosts appear, the Ghost Rhyme they give off can directly sap the vitality of living creatures, rapidly rot raw flesh, and wither plants...

"But if you have Mindfulness, you can resist the various effects ghosts have.

"Even a person with only one wisp of Mindfulness, upon meeting a Puppet, would at worst lose their wits and be left at its mercy. They wouldn't be scared to death.

"Of course, being left at its mercy is hardly any better than being scared to death.

"But the more Mindfulness a person accumulates, the more resistant they become to the various effects ghosts have.

"And a person who possesses Mindfulness can eventually subdue ghosts-"

Chang Dafeng paused there and looked at Ding Ling before continuing.

"Once you accumulate more than nine wisps of Mindfulness and break through the numerical limit, it may condense into an 'Upright Heart' at any time!

"Once an Upright Heart forms, a person is like a post in a river. No matter how the currents surge, they can't easily wash the post away. After that, you can use your steadfast heart like a post for tethering livestock, treat the ghost as the livestock, and use the methods you've learned to tie it to your post.

"The Upright Heart is the post, the cultivation method is the rope, and the ghost is the livestock."

Ding Ling's heart stirred at that. "Is the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting a rope that can tie up ghosts?" she asked Chang Dafeng.

"I don't know."

Chang Dafeng's eyes flickered. "I haven't finished practicing the whole draft myself. It's only a draft, and no one can say whether it can really be practiced all the way through."

"What happens after you tie up a ghost?" Ding Ling asked again.

"I suppose you can use a ghost's abilities, at least? That's a level I can't reach. Even if I tried to puzzle it out, I wouldn't know where to start." Chang Dafeng smacked his lips, sounding rather regretful.

On Zhou Yang's Knife Credit Ledger, accumulating enough Mindfulness to break through the numerical limit meant surpassing the bounds of an ordinary person.

Once that limit was surpassed, Mindfulness would condense into an Upright Heart.

With an Upright Heart, a person could restrain a ghost!

Zhou Yang was excited.

Though Chang Dafeng didn't know what happened after a ghost was tied up, the level he had just described had given Zhou Yang a direction. He felt that cracks had finally appeared in the dark, lightless road ahead, and light was shining through them!

Ding Ling and I have more than the maximum number of wisps of Mindfulness.

But we haven't formed an Upright Heart.

Does combining two people's Mindfulness only increase the quantity, without bringing about a qualitative change?

Zhou Yang pondered this.

Then he heard Chang Dafeng say to Ding Ling, "To accumulate Mindfulness, a person has to go through a life-or-death ordeal or attain a profound realization before they can gain a wisp or two.

"It takes both talent and experience. Accumulating it isn't easy!

"And the more Mindfulness you have, the harder it is to gain another wisp!

"Don't waste your time imagining what comes after forming an Upright Heart. First, take your own pulse and see how many wisps of Mindfulness you have now."

"Mm!"

Ding Ling nodded in agreement.

Following the method Chang Dafeng had explained earlier, she placed three fingers on the pulse in her other wrist.

At first, she couldn't even find her pulse.

After several tries, she found it and closed her eyes.

She felt her pulse beating slowly and strongly beneath her fingertips. Beyond that pulse, several strange fluctuations suddenly appeared. They were entirely unlike her pulse and impossible to describe in words, yet each was distinct from the others, allowing Ding Ling to tell them apart at once!

Four wisps!

She was surprised.

"Sir, I actually have four wisps of Mindfulness now!"

"Mm."

Zhou Yang gave a grunt of acknowledgment. Ding Ling's Mindfulness had made another breakthrough tonight, increasing to four wisps. Zhou Yang's own Mindfulness had also increased by one wisp tonight, after he faced danger and absorbed the smoke from the Ghost Candle, bringing it to seven wisps.

"Chang Dafeng is bound to ask how many wisps of Mindfulness you've accumulated. What are you going to tell him?" Zhou Yang asked.

"I'll say... I have three wisps now?" Ding Ling answered immediately. "If I say too few, he won't believe me, but if I say too many, he'll be more wary of me. Three should be about right, shouldn't it, sir?"

"All right. Tell him that." Zhou Yang smiled.

She caught on at the slightest hint.

Afterward, just as Zhou Yang had suggested, he and Ding Ling had barely finished their conversation when Chang Dafeng, who had been watching her for some time, asked, "Well?

"How many wisps of Mindfulness did you feel?"

"About... about three wisps?" Hesitation lingered on Ding Ling's pretty little face. With her fingers resting on her pulse, she said uncertainly, "Beyond my pulse, I think I felt three different fluctuations...

"I can't be sure myself. Why don't you take my pulse for me?"

As she spoke, she held out her fair wrist.

Her reaction didn't seem forced in the slightest; it all came so naturally that Zhou Yang couldn't help praising her acting.

Chang Dafeng had said earlier that only a person taking their own pulse could know how much Mindfulness they had accumulated.

Others, unless they fought that person and could gauge their opponent's level, had absolutely no way to determine how much Mindfulness they had accumulated.

Ding Ling was counting on precisely that, which was why she dared to hold out her wrist for Chang Dafeng to examine.

Even if Chang Dafeng hadn't told the truth earlier, and another person could detect Mindfulness by taking someone's pulse, Ding Ling could still claim that she had overlooked a wisp because it was her first time checking, and keep the situation under control.

Looking at the wrist held out before him, Chang Dafeng's eyelid twitched. He shook his head. "As I just said, only you can know how much Mindfulness you've accumulated.

"No one else can find out.

"Unless they're one of those heroes and mighty warriors who have tempered their Upright Heart to the point that it can affect their surroundings.

"Unfortunately, I'm not one of them. Otherwise, why would I be stuck in a backwater village like this?

"Let's get down to business!"

Chang Dafeng braced both hands on his knees and stood up.

He walked out of the main room, took down the roe deer hide Ding Ling had hung beneath the eaves outside the door, and dragged it back to spread it over the opera trunk.

The fatty membrane on the inner side of the hide had dried a little, and the blood on it had dried as well. A pungent, gamey stench wafted continuously from it. The hide hadn't been tanned, and after only two or three hours of air-drying, it had already grown somewhat stiff and was hard to roll up.

"Singе off the fur and heat the hide until it softens, then cut off a piece and sew it into a false belly.

"Just sew it into a bundle about the size of a fist. Don't make it too big," Chang Dafeng instructed Ding Ling. "Originally, cultivating the Eight Gates in the Draft of Divine Makeup and Ghost Painting required going to different locations at their respective hours to perform Creating a Zhen. For the first, the Gate of Opening, Creating a Zhen had to be done during the Wei hour, at the northwest position of the sixth Qian palace.

"The entire Creating a Zhen ritual also had to be completed over three days.

"But time is short now. We don't have three days to take our time with Creating a Zhen.

"As it happens, two people have just died here, which makes things convenient for us. We can use the names of the dead to perform Creating a Zhen directly.

"That's quicker!"

"What is Creating a Zhen?" Ding Ling looked up from cutting the hide with her knife and asked Chang Dafeng, "Why does having two people who just died here mean we don't have to follow the rules in the draft and can perform Creating a Zhen directly?"