Chapter 109: Efficacy and the Secret of the Talisman Diagram

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The contents of the Second Examination had in fact been suggested to the Monk Fawen in secret. The questions were indeed beyond the syllabus for unaffiliated practitioners, but for true disciples of Crane Abbey, they were merely somewhat above average in difficulty.

The idea had occurred to him on a whim, neither early nor late, but yesterday, immediately after his dual cultivation with the Blue-Eyed Daoist Maiden. Even Daoist Xuanjing of Crane Abbey had not anticipated it.

He flipped through several of the answer sheets in his hands. The responses were utter nonsense.

He looked through a few more, including those submitted by cultivators from some of the minor local clans. Their answers were fairly conventional, though their responses to the questions beyond the syllabus were little more than wild guesses.

After turning through several more and setting aside a few that clearly failed, he finally came upon the answer sheet of Instructor Stone Dragon.

“Instructor” was his private term of respect for those unaffiliated practitioners who possessed a particular skill and had already accepted payment from him for seeking their instruction.

He regarded these instructors as family, which was why he addressed them that way.

Fawen knew more or less what sort of people these instructors were. He was not deaf, after all—and even if he had been, there would have been no shortage of people to remind him.

Still, once one had attained enlightenment and glimpsed one’s true self, what need was there to fear the shackles of the past? He adored his present life. To him, this was his true self; the strict rules and prohibitions of the past were nothing more than troublesome shackles.

With such an epiphany, he naturally learned to turn a blind eye to certain matters.

To be honest, Instructor Stone Dragon’s answer sheet fell somewhere between utter nonsense and acceptable work.

It was clear that the instructor had accumulated some knowledge, but apparently no master had ever specifically guided him in these matters. Thus, his answers to the questions beyond the syllabus were mostly conjecture.

Fawen gave Instructor Stone Dragon a reassuring smile, then gently placed the answer sheet in the pile of those who had passed.

Ji Ming could not understand why Fawen had picked up his answer sheet, only to put it down again in the passing pile. Was that smile meant to help him cheat?

He was, after all, a disciple of the illustrious Flying Swan Sect, a golden lad personally selected by a local grandmaster, and a celestial being reincarnated into the mortal world. Even without guidance, he ought to have been able to study the Daoist scriptures on his own without making a poor showing.

To be honest, compared with the confidence he had felt immediately after finishing the examination, he now found himself rather uncertain. Yet somehow, this seemed to have indirectly spared him a minor calamity.

Yes, a minor calamity. In Ji Ming’s heart, Fawen was not a particularly grave threat.

“Strange.”

After Fawen had gone through all the answer sheets, he still had not found the one he wanted.

Just as he was preparing to look through them again, the old Daoist flicked his horsetail whisk. A cord of force lashed through the air and swept away the entire pile of passing answer sheets in one stroke.

“Since you have finished grading them, we should prepare for the Third Examination: ‘解符图,’ the Interpretation of the Talisman Diagram.”

“Wait!”

At that moment, an unaffiliated practitioner who had failed examinations in previous years spoke up.

“Ever since Taiping Mountain restored the Daoist tradition of this region, it has continually worked to revive local Daoist learning and inspire our fellow cultivators to seek the Dao.

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“For more than a decade, the examinations for Daoist citizens have been made less difficult. There have never before been questions beyond the syllabus like those in this examination. You must be practicing favoritism and fraud.”

“That’s right.”

A veteran examinee who had taken the examination three times stepped forward in support.

“Monk Fawen, we have heard of your reputation. You form little cliques in the annex and suppress anyone who disagrees with you. You are unworthy of calling yourself a member of the orthodox path.”

As more and more people leaped forward, Fawen’s expression grew unpleasant. He settled into a boxing stance.

“Enough!”

With a thunderous shout, Fawen drove out a punch. A deafening blast of demon-slaying force erupted from his fist and reverberated through the forest, echoing long after the blow had landed.

In an instant, the radiance concealing many of the unaffiliated practitioners was shattered, and their deliberately hidden demonic forms were exposed in full. One by one, they shrank back in fright.

“How dare you creatures of the demonic path pass judgment on the Daoist policies of our sect?”

Fawen gathered his strength and unleashed punch after punch. Explosions rang through the forest in rapid succession, stirring waves of sound through the surrounding pines.

Amid the successive reports of the Year-Chasing Fist’s demon-slaying blows, more and more of the unaffiliated practitioners could no longer use illusion techniques to conceal the telltale signs of their demonic transformations.

There in the forest, they covered their faces with their sleeves, pulled their robes over their bodies, ducked their heads, and clutched at their backsides. None of them dared provoke another quarrel.

People tend to value most what they lack, and among unaffiliated practitioners, appearances were sometimes held in even higher regard than by cultivators of the orthodox path.

Fawen’s barrage of Year-Chasing Fist had exposed them to the bone.

What surprised Ji Ming was that many of the cultivators from the local clans also revealed demonic forms. Every one of them looked as though they wished they could burrow into the earth.

The old Daoist stepped in at the opportune moment to ease the situation.

“By convention, Daoist scripture examinations consist of three or four trials. This time, however, there are only two. That is already a special concession.”

Even the old Daoist felt embarrassed saying this. By “convention,” he meant the practices of other altars. At the Fayan Annex, examinations had consisted of only two trials for the past decade or more.

Before long, more than half of the examinees had been expelled from the forest. Only a scattered few remained, and Ji Ming noticed that the old farmer was among them.

Imprinted talisman diagrams were distributed to the remaining examinees. Ji Ming unfolded his and saw that it was indeed a new talisman diagram.

The others were not particularly surprised. Over the past two years, new talisman diagrams had always appeared in the Interpretation of the Talisman Diagram examination. Fortunately, their difficulty was similar to that of the Lesser Cosmic Circuit Talisman.

Looking at the diagram, Ji Ming fell into thought. It was not difficult for him to see how the Four-Sorrows Cloud Temple searched for celestial beings: their methods centered mainly on the fact that celestial beings possessed innate spiritual efficacy.

The same was true of the penitential text, and of the talisman diagram.

Ji Ming had never seen this new talisman diagram in any Daoist scripture. He supposed that the Four-Sorrows Cloud Temple had deliberately chosen an obscure diagram because they feared he might prepare in advance by studying a guide to its interpretation.

The moment some spiritually efficacious phenomenon such as a mind-questioning Yin Demon appeared during his interpretation, they would seize him at once.

“Interesting!”

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Judging from the style of the diagram, it resembled ancient dragon seals and phoenix scripts, suggesting that it came from the unrecorded, unchronicled age before the Heavenly Zhou dynasty.

Looking more closely, he discovered something else. But that discovery could not be revealed in public.

All around them, numerous small earthen mounds had already been raised: some shaped like steamed buns, some like pointed towers, and others like square earthen coffins. Their forms varied, but all had been constructed through sealing rites using packed earth.

The examinees had mixed the damp clay and begun walking the Celestial Dipper Steps.

Those with the means had even summoned three or five little ghosts, refining them and offering them food, then setting them to raise one prayer banner after another.

Ji Ming projected a surge of force. The earth before him caved inward and parted, then rose again in freshly stacked layers. Before long, an earthen mound had taken shape. This wondrous secret art drew many eyes.

“What art is that?”

The old Daoist holding the horsetail whisk asked in astonishment.

“Acquired Celestial Dipper Force.”

The old Daoist looked toward the Monk Fawen, who had answered him. His face showed that he wanted to speak but could not bring himself to do so. In the end, he merely shook his head.

Ji Ming held an earthenware bowl in his claw. Water and soil within it gradually churned together under the pressure of his force, yet a closer look revealed that the two remained distinctly separate.

After he had walked the Celestial Dipper Steps and descended into the earthen mound, the force within the bowl drew out a stream of clear water. He sprinkled it over the imprinted talisman diagram, and a line of tiny writing appeared.

“Within is a single Earth-Escape Talisman. Come quickly to the west of the pine forest. A guide to interpreting the talisman diagram awaits. —A note left by Xuanjing”

Ji Ming removed the small ocher talisman paper from the scroll and thought, My senior brother does seem to have a talent for anticipating events.

After sealing the earthen mound, Ji Ming sent a spark of vital essence into the talisman paper. The small talisman immediately caught fire. The flame vanished in the blink of an eye, and a streak of earthen radiance sank into Ji Ming’s body.

Not far away, inside a square “grave” assembled from stone slabs, the old farmer sat smoking a dry tobacco pipe.

The enclosed space was lit only by a single candle. The imprinted talisman diagram hung before him, while a bowl of wet clay rested by his feet.

The old farmer was in no hurry to interpret the diagram. Instead, he scratched at the itching skin of his face. Then, as though deciding it was no longer worth the trouble, he peeled off the entire layer of skin, revealing an even older face beneath.

From a mouth full of rotten teeth came the words:

“Stone Dragon, this old man has been thinking of you all along!”