Chapter 131: Hit 'em if you're annoyed!
Master Zhou's satchel was very similar to the one Yang Haoran used to carry when he went out for business. The difference was that Master Zhou's satchel had no decorative patterns and was made of very ordinary material; it was just a plain yellow satchel.
Another difference was that Yang Haoran’s yellow satchel back then contained nothing useful apart from some incense, candles, and paper money. However, Master Zhou’s yellow satchel was filled with entirely different contents.
The satchel felt heavy in his hand. It seemed to contain quite a few items.
When he had emerged from the mountain cave that day, Yang Haoran had carried this satchel on his back the entire time. At the time, his attention hadn't been on it, so he hadn't noticed this detail.
Opening the satchel, Yang Haoran didn’t bother to look at what was inside. Instead, he simply dumped all its contents onto the table. It seemed he intended to inspect each item meticulously, ensuring nothing was overlooked.
He shook the satchel, and nothing else fell out. He checked inside for any missed items and confirmed there were no hidden compartments. Once he was certain everything had been removed from the satchel, Yang Haoran tossed it aside as if it were trash. Then, his gaze swept over the table.
There were talismans, a compass, an Eight Trigrams Mirror, tattered books, and pieces of paper and what looked like leather. The items were varied and numerous in type, though sparse in quantity.
Yang Haoran examined the compass and the Eight Trigrams Mirror. They were merely ordinary items, devoid of any energy fluctuations. He tossed them aside like garbage.
It was the talismans, however, that sparked Yang Haoran’s interest.
This was akin to the Spirit Power within members of the Underworld Office; practitioners from other sects or Exorcists did not possess it either.
Of course, every organization had its traitors. Traitors were an exception to this rule.
Beyond this, drawing talismans also required corresponding incantations and chants. Each type of talisman had a different incantation or chant. Without the correct incantations and chants, even with a sample, one could not draw the corresponding talisman, not even a Talisman Master.
Becoming a Talisman Master was incredibly difficult, as they had very high demands on themselves. Every time they drew a talisman, they had to simultaneously draw, infuse power, and recite the chant. Only then could a talisman be completed. The process was highly complex, requiring them to focus on three things at once, with none being dispensable.
While talismans drawn by Talisman Masters could be used by outsiders for self-defense or combat, they could not truly control the talismans. They could only allow the talismans to passively activate and unleash their power.
That day, when Chen Ying encountered danger, the Black Talisman manifested, which was the passive activation of the talisman's power. She herself was not a Talisman Master and didn't know how to control talismans. However, because she carried the talisman, it would automatically activate once certain conditions were met.
For non-Talisman Master individuals like Chen Ying, even if they possessed a talisman, they wouldn't know how to manipulate it, let alone employ any specific techniques.
Master Zhou, however, was quite the opposite. Inside the mountain cave, Yang Haoran had personally witnessed Master Zhou manipulating talismans to deal with Xu Meijing. Although he hadn't harmed Xu Meijing in the slightest, his technique for controlling talismans was extremely proficient. From this, it was evident that Master Zhou was likely also a Talisman Master.
Yang Haoran, not being a Talisman Master, naturally couldn't understand what kind of talismans Master Zhou had used against Xu Meijing at the time. However, he had an extremely deep impression of the Lock Yin Talisman, which had caused him considerable trouble.
This kind of talisman was simply the bane of Underworld Officials and ghostly beings!
To put it that way was still too generalized. To be more precise, it meant that the Lock Yin Talisman was the nemesis of any person or object that drew their power from Yin Qi!
Looking at the talismans on the table, a thought couldn’t help but form in Yang Haoran’s mind: if he also possessed a Lock Yin Talisman, then the next time he encountered a Half-step Evil Spirit, he might be able to handle it alone.
Thinking this, an expectant look appeared on his face. He then began to rummage through all the talismans on the table.
He had barely looked at a single talisman when his expression froze.
“Lock Yin Talisman. . . what does a Lock Yin Talisman even look like? ”
Staring at the yellow paper talisman in his hand, Yang Haoran was stunned. It was only then that he realized he had never actually seen a Lock Yin Talisman before. When Master Zhou had given him that Lock Yin Talisman, it had been folded, and he hadn’t bothered to open it and look.
Furthermore, even if he had opened it and looked, it had been so long that he likely wouldn’t remember anyway. To him, talismans all looked largely the same: equally complex and equally obscure. They weren't something one could fully memorize just by looking once. If the time gap wasn't too long, he might retain some impression, but with a long passage of time, he couldn't remember at all.
Perhaps a Talisman Master could commit talismans to memory at a glance due to their profession, but Yang Haoran, being a non-Talisman Master, absolutely could not.
Not knowing what a Lock Yin Talisman looked like, Yang Haoran naturally had no way to find it among these talismans.
Frustrated, he could only neatly stack the talismans and set them aside. He would deal with them later.
He had no intention of questioning Master Zhou just yet. There were other items on the table, and it wouldn't be too late to slowly interrogate Master Zhou about everything he didn't understand or was curious about, once he had finished examining all of them.
He wasn't in a hurry. He believed that a cooked duck couldn't fly away, so he shifted his gaze to the other items.
Two tattered books, a piece of paper, and a piece of what resembled skin. Something seemed to be recorded on it.
Yang Haoran first picked up the piece of skin. It puzzled him. Was it truly skin? If so, what kind of skin?
With a knot of doubt in his mind, Yang Haoran picked up the item that looked like skin. He looked at it, then at the back of his own hand. His brows furrowed slightly.
Though he couldn't be certain, he felt it must be human skin, a piece from someone's back.
This made him feel a knot of nausea. If it were pig skin, he might still consider stir-frying it after blanching or pickling it with chilies, but human skin gave him an utterly uncomfortable sensation. Any appetite was even more out of the question.
Nauseating as it was, he didn't throw away the human skin in his hand. Instead, he looked at what was recorded on this piece of hide.
Upon seeing it, Yang Haoran was once again dumbfounded. He stood rooted to the spot, his face stiff. Compared to the crooked, complex, and obscure talismans he had seen earlier, what was recorded on this piece of human skin before him gave him an even bigger headache.
Snapping out of it, Yang Haoran said nothing. He threw the human skin in his hand onto the table. Then, Spirit Power manifested in his hand, coalescing into a chain. He whipped it directly at Master Zhou.
Master Zhou, kneeling before the offering table, let out a wretched shriek. Although he no longer had a physical body, when Spirit Power struck his Spirit Body, while causing immense damage to it, it also inflicted a pain unlike anything felt by the living.
His Spirit Body was already quite faint to begin with. After a brief recovery, it had only solidified a tiny bit. But Yang Haoran's sudden whip with the chain sent him right back to his original state.
He truly couldn't understand. He was kneeling here peacefully, not saying a word. Yet Yang Haoran, for reasons unknown, suddenly went crazy and inexplicably whipped him with a chain. This made him furious but unable to speak. He could only vent his inner fury through agonizing screams.
After delivering that one whip, Yang Haoran didn't continue. He dispersed the chain of Spirit Power and looked glumly at the human skin before him.
The first thing that met his eyes were three large characters. But he couldn't understand them.
Beneath the three large characters, many small characters were densely written. However, he still couldn't understand them.
Although Yang Haoran had dropped out of school quite early, he still recognized the vast majority of characters. Yet the writing used for the content recorded on this piece of human skin was fundamentally not the script he had learned. Naturally, he didn't recognize a single character.
Not understanding the talismans was one thing; he accepted that. After all, he wasn't a Talisman Master.
But what he hadn't expected was that he couldn't understand the content recorded on this piece of human skin either. A surge of anger rose in his heart. Therefore, he said nothing and simply whipped Master Zhou with a chain.
“Damn it, has this guy been messing with me? The writing on this looks like demon script! How the hell am I supposed to understand demon script? ! ”
The writing on the human skin was indeed demon script.
Before entering the mountain cave, Yang Haoran had never seen what demon script looked like. But after emerging from the cave, he had gained some understanding of it.
Perhaps 'understanding' was an exaggeration, but at the very least, he had seen what demon incantations looked like, so he naturally recognized what demon script looked like.
Xu Meijing had said that demonic characters imbued with power were called demon incantations, while ordinary demonic characters without power were called demon script. The writing on this piece of human skin before him showed no energy fluctuations, yet it looked exactly like a demon incantation. If not demon script, what else could it be?
The "exactly alike" here didn't mean every character was identical, but rather referred to the writing style and overall feel. One glance was enough to tell they belonged to the same script.
Taking a deep breath, Yang Haoran lit a cigarette. He could only temporarily set aside this piece of human skin.
No matter what was recorded on this human skin, if he couldn't understand demon script, then there was no way around it. Even if it promised a house of gold, a beauty like jade, or nothing but black coal, what did it matter?
It was all in vain. So, he could only put this piece of human skin aside for now, and deal with it later along with the talismans.
Struck down twice in a row, much of Yang Haoran's enthusiasm was doused. At this moment, he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed in Master Zhou's collection.
His gaze fell upon the piece of paper on the table. Yang Haoran took a drag from his cigarette, then picked up the paper.
Why pick up this piece of paper instead of the other two tattered books? Because it was the closest to him.
He glanced casually, almost absentmindedly, at the contents on the paper. Yang Haoran's brow furrowed. Not only did he show no interest, but a cold glint burst forth in his eyes.
Without a second thought, Spirit Power once again coalesced into a chain in his hand. He whipped it at Master Zhou's Spirit Body again.
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