Chapter Eighty-Seven: Protective Magical Artifact

I saw the serpent shadows on the incense ash multiplying by the minute, and Lanqing was already writhing in agony, on the verge of unconsciousness. If Miao Renhuan’s serpent curse were not broken at once, Lanqing would be in mortal danger.

I helped Lanqing steady herself, picked up a chopstick, and handed it to Yue Leiting, shouting, “For the first sixty years of your life, you were an eagle that pecked at serpents; the snakes dare not come near you. Now I will teach you the Three Pure Ones Exorcising Finger. Bend your index finger and press it against your thumb, set this chopstick flat between the two fingers, and remember: never let it fall!”

Yue Leiting hurriedly did as I said. With his left hand he formed the Three Pure Ones Exorcising Finger. The chopstick was made of peach wood, which wards off evil. The Three Pure Ones Exorcising Finger is also known as the Amnesty for Evil, driving away malign forces wherever they go.

“Place Aunt Lan’s bowl lamp on top of her head. No matter what happens, it must not fall, and it must not go out!”

When I finished, I lifted up the bowl of chicken blood from earlier, dipped my finger in it, and drew talismans on Yue Leiting’s forehead and both hands.

“The three talismans I’ve drawn on you are the Golden Shears Flying Blade Talismans. Three golden blades show no mercy: the first cuts the serpent’s head, the second its body, and the third its tail. You were already born under the fate of the eagle that pecks serpents, so the snakes dare not approach you. Now with these talismans on your body, the evil serpents will keep their distance the moment they see you.”

By the time I had finished drawing the talismans, Xiao Lianshan was astonished to see that the serpent shadows, which had been swimming steadily toward Lanqing across the incense ash, retreated the instant they neared Yue Leiting. With Yue Leiting shielding Lanqing from left and right, not a single shadow came close to her again, and no more snake-bite marks rose from within her body.

I walked over to where the water had been placed behind Lanqing and saw that the clear water from moments before had turned murky and black, opaque as ink.

Holding a chopstick between two fingers against my forehead, I cried out, “Evil serpents ravage the world, heedless of all living beings. Ancestor masters of the heavens, protect my body. First I beseech the Crimson Emperor to cut down the serpent calamity!”

Then I lowered the chopstick into the water, and it stood upright in the black pool without toppling.

“Five Directions Five Emperors, sea, rivers, and all origins of water; dragon kings of the heavens, hear my talismanic command. Second I beseech the Serpent Sovereign Emperor to sever the serpent chaos!”

A second chopstick likewise stood upright in the water.

“Fiery thunder generals, flame chariot commanders, rising to heaven and descending to earth, leading the thunder troops. Millions upon millions of battalions, search out and seize the evil essence; heavenly generals of the Three Pure Ones, subdue the serpent and banish its falsehood!”

After the three chopsticks had been placed in the water, I poured a drop of chicken blood between them. The blood slowly spread through the black water until it touched the three upright chopsticks. Xiao Lianshan watched in amazement as the chopsticks began to move on their own, rotating clockwise in strict order within the water. At first they turned slowly, then faster and faster.

I poured the remaining chicken blood over the chopsticks in my hand, broke them one by one, and clenched the pieces in my palm, shouting, “Fiery thunder generals, flame chariot commanders, rising to heaven and descending to earth, leading the thunder troops. Millions upon millions of battalions, search out and seize the evil essence. Hearing my immediate summons, you may not linger!”

When I finished, I scattered the broken chopsticks into the incense ash. The moment they struck the ash, they crackled and snapped like thunderbolts from a clear sky. The serpent shadows still circling Yue Leiting, waiting for an opening, were blown apart one after another, leaving only broken remnants upon the ash.

The black, murky water, stirred by the three chopsticks, gradually regained its clarity. With my left hand I picked up three chopsticks at once, pressed my right thumb to Lanqing’s forehead, and suddenly thrust the three chopsticks into the crown of her head.

“Evil spirits, be obliterated!”

The instant I spoke, all the snake-bite marks on Lanqing’s body vanished. Lanqing only felt her stomach churn as though the seas and rivers within her were overturning; her stomach convulsed violently, and she vomited.

What came out of her were all tiny snakes torn to pieces and shattered into fragments, even now still writhing with their broken bodies. Lanqing kept retching several more times, and only when what came up was nothing but bile did I finally let out a long breath.

Judging from the severed snake bodies on the ground, there were at least twenty or more of them, each brilliantly colored and horribly venomous. If they had not been forced out in time, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

At the same moment I drove countless venomous snakes out of Lanqing’s body, Miao Renhuan on the other side suddenly felt a searing pain in his chest, as though ten thousand snakes were gnawing at his heart. A salty, fishy surge rose in his throat, and when he spat it onto the yellow paper, it was all blood.

Miao Renhuan’s expression was terrifying. The corners of his mouth twitched nonstop. The serpent general is among the most sinister and poisonous of curse arts, even more vicious than the blood curse. To cast it, one must use corpse oil from a dead infant filled with deep resentment, mixed with the caster’s own vital blood. Once the spell is broken, the curse will surely rebound upon the caster. Thus, unless there is a blood feud, most curse masters treat the serpent curse with great caution and would never use it unless absolutely forced, for if it fails, they themselves will certainly suffer the blowback.

Miao Renhuan had used the serpent general to avenge Miao Renyu, so he had stopped at nothing. But now that I had broken it, he knew very well what the consequences would be.

His fists clenched tighter and tighter. Cold sweat seeped from his forehead and dripped down his cheeks onto the yellow paper. I could clearly see something moving beneath Miao Renhuan’s skin.

With a scream of agony, snake-bite marks began to appear on his arms, the same as those on Lanqing. Each time one surfaced, Miao Renhuan let out a cry of torment. His face had already warped beyond recognition, the thing writhing beneath his skin dragging it into a hideous, monstrous shape.

Suddenly Miao Renhuan clutched at both eyes and threw back his head with a cry of pain. Dark red blood leaked through the gaps between his fingers, and both his hands trembled violently.

Those eyes that had been intact only moments before were now two black hollows oozing dark blood. The eyeballs had burst, and writhing within them were unmistakably two tiny venomous snakes, probing their heads out from Miao Renhuan’s blackened eye sockets, thick with blood.

It was not only his eyes. Other parts of Miao Renhuan’s body were being torn open as well. Many snake heads seemed to be breaking free from cocoons and embedding themselves in his flesh, twisting their brilliantly colored bodies wildly as they tried inch by inch to wrench themselves out of Miao Renhuan’s body.

Su Lengyue was skilled in poison arts and was no stranger to all manner of venomous things, but seeing Miao Renhuan in such a state left her stunned and frightened out of her wits. Ouyang Cuo slowly sat down in the chair opposite, staring at Miao Renhuan without expression. There was not the slightest trace of surprise on his face, as though this outcome had long since been within his expectations.

Miao Renhuan endured the excruciating pain, gasping for breath, his trembling hands blindly groping before him.

“Qin Yanhui... you killed my brother, and now... now you’ve ruined my eyes. Today I will take your life!”

A man with no eyes, with black hollows leaking dark water and snake heads sprouting all over his body, smiling in the firelight—one did not even need to see it to imagine how horrifying and ghastly it was. Su Lengyue only felt ice running through her body. Even someone like her, who had grown up alongside poisons from childhood, felt fear rise from the depths of her being at the sight of Miao Renhuan in such a state.

Miao Renhuan took out a piece of cloth and wrapped it around the bamboo effigy. It looked familiar to me, and I suddenly remembered that it had been a garment I once wore. On the night Shen Jiangchuan came to the casino and made trouble, my clothes had been torn; at the time I paid it no mind. I never imagined that from that very moment, Miao Renhuan had already been plotting to harm me.

He was a curse master, and now that he had a piece of clothing I had worn, cursing me would be effortless. Miao Renhuan made his preparations, raised a steel needle, and drove it fiercely toward the bamboo figure’s head.

With a snap, the tough steel needle actually broke in two. The bamboo figure, like the others before it, was soft beyond belief. Miao Renhuan changed needles three times in a row, and each time the result was the same: the hard steel needles could not pierce the bamboo effigy at all.

Ouyang Cuo’s brows knit faintly. He looked up at me and said meaningfully, “You actually have a protective artifact of such power on you? Even the blood curse can’t harm you, much less affect your substitute. What exactly is it, to possess such immense spiritual force?”

I lowered my head and looked at the peach-wood chopsticks in my hand. If I truly had a protective artifact, it could only be this. There was no need for Ouyang Cuo to flatter me; even his expression was one of astonishment. After Qin Yishou severed my finger and cast me out, I had nothing on me.

...Or rather, not nothing.

I still had a necklace.

I had worn it since I could remember. The pendant was carved from Hetian jade, the design showing eight dragons coiling around a luminous pearl. Qin Yishou had never allowed me to remove it, but however one looked at it, it did not seem like a magical artifact.

When Miao Renhuan heard Ouyang Cuo say that I had a protective treasure, he said in a chilling voice, “...Fine. Today I’ll trade my life for yours. I refuse to believe I can’t kill you.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Miao Renhuan blindly grabbed the five kinds of poisonous creatures arranged around the five bamboo effigies. He put the scorpion, snake, spider, centipede, and toad into his mouth one by one and chewed them. Filth mixed with blood kept seeping from the corners of his mouth, a revolting sight to behold.

After chewing all five poisons, Miao Renhuan used his fingers to scrape the juices from within his mouth and smear them over the bamboo figure wrapped in strips of my clothing. Once the entire effigy was bound up, he grabbed the dagger beside him and actually sliced off his own scalp. Blood ran down his face, and most of the people in the courtyard were thrown into panic at the sight.

Miao Renhuan wrapped the bamboo figure with his own scalp, then drenched it with the entire bottle of corpse oil. At last he raised the dagger and aimed it at the effigy’s chest.

“I’m using the most powerful of all curse arts, the Five-Poison Death General. Even if it costs me my life, I will make you die!”

I had not expected Miao Renhuan to choose death in exchange for mine. I did not know much about these black arts, but the Five-Poison Death General could be counted among the most domineering of curse techniques. Once invoked, the caster would surely be doomed to a path of destruction with no way back.

As far as Daoist arts were concerned, I would not ordinarily have feared Miao Renhuan. But now that he was bent on death and had unleashed the Five-Poison Death General, and considering how hastily I had prepared, I had nothing in my hands except a handful of chopsticks. Moreover, breaking his serpent curse had already drained far too much of my strength.

Suddenly I felt a trace of panic. I knew very well that with my present level of cultivation, I absolutely could not withstand Miao Renhuan’s Five-Poison Death Curse.

Miao Renhuan’s dagger had already fallen, piercing straight through the bamboo figure’s chest.