Du Wenzhong had gotten used to acting like an elder when getting along with me.
He was at an age suitable for a peaceful retirement. Now that we had gotten rid of Du Peiyun, that annoying fly, we no longer had to worry about constantly being on the run.
From then on, he could live just as we had fantasized during our days on the run. He could sell talismans and perform "rituals" in this shop with a living - quarters at the back, chat and joke with his fans, and live a happy life.
Du Wenzhong was so excited that he almost shed old tears.
When he heard that I was going to send away the fierce ghosts I had taken in, he immediately rushed behind the counter to prepare the necessary incense, candles, paper horses and other items.
My exorcism formation was a spell - sending technique of the Maoshan School. Different from the ordinary methods of expelling or slaying ghosts, it was a ritual to safely send the ghosts lingering in the human world back to the underworld. The purpose was not to eliminate the ghosts but to persuade them to enter the underworld and participate in the cycle of reincarnation. I also had to write a memorial on yellow paper, similar to a recommendation letter in the human world, so that the underworld would accept these late - arriving ghosts without punishing them.
By the time everything was in order, it was already getting dark.
The summer evenings in the capital were quite charming. A streak of blood - red afterglow in the western sky was reflected against the silhouettes of the trees.
We lived in a small courtyard house in an old alley. There were century - old trees both inside and outside the yard. As soon as evening fell, many crows would circle and perch on them with their "cawing" sounds.
In the yard, the chimneys of many tenants' kitchens were already smoking.
I had eaten outside. Du Wenzhong was too lazy to cook, so he ordered a take - out of spicy marinated dishes and sat at the shop entrance waiting for the delivery guy.
The time for sending the ghosts to the underworld was usually chosen at midnight, when the yin energy reached its peak and the ghost messengers could be invited out.
Both Wang Yingxiu and the three little ghosts were cases that the ghost messengers were reluctant to deal with. One had escaped the time of being captured by the ghost messengers due to her obsession, while the other three little ghosts had been turned into puppets by someone after their souls were refined in a daze...
I went back to my room and planned to calmly draw some talismans during this period.
The door and a small window of my room faced the yard. Just as I was about to pull up the half - open curtain, I suddenly saw a light shining through the window of the opposite room.
"!!"
I was startled. That room had been rented by Wu Mingyu. After being haunted by the vengeful ghost of Zhou Wei's wife last time, she shouldn't have dared to come back. Later, Zhou Wei dragged her to jump off the building. This room should have been unoccupied, right?
However, then I thought that this was a rental house of Landlady Xu. She must be eager to have the tenants for each room replaced seamlessly.
I pulled up the curtain and calmed down to start drawing talismans.
I didn't know if it was because my spiritual consciousness had increased after my trip to the underworld, but I could draw talismans much faster than before. Especially those talismans for summoning the troops of the underworld, I could almost draw them in one go! I wondered if that Judge Lu had given me some convenience!!
I drew seven or eight talismans in one go before I stopped.
Outside, the sky had become as black as ink. Faintly, I could hear the old - fashioned wall clock in Landlady Xu's house "bong" eleven times...
I still cared a bit about the room where Wu Mingyu used to live. I put away the vermilion brush and gently lifted the curtain. I saw that the light in that room had been turned off. It seemed that the tenant had a very regular life.
I stretched my waist and walked from the small room into the spacious shop outside. There was still a spicy smell of the marinated dishes in the room, but Du Wenzhong was nowhere to be seen. It seemed that he had gone to his own room to rest.
Although Du Wenzhong didn't have real skills, as the "mascot" of the shop, he did an excellent job in the superficial work.
The altar for the ritual was well - arranged by him. A tablecloth made of yellow silk was spread on the counter and pressed with peach - wood paperweights. Two brass candelabras with bright beef - tallow candles had been lit, with orange flames flickering.
The yellow paper stamped with the seal of the underworld and the gold and silver ingots made of paper were piled up beside the counter. He knew that the ghosts I was going to exorcise today were all "difficult cases" that were hard to be accepted by the underworld, so these offerings for the underworld should be as many as possible. The ingots and yellow paper were almost piled up like a small mountain.
Du Wenzhong had gotten along with those little ghosts for a long time. He also hoped that these poor little guys could be reborn into good families soon and enjoy the love of their parents.
Our shop didn't have the rolling shutters like ordinary shops. It only had two large tempered - glass doors and a display window about half a meter wide.
When closing the shop, we would lock the doors with a U - shaped lock from the inside and then lower the thangka floor curtain left by the previous tenant to block the view inside the shop. When Du Wenzhong went back to his room to rest, he had already lowered the curtain.
I calmed down, lit three sticks of sandalwood and inserted them into the small purple - copper incense burner. As the curling white smoke rose straight up, I murmured the incantation for summoning the ghosts in my heart, planning to invite out the ghost messenger on duty today. After silently reciting it three times, the white smoke of the three sticks of sandalwood began to twist like three winding little snakes and gradually dissipated in the air.
"May I ask which messenger is on duty?"
I lit a stack of yellow paper and threw it into the brass brazier. The yellow paper immediately curled up into grayish - white ashes when it touched the fire and whirled up in the copper basin, reaching almost half a person's height. Suddenly, it transformed into a thick black mist, and a pale face abruptly appeared in the mist. The places where the facial features should be were all blank.
"Little Taoist nun, what do you want from this messenger?"
The ghost messenger swelled up to two or three meters high with the help of the fire from the brazier. If it weren't for the roof blocking him, he might have grown outside the house to talk to me.
"Please, great messenger, help my four clients return to the underworld to end their lifespan and be reborn into the cycle of reincarnation."
I burned the memorial written with a brush along with a large handful of gold and silver ingots. The ghost messenger in the black mist reached out his hand and grabbed the memorial I had written from the brazier.
He brought his faceless face closer, glanced at it roughly, and immediately flew into a rage. He grabbed the altar with one hand and said, "You are a Taoist. How could you keep ghosts and cause trouble? Aren't you afraid of shortening your own lifespan?"
Wang Yingxiu was indeed kept by me, but when I first saw her, she had already escaped the capture of the ghost messengers and had been hiding in that small apartment for quite a while.
I kept her just to prevent her from losing her mind due to the gale of the underworld and really becoming a fierce red - clothed ghost that would harm people.
However, for the ghost messengers, this was keeping ghosts!
Keeping the souls that didn't belong in this world was against the will of heaven.
I didn't try to explain. Instead, I burned many more ingots, candles, and three more sticks of high - quality incense, which made the ghost messenger's face look a lot calmer.
Don't ask how I could tell the expression from a faceless face. It was the unique aura of the ghost messengers. Anyway, I felt that his tone of speaking had softened a lot.
"Let them out!"
The ghost messenger shrank a lot after receiving the money. He stepped out of the brazier and carelessly sat on the chair specially prepared for him beside the altar. "Humph, luckily it's this messenger on duty today. This messenger has countless connections in the underworld. Big shots like Judge Lu and Lord Zhong Kui are all this messenger's friends. You, little Taoist nun, are lucky to have invited this messenger. Hurry up and burn a few more warehouses of gold and silver for me. In the future, when you need to do things in the underworld, just mention my name!"