Techniques and Dao

Chapter 87 Five Poisonous Evil Arts

Cruise ship. The ship's interior corridor.

The roar of the Gu Diao has changed from a solo to a trio.

Looking at the three Gu Diao, Hua Sheng dared not take a step forward, and the talisman in his hand was also powerless.

The Gu Diao's sharp claws could easily rip him open with a single swipe; even one would be difficult to deal with, let alone three against one.

Hua Sheng slowly retreated, the blood flowing from his hands increasing, staining the entire iron bar red. Blood dripped onto the deck, drop by drop, from the drooping edge of the bar.

The blood made the iron rod sticky to the touch.

Hua Sheng suddenly had a flash of inspiration: this iron rod stained with blood might have an unexpected use!

He then pulled out several talismans and, while retreating, rolled them up around both ends of the iron rod. The talismans, now stuck to the ends of the rod with blood, formed a makeshift stick-shaped "magical weapon" that could be used from both ends.

Hua Sheng stuffed the remaining demon-suppressing talismans into his pocket, tore a strip of cloth from his sleeve, and tied his right hand tightly to the iron rod to prevent it from slipping out of his hand.

Then he roared, "Watch out!" and stabbed the nearest Gu Diao with the stick.

Hua Sheng's hopes came true. When the iron rod wrapped with the talisman struck the Gu Diao's head, it was as easy as stabbing into a wall weathered over a thousand years. Instantly, a hole was pierced, and the Gu Diao let out a mournful cry and fell off the wall.

Hua Sheng swung his iron rod, striking the beast repeatedly. Each strike flashed with golden light, instantly disfiguring the ferocious creature. Then, glaring at the remaining two, he roared and swung his rod again. The ship's passageway was momentarily filled with golden light, and in less than ten seconds, another beast was reduced to pieces. The last one howled and turned to flee.

Hua Sheng shouted and pulled the iron rod from the cloth strip in his right hand, then threw it like a javelin at the back of the Gu Diao.

The iron rod transformed into a steel needle, instantly piercing the body of the third Gu eagle. The rod then slammed heavily against the wall at the end of the corridor. The Gu eagle fell to the ground, instantly turning into a puddle of mud.

Hua Sheng walked over and picked up the iron rod, noticing that the corpses of the first two Gu Diao had also turned into mud.

Unexpectedly, the makeshift iron rod artifact crafted with the talisman was so formidable. Hua Sheng's spirits lifted. It seemed that even if there were other Gu Diao on the ship, as long as they had this talisman, they had nothing to fear.

Hua Sheng picked up the fallen iron bar and several scattered talismans, dusted them off, and returned to the sisters' side.

Hearing Hua Sheng approach, Xiao Qing asked, "Was the Gu Diao killed?"

Hua Sheng said, "I didn't expect the talisman to be so powerful. The Gu Diao turned into mud after touching it."

"That's good, that's good!" Xiaomei said, "As long as we have the talisman, we're saved."

Hua Sheng said, "This package of talismans looks to contain only a little over a hundred, and we're not sure what else is in addition to the Gu Diao."

Xiao Qing was still shaken: "The corridor is too dangerous; we don't know what other monsters might be there. Let's go inside!"

Hua Sheng thought it made sense. The three of them went to the two sisters' room and gently locked the door. Hua Sheng tried to turn on the room light, but as expected, the power was out after several attempts. He then turned on his phone's flashlight to wash his wound in the bathroom, and then used the dim light to rummage through the cabinet, where he found an emergency flashlight.

Hua Sheng said to Xiao Mei, "Can you take a picture of me?"

After saying that, he found a few clean towels in the bathroom, soaked them in water, and used them to wipe the bloodstains off Xiaoqing's face: "I'll take you to the hospital when the ship docks. Do you have any clean clothes? I'll tear them open and bandage you up."

Xiaoqing said, "We have clean clothes in our suitcase."

Hua Sheng took out a white T-shirt from the box, tore it into several strips, and used them to bandage Xiao Qing's injured eye.

Then, with Xiaomei's help, she simply bandaged the wound on her arm and stopped the bleeding.

Hua Sheng then placed the bundle of talismans on the ground. Upon opening it, he found nine stacks inside, each containing more than ten talismans. He had no idea what the talismans depicted were. Fortunately, each stack had a piece of white paper with a Chinese numeral and a name written on it, which should be the name of the talisman.

1. Opening the Altar Incantation; 2. Lowering the Banner Incantation; 3. Breaking Hell Incantation; 4. Nine Stars Divine Incantation; 5. Mysterious Spirit Incantation; 6. Purifying the Heart Incantation; 7. Golden Light Incantation; 8. Leaving the Cold Court Incantation; 9. Purifying Heaven and Earth Incantation.

What are the functions of these different talismans? Hua Sheng was completely baffled. But seeing that the Hell-Breaking Curse he had just used was effective against the Gu Diao, he knew that the remaining talismans must be equally formidable.

Hua Sheng then found a bottle of glue and some rubber bands in the drawer. He glued nine talismans to each end of the iron rod and tied them tightly with rubber bands. Thinking that this should last for a while, he put the remaining talismans into a backpack and slung it across his body.

"This ship is fraught with danger right now, so I'll get straight to the point." Hua Sheng cleared his throat. "There's something I need to say first, and I hope you're prepared."

"What is it?" the two sisters asked in unison.

“I’m Xu Ge’s friend, which is also Xu Xiaocheng’s friend. He passed away a few days ago…”

"Big brother passed away?" Xiaoqing was agitated. She covered her mouth and convulsed. "How could this be! No way!" Perhaps her tears had flowed into her wound, because she was trembling all over in pain.

Xiao Mei was also surprised: "No wonder I haven't been able to contact him these past few days. I thought he was busy with projects again, just like before. He said he would come to the ship this time, but I couldn't get through to him on the phone."

Hua Sheng patted Xiao Qing on the back and comforted her, "Please accept my condolences. After all, the dead cannot be brought back to life."

"How did Brother Xu die?" Xiao Qing asked, sobbing.

Hua Sheng was momentarily at a loss for words, after all, he was also involved in Xu Ge's death. If he said that he was the direct cause of Xu Ge's death, not only would he not be able to fully explain the facts, but it would also bring unnecessary trouble. Currently, all three of them were still in danger of losing their lives, so it was better not to reveal everything.

“Do you know about the incident where Brother Xu’s wife fell off the cliff?” Hua Sheng said. “His wife’s fall was not an accident; it was Brother Xu who pushed her, causing her death.”

"What?" the two sisters exclaimed at the same time.

Hua Sheng said, "The criminal investigation revealed that he had failed in his business and was heavily in debt. He killed his wife in order to defraud insurance. Under the police's pursuit, Brother Xu had nowhere to escape, so he stabbed himself to death with a dagger."

Xiao Qing said blankly, "I didn't expect my brother to still do this."

Hua Sheng sensed something was off about her words and asked, "Did you notice anything unusual before? Did he say anything to you?"

Have you ever heard of being possessed by an evil spirit?

"Bewitched?"

Xiaoqing thought for a moment and said, "My brother once said that my sister-in-law started being possessed by an evil spirit about a year ago!"

In the dimly lit cabin of the cruise ship, Xu Xiaoqing began to recount her brother Xu Xiaocheng's experiences over the past year.

“Ever since my brother and sister-in-law got married, their relationship has been very good. Although we don’t see each other often, the few times I have seen my brother and sister-in-law, they both look very happy. Although they don’t have much savings, they have been living a smooth life supporting each other. Then one day, my brother suddenly said on the phone that he found my sister-in-law always with a gloomy face, locking herself in her room, talking to herself in a daze.”

Xiaoqing said that at first Xu Ge thought it was because of too much life pressure and a bad mood, but later he found that his sister-in-law started bringing small earthenware jars into the house. At first, she thought she was going to put something in them, or like women who like to cook, she would use the brine to marinate beef tongue, chicken wings or other pickled foods, but she never did.

Not long after, my sister-in-law went to Sichuan and Yunnan alone. When she came back, she brought back a travel bag full of small bamboo jars. When Brother Xu asked what they were, she always vaguely said they were local specialties. She said they were for a friend and she would give them away in a few days.

Xu said that in just a few days, his sister-in-law went from a cheerful, sunny woman to someone with a dark complexion and a sleepwalking expression. Several times, she would walk expressionlessly straight towards oncoming cars on the street, and each time Xu had to pull her back to avoid being hit.

Previously, Brother Xu was always busy working hard, leaving early and returning late every day, neglecting his sister-in-law. Later, he began to observe more carefully and discovered that all the jars in the house had suddenly disappeared. And every night when he went to sleep, he would hear faint rustling sounds coming from under the bed. At first, he vaguely thought it was a hallucination, but one night he woke up to find his sister-in-law squatting in the corner talking to herself. He listened carefully, but couldn't understand what she was saying in strange language. This situation was chilling.

One day, while his sister-in-law was out, he searched under the bed and discovered that all the missing earthenware jars were there! The jars were of various shapes, and their lids were sealed with mud. He shook the jars and found that they weren't full; there was just some stuff rolling back and forth with a clattering sound.

Brother Xu found a screwdriver and pried open the seal of one of the earthenware jars. In an instant, several large centipedes, each as thick as a thumb, crawled out, followed by scorpions. Finally, they saw a spotted venomous snake that had been dead for some time at the bottom of the jar. There were also some unidentified insect corpses at the bottom.

My sister-in-law is keeping venomous snakes and scorpions at home!

Faced with so many poisonous insects, Xu Ge suspected it was a form of Gu poison. He specifically researched Gu poison, which originated in the Yunnan area. In the past, when the five poisonous creatures and hundreds of other insects appeared, Miao women skilled in Gu witchcraft would go to the high mountains to capture various poisonous insects, placing them in a small jar in a dark place, never opening the lid for years. The insects inside would kill each other until only one remained—that insect was the Gu.

When the jar is opened, the Miao woman lifts the lid and inhales a foul odor. This odor later acts as a curse on her, making her eager to release it. Meanwhile, once the insects inside the jar die, the woman takes out the dead insects and their excrement, grinds them into powder, and adds this powder to food and drink whenever the odor acts as a curse on her. If someone accidentally ingests it, they will be poisoned and die. There are many types of witchcraft, commonly including snake curses, silkworm curses, centipede curses, wasp curses, and insect curses. The methods of making these curses are largely similar. The purpose of making these curses is usually singular: to poison or curse people.

The poison in the gu-breeding jar, if smeared on someone's bowl or food, will cause rapid death if ingested. Judging from the gu creatures raised in my sister-in-law's house, the amount of poison is enough to kill hundreds of people.

What's puzzling is that if the goal was to poison Brother Xu, then just one jar of poison would have killed Xu Xiaocheng nearly a hundred times over. Whom did his wife intend to poison by keeping so many poisonous creatures? He couldn't sleep every night.

One day, Xu was passing by a Taoist temple when he was stopped at the entrance by a middle-aged man reeking of alcohol. At first, Xu thought he was just an ordinary drunkard or a charlatan, but the man solemnly said that Xu's face was shrouded in a dark aura, suggesting he might be haunted by ghosts recently. Thinking of the poisons in his home, Xu felt something was indeed amiss.

This middle-aged man's name was also strange; he called himself Young Master Lan. In this day and age, even the younger generation of wealthy businessmen and political figures wouldn't be addressed as "Young Master."

Young Master Lan took out three talismans from his pocket and gave them to Xu Xiaocheng, instructing him to carry them with him so they could protect him and save his life in case of danger.

"Shortly afterward, we learned of my sister-in-law's death during the trip. About a month after the incident, my eldest brother came to see us. He said that my sister-in-law had touched a fallen talisman, was suddenly thrown off balance, and fell off the cliff. At the time, we thought it was just my brother talking nonsense out of grief. But he said that while cleaning up my sister-in-law's belongings, he found that she had written down her plan to poison someone at the hospital in a notebook, along with a date and a coordinate system located in the East China Sea. Later, this man named Lan Gongzi performed a divination for him, saying that my sister-in-law was indeed controlled by evil magic. However, he could not determine who had cast the spell, only that it originated from somewhere in the East China Sea. And the location of that location almost overlapped with the coordinate system my sister-in-law left behind."

Xiao Qing continued, "After that, Brother Xu gave us this packet of talismans, saying that it was given to him by that Young Master Lan. Brother Xu said that he found the date left by his sister-in-law, and coincidentally, a cruise ship would pass by this coordinate at that time. Young Master Lan asked him to take the talismans onto the ship. Since he has been being chased by debt collectors, if he can't get on the cruise ship, we will use this packet of talismans to set up an array."

"What kind of formation?" In Hua Sheng's memory, formations only happened in the war chapters of history books. How could you form a formation without thousands of troops?

"Have you ever heard of Qimen Dunjia?" Xiaoqing asked.

Hua Sheng suddenly realized and said, "Although I don't understand it very well, it's not like I've never heard of it before. Everyone has heard of things like the I Ching and the Eight Trigrams since childhood. But the question is, what is the purpose of setting up this formation?"

Xiao Qing said, "Young Master Lan drew a magic array diagram for Brother Xu, saying that these talismans can be used to set traps."

Hua Sheng examined the packet of talismans and found a hand-drawn array diagram tucked inside. He asked, "A trap. What is it used to catch?"

Xiao Qing said, "I heard from that person who called himself Young Master Lan that a calamity will descend upon this location and land on this cruise ship."

"A calamity has descended upon the world? I'm completely confused. When will we arrive at these coordinates? When will the calamity arrive?" Hua Sheng felt as if he had fallen into a mythological novel.

"That's the sea coordinate where the cruise ship will arrive tonight, and now this storm," Xiaoqing said, "it's probably a harbinger of disaster!"

(End of this chapter)