Day and night tour

Chapter 111 Bride's Obsession
A picture scroll with sound slowly unfolds in Zhou Xuan's mind...

...A magnificent temple, with a black plaque with gold edges hanging on the crossbeam of the vermilion wooden gate, with the three characters "City God Temple" inscribed on it.

On the left and right doorposts, there is a pair of temple couplets hanging, which reads "Those who are good will come here with a clear conscience" and "Those who are evil will enter my door with fear."

There is an open square in front of the temple.
A White Walker named "Liaojin" who was only the size of a child had his shirt stripped off and was forced to kneel in front of the temple by eight people wearing black robes and golden masks.

Liao Jin has two vertebrae, and its ability should be based on these vertebrae. The eight men in black clothes and golden faces each hold an ink-colored thread in their hands.

The thread passed in and out of Liaojin's spine, blocking the function of its spine and making it unable to move.

"cramp!"

A red wooden order was thrown out from the temple, and eight people flicked the ink line at the same time.

The wire whipped on Liaojin's back, not only leaving scars with black flames, but also the two spines entangled by the wire were violently pulled out of the body...

...It was not until the spine was completely pulled out of the body that Zhou Xuan could see clearly that the two bones were crystal clear and extremely soft. There were natural Taoist symbols on the surface of the bones, tied with threads, twisting like two jade snakes.

The "cramps" mentioned in the City God Temple should be referring to these two bones!

At this moment, the memory scroll turns black.
The next moment,

The picture shows a prison.
The two jade bones were soaked in a sticky juice, and Liao Jin's lifeless body was placed on a hardwood bed.

A wizard in a black cloak walked in barefoot. He pointed one hand toward the sky, and a bone needle flew out of his collar.

The bone needle is roughly as thick as a middle finger and as long as a palm, except that the tip is sharpened to make it more like an arrowhead than a needle, with a hint of fierceness.

The bone needle moves with the witch's gestures. It flies wherever the witch points. When the witch points horizontally, the bone needle hovers above the jade bone.

"Enter~soul~."

The wizard dragged out his tone and muttered two words. The bone needle began to flash with runes, peeling the golden soul out of the jade bone.

When the soul was just peeled out of the bones, it was translucent, but as soon as it touched the bone needles, it turned ink-black and was sucked into the white bone needles.

The bone needle gradually turned dark black.

After all the Liao Jin was sucked in, the wizard held the bone needle and tattooed an iron lock on the skin of "Liao Jin".

Every time a needle was inserted into the skin, the room was filled with the sound of ghosts howling, as if they were being tortured inhumanly. It was not until the last needle was pulled out and the iron lock tattoo was completed that it became completely silent...

The memory scene ends here.

Zhou Xuan opened his eyes, looked at Yuan Buyu and said, "Tattooing is not raising evil spirits in living people's bodies, they are raising evil spirits in human skin, and they can even raise strange ghosts in human skin."

"Can you raise a White Walker?"

Yuan Buyu was very surprised.

"The skin of this box is not human skin, but the skin of a White Walker. The tattoo is also made of the soul of a White Walker."

The skin and soul of the White Walker Liejin were made into a box to imprison the White Walker, which is quite a black humor.

"Sister, did I break this box?" Zhou Xuan discovered that the tattoo on the box was gone.

"The box doesn't matter. Have you seen the way of collecting incense by tattooing?" Zhou Lingyi asked with concern.

"No, but the needle that the witch used for the tattoo should be extraordinary. It is a bone needle. The needle is connected to the witch, so it should be raised. As for how it is raised, I don't see the trick." Zhou Xuan said.

"Then I understand. This tattoo method is similar to that of Fifth Senior Brother. It not only has magical methods, but also uses tools as weapons."

Zhou Lingyi figured out the clue from Zhou Xuan's words.

She explained to Zhou Xuan: "You should have seen some of the methods used by the fifth senior brother. He is a man of many talents and knows many tricks when it comes to corpses."

Zhou Xuan nodded. In the Jingdeng Villa, he had personally seen Lu Mingkun's "corpse speaking technique". With just one finger, he was able to pinpoint the positions of all fifteen corpses in the wall. Relying on perception and rituals, he made the corpses speak and tell about their experiences before death.

"But when Senior Brother Lu was fighting the enemy, he relied on a bamboo leaf knife. That knife was the one he used to dissect corpses.
He took care of the knife day and night, and gradually the White Walker inscriptions appeared on the blade. The bamboo leaf knife also had many mysterious killing methods. It was both a tool for dissecting corpses and a weapon. This is using a tool as a weapon.

According to what you just said, the Tattoo Hall has many magical methods in tattooing, and the bone needles used for tattooing will become your sharp blade to kill the enemy."

The more Zhou Xuan listened, the more he felt that the tattoo was very clever. The tattoo could imprison evil spirits, and with the blessing of the bone needles, it must be an extremely powerful sect.

"Tomorrow is the day for divination. I will go to the Blood Well to ask if I can find a way to get tattoos to earn incense."

After Zhou Xuan finished speaking, he said goodbye to his sister and master.

Just as he was about to leave, Yuan Buyu stopped him and said, "Don't be in such a hurry to leave. Your right hand can reach deep into human skin to scratch tattoos. Then try scratching the tattoo you drew on human skin and see how it goes."

After listening to this, Zhou Xuan also became interested. Since his sister and Yuan Buyu both said that the pattern on the bride's head was not a painting but a tattoo, he might as well take a look.

He spread out the human skin and stretched out his right hand to grab it, but this time he didn't get the hang of it and couldn't get it in no matter what he did.

"Recall how you felt when you grabbed the iron chain tattoo just now." Yuan Buyu said patiently.

If we talk about the state of grabbing the iron chain tattoo, it is that after being whipped twice, his heart was filled with extreme resentment.

You have to make yourself very angry.

Zhou Xuan closed his eyes and began to meditate on the things that made him angry. So far, there were not many things that could make him angry, except for the two things that the kidnapper wanted to send three masters to settle accounts with him and Nuo Mian bullied his sister.

He slowly recalled the details of what happened before, and finally became so angry that when he opened his eyes, they turned red with anger.

He reached into the human skin and this time, he saw with his own eyes his right hand reaching into the human skin, transforming into a right hand pattern, swimming in the skin towards the bride's tattoo.

When his right hand was about to touch the pattern, suddenly a gentle force wrapped around his right hand. It was not only gentle, but also inexplicably comfortable. It was like the comfort of having a warm towel covering your eyes after reading books all day and your eyes are sore.

The excessive feeling of comfort actually dissolved the anger in his heart one by one. Without the extreme emotions, Zhou Xuan's right hand lost its magic and floated out of the human skin.

"I can't catch it. This picture uses softness to overcome hardness and eliminates the power of my right hand."

Zhou Xuan expressed his feelings just now.

Yuan Buyu picked up the human skin painting again and held it up to the sunlight, as if he was seeing it for the first time.

"How is that possible? The blood energy of the tattoo in this painting is obviously not strong. You can even catch the tattoo of a White Walker, but you can't catch such an ordinary tattoo?"

"It's not ordinary. A bride with a lantern appeared inexplicably in my secret realm. This tattoo was created by him."

Zhou Xuan confessed.

"When did the bride... appear?" Zhou Lingyi asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Midnight yesterday." Zhou Xuan said.

"It can't be a coincidence..." Zhou Lingyi asked Yuan Buyu: "Mr. Yuan, did you sense anything last night?"

"No, I was sleeping soundly." Yuan Buyu answered very down to earth.

Zhou Lingyi asked again: "Brother, before the Lantern Bride appeared in your secret realm, did you sense anything?"

"No."

"But the ancestral tree sensed it." Zhou Lingyi said: "Last night, the ancestral tree seemed to have signs of waking up, so I dressed and went out to take a look, but I saw nothing."

Yuan Buyu and Zhou Xuan were both stunned. Their sister's words were equivalent to saying that the Lantern Bride came from the outside and entered the secret realm of the body without anyone noticing.

"And when I was on patrol last night, the lanterns of the parade did not illuminate the bride that my brother mentioned."

Zhou Lingyi added another sentence.

After saying this, Yuan Buyu was no longer stunned and said, "I understand now. The Lantern Bride is probably a group obsession."

When a person dies, he turns into a ghost. If the ghost has obsessions, it will become an evil ghost.

but,

Obsession can exist on its own.

Yuan Buyu said: "After all, obsession is just a thought of a person. Thoughts are invisible and difficult to sense, but they can actually affect people."

"Old Yuan, can you tell me in detail, how does obsession affect people?" Zhou Xuan is now like a sponge, with a strong urge to absorb any mysterious and strange theories he has never heard of.

"For example, if an obsession is caused by sadness, if someone is exposed to this obsession for a long time and deeply, they will feel sad for no reason. This is influence.

It cannot be underestimated. If the obsession is extremely strong, the sadness that comes from contact with it may even trigger a person’s suicidal mentality, making them want to die.”

Yuan Buyu thought of his four former disciples again. Rather than being devastated by the grief of witnessing the death of his disciples, it would be more accurate to say that he was hurt by his own obsession with grief.
If the obsession does not dissipate for a long time and becomes stronger, the spirit will become sluggish and exhausted, the spirit will dissipate, and the incense will be extinguished.

"You said that the Lantern Bride in my body won't harm me, right?" Zhou Xuan asked.

"In the secret realm, as long as you don't actively seek death, no one can harm you. But she stays in the secret realm day and night, whether it will affect you in reality is hard to say."

Zhou Xuan felt that Yuan Buyu was right. The last time the paper boatman wanted to harm him, he tricked him into committing suicide. This also indirectly reflected that as long as he did not seek death, no one could harm him in the secret realm.

Yuan Buyu lay down again and said, "The influence of the obsession started to ease, but later became intense. It's easy for you to get rid of it. There is a way."

"What method?" Zhou Xuan asked.

"Light the third stick of incense as soon as possible."

“……”Zhou Xuan.

"Xuan boy, you must be more careful. The obsession that can awaken the ancestral tree must be an extremely strong obsession. Don't take it lightly."

……

Zhou Xuan spent the entire afternoon in the house writing newspaper manuscripts.

Although the hall has been confirmed, the divination regarding the tattoo will have to wait until tomorrow. The Blood Well can only be used for divination once a week, so there will not be enough time until tomorrow.

I'll take advantage of this opportunity to write the manuscript and get the chance to contact Jing Deng alone as soon as possible.

“Have you ever heard this story?

A gold mine was discovered in Xueyuan Prefecture. The news spread like wildfire, and miners from nearby states flocked to the area, eager to get their hands on the gold.

Three years later, the miners did not make much money, and because of the competition for minerals, they often fought, and many of them became disabled.
Instead, it was the man who sold water to the miners who made a fortune.

This is the survival philosophy of Zhang Hua, the water seller..."

Zhou Xuan slightly modified the famous article "The Water Seller" in Chicken Soup for the Soul, and used "Zhang Hua" as the name in the article, and then repeatedly used words such as "mine", "well", and "mine lamp" as code words, implying that he already knew that "Zhang Yihua and the well lamp are the same person."

Normal people would not be able to associate this kind of interspersed code with other secret codes, but someone like Jing Deng, who is so nervous and has been composing code codes for years, would naturally understand it.

The secret code was very directional, pointing directly at the well lamp, and would not attract the attention of other blood well psychics.

(End of this chapter)