Chapter 1: Ghost Talisman
I am an orphan, picked up from the roadside by a blind fortune teller .
The blind fortune teller was called Tan Xingming. He made a living by fortune telling in our area, and we all called him "Blind Tan". He said that on a snowy night in the twelfth month of the year, when he was returning home from setting up a stall in the city, he heard a baby crying on the roadside, so he took me home. It sounds a bit unbelievable that a blind man could raise a child, but in fact he was not completely blind, his left eye was truly blind, and his right eye squinted to see things, but no one knew this secret.
He was very accurate in fortune-telling and had a good business. In his early years, he went out to set up stalls, and later he stayed at home and had business every day. Although he had no shortage of money, he was very stingy. He deliberately lived on a hillside outside the village, firstly to be far away from human habitation and give people a sense of mystery, and secondly to pretend to be blind and not connected to the power lines, which saved electricity bills.
Ever since I was four years old, he was very strict with me, either beating or scolding me, never showing me a good face. He was also cold to male customers who came to tell fortunes, but it was different to women. Whenever he saw a beautiful female customer, he would have a lewd smile on his face, and it seemed as if a dirty hand stretched out from the slit of his right eye, wishing to touch the other person all over.
He named me Dingyu, which made me feel very depressed when I grew up. Why didn't he name me after his last name, and why did he name me "fish" instead of "fishing"? Is this a person's name? If I add the word "xiang", I will be "Dingxiangyu". Even if it was just a random name, at least it looks good. I don't care even if it's a little vulgar, not to mention that he is good at naming people.
He also forbad me to call him dad, saying that I had a very hard fate and would bring death to my parents and relatives, so I didn't dare to be his dad and could only call him uncle. So whenever the children of the same age in the village called me "your uncle", I would just laugh and add, "My uncle is a blind man!"
More than ten years passed in a blink of an eye. I went to junior high school. Although I had good grades and was admitted to a key high school in the city, the old blind man did not allow me to go. He told me earnestly that there was no tuition for nine years of compulsory education, but how much would it cost to go to high school? Our family was poor, so a junior high school diploma would be enough. In the future, you can learn fortune-telling from me, save some money, marry a wife and live a good life.
I knew that my family was not poor. Customers lined up every day to ask him to tell fortunes. How could he be poor? He was just an old miser who would rather die than give up money. But I didn't like studying, so I didn't go. From then on, I stayed at home and learned fortune-telling from him. One day at noon, I accidentally knocked over the rice jar while cooking, and saw a rat hole under the rice jar. In the countryside, every family has a few rat holes, but what was abnormal was that there seemed to be something in the rat hole.
I suspected that the old blind man hid the money here, so I used a fire-poking iron bar to expand the mouse hole and took out a black cloth bundle from it. It had several holes bitten by mice. After opening it, it turned out to be an ancient thread-bound book. The pages were yellowed and the corners were broken. It looked very old. There was nothing written on the cover. I flipped through it casually and found that it was all about teaching people how to draw talismans.
I don't really believe in fortune-telling, and I think drawing talismans is even more outrageous. Besides, these kinds of books are everywhere, whether online or in bookstores, but the old blind man actually buried it under the rice jar like a treasure. Just as I was about to wrap it up and put it back, I suddenly saw three words on the cover from the corner of my eye, which were quite blurry. I felt strange, there were no words when I looked at it just now, but how come there are words when I looked at it from the side?
I looked at the cover of the book again, and there was no word on it. Then I squinted my eyes and the words jumped out again. This time I could clearly see the three words "Ghost Talisman Sutra". I scratched my head and thought, what the hell is the Ghost Talisman Sutra? Why is it so mysterious? Is there something fishy in the book? Thinking this in my mind, I subconsciously turned over the cover and found strangely that there was an extra line of small words between each line of text.
These words are quite difficult to read, but I can barely understand them. The general meaning is that the hidden words are for people with predestined relationships to see, and this is the real Ghost Talisman Sutra, which emphasizes "refining qi with talismans and practicing with qi", and is a very profound magic. I didn't believe in this stuff at first, but I was so fascinated by it that I forgot to cook. The old blind man was so hungry that he shouted loudly in the main room, which woke me up. I hurriedly buried the book and went to cook.
From then on, every day while I was cooking, he would tell fortunes for customers in the main hall, and I would read this book while cooking. Drawing ghost talismans is actually what we usually call "talismans", or more commonly, yellow talismans. I had only heard about it before, but I never thought that drawing talismans could be so profound. The book said, "Talismans are the philosophy of Taoist spiritual practice," "Talismans are derived from the power of clouds, objects, and stars, and are all formed by the air in the air of natural objects, born from the beginning and out of the void. The ancients said: The upper talisman is the sky, the lower talisman is the earth, and the middle is the human body." These mysterious things made me unable to stop reading.
The old blind man hid the book so tightly, he certainly didn't want me to see it, so I never dared to show any clues in front of him. Unknowingly, another five or six years passed, and I grew from a teenager to a big man. I learned a little about fortune-telling, but I had memorized the Ghost Talisman Sutra by heart. In addition, in the past few years, I secretly practiced "no talisman qi" in the second half of the night every day. In other words, as long as there is a talisman in my heart, I can also practice qi. Although I haven't really drawn a talisman, I feel that as long as I am given a pen, I can draw a real "ghost talisman" at any time!
The old blind man was not so easy to hide. Several times when I was practicing in the middle of the night, he sneaked into my room to check, but I cleverly perfunctorily brushed him off. But he still became suspicious and often muttered to himself during meals, wondering why someone had dug a hole under the rice jar. I thought to myself, "Oh no, I forgot he was not really blind. It seems that he already knew that I had read the Ghost Talisman Sutra." But I still played dumb and pretended not to understand what he was saying.
One time, the old blind man tried to test me further. After dinner that day, he suddenly jumped up, covered his neck with his hands, and screamed: "There is a ghost, there is a ghost in my body..." He had difficulty breathing and then he couldn't speak.
I thought he was pretending, but when I took a closer look, I immediately broke out in a cold sweat. His blind left eye, which was originally a mixed white, was now emitting a green light, and his right eye, which was often squinting, was opened very wide, and the eyeball turned blood red, and a weird smile appeared on his face, which looked particularly gloomy.
The Ghost Talisman Sutra clearly lists the symptoms of various ghosts possessing a person. He was indeed possessed by a ghost. I had never encountered a ghost since I was a child. The first time I encountered this thing, I was not only a little panicked, but also a little scared. So I had to follow the instructions in the Ghost Talisman Sutra and press the "Yinmen" with the sword. The Yinmen is on the wrist. Pressing this can drive the ghost out of the person. But I immediately realized that the old blind man was testing me again. He was probably not only good at fortune-telling. He had the Ghost Talisman Sutra hidden at home. How could he not know how to play with ghosts?
I stood up and asked at a loss: "Uncle, what should I do?"
"Draw... draw a talisman..." The old blind man tried his best to squeeze out these three words from between his teeth.
As expected, he was really testing me. If I was so scared that I drew a talisman to drive away ghosts, he would immediately get the truth out of me. I shook my head and said, "What is a talisman? You didn't teach me."
The old blind man's performance was very realistic. He stared at me with one green eye and one red eye, veins on his forehead exposed, his mouth wide open but unable to breathe. He wanted to say something to me but couldn't utter a single word, and it looked like he was about to die.
My eyes rolled and a plan came to my mind. I ran to the corner of the door, picked up the broom, ran back and hit him on the forehead wildly: "Uncle, I heard from Aunt Chen in the village that ghosts are afraid of bad people. Don't be afraid when you meet a ghost. Hit it hard and it will be scared away." Then I didn't care about his expression, I swung the broom and beat him all over the head, and kicked him in the crotch from time to time.
Now I can have my hands full and feel relieved. You old miser, you don't want to spend money to send me to school, ruining my future. You are stern and mean every day, really treating me like a child without a mother. Even when I eat, you call me a pig who only knows how to eat but not how to work. I am such an adult, but you don't even give me pocket money. The clothes I am wearing were bought three years ago and have many holes in them. How can I get a wife with this appearance?
I kicked you in the crotch because you, an old rogue, have harmed many decent women. Not to mention those far away, several aunts in the village have been seduced by him. And in the past few years, I always see a middle-aged woman in fashionable clothes coming to see him. She goes out all night and comes back at dawn the next day. When she comes back, she tells me with a flattering face that she has been touching bones and fortune-telling for others all night. What the hell is your uncle's touching bones all night? It's just touching bones all night, right? What does it have to do with fortune-telling?
After a short fight, the ghost in him ran away. He was not scared away by me, but he could not bear the beating. If I continued to beat him, he would be beaten to death. After that, he never tried to test me again. I lived peacefully for two months. Who knew that he would not change his mind and used another trick on me. No one of you can guess what it was this time.
