Taboo Mage - Chapter 88 - Gathering Information

At first, I thought he was just going through the motions, but when I quietly walked behind him to take a look, I found that the content on the scriptures was different from what I usually saw him recite.

Jue Chi finished chanting a Sutra, opened his eyes, and happened to meet mine as I looked over.

“Monk, what were you reciting?” I asked curiously, sitting on the sofa with my head propped up.

Jue Chi sat up, carefully put away the Sutra, and placed it into the scripture tube he always carried with him. “The Sutra of Wonderful Lotus of Speech, used for the deliverance of deceased spirits.”

“Huh? We’re so far from that service area now, is it still effective to deliver them? Besides, weren’t those deceased spirits devoured by the nightmare ghost?” I asked, eyes widening in curiosity.

Jue Chi glanced at me, “It’s not those deceased spirits I’m delivering.”

“Not them? Then where from?”

“The whole city.”

I scoffed; this monk had learned to be mysterious. With so many people dying in this city every day, could he deliver them all? Moreover, who delivers the whole city’s deceased spirits? If not exhausted to death, they’d surely be bored to death.

As I was thinking about these things, and planning to find out more about Chi Rui as soon as I fixed the fertility amulet, the doorbell rang suddenly.

I got up to check, and through the peephole, the glasses-wearing man’s magnified face looked a bit eerie.

He really moved quickly. I opened the door to let him in. His face was full of joy as he carefully held a small cup filled with red blood.

I widened my eyes in surprise, “This much? Didn’t I say just a little would do? Are you worried your wife’s blood is in surplus, or what?”

A hint of embarrassment crossed the glasses-wearing man’s face, “No… it’s just… just in case it’s not enough, now that we’re lucky enough to meet Mr. Gu…”

I couldn’t be bothered to tease him anymore. They were so eager for a child that they’d probably hand me a knife if I asked.

With his wife’s blood in hand, I prepared to perfect the fertility amulet, ready to finally accomplish the task.

The fertility amulet was quite significant. I removed the yellow talisman paper from the life amulet on the coffee table and took out the prepared Rooster blood and glutinous rice from my bag. After mixing them together, I immersed the life amulet in the mixture.

The life amulet already imprisoned a spirit inside beforehand. While this reduced the time needed to create the amulet, it required releasing the spirit first, which could potentially lead to its loss.

To prevent the spirit from escaping, I borrowed Jue Chi’s Kasaya, placed the bowl containing the glutinous rice and Rooster blood on it, and wrapped it up.

After about fifteen minutes, I reopened the package. To prevent any accidents, Jue Chi stood guard the entire time, holding his alms bowl like a faithful protector.

As expected, when the package was opened, a puff of white smoke burst out. Jue Chi stepped forward with the alms bowl, and the smoke hit the bowl, instantly becoming imprisoned inside.

I retrieved the life amulet and, using a brush pen dipped in the glasses-wearing man’s wife’s blood, wrote her eight characters on the yellow paper and set it alight.

“Jue Chi, release!” I shouted just as the ashes of the yellow paper fell to the ground. Jue Chi overturned the alms bowl, and I recited an Incantation.

The white smoke swirled in the air, darting around like a headless fly, but it soon found its way back into the life amulet.

Finally, securing it once more with an Incantation, the fertility amulet was finally complete.

This was probably the simplest life amulet I’ve ever made. I threaded a red string through the amulet and handed it to the glasses-wearing man.

His hands trembled as he held the amulet, tears welling up in his eyes. After a moment, he seemed to remember something and pulled an envelope from his pocket, thrusting it into my hand.

“Mr. Gu, a small token of appreciation. Please, you must accept it.”

“No, I’m not doing this for the money anymore,” I said, feeling the envelope, which seemed to contain ten or twenty thousand.

It’s a shame; if it were before, I wouldn’t have even looked at that amount of money.

But now, I don’t care about money at all, so no matter what, I couldn’t accept it.

The glasses-wearing man was tearfully saying, “Brother Gu, our Bai Family has only had one male heir per generation for three generations. It seemed like the line might end with me, but now there’s hope. You’re a great benefactor to our Bai Family…”

“Please, don’t say that, you’re shortening my life with such words.”

Seeing the glasses-wearing man about to kneel again, I quickly grabbed his arm and waved him off, urging him to head back.

He chuckled, clutching the fertility amulet like it was a precious treasure, and walked excitedly towards the door. Just as I was about to close the door, he turned back and slipped the envelope through the narrowing gap.

“Mr. Gu, you must accept this money!”

Watching him hurriedly walk away down the corridor, I couldn’t help but chuckle and shake my head. Holding the envelope in one hand, I turned to Jue Chi and said, “This guy is strange; it’s the first time I’ve seen someone so eager to give away money.”

“There’s always something unusual behind strange behavior,” Jue Chi murmured, not lifting his head, just sighing softly.

We rested for the afternoon, and in the evening, I took Jue Chi out to find some food. We went to the same snack street as yesterday, but this time, we tried a different spot.

While we waited for our food, I overheard a conversation at the table next to us. They were talking about a rampant child trafficking issue in Shenyang recently.

Several children had gone missing in quick succession. The Public Security Bureau was anxious, as was the provincial government. Every child is a treasure to their family, and losing one is like destroying an entire home.

Listening to the two men at the next table, both with arms covered in tattoos, angrily condemning the human traffickers, I felt a pang of sympathy. I wondered which unfortunate families had lost their children.

“Hey, bro, can I borrow a lighter?”

I was engrossed in listening when one of the men approached and tapped on our table.

I fished a lighter out of my pocket and handed it over, asking quietly, “Is Shenyang really that chaotic?”

“Chaotic? Where isn’t? If you stick to the city center, it’s bustling. But if you look into the corners, every city is the same. Disgusting places are disgustingly awful, and the bustling areas can dazzle your eyes.”

The guy had a cigarette dangling from his mouth and gave me a once-over. “You a tourist, coming from out of town?”

“Uh… not really, I’m here to visit relatives. But you know how it is, they moved, and we haven’t been in touch for a while,” I said, smiling, and poured them each a glass of beer.