lerbook #132 - The secret that will cost you your head!
#132 - The secret that will cost you your head!
Chapter 132: A Secret That Could Cost You Your Head!
“It's done. That kid won't be able to get out of bed for at least two months. When you go to study, no one will bother you anymore,” Fox Fairy Nannan said, her voice full of triumph. She loved doing this kind of thing the most, and she was best at it.
Zhang Chen nodded in satisfaction, signaling Fox Fairy Nannan to use illusion to conceal her figure. Then, Zhang Chen transformed into a bat and left the place.
As for Chen Sanliang, Zhang Chen really couldn't do anything to him for the sake of his master's face. He could break Chen Sanliang's legs, but wouldn't his master have to take care of him then? Wouldn't that be more trouble for his master?
Zhang Chen returned to the Taoist temple. The sky was already dim. He went straight back to the attic and saw Xiao Douding diligently practicing her martial arts.
Seeing Zhang Chen return, Xiao Douding said unhappily, “Zhang Chen, where did you go this afternoon? Why were you gone all afternoon?”
Zhang Chen didn't answer Xiao Douding's question. Instead, he took out two paper packets from his sleeve and handed them to Xiao Douding. They contained roasted meat and candied fruit.
Xiao Douding's eyes lit up instantly. She ignored Zhang Chen and sat down at a stool to feast.
Zhang Chen then took out a wooden basin filled with fine sand, brought it into the room, and used a stick to draw strange symbols in the sand.
He wanted to study the wonders of that talisman. Those two talismans seemed a bit mysterious; otherwise, they wouldn't have been watched by an ancient god.
Xiao Douding ate the roasted meat and, seeing Zhang Chen drawing back and forth in the wooden basin with a stick, curiously leaned over and asked, “What are you drawing?”
“I think you can learn to read,” Zhang Chen stopped drawing the talisman. The two runes were really complex, extremely complex. Their lines intertwined, and to draw them in one go, he had to find the rules within them. He had to calm down and find the rules quietly by himself. With Xiao Douding by his side, it greatly affected his research efficiency. It would be better to find an excuse to give Xiao Douding something to do!
Since Zhang Chen embarked on the right path of cultivation and gained a deep understanding of the path of Qi Refiners, he didn't think that the abbot's idea of not letting Xiao Douding learn to read was correct.
He didn't think that literacy would affect nourishing the spirit. He felt that the abbot's previous statement was nonsense, just fooling those who didn't understand.
“But Abbot Master doesn't allow me to learn to read…” Xiao Douding looked at Zhang Chen with her eyes, and even the movement of eating dried meat stopped.
Cheng Yu heard this and his face became tangled: “But Master said that literacy would delay cultivation.”
“Do you believe me or him? If you believe me, I'll secretly teach you to read. If you believe the abbot, then just pretend I didn't say anything,” Zhang Chen said.
He suspected that the abbot might not even be literate. After all, no matter how you looked at it, the abbot didn't look like a noble.
Not being literate and not understanding reason makes it easier to deceive people.
“I think what the abbot said may not be right! In short, I am literate. If you want to learn to read, you can come and ask me,” Zhang Chen looked at Xiao Douding. He couldn't force Xiao Douding to learn to read. All he could do was to teach her everything he knew without reservation when she wanted to learn to read.
Xiao Douding nibbled on the dried meat, fell into entanglement, looked at Zhang Chen with her eyes wide, and finally put the dried meat on the table, looking at Zhang Chen solemnly: “Junior Brother, I want to read!”
Zhang Chen was very surprised by Xiao Douding's change of attitude. Wasn't this girl swaying left and right before? If the master didn't let her read, she wouldn't be willing to read?
“Since you let me read, then I believe what you say. You are the best person in the world to me. If I don't believe you, whose words can I believe?” Xiao Douding blinked her eyes.
Zhang Chen looked at Xiao Douding and joked: “I'm the best to you? What about the abbot?”
Xiao Douding scratched her head: “I don't know, I always feel like something is not quite right.”
Zhang Chen smiled when he heard this, put down the wooden stick, and said to Xiao Douding: “I have a simple way to learn to read. As long as you can learn it, it will be much easier to read.”
Zhang Chen held Xiao Douding in his arms and began to teach her to read pinyin.
However, Xiao Douding's talent really shocked Zhang Chen. He finally knew how his master felt after he learned to read in seven days.
Xiao Douding was even more exaggerated than him. He only taught her twice, and Xiao Douding had already remembered everything.
Then, after Zhang Chen taught Xiao Douding the technique of combining pinyin, Xiao Douding directly hugged the pinyin book marked by Han Suzhen and ran to the lamp to practice by herself.
“Is this photographic memory? Xiao Douding can master Transformation Strength at such a young age. I still underestimated her talent. As expected of someone who can directly see the strange, this little girl is not normal,” Zhang Chen scratched his head. He knew his own affairs. His genius was fake, but Xiao Douding's genius was real.
Xiao Douding read under the light, while Zhang Chen continued to ponder the drawing of the talisman in the sand basin. He probably also knew some of the key points of drawing talismans, such as drawing a talisman in one go without any broken strokes.
There is a saying about the way of drawing talismans, that is, 'If you don't know the trick of drawing talismans, you'll make the ghosts and gods laugh. If you know the trick of drawing talismans, you'll startle the ghosts and gods.'
The most crucial thing in drawing talismans is the stroke order. The stroke order determines the efficacy of the talisman and whether it can be drawn successfully, which is the key to success.
Zhang Chen didn't have a teacher, so if he wanted to draw a talisman, he could only keep deducing and experimenting stroke by stroke. Fortunately, his mind was not ordinary now. His brain was clear like the bright moon in the sky, so thinking about and deducing the stroke order of the talisman was not without any clues for him.
Zhang Chen was not an ordinary person. He tried stroke by stroke. Until midnight, Xiao Douding yawned, picked up the book, and walked upstairs: “I'm sleepy, I'm going to sleep. You little brat go to bed early, lest you be late for morning class.”
After Xiao Douding finished speaking, she left, leaving Zhang Chen to continue studying the talisman.
“No, what I drew is not right! How can a talisman have more than twenty strokes? I must have drawn it wrong,” Zhang Chen counted the strokes of the talisman he drew, and then thought of the talisman drawing videos on the Internet in his previous life. It seemed that none of them had more than five strokes.
After thinking for a long time without finding the key, seeing that the sky was getting dark, Zhang Chen directly threw down the wooden stick, then leveled the yellow sand without leaving any traces, and then got up and went back to the bed to meditate.
First, he practiced Qi, completed the cultivation of mana, and then began to visualize to restore his soul.
“Cultivating mana requires the consumption of essence, qi, and spirit, while cultivating the Great Way of the Divine Soul is to nourish the spirit with essence and qi. The two can be said to be diametrically opposed.”
However, Zhang Chen's cultivation is shallow now, and he still doesn't know where its advantages and disadvantages lie.
The next morning,
Xiao Douding yawned and pulled Zhang Chen out of bed, and then the two lazily walked to the square to continue their daily morning class.
Then there was washing up and eating breakfast. Breakfast was a bowl of porridge, which tasted bland and completely tasteless.
After breakfast, Zhang Chen looked at the little bean sprout, who also looked back at Zhang Chen: "Are you full?"
"With so little food, how could I possibly be full?" Zhang Chen said unhappily.
"The Enforcement Elder is watching the kitchen now... I do have an idea to get full, but I don't know if you dare?" said the little bean sprout.
"Oh? Is there anything I wouldn't dare to do?" Zhang Chen asked.
"Follow me!" The little bean sprout tugged at Zhang Chen, sneaking around and avoiding everyone along the way, until they arrived at a secluded hall in the backyard. Inside the hall, there was a statue wearing a yellow soap-colored robe embroidered with rice ears.
The entire hall contained only this one statue. The man wore a yellow turban and held a sword in his hand, as if he were subduing demons and eliminating evil, looking very imposing.
Most importantly, in front of the statue's offering table were placed fresh fruits and plates of pastries, which were still emitting heat.
"This is the Grand Ancestor Hall of my Yellow Heaven Dao. Except for the first and fifteenth of each month, when all the disciples in the courtyard need to perform a grand sacrifice, no one will casually come in to disturb it. But the offerings in the hall need to be replaced every day," the little bean sprout said as if he were at his own home, picking up a pastry from the plate and stuffing it directly into his mouth, his cheeks bulging, looking like a cute little hamster.
"Why aren't you eating?" Cheng Yu asked, seeing Zhang Chen still standing there after eating a pastry.
Zhang Chen didn't stand on ceremony either, walking forward and picking up one of the plates. The two of them feasted, and Zhang Chen even felt parched, so he picked up a pear to moisten his mouth.
The little bean sprout also learned to imitate, picking up a pear and gnawing on it.
Just as the two were eating happily, suddenly a sound of footsteps came from outside the door. Zhang Chen and the little bean sprout, who were gnawing on pears and eating pastries, were both stunned. The two looked at each other, and the little bean sprout said unhappily: "It can't be that unlucky, right? No one comes to the Ancestor Hall except to change the pastries and offerings every day. How come someone is here today? It's really ghostly."
After saying that, the little bean sprout held the plate and directly crawled under the curtain of the offering table.
Zhang Chen looked at the offering table, feeling a bit uneasy. If he heard some secrets he shouldn't hear again, wouldn't that cause more trouble?
But looking closely at the hall, there was no place to hide. There was a place to hide behind the statue, but he couldn't climb up there.
As the sound of footsteps grew closer, Zhang Chen had no choice but to crawl under the curtain. The next moment, two figures blocked the light from the doorway and walked in from the door, standing in the hall without speaking.
Zhang Chen's pupils shrank as he peered through the gap. He recognized one of them as the scoundrel who had embezzled his money in Mr. Wu Liu's thatched cottage.
"Master, please don't be angry. It's all the disciple's fault. The disciple has already returned home and asked my father to take action to solve the problem. As long as we deceive that woman into leaving the Taoist temple, we will never let her have another chance to come to the Taoist temple and make trouble," a young man said anxiously.
"I'm not angry? Do you know how much trouble you've caused this time? How much impact has it had on the reputation of the Yellow Heaven Dao? If it delays the King's grand plan, don't even mention you, even if your father, Mr. Wu Liu, were here, a hundred heads wouldn't be enough to cut off," a dignified middle-aged man said.
"Master, please rest assured, the disciple will definitely clean up the loose ends and never let that woman spread rumors again," the young man knelt on the ground and swore to the sky.
"That woman is pregnant with your child. Can you bear to do it?" the middle-aged man asked slowly.
"For the sake of the King's grand plan, I can give up my life, let alone the fetus in her womb!" the young man said coldly.
"Good, I am very satisfied with your state of mind. Mere children are nothing. Just find some women to give birth to dozens of them in the future, it's not worth regretting," the middle-aged man agreed with his words.
"The King asked us to infiltrate the Yellow Heaven Dao to investigate the secrets of the Yellow Heaven Dao's apotheosis and seek the secrets of immortality. This is a major matter concerning our future. Any slight mistake will result in our heads falling to the ground. Nothing can affect our main plan."
"But the Yellow Heaven Dao has hidden the secret of apotheosis very tightly. The disciple has been in the Taoist temple for five years and hasn't even found a thread of a clue," the young man said with a face full of injustice.
"Apotheosis is the core secret of the Yellow Heaven Dao, and it cannot be taught without direct lineage and great merit. Not even I can touch that secret, let alone you. But now there is an opportunity right in front of us. If you can seize this opportunity, you will definitely be able to obtain this great secret," the middle-aged man said.
"Please enlighten me, Master," the young man said quickly.
"The upper echelons of the Yellow Heaven Dao want to hold a major event and select several seeds to infiltrate the Inspection Department and the imperial court as spies. This time, in order to complete the grand plan, the higher-ups have spared no expense, bestowing twelve mysteries and selecting twelve seeds, who can become the backbone of the Yellow Heaven Dao in the future and take charge of the future of the Yellow Heaven Dao. And our Yellow Dawn Temple has been allocated a special mystery without any rank!"
"This time, the higher-ups have spared no expense, taking out all their heritage. As long as someone obtains the mystery and becomes a god, joining the Inspection Department is easy. As long as they pass the identity verification of the Inspection Department, infiltrating it is a certainty. You must know that gods are extremely rare, and even the Inspection Department cannot refuse them. As long as they infiltrate it, with the identity of a god, they will definitely be able to step into the higher echelons of the Inspection Department in the future and add a force to my Yellow Heaven Dao's grand plan."
"And the King's intention is that we must obtain that mystery and become one of the twelve seeds of the Yellow Heaven Dao. It would be good to be a double agent at that time," the middle-aged man said.
"But how can we obtain that mystery?" the young man asked.
"The higher-ups have already set the rules, probably a martial arts competition to determine the winner. Select disciples of the appropriate age group to compete. Whoever has the highest martial arts will obtain that mystery. You have already refined your hidden strength, and your age just fits, so this matter is just right for you, it's simply designed for you," the middle-aged man said.
"The disciple will definitely work hard and never miss this opportunity," the young man said.
"Hehe~ Get up. Dispose of that woman and never affect your reputation, nor cause trouble for the Taoist temple," the middle-aged man said.
"Master, please rest assured, the disciple will definitely handle things beautifully," the man repeatedly guaranteed.
As he spoke, the middle-aged man looked at the offering table and saw the mess on the offering table. Not only were there fewer fruits, but all the pastries had disappeared, and even the trays were gone.