Chapter 23: Talismans (Part 2)
“Don’t fold it. Put it in the car.”
When Sixth Grandpa turned around and saw Su Xiaoxiao take out the Che Gong Talisman, his expression tightened.
“Oh, this is pretty similar to those talismans sold at the antique market.”
Su Xiaoxiao didn’t argue and put the Che Gong Talisman back. The group followed Sixth Grandpa and soon arrived at the place where they had parked at the village entrance.
“Xiaoxiao, there isn’t much of value in our village. Just take these few talismans with you.”
Before Su Xiaoxiao got into the car, Sixth Grandpa stopped her and handed a large envelope to her, saying, “Things aren’t very peaceful these days. Be careful when you’re out there. It’s best to keep these talismans with you at all times.
Your dad said he bought a new house in the city. There’s a talisman for protecting the house inside. When you go back, put it up at the entrance!”
“Huh? Sixth Grandpa, what’s gotten into you today?”
Su Xiaoxiao was a little bewildered by what Sixth Grandpa said. She was just a girl going to Yanjing to study, so what did it mean to bring several talismans with her?
“Just take them. Be good.”
Sixth Grandpa didn’t say much more. He looked at Su Xiaofan and said, “Your father and I aren’t enemies. You should come back to the village more often when you have nothing to do. Don’t neglect learning the skills passed down in your own family and run off to the antique market to learn all sorts of nonsense.”
“Got it, Sixth Grandpa. After I take my little sister to Yanjing and come back, I’ll come over and learn the craft from you.”
Su Xiaofan nodded when he heard this. He thought Sixth Grandpa was talking about the craft of making bronze ware. And to be fair, when it came to reproducing and restoring ancient bronze ware, even the top craftsmen in the country were far inferior to Sixth Grandpa.
“All right, go. Be careful on the road.” Standing in front of the car, Sixth Grandpa waved his hand.
“Xiaofan, you drive?”
Zheng Dagang looked at Su Xiaofan. “I’m not very familiar with the roads around here, and I can’t see well at night. Let’s not have an accident.”
Su Family Village was located at the foot of Mangshan, with another seven or eight kilometers of small roads before reaching the town, and then another five or six kilometers before they could get onto the highway.
Many of these small roads ran through the fields, with drainage ditches on both sides. The view was wide open during the day, but at night, Zheng Dagang was afraid he might drive the car right into a ditch.
“Sure, Brother Gang, you sit in the passenger seat.”
Su Xiaofan opened the driver’s door. After recovering from the injuries he suffered in a car accident during high school, he had gone and gotten his driver’s license. In Su Xiaofan’s own words, getting a license and learning the traffic rules was also a way of learning from his mistakes.
He started the engine, shifted gears, and pulled away smoothly. Su Xiaofan was very familiar with Zheng Dagang’s SUV. Sometimes when they went together to buy stock, Su Xiaofan was the one who drove.
“Sixth Grandpa, you go back.” Su Xiaofan rolled down the window and called out to Sixth Grandpa before the car drove into the night.
“Xiaoxiao, what kind of talismans did Sixth Grandpa give you? Let Brother Gang take a look.”
Zheng Dagang turned around and saw Su Xiaoxiao opening the envelope and taking out several sheets of yellow talisman paper. Curious, he reached out his hand.
“I never saw Sixth Grandpa believe in this stuff before.”
Su Xiaoxiao handed the talismans in her hand to Zheng Dagang.
“Who knows what’s going on? I don’t even know what kind of talismans these are.” Su Xiaofan was driving and couldn’t turn around to look.
“I have to say, these few talismans are much better in appearance than those we buy at the market.”
There were three talismans in total in Zheng Dagang’s hand. The moment he took them, he could feel that they were different.
Daoist objects were very common in antique markets. They fell under the miscellaneous category and were also related to ritual implements, which happened to be within Zheng Dagang’s line of business. His eye for them was much better than Su Xiaofan’s.
“This yellow paper is specially made. It’s not the kind sold wholesale at the market. It’s much thicker. Huh, this is actually hard yellow paper. Just the paper itself is worth quite a bit…”
Zheng Dagang looked at the talismans in his hand in surprise. The hard yellow paper he referred to was an artistic processed paper made using a Tang Dynasty technique. It was dyed, coated with wax, and burnished, and was called hard yellow or yellow hard.
Paper made this way was easy to preserve for a long time, with a smooth, lustrous surface. Because huangbo juice was used to dye the paper, it not only served as a yellow dye but also prevented insects. Many scriptures and illustrated books passed down from the Tang Dynasty were written on this kind of paper
However, in Zheng Dagang’s view, although the yellow paper used for these talismans did indeed employ a Tang Dynasty technique, it was a modern reproduction. Otherwise, the paper alone would qualify as a cultural relic.
Zheng Dagang began by commenting on the paper. Su Xiaofan and Su Xiaoxiao, who were listening from the car, found it quite interesting.
Drawing talismans required four things: brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, just like the Four Treasures of the Study. Not one could be missing. In addition, cinnabar was also required.
The brush referred to a calligraphy brush. An ordinary brush would do, but if higher standards were desired, one could use a brush made from wolf hair. It was said that wolf hair possessed a certain spirituality, making brushes made from it more effective.
Two brushes were generally needed, one cinnabar brush and one black brush, used according to the circumstances.
The ink and inkstone meant pine-soot ink, while an ordinary inkstone used for writing would suffice; there was no need to make a special one.
Most important was the paper. Yellow paper had to be used, and when combined with cinnabar, it was called cinnabar-written yellow paper.
“This one is a House-Protecting Talisman, this one is a Talisman for Breaking Evil Sha, and huh, there’s also a Healing Talisman. Does this stuff actually work?”
Zheng Dagang identified all three talismans. These things were very common. Every New Year, he would stock up on a batch to sell at the antique market, except the quality of those talismans was much worse. They could easily be torn if you applied a little force while holding them.
Seeing that the road ahead was no longer so narrow, Su Xiaofan turned his head and glanced at the talismans in Zheng Dagang’s hand. Several pieces of information immediately appeared in his mind.
【Repair Value: 3 points!】
【Low-grade incomplete Evil-Sha-Breaking Talisman, repairable, requires 1 Repair Value point to repair. Repair?】
【Low-grade incomplete House-Protecting Talisman, repairable, requires 1 Repair Value point to repair. Repair?】
【Low-grade incomplete Healing Talisman, repairable, requires 1 Repair Value point to repair. Repair?】
“All low-grade incomplete talismans?”
Looking at the information in his mind, Su Xiaofan was already too exhausted to complain.
So far, apart from the King of Han Cauldron at the village entrance, which was a complete ritual implement, every other ritual implement or talisman Su Xiaofan had encountered was incomplete. Yet from the surface, Su Xiaofan couldn’t tell where they were incomplete.
“Forget whether the talismans work or not. This paper is pretty good.” Zheng Dagang put the three talismans back into the envelope and returned them to Su Xiaoxiao,
“Brother Gang, you’re in the ritual implement business. You don’t even know whether they work?”
Su Xiaoxiao knew that in the past, whenever New Year came around, the door gods, house-protecting talismans, wealth-bringing talismans, and such things her brother brought home were all obtained from Zheng Dagang.
Su Xiaoxiao put the envelope into her brother’s bag and casually took out the little bell inside to play with.
“Xiaoxiao, Brother Gang doesn’t know either. I only sell them. I don’t make them work.”
Zheng Dagang’s answer sounded somewhat guilty. Buying a hundred or so talismans from a wholesale market for a few dozen yuan—if they really worked, that would be a ghost story in itself.
“They should be somewhat useful, right? If we run into something unclean, maybe we can use them.”
Su Xiaofan spoke up. Recently, he had seen quite a few incomplete ritual implements and talismans. At the very least, they were different from modern handicrafts, though Su Xiaofan himself didn’t know what their effects were.
“Why is there fog up ahead? Xiaofan, slow down.”
Zheng Dagang saw a hazy patch of fog ahead through the windshield and hurriedly called out to Su Xiaofan.
“It’s fine. That place is a threshing ground, and the fog is only along the side.”
Su Xiaofan replied. He was extremely familiar with the terrain here. He used to ride his bicycle back and forth all the time and wouldn’t take a wrong turn even with his eyes closed.
“Bro, could it be that you really jinxed it and we’ve run into something unclean?”
Sitting in the back seat, Su Xiaoxiao lowered her voice: “I died such a horrible death, please come save me.”
“Hey, don’t, Xiaoxiao. Don’t scare Brother Gang.”
Hearing Su Xiaoxiao’s voice, Zheng Dagang, sitting in the front, suddenly shuddered. He was normally a brave man too, but that depended on the time and place.
Anyone living in Luochuan knew that Mangshan was a place where tombs lay atop tombs, layered one over another, with countless graves whose exact number was unknown. The ghost stories that had come out of this place alone could fill an entire book.
And Zheng Dagang and the others were now driving at the foot of Mangshan. Zheng Dagang absolutely believed that if they dug a dozen or so meters straight down from where their car was, they would find a burial site. With Su Xiaoxiao pretending to be a ghost in such an environment, it really could scare someone to death.
“Brother Gang, don’t listen to her. With her courage, she’s trying to scare other people?”
Su Xiaofan curled his lips while driving. Back when he used to ride his bicycle with his little sister back to the village, the two of them often told each other ghost stories. Every time, it was Su Xiaoxiao who got so scared she screamed and wailed. Now she was actually trying to scare someone else.
“Hey, Bro, Bro, I… I think there really is a ghost…” Suddenly, Su Xiaoxiao’s trembling voice rang out.
“Cut it out. You’re trying to scare me too?”
Su Xiaofan sneered. “Ghosts are just transformed from living people. They don’t even have bodies anymore, so what’s there to be afraid of? Find one and let your brother catch it for you.”
Su Xiaofan wasn’t bragging. He really was very brave. In the past, the road from the town back to the village passed through a mass grave.
It was said that the mass grave contained the remains of ancient craftsmen, and later became a burial ground for refugees. During the war years, quite a few bandits were also buried there.
The graves in the mass grave were very shallow. A heavy rain could wash out pieces of coffin boards, and at night, the “ghost fires” caused by human bones could be seen everywhere. Ordinary people were unwilling to pass through there at night.
But Su Xiaofan didn’t care. When he was studying in town, he rode his bicycle home every day after evening self-study.
Once, it was simply too dark for Su Xiaofan to see the road. He simply found two bones in the mass grave, their phosphorescence coming from some unknown parts, and tied them to the front handlebars of his bicycle.
And surprisingly, when the wind blew and they rubbed against things, the phosphorescent fire emitted by those bones really did provide him with a bit of illumination.
Later, that mass grave was relocated, and Su Xiaofan was actually quite regretful, because every time he passed that way, he could scare his little sister into tears.
Later, the old village chief found out about this and specifically called Su Xiaofan over to give him a scolding. It wasn’t because he was brave, but because those bones were the remains of people from the past, and what Su Xiaofan had done was extremely disrespectful to the dead.
“Xiaofan, I… I think there really is something. Th… there are two shadows over there.”
Just as Su Xiaofan was teasing his little sister, Zheng Dagang’s voice rang out as well, and his face as he looked out the window was filled with terror.
(End of Chapter)
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