Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts - Chapter 9

“Be good, junior boy, don’t run away! Come here, let your dear senior give you a big hug!”

Oh, man, I never would’ve thought that Iron Man was actually Brother Xiang! Ever since he heard that I’d become his junior disciple, he’s been messing with me nonstop. Right now, here we are, roughhousing in my living room.

Brother Xiang and Han Si Fan spent three days looking for that Shui Mang ghost, but they still had no leads. Out of frustration, they decided to take a break today and continue tomorrow—they were probably just exhausted.

“Brother Xiang, by the way, is drawing talismans hard?” After messing around with him for a bit, I remembered that I’d just taken my apprenticeship yesterday, so I hadn’t learned any talisman drawing yet. The old superstitious one seemed to have forgotten to teach me, so I figured I’d just ask Brother Xiang.

Brother Xiang cleared his throat and said, “Ahem, well, you know, I’m not exactly a professional at that. Reading feng shui is more my thing; I haven’t really learned this talisman-drawing stuff.”

Brother Xiang has a habit of hyping up anything he knows even a bit about, so if he flat-out admits he can’t do it, that means he truly doesn’t know the first thing. I thought about it for a second and said, “No worries, I’ll try drawing one myself first!”

Feeling a rush of excitement, I sneakily took a piece of yellow paper, a brush, and cinnabar ink from under the table. Luckily, Brother Xiang still had a bit of black dog blood on him.

I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a big bowl, set the yellow paper in the center of the table, dumped the cinnabar and black dog blood all into the bowl, stirred it a bit, dipped the brush in the concoction, then pulled out the small booklet to decide what type of talisman to make for my first one.

I couldn’t just go with a low-level fart talisman or something, obviously. Since this was my first one, it had to be something impressive. So I kept flipping toward the back of the book—the further back, the harder the talismans got. Eventually, on the second-to-last page, I found one that satisfied me: the Inferno Talisman, which supposedly could ignite spontaneously and burn evil spirits.

Cool! That’s the one. I grinned and, ignoring Brother Xiang sitting beside me, started drawing based on the instructions. Talismans are a weird thing; not all of them are complicated. Some only require a few strokes, while others are intricate and require chanting as you draw.

The Inferno Talisman was pretty simple—only about seven or eight characters. They were ancient symbols, and I wasn’t sure what era they were from, but it looked like they meant “blazing flames engulfing the city.” Anyway, it looked super badass.

I focused intently, and after twenty minutes of painstakingly drawing, I finally finished. My calligraphy skills are weak, so I had to go slowly and carefully, making sure not to mess up any strokes.

When I was done, I let out a long sigh. Without realizing it, sweat had dripped from my forehead. I wiped it away, glanced at Brother Xiang beside me, and saw that he was nearly dozing off. I nudged him and said, “Brother Xiang, don’t fall asleep! I’m done! Get up and take a look.”

“Oh, oh!” Brother Xiang wiped some drool from the corner of his mouth, opened his eyes groggily, and gave me a glance. “Nice job, looks good. Go on, invite the Ancestor to bless it.” He sat up straight as he spoke.

For the first talisman, you have to invite the Ancestor. If the Ancestor doesn’t show any sign, it means the talisman didn’t pass, and it won’t be effective. I turned to Brother Xiang and asked, “By the way, who’s our Ancestor?”

“Let me think… Master Wu Jiu’s master was Grandmaster Liu, and Grandmaster Liu started gaining real power after finding Zhuge Liang’s manuscripts. So by that lineage, our Ancestor should be Zhuge Kongming himself!”

“Whoa, that’s intense!” I was a bit stunned; it seemed like Brother Xiang had been this way longer than me, because I had no idea who Grandmaster Liu was. But now wasn’t the time to stall, so I kneeled, pressed my palms together, placed the brush between my middle and index fingers, and chanted, “Divine soldiers, come swiftly by command, drive away evil and slay spirits. At the crossroads, gather the souls, summon the Talisman Ancestor to the mortal realm! I humbly request the Ancestor’s presence!”

After finishing the chant, I lightly tapped the tip of the brush against my forehead.

Then I smeared the cinnabar and black dog blood from the brush onto my Batman stamp, held it in both hands, and stamped it onto the center of the talisman. As soon as I pressed down, the talisman emitted a faint glow. It was very dim, but still visible. I was thrilled—success!

I let out a sigh of relief. Drawing talismans is exhausting, both mentally and physically. Still, I couldn’t delay any longer, so I joined my hands in a seal and said, “Thank the Ancestor!” Then I bowed three times toward the talisman, and the glow disappeared.

Brother Xiang, seeing I’d finished, praised me, “Not bad, kid! To have the Ancestor respond on your first try, that’s impressive! Some people have to try dozens of times before it works!”

“I’m a genius; can’t help it.” I felt slightly lightheaded, maybe from the strain of drawing my first talisman. All of a sudden, I felt a heavy sensation in my chest and instinctively turned to Brother Xiang. “Brother Xiang, don’t you feel like it’s getting stuffy in here?”

Just as I turned, I noticed Brother Xiang’s eyes were rolling back, and he was trembling like someone having a seizure. I looked over at the evil stone statue in our house and saw that the talisman had somehow fallen to the floor.

Before I could even move, Brother Xiang suddenly pinned me down, his hands closing around my neck!

Brother Xiang may not be a muscle man, but he’s still a guy! When my mom was possessed, I couldn’t push her off, let alone Brother Xiang. With his eyes rolled back and his grip like iron, there was no point in shouting—I didn’t believe yelling would make him let go.

I grabbed his wrists, desperately trying to pull them away to get some air, but it was no use. He was sitting right on my stomach, pinning me to the floor, and I used my knees to try kicking his back as hard as I could.

“Damn you, die!” he muttered under his breath. I had no other choice, but then I remembered reading in the talisman book that human tongue blood is the purest yang substance, and evil spirits are afraid of it. I didn’t think twice and bit down on my tongue.

Fuck, it hurts! If you’ve never tried biting your tongue, you have no idea how much it hurts. Watching all those Daoists in movies casually biting their tongues and spitting blood without flinching, I had a new level of respect.

Tears almost streamed down my face from the pain, and I didn’t even taste any blood at first. Frustrated, I bit down harder, and finally, I felt the tangy taste of blood. Without hesitation, I spat it right at Brother Xiang’s face—it felt oddly satisfying, like spitting in his face.

As soon as the blood hit him, he screamed in pain, clutching his face. The sound was shrill and grating. Taking advantage of the moment, I kicked him away. Brother Xiang was writhing on the floor, and I quickly grabbed the bowl of black dog blood mixed with cinnabar and splashed it on him. His body started to smoke, just like in a movie.

Then, I slapped the Inferno Talisman onto his forehead and chanted, 

“By the cycles of creation and destruction within the Five Elements, with the power of the Six Harmonies, I command!”

T/L Notes:

1. Zhuge Liang: Zhuge Liang (181 – September or October 234), also commonly known by his courtesy name Kongming, was a Chinese statesman, strategist, and inventor who lived through the end of the Eastern Han dynasty (c. 184–220) and the early Three Kingdoms period (220–280) of China.
2. Five Elements: Wuxing, something like Avatar’s element power, it has water, earth, wood, fire and metal. Each of the elements has their weakness and goods against another element.
3. Six Harmonies: Liuhe, symbolizing unity and cosmic order.