Chapter 82
After the series of events that happened since I returned home, I felt even more powerless. I wanted to help them, but in the end, I could only watch and do nothing.
Later, I couldn't help it and asked Master Zhang why my magic power had dissipated. Master Zhang kept silent at first, but when he saw that I was determined to keep asking until I could get the answer, he could only shake his head and sigh, and told me that I must have been punished by God.
When I heard the word "divine punishment," I was stunned. Although there was definitely someone behind my incident in Bai'an Town, it was a fact that I had eliminated the evil spirit. Why would I be punished by heaven?
I expressed my doubts, and Master Zhang said he didn't quite understand either, because divine punishment is a form of punishment from heaven, and only those who have lost all conscience will suffer it. And my actions do not meet this condition.
When I asked Master Zhang if there was any way to solve my problem, he told me a pessimistic news: the pain of divine punishment is beyond human control. In other words, this might be the end of my life.
If I had been an ordinary person from the beginning, learned the contents of the Yin Fu Lu, and then turned back to being an ordinary person, I could accept it. But my current problem is that since birth, my physique has been different from that of ordinary people, making me particularly susceptible to those dirty things. Now that I have lost my magical powers, I might die one day.
Just let it be, I don’t know when this fate will come.
Seeing that I was lost, Master Zhang said earnestly, "Why don't you come back to the Tianshi Mansion with me? Although you can't cultivate magical powers now, you can learn geomancy and feng shui, which is also a way out."
I have no interest in Feng Shui at all. There is also Feng Shui in the Yin Fu Lu, but I found it complicated when I first took a look at it.
In the end, I didn't go back to Tianshi Mansion with Master Zhang, but stayed in Baiyun Temple.
Anyway, there is no one in Baiyun Temple now, so I might as well stay here in peace and quiet. Master Zhang was worried about me and left me a bracelet.
The bracelet has a total of ten beads, each of which is engraved with "Jiutian Yingyuan Leisheng Puhua Tianzun" in seal script. The wood is not peach wood, but jujube wood struck by lightning.
Peach wood is a traditional Taoist wood for warding off evil spirits and is known as the "essence of the five woods". The earliest door gods we have were not Qin Shubao and Yuchi Jingde, but the two brothers "Shentu" and "Yulei" carved from peach wood. "Bencao Shiyi" also points out that "mulberry borer removes evil spirits, peach borer wards off ghosts", so peach wood has a very important position in Taoist culture.
But the bracelet Master Zhang gave me was made of lightning-struck jujube wood, a very rare wood. The jujube tree needs to survive after being struck by lightning, and then it will produce the yang power of heavenly thunder. Just like the awe-inspiring and righteous feather stone I had before, it is the nemesis of all evil spirits in the world.
But these kinds of magical instruments are all Taoist treasures. Now that Master Zhang gave them to me, I was caught off guard.
This is really too valuable.
I couldn't help but shed tears when I thought about how Master Zhang and his disciples had been taking good care of me since my grandfather passed away.
Before leaving, Master Zhang asked me to temporarily leave Baiyun Temple in my care and to help Li Danyang look after him, as he might rarely come back. Finally, he added something inexplicably, saying that when I figured things out, I would go to Longhu Mountain to find him.
According to Master Zhang, Li Danyang will have to return to Baiyun Temple to take over as the headmaster in the future. I just don’t know whether Zhao Danxi, Liu Danchen and others will come back together.
After seeing Master Zhang off, I began my life at Baiyun Temple. Besides cleaning, I spent my days worshipping the Three Pure Ones. It was strange, a member of the ghost clan, to actually be worshipping them. Life was truly boring, so I began reading some Taoist texts. Taoist culture is profound and has many similarities with my Yin Fu Lu.
As I read more and more classics, my understanding of ghosts and spirits deepened. As the saying goes, different paths lead to the same destination. Although I couldn't cultivate my own magical powers, my theoretical knowledge grew. I also tried to learn Taoist magic, but I couldn't generate a single ounce of it. I couldn't even draw talismans because I lacked the magical power to support them. However, my frequent reading of Taoist classics has profoundly transformed my mindset. I'm no longer restless, but instead am filled with enthusiasm for life. If I, once an impatient person, had spent a year in peace at Baiyun Temple, I wouldn't have dared to imagine it.
I used to be obsessed with the loss of the Feather Stone and my magical powers. Now I think the Feather Stone and the Yin Fu Lu were never meant to be mine, and now they've simply been returned to their original owners. I should be thankful that the knowledge within the Yin Fu Lu has always been in my mind; I only lost the carrier.
For the past two years, I've been trapped in my own confinement. Master Zhang's request to return to him after I figure things out must have been what he meant. But now that I've truly figured things out, I haven't gone to Longhu Mountain. Instead, I've continued my wandering life. Before leaving, I meticulously cleaned the entire Baiyun Temple, offered a final incense stick to the Three Pure Ones, and departed gracefully.
But what I didn’t expect was that as soon as I left Baiyun Temple, I encountered a strange thing.
I was walking down the street the other day when I heard a child screaming for help. I went over and saw a child floundering near the water, clearly drowned. There were a few other children nearby, but none of them dared to jump in to help.
Luckily, I'm tall, and even though I can't swim, I couldn't just stand by and watch someone die. The water was shallow near the riverbank, so I stood firm and pulled the child out. A drowning person is incredibly strong, and if you're not careful, you can be dragged under. I almost got pulled in by the child myself.
After pulling him up, I sat on the shore, gasping for breath. A group of children surrounded us, but the drowning child didn't say a word. He lay on the ground with his eyes wide open, staring at the sky.
Finally, under the guidance of the child, I carried him home. When his parents saw him like this, they hurriedly shouted: "Buffalo, what's wrong with you, Buffalo!"
The children around were talking about the whole incident. When I saw him, he had already fallen into the water, so I didn't know what happened before.
At first, they were a group of children. In the summer, when the weather was hot, they liked to go to the river to bathe. They said they were bathing, but in fact they were just playing in the water. The river water at that time was much cleaner than it is now, and you could see the bottom clearly.
Today, while playing in the water, they saw many fish swimming in the river right in front of them. The children immediately wanted to catch them. However, the fish looked very stupid and they couldn't catch them no matter how hard they tried.
As they caught them, the fish swam deeper.
The buffalo could swim, so he relied on his ability to swim to the deep end. But just when he was about to catch a fish, all the fish disappeared. Before the buffalo could even think about it, he stepped on empty air and fell into the water.
Logically speaking, he could swim and should be able to swim back normally, but this time he just couldn't swim ashore no matter what he did, and was just floundering not far from the shore.
When the remaining children saw this, they started shouting loudly on the shore. Later, I heard them and pulled the buffalo ashore.
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