Chapter 731

The soil in the deep pit was still fresh and damp, with a few wood shavings scattered around the edges.

"A step too late!" Lin Yu's fatty face collapsed instantly, and he smashed his fist hard against the wall.

"The thing was just dug up; it shouldn't have gone far!" Lu San's voice was cold as iron, his gaze sweeping toward the gradually bustling streets around them.

Kuai Dayou blinked triumphantly, "Easy to handle, watch me."

Having said that, he turned his head to look around.

As a local snake of the capital, he was very familiar with this area.

Soon, he narrowed his eyes and shouted sternly at several idlers and hoodlums in the distance who were poking their heads out and dressed in rags: "Scar-head! Get over here! And Cripple Li! Are you blind!"

Those idlers were named, and although they were reluctant, they clearly recognized this carpenter master who had excellent skills and wide connections, and they also knew he was not to be trifled with.

Scar-head chuckled and trotted over: "Master Kuai, I hope you are well. It's early in the morning, what wind blew you to this unlucky place?"

"Less nonsense!"

Kuai Dayou glared and pointed at the empty pit, "Before dawn this morning, who came to take this 'old partner' away?"

"What did they look like? Where did they go? Speak quickly!"

As he spoke, he fished out a small string of copper coins from his bosom and weighed them in his hand, making them clatter; it was both an inducement and a deterrent.

Several hoodlums exchanged glances.

It was Scar-head who spoke, his tone carrying a hint of lingering fear: "Master Kuai, this matter is evil. It was about the beginning of the Mao hour, the sky was just beginning to brighten, and the fog hadn't dissipated yet. It was 'White Paper Horse' Wu the Shaman who came! He was alone, pushing a handcart with a tattered straw mat covering it, sneaking up to that stake..."

"White Paper Horse? Old Dog Wu?"

Kuai Dayou's brows knitted into a knot, "This old dog specializes in helping people make paper figures and paper horses, and handling funerals; his hands are very sinister! Isn't he always sickly and never leaves his house? Can he carry this heavy thing?"

"That's exactly what's strange about it!"

Another hoodlum, nicknamed "Three-Hands," chimed in, his voice lowered even further, "That Old Dog Wu can usually be blown over by a gust of wind, but this morning he looked terrifyingly strong. His complexion was pale, his eyeballs were staring straight, like a living dead man."

"We were a bit far away at the time, hiding from the wind in the corner, and we saw him not even using any tools to pry it; he just hugged that wooden stake with both hands and pulled it out with a 'hey'."

"That strength was simply not human! He loaded it onto the cart, covered it up, and left, heading toward his house, the back alley of the Ping'an Coffin Shop. His legs were very fast, as if there were ghosts chasing behind him..."

"Let's go!"

Wang Daoxuan's face darkened, and he immediately said, "Go to the Ping'an Coffin Shop!"

There was no need to ask any more; this Shaman Wu definitely had a problem.

…………

The Ping'an Coffin Shop was located among a patch of dilapidated residential houses in the west of the city.

This was a place where the lower nine trades gathered; the alleys were deep and cramped, and all year round, they were permeated with a gloomy, sinister smell mixed with inferior incense, paper ash, and decaying wood.

Creak~

Pushing open that creaking wooden door of the Wu family, which seemed like it would fall apart at any moment, a thick, indescribable stench rushed toward them.

It was mixed with the bitterness of medicinal herbs and a fishy smell similar to rusting and rotting metal.

The light inside the room was dim, and the furnishings were pitifully simple, almost bare.

The corners were piled with half-made white banners, paper horse skeletons, and some rough paper dyed with indigo and cinnabar pigments.

The incense ash floating in the air drifted and sank in the dim light.

Shaman Wu was a middle-aged man with a thin figure, a crooked mouth, and squinting eyes.

Those who worked in this trade, unless they had a major sect inheritance like the Night-Crying Lang, could only choose people who were ugly and lonely, all because they were afraid that the bad luck would hurt their families.

Just like this Shaman Wu, taking a few jobs was enough for his daily eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling.

Although lonely, he could be considered to have lived a glamorous life.

But at this moment, he was curled up in the corner of a cold earthen bed, wrapped in a dirty, greasy tattered cotton quilt, revealing only a deathly gray face without a trace of blood.

His fingers, withered like chicken claws, were clutching the quilt tightly, his body was shaking like a sieve, his eyes were unfocused and hollow, and he was incessantly and neurotically muttering fragmented words:

"Immortal... spare my life, spare my life..."

"Old Dog Wu, do you recognize me!"

Kuai Dayou stepped forward and viciously grabbed his collar, "I'll ask you, where did you put that wooden frame from the vegetable market?"

Shaman Wu's face was full of fear, and he trembled, "Can't say, dare not say..."

Kuai Dayou was about to get angry, but was stopped by Wang Daoxuan.

The Daoist was thoughtful, stepped forward, and pulled open Shaman Wu's collar.

They saw that on the skin near the collarbone below the Adam's apple, a patch of skin the size of a copper coin looked extremely strange, presenting an eerie dark red color.

The edges were charred black and curled, deeply branded into the flesh.

The center was slightly sunken, and one could faintly see several thin, twisted blood-colored lines under the skin, the shape of which was surprisingly similar to a copper coin melted and deformed by high temperature.

"This thing again?"

Lu San frowned instantly upon seeing it.

He remembered when the chaos in Chengdu occurred, Lu Sheng controlled the Prince's Mansion and wantonly distributed "Joy God Coins," causing the people of the whole city to be cursed, making it like a demon realm.

That was truly a bad memory.

"This is not a Joy God Coin..."

Wang Daoxuan also stroked his beard and frowned, "The refiner of the 'Joy God Coin' is Zhao Jie, a disciple of the Six Ren Immortal Sect, which is relatively secretive and requires the refining of magical artifacts as a medium."

"But this method is to cast a curse directly; it should be the work of Zhao Qingxu."

"Dao... Daoist, save me! Save..."

Hearing Wang Daoxuan's words, Shaman Wu opened his eyes suddenly. Seeming to perceive the hope of being saved, his body convulsed, and he begged for mercy with tears and snot streaming down his face.

"Don't move yet!"

Wang Daoxuan scolded, bent down, frowned, and identified it carefully.

"This seems to be a 'Resentment Burial Coin'..."

"Daoist, what is a Resentment Burial Coin?"

"An evil-warding coin specially made for burials, full of deathly and baleful energy. I ask you, have you received any unclean money recently?"

Shaman Wu's throat rattled, and his eyes drifted toward the corner of the wall.

Kuai Dayou stepped forward immediately, picked up the iron shovel from the side, and shoveled hard against the corner of the wall.

Ding!

The thing was not buried deep, and it immediately made a crisp sound.

Digging it out to look, it was surprisingly a whole bag of silver, clattering.

Under Wang Daoxuan's signal, Kuai Dayou took out a dagger and cut it open.

Sure enough, hidden inside was a blackened ancient coin, covered with verdigris and a foul stench.

"It seems I thought wrong!"

Wang Daoxuan's brows relaxed slightly, "The capital has a City God Temple and folk gods. If Zhao Qingxu wants to cast a curse with his mind from a distance without alarming the City God, he still needs a medium."

"With this Resentment Burial Coin, the caster can track the location through it, and can detonate the curse at any time, killing to silence the witness invisibly. There should also be restrictions, which is why this Shaman Wu dared not speak..."

"Quick, set up an altar with me to break the curse!"

Lu San and Wu Ba heard this and immediately helped set up the formation.

Wang Daoxuan had a complete set of simple magical artifacts for setting up formations, which was to deal with this kind of situation. Most of the time, Wu Ba carried them, and they cooperated tacitly, setting them up one by one.

As for Fatty Lin and the other two, because they were unfamiliar, they could only watch from the side.

The two of them were still fine, as they had seen it after all.

Only Kuai Dayou was first surprised, and then a trace of disdain flashed in his eyes.

Soon, a simple formation was set up.

Five small magical flags were inserted around the room.

This was called "taking root upon landing"; the Dharma altar was formed, isolating the inside from the outside, making it difficult even for the City God to detect.

Subsequently, Wang Daoxuan first purified the altar with cinnabar mixed with well-water, drew the "Nine Phoenix Breaking Filth Gang" talisman pattern to drive away evil filth, and then stepped the Gang and paced the Dipper, chanting the "Supreme Purifying Heaven and Earth Divine Curse."

A wild wind rose in the room, and the stench of decay quickly dissipated.

This time, the spellcasting required the combination of internal and external, so Wang Daoxuan also used the Daoist medical techniques he had learned, applying three-inch golden needles to cross the calamity, piercing Shaman Wu's Tiantu, Shanzhong, and Juque acupoints.

After the golden needles were inserted into the acupoints, they actually began to vibrate slightly.

This was a manifestation of the evil energy in the body being startled.