Chapter 226: Oh no! I've become the bad guy!!

Look, Lu Yuan gave Lin Zhaoxuan no more chance to speak, he turned and walked back to the center of the ritual altar and took hold of the ritual sword again.

The black cloth pouch was still in his arms, only the last two red cords left to untie.

He did not rush to open it, instead he pressed it close to his chest.

Lu Yuan stood with the sword before the yellow cloth Taiji diagram, his left hand forming a joined-finger point toward the Three Pure Ones spirit tablets, his voice low:

“Cheng’an, steady the incense.”

“Erxiao, repair the talismans.”

“Lin Zhaoxuan, you take the kan position, raise the token and be ready.”

“Zhou Heng, Song Qinghe, guard his sides, do not allow the evil puppets near him.”

The several faces shifted.

Lin Zhaoxuan did not hesitate, immediately taking Zhou Heng and Song Qinghe to stand at the kan position.

Wang Cheng’an straightened the censer, pushing the bent true-subduing incense back into the ash, murmuring an incantation.

Xu Erxiao moved quickly, pulling talismans from the box, patching them one by one onto the broken ring of incense ash.

Outside the ritual altar, a second wave of evil puppets pressed forward.

In the dark, skeletons in tattered opera robes stepped slowly out from the valley depths, holding bone knives, rusted spears, broken banners.

Their eye sockets burned with green flames, their steps ordered, like a troop of hellish soldiers come down from an old theater script.

The martial role atop the stage finally stopped its stiff tread.

It raised the rusted spear wrapped in black hair, pointing it towards the giant stone altar.

All the skeleton soldiers raised their weapons at once.

In the next instant, the skeletal host surged like a tide, stamping forward.

Lu Yuan closed his eyes, then snapped them open.

The sword tip flicked a candle.

Two clusters of green flame leapt up at once, caught by the sword qi, forming two fiery threads that wrapped along the ritual sword.

He stepped the Gang Steps, the sword pointing true south, his voice like a bell:

“Open a single altar line, borrow the way of thunder.”

“Evil, stand aside, righteous law proceed!”

As the words fell, the Taiji diagram on the yellow cloth spun violently,

and a narrow passage formed from incense smoke, candlelight, and talisman glow, shooting out from in front of the altar and pointing straight at the distant stage.

Where the passage crossed, the black mist was split, the shadow soldiers halted, their forms suppressed.

Lin Zhaoxuan’s eyes brightened.

He knew the opportunity would last only an instant.

Gripping the Thunderclap Token with both hands, he bit his tongue and spat tongue-tip blood onto the token.

“Ancestor above, your disciple Lin Zhaoxuan borrows thunder for one strike!”

The Thunderclap Token trembled violently.

The pale blue-white killing light that had been flickering suddenly condensed into a thin lance of thunder.

Lu Yuan barked:

“Light it!”

Lin Zhaoxuan roared, thrusting the Thunderclap Token forward with force.

“Break!”

The thunder lance shot out along the altar path Lu Yuan had opened.

Wherever the thunder struck the shadow soldiers they exploded into fragments.

In the blink of an eye the lightning had reached the stage.

The old sheng on the stage showed the first change in expression.

It threw back its mouth and let out a scream not like a human voice.

Eight ghastly white lanterns shrank inward as if trying to hide in the stage’s shadow.

But they were just a step too slow.

The thunder lance flashed through.

The leftmost ghastly lantern was pierced through on the spot.

Bang!

The lantern burst.

There was no candle inside.

Instead, a dried black human head.

The head was struck by the thunder and instantly turned to flying ash.

At the same moment the whole stage’s singing tone suddenly dropped a note, and the pallid light covering the stage dimmed at a corner.

The evil eye on the willow tree contracted sharply.

A flash of sharp light crossed Lu Yuan’s eyes.

“Effective.”

But in the next moment the thunder token’s crack made another sound.

Crack.

Lin Zhaoxuan’s face went white, blood spilling from his mouth, his body half-kneeling to the ground.

Song Qinghe hurried to support him.

“Senior brother!”

Lin Zhaoxuan held the Thunderclap Token with a death grip, his voice hoarse:

“It can still be done again.”

Lu Yuan looked at the ancient token now split with a new crack, his voice low:

“At most two more times.”

Lu Yuan glanced at the seven lanterns left on the stage, then at the old willow that had begun to shake wildly,

“And we must, within those two strikes, break this play.”

Lin Zhaoxuan wiped blood from the corner of his mouth, his hands stained bright red.

He looked at the new hairline fracture on the Thunderclap Token, pain flickering in his eyes for a moment, but not a trace of backing down.

“Seven lanterns, two strikes are not enough.”

His voice was a little hoarse but resolute.

“Lu Dao-you, open the path for me once more.”

Lu Yuan frowned.

“What do you intend?”

Lin Zhaoxuan did not answer. He passed the Thunderclap Token into his left hand, and with his right pulled a crumpled oiled-paper bundle from his breast.

The oil-paper bundle was tied with red cord, a faded old talisman pasted to it.

The talisman paper had gone brittle, as if it had endured the northerly winds beyond the Great Wall for many years, its edges frayed.

Lin Zhaoxuan tore the oil paper open and revealed three dark-red pellets.

They were not medicinal pills but more like balls made by kneading cinnabar, realgar, rooster-comb blood, and some kind of bone powder into pellets.

Lu Yuan smelled them and his expression shifted slightly.

“Blood-Fire Pills?”

Lin Zhaoxuan paused, surprised at Lu Yuan’s recognition.

“You recognize them too, Lu Dao-you?”

Of course Lu Yuan recognized them.

These things were known in some old northern Daoist lines beyond the border.

Called pills, but not orthodox alchemical pills—emergency “force-accelerating pellets.”

Once swallowed, blood and qi drive the law-force, temporarily raising ritual power significantly.

But the cost was steep.

At best meridians are damaged, taking three to five months before one can return to the altar.

At worst qi and blood reverse, shortening life and damaging the root.

Ordinary Daoists would only touch such things when desperate.

Lu Yuan’s gaze darkened.

“You intend to swallow this?”

Zhou Heng’s face changed, he grabbed Lin Zhaoxuan’s hand.

“Senior brother! No!”

Song Qinghe also cried urgently:

“Master said before he died, Blood-Fire Pills cannot be used unless life and death are at stake!”

Lin Zhaoxuan looked out at the approaching skeletal host and suddenly smiled.

“Is this not life and death now?”

He looked up at the stage.

The seven ghastly white lanterns swayed gently front and rear, their light growing more pallid, like seven dead eyes staring through the dark at them.

The old sheng on the stage began again.

“Twenty-one turns, the white bones take the stage—

“Thirty-one turns, peel the skin and change the face—

“Forty-one turns, invite guests to the feast—”

The singing grew faster and sharper, no longer like human performance but like countless tiny insects crawling in everyone’s ears.

As the chant rose, the skeletal host outside the altar began to rearrange in perfect formation.

Front row skeletons crouched low, the back row lifted rusted spears and bone lances, a layer of ghastly green flame forming at their tips.

When that flame brightened, the incense ash ring Lu Yuan had laid hissed as if corroded by wet, cold poison.

Wang Cheng’an’s face blanched; he shook the bell hard.

“Ding-ling-ling!”

As the bell sounded, the flower-dan on stage flung a sleeve.

A pink water sleeve flew from the stage, though dozens of zhang away, it arrived at the stone altar in the blink of an eye.

The sleeve opened midair, and sewn densely within were ghastly white human faces.

All the faces opened mouths in unison, emitting a mingled cry-laugh screech.

Wang Cheng’an’s hand on the copper bell froze; the bell’s sound was drowned by that cry-laugh, his chest tightened and he nearly coughed up blood.

Seeing this, Xu Erxiao snatched up a mix of cinnabar and glutinous rice and hurled it outward.

“Go!”

The cinnabar-glutinous rice landed on the water sleeve and burst into sparks.

But the sleeve only faltered slightly and still rolled toward the incense ash ring.

Lu Yuan’s eyes went cold; his ritual sword slashed horizontally.

“By the Supreme Dao’s command, slash demons and bind the evil!”

The blade took candlelight, cutting a slanted fire line that severed that length of water sleeve in half.

The severed sleeve fell, twisting like two strips of struggling human skin, smoking black as it shrank back into the dark.

But the moment Lu Yuan struck, the skeletons directly ahead took three steps and closed the gap.

Outside the incense ash ring, a bone knife nearly touched the outermost talisman paper.

Zhou Heng gritted his teeth and raised his sword, stepping in front of Lin Zhaoxuan.

“Senior brother, you can’t take it!”

“I’ll urge the sword, even if I die I’ll hold them a while!”

Lin Zhaoxuan put his hand down on Zhou Heng’s, pressing it.

He looked at Zhou Heng and Song Qinghe, his voice dropping:

“We walked north from the Liao River to get here, how many ruined villages did we pass?”

“How many homes had white banners at the door, with no one left even to tend the stove?”

“Master said this line of work—you can learn slowly if you lack skill—but if you see evil harming people and pretend not to see it, you do not deserve to wear this Daoist robe.”

After saying this, he no longer hesitated. He pinched a Blood-Fire Pill and tilted his head to swallow it.

“Senior brother!”

Song Qinghe’s eyes reddened at once.

Lin Zhaoxuan clenched his teeth, veins bulging in his neck.

No more than two breaths after the pill entered his stomach, an unnatural flush rose across his face, sweat pouring from his forehead, as if a pot of boiling oil had been poured inside him.

He uttered a muffled groan, gripping the Thunderclap Token with both hands.

The broken ancient token flared again.

Blue-white thunderlight seeped from the fissures of the token, casting Lin Zhaoxuan’s face in shifting brightness.

Lu Yuan watched this and the last thread of doubt in his eyes finally wavered.

Blood-Fire Pills are no faker.

Meridian reverse surge is no faker.

If a crooked Daoist only sought to put on a show, he would not sacrifice his roots and ancestral tools.

And especially Lin Zhaoxuan’s earlier words—if it were all a pretense, it would have been too convincing.

Lu Yuan cursed quietly to himself.

Crap! I’ve become the bad guy!!

I’ve let that fake Tan Jiji make me paranoid.

But there was no time for such thoughts now.

He immediately turned, left hand forming the “Thunder Array Seal,” thumb pressing the ring finger, middle finger erect, index finger hooked on the second joint of middle finger, little finger curled inward.

His right hand twirled the ritual sword, the tip touching the half-burned yellow talisman ash before the ancestor tablet.

“Erxiao, take the red cord!”

“Cheng’an, lend me one mouthful of yang qi!”

Xu Erxiao quickly pulled from the box a bundle of red cord wrapped with old coins and tossed it to Lu Yuan.

Wang Cheng’an wasted no time, he bit his tongue and spat tongue-tip blood onto the censer’s nearly spent true-subduing incense.

Pfft!

The fresh blood turned to mist and fell onto the incense.

The previously bowed smoke straightened suddenly; three trails of incense rose upright and circled in the air to form a small character “ling.”

Lu Yuan tied one end of the red cord around the ritual sword’s hilt, threaded the other end through the Taiping Tongbao above the compass, then snapped his finger.

Hum—

The coin trembled.

The red cord pulled taut and actually drew a thin red light between the altar and the kan position where Lin Zhaoxuan stood.

Lu Yuan’s voice was grave:

“Lin Zhaoxuan, follow my orders.”

“Your Thunderclap Token body is broken, you cannot force another horizontal strike.”

“I will lend altar qi to bridge you; you use the token to light the lanterns. We do not need to break all seven at once, only to draw the thunder into the stage.”

“As long as thunder enters the stage, I can use the altar to sever its singing.”

Lin Zhaoxuan fought the storm of blood inside him but nodded through clenched teeth.

“All right!”

Lu Yuan then looked to Zhou Heng and Song Qinghe.

“You two do not show off.”

“One guards his sky gate, the other protects his life gate.”

“If his qi and blood reverse, press the Heart-Clear talisman on the front and use a Vessel-Protect talisman to seal the back.”

Song Qinghe immediately drew two talismans from her pouch and stuck them to Lin Zhaoxuan’s chest and back.

Zhou Heng placed his peach wood sword horizontally before him, left hand forming the seal, right foot stepped back half a pace, toes on the edge of the kan position, taking a guarding stance.

Though his footwork was still not steady, this time it was not off by half an inch.

Lu Yuan slightly nodded.

In the next moment he spun sharply, thrusting the ritual sword point into the ground.

The tip pierced the center of the Taiji diagram on the yellow cloth, right between the yin-yang fish eyes.

“Heaven-earth profound ancestor, root of all myriad qi.”

“Broadly cultivate great calamity, verify my divine power.”

“Within and without the three realms, only Dao is honored.”

“Body of golden light, cover and reflect upon me!”

He did not recite the ordinary altar-opening incantation, but a short charm from the lineage of golden-light altar protection.

With each line, the cinnabar talisman pattern on the yellow cloth brightened a degree.

When the last line fell, Lu Yuan formed the “Fighting Seal,” palms overlapping, left hand inside, right hand outside, thumbs touching like a chariot handle, and pushed south.

“Open!”

The smoke-and-talisman-and-candle passage before the altar reappeared.

This time the passage was not a thin straight line but like a narrow plank road laid in the darkness.

The red cord ran down its center.

Incense smoke formed the railings.

Talisman fire served as the steps.

From the Three Purities altar at the giant stone it extended all the way to the stage in the distance.

The skeletal host outside the altar grew restless at once.

The old sheng on the stage seemed to sense danger and lashed its beard.

The seven lanterns left in front of and behind the stage flared together, their pallid light combining into a block of ghastly white, forming a wall of yin qi that barred the front of the stage.

At the same time, the old dan, flower dan, and martial sheng—three true wicked performers—moved as one.

The old dan spat out a mass of black gas full of fragmented crying voices.

The flower dan’s water sleeve swept out, reaching for the red cord.

The martial sheng lifted off both feet, spear in hand, taking a step off the stage as if to rush back along the altar path.

Xu Erxiao’s scalp prickled; he cursed:

“Even climbs along the pole!”

Lu Yuan’s tone was cold:

“Erxiao, anchor the red cord!”

Xu Erxiao understood immediately, grabbing three brass anchoring nails and hammering them into the ground along the line where the red cord landed with “pa-pa-pa.”

With each nail he shouted the mnemonic Lu Yuan had taught:

“One nail, the sky gate closes!”

“Two nails, the earth door opens!”

“Three nails, the ghost road is cut!”

Xu Erxiao’s skill was not great, but his strength was; all three anchor nails hammered deep into the earth.

The red cord stopped moving.

As the flower dan’s water sleeve curled to the red cord it was shocked by the anchor’s qi, the faces in the sleeve shrieking in unison.

Wang Cheng’an immediately shook his bell, left hand forming the Three Pure Ones finger seal—thumb pressing the base of the middle finger, index and ring finger paired, little finger hooked inward.

“Upper purity to save, jade purity draw near, great purity protect my altar’s body.”

“Urgently, urgently, as by the law’s command!”

The bell’s tone was clear and undispersed, just enough to drown out the old dan’s crying gas.

Song Qinghe’s eyes flashed with hard resolve.

She drew a blue-edged yellow talisman from the bottom of her talisman pouch.

Lu Yuan saw at once this was no ordinary talisman; it was a “cold talisman” made of old northern yellow paper and soot ink, used beyond the border to take the winter’s chill into the charm.

Beyond the Great Wall the bitter cold is used in talismans to subdue dry evils, blood-killing, and wandering souls.

Song Qinghe pinched the talisman between two fingers and chanted rapidly:

“Big Dipper cold gate, Xuanming borrow troops.”

“Freeze the ghost road, snow-lock the evil form.”

“Save!”

She flung the cold talisman forward.

The talisman landed at the martial sheng’s feet and exploded into a sheet of white frost.

The martial sheng had just taken half a step off the stage; the suspended black boots were frozen for an instant.

Though only a moment, it was enough.

Lu Yuan pulled the sword’s point and called:

“Lin Zhaoxuan!”

“Now!”