Chapter 17: 16. Sending Off the Jiangshi

16. Sending Off the Jiangshi

"With this ticket of mine, there won't be any problem!" Yang Ruiyi waved his hand and said, "The ticket I'm giving you is from Wen Yongsheng's Distillery, and it bears the Wen family's stamp on it—an ordinary distillery work ticket wouldn't have this.

Just take the ticket and go when the time comes!"

Zhou Sanji tucked that 'work ticket' into his clothes, and happily said to Zhou Chang: "That's right, with your grand-uncle taking action, this matter definitely won't have any problems—I'm not worried about it at all.

Later I'll go buy some Ergou Village liquor, and tonight we'll have a good couple of drinks, senior brother!"

"Huh?

Didn't you say you'd buy me Wen Yongsheng liquor? How did it become Ergou Village liquor the moment you got the ticket?" Yang Ruiyi raised an eyebrow and teased Zhou Sanji a few more times.

But he also knew Wen Yongsheng liquor was expensive, and he wasn't really insisting that his shidi buy Wen Yongsheng liquor to repay him.

So after teasing Zhou Sanji, he let the topic drop.

He turned back, looked at Zhou Chang's expression of wanting to speak but holding back, and said with a smile: "Now your grand-uncle has also resolved the matter for you—is there anything else you want to ask? Say it all at once."

"How long do I need to work at Wen Yongsheng Distillery before I can completely reverse the 'Jiangshi Fate'?" Zhou Chang asked, looking into Yang Ruiyi's eyes.

Yang Ruiyi was stunned for a moment upon hearing this.

Zhou Sanji hurriedly said to Zhou Chang from behind him: "What's the rush?

Once you go to the distillery, you'll definitely have to stay there properly for two or three years first, and wait until your condition stabilizes before thinking of anything else…"

Zhou Chang said nothing, only gazing into Yang Ruiyi's eyes.

"Sigh… you don't need to coax him, you won't be able to…" Yang Ruiyi smiled helplessly, then said to Zhou Chang, "You've probably guessed it too, haven't you? Actually, this 'Jiangshi Fate' simply cannot be reversed.

Once you've become a 'Ghost-Death Eight Characters' fate pattern, you either don't care about anything and let yourself turn into an 'Old Jiang', or you do as I said—use various methods to calm the xiang qi and deluded thoughts clinging to your body, and delay the jiangshi's gestation.

Once you stop controlling yourself, the jiangshi will rapidly gestate.

At first, it only feeds on xiang qi and deluded thoughts; later on, it will devour those ghostly things that could become Thought-Demons. The more 'nutrition' it gets, the earlier the gestation will be!"

Yang Ruiyi paused and looked up at Zhou Chang.

From Zhou Chang's face, he couldn't read any obvious emotion, so he had no way to infer Zhou Chang's mood from it.

He tried to comfort Zhou Chang, saying: "But don't worry too much—there are many ways to delay the jiangshi's gestation. It's just that your home happens to be next to Wen Yongsheng Distillery, so going there to work can solve your immediate need.

A bit further away—Qingyi Town is next to the Secret Storage Domain, and has always been a must-pass place for horse caravans trading tea and silk to the Secret Storage Domain. Some wealthy figures who did business in the Secret Storage Domain need to be buried back in the interior after death, and corpse-driving teams are needed to bring their bodies back to their hometowns. These horse caravan folk coming and going, and the corpse-driving teams, on the first and thirtieth of each month, will settle at 'Mengshan Iron Barrier Charity Cemetery' outside Qingyi Town.

Not to mention those horse caravan folk are all capable and unusual people—just talking about these corpse-drivers… they know a method called 'Sending Off the Jiangshi', which can, during the 'Sending Off the Jiangshi', expel the deluded thoughts from one's body and ward off 'corpse poison'. This method is useful for you too.

If you could follow those corpse-drivers and learn 'Sending Off the Jiangshi', you wouldn't even need to go work at the distillery."

No sooner had Yang Ruiyi finished speaking than Zhou Sanji pursed his lips and shook his head: "Those Hunan-Westerners' methods—how could they be easy to learn…"

Zhou Chang took Yang Ruiyi's words to heart, and turned to look at Zhou Sanji: "Can I follow you and learn Old Duan Gong's methods? Aren't your methods useful for my current situation?"

The moment these words left his mouth, Zhou Sanji and Yang Ruiyi both laughed at the same time.

The smiles on both old men's faces were somewhat cold.

Yang Ruiyi said nothing, his gaze on his newly accepted disciple.

Zhou Sanji, meanwhile, answered Zhou Chang with a cold laugh: "Then I'd rather find a way to have you follow those Hunan-Westerners and learn 'Sending Off the Jiangshi'!

A duan gong is just a maidservant and servant attending the gods—even the farmers in the fields know this—better to plant crops than to do that attending work. Attending on people is already bitter enough, let alone attending those gods?

Remember four words—those who approach the gods are in danger!

Don't think about getting close to gods. Compared to Thought-Demons, those gods who have raised their banners—who knows which is more terrifying!"

In this world, gods are even more dangerous than Thought-Demons!

Zhou Chang sensed the key information from the expressions of the two old men.

His pupils shrank slightly, and seizing the opportunity, he asked the two again: "What is a god who has raised its banner?"

"A banner-bearer can be called a god; only those who hold a Divine Banner can be called a god.

What your grandfather said—'a god who has raised its banner'—is just the colloquial way of saying 'Divine Banner'." Yang Ruiyi explained to Zhou Chang, "There are many Divine Banners in the human world. Each Divine Banner can be seen as a flag. These Divine Banners can attach to any dead or living thing. Once they choose those dead or living things, a folk god is thereby born.

In other words, if a Thought-Demon holds a Divine Banner, it can also go from being a gui to becoming a god. If a mortal holds a Divine Banner, they likewise directly become a god. Even a stone by the road, as long as it's favored by a Divine Banner, is also a folk god.

Therefore, only those who have raised their banners can be called gods.

Those who haven't raised their banners are not gods."

"Can a folk god kill a Thought-Demon?" Zhou Chang asked again.

Hearing Zhou Chang's question, Yang Ruiyi's expression became solemn for some reason. He shook his head and said: "I have heard such rumors, but as for the specifics, how could small fry like us know so clearly?

Thought-Demons, folk gods… they're not something anyone can deal with lightly.

I've heard of one method—Thought-Demons are formed from the aggregation of all things' deluded thoughts and xiang qi. All things in the world each have their own fears, and Thought-Demons likewise each have things they fear.

As long as you become the natural enemy of the corresponding Thought-Demon, you can suppress many Thought-Demons.

For example, mice fear cats. A 'Thought-Demon' aggregated mainly from a mouse's thoughts is very likely afraid of cats—even an ordinary house cat can make this kind of Thought-Demon keep its distance.

When encountering this kind of Thought-Demon, holding a cat works faster and better than any other method."

At this moment, Yang Ruiyi suddenly reached out and pinched the shoulder of 'Stone Egg' beside him, and continued: "This disciple I've newly taken may also be possessed by a gui. I'm also looking for ways to counter Thought-Demons and counter Nian-gui. So my coming to Qingyi Town this time is, first, to help your grandfather resolve your matter, and second, to bring him to Wen Yongsheng Distillery to see if the gui attached to him can be removed there."

"He's been possessed by a gui too?

What's going on?" Zhou Sanji looked at Stone Egg sitting on the stool with a surprised and uneasy expression—no matter how he looked, he couldn't tell that this young man might be possessed by a nian-gui.

Zhou Chang's gaze also turned to Stone Egg.

Stone Egg's shoulder was pinched by Yang Ruiyi, and on his calm face, a flash of panic passed in an instant.

"It's only a possibility—sometimes his behavior is different from usual." Yang Ruiyi looked at Stone Egg, his brow tightly furrowed, "And he's an orphan, his hometown is really too far from our Sichuan. Sichuan is in the southwest, his hometown is in the northeast.

But a child not yet twelve years old somehow appeared in Sichuan. When asked how he got here, he has no memory of it at all.

So I guess it's that gui attached to him that brought him here.

Sometimes he's like a different person, calling himself 'Yellow Immortal'… this Yellow Immortal should be the yellow weasel gui from the northeast.

For now this is just my guess—as for whether the actual facts are like this, I still need to observe more. Anyway, sending him to work at the distillery isn't a bad thing for him either."

"The northeast is really so far from us here—ten thousand eight thousand li away…

"How did you get here? Do you truly not remember?" Zhou Sanji clicked his tongue in amazement and asked the Stone Egg.

The Stone Egg kept a stern face, shaking his head without speaking.

Zhou Chang watched the Stone Egg, who was struggling to maintain his composure, for a while, then looked at Yang Rui, suddenly feeling that this master and disciple pair were also somewhat strange.