Chapter 212: Morning Roll Call

Jiang Bin!

Could it be that this is the Jiang Bin who is about to be reborn in my mother's womb?

I hadn't yet figured out how to find him, but I never expected him to come to my door himself.

He lifted the hood of his black windbreaker, revealing a young, handsome face.

He looked about twenty-four or twenty-five, but his brow and eyes bore a steady composure.

That was a crispness honed by years in society.

He lowered his head, revealing a clean nape.

Li Qingying and I both leaned forward to look.

Indeed, the characters 'Jiang Bin' appeared on the man's nape.

But he is a soul, somewhat different from the corporeal beings I had seen before.

Li Qingying murmured softly: 'It really is Jiang Bin.'

The man raised his head, about to say something, but I stopped him: 'Wait, I didn't see clearly just now; could you let me look at those two characters again?'

The man furrowed his brow, but still lowered his head.

I went around the counter and leaned in for a closer look.

Li Qingying came over as well, and we looked together: 'Xiao Jiu, is there a problem?'

In the next instant, I roughly pulled Li Qingying back and warned: 'He isn't Jiang Bin!'

Just as I pulled Li Qingying away, the man moved.

He leapt up, a finely crafted dagger in his hand slashing straight at my throat: 'It really is you! Today I will carry out heaven's justice!'

The incident happened suddenly; his target was clear—he was coming for me—and by the time I pulled Li Qingying away, I had no time to dodge.

As that icy dagger was about to slash my carotid artery, a fierce palm wind struck, and the copper coins clinked against the blade with a 'ding'.

I only heard the man let out a muffled grunt; the dagger fell to the ground, his entire soul struck by the palm wind, feeling as if it would scatter in the next instant.

The next moment, I was already held in Liu Junyan's arms.

He first checked my neck, found no wound, and then breathed a sigh of relief.

Li Qingying swiftly shut the pawnshop's door and slapped a talisman paper on the lintel, directly trapping the man inside Nan Shu Fang.

The man reached for the dagger, but Liu Junyan kicked it into a corner and, with a backhand, prepared to strike his head.

"Liu Junyan, wait!"

I hurried forward to stop him, saying: 'He only has one hun and three po; he's prone to soul scattering, and I still have questions for him.'

Liu Junyan lowered his hand, Li Qingying approached, and the three of us tightly surrounded the man in the center.

The man's soul was already deficient, now fading further, his state perilous, yet he glared at me with hatred and spat: 'To treat lives as grass, you will not die well!'

I only felt bewildered: 'I think you may have mistaken your enemy; the one seeking Jiang Bin's life is not me.'

"If not you, then who?" the man snarled through gritted teeth, "Before entering, I carefully examined it—my son's karmic debt has fallen upon you; what else do you have to argue? Man does, heaven watches; even if you have myriad tricks, someday you will receive the punishment you deserve!"

"Shut up!" Li Qingying grabbed a talisman paper to slap on the man's mouth, "My Xiao Jiu is the kindest and bravest; haven't you seen the Buddha lamp downstairs brimming with merit? Are you blind?"

Perhaps Li Qingying's words reminded him; indeed, before entering, he had seemed somewhat bewildered.

The man was momentarily at a loss for words.

He dodged the talisman paper in Li Qingying's hand; after a while, his aura visibly weakened, and he asked me: 'How did you tell I wasn't Jiang Bin?'

I pointed to his nape and said: 'If I'm not mistaken, the characters "Jiang Bin" on your nape were rubbed on, right? They're reversed.'

At first glance, without paying attention, it's indeed hard to notice the problem.

But on the second look I was certain: those two characters seemed to have been flipped, their orientation wrong.

Given that he is a soul, even achieving this with a rubbing is no simple feat.

I was a bit curious about the man's identity.

But the man seemed to have reservations and was unwilling to engage further.

"You don't have much time left." Liu Junyan suddenly said, "Before the rooster crows you must return to your fleshly body, or else all that awaits you is soul scattering; even if we let you go back, do you think you'd have a second chance to enter the pawnshop?"

I was startled; the man wasn't dead yet?

This is… he somehow extracted his own hun and three po, deliberately coming to my door to seek vengeance?

I immediately grew solemn and asked: 'Just now you said, your son's death, the karmic debt is reckoned upon me?'

The man simply kept his head lowered, silent.

Liu Junyan snorted coldly: 'Qingying, take the talisman and send him on his way.'

"Yes!" the man finally couldn't hold back, speaking in panic, "To save my son, I exhausted every means and finally found this clue; I won't mistake it—the karmic debt truly lies upon your head."

Jiang Bin's karmic debt has fallen upon my head; what about those before?

Does every person born in Tafengcun have their karmic debt counted on my head?

"Your right cheek… haven't you noticed?"

Liu Junyan raised his hand, took hold of my chin, gently turned my face, and looked at my right cheek.

Upon seeing this, his expression also changed.

My heart skipped a beat; it seems the 'Jiang Bin' karmic debt has affected the efficacy of the Buddha lamp enshrined at the Dharma King Temple.

"It's fine, very faint." Liu Junyan comforted, "Almost invisible."

I nodded, not wanting them to worry about me.

Liu Junyan turned to face the man and asked: 'What's your name? You're probably also a practitioner of the yin-yang arts, right?'

"I am Jiang Sique, the eleventh-generation heir of Ghost Cultivation." The man said, "Jiang Bin is my son, just turned three, engaged in our trade, suffering from the five flaws and three deficiencies, making offspring difficult, a life of hardship; it took the efforts of several generations of ancestors to secure Jiang Bin's safe birth, yet I never imagined… only three years of peace, and he… he has been targeted."

"Ghost Cultivation?" I associated it with Jiang Sique's nape rubbing and asked, "That's tattooing, right?"

"Tattooing is just one branch of Ghost Cultivation," Jiang Sique explained, "Ghost Cultivation encompasses four major categories: tattooing, embroidery, sewing corpses, and yin rubbing."

Since reopening the pawn shop, I have come into contact with far too many professions I could never have imagined before.

Jin Wuya's Strange Artisan, Uncle Huo's Strange Doctor, and Jiang Si Que's Strange Embroidery...

The Yin-Yang trade truly encompasses all rivers and seas; there's nothing strange it doesn't have.

Jiang Si Que pointed at the dagger kicked into the corner of the wall and said: "That dagger is my most handy strange implement; it's not just a knife, the handle also hides needles, thread, and small awls, etc."

A few days ago, on the night of my son's third birthday, his behavior suddenly became strange; he knelt straight before the portrait of our family's ancestral master, his head almost lowering to the ground, and on the back of his neck faintly appeared his name.

And in this situation, if I'm not mistaken, Bin'er must have had his fate marked by someone using some kind of arcane art...