Chapter 2: The Cursed Script (1/2)

“The ghost from earlier… seems like a yin spirit.”

After resting for a while, as the pain and weakness gradually faded, Ye Qing’s fragmented memories began to surface, revealing some details about the ghost.

“A yin spirit is just the weakest kind of evil spirit. When there’s a bit more yang energy, they don’t dare to show up. Only when someone is weak, dying, with depleted qi and blood, when their yang energy is completely gone, will they be targeted by a yin spirit.”

Ye Qing frowned. “But usually, yin spirits only appear in desolate places, not in villages. Plus, I remember there was a purification talisman at home. With that, evil spirits like a yin spirit wouldn’t dare to show up.”

“Strange? Could it be…”

Ye Qing seemed to have realized something, stood up, picked up the firestarter from the ground, lit an oil lamp, and went to the living room. Looking up at the beams, he found that the purification talisman that was originally on the beam had vanished.

“The purification talisman is gone. No wonder a yin spirit was able to enter the house.” The purification talisman was the most basic kind of talisman, found in every household to protect against evil spirits. But now, it was missing from his house.

“It must have been taken on purpose!” Ye Qing touched his nose, frowning. The purification talisman was too basic for anyone to steal. So someone must have deliberately taken it to let the yin spirit target him and take his life.

“Who could it be? Maybe Chen Zheng?!” The only person who had a direct conflict with him in the village was Chen Zheng. Chen Zheng had been trying to take his family’s land for a while but had been repeatedly rejected. So, Chen Zheng was the most likely suspect.

If he died, his family’s land would be left without an owner, and with Chen Zheng’s status and methods, it would be easy for him to take over. The best part was, he’d be killed by a yin spirit, and no one would suspect Chen Zheng.

“One stone, two birds. What a good plan!” Ye Qing felt a surge of anger. He had almost died earlier.

While angry, the greater feeling was a deep sense of crisis. Chen Zheng was one of the three martial masters of Jun Mountain Village, the village he lived in, which was named after the small Jun Mountain nearby.

Martial masters weren’t a rank, but a respectful title for the most powerful practitioners in Jun Mountain Village. Simply put, they were the three most powerful people in the village, responsible for its safety.

Such people were powerful and influential. As an ordinary person with no ability to defend himself, Ye Qing was no match for them.

Even if he reported this, others might not believe him, or worse, wouldn’t want to believe him. After all, who would risk offending a martial master for an ordinary person?

On the other hand, it would be easy for Chen Zheng to deal with him. There were many ways he could silently kill him, like using the yin spirit today.

So, just because he survived today didn’t mean he’d be so lucky in the future. Also, based on his memory, Chen Zheng was a vengeful person. Even if Ye Qing sold the land to him now, Chen Zheng might not let him off.

“I can’t fight, there’s no one to reason with, and nowhere to run? How do I even play this?” With Ye Qing’s usually carefree personality, he couldn’t help but chuckle bitterly, sighing deeply, rubbing his forehead. “Sigh, my life really is hard! What should I do?”

“Maybe I should just die again?” Ye Qing rubbed his nose and tried to joke. “But I really don’t want to die!”

“Huh, what’s that?” Suddenly, while feeling down, Ye Qing noticed something on the ground that flickered with a faint, deep glow, like a weak candlelight in the wind.

Curious, Ye Qing walked over, picked up the object, and returned to the table to observe it under the light.

The object in his hand was a rectangular piece, resembling a piece of animal skin, black and yellowish, covered with dragon-snake-like symbols, ancient and mysterious.

At that moment, one of the dragon-snake symbols on the “skin” glowed with a faint light, and in the center of the paper, red blood-colored words began to appear:

“Chen Zheng wants to kill me!”

Ye Qing hadn’t paid much attention at first, but when he saw the first line, a look of shock immediately spread across his face. As he read on, his expression grew even more shocked and serious, with a hint of fear.

“He sent someone to take the purification talisman from my house. When I was weak, he used the yin spirit to try and kill me quietly. Although I narrowly escaped, he will definitely have more moves planned.”

“But I’m just an ordinary person. Trying to fight against someone like Chen Zheng, who has already reached Qi Condensation, is like an ant trying to stop a car. But I don’t want to just sit back and wait. What should I do? Is weakness truly a sin?”

“But I really don’t want to die! Maybe the only way out now is to join the patrol team of Jun Mountain Village and become one of them. Maybe I can escape this crisis, at least for now.”

The writing ended there, and the paper seemed calm and ordinary, but Ye Qing’s heart was like a turbulent sea, constantly churning, unable to settle.

This piece of paper-like thing had actually revealed the cause and effect of his attack and seemed to have given him a temporary solution to his crisis?

How could he not be shocked?

How could he not be afraid?

After a long time, Ye Qing’s emotions slowly began to calm down. This world was different from his original world, filled with all kinds of strange things and unsolved mysteries. Having something like this didn’t seem so unusual after all.

In his memory, this object had also been bought by his parents from a traveling Taoist priest who sold talismans. According to the Taoist priest, this object was a special item crafted from the skin of a powerful evil spirit. It was called the “Cursed Script,” and it had mysterious powers that even gods and ghosts couldn’t predict.

His parents had impulsively bought it. After bringing it home, they found that, aside from being immune to water and fire, it didn’t have any of the powers the Taoist priest had claimed. They were disappointed for a long time. But since they had spent so much money on it, they couldn’t bear to throw it away, so they kept it along with the talismans in a box.

But now, it seemed the Taoist priest might not have been lying after all.

“But why didn’t the Cursed Script show such effects before?” Ye Qing lightly tapped the table. When he looked at the blood on his hand and then recalled the blood-red words that appeared on the Cursed Script earlier, his eyes suddenly lit up. “Maybe the revival of the Cursed Script has something to do with my blood?”

Earlier, the Cursed Script and the talisman had been in the wooden box. It was likely that when he was in a panic after killing the yin spirit, he had thrown both the talisman and the Cursed Script at the spirit, and his blood must have gotten on it at that moment.

“Should I try it?” Without hesitation, Ye Qing clenched his fist and dripped a few drops of blood onto the Cursed Script. Immediately, the Cursed Script flickered with a deep glow, and the blood seemed to be absorbed, disappearing. Then, blood-red words appeared:

“I think I’ve discovered the secret of the Cursed Script!”

“Through my experiment, I’ve found that my blood can awaken the Cursed Script.”

“Haha, great! Maybe, from now on, I just need to use some of my blood to ask questions, avoid disasters, and increase my strength.”

“But, is the secret of the Cursed Script really just this?”

“Exactly as I thought, it’s incredible!” Ye Qing stared at the blood-red words on the Cursed Script and suddenly slapped his thigh, filled with excitement. According to the Cursed Script’s hint, it seemed that he could now consume a bit of his blood to ask questions in the future.

But the last line of the Cursed Script made him uneasy.

Also, such a magical item, why did the Taoist priest sell it to his parents?

Maybe the Taoist priest didn’t know the true secret of the Cursed Script?

Or maybe the Taoist priest had some other hidden agenda?