Folk customs begin with the entire funeral procession

Chapter 120 Curse of the Cult, Shadow Tattoo (Double votes at the end of the month~)

Looking at the Seven Star Peach Wood Sword in his hand, Chen Miao was quite fond of it.

He played with the sword for more than ten minutes, making various poses in the room, before reluctantly putting it back into the book.

With this sword, Chen Miao felt more confident.

At least in certain special circumstances, drawing this sword can bring him the confidence that comes with five coins of good karma!

The sword was finished, but Chen Miao's matter was far from over.

There were still some scraps left on the ground.

A 20-centimeter-long piece of century-old peach wood log, along with some scraps.

The length of 20 centimeters was not enough to make a short sword as before, so Chen Miao decided to process it and the remaining scraps into peach charms.

By the afternoon, Chen Miao had ten brand-new peach charms in his hand.

With the two peach charms he had left, his number of peach charms returned to a safe level.

At the same time, the century-old peach wood residue, which had been mostly consumed previously, was replenished again.

Then, Chen Miao took out the peach wood sword blank he had made earlier.

There was no hope of turning this sword blank into a Seven-Star Peach Wood Sword. Whether there would be any other methods for making peach wood swords was currently unknown to Chen Miao.

So Chen Miao is now thinking about whether to chop the sword in half and turn it into a peach charm.
But after thinking about it, he didn't do it.

Although this sword blank does not have the power of the Seven Star Peach Wood Sword, it is still useful for dealing with vengeful ghosts.

Chen Miao may not need it now, but that doesn't mean others can't.

"Xiang Shang must be feeling pretty insecure right now."

With that thought in mind, Chen Miao put away the sword embryo.

I glanced at the time; it was 5 PM.

Despite having a busy day, Chen Miao appeared quite energetic.

So he took out the talisman-making materials and started drawing talismans.

Chen Miao doesn't have any spirit-suppressing talismans on him right now, so he should prepare a few more just to be on the safe side.

Furthermore, Chen Miao wanted to make a deal with Zhong Cai to exchange some Qingxin Talismans or other talismans for them.

The value of a talisman varies from person to person, so it cannot be measured in monetary terms.

The best way is to barter.

Among them, the spirit-suppressing talisman and the yin-dispelling talisman are the two most common and frequently used talismans. It's always good to have more on hand.

So Chen Miao got busy again.

……

Three days have passed in the blink of an eye.

These past three days, Chen Miao has been much more relaxed because he has already completed the making of the Seven Star Peach Wood Sword.

He spent most of his free time drawing talismans, and the results were quite substantial.

In three days, he successfully drew seven talismans!

Six of them are ordinary talismans, and one is a premium talisman.

The six ordinary talismans consist of four spirit-suppressing talismans and two yin-dispelling talismans.

A high-quality talisman is a spirit-suppressing talisman!

The last time Chen Miao used a high-quality spirit-suppressing talisman, he left a deep impression on him, so this time he replenished the high-quality spirit-suppressing talismans he had previously used.

In order to draw this exquisite spirit-suppressing talisman, Chen Miao exchanged three coins' worth of Yin Virtue materials.

Because Chen Miao felt that his talisman-drawing skills were still at the beginner level, he didn't draw many talismans and stopped after drawing one spirit-suppressing talisman.

The remaining materials were stored away. We'll try again later when our talisman-drawing skills improve. Maybe we can draw one or two more talismans with the same materials.

After all, there's not enough good karma to go around!
The Seven Star Peach Wood Sword and the talisman-making materials exchanged this time directly consumed eight coins of Yin Virtue.

I just lost two taels of good karma, and now it's shrunk to one tael and three mace!
Having experienced the livestock incident, Chen Miao could only use a maximum of three coins of good karma, and then he would have to keep one ounce for backup.

Having already learned of the existence of things like cursing the Dao and cursing the Buddha, Chen Miao felt uneasy if he didn't make some preparations.

Chen Miao took stock of his current talismans.

The talisman box contained fourteen ordinary talismans.

Among them are two Yin-gathering talismans, three Yin-dispelling talismans, four spirit-suppressing talismans, two corpse-controlling talismans, two blood-light talismans, and one heart-to-heart talisman as always.

The premium talismans consist of one each of the following: a spirit-suppressing talisman, a yin-dispelling talisman, and a corpse-controlling talisman.

It's more than enough for my own use, but it's not enough for a transaction with Zhong Cai.

Chen Miao plans to use up the materials Xiang Shang sent earlier, and he thinks he can draw about ten more.

That should be about it by then. But the day after Chen Miao finished planning, Qi Ning sent him a message: the contribution points had been credited to his account!
Chen Miao opened the Bureau's points mall and saw his points.

48 points!

Chen Miao was stunned.

"so much?"

Remembering what Chen Guokun had taught him before, Chen Miao opened the points details.

[Escape Room Incident +3 Points]

[Hotel's suspicious activity +5 points]

[Assist in capturing evil cultivators +10 points]

[Special event contribution +30 points]

Looking at the points record, Chen Miao was somewhat puzzled.

In the locked-room incident, Chen Miao solved the problem of the six domestic animals doll, which resulted in Qi Ning taking back a worthless doll. This incident earned him 3 points, which Chen Miao thought was reasonable.

At the hotel, you encounter three suspicious individuals, including Sun Yi. You eliminate two and capture one, earning a total of 5 points.

This is a bit too little, but given that Chen Miao didn't tell Qi Ning the truth, and Qi Ning hadn't seen any other ghosts besides the Ghost Cube.

So these 5 points should just be the points of the ghost inside the Ghost Cube, which makes sense!
It's understandable that you'd get 10 points for helping to capture that woman.

After all, quite a few people have died because of that woman, and if she is allowed to escape, even more people will surely die.

Chen Miao earned 10 points for just assisting, which is quite a lot.

But what was the contribution of that special event?
Why did it immediately surpass the points obtained from the previous three?

Chen Miao didn't understand, so he asked Qi Ning.

"I can't tell you too much about this. All I can say is that the woman we caught was a member of an evil cultivation organization. That organization is very harmful. We've done a good job, so they directly gave us 150 points to split equally among the five of us."

Upon hearing Qi Ning's evasive words, Chen Miao immediately thought of Chen Guokun.

After thinking for a moment, Chen Miao asked one more question.

"Could you tell me the name of that heretical organization? I'll be more careful if I hear about it in the future."

Perhaps because Chen Miao was already an external investigator, Qi Ning thought for a while and then sent over a name.

"This is a cult that uses curses, also known as an ancestral cult. If you receive any information about it, remember not to act on your own; contact the authorities!"

Chen Miao asked again.

"Besides their names, how else can we tell them apart?"

It took Qi Ning quite a while to reply with a long message.

"Members of the Curse Cult have a dark tattoo that appears when they are emotionally agitated, but remains hidden and invisible at other times."

"Because they are indistinguishable by appearance, they could be anyone around you, which is why they are so dangerous."

"In addition, the spells within the Curse Cult are systematic. We have mastered some of the spells of Curse Cult members who have committed crimes in the past, so we can also identify similar spells."

"This woman's methods are something we haven't grasped yet. She's very valuable. If the bureau can extract her secrets of magic from her, then every time we find members of the Curse Cult based on those secrets, all five of us will receive a share of the points."

Hearing this, Chen Miao was surprised.

In other words, is this special contribution point a continuous source of income?

However, Chen Miao soon lost his expectations.

According to "The Curse of the Six Domestic Animals," unless the caster performs the curse in person, the most likely candidate to find is a doll of the six domestic animals.

The more skilled ones can capture the spirits of the six domestic animals, but capturing the actual animal is extremely difficult.

Therefore, it's unlikely that this kind of continuous income will be obtained again.

After thinking for a moment, Chen Miao asked again, "What is a 'yin-wen' tattoo?"

"Shadow tattooing is a special type of tattoo that can only be done by a shad tattoo artist. It will appear on its own under certain circumstances and has different abilities."

"The ability of the thorn tattoos on the woman we caught this time should be a kind of concealment."

Seeing this, Chen Miao's question was answered.

Chen Miao asked one last question: "What does the tattoo from the Curse Cult look like?"

"They vary in appearance, but remain largely the same."

"It could be a headless monk or a headless Taoist priest."

……

PS: I'll be settling the monthly ticket bonus tomorrow night. I had 600 monthly tickets when the book was first released, and I've already added three chapters. I currently have 1600+ monthly tickets, so I'll add five more chapters. I plan to start paying them back tomorrow, and I should be updating four chapters a day for several days until I've paid them all back.

(End of this chapter)