People worship their ancestors: I'm just burning some paper money, how did I become a Taoist ma

Li Mu did not ask Shen Yi to move out immediately.

He first went back to his car, took out cinnabar, yellow paper and a brush from his backpack, and drew three talismans to ward off evil spirits on the passenger seat.

When the talisman was completed, the cinnabar patterns on the paper shimmered with a faint golden light, brighter than any talisman drawn before.

When I re-entered the villa, Shen Yi was standing in the living room smoking, smoke swirling around his pale face.

"Close the study door and stick this talisman on the door." Li Mu handed over the first talisman. "Put this one on your bedroom door and this one on the headboard of your bed."

Shen Yi took the talisman paper, looked down at the cinnabar patterns he couldn't understand, didn't ask any questions, and turned to stick it on.

Li Mu went upstairs alone and pushed open the door to the study.

The bronze tree is still on the table.

The room was dark, with only moonlight streaming in through the window, illuminating the dark green tree and the small bells on its branches gleaming with a faint, cold light.

Li Mu went inside, but didn't turn on the light. Instead, he took out a small bronze mirror from his bag and aimed it at the bronze tree.

The image reflected in the bronze mirror made his pupils shrink.

Countless dark red lines, as dense as blood vessels, are wrapped around the branches of the bronze tree, extending from the trunk to each bell, and from the bells to the void, disappearing into an unknown distance.

It was exactly the same as the red rope around the little devil's neck, but a hundred or a thousand times more complicated.

This is a soul-locking formation.

In his previous life, Li Mu had seen something like this in a handwritten fragment left by his master.

The Soul-Locking Array uses an object as its core to imprison the souls of the dead within. The deeper the resentment of the soul, the stronger the array's power. The resentment nourishes the array, and the array, in turn, feeds back into the object, forming a self-reinforcing closed loop.

The longer it takes, the harder it is to crack.

He put away the bronze mirror, took out seven small flags from his bag, and planted them on the floor around the bronze tree according to the orientation of the Big Dipper.

This time, instead of using the previous simplified Seven Star Array, he redrawn the runes on the flag.

After the seven flags were planted, the temperature in the study rose a bit.

Li Mu then drew a Taiji diagram on the ground directly below the bronze tree. The diagram was clearly black and white, and the pigment made of cinnabar and realgar shone with a dark red luster under the moonlight.

After finishing the last stroke, he stood up and let out a long breath.

The Seven Flags Soul-Locking Formation is complete.

He learned this formation from a fragment of a book in his previous life. The book said that this formation could "bind and lock souls, and suppress resentment," but Li Mu had never had the opportunity to actually use it.

Afterwards, Li Mu left the study, closed the door, and affixed a talisman to the door to ward off evil spirits.

When he came downstairs, Shen Yi was sitting on the sofa in the living room waiting for him.

"It's all done," Shen Yi said. "Shall we leave now?"

"Let's go now." Li Mu picked up his backpack. "Don't come back for the next three days. I'll come to see you every day. After three days, whether it works out or not, I'll give you an answer."

Shen Yi picked up his car keys from the coffee table, stood up, walked to the door, and then stopped.

"Master Li, do you know where that item came from?"

"Not yet," Li Mu shook his head. "But I will find out within three days."

Shen Yi glanced at him, nodded, and didn't ask any more questions.

The two walked out of the villa one after the other. Shen Yi locked the door and drove away in the silver-gray Porsche.

Li Mu stood at the villa entrance, watching the taillights disappear into the night, then took out his phone and dialed a number.

"Master Zhao? It's me, Li Mu."

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone, followed by Zhao's aged voice: "You even memorized my number..."

"You called before, is there a call log?"

"What's the matter with the phone call?"

"I want to research the history of something. There should be more information about it in the underworld than in the mortal world... It's a bronze artifact, about thirty centimeters tall, shaped like a tree, with bells hanging from its branches. The bells contain the souls of the dead, and it's at least a hundred years old."

The silence from Manager Zhao's side lasted even longer.

"Is this thing in Tianhai?"

Judging from his tone, Li Mu realized that Chief Zhao seemed to know about this thing!

"Yes. It was discovered today."

"You wait."

The phone hangs up.

……

About ten minutes later, the phone rang.

Zhao, the steward, spoke with a slightly heavier tone: "The City God knows about the thing you mentioned."

"What did the City God say?"

"It's recorded in the files of the Tianhai City God's Office. One hundred and twenty years ago, a major case occurred in the Tianhai area. Someone used evil magic to imprison hundreds of souls and forge them into a bronze soul bell tree. The City God at the time sent underworld officials to investigate, but in the end, the tree and the person disappeared together. The case statement in the file was 'whereabouts unknown'."

Li Mu's fingers tightened slightly as he gripped his phone.

"Something from 120 years ago has now appeared in Tianhai."

"Yes. And that ghost keeper has a name in the files."

"What's your name?"

"The file says... Zhou Yan. A member of the Zhou family of Tianhai."

"The Zhou family?"

"That surname no longer exists. It happened 120 years ago. The Zhou family declined after that, and the descendants either moved away or changed their surname. We can't find any useful information."

Li Mu remained silent for a moment.

"Manager Zhao, there's another name I'd like you to look up. Shen Yi said he bought this bronze tree from an antique dealer named Zhou Maolin."

The sound of papers being turned over came from the other end of the phone.

About half a minute later, Manager Zhao's voice rang out again: "Zhou Maolin, an antique dealer in Tianhai City, 47 years old, runs a shop called 'Maolin Antiques,' located on the third floor of the Tianhai City Antique City."

"What about the records of the underworld?"

Zhao, the steward, snorted: "How could someone from the mortal realm have a record of him in the underworld? He's not dead yet."

"That's true. Thank you, Manager Zhao."

"The City God asked me to pass on a message to you."

"Please speak."

"Not a single bell on the tree can ring."

Li Mu was stunned for a moment upon hearing this, and then the call ended.

……

The next morning, Li Mu went to Tianhai Antique Street.

The antique market is located on an old street in the old town of Tianhai. There are few people around, but the waters here run deeper than anywhere else.

At the end of the street, there is a shop with a wooden plaque above the door that reads "Maolin Antiques".

The shop door was open, and the lights were on inside.

Li Mu went inside, but there was no one in the shop.

The shelves are filled with all kinds of antiques—porcelain, bronzes, jade, calligraphy and paintings, a dazzling array.

Although the entire shop is filled with an antique atmosphere, no one can guarantee how many of the items are genuine!

Li Mu walked around the store and his eyes fell on a glass display case.

Inside the display case was a small bronze bell, exactly the same shape as the bell on the bronze tree, only much smaller, and without any rust, shining as new.

He crouched down and looked at the brass bell through the glass.

The inside of the bronze bell is engraved with runes, small but clear.

Just then, footsteps sounded behind them.

"Young man, what's on your mind?"

Li Mu stood up and turned around.

A man in his fifties stood at the door, with gray hair, wearing a dark blue Tang suit, and a perfectly measured smile typical of businessmen.

The latest update is now available on Cola Novels; we await your interpretation.