One divination a day, a trainee celestial master

Inside the main hall.

Jiang Shou laughed so hard his back teeth were almost showing.

Just as Jiang Shou was immersed in the ecstasy of sudden wealth, a light thud was heard from the eaves of the main hall.

Jiang Shou was startled and quickly straightened up and looked back.

Suddenly, the large, orange tabby cat, Fat Tiger, jumped down from the roof. It was now perched on the edge of the offering table beside the statue of the Three Pure Ones, looking down at him.

Those amber cat eyes held not a trace of the adorable clumsiness typical of felines; instead, they were filled with undisguised, naked contempt. Their gaze clearly said, "Look at your uncultured, poor self."

Jiang Shou blushed under the cat's gaze, a strange sense of embarrassment rising within him. But unwilling to lose face, he straightened his back.

"What are you looking at? You fat cat, what kind of look is that?" Jiang Shou pointed at Pang Hu's nose, trying to sound tough but actually being cowardly.

"Do you think I'm the kind of person who's greedy and blinded by money? What I was doing just now was... I was just happy for the Three Pure Ones!"

Fat Tiger didn't even flinch; he merely pursed his lips slightly, still giving him that look of disdain for a money-grubber, as if silently saying, "Stop pretending, aren't you one too?"

"You know nothing!" Jiang Shou completely lost his temper, pointing at the main hall and roaring, "Do you know how much debt that old geezer left me with? Two hundred and fifty thousand!! Do you know what two hundred and fifty thousand means?"

Jiang Shouyue became increasingly self-righteous as he spoke: "In all my life, I've never had more than four figures in my bank account! Do you know how huge a hole this 250,000 is?" He patted his pocket, which was filled with money, and continued, "This money I earned through my own hard work, I didn't steal or rob! Do you know how rude you are to look at me like that?"

Fat Tiger yawned, clearly uninterested in this long-winded explanation.

"I'm warning you," Jiang Shou threatened menacingly, unleashing his ultimate weapon. "Last night you ate one of my fried fish and a plate of cured meat! Don't you understand the saying 'he who eats another's food is bound to be grateful'? If you look at me like that again, I won't be frying you any fish tonight!"

Upon hearing the words "fried fish," Fat Tiger's ears twitched slightly. It pouted again, jumped off the altar, turned around with an arrogant expression, wiggled its fat rear end, and strolled off to the backyard for a nap with an air of superiority.

"Tch, you little brat, I can't even handle a cat like you."

Jiang Shou snorted smugly and stopped bothering with the fat cat. He walked behind the donation box, fumbled for the hidden clasp, took out the two bundles of brand-new hundred-yuan bills that hadn't even been warmed up in the box, and stuffed them all into his backpack.

"This dilapidated Taoist temple's gate is just for show; it can be kicked open with a single kick. It's too unsafe to leave it here." Jiang Shou zipped up his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and grinned as he prepared to go down the mountain to the bank to deposit his money.

Just as he turned around, preparing to step out of the hall's threshold...

"Ugh—" Jiang Shou felt a sudden heat in his chest, as if his heart had been gently jolted by some kind of subtle electric current.

A thought flashed through his mind. "A job's here?!"

Jiang Shou stopped and eagerly reached into his pocket, pulling out the Suihan Token.

Sure enough! The two ancient seal characters "岁寒" on the surface of the wooden sign were faintly glowing with a layer of dark blue light.

Jiang Shou immediately touched the surface of the plaque lightly with his thumb. Accompanied by a soft "rustling" sound, four lines of new, glowing characters slowly appeared on the back of the wooden plaque:

[The Li hexagram, line 63.] [The soul is not attached to the body, the spirit is not returned to the body; crying at midnight, the soul is still shaken.]

[In Qixia Town, Nanxi Lane, a young child's spirit is frightened.] [It is advisable to burn a soul-soothing talisman and add it to hot water to help the spirit return.]

Jiang Shou read it word by word, then raised an eyebrow: "Huh? It's not a treasure hunt mission again?"

He had been fantasizing about digging up some Ming Dynasty blue-and-white porcelain or Qing Dynasty gold ingot in the back mountain today. Judging from the divination, this is a typical "medical relief" mission.

"The child's soul is frightened...crying through the night..." Jiang Shou stroked his chin. "Is this to soothe the child's soul? Does the divination mean that the child was frightened by something, causing his soul to leave his body, which is why he's been crying all night?"

He grew up in the countryside and had heard the village elders talk about "calling back the soul" when he was a child. Usually, if a child is suddenly frightened, has a persistent high fever, or cries incessantly at night, the adults in the family will take a piece of the child's clothing and call the child's name at a crossroads or by the bedside to call the soul back.

"Qixia Town, Nanxi Lane..." Jiang Shou stroked his chin, pondering. He knew Qixia Town; it was located on the back side of Cuiwei Mountain, about ten kilometers away, a half-hour ride by tricycle.

"The soul has left the body; it is advisable to burn a soul-soothing talisman in the soup... A soul-soothing talisman?"

"Holy crap!" Jiang Shou suddenly realized, "What the hell is a Soul-Soothing Talisman? I don't know how to draw one!"

The joy of just earning 20,000 yuan was instantly halved. Just thinking about the miserable experience of drawing that "Tranquility Talisman," where he spent a full five hours, wasted half a dozen sheets of yellow paper, and was so exhausted that he was seeing stars, made Jiang Shou's wrist ache slightly.

"Being a Taoist priest is no joke, it's all manual labor every day!"

Jiang Shou grumbled as he rushed towards the back room. Despite his complaints, Jiang Shou was still clear-headed. If this "Winter Solstice Decree" were in an online game, it would be an incredibly generous cheat code. It's like playing with auto-pathfinding and a walkthrough guide; it's extremely helpful, and you can't ask for more.

"Bang!" Jiang Shou kicked open the door to the side room, not even bothering to eat breakfast, and pounced on the old mahogany desk.

He opened the book "Guanyi Temple: Introduction to the Three Arts", his fingers wet with saliva, and quickly flipped through the chapter on "Basic Talisman Techniques".

"Tranquilizing Talisman... Purifying Talisman... Illusion Talisman... Found it!" In the corner of the book, Jiang Shou finally found the diagram and... incantation for the [Soul-Soothing Talisman]. It even required an incantation.

Looking at the rune pattern, which had several more circles and intricate lines than the calming talisman, Jiang Shou sighed in despair.

"My ancestor, could you please scan and print this out...?"

Jiang Shou shook his head resignedly and laid the book flat on the table. He found a piece of cut-out yellow paper, weighed it down with a paperweight, poured cinnabar into a small porcelain dish, added a few drops of water, and slowly ground it until dissolved.

Picking up the wolf-hair brush, Jiang Shou took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and forced himself to calm his agitated mind.

"Calm your mind, concentrate..."

Jiang Shou closed his eyes, recalling the feeling he had when meditating and breathing exercises in the courtyard that morning. When he opened his eyes again, picked up his brush, and as the tip touched the yellow paper, he suddenly froze.

"what?"

Jiang Shou was surprised to find that his hand holding the pen was unusually steady today! Not only that, he was also highly focused.

When his gaze fell on the intricate runes on the book, those lines that originally looked messy became exceptionally clear in his mind, as if they had been automatically broken down into the correct stroke order!

"This is... the change brought about by the true energy entering my body yesterday, plus the breathing technique I used this morning?!"

Jiang Shou felt a surge of joy. Without any hesitation, he dipped his brush in cinnabar and wrote a single, fluid stroke on the yellow paper.

The first one was ruined because the ink smudged when I paused slightly at a turn in the middle.

The second one was ruined because the force wasn't controlled well when connecting the strokes, and the strokes were too weak.

By the third sheet, Jiang Shou had completely abandoned all distractions and entered a mysterious state of "flow," with only the trajectory of the rune in his mind. His arm and wrist seemed to have become one with the brush, and with each flick of his wrist, the cinnabar left bright red marks on the yellow paper as smoothly as flowing clouds and water.

"Soul, spirit, return to your place!"

"Hurry, hurry, as the law commands! By imperial decree!"

As Jiang Shounian recited the incantation, he made a final stroke, like a dragon soaring through the water, thus concluding the composition.

The moment the pen tip left the yellow paper, a strange phenomenon occurred!

A faint blue light suddenly appeared from the beginning of the rune, like an electrified energy line, and quickly traveled around the intricate and winding vermilion lines before disappearing at the end.

The cinnabar runes on the entire sheet of yellow paper seemed to be instantly imbued with a certain spirituality, faintly exuding a mysterious aura.

Jiang Shou let out a long breath, placed the brush on the brush holder, and was completely dumbfounded.

"Holy crap...it even glows?!"

He stared at the talisman on the table in utter astonishment. He knew that the magical "true essence" energy he had previously possessed had been completely depleted by using it to experience his super vision and jumping ability.

His current body is just an ordinary flesh and blood body, completely empty inside, with no so-called true energy or magical power.

What's the underlying principle? How can this talisman create a flowing light effect without any energy input? This is just too illogical...

Uh. Jiang Shougang swallowed the word "unscientific" that popped into his head.

He reached out and touched the Suihan Token he kept close to his body through his clothes, then remembered the "Disposal Record" left by the old man, filled with various ghost and monster incidents. Even the wooden tokens he carried seemed like a game system issuing quests; the Suihan Token itself was the biggest absurdity! And here he was, trying to explain the principles of drawing talismans using the laws of physical materialism?

Alright, stop overthinking it. Whether it's scientifically sound or not, the fact that it glows means the talisman was definitely drawn successfully!

Jiang Shou shook his head and glanced at the time on his phone screen. From the moment he sat down to grind the cinnabar to the moment he finished drawing in one go, it only took him an hour! And he only wasted two sheets of paper!

Compared to the previous five disastrous hours and the pile of waste paper, this efficiency is like a rocket launch!

Jiang Shou leaned back in his chair, staring at the talisman on the table. Its lines were intricate and flowing, the cinnabar a deep red, and it exuded a mysterious aura.

He was in disbelief. He raised his right hand and looked at it over and over.

"Could it be... that I, Jiang Shou, am truly a one-in-a-million, born genius of the Daoist sect?!"