One divination a day, a trainee celestial master

Jiang Shou turned to look at Jiang Huaiyuan, "Dad, that orange cat in the temple... is it called Fat Tiger?"

"Your grandpa called it Fat Tiger." Jiang Huaiyuan nodded, puzzled. "What's wrong? Why did your grandpa mention that cat in his letter?"

"N-nothing...it's nothing." Jiang Shou swallowed hard, folded the letter, and put it into his pocket.

Then, his gaze fell on the last two handwritten copies.

The titles on the cover are written in calligraphy: "Guan Yi Guan: Introduction to the Three Arts" and "Disposal Record".

Jiang Shouxian opened "Introduction to the Three Arts".

The opening section is a passage called "The Secret of Guarding One's Mind": it records a set of breathing techniques used to lay a foundation for cultivating one's vital energy and focusing one's mind.

Turning the page further, the main text is divided into three parts:

【The Art of Observing Qi】: It teaches people how to observe a person's appearance, the qi of a house, and how to distinguish between yin and yang qi.

[Simple Feng Shui Techniques]: Identify Sha formations, locate directions, and determine Yin and Yang positions.

[Basic Talisman Techniques]: This section records the drawing methods and incantations for several of the most basic talismans, such as the Mind-Soothing Talisman, the Purification Talisman, and the Shadow Talisman.

"This is more like an internal martial arts manual plus a beginner's guide to skills. It's probably enough to fool outsiders." Jiang Shou nodded, unconcerned.

He picked up the thicker book, "Disposal Records," at random.

Jiang Shou's expression changed as soon as he turned to the first page.

This is not a theoretical book at all, but the old man's "work log" for most of his life!

[In the seventh month of the Dingchou year, a female ghost who had hanged herself was haunting an old house on East Street, crying in the middle of the night. I sealed its doors and windows with a talisman for exorcism, fought it for half an hour, and finally dispersed it with the Golden Light Mantra, allowing it to be released into the afterlife.]

[In the tenth month of the Gengchen year, at midnight, I heard a funeral bell tolling behind Cuiwei Mountain, a very ominous sign. I investigated throughout the night but found nothing, and suspected that a powerful demon might be using my passage.]

[In the third month of the year Jia Shen, a water demon appeared beneath the old stone bridge in Qiyun County, dragging living people into the water. I used cinnabar and realgar to create an array, and at noon I slew it, thus dispelling the demon.]

Jiang Shou turned the pages one by one, his heart pounding faster and faster, and a layer of cold sweat even seeped out from his back.

He always thought his grandfather was just a charlatan in the countryside who swindled elderly people by telling fortunes and other superstitious practices. Who would have thought that this old man, in his youth, was actually a formidable figure who fought female ghosts and slew water demons under bridges?!

Looking at the bizarre and dangerous experiences described in the diary, and then thinking about the wooden plaque in my pocket that could predict good and bad fortune, I realized that I was truly living in a dream world.

Jiang Shou slammed the "Disposal Record" shut and swallowed hard.

When I looked at "Introduction to the Three Arts" again, my feelings were completely different.

"This world... seems to be incredibly complex..."

……

The next morning, Jiang Shou was awakened by birds chirping outside the old house.

Without the hustle and bustle of traffic and the irritating honking of horns during rush hour outside my rented apartment in Shanghai, I slept exceptionally soundly.

The most amazing thing is that he slept on the hard wooden bed at home last night, but his back didn't ache at all when he woke up this morning. It seems that the blue light that the cold wind entered his body yesterday really cured his strain.

Jiang Shou rode his father's three-wheeled motorcycle to go shopping.

Clutching the remaining 1,500 yuan he'd picked up the night before, he went on a shopping spree at the wholesale market.

I bought two sets of thick cotton quilts and mattresses, several pots and pans, and also went to the farmers' market to carry a bag of rice, and weighed out a few kilograms of pork belly, cured meat and some fresh fruits and vegetables.

Before leaving, Jiang Shou passed by a pet store. He hesitated for a moment, but still went in and spent fifty yuan to buy a large bag of cheap cat food.

"Although that fat cat looked at me very rudely, it is still the 'tutor' left by my grandfather. I can't let it go into the mountains to catch wild mice to eat," Jiang Shou comforted himself.

Around noon, Jiang Shou returned to Shouyi Temple with bags and packages.

He put the things in the yard and looked around, but didn't hear a single meow.

The large, orange cat had disappeared somewhere, and the threshold of the main hall was empty.

"Did he go for a stroll with some female cat?" Jiang Shou ignored it and rolled up his sleeves to get to work.

He polished the kitchen stove until it shone, and arranged the pots and pans neatly.

What surprised him most was the slightly worn Meiling refrigerator in the corner of the kitchen. After being plugged in, the compressor emitted a low hum, and cold air blew out. It was completely normal.

Jiang Shou happily stuffed the meat he bought, the fish he had picked up from home, and a few cans of ice-cold beer into the refrigerator.

Then he wiped the offering table in the main hall again, and finally returned to the side room to lay out brand new sheets and blankets.

After finishing all this, Jiang Shou was exhausted and covered in sweat. He pulled up a bamboo chair and sat under the eaves in the backyard, opened a jar of ice-cold flowers, and took a big gulp.

The cool liquor rolled down his throat and into his stomach. He let out a long sigh and looked at the small courtyard in front of him, which was old but clean.

A gentle breeze rustled the ivy climbing the wall.

Jiang Shou felt that compared to the dark basement in Shanghai where you had to be careful not to bump into the wall when you turned over, this dilapidated Taoist temple, which was 250,000 yuan in debt, gave him a real sense of "home".

……

At noon, Jiang Shou leaned against the headboard to rest, habitually reaching into his inner pocket and pulling out the dark, grimy Suihan token.

The moment it was taken out, Jiang Shou's eyes widened. The two ancient seal characters "岁寒" (meaning "the coldest winter") on the originally dull wooden plaque were now faintly glowing with a bluish light!

Jiang Shou sprang out of bed with a somersault, rubbing his hands excitedly: "Cooldown's over? Does this skill only have a daily cooldown?! Can I make another windfall today?"

Just like yesterday, he vigorously rubbed the front of the wooden plaque with his thumb, muttering to himself: "Heavenly spirits, earthly spirits, may the God of Wealth enter my door, may the Supreme Lord Laozi hasten his decree..."

As soon as the words were spoken, small, glowing characters reappeared on the blank space on the back of the wooden sign:

[The hexagram Dui, line 6, auspicious.] [Walk 1500 steps northwest, past the bluestone slope, to the old locust tree.] [There is gold in the soil; a small fortune may be obtained.]

"Gold in the soil? Holy crap, this is a big one!!" Jiang Shou stared intently at those four words, his mouth practically watering.

Yesterday it was 1,800 yuan in cash that could "solve an immediate crisis," but today it has been upgraded to "gold in the soil"?! Although the divination says "small fortune," in Jiang Shou's poor eyes, as long as it has the word "gold," it is definitely a huge sum of money!

He didn't dare to waste a second. He stuffed the Suihan Token into his pocket, found a sturdy black backpack and slung it over his shoulder. He then grabbed the rusty iron shovel from yesterday and rushed out of the Taoist temple.

"Northwest, 1,500 steps..." Jiang Shou turned on his phone's compass and started climbing up the wild hillside behind the Taoist temple.

1,500 steps is not a short distance; it's almost a kilometer. The mountain path is rugged and overgrown with weeds.

Jiang Shou, carrying an iron shovel, trudged over a moss-covered, rocky slope, panting heavily from exhaustion.

"Huff... 1,499... 1,500!" Jiang Shou stopped, his hands supporting his knees as he gasped for breath, and looked up ahead.

At the edge of a patch of overgrown weeds, there stood a solitary, enormous old locust tree. This tree was even thicker than the one in the Taoist temple courtyard, its canopy blocking out the sky.

"Why are there locust trees again? Are there really that many locust trees on Cuiwei Mountain?" Jiang Shou complained, but his body betrayed him, and he grabbed a shovel and pounced over.

Following the directions indicated by the wooden sign, he selected a spot under tree roots where the soil was slightly soft, and began digging with his shovel. He dug to a depth of about half a meter.

"Clang!" The tip of the shovel struck something hard, making a muffled sound.

Jiang Shou's spirits lifted, and he quickly threw down his shovel, lay down by the edge of the mud pit, and began digging the soil out with his hands.

Digging through the black mud, what was revealed was not a gold bar, but a rough black pottery jar covered in mud, a type of jar that ordinary rural households used to store wine and vinegar. The mouth of the jar was tightly sealed with oiled paper and red rope.

Jiang Shou's heart pounded wildly, and he swallowed several times. Ignoring the dirt, he carefully carried the jar out and looked around. In the deep mountains and forests, there was nothing but the sound of the wind.

He didn't have time to examine it closely. He stuffed the black jar into his backpack, zipped it up, and like a tomb raider who had just finished robbing a grave, he ran all the way back to Shouyi Temple with his backpack in his arms.