Taoist priest goes to America

"Hmph." Li An chuckled lightly, not intending to answer his question directly. "My Cantonese isn't very good, so I'll communicate with you in Mandarin."

"You have them in your shop, right? The ingredients for curse dolls."

The person behind the door remained silent, which Ang Lee took as a tacit agreement.

"Let me tell you how I use curses, just to put your mind at ease."

"First, a coffin and black cloth are used to make a representative doll, which contains items such as hair in the shape of the character 'eight'."

"Based on this, a Bagua jade pendant is placed on the chest as the center of the formation, amulet coins are embedded in the limbs, peach charms are used to suppress the seven orifices, and finally, five emperor coins are used to seal the doll's mouth. All auspicious objects must be wrapped and secured with red thread soaked in cinnabar and chicken blood."

"Then you'll get a spirit doll." Li An's lips curled into a smile as he stared into the eyes of the person behind the door.

This is a cursed puppet technique he used for several years in the fantasy world. It involves shrinking a zombie that can protect its master into a palm-sized wooden puppet that he can carry with him. It is a basic skill of the Maoshan corpse drivers in that world.

The door opened, and an old man stood in the doorway, still holding the doorknob in his hand.

He looked to be in his seventies, wearing an old gray jacket, with jet-black hair that was neatly combed.

His face was thin, with high cheekbones, and his skin was wrinkled and covered with brown age spots, making his whole face look like an old sheet of Xuan paper.

But he had thick eyebrows and bright eyes.

His gaze lingered on Li An's face for a long time before moving down to Li An's Taoist robe.

"Where...where did you learn it?" The old man's voice became somewhat dry and pleading.

"My master taught me." Knowing the fish had taken the bait, Li An began to keep everyone in suspense.

"What's your master's name?" (What's your master's name?) A look of longing ignited in the old man's eyes.

Ang Lee did not answer the old man's question. He stepped aside and walked into the shop, the sleeve of his Taoist robe brushing against the old man's arm.

The old man did not stop him.

Upon entering the paper offering shop, Ang Lee was immediately struck by the scent of sandalwood and paper money in the air. Under the incandescent light, the sandalwood smoke exhibited the Tyndall effect, appearing as tiny white dots.

The shop looked much larger than it appeared from the outside. On both sides, there was a row of old-fashioned glass counters with thick glass surfaces and a layer of yellow velvet cloth underneath, on which were piled high with various items.

The first section contains talisman paper. Stacks of yellow paper are bound together with red paper ribbons, which are blank. Some of the paper has slightly yellowed edges, changing from beige to light brown.

The second section contains rows of paper ingots and ghost money. The ingots are folded from gold foil paper, and the ghost money is printed in imitation of the old version of RMB, with the image of the Jade Emperor printed on it, and the face value is "ten thousand yuan".

The third section contains several strings of copper coins. The coins are strung together with red string, and each coin is a different size and color. Some coins have a reddish hue, while others have a bluish hue.

Hanging on the wall next to it is a peach wood sword, about two fingers wide. The peach wood is light brown in color, with clear wood grain extending from the hilt to the tip. It is a fine wooden sword.

A Bagua mirror hangs on the lower left of the peach wood sword. The mirror surface is made of bronze with green rust, but the bronze mirror is still bright enough to reflect a person's image.

Ang Lee's gaze swept over them, but didn't linger for long. His eyes settled on a spot in the shop window illuminated by a table lamp.

The lamp had an old design, resembling an upside-down tulip. Light shone through the glass shade, casting only a small, dim yellow halo.

In that area were three packets of cinnabar, each a slightly different color.

"The cinnabar in your cabinet," Li An said, pointing to the three packets of cinnabar, "the one on the far right is dark in color and has many impurities. The second packet from the left is a good color, but the particles are too coarse and haven't been ground thoroughly. The middle packet—"

"That packet in the middle isn't cinnabar," Li An paused for a moment before saying, "it's silver cinnabar. It's a chemically synthesized substance; drawing talismans won't work on it, it can only fool people who don't understand."

"So you're a shrewd businessman after all." Ang Lee chuckled. "Don't be a shrewd businessman, why are you worried about people using witchcraft to harm others?"

The old man's face flushed red, and his lips moved as he tried to argue.

"I sell this silver to wicked people... Those wicked people do heinous things and then still want to ask for talismans to protect themselves, so I resort to this desperate measure..."

"And then we'll still take the money, why not make some?" Ang Lee laughed even harder. The old guy was so anxious that he stopped speaking Cantonese and started speaking Mandarin.

The old man looked even more ashamed. The red candlelight in the room shone on his face, making his face appear to turn red and white in turns.

Li An walked to the cabinet. He ran his fingers over the yellow talismans, pulled one out from a stack of yellow paper, examined its texture, smelled it, and then put it back in. He pulled out another roll, scanned it, and smelled it again.

Finally, he found a roll of talisman paper with a finer surface, a darker color, and a faint sheen on the edges.

He picked up a sheet, held it up to the light to check its translucency, and tapped the surface with his finger, hearing a crisp sound.

"This is fine." Li An put down the paper roll, turned around, and teased the old man with a smile.

"If I told your customers that the cinnabar and talisman paper you sell are of very poor quality, or even counterfeit goods that don't exist, and that you're just trying to fool laymen who don't know anything about this..." Li An's lips curled up as he looked at the old man with a meaningful expression.

"Hey, handsome..."

"How did you figure it out?" The old man's voice softened. After being seen through by Ang Lee, he subconsciously lowered his voice.

"A mere trick, you can tell even if someone has a long asshole." Li An turned his head away, not wanting to pay him any attention.

"...Young man, you speak very well, you must be from a prestigious family?" The old man rubbed his hands together and ran up to Li An, speaking in flattering Mandarin.

"What... are you trying to flatter me? What are you trying to do?" Li An ignored him and continued looking at the other materials.

"Uh... um, could you please teach me some of your master's secret techniques that are not passed down to the world?" The old man tried to open his eyes as wide as possible, looking at Li An expectantly.

"Old man, you want to ask me for advice?" Li An opened his palm to him.

"Pay tuition."

The old man gritted his teeth, as if he had made up his mind, and said, "Take whatever you want from me today for free! And next time you come, I'll give you a 50% discount."

"Good, good ambition. Here, have something." Li An was pleased with his attitude and pulled a blank receipt from his pocket, placing it face down on the counter. Then he said to the old man, "A pen."

The old man took a ballpoint pen out of his clothes and handed it to him.

Ang Lee took it and drew a symbol on the back of the receipt.

The thin paper of the receipt made a soft scratching sound as the pen tip traced the paper. After finishing the drawing, he turned the receipt over and showed it to the old man.

It's not a complete symbol, just the head of the symbol, with three hooks written in one stroke, as if it were printed out by a printer.

The old man looked down. His eyes widened, and he shakily pulled his reading glasses from his pocket and put them on.

The talisman is a unique "Three Pure Ones Edict" of the Maoshan School, and each school has its own way of writing it.

Longhu Mountain is wider at the top and narrower at the bottom, while Qingcheng Mountain is higher on the left and lower on the right. The three lines of Li An's painting are level, and the tail of the brush is tapered inward. This is the "Ancient Maoshan" brushwork that has been lost for at least two hundred years.

The old man couldn't draw, but he recognized it. He had studied talismans for forty years, handled tens of thousands of talisman papers, and seen different brushstrokes on talismans from various schools and sects. But this particular style, he had only seen once before, on an old rubbing from the early Republic of China period, and even then, it was a fragmented rubbing, only half of it remained.

The old man kept stroking the receipt, as if he were touching a precious antique that had finally been unearthed.

He looked at the symbol drawn on the receipt, then looked at Li An.

The light in his eyes was different now, like someone who had walked a long way in the desert and suddenly saw an oasis.